The Cup of Galfar. Alderosa's Daughter. Alexander Pererva

so that the rack was standing straight up on its end, halfway submerged in water. The cat, soaked to the bones, eyes crazed, was desperately clawing at the rack trying to climb towards the top out of the water. But he was unable to do it, because his tail was firmly gripped between the iron jaws of the ferocious guard dog who pretended to be a fish. The water was bubbling up around them, splashing up to the ceiling. It was clear that the fish meant business, and had the help been even a little late, things could have gone rather sour for Lemonade.

      When Dad finally freed the poor cat from his catch, the cat was so exhausted that he could only whimper pitifully and roll his eyes.

      “Some fish hunter you are, aren’t you?” Dad wrapped a blanket around the cat and handed him to Allie.

      “All right, that’s enough!” Mom appeared in the bathroom. “This whole thing has to stop today.” She gave Dad a look. He, in turn, looked at Allie and shrugged. Allie knew that no arguments would help, heaved a sigh and went to blow-dry the cat.

      She did not go into the kitchen that night. Strangely enough, Allie had gotten attached to the fish over the last few days and was understandably upset now. She was sorry for the creature, sad and even a little mad at her parents. At the same time, she realized that an end like this had been inevitable, but she refused to watch it, not to mention taking any part in it.

      Meanwhile, Dad cleaned and gutted the fish, and was released to go watch a soccer game on TV. Mom scooped up the fish’s innards and was about to put them in the trash can when she caught a glimpse of something shiny inside the fish’s large stomach. She cut it open with a knife, and a second later she was holding a transparent cylinder about half an inch thick and five inches long. When she washed it off, she noticed that it was made up of five shorter cylinders apparently glued together. The little cylinder on one end was clear, and the others were softly tinted green, yellow, blue and pink.

      Mom raised her hand closer to the lamp. When the light hit the cylinder, it sparkled with a rainbow of dancing colors. Mom felt all of a sudden that she had seen something like that before. She tried to hold on to the elusive memory, but the next moment the feeling was gone. Mom smiled: this little thing, however useless, was quite pretty and would definitely comfort Allie.

      Mom went into the living room and announced her wonderful find. Dad just nodded, keeping his eyes on the TV and most likely missing the meaning of what she had said. Allie kept pouting and pretended not to care, but the sparkle in her eyes made it clear to Mom that Allie was hooked and wouldn’t keep pouting for much longer. But she decided not to rush things and just left the cylinder on the coffee table and went back to the kitchen to cook the fish. Everything went just as she had expected, and five minutes later Allie, forgetting her sorrows, was playing with her new toy.

      ***

      In the morning, fried fish was served for breakfast. Allie refused to eat, while Dad said:

      “It’s up to you, kid, but I think you are being a baby. You see, every person faces a choice every once in a while, and it’s important to make sure that the choice we make is the right one. I, for one, believe that it is right that we should eat this fish, not that the fish should eat us.”

      Saying that, Dad put another appetizingly crunchy-golden bite into his mouth. His voice was dead serious, only the laughing corners of his eyes gave away his mirth. Allie humphed, and Dad continued:

      “Well, Lemonade at least felt its sharp teeth on his own skin. If we hadn’t made it there in time, who knows how it would’ve ended. And then, who would’ve been its next victim?”

      Dad made a dramatic pause, and Allie burst into giggles.

      Hearing his own name, Lemonade walked into the kitchen and stared lovingly at Dad.

      “Ah, there you are, our dearest Lemonade! You are really and truly avenged. The enemy is vanquished, fried and… served up on a plate for you.”

      With these words Dad put a plate in front of Lemonade with a big juicy piece of fried fish. To everyone’s surprise, Lemonade turned away from the plate and seemed to make a face, and continued to stare at Dad with his green eyes.

      “Well, this looks like a conspiracy!” Dad shrugged. “All right, suit yourselves, I need to go to work.”

      When he was almost out the door, Mom handed him a container with a few pieces of fish.

      “Can you drop this off at Jean’s? We promised her some of the fish.”

      “Yes, ma’am!” Dad gave Mom a mock salute, kissed her and Allie and left.

      At that moment, Allie did not even imagine that this door that Dad had shut behind him would close her off from the familiar real life, a life not much different than any other ten-year-old girl’s, and would open a whole new world to her – a world that was vast, strange, and full of wonderful, mysterious and sometimes frightening things. It was a world that could open up to every person in one way or another. However, it was a rare person that would pick up on its subtle signals; in fact, most people, scared by the unknown, would hurry to cut the barely visible thread that was leading them into that world.

      And now, the mysterious face of the Unknown was revealing itself to a little ten-year-old girl.

      2. OF THINGS TERRIBLE AND MAGICAL

      Strange things began to happen one hour later when Dad unexpectedly came home. He looked somewhat dejected. It turned out he had been banned from flying planes that day, because he had not passed a reaction time test. That was unheard of, since Dad’s physical abilities were legendary. And now this – he was banned from flying!

      Allie was very upset, maybe even more upset than Dad himself. But the most amazing thing about it all was Mom’s reaction, or, better say, the utter lack of any reaction. She continued to apply makeup in front of the mirror. Only then did Allie realize that Mom had been sitting in that very spot for almost the whole hour, since Dad had left for work. That was her Mom, who would never spend more than five minutes on makeup (to be honest, with Mom’s looks she could easily go without).

      Allie just shrugged, perplexed, and went to her own room. At that moment, she was not really alarmed. She just started to feel a tiny bit of uneasiness – the kind that feels like a little pebble in a shoe that makes one slightly uncomfortable. Soon enough Allie forgot all about it. She was playing with her new toy – the colorful cylinder that had been found in the fish’s belly. All of a sudden, the seemingly solid cylinder split apart with a soft click, and the blue disk that had been attached to one end floated in the air about an inch away from the cylinder. You could easily stick your finger in the gap – there was nothing there but air. At the same time, the cylinder and the disk retained a mysterious unbroken bond that was keeping them together. Then the blue disk began to glow. At first Allie didn’t notice that because she was playing with the toy near the sunlit window. But when she tried (without success) to pull apart the cylinder and the disk and squeezed the latter in her fist, she saw the soft blue light shining in between her fingers. She took the cylinder to a dark corner of the room and placed it on the shelf above her bed where she kept her toys. Then she stepped back, cocked her head and enjoyed the effect. The cylinder with the glowing disk that floated above it looked like some kind of fantastic candle burning with a steady blue flame.

      Allie hurried out to tell her parents of her wonderful discovery. And then she felt a new pang of anxiety in her heart. Something bizzarre was happening to her parents: the most obvious change was that they seemed not to notice each other, even when they happened to pass right by one another. It looked like they just did not see either each other, or Allie. When she tried to ask them a question, she had to repeat it several times until their eyes, staring past her at something else, reflected understanding. Even then, the answer was usually random. Even their voices seemed to have lost all color and feeling.

      Dad was, for the most part, sitting motionless on the couch, staring at the same page in his book. Mom was standing by the window just as motionless.