Chapter 16: Wellness

Taking another close look at the blueprints, I grabbed my phone to share a major brainfart with the Twins. 'Only build and detail the front left quadrant of the building and the garden!' I messaged to my fiancées. When they asked me why, I told them that the whole shebang was symmetrical, so we could save three quarters of the building time by creative copy, mirror and past actions, once we were happy with just that one quadrant.

After some thought, Portia answered that his was a good thing, because it would give us much more time for the secret underground labyrinth that failed to show on the blueprints. We might even get the tunnels as far as Paris and add that Eiffel tower after all, maybe add a subtropic wellness cave at the halfway marker for later private use.

Late on the second night of building (we just did the magic quadrupling trick and were about to go down under) the message bar lit up.

'Who are you and what are you doing in my virtual world?'

In order to keep my true identity hidden to you, my dear readers, I gave the Twins plenty of time to come up with an answer to that question, reasoning that they probably already discussed this eventuality.

'Greetings Earthling, we come in peace. For now.'

(I told you so.)

'That didn't answer the questions, did it?'

Sharp observation, I might say. This might be a tricky one.

'We could try War, if that is your preference. . . '

Touché.

'Nonono. . . Peace is fine. It is just that you appear to have accomplished in days what I have attempted and failed to do in over five years, and I didn't tell you what I planned to do.'

'We might be Phaerys. We know Things.'

'Fairies?'

'No, not those wishy-washy imitations with the cheap spelling. The real thing, with the invisible pink fishing rods to create the illusion of gravity for Humanity. Never mess with us or you could end up somewhere high, cold and lacking oxygen.' (Apparently those girls read each other's assignments. . . I had nearly forgotten about that alternate gravity theory posed by Curious Mary and Annie Mirabili last year. (Annie had turned out to be Sir Isaac Newton's mistress' descendant. Her aversion to apples was such that she developed an actual repulsive force for the fruit, which can be quite an impressive party trick when juggling, provided someone else brought the apples in orbit first.)).

'Ok. . . Peace, please.' eventually appeared on the message bar. 'Thanks for helping out, but why?'

Well here it comes. . .

'We Phaerys are going to tell you a story. It could be a love story, if you want to. . . '

(Silence)

'Once upon a time, in a land that is actually quite close, say two blocks away around the corner, in a time not long before the present, there were a male and a female specimen of the human persuasion.'

'Is this about Jean-Ettore and me?'

'No, no janitors in this story, as far as we're concerned.'

'That is not what I said. You can see how I typed it, can't you? I definitely didn't say janitor!'

My phone beeped when both of the Twins texted me if I knew the name of the barman. The answer was No. It could well be Jean-Ettore, however much that failed to stick on the image of the person we were trying to help out.

'Let's call him Ulysses-Theodore for now, so that we can continue. How shall we call you. . . Ehhhrm, the female protagonist?'

'If it is going to be me, I would like you to use Christuliet as a name. My actual name is too boring to write love stories about. This is more a Phantom of the opera singing serenades beneath my balcony damsel in distress sort of name. Adding an X in there somewhere would be even better, but for the love of unicorns I wouldn't know where to fit it.'

'So you do love unicorns?'

'Of course I do. It is the only sort of soft toy allowed in my bedroom. Mind you, I have the full set. Need a crowbar to close the door if I am going out.'

'If you are going out? How often does that happen?'

'Let's see. . . What date is it? Does opening the door for the delivery guy count? If not, somewhere in December, I guess?'

'OK Christuliet, how about if we arrange a meeting to get you out of your unicorny confinement?'

'Do I have to leave my cocoon for that?'

'Not if you don't want to. . . If you give us a day, we can build a safe meeting place into this world. Would that work for you?'

'I guess. . . '

'OK, agreed. So if you could now log off, we can get to work. And no peeking! You don't want to spoil the surprise. . . So goodnight to you and give the unicorns a hug from us.'

'All of them? That could take all night. I supppose I'll get started right away, then.'

'Bye, Christuliet! See you back here same time tomorrow.'

Caiman Raptor Elk

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