“Can you see it?” my sister asked. She was looking into the fountain, her eyes reflecting its water. I couldn’t see anything but her face and mine, looking back at us with their distorted mouths and cheeks. “There’s a whole world inside of here, where I’m the queen and you’re the prince and there’s enough food to feed us ten lives over,” my sister whispered, her face flushed from the summer humidity. My stomach grumbled and I started to feel a knot tighten in my chest. It felt like fear. And guilt. I couldn’t see what she saw in the water, and I knew that if I didn’t see it soon she would leave me. She would fall into the fountain and vanish into her kingdom alone, without me, her prince. She would drift away from me, and I would be roam the streets without the only person who loved me. I would have to crawl through dumpsters alone and dig into people’s garbage, looking for anything — stale cookies, not-to-moldy cheese, a peanut butter jar with enough peanut butter along the sides — worth eating… “I see it,” I said. “I want to go there together.”
