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“How?” I whisper, drifting toward a polished wood slide shined and slick and blazing red. “I don’t…” The rocks on the climbing wall. They’re real chunks of smooth agate protected in rubber sleeves.
I…don’t understand what’s happening.
Maybe I’m still dreaming?
If I’m not, I need to get the right paperwork filed in accordance with playground safety. Then I also need to figure out how to inform the school board of this.
Can I mark it off as a charitable donation?
Did…did Pollux organize for this to happen? Overnight?
That can’t be possible.
Even if he’s that wealthy, getting people to do things in a timely manner is like herding cats. There’s too much red tape and forms and miscommunications and…
And it’s impossible.
It feels like my mind is splintering.
“Merry Christmas!” Andromeda cheers. “Pila and her sisters grew the wood since we couldn’t take things from Faerie without waiting at least a week for the glamour to wear off and the magic to siphon away. Ollie, Brittny, Yama-nii-nii, and my mothers have some recent construction experience—even though Willow, hereby known as Mother, said ew, no, that sounds like manual labor, I’m staying home. Sephin, who is Yama-nii-nii’s friend and on Uncle Cael’s council, drew up the blueprints. Uncle Cael orchestrated the tasks, and I think he’s submitting the right paperwork, too, so an inspector should stop by in the next few weeks.” She runs to the Taco Bell window, pulls one of several large wooden containers off a back shelf, and places it on the drive-through sill. “Mother did come by during construction with some snacks and gave us some things to play fast food restaurant with today at recess. You can just use your humanity to tell the inspector that no children were playing on the equipment before he had a chance to come out. Oh.” Her bright eyes flick up to meet mine. “Sephin did the blueprinting at Mother’s house, and Lana made a royal decree that there had to be a Taco Bell drive through, so that’s why Mother knew about it. Does that explain everything?”
Um.
No.
No, that hardly explains anything. I’m not Zahra, so even just the waterfall of all those names is getting lost on their way to where they are meant to connect in my head. It’s static upstairs.
Andromeda is bubbling.
I don’t think I’m responding correctly.
I’m broken. Forget Pollux’s Did I break you? last night, like father, like daughter.
She is not telling me that her cult banded together and built me a playground. She simply isn’t. I’m still dreaming. Except I don’t think I am.
My dreams are shockingly lifelike, but…I can always tell. The dream world feels different on my skin, as though the very essence of it is pouring from my veins.
Andromeda holds a cookie out for me. I stare at her long enough for her smile to fall. “You hate it,” she whispers.
I snap out of my head. “No, no, Meda. I just… I can’t… How?”
Her lip juts. “I just told you how.”
I crouch at the window in the wood chips I didn’t even compute until now. They’re fresh. The woody scent fills my chest. “No, sweetie. Really, how? How did you manage this? All in one night? How much did it possibly cost? And where did you get the money? Did Pollux really fund all of this?” Combing my fingers back through my hair, getting them stuck on my messy bun, I say, “Why didn’t I get any alerts from the security sensors when cars passed them?”
Andromeda watches me. “Because. We all walked.”
“You all carried all this wood here on foot?”
“Pila and her sisters grew it right here. Mom, Lana, and Uncle Cael used spells to cut it. Ollie transformed into a smaller Fenrir form to make sure the trees didn’t fall on the school when we chopped them down.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “I’m pretty sure Uncle Cael also cast a barrier so we wouldn’t bother any humans with anything that they could perceive. Among other things, Brittny was blasting Ollie’s music on her phone the whole time, and it was the middle of the night.”
This crouch isn’t cutting it. I think I need to sit down.
Zahra is going to be here soon.
But I already know she won’t be a voice of reason. After last night, she may hardly be functional today.
“You don’t believe me,” Andromeda whispers. “Why don’t you believe me?”
