“What did they look like?”
“They were surrounded by a cloud of yellow light, and they each had two sets of paper-thin wings that fluttered so fast you could barely see them! Like a hummingbird’s.” I’d seen a hummingbird on TV once. He looked much too heavy to be hovering in midair like that.
“The fairies picked the old woman up by the sleeves of her nightgown and carried her out of the village, down the mountain, and through the tall white oaks, where Stribor, Lord of the Forest, was waiting for them. Now Stribor lived in a golden castle inside the hollow of the biggest, strongest oak tree—”
“How did he fit the castle in a tree?”
“Magic, Ana. When the fairies had delivered the mother to his tree, he stepped outside. ‘I AM STRIBOR, LORD OF THE FOREST! WHO GOES THERE?’?” my father bellowed in his best Stribor bass.
“?‘I am Brunhilda, and my son has married an evil serpent-woman!’?” he squeaked.
“Brunhilda?” I said. I laughed at the silly name, one my father changed in each retelling.
“?‘Ah, yes, Brunhilda, I know of your situation and I can help you. As you know, I am very mighty and have many powers.’?” My father stuck out his chest and put his hands on his hips. “?‘With my supermagical powers, I can return you to your youth. I’ll subtract fifty years from your age, so you’ll be young and beautiful again!’
“The woman was excited by the prospect of being young again, and out of the clutches of her evil daughter-in-law. She agreed.
“So Stribor stirred all the magic of the forest into motion.” My father paused for dramatic stirring pantomime. “And a giant gate appeared before them. Stribor told the woman that when she passed through, she would go back in time. The woman had one foot over the threshold when she had a thought:
“?‘Wait! What will happen to my son?’
“Stribor scoffed at this question, which he thought was a stupid one. ‘He won’t be there, of course, in your new life, in your youth.’
“The woman shied away. ‘I’d rather know my son than live happily as a young woman without him,’ she said. And just like that”—my father snapped his fingers—“Stribor disappeared and the magic of the forest was gone. The evil daughter-in-law became a snake again. The one who preferred her own sorrows to all the joys in the world had entered the forest and broken the spell.”
My father pulled the blanket up around my chin.
“Do you understand, Ana, that sometimes hard things are worth the trouble?”
“I think so.” Suddenly I was very tired again.
“Good.” My father kissed my forehead. “Laku no?,” he said. He reshelved the fairy tales and turned out the lamp as I shrank down into the creases of the couch.
4
The Presidential Palace was rocketed two days later. In the shelter my schoolmates and I waited for the all-clear to release us from the confines of mildew and shadows. This shelter had bunk beds stacked three high, and while waiting for our turn on the generator bike we’d made a game of clambering to the top level and jumping off, measuring our success by the volume of the smack our sneakers made against the cement floor. Our teacher, normally quick to snuff out such athletic outbursts, gave us a stern command not to break any bones but let us continue. Something was taking longer than usual. I glanced sidelong at the butcher, self-nominated guardian of the door, his flabby form swaddled in a bloody apron. A handheld police scanner protruded from his front pocket, and he whispered with the cashier from the shop next to his. Then, almost frantically, he spun around and fumbled with the door latches, his thick hands moving faster than I’d ever seen them work behind his counter.
“Did you hear the signal?” Luka asked. I hadn’t, but the door was open and the push of the crowd toward the stairs overpowered the spindly legs of children. Besides, we didn’t want to miss out on the excitement. My classmates and I pressed against one another as we mounted the steps toward daylight.
At first, the smell. The earthy scent of burning wood, the chemical stink of melted plastic, the stench of something sour and unfamiliar. Flesh, we’d learn.
Then the smoke: three burgeoning columns above the upper town, broad and dense and dark red.