by Karuna Riazi
The screen flashed, cutting to his house.
“No one’s home,” Ahmad whispered as the camera panned over the pristine hallway and through the kitchen. But then, it reached the living room.
Ma leaned on the vacuum cleaner, her brow puckered with worry. Perhaps that had been the moment she realized he wasn’t home yet, or maybe the bag inside the machine had overflowed again. Maybe she was about to put it away entirely and call the school. But she stood there, still as stone.
Baba sat on the couch, cell phone to his ear and a newspaper held between one stiff hand. The camera moved up to take in his half-open mouth, his eyes glancing downward to read something off the page.
Anger welled up in Ahmad. “Why did you have to do this to them?” he yelled. “If you want us to play the game, fine. But why involve our parents?”
“That would be telling, wouldn’t it,” the MasterMind’s ghostly voice came. “But now, the ball is in your court. I think you’ve seen enough to realize what the right decision is.”
The screen parted in its middle, forming a doorway. Through the shimmering vortex at its center, Ahmad could just make out the park and its frozen trees and . . . His eyes narrowed. No, there was something different about that park on the other side.
The MasterMind’s parting words floated over them.
“Paheli awaits. Enjoy every last drop of it. . . .”
CHAPTER FOUR
SO WHAT DO WE do now?” Winnie said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
It wasn’t remotely cold, but Ahmad understood why she was doing it. After the MasterMind’s hologram had disappeared, the black mass had seeped down into the ground. They were no longer boxed in, but around them, Central Park was still caught in that horrible, silent stillness. He had the shivers too.
It didn’t help that the doorway was still looming in front of them.
“What else can we do?” Ahmad asked back. “We play the game.”
It was weird, but unlike Winnie, he wasn’t in shock. Instead, all that he could feel was a cold, hard knot of anger in the pit of his stomach. His parents’ frozen faces hung in front of his mind’s eye.
They didn’t ask for this.
And he couldn’t let them down. Not again.
No, there was no other choice. They had to do this.
Winnie didn’t seem to think the same way though. She stared at him with wide eyes.
“Ahmad, are you kidding me? We’re kids. Shouldn’t we call the police? Or maybe someone at school.”
“Like anyone at school would believe me!” Ahmad burst out. His hands clenched into fists at his side. “Like any adult—if they aren’t Popsicles right now—would believe this could even happen. Winnie, you saw the spider. You saw our parents.” He waved his arms around, gesturing to the still life of Central Park. “We don’t have anyone to rely on in this but us.”
He bit back the words that were coming next: “I know that better than anyone else.”
“Ahmad,” Winnie said softly. There was a look in her eyes that he didn’t like: the same look teachers gave him the day before a parent-teacher conference or when, even with extra time to finish a test, he struggled for the right words to write down.
It was pity.
“No matter how we do it, we need to play,” Ahmad said firmly, before she could say anything else. “We need to do this for our parents, and we need to do this for ourselves. I don’t think we can count on anyone else.”
“We can count on each other,” Winnie replied. She reached out and gently pressed her hand against his arm. “We’re going to do this together. As long as you can promise me that, I’m in.”
Ahmad looked her in the eye for a long moment. And then he nodded. “Together.” The word felt unfamiliar in his mouth.
They awkwardly grasped each other’s hands and turned to face the shimmering doorway left behind by the MasterMind’s screen.
They stepped forward, bracing themselves on each other, and looked downward as the wind lashed at their hair and faces—thankfully, free of sand for the moment. There was a small platform waiting for them. Together, they leapt down.
As the wind whooshed hot and heavy into Ahmad’s ears and head, he thought he heard a familiar voice call to him from the stillness they’d left behind. A voice that said, “Don’t go—”
But it was too late now. Because they were falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Longer than they should have been. But then Ahmad felt his feet settle on solid ground, and looked down.
If New York City could see what was below them, it would wither with envy—because the city they gazed at was gorgeous.
The city from the game rose up with elaborate floating skyscrapers that reminded Ahmad of the pictures he’d seen of Dubai. The occasional faint glimmer of an anchorless oasis darted in and out between the unmoored buildings. Laughter bobbed up to them on the breeze, broken through with snatches of songs. There were tunes Ahmad could recognize from his aunt’s favorite Bollywood films and his father’s classic Bengali music CDs, smuggled back to the States under layers of his uncle’s clothing and homemade sweets.
They leaned back into the doorway to avoid a stray flying rickshaw, skittering forward with no visible driver, and a passenger shrouded in gloom behind the thick curtain within its carriage. Ahmad, though, couldn’t crane his head like Winnie to try and curiously ogle the person within.
Not when he saw it.
“No way,” Ahmad said breathlessly, his eyes drinking in the sight of a gilded, glowing funicular rail. It was right in the place where he had once sketched it out on a stray piece of notebook paper during math class. It was right where it had always been in those dreams.
Just beyond it, at the very center of the digital city, was a minaret, tall and towering, glimmering at its tip with a green flame.
Glowing words bobbed just above it: WELCOME TO PAHELI.
“It is my Paheli,” Ahmad mumbled to himself. “But . . . how?”
“Hey, Ahmad, you okay? The height getting to you?” Winnie placed her hand on Ahmad’s shoulder. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he was swaying back and forth.
“It’s not—it’s just—”
Of course, this would be the moment that his traitor tongue started its stumbling routine again.
“It’s Paheli,” Ahmad said again, looking into Winnie’s worried brown eyes. “Not entirely the way I’ve always pictured it, with all this high-tech stuff and the flying cars. But it’s here. And I don’t know why.”
Winnie was silent for a moment. “Isn’t this amazing, though?”
Ahmad looked up in surprise. Winnie’s brown face glowed, that familiar smile stretching from ear to ear.
“It’s your dream world, brought to life!” She spread out her arms and spun, teetering dangerously close to the doorway.
Ahmad tossed out a hand. “Be careful! Gosh, Winnie.”
“Relax. Okay, maybe ‘relax’ isn’t the right word,” she said. “Yes, things are terrible right now. But did you ever think you’d see your city—your Paheli—alive like this? It’s amazing! And it’s yours!”
This was the last reaction Ahmad possibly expected from Winnie Williamson. She reached out and pressed down on his shoulders, turning him back to face Paheli.
“Look at it,” she said, and Ahmad tried to see it through her eyes.
Maybe she was right, a little.
Yes, the domes were shot through with pulsing electric veins and the palaces tugged at their roots and floated up in the air. But it was still familiar.
More alien and weird was the fact that Winnie Williamson was holding his shoulder and he didn’t feel squirmy and awkward and wrong-footed. He felt comforted. He felt like he wasn’t alone.
Was this what it felt like to have a friend? He still wasn’t sure, but he was glad Winnie was with him. For now, that was enough.
“Yeah,” Ahmad said softly. “Yeah, it really is awesome.”
Th
ey stared together in silence for a moment. Ahmad cleared his throat. “So, uh, any ideas on what we should do now?”
“Well, we need to play whatever this game is,” Winnie said thoughtfully. “And we can’t do that by just standing here and staring at Paheli from a distance.”
She hummed to herself for a moment, watching as a train slithered through the air beneath them like a serpentine dragon. When she looked back up, there was a glimmer in her eye that made Ahmad suddenly uneasy.
“What?” He backed up slightly. “Winnie, what are you planning?”
“It’s not really a plan. It’s more like following an instinct, and a rule of the universe.” Winnie reached out and grabbed up his hand.
“Winnie, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“What goes up, must come down!” Winnie giddily cried.
Someone else cried out with her. At the moment, Ahmad was sure it was his brain. It was too quick and too far to tell, anything but the one word shouted.
“Wait!”
And she jumped.
Down Ahmad went with her, shrieking.
Tumbling into the lyrical lights and foreboding shadows.
Hurtling into the canals of both stone and clockwork, the hologram swords that cut through him and slid out as easily as a magician’s prop, and the silk awnings over vendors’ stalls.
Together they descended into the lap of the layered city, Paheli.
CHAPTER FIVE
FREE-FALLING DIDN’T FEEL THE way Ahmad always expected it to.
At least, after the first few minutes when he wildly glanced around with Winnie—locating her right at his side, screaming right along with him—and had the mental space to take in everything else going on, it didn’t.
Yes, the wind tugged back his cheeks and whined past his ears. But after a few moments, when the drag on his arms and legs didn’t lead to a sudden and swift crush to the ground, he was able to work open his eyes. And he looked down.
Big mistake.
Paheli was spread out beneath them. The buildings and distant streets seemed small and delicately crafted, like they were meant to house ants.
“Okay,” Ahmad shouted to Winnie, not daring to look away from the ground. “It was your bright idea to jump through the doorway. What now?”
When there was no answer, he craned his neck to the side. Winnie had her arms spread out at her sides, like she was flying. She flashed him a huge grin.
“This is better than any ride at Six Flags!”
“Are you serious? At Six Flags, there are safety belts and attendants and red emergency buttons you can push if it gets too rough. Don’t you see what’s under us?”
“We’re playing a game. There has to be some sort of safety mechanism involved.” Winnie did a somersault in midair.
She was right. There had to be some way out of this. Every good game had its utility belts and parachutes. Surely, the MasterMind didn’t want them to lose, and painfully, right out of the gate.
It was then he saw it: a single, starlike glimmer off a polished metal handle.
Ahmad leaned forward, squinting his eyes against the air batting at his face.
“Is that a car?” he mumbled.
It didn’t look like the cars lining the streets of New York City. Two bright red fins jutted out on either side, in the place where handles would be on the doors. The top of it too—shiny and rounded in a way that resembled a rickshaw canopy more than the hood and top of a Mustang or Honda Civic or even a vintage Volkswagen Bug—seemed like an unusual design choice.
Was it really a car at all?
Winnie tried to straighten herself out so she could look. “I mean, I think so. That’s a pretty interesting look. Hey! Maybe that’s our ride!”
“Our ride?” Ahmad echoed dubiously.
“Come on, start thinking like you’re in a game! If it catches your eye, that means it’s probably meant for us.”
Ahmad blinked at her. They were kids. They didn’t have driver’s licenses. Why would it be meant for them?
Then again, they were currently plummeting down through space and time toward a city that had previously resided only in his dreams. There was no other time to think or question. They had to act now.
“Winnie, I think you’re right! The car! It’s on that ledge we’re headed toward!” he shouted. “I think our best bet is to try and land there!”
They batted their arms and flailed their legs against the thick city air. Ahmad flung out one hand. If he could only reach. There!
He caught the ledge and heard Winnie yelp as she narrowly grasped it beside him. They dragged themselves up and stared at the car. It wasn’t entirely a car so much as a hybrid with one of the rickshaws that had flown past them, an awning over the body and futuristic lightning bolts on its doors. Inside, a console covered with flickering buttons mushroomed over the dashboard and seemed to grow around the steering wheel.
Ahmad and Winnie exchanged glances.
“Do you know how to drive?” Ahmad asked.
Winnie shrugged. “How hard can it be?” Looking at Ahmad’s panicked face, she sighed. “Get in the car. Let’s at least look for clues.”
“That girl said to enjoy every drop of Paheli. I don’t think that was an accident,” Ahmad said, reaching for the driver’s door.
Winnie climbed in on the passenger side. “What we need is a map,” she declared. She felt along the console for a glove compartment. Ahmad reached out to join her and winced as his fingers made contact with a big black button.
Uh-oh.
“Ahmad!” Winnie looked up, eyes wide, but before she could scold him, the car whirred to life beneath them. With a flash and a hum, it careened off the ledge where it had been parked and into the open air.
“We’re falling!” Ahmad shouted.
Ahmad and Winnie reached for each other. Ahmad clenched his eyes shut, ready for the free fall. But it didn’t come.
“Ahmad! Ahmad!” Winnie said. “Open your eyes and move so I can steer, or else we’ll really be in trouble!”
Ahmad opened his eyes and gasped.
The car was flying. Well, it was jerking up and down, narrowly scraping against building sides and being honked at by angry rickshaw drivers teetering back and forth on their jet-powered bicycles, but it was flying.
“Ahmad. I’m not joking. Move.”
Winnie sighed, exasperated. She clambered forward, taking hold of the wheel. Ahmad quickly pressed himself against the window.
“My cousin’s got a go-kart,” she said. “I think it’s more or less the same.”
“You just rolled your eyes at me when I asked you if you knew how to drive!”
“I rolled my eyes because you didn’t have your priorities straight!” Winnie seemed like a different person as she studied the console. After a moment, she tentatively pressed a red button.
A screen set into the console flickered to life. It trembled with the rocking car as it announced, “Welcome to Paheli. Outside, it is ninety-eight degrees and another beautiful evening in our favorite city of riddles. If you need a tutorial to best enjoy your new vehicle—”
Winnie jammed her finger against the screen with a scowl. It went black. “I hate back-seat drivers.”
But Ahmad was barely listening. He pressed his face against the window, fighting the churning of his stomach as he stared down at Paheli. It was all there: the beautiful, billowing canopies spread over stalls and tables, which, when he looked hard enough, were covered with marvelous wares and magical bags of spices.
It was the souk, the marketplace where anything could be bought.
Enjoy every drop of it, the Mastermind whispered in Ahmad’s mind, and he sat upright.
“Winnie. I think I know where we’re supposed to start.”
“Good, because we’ve got company.” Winnie’s voice was strained, and Ahmad hastily scooted over in her direction, craning his head over her shoulder to stare out her window and see what she had. His heart sank.
“I
s that . . .”
“Yep. Your dream city’s law enforcement,” Winnie said.
A sleek, silvery vehicle darted between buildings, like a shark determined not to be seen by the fish it was stalking. Inside its long body, Ahmad could make out the shadowy faces of two men. The sight of them did not make him reassured.
“They don’t look very friendly,” Winnie muttered. “Do you think this game is programmed to welcome players? Or is it going to turn on us like antibodies in the immune system?”
“I don’t think we want to find that out yet,” Ahmad said. “Winnie, hover at street level.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Winnie tugged.
Ahmad’s heart thumped as the memories from his sketches fell into place alongside the winding avenue. He was right.
“Take a left, and then hang a right up here. . . .”
And if you go forward and through that archway, past the stall with the hot samosas and underneath the table of the merchant with the flying carpets . . .
“There!” Ahmad caught sight of the man, tall and proud with his arms crossed, watching as a family clambered aboard a flying carpet that was woven out of elegant wiring and reinforced with steel.
Winnie’s eyes widened.
Together they said, “No matter what else changes, there’s always a tea shop here.”
Ahmad glanced at Winnie out of the corner of his eye. “You remembered?”
Winnie gave him a surprisingly shy smile. “It’s the one landmark you always start with on your sketches in class. It’s hard not to notice.”
They coasted to a stop, nestled in a blanket of space cast between two rickety skyscrapers. In between them, with a neon sign worthy of a Queens street corner on a rainy night, was the tea shop.
MADAME NASIRAH’S TEA AND SNACKS.
Underneath, there was a scrolling marquee banner, which read, Back and better than ever! Ask about our spinach pies!
For a moment, Ahmad and Winnie just stared at the shop.
“I can’t believe this,” Ahmad whispered. “It is real.”
“So, what do we do now?” Winnie asked.
“What else can we do? We have to see if the MasterMind really wanted us to end up here.”