“You know, I could take you somewhere magical.” Arla perched on the edge of a chair, watching while Dirk washed his chest with a steaming cloth. He dipped it back into a pan at the edge of the fireplace, rubbed a bar of soap on it, and washed his underarms.

“Somewhere warm?”

A frown flitted across her narrow face.

“How many hairs do you have on your chest? Ten?” She giggled, and plucked one.

“Ouch!”

Embers popped in the fireplace. Snow blanketed the frames around each window pane.

Dirk pulled a blanket over his chest and scooted away from Arla’s grasping fingers.

“Twenty?” She giggled.

“Go where?

“Would you like to?”

Dirk set the cloth back in the pan, rose, and put on a long-sleeve shirt. Another ember popped. He looked toward the chair, but Arla was gone.

“Dirk! I thought I told you to put the fire out!”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” The final remnants of his daydream swirled away as he moved the logs around, banking them against the bricks at the back.

“Now!”

“I’m putting it out, Mom!”

“Am I going to have to come out there and give you the leather?”

Dirk placed a wire grate in front of the fireplace. There were days he wished he could let Arla take him away. No one would believe how real she felt to him. He got up and checked the lock on the door, and then peered out the window. Snow blanketed his mom’s car. He groaned, knowing she’d make him clean it up before she’d let him eat breakfast, even though she never used it. Ever since his dad had disappeared, Mom had turned crueler than she’d already been.

He went to his room, raised the mattress and removed a picture. Holding it up to the light from a streetlamp, he rubbed his fingers against his father’s face. His own image reflected back at him; the same green eyes, small nose and thin lips, with the unruly red hair aching for a trim.

“Bring me another bottle!” yelled his mom.

Sighing, he put the picture away and retrieved a bottle of vodka from the pantry. He carried it into his mom’s room, loathing the rancid smell of her sweat.

“Thanks, Dirk.” Her hands trembled as she unscrewed the cap and upended the bottle into her mouth. Wiping her face with the back of one hand, she smiled at him. “Maybe you will learn to be a better man than your damned father. Ungrateful jerk! Now get out! I hate looking at your face.”

Dirk went back to his room and crawled under the covers, keeping his clothes on, but removing his socks. He hated the slimy feeling of sleeping in dirty socks. They no longer had heat in the house, and his mom wouldn’t let him sleep next to the fireplace. He closed his eyes, hoping his dream would return.

“Do you want to go?” asked Arla, sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Yes.”

“Take my hand.”

“But…” Dirk suddenly thought of what would happen to his mom if he wasn’t around. Then it was too late.

He stood barefoot in a glade next to a barren tree. Three moons hung in the night sky, one cradled between two silhouetted mountains. His breath came in short gasps, blowing white clouds as he exhaled. An unearthly red stripe surrounded the moon on the right, while the one on the left appeared to be in shadow, so dark it was.

“They no longer move,” said Arla, standing at his side. A breeze ruffled her pale, blonde hair.

“How…what is this place?” He pranced as the cold ground shocked his feet, and wrapped his arms across his chest as a violent shiver shook his body. The air smelled old, as if spring or summer had never set foot in this place. Two dry leaves rustled against each other, brushing by his feet in the breeze.

“This is my home, Dirk. But it is sick, since the sky no longer moves.” He yelped as she tightly gripped his elbow. “Will you help me?”

He barked a hysterical laugh. “Me?”

“Your father tried, but he failed.”

Dirk whirled toward her, anger lines meshing his face into a snarl. “What do you know about him? He left us, and you’ve seen what it did to my mom!”

“But you still love him, don’t you?”

Dirk turned away from her, ashamed of the tear threatening to roll down his cheek, yet aware she was right.

“Do you see the castle nestled between the two mountains?”

He blinked the tear away and looked where she indicated. “Yes.”

“Your father is there.”

Dirk abruptly lost his sense of balance and plopped on the ground. “Why doesn’t he just come home?”

“He can’t.” She tousled his hair.

“Why?”

“Your mom has him trapped in that place.”

Dirk choked. “This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it? I’m living a nightmare.” He pinched his arm. “I want to wake up now. Take me back.”

A wan smile crossed Arla’s face. “I was afraid you weren’t ready. Let me just show you one thing, and then you can decide.”

“No!” He pinched himself again.

“Please?”

“You’ll stop seeing me, won’t you?”

She nodded.

“But you’re the only one who gives me hope, Arla. I couldn’t bear life anymore if you were gone.” He reached out, placing his hand against her hip. “I’ll go.”

“Follow me.” They walked away from the mountains and moons, through a landscape so desolate it had every aspect of what Dirk expected in a nightmare. A short time later, the sound of people chanting a dirge reached his ears. Arla faced him, with tears in his eyes.

“These are my people.”

They entered a clearing filled with forlorn huts. Children lay sprawled around a dim fire, their bellies distended and their arms and legs looking like fragile sticks. Near another fire, men and women walked in a circle around a man on a bier. They wore little clothing, and what they did have was as mismatched as his own.

One woman stumbled and fell, her teeth chattering. Dirk removed his shirt and wrapped it around her.

“This is awful,” he said through clenched teeth. His feet tingled with approaching numbness.

“Will you help?” asked Arla.

“How?”

“Free your father.” Her face beseeched him.

“I don’t understand any of this, Arla. Why do you say my mother has him trapped? She’s an angry drunk. She doesn’t even live in this…this place.” He waved his arms.

“But she does, Dirk. She is this place, and it is yours.”

The chanting continued and the breeze shifted, carrying rank odors of sickly people. Dirk wrinkled his nose.

“So, all I have to do is go to that castle, get my father out, take him home to my Mom, and this place will be better?”

Arla nodded.

“That’s it?”

“More or less.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You have to do it before she wakes up and finds you gone.”

Dirk’s heart sank as the import of her words sank in. “I’d be trapped as well, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t try, my father will be trapped forever.”

“Not forever, Dirk. Your mom has been drinking for a long time. She’s sick, and…”

“She’s dying.” He shivered. “He’ll die too.”

“You’ll help?” A sad, expectant expression covered her face.

“But I still don’t understand, Arla. Why do you call this your place and then say it’s mine?”

She turned away, her shoulders hunching in on themselves. “Please, Dirk. Please just help.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “I’ll go, Arla.”

“Hurry.”

Pain drove its way through the numbness in his feet as he backtracked to the place where he’d seen the castle. Scrambling over rocks with only the light of the moon to guide him, he finally made it to the castle. All the while, his emotions swayed back and forth as if they were on a pendulum. His excitement at finding his father yielded to his fear his mom would awake and he’d be forever trapped in this nightmare. Occasionally, the thought that he’d been living in one already jumped to the forefront, but he knew that no matter what, he loved his mom. It wasn’t her fault she was so cruel, or was it?

A wooden door squeaked on its hinges at the castle’s entrance. He stepped inside and called out. “Dad?”

A barren yard lay between him and what he remembered from earlier, happier times, was called a keep. Moonlight reflected off white walls. He suddenly saw himself sitting in his father’s lap looking at a picture book of knights living in castles. The memory warmed him.

“Dad?”

“Who’s there?” A shutter opened, and a face peered out.

Dirk took a step backward, recognizing the man from his picture, but only barely. This man’s face was as thinly skeletal as the children in Arla’s home. “It’s me, Dad. It’s Dirk.”

“What are you doing here? How’d you get here?”

“Arla brought me.”

“Arla? Wait there.” The shutters slammed closed.

Piles of moldy leaves camped against the keep’s walls. Dirk sat and rubbed his feet, using the hem of his shirt to wipe blood from the scratches and cuts he’d gotten on his climb.
“Is that really you, Dirk?” The voice startled him.

A thin man approached, wearing a yellow windbreaker. Dirk compared him to the picture, terrified to think this was indeed his father. They eyed each other, and then Dirk got to his feet and went to hug him, tears streaming openly down his cheeks.

His father accepted the hug. “How did you get here? How did you find me?” he repeated over and over. An odd scent emanated from him, a hint of mildewed cardboard and sour sweat.

“It was Arla,” said Dirk, once his father released him.

“It can’t be. She’s dead, son.”

Dirk’s mouth gaped open. “But…”

“She died years ago, when you were born. She was your twin, but your umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.”

“But she wants me to take you home, Dad. Mom is sick. She’s dying.”

He spat in disgust. “From the drinking.”

“Come home.”

“She won’t have me, Dirk. She blamed me for Arla’s death.”

“But she needs you. I need you.” His voice rose in a plaintive cry, and he fell to his knees.

“I love you.”

“That’s all I needed to hear, son.”

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