Handsome & Egret

Chapter 5

Eventually, they did find something familiar, or Egret did, at least.

They had traveled up a road wider than most in the Maze. Handsome though it promising. A wide road in a land of narrow lanes had to lead somewhere. Instead, the road soon tapered until it became like all the rest. They kept on it, hoping it would broaden again, but it never did. Every road has an end and this one ended at a darkened house, old like Boss's, built before the Maze grew up around it. Unlike Boss's stately manner, this house's better days were far behind it. Broken windows covered by rough planks of wood, an unkempt garden with a graveyard for ceramic tiles fallen from the house's roof, a rotting fence covered by neon graffiti visible even in the dim light.

"Oh, Handsome!" Egret's eyes grew wide. She gripped the gate. "Look at it. It's beautiful, just like it was in my dream!"

"Your dream?" Handsome's gaze traveled from his sister back to the house. Throat closing, he staggered backwards.

The abandoned house was gone. Or rather, it had become something entirely different. Multicolored lights strung up between the fence and the house's porch illuminated the sweetest house Handsome had ever seen. Sweet, literally. The walls were comprised of what appeared to be hard-crusted bread or a biscuit of some sort. Swirling trails of icing danced up the corners of the home, outlining its walls and windows along with the roof. Peppermint pinwheels dotted the pathway, which the children soon found themselves walking upon. Handsome left his better judgement, the one that said this could not possibly be happening, out on the street.

"The doorknob is a sugar plum!" Egret poked at it gently when they'd reached the threshold.

Handsome peered into a pretzel-framed window. The inside of the house was hidden behind a striped curtain. It should have occurred to him to question the fact that Egret knew what a sugar plum was. She'd certainly never eaten one. Handsome was used to grasping the tastes of foods and other things he'd never actually had—it was part of his power, and a cruel part at that. Egret shouldn't know such things. Nevertheless, he couldn't make himself care. He was in his sister's dream, but what did that matter. It was the tail end of a ripe mango day after all. This must be a ripe mango house.

With hope in his heart, Handsome raised his fist and knocked on the bread door. It cracked open. An old woman with glassy eyes peeked out at them.

"Hello, I'm Han—"

The door flew wide open. "Come in, come in, children. I'm so glad you've finally arrived."

Handsome pushed Egret's hand down just as she was about to take a finger to the frosting-coated doorway. The woman observed them, her pale weathered lips kept in a straight line that could have indicated either annoyance or amusement.

"How did you know we would come here?" Handsome had just enough awareness left to wonder.

She guided them inside and closed the door. They stood in a darkened alcove that quickly gave way to a candlelit kitchen. "I knew because I dreamed of you. That's what we dream-makers do, don't we, Egret." She pointed to a wooden bench set between a table and a wall of shelves. Each shelf was lined with jars of assorted sizes, and each jar contained a different candy—gumballs, gummy bears, chocolate covered caramels.

The children sat. This woman knew what they were—what Egret was. A dream-maker. Neither Handsome nor Egret had had a label to give the emerging skills Egret was beginning to display. All Handsome's efforts had gone into hiding her ability from his parents, not exploring what it was. But now they'd found another like Egret.

"I'm called Rika, by the way. Are you hungry?" Rika placed two bowls of steaming soup in front of them. "Eat up and you can choose a few sweets." She pointed to the jars behind them.