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They wished upon it, they sacrificed their last meagre amounts of change on it; they spoke of it in high regard to anyone who’d listen, but did it really grant their wishes as they all believed? Is such a thing really possible, to offer up only a few pence and relax as the fountain bent the world to human whims? It had so much opportunity if it were true, there was no way the Faith Houses would let it stay without it being kept under strict surveillance; surely they would investigate the fountain at least half as much as they investigated him in Stonemoor! Yet here it stood: the town’s fountain of wishes, unguarded and covered with moss from age.
It almost blended in with the nature surrounding it, covered in thick, soft, vibrant moss in shades of green and orange and yellow. The water at the base of the fountain was covered in lily pads and filled with overgrown sprouts of grass that had grown through the antique bottom of the old, almost camouflaged fountain. Upon the unusually crystalline waters nurtured flowers that danced and twirled and floated around within the fountain, as if each flower and their leaves represented a wish that had been granted long ago. It was beautiful, entrancing, bewitching and he was pulled in by the beauty of the petals like a buzzing bee after nectar, staring like an awestruck swan at the fountain, which unlike most things had become more and more beautiful over time as opposed to ruined. Despite its clear age and overtaken appearance, the fountain still seemed to be functioning perfectly. He had found it wandering inside the town’s local woods, he traipsed his way through wonderland and had followed a stream that had led to the allegedly magical fountain of wishes and dreams and now he was finally here.
Nervous, instead of throwing his change into the fountain and confessing what troubled him and what he desired — no needed answers too, he just took a step back. Should he do this? Is he sure he wants to know? Will the truth not hurt him more when he learns who they were, the people who left him at Stonemoor, his family? For so long he has longed to know of them, he yearned for the security of it. The unconditional love Joe has for Ettie, Scarlett’s determination to locate her brother and the intensity of her grief she had described feeling when she had lost him, there was nobody who connected on that level with him and nobody he could connect to in the same way. He feels an empty hollowness where the missing puzzle piece was meant to go. But now he was face to face with the object that promised him just that, but what if they didn’t like him? All this time he had been imagining his supposed family through rose-coloured glasses, he dreamt of warm embraces and appreciation. In his mind he was coddled by fantasies of loving parents, would they be like what Joe was to Ettie, or maybe softer? Would he have a sister, a brother, both even? He hoped that they would be proud of him, he daydreamed of their congratulations in his free time: daydreamed of their excitement at knowing he had freed himself from the icy chains of Stonemoor’s torture chamber with Dr Calloway, but would any of that come true? They gave him away, didn’t they? But families love each other, right? He wasn’t nearly as certain anymore that they would, the fear of rejection rendering his arms much too heavy to throw in the coins and his tongue was suddenly much too dry to speak. ‘Maybe I should turn back…’ he spoke aloud in his mind, he spent a while there. Just standing, letting the forces of the rough push and pull of his thoughts fight over his next course of action. He felt trapped between the pull of the fountain’s ability to grant his wish, a tempting oasis to quench his thirst in the desert of longing and the push of a hurtful truth repelling him away from the very same thing. He was simply paralyzed. He remembered how he’d heard the saying “ignorance is bliss” before, he believes that poet Thomas Gray couldn’t have been more wrong, ignorance seems to be the root cause of misery in all human beings and he knew that if he tried to embrace it now that he would go mad. So he doesn’t. He faced the fountain that supposedly held the ability to help him with anything and made his wish,
“I wish to meet my family, I want to know who I am.”
he said, whatever many pence he had had now been dropped into the wish granting machine of flowing water. The water grew brighter all of a sudden, clearer and glowed a faint cyan hue that drew him in to look closer. Peering into the luminous blue liquid, he saw that all the other reflections once displayed within the water had hazed out, leaving only his own face superimposed on the water remaining in view. He asked the fountain who he was, and it had quite comically chosen to simply reflect his own image back to him. Dejected and feeling like he had been proven a naive fool, he started to turn back, when suddenly: a small cat leapt out of his reflection. The cat was made of water, not normal water however, the cat’s body was composed of a blue as bright as a cartoon sea and Albert could hear the sound of splashing as its paws hit the ground. Albert was shocked still; he had never known such a thing was possible. There wasn’t much about what was going to happen next that he knew, but what he was certain of was that he was receiving a miracle. He followed the small hydro animal out of the woodlands, allowing the small creature to lead him on a journey of its own choosing. He watched as the cat playfully leapt over branches and skittered under bushes, the sight was so lively, practically spellbinding and Albert hadn’t even noticed how far he had followed the agile animal at all! He was like a child, laughing and jumping and running around as opposed to being whipped, or forced to try to move a few petals with his mind, or handed drugs to put him to sleep in the middle of the night. Happy, he was incredibly happy, all the worries of his life were melting away as he tried his best to recreate the energetic cat’s lively dance. Was this what it felt like to receive an answer to your life-long wish? Albert felt like it must be, an incredible weight had dissipated from his mind.
Suddenly the cat stopped, allowing Albert to regain his bearings and relearn where he was. Looking ahead, he recognised the camp he and his friends had set up together, after it was clear that Albert had finished taking in his environment the translucent cat had set off once again. He followed the cat as it ran, predictably, straight towards the familiar tent a few hundred metres away, only a few steps behind the curious animal made of the fountain that contained a thousand wishes. He was out of breath, but not in an unpleasant way, the adrenaline of the active game played with him and the glistening feline producing joyous laughter from whatever air his lungs still contained. ‘Was it possible to preserve this feeling forever?’ He wondered to himself, wishing for a way in which the memory of this moment and the utter childlike glee he felt could last longer than his mental faculties. Once he had made it to the camp, the small cat ran around in circles about the tent, tempting him to run after it. Giggling, he looped around and round repeatedly, following as the cat jumped across corners and weaved between objects in a teasingly elusive manner. Maybe he was the real cat following the ball of string? He didn’t mind if so, the game seemed incredibly appealing.
Suddenly, he was driven to a stop by somebody grabbing at the back of his collar. “You can stop now, Albert. Just watching you run in circles like that’s giving me a headache!” Scarlett McCain said, incredibly amused by the sight she had seen. Curious, she added the question, “Say, what’s gotten you so lively anyways?” Surprised that Scarlett herself hadn’t noticed the peculiar creature, he looked over to where it was, wanting to point it out to her. Embarrassingly however, the second he tried to find it the cat was suddenly out of his sights again. He resorted to just telling her about it, no less eager than a little boy,
“There was a cat, a really special cat I was playing with Scarlett!” He said, the breathlessness of the chase as present in his voice as the joy in his voice. You could almost hear his smile.
“Don’t tell me all this time you were enjoying yourself by harassing a little cat, poor thing!” Scarlett laughed, feeling as if she were talking to a child instead of a boy her age.
“No, no, Scarlett you don’t get it! It was incredible! The cat was made of water, it jumped out of this fountain I found in the woods, you could even hear it splash as it ran across the— Look! There it is now!” He attempted to explain, the pitch in his voice rising with excitement as he noticed the cat. Scarlett was surprised when she’d seen it too, not moving at all as she watched Albert once again begin to playfully run after the mystical creature. She watched, mystified by the existence of the animal, having only barely processed what she had seen by the time Albert turned to her and said, “Come on Scarlett, join us!” Inviting her to his and the cat’s game of tag. She laughed, the contagious emotion that was joy having reached her too,
“Alright, don’t be sad when I catch it before you though!” She challenged, running after the animal that expertly weaved through every available object that Scarlett and Albert were too big to. Eventually, Ettie came out of the tent, having been told to play outside by Joe so that he and Sal could have a little time to themselves. Upon noticing the spectacle, Ettie first watched them, quite clearly entertained by their will to chase the much more evasive animal. This time, Scarlett was the one who had invited her to join them, “Hey, Ettie! Come catch the cat with us, surely you can’t be too grown up for tag already?” Excited by the invitation, Ettie laughed and nodded before running over to the cat as well. She was incredibly determined to catch it, showing more stamina than even Scarlett. All three of them tried their hardest, running across every corner and guarding every little gap between the systems of objects it tended to weave through, but no amount of failure could stifle their great delectation.
As they continued their game, a revelation came to Albert: he has a family, they were right here all along. They may not be his family by blood, but he has everything in a family that he’s ever imagined, doesn’t he? They love him, Scarlett has gone to great lengths to keep him alive, she saved him from Stonemoor. He does in fact know the love that comes with having a sibling, Ettie is someone he and Scarlett and Joe and Sal would do anything to protect. It wasn’t a conventional family of course, but that’s the best part! Their care for each other wasn’t out of obligation, they had grown to trust and confide in each other and he felt safer than ever when he was with them. Isn’t that what having a family supposedly feels like? He doesn’t want to base his identity on just his past anymore, he knows he will always be the boy who escaped and experienced the horrors of Stonemoor, he can’t change that. However, he doesn’t want to become the man whose life was ruined by the horrors he experienced at Stonemoor. ‘Dreams do come true’, he concluded in his mind.
All of a sudden, he was pulled out of his thoughts by the laughter of Joe and Sal Quin. “What on earth are you three doing?” Joe asked, interested in the unusually lively image he saw before him.
“Chasing a cat.” Scarlett responded dryly, aware of how ridiculous it sounded as she and the others continued to run after said animal.
“A cat?” Sal repeated, amused at the absurd amount of dedication they seemed to be putting in for such a trivial task.
“It’s made of water.” Albert added, bearing the exact same tone that made Joe facepalm while smiling. He was barely holding in his laughter.
“Made of water? Never seen a cat made of water before, well you must’ve scared it away, it’s gone now.” Sal revealed to them, suddenly much more aware of how young the group of kids were in front of her. At this revelation, they looked around trying to relocate the cat with shocked disbelief,
“No! It disappeared!” Albert called out.
“Where’d it go already?” Scarlett cursed, unable to believe the cat had already made an elusive escape so fast. Sighing lightheartedly, Sal turned to Joe and said,
“You know, I forget that they’re really just children sometimes.”
“Well you’d certainly remember now.” was his response.