The Fortress of Clouds Page 3

  Ben scuffed his shoes down the short hallway to the bedroom. Thomas followed dog-like and sat down on the opposite bed.

  “Ben, what do you think those voices were? Do you think those kids live in our building? I thought we were the only kids here. I mean, at least that’s what Mom says. Do you think they live down there?”

  “I really don’t care, Thomas,” said Ben. It was usually best to just let Thomas ask all his questions in one go, rather than trying to answer them one by one, since answering one would only lead to five more. Most of the time he didn’t even expect an answer. It was like he was thinking aloud and couldn’t stop the verbal diarrhea.

  “We should go down there tomorrow after Mom leaves for work and figure out where they’re coming from. I mean, there hasta be some way down, some door, or maybe even a hidden tunnel. Wow. Cool.” It was perhaps Thomas’s ultimate fantasy, a true mystery right in their own boring building.

  “Absolutely not,” said Ben.

  “And why not?” Thomas stuck out his chin in self-importance.

  “We got in enough trouble today as it is.”

  “No we didn’t. When?”

  “When you took off. Mrs. Brodsky got mad at us and called . . . the police.”

  “Wow. You must’ve got her really mad. Why’d you do that? That was pretty dumb.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Thomas. And thanks for disappearing.”

  “I told you where I was going, but obviously you weren’t paying attention. I hate that silly detective game we always play.”

  “But you invented that game.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean that I enjoy playing it.”

  “Well, I hate it too, you idiot.”

  Ben shook his head at the invisible fate that had awarded him this fool for a brother.

  Thomas started digging through his books, probably looking for a reference to some ancient underground civilization or trying to find the architectural plans for the building. Ben went to the window and looked down to the street below. Outside now the sun was setting and the orange glow was deepening into a tomato red. How many hours had he spent over the years just staring down into the city streets? And not once had he ever seen other kids out there. If Thomas had in fact heard voices down there . . .

  The girls’ singing came warbling in from the kitchen.

  Ya words are made of fluff

  And I bout had enough

  Of your cheatin heart

  It’s gone too far

  Yah! It’s gone too far

  You know, one of these days

  I’m just gonna go

  Yah! You’ll never see me

  Yah! You’ll never know

  But just then there was another sound in their apartment. Rodent-like scratchings were coming from the other bedroom, their mother’s. It sounded like she was looking for something in her drawers. Sometimes Ben heard her leave in the middle of the night, only to have returned by morning. He never told the others about this, and now as he looked out over the evening settling like gauze over the city, he tried not to think about the garbage Mrs. Brodsky had said.

  There was nowhere to hide at dinner.

  “Well, Ben, I see that once again you have neglected your chores today,” their mother said.

  “Care to tell me why?”

  Ben elaborately transferred his potatoes from one side of the plate to the other. “I, uh . . . I dunno.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I. Uh. Duuunnnooo.”

  “Well, Ben, maybe I need to remind you that as the eldest of the family it is your responsibility to ensure that things get done while I’m at work.”

  Ben avoided her eyes. “I just . . . I mean, what’s the point of all these chores, Mom? We do the same things every day.”

  “Ben, this is what has to be done to make a family work, to make a household run. Life is a series of routines and unfortunately there’s very little we can do about it but try to enjoy the things that do matter in life.”

  Ben could think of nothing to say to this, other than some remark about how well their family in fact worked. He decided to just stare at the wall.

  “You need to do these things, Ben. We need you to do these things. It’s time you took some responsibility around here.”

  Ben just looked at the large crack on the living room wall, watching it as if it were growing right in front of him. A calendar and a few photos had been placed over the crack in a feeble attempt to mask it. Their apartment had very few photos of their family, and only recent ones at that. But there were lots of photos of some rainforest in South America, where their mother had traveled before they were born. It was almost like she wanted to remember the jungle more than her own children. Most of them were framed, but some were held up with thumbtacks and tape. Dense, dark green forests and tall trees, with clouds of mist floating around high mountain peaks. One picture in particular had always fascinated Ben. It was taken looking up through the branches of a giant tree, but the contrast of the photo had been altered so that instead of the branches, the eye immediately saw the patterns of light filtering through from the sky above. If you squinted your eyes and let your mind try to find a pattern, giant shapes emerged. Thomas had once called one of these shapes a dodecahedrasomething.

  Ben watched the others eat in silence, Thomas reading from a giant book, Hannah gyrating to the song in her head, Alison concentrating on eating in a civilized and proper manner. Their mother, having given up on grilling Ben, was lost in thought and staring out the window. Something was wrong with her. Maybe she’d been fired again. Maybe they’d have to move. Or maybe she’d already been visited by the police.

  After washing the dishes, Hannah pestered their mother for a story.

  “A story? Hannah, I think you’re getting too old for this.”

  “Never!” yelled Hannah. Then she smiled and batted her eyelashes.

  “Okay, okay, okay, Han. Let’s see . . . what would you like to hear about tonight, then?” Their mother collapsed onto the couch and motioned for Hannah to sit on her lap. “Ooo, someone’s growin’ up here. Aren’t you too big for stories?”

  “Whatever,” said Hannah with a toss of her hand. “I wanna hear the one about kings and queens and jaguars and toads and talking birds.”

  “They’re all about kings and queens and jaguars and toads and birds,” said Thomas as he rolled his eyes from over the pages of his book.

  “Oh, be quiet, Thomas,” said Alison. “Here, Hannah, make room for me.” Alison squeezed in beside Hannah, testing the limits of the old green couch. Ben pretended not to care and sat down beside Thomas on the floor.

  “Okay, Hannah, where did we leave off then?” their mother said while sighing through her smile. She looked tired.

  “Well, The Queen, that would be me, ahem,” said Hannah, “was told by the mysterious magician that her kingdom was threatened by a giant toad and that she had to find the correct spell to put the toad to sleep before it would devour her.”

  “Right. I remember now.” At this, their mother shifted uncomfortably and looked out the window. There was something not right with her. It was more than just being angry with Ben for not doing his chores. Something out there was distracting her. Maybe Mrs. Brodsky was right. Maybe there was something else going on in their mother’s life. She stared at the dark city outside. Her wine glass had been emptied twice already.

  “Mom?”

  “Well, Hannah, let’s see. With the toad fast approaching, Queen Ulbitza searched her entire kingdom for the spell. She asked all of her advisers, but none of them had heard of such a thing and no one knew what to do. She read all the books she could find on spells and toads, but there were no references anywhere to this queen-eating toad. The magician meanwhile warned her that the toad would arrive any day to eat the queen, and that he was the only one who could stop it.”

  As she read, Ben watched her, looking for the clues to support the possibility that there was another woman beneath her maternal goodness. Her short
black hair did look somehow too fashionable for a mother. She did seem to wear slightly revealing clothing. As Ben toyed with these ideas, she became foreign to him. There was an ulterior person in her, beyond what the four of them could see.

  “Apparently the toad would stop at nothing until he devoured a queen, for you see that was the only thing he ever ate--he simply went from kingdom to kingdom gobbling up all the queens in the world. Queen Ulbitza became very worried and told the magician that she didn’t know what to do. ‘Well,’ the magician said, ‘I actually know how to rid you of this terrible pest and for a small favor I could make it go away.’ Queen Ulbitza inquired as to what this small favor might be. ‘I would require that you appoint me your Royal Director of Spells and Potions,’ the magician stated. ‘A small favor.’

  “The queen agreed that this sounded fair, but she said that before she appointed him, she needed to be sure there actually was a giant toad and that the magician wasn’t just tricking her. ‘Of course, of course,’ the magician replied. ‘But, just so I know you are trustworthy, when the toad arrives I would ask that you appoint me this wonderful title before I cast the spell to make the toad go away. This seemed excessively convoluted to Queen Ulbitza--”

  “What’s convoluted mean?” said Hannah.

  “It means complex,” said Thomas from behind his book. “Like how your brain isn’t convoluted.”

  “Thomas!” yelled their mother. “Be quiet.” Alison hurled a pillow at Thomas, and his book smacked him in the face. “Alison, calm down. Anyway, getting back to the story,” their mother continued with a sigh, “this seemed excessively convoluted to Queen Ulbitza, but she agreed to the magician’s conditions, so terrible was her fear of the queen-eating toad. So the very next day the toad lumbered up to the castle, burping and gurgling, nostrils flaring, just like the magician said it would. ‘Here it is your highness,’ the magician announced. ‘It’s coming to eat you right now--see how it has your scent? So you’d better make me your official Royal Director of Spells and Potions, and then I’ll cast the spell to protect you!’

  “The queen hesitated. There seemed to be eye contact between the toad and the magician. He was giving it signals like a trained dog. ‘Right you are, magician,’ Queen Ulbitza declared in a loud voice. ‘I now dub thee Queen of the Kingdom.’ And before the magician could do anything, the toad devoured him up, burped, and was gone.”

  Hannah snorted with laughter.

  “Well, Hannah, what’s the moral of this story then?” their mother asked.

  “Don’t mess with giant warty toads,” said Thomas.

  “Shut up, Thomas,” said Hannah. “The moral of this story is, um, that you should never trust somebody selling the solution to a problem they’ve created.”

  “Sure . . . that’ll work.” Their mother looked impressed. “I was thinking more along the lines of true royalty must be earned, but I like yours better. And that ends our story for tonight ladies and gentlemen.” She looked up at the clock. It was twelve minutes after nine. “Time for bed.”

  At this, Ben decided to say something that he would later regret for a long time. Mrs. Brodsky’s insults had lodged in his head. He had decided that she knew something the kids didn’t. And now, watching their mother’s distracted glances out the window, Ben was convinced that she was leading some sort of double life. She could create story worlds for her kids, but she was lost in the real world outside.

  “Pretty short story there, Mom,” said Ben. “Gotta say, not as spectacular as all the other ones.”

  “Ben, please,” she said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m very tired. I’m sorry if the story isn’t up to our usual standards.” There had been a time when the kids used to actually dress up in costumes to act out the stories, when forests and castles would rise up like dust storms, but lately the stories had been getting shorter and shorter until they had become these miniature snippets of characters from evenings past.

  Their mother looked over at Alison and Hannah, who both seemed to recognize in the glance that it was time for bed. Thomas, whose head was still stuck in the book, was oblivious to the goings on around him. Without words, Alison, with sleepy Hannah in tow, came over and collected Thomas, who merely started walking to the bedroom while continuing his silently mouthed studies.

  “Okay.” Their mother straightened up and breathed in deliberately. “What kind of story would you like, Ben?”

  Ben’s teeth were clenched, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Well, I’m going to propose a change. For once, how about some facts instead of a story?”

  “Ben, I’m very tired. You just don’t know what I have to go through each day.” A long sigh. Her fingers massaged the sides of her head. “Okay. What is it you want to know?”

  “Tell me again why we aren’t allowed to leave the building.”

  “I see.” She got up and poured herself another glass of wine. Number three. “Where has this come from, Ben? Why now?”

  “As good a time as ever, I figure.”

  “I don’t want you to leave because . . . well, you don’t know the kind of . . . filth and thieves that are out there, Ben. I’m just protecting the four of you the best I can.”

  “Right,” Ben said with a drawn out inflection. And then came the big, mean, unspeakable thing, rising up in him like an uncontrollable burp. It was the one thing the four kids never discussed. “Then tell me again about . . . our father.”

  Silence.

  She stood up, walked to the window, and drained the rest of her wine in one go. “Ben, you know how painful this is. For you and me.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “I just . . . I just don’t know if it’s the best time, that’s all.” There was a big, sad smile on her face. As if she were talking to a child.

  “I want to hear it.”

  “Okay, Ben. But there’s a bargain here. If I tell you about these things, I expect you to hold up your end of the deal by being more responsible. That means doing the chores I ask you to do, doing your homework every day, and also looking after your little brother.”

  “I do look after Thomas,” Ben said and then hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Thomas was gone when I got home and it was obvious to me that you had to go find him because he had wandered off.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I noticed, Ben.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll do all those things. Now, tell me about our father.”

  “Ben, I don’t think you really understand. You’re the eldest and I expect you to look after your brother and sisters. What would happen if I wasn’t here to do everything? I don’t think you’ve ever really thought about that, have you?”

  It was true. Ben really didn’t care that much about those things, but it wasn’t his job. Besides, he still deserved to know the truth and there was a logic here that she was missing. “Well, how can I do those things if I don’t know the truth?”

  “Okay, then,” she nodded to herself. “Fine.” She swallowed hard. “Ben, your father is a very bad man. The reason we live like we do, moving all the time and never going outside, is because he wants to steal you kids away from me.”

  Ben huffed a quick laugh. “Why is he so . . . bad. What’d he do?” It sounded like a movie.

  “You don’t believe me, do you, Ben? Look, it’s best you didn’t know at this point. But there will come a time when you’ll find out for yourself.” She tried to smile, but there was a pain in her face. Tears glistened in her eyes. As much as he wanted to find out more, to discover what exactly their father had done, Ben decided that he couldn’t press her further. It wasn’t worth it to see her cry.

  “Okay. I’m sorry, Mom.” Ben felt guilty for asking her, but he didn’t believe a word she said. Right there, as their mother sobbed in front of the void of the nighted window, Ben decided something. Tomorrow, after she left and before the other three awoke, he was going to run away.

  Chapter Four: The Silver Men

  Tho
mas’s head appeared over the side of the bunk. He was wearing some sort of flashlight hat, which he had no doubt invented to read in the dark. He looked like he was full of electricity. Stupid electricity.

  “Ben, it says here that when the water pipes were installed in this neighborhood, they connected all the buildings in this complex with a network of . . . wait, what was it called? Oh yeah, a network of utility commission interfaces. Anyway, beneath our building and all the ones around us is a whole bunch of tunnels and pipes. Who knows where we could go in these tunnels.” He paused for effect before continuing in a pompous and official tone. “We have to go down there tomorrow and investigate. It is of utmost importance, Ben.” Since heading off to bed, Thomas had amassed the enthusiasm of an interplanetary explorer, which was typical Thomas behavior at bedtime. One minute he was a slobbering eleven year old, the next a maniacal genius.

  “Go back to sleep, you fool,” said Ben, still thinking about their mother.

  “Fine, but in the morning I’ll be mounting an investigation straight away.”

  “Great. Whatever.”

  On the other side of the room, Alison was asleep and Hannah was whistling softly to herself. Despite being twins, Thomas and Hannah did not get along, and they avoided each other with a cat and dog-like mutual disdain. She had no time for those with no interest in talking dragons and castles in the clouds. And his pedantic and emotionless knowledge drove her nuts. One day, Hannah had decided that the best way to deal with Thomas was to eat a dictionary. This accomplished two things in her mind. One, Thomas would be unable to learn any more words since the microprinted 314 page pocket dictionary that she chomped down happened to be the only one in the apartment. Two, she reckoned that the fastest way to assume book knowledge was to consume it literally. And then she realized that she would also be able to use words of her own invention without anyone being able to disprove her. “They come from my stomach,” she boasted, after using “formiflact” to describe the phenomenon of dirt accumulating at the corners of windows. “I digested all those words, one by one, and now they live in my brain and make new, baby words.”