Rika didn't literally mean they would put Handsome in a cook pot and bring him to a boil. What she did intend to do was throw him into her swirling wall, which she referred to as a vortex. There he would be trapped, his power slowly drained from him and transferred into Rika. What Egret had witnessed just minutes ago had been the last bit of life forced taken from her last victim.

Which meant she was all out of food. Handsome didn't have long.

It had taken Egret all night and most of the next day to realize what Rika intended to do was wrong. Her own brother's life was at stake and yet she'd been fine with it. This terrified Egret as much as Rika's ill intentions did.

"Handsome," she snuggled up next to him, "she told me I was like her. What I dream can become real. And what's real, I can change to be whatever I want. That's what this house is, it's her dream but we're trapped in it. She said I'm her kind. But I'm not. I don't want to be! Please, we must leave here. I don't want to eat you!"

Handsome hugged his sister closely. He sampled the air, but it remained a ripe mango day. The nuances he could taste—a hint of orange, the heat of turmeric—everything seemed yellow and orange and summery. Everything was fine. It was simply taking his sister a little longer to adjust to their new home, to their new mother. Making up stories was her way of dealing with her fear.

Children really did have the most vivid imaginations.

#

The next day, wishing to find out how his powers had progressed, Rika gave Handsome a test. She sat him on the bench by the wall of candies and had him close his eyes, then flicked her fingers at his face every few minutes, causing the taste on his tongue to replicate a day from Handsome's past. Then she had Handsome follow the day in his mind, telling her how the taste had subtly changed moments before an event occurred.

She did this again and again. Handsome recalled broccoli days, sour milk days, stale cereal days. Ten times over with each one she made him travel the day through.

When it was over, Egret set a baguette with soft cheese, tomato slices, and olive oil on the table and they ate, both children mindful of Rika's silence. Handsome hoped he'd passed her exam. He wanted to please her as well as to show Egret there was nothing to fear from their mother. She wanted what was best for them and what was best for Handsome was that he should grow in his talents. Rika would surely do this same thing for Egret, too.

When she'd had her fill of flakey bread, Rika wiped her mouth on a napkin. "You have learned much in the weeks you've been here, Handsome. You have. Still, you could use more guidance." She stretched her arms out to her sides. Bones cracked as she straightened he limbs. "But I have grown old again. I don't imagine I have the time. I must take you as you are."

Before Handsome had a chance to ask what she meant by grown old again, he found himself raised up by an invisible force. Rika, hand raised to him, directed his body out of the bench and over to the hall.

Perhaps this was what Egret experienced when she hovered. He floated down the hall, Egret walking tensely at his side. Their conversation the night before came flooding back to him. She'd tried to warn him about this.

No. Surely Rika had some reason for paralyzing him and then moving him around her house with magic. Of course, she must. Rika would explain herself soon and then Egret would say she understood now. They'd all have a good laugh and eat gummy worms.

Instead of laughing, Egret whimpered as Rika, one hand still controlling Handsome's body, raised her free hand to the wall. She mumbled incoherent words under her breath while wiggling her fingers.

The bare wall stayed just as it was. She tried again. It grew gray and fuzzy for a second, then returned to its natural state. Rika lowered her arm. "This is why I need your brother so badly. Come here, Egret."

Egret strode to her side.

"Good girl. Now, do what I taught you. Open the vortex."

"No! I don't want to!"

Rika clucked her tongue. "There are worse ways for your brother to die."

"Worse ways?" Handsome's voice was the hiss of a house cat confronting a jaguar. He couldn't gage if his words were clear enough to be understood, but his growing terror had to be more than evident.

Rika tightened her hold on him. Instead of floating, he felt like he was hanging from a noose. Choking and sputtering, he tried to move.

"Stop! Stop it!" Egret pulled on Rika's arm. "I'll open it, just please stop."

Lips pressed tight together, she released Handsome, letting him return to hover painlessly over the bed. "Get on with it then."

Egret turned towards the wall, raised her hand and mumbled words that sounded like those Rika had spoken moments ago. She twirled her fingers and the wall sputtered to life. It was how Handsome imagined a tornado would appear if he could take it by its base and hold it to his eye, looking straight up through its top.

"Is this it, Rika?"

Rika squinted her eyes. "You've done something wrong. Even with my shoddy eyes I can tell it isn't right. Here."

She waddled over to Egret, grabbing a hold of her slender wrists. Handsome cringed. What did this woman have planned for Egret after she'd done away with him? He could do nothing to protect his sister. Not now, not ever. Warm tears slid down his cheeks, eventually making their way into his mouth. There they washed over his tongue, salt mixing with the ever-present ripe mango. Soon, the mango faded to memory, and soon that memory faded as well. The only thing left was the question of whether that taste had been Rika's doing all along.

Rika directed Egret's hands to perform their vortex-opening dance. She began to chant her words, the words that Egret had gotten almost right but not right enough. Just as she'd uttered the last word, she lessened her grip on Egret and that's when Egret saw her chance. Rushing at the vortex, once a building storm, now a wrathful hurricane, she tore one wrist away from Rika and in a flash, it was Rika's wrist that was caught. Egret may have been a young girl, but Rika had grown stooped and feeble in the last few hours.

Caught off balance, Rika found herself scrambling at the edge of a cliff. She'd let go of Egret all together to flail her arms, hoping to keep herself upright. It wasn't enough. Egret placed her hand on Rika's heart and, staring at the old woman with a steely resolve Handsome would never forget, she gave her a tiny push.

Rika went flying into the vortex, her body caught up in the swirl of wind and raw energy. Unblinking, Egret watched her go.

No longer held by Rika's power, Handsome's body went slack and fell to the ground. Shaking, he crawled over to his sister. "Close it, Egret. Close the Vortex."

She shook her head. "Wait."

Raising both hands, a golden haze floated between the wall and Egret's palms. She gasped as the haze made its way into her. The screams of a million anguished souls cried out from the vortex.

"Egret!" Handsome stood, shaking his sister's shoulder. "What are you doing? Stop!"

She shrugged him off. "She can't keep her power, Handsome." The last of the haze disappeared inside of his sister. She turned to him, her eyes lit the same brilliant gold. As Handsome stared at his sister, the cheerful candy-filled room around them fell away, replaced with a rotting clapboard building and boarded over windows barely letting in the pale glow of a rising sun.

"It's my power now, but don't worry." She let herself rise a few feet off the soiled floor. "I will never be like her. Let's go home."

#

Home was easy to find. Handsome's honed skills allowed him to gather tastes from all over the city now, seeking out the familiar ones and leading his sister to them. People stopped their morning tasks to gape at the siblings as they passed by, the shimmering girl floating like a swan upon a river of winding streets, the boy walking a step ahead, mouth open, expression fixed on the unseen.

When they arrived home, it was not the dilapidated shack they had left just weeks before. From the clay baked earth in front of their tidily swept stoop now grew rows of corn and bush beans. Vines bearing cucumbers and summer squashes twined between the slats of a low wooden fence Handsome had never seen before. The air tasted like watermelon. It had rained recently and would rain again, their barren corner of the world made lush.

Inside, the house was even less recognizable. Herbs in terracotta pots lined the windows, their green leaves accenting the cheerful burnt orange of newly painted walls. Tidy beds were laid with handwoven blankets. Egret's doll, Gemma sat propped against a fuzzy pink pillow.

In the room's center, Handsome and Egret's parents waited for them, eyes clear, open.

When they realized their son and daughter had been returned to them after so many days, Da and Mama fell to their knees, tears wetting their children's heads as they embraced them. No harsh words. No slaps. No needles emptied to mask despair.

No despair.

As their parents clung to them, Handsome peered at this sister. He didn't ask himself how this could be, how they could have suddenly become the parents Egret and he had always dreamed of. Egret's eyes caught his. She nodded slightly to confirm to him what had happened, then pulled back and examined her parents.

"You have a second chance." She held their gaze, her voice steady. "You made choices, you became bad, but you're free of that now. Now, you will choose differently."

After more hugs, more tears, more apologies from their parents, Mama began cooking them breakfast: eggs from her chickens, and tomatoes from her garden. Da left for his job down at the city dock, and Egret came to sit with Handsome on their front stoop.

"What have you done about Boss?"

Egret shrugged. "He's still out there, but he's lost track of us. We're like a dream he can't remember." She giggled. "He's fired Lev, given Cook a raise, and turned his house into a school for the Maze's kids."

They sat for a moment, listening as morning birds called wistfully to each other.

"What does the day taste like, Handsome?"

Taking her hand, he stretched both their arms out beyond the stoop, catching fat raindrops in their joined palms. The day tasted like a harvest festival, like the ground beneath their feet and the rain clouds above. "It tastes like life, Egret." He leaned in towards her. "Like the whole world is ours. Is this a dream?"

She let go of his hand to clap hers together. "Mama just discovered she has a jar of gummy bears. Do you want one?"

Author's Note: Well, that was a wild ride! Thank you for joining me, along with Handsome and Egret, through the twisting lanes of the Maze. I won't end with "and they lived happily ever after" because I'm not certain what sort of life they now live. It's certainly happier, but is it real? And does it matter if it is or isn't? 

Wishing you many broccoli days to come!

xoxoxo

Amber