I stay on the stairs with Master Mind behind me, looking into the dimly-lit Infinite Prison. Justin turns to the cell to his immediate right once he enters the corridor. Joy and Amahle are behind him.
“You,” he says. “What did you say to my daughter!”
I stretch my neck and see a man approach the bars. I have seen him before, but I did not pay him much attention, since Joy and Justin both pointedly ignore him every time they walk into the Infinite Prison. Now that Amahle says he comes from legends in the Congo, that gives more context to his black skin and his black hair that’s cut very short. The right half of his face is almost entirely covered by a metal mask, with room for an eye to peek through. But there is no eye behind that hole, but a soft yellow glow. Anything that is not covered by the mask looks human, including the other eye. He is tall, thin, and wiry.
His clothes are a mesh of colors, hand-made, and do not look like anything I could find in Canada.
And now that I think about it, he used to have a necklace around his neck - the necklace Joy is now wearing around her neck.
Now that he approaches the bars he seems full of disgust.
“I owe you nothing, Justin Shelley,” he says with anger. “I owe her nothing!”
“What’s your name?”
“It is none of your business,” the man says and retreats backwards into his small cell and out of my sight. “I will not help you parent your child or punish your child. You teach her the wrong things. You train her to do the wrong things.”
“Come here,” Justin says threateningly. The man approaches the bars. “Don’t give me attitude. You were the one who enslaved Red. You enslaved a dragon for years!”
“I did not enslave her!” the man shouts desperately at Justin. “I was her friend! I helped her escape!”
Joy’s mouth drops open, and Justin mouths a silent “What?” as the man continues to shout, “You two are the reason she is dead!”
Joy gasps and Justin takes a step back.
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt