He gives me a smile. “You’ll see.”
“Well, what are we make-believing?”
He gives me a more impatient look this time. “I said, you’ll see.” We make ground after about ten minutes, and he stands there facing me, his hands on his hips. “Are you just dying to eat something now?”
I half smile, half frown. “I suppose so?”
“Okay, good.” He nods and sits me down on the sand. “Wait here.”
I nod.
“Don’t move,” he tells me.
I give him a look to let him know I think he’s being weird and silly but oblige him anyway.
I lie back on the sandbank and stare up at the clouds.
They’re performative here, the clouds I mean. I think they learned to do it for Peter when he was a boy. They dance, put on shows. It’s all silent of course, but in a narrative sense, they’re very easy to follow. Definitely easier to follow than Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Peter sits down next to me about twenty minutes later.
“What are they putting on today?”
“I’m not quite sure.” I shake my head. “I think it’s some sort of Greek tragedy?”
He looks up at it, his eyes pinching. He looks almost annoyed. “It’s the one about Theseus.”
“Ah,” I say, my eyes pinching too, trying to see what he does.
Peter holds out his hand, offering me a bunch of berries.
I take them from him, pleased. “Thank you!”
“He’s not real, you know,” Peter says, watching me.
I look over at him. “Who’s not?”
“Theseus.”
“Oh.” I nod, indifferent. “No, I hadn’t thought he was. He’s a legend.”
Peter gives me a look. “Some legends are true.”
It’s then I realise I’ve eaten half the berries before I’ve even offered him one.
I hold my open hand out to him. He looks down at them, shakes his head, and his face goes funny—right as my head does.
“Peter?” I say, as the sand starts to slip beneath me. “What’s happening?”
The edges of my vision start going black, but he looks down on me, fallen in the sand, beaming.
“Let the games begin!”
Crowing. That’s what I hear first. My eyes aren’t open yet. They feel heavy, like feet stuck in sand. Is that Peter, or is it birds?
My face feels sticky. I’m sweating. Why am I sweating? It’s hot. Am I outside? Where am I? This feels like a dream. Not a good one. There are these few seconds hovering before me before I lean in to being fully conscious, and I hold them dear because I don’t know what I’m about to find next.
In those few seconds, I could be still asleep with Jamison by the fire. In those few seconds, I could be curled up next to Peter in the nest.
Both thoughts are thought in vain, but I give myself the courtesy of hope anyway.
When my eyes peel open, he’s right there in my face. Am I relieved? Am I afraid? For better and for worse, I suppose I’m both.
His head flops to the side once our eyes meet.
“Took you long enough.”
“What did you give me?” I frown, looking around. I can’t really see for the four suns are at noontime, beating down on us.
“Well, I didn’t want you to say no and me to get angry at you, so I just gave you some s?maberry’s.” He shrugs with a pleasant smile.
“Peter—” I stare at him, a nervous pit growing in my stomach. “Say no to what?”
He thumbs to the clouds. “Those sneaks were trying to give my surprise away because they think they’re the only ones who can do surprises because they’re in the sky, but they didn’t realise you were stupid and didn’t know that you don’t know your Apollodorus very well.”
I look around quickly, because unbeknownst to him, I actually do know my Apollodorus rather well. I just didn’t realise I was being shown a precursor for my day.
I’m tied to some sort of monument or an altar. There are hedges every which way. Bones scatter the ground.
“Are we in a labyrinth?” I ask him at the same time as I realise another terrible thing. “Peter, am I tied up?”
He beams at me, pleased.
My hands are bound behind my back, ankles tied in front of me.
“Peter,” I say nervously as he stands, and that’s when I see it charging at us from about a hundred metres away. A minotaur.
The minotaur, I presume, actually.
Peter takes flight and looks down at me. “We’re going to have the best day.”