“But the deal is that the parents don’t know.”
“Whose deal?”
That stopped him. Did they have to follow the rules set down by the other children? That was part of what bothered him about this business. The other children had no future in Pandora Park; they were limited. He did not want to be. “But would they understand?”
“Would yours?”
“I think so. They’re pretty reasonable.”
“They are the people who made us and raised us. We derive our qualities from them. Only they have more experience than we do.”
It made sense. Mature patents, mature children. “We’d better tell them and ask them. But you’ll have to do it.”
“Father speaks English.”
“Oh, that’s right. Still, it’s your family.”
She nodded. “Shall we go?”
He hesitated. “Now?”
“What other time?”
“Now,” he agreed. But his knees felt weak.
She led him past the statue and into the city. Mark felt horribly nervous. If anyone talked to him, he wouldn’t be able to answer. He would depend entirely on Kelsie.
Just as she had depended on him, when she visited his family. She had trusted him. Now he trusted her.
It was a fair walk through the city, but an interesting one. There were stores with signs galore, in Chinese characters. They looked a lot like American stores, except for that. The people, too, looked pretty much like Americans, except that they were Chinese. This could be a Chinese section of his own town. He thought he should be noticing more about it, but he was distracted by his concern about her parents’ reaction to what she told them. He was a little afraid of their maturity.
Kelsie’s family lived in a suburb that to Mark’s inexperienced eye was distinguished from his own neighborhood mainly by the number of bicycles. The Chinese used bikes rather than cars, and they were everywhere.
“But won’t your folks be off at work?” he asked, before remembering (again) that she couldn’t understand him.
But it turned out that both parents were home. He was doing what looking like computer programming, and she was proofreading documents. They didn’t have to go into an office to do such work.
They welcomed Kelsie, who of course had not been gone long at all—only the time it took to walk home. They were polite to Mark.
Then Kelsie started talking in Chinese, and they got deadly serious. She was putting it to them: suppose another child came to take her place, a perfect child who looked just like her and had an extremely positive attitude?
The reaction took no time at all: No. They did not want that. They wanted her exactly as she was, flaws and all.
Kelsie spoke again. He knew she was asking: Then what should they do?
Both parents spoke seriously. Were they forbidding her to go to Pandora Park again? But she looked surprised, and gratified. Then she kissed them both, and turned to Mark. She took his hand: come.
They walked back to the park. When they were on the path, Mark’s curiosity burst out. “What did they say?”
“They say we should do it,” she said excitedly. “We should take over Pandora Park, and find out what it’s all about. Without really leaving home.”
What did she have in mind? “But time will resume.”
“Yes. That’s good.”
“But Wizard and Witch have nowhere to go.”
“We shall see.”
Confused, he let it drop.
They passed the candy tree. “Wizard! Witch!” she called.
The two appeared, in their natural forms. “Did you decide?” Wizard asked.
“Not yet. First we have to return your lives to you.”
“We explained about that. Your families—”
“No. You won’t take our families.”
He looked at her, confused. “Where, then? We don’t want foster homes.”
“Your own families.”
“But the children before us have them.”
“First, let me explain how parents are, from a good source. They love their children, with all their faults. They don’t want perfect substitutes. They love you for your bad ways as much as your good ones. They want you back.”
“That can’t be,” Wizard protested. “They don’t even know we’re gone.”
“Consider it this way,” Kelsie said earnestly. “Suppose you could have parents exactly like yours, only perfect? Pretend parents crafted to be everything you ever wanted. So that you wouldn’t even know the difference, except for the fact that they’re actors rather than your real ones?”
Both Wizard and Witch reacted with horror. “We’d rather have our real ones,” Wizard said. “We want real parents and real lives, even if they’re not our own ones. That’s what we have learned in the past decode: our true desire. We want to have the frustrations and pain along with the joy. That’s what reality is.”
“That’s exactly how real parents feel about perfect children,” Kelsie said. “Yours too; we’re sure of it.”
“But—”
“We want to go to each of your families, tell them the truth, and ask them to take you back. Those other children will be twenty or twenty one now, going to college or jobs, maybe even married. Out of the house. There’s room for you.”
Wizard shook his head. “Why would they want to go through the chore of raising teens again?”
“Let’s ask them. I think you’ll be surprised.”
Wizard and Witch exchanged a glance. “We can try it. We have nothing to lose if they say no.”
“And everything to gain if they say yes,” Mark said. “I’m sure my folks would feel the same, and yours will too. They are extremely understanding parents. You just have to give them a chance.”
“It’s a dream,” Witch said, hope dawning. Mark remembered that hope was what remained last in Pandora’s box.
“We’ll go with you,” Kelsey said. “But you’ll have to talk to them yourselves, unless their languages match ours.”
“They don’t,” Wizard said.
“I need to check with my folks,” Mark said. “But I think they’ll agree to let me take over Pandora Park, if I don’t leave them. To make it my day job, as it were. So it depends on how it works out with your folks.”
“We need to think about this,” Witch said. “Let’s talk again tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
Mark scooted toward his entrance, and Kelsie went with him on her skates. He looked at his watch. “I’ll talk to them, and come back here as soon as I can.”
She looked at her watch, which his mother had given her. “I’ll go too.”
“You don’t need to.”
“We’re in this together,” she said as they paused by the chocolate ball tree. “If you can’t do it, I won’t either.”
He really appreciated that. He surprised her, and himself, by imitating her: he kissed her impulsively on the cheek.
She floated.
They both stared, astonished. Then Mark caught her foot before she floated away, looking to the side so as not to see up her leg. “I can do it too,” he said.
“Maybe I can find things too,” she said. “We thought we had different types of magic.”
“Maybe it’s a fluke. Maybe I should hug you, to see if it makes you strong.”
“Yes,” she agreed faintly.
He pulled her down and hugged her. Then he let her go. She caught a branch to hold herself down, stooped to pick up a rock, and squeezed it with one hand.
The rock fractured as if hit by a sledgehammer. She had the super strength.
“Well, Wizard and Witch said they had all kinds of magic,” Mark said, still amazed. “I guess we do too.”
“Just don’t slap me.”
Mark considered that. Then he started to laugh. She laughed with him. Slaps made some of their clothing—and scales—fall off. They really were two of a kind.
Then they left his entrance. Perhaps an hour had passed: the time they
had spent at Kelsie’s house. His folks were not there.
“I’ll call them,” he said. “It’s too far to walk.” Kelsie nodded, understanding his meaning if not his words.
He found a phone and called his mother. “Mom, Kelsie and I have something real important we need to talk to you and dad about.”
“Really important,” she said.
“Yes, really important.” Then he realized that she had been correcting his word usage. That was one of the annoying little things parents did. “Can you come fetch us at the park?”
“You’re not dating?” she asked, teasingly.
“Mom! Stop that.”
She laughed. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t approve of.”
“That’s why we’re here,” he said to himself as he hung up. Would they approve?
His mother arrived promptly in fifteen minutes. She was always prompt, as Mark generally was not. If the park had rated him on promptness, it wouldn’t have let him in. She took them home.
Mark presented his case as well as he was able. “So we want your advice and approval,” he concluded. His folks had listened seriously and not given a hint of their reactions. That kept him nervous.
“Kelsie’s parents approve?” his father asked.
“Yes. As long as we don’t leave home. But we have to do it together, as far as we know. Or quit and let two other children into the park.”
“Have you considered that someone or some thing had to have made the park?” his father asked. “Why would anyone make such a park for two children?”
“Yes. That’s part of our mission. We want to find out who is behind it. But we can’t do that unless we take it over. That is, become its caretakers. Then we should have all the time we need to figure it out.”
“Whoever that is, must have dangerous powers. How do you know it’s not some dire plot to take over the world?”
“We don’t,” Mark said uncomfortably. “But we think we ought to find out.”
Both parents nodded. They must have anticipated something like this and discussed it already.
“We agree,” his father said. “Go and fathom Pandora Park, and let us know. We’ll be here for you, whatever you discover.”
“Thanks, dad, mom!” Mark looked at Kelsie and nodded.
“Kelsie is welcome to visit here again at any time,” Mark’s mother said.
“Maybe she will. But remember, when we take over, time will move normally, so we may be gone hours or days at a time. We don’t know what will happen.”
“Then get it done before summer finishes,” his father said. “We don’t want to have to explain your absence from school.”
“We’ll try. We’re just glad you’re okay with it.”
“We’re not easy about it,” his father said. “But you have shown some magical effects, such as time freezing and instant travel around the world. We believe it is safer for us to learn what is going on than to remain ignorant. If this really is some alien project, it is better to be well enough informed so that we can plan a strategy of defense. So we are nervous about your involvement, but trust you more than we would two other children. Certainly we don’t want this in the hands of ignorant politicians. We will help you to the extent we can.”
“Just being here for us to consult helps a lot,” Mark said. “Thanks.”
“Welcome, son.”
Mark’s parents drove them back to the park and watched them enter the path.
“They’re terrified,” Kelsie said when she could talk again. She no longer floated or had super strength; their stay outside the park had stopped that. “I could tell. They’re afraid for you—and me. But they’re doing what they have to do.”
“I guess so. They’re great. I hope it works out okay.”
Wizard and Witch appeared. “So do we. Here’s what we decided: we can’t talk each other’s language outside, or yours. Not until commitment, if we took your lives, and that would be too late. We don’t want you to be stuck in our countries, not able to explain. So we’ll each go alone to our parents, and tell them who we are and what we want, and they’ll either take us back or they won’t. If they take us back, we won’t return here. So if we don’t come back, the park is yours.”
“And we think we won’t,” Witch said. “Your folks’ advice makes sense. You have shown us how to escape, and to resume real lives, in the best possible way. We’re really grateful. I’m going to kiss you, Mark.”
Mark stepped back. “But—”
“Don’t worry. Kisses don’t have to make people float. You just have to focus on turning it off.” Actually he knew that; Kelsie had learned how to turn it off. His concern was something else. But before he could try to argue further, she stepped into him and kissed him.
Mark just stood there, stunned. Witch suddenly seemed overwhelmingly pretty and nice, and her touch brought a kind of pleasure he had never before imagined. How was it he hadn’t noticed before?
“But I didn’t turn off the other effect of the kiss,” Witch said, chuckling as she stepped back. “You’ll remember me, and have a crush on me, for a while. But it will fade. Just don’t do it to anyone else unless you have good reason.”
“I—won’t,” he agreed. A love kiss? There was no way to doubt it.
Then both Wizard and Witch vanished. They were going to their separate entrances.
“You look moonstruck,” Kelsie said mischievously.
“I am. She—”
“She showed you another magic trick. We had better not kiss like that.”
“We had better not,” he agreed weakly.
“How long before we know they’re not coming back?”
“I think they’d be back already, if they were going to return. Because of the time freeze.”
“Which no longer applies to us, then.” She fetched her skates. “Now let’s find out what Pandora Park is all about.”
“How do we do that?”
“Oh come on, Mark! You must have some great idea. You figured out how to help me pass three days even after you said you didn’t know how to look.”
Actually he did have an idea. “There are easy paths all over, that just loop around. But there must be some control center or something, and there must be a path to it, but if it doesn’t want to be discovered, that path must be hard to follow.”
“A control center,” she repeated. “A place where the park’s main program is. If we can find it, maybe we can find out who made it, and why.”
“Yes. And—” He broke off, uncertain.
She smiled. “You thought of something. I can tell.”
“It’s just that if only certain children can get into the park, maybe only certain children can even reach that control center. The other children got into the park, but then got carried away by the magic and fun and never went any farther. Until they wore out their childishness, and had to leave. But maybe we’re different. We want to learn the park’s real secret. So maybe this is our challenge. To prove we are the ones who can handle it. If we can handle it.”
“I think you’re right. That would explain why Pandora Park has been here for a hundred years or more without changing. Maybe it’s been waiting for us.”
“Yes.” He was glad she agreed. The idea seemed vain, yet there did have to be a reason they were here.
“How do we proceed?” she asked.
“I’ll use my magic to find the wrong path.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that will work. If it doesn’t want you to find it, it won’t let you use its own magic against it.”
He realized she was right. The park did have rules, and it enforced them; there was surely a rule against messing with its master program. “So I guess we’ll have to do it on our own. Let’s see what we can find without magic.”
“A difficult path,” she agreed. “Or a place without any paths. The control center may need access, but the keeper may simply fly there, leaving no trace of his passage.”
“Right,” he agreed, surprised. “But we can fly too.”
“But first we must prepare.” She looked around. “There.”
“What?”
“Swimming flippers, hands and feet,” she said, holding them up. “I can find things too, and these are what I sought.”
Then she was better at it than he was. “Wouldn’t wings be better?”
“Not if we don’t know how to use them. But if we swim through air, we should get where we are moving.”
That did seem to make sense. He found flippers for his hands and feet and fastened them on. The park hadn’t stopped this because it didn’t know what they had in mind. Maybe it thought they were just going to sport in the air, playing tag or something. “Ready,” he said.
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek, then held on to him with her clumsy flippers so he couldn’t float away. He kissed her back, and she floated too. But the kisses reminded him of Witch’s kiss. He did have a crush on her, and if he had had spare time on his hands he knew he would have been thinking about her a lot. So it was magic; the feeling was still real. Even though he was sure she was not the girl Kelsie was.
They swam in air. It wasn’t as fast as swimming in water, but they did move. This would get them there. If they got tired, they would give each other strength.
They saw the park forest from above. The paths wound around the edges in a big tangle that seemed designed to confuse those who used them, so they wouldn’t realize they were going nowhere. In the center of the park was a thick mass of trees whose foliage completely hid the ground. That should be where it was.
They were slowly losing height as the magic kisses wore off. That was fine. Silently they came down on the center of the park. Mark’s foot touched the top of the largest tree, brushing a branch. He swam back upward looking for a better place to go down.
There was a squawk and a huge bird flew up. No, it had the head and wings of a bird, an eagle, but the body of a lion. “A griffin!” Mark exclaimed.
“A guardian,” Kelsie said. “It won’t let us pass.”
Mark removed his hand flippers and drew his sword. “Get away from us, griffin,” he warned, as he hovered above the foliage. “We’re passing anyway.” For this was confirmation that the park was guarding its inner sanctum.