Justin sighs. “Okay. Okay. Let’s all calm down, okay? This is a tough day. Amahle, you’ve yelled at Joy enough, we’re done with that. We’ll talk about it another day, when everyone’s not so excited.”
“You mean when I’m not so excited,” Amahle says.
“You have had a great tragedy. I don’t know what I would do if that ever…when that ever…” his eyes sneak a look at Suzy.
“I want to talk about it now!” Joy stomps her foot.
Justin stands between Joy and Amahle, his back to Amahle. “No! You can’t talk to her now.”
“Why not!” Joy demands.
“I’ll tell you in a few minutes. For now, believe me, this will wait and this should wait. Got it?”
Joy looks down and her face grows red again. She feels bad enough about what happened that she won’t try to stick up for herself now.
“I would like to put this,” Amahle tightens her grip on her grandfather’s lion-claw necklace in her hands, “in a place where nothing would ever happen to it. But there is no such place.”
“How about your dream?” Suzy tries to be helpful. Her face is also red. She had been hurt by what Amahle said, but she knows better than to talk about it on the day Amahle’s mother died.
“No,” Amahle says. “When I am not there, there is no ground. That is what Justin says. It will fall forever and be lost.”
“That’s right,” says Justin.
“You can leave it in our home,” I say. “We can put it in Angela’s old room. In a drawer or something.”
“Your home gets destroyed by monsters at least once a year.”
“That is true,” I shake my head. What kind of world am I living in now?
“So I guess you don’t want to leave it on Bonny’s Revenge?” Justin asks.
“You are attacked all the time. The necklace could get lost or destroyed.”
“Hmmmm,” Justin looks down, as well. I think Amahle is putting an uncomfortable mirror in front of Justin regarding the kind of life his daughter has. Sometimes it’s hard to zoom out and see the full picture.
“We can leave it in Charlie’s dream,” Joy says softly. “He has a park there that doesn’t disappear. And he’s almost never in his dream.”
“It is still a dream, Joy,” Amahle says. “It can still be destroyed. This is a catastrophe! No matter what happens, I will lose my necklace!”
“Sunless One,” Master Mind says. “You can leave the necklace in a tunnel. No harm will come to it.”
We all fall quiet as we think about it. No monster from a dream can get into the tunnel unless they’re permanent, and the monsters are not permanent.
After a few seconds, Amahle says, “That is a good solution, Master Mind. Thank you. But I will not leave it on the floor.”
An antique and beautiful green jewelry box appears in Amahle’s hand. “Joy, could you make this permanent please?”
Joy, still red in the face, approaches the box and touches it. It glows the familiar soft blue light. “There you go,” she says. “I promise I’ll never touch it.”
“Thank you,” Amahle tells her. “I believe you.”
But Joy can’t hear. She went down the stairs and into the Infinite Prison in the infinite corridor in the belly of the ship.
Amahle opens the box, puts the necklace in, and closes it again.
“I will put this in the tunnel of my dream. It is less traveled and no one will be tempted. Master Mind, will you carry me there, now?”
We say our goodbyes for the day to Amahle. Master Mind wears a jetpack, and helps Amahle into the tunnel. As soon as she is in the tunnel, Elvis, her seeing eye-dog disappears.
Once they are gone, Justin looks at Suzy, then at me. He sighs.
Joy emerges from the infinite corridor. Justin notices the change before I do.
“What is that?” he points. Around her neck, she wears a lion-claw necklace with five lion claws on it.
“This is mine,” Joy says. “I’m a Zulu warrior now.”
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt