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Pomni swung her legs off the edge of the enormous, dizzying chasm that Jax had created.
“You can conjure anything you want,” she said. “Just a reminder. Just . . . putting that out there.”
Putting that out into this . . . huge canyon . . . pit . . . hole . . . thing.
Jax grinned sideways at her as she peered over the edge.
“Yes, and I chose this.”
“You’ve been staring at it for . . . several minutes, now.”
“Hours of entertainment for the whole family.”
“Jax,” Pomni groaned, “I said pick something you want to do.”
“I did! I created a dark and foreboding gorge to descend into, in the spirit of adventure and discovery!”
A sudden geyser of flame burst up through the opening, singing the tips of Pomni’s hat where it dangled over the edge.
A chorus of disembodied moans and the shaking of chains echoed briefly from below them.
“Kinda looks like you created a pit of despair to wallow in, in the spirit of shame and self-loathing.”
“Okay, you know what?” Jax said indignantly, “I think I’ve heard enough out of you. This is my abstraction and I’ll make it as much of a dystopian hellscape as I want.”
“I’ll bring Ragatha next time,” Pomni threatened. “It won’t matter how nightmarish this place is. With the sheer power of her presence, she’ll turn it into sunshine and rainbows . . .”
Jax shuddered.
“. . . and unicorns and butterflies . . .”
“NO.”
“ . . . and glitter and sparkles . . .”
“AHHHH!” Jax shrieked in terror, scurrying backwards slightly. “Absolutely not.”
Pomni started laughing so hard she almost fell into the pit of despair.
Jax caught her by the back of her shirt.
“Woah,” she said. “Be careful.” She peered over the edge, as if investigating the contents of the chasm. “Looks like somebody put a lot of fire and spikes and scary-looking demons down there.”
“Right. Thanks for saving me from the danger that you created.”
“I never said it was me,” Jax replied, innocently twirling the red, three-pronged pitchfork that had just appeared in her hand.
“Uh-huh,” Pomni said sarcastically.
She tucked her legs back underneath her and stood up, walking off in the opposite direction.
“Hey, wait–” Jax called, scrambling upright. “Where are you going?”
“Away from the pit of despair,” Pomni called back.
She didn’t have a plan, but she really needed Jax to stop staring into the fires of doom and contemplating . . . whatever it was she was contemplating.
As she’d hoped, Jax ran after her, and the illusion of the canyon faded into nothingness behind them.
“How about we play piano instead?” Pomni suggested when Jax caught up to her.
Jax shrugged. “Don’t feel like it.”
Oh no.
Okay, this is concerning.
This is VERY concerning.
I am officially . . . concerned.
Pomni stopped walking and plopped herself down cross-legged on a nebulous purple cloud, looking up at Jax with her biggest, widest please-talk-to-me-and-tell-me-things eyes as stars whizzed past her.
“Why not?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
Jax looked down at her and then looked away uncomfortably.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “We can play if you want. I don’t care.”
Pomni pouted. “You can’t just create a fiery pit of doom in your consciousness and not expect me to ask what it’s about.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
Okay, why is this so hard? She clearly wants to talk to someone . . .
Oh. Therefore, she thinks she shouldn’t be able to. Because she shouldn’t have anything she wants. I hate how this works.
“I get that you don’t want to tell me, but sometimes you just have to do the hard, scary, gross thing that you really don’t like doing and talk to people. Sometimes it’s important.”
“This isn’t important.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Who put you in charge?”
“Somebody who drastically overestimated my ability to run my own life.”
Pomni continued staring up at Jax with big, sad eyes.
“Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s Ribbit.”
Pomni’s eyes widened even farther.
“What about them?”
“I was visiting them in the aquarium yesterday, and . . . they were just talking about this tradition they used to do with their family? To celebrate their birthday?”
Pomni nodded, encouraging her to keep talking.
“Apparently she used to go to this one cafe for brunch with her parents and her grandparents and her brother. And she always got a big stack of blueberry pancakes, or something dumb like that.”
“It seems like she’s really passionate about breakfast foods,” Pomni noted.
Jax just stared at her awkwardly.
Pomni cleared her throat. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“I just . . . she seemed really sad. Like she didn’t say she was sad, but she looked . . . sad. And I don’t want them to be sad. I don’t know about you, but Ribbit being sad is kind of a horrible concept to me.”
“Yeah . . . she has that effect on people. I feel the same way.”
“Then again, it’s not like I’ve ever given a shit in the past, so. Why start now, right?”
“Um . . .”
“I just . . . I don’t understand why she won’t just conjure herself a big plate of blueberry pancakes and all the other birthday stuff she was talking about. She can have any of that. It’s her abstraction.”
Pomni thought about it. “I mean, sure, but . . . who wants to throw their own birthday party in a digital realm where the passage of time is kind of irrelevant? Maybe she’s embarrassed.”
“HA!” Jax said. “Ribbit? Embarrassed?”
“Yes!” insisted Pomni. “What do you expect her to do? Pick a random day and invite you into her abstraction and say ‘hey, we’re celebrating me today and doing whatever I want, give me presents now?’”
Jax shrugged. “I mean, that’s what I would do. If I cared about any of that.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Pomni scoffed. “You’d tell everyone to leave you alone, and then you’d sit in a corner and silently wish your birthday was getting celebrated.”
Jax let out a breathless laugh and looked at her searchingly.
“What is with the unsolicited commentary lately?”
“Maybe I just know you better than I used to.”
“Maybe you’re just getting even more obsessed with proving it.”
Pomni stood up with a huff and kept walking.
“So, what, you’re suggesting we throw a birthday party for Ribbit?” Jax asked, hurrying to catch up with her.
“Oh. I, um . . . wasn’t necessarily. But if you think it’s a good idea, then . . . yeah! Sure!”
“Do you think she’s going to hate me for trying to do something nice for her?”
“Why would she feel that way?” Pomni asked, confused.
“Because . . . I don’t know,” Jax sighed. “It’s going to feel all weird and forced if I suddenly start trying to act like we’re best friends again. If someone hurt me the way I hurt her, and then didn’t talk to me for years, and then came out to me and cried all over me, and then slowly started talking to me again, and then just picked a day and randomly threw me a birthday party, I think I would be a little skeptical.”
“Maybe you would,” Pomni said, “but not Ribbit. At least, I don’t think. I mean, you know her better than I do, but–”
“I don’t think that’s true anymore.”
“But you get what I’m saying. They’ll appreciate it. They won’t be weirded out, and they won’t think it’s stupid.”
“Are you sure?” Jax asked, so quietly Pomni barely heard her.
“Now that I know what being sure actually literally feels like, I can’t technically say yes.”
“Ah, yes. I guess I can thank Scratch for that one?”
“Yes.”
“How’s he doing, by the way?”
“Better. He and Kinger haven’t made much progress though, because Scratch just wants to chat about random stuff all day long.”
“Shocking. Our resident abstraction advocate doesn’t want to talk about reversing abstraction.”
“He is getting better, though.”
“Yeah, I know. I believe you.”
Pomni’s heart fluttered. That, right there, was Jax’s equivalent of all the most emotional statements a person could make rolled into one. It was sheer relief, and comfort and safety, and I love you and I’m here for you and I know who you are and I trust you and I want you around and every other thing that Pomni had ever thought to wish Jax someone might say to her.
Jax didn’t often have occasion to say it, but when she did, it was spoken with such a profound intensity that Pomni had started to find herself longing to hear it. She’d learned to recognize it for what it was.
For Jax, ‘I believe you’ was everything.
“You okay?” Jax asked, furrowing her brow in concern. She stopped walking, one hand hovering outstretched in Pomni’s path.
“Yeah. Sorry. Party! Ribbit! How are we doing this? What’s the plan?”
“Uh . . .” Jax turned and kept walking. “I don’t remember many details. We need blueberry pancakes, I know that much.”
“Well, we can’t just have blueberry pancakes. If we’re doing this, we’ve gotta go ALL OUT.”
“Okay, well I don’t know what else she likes, except bagels! Asking other people about their lives isn’t really my thing.”
“She likes climbing, and black metal, and music in general, and spontaneous dance parties, and being outside, and . . . yeah. Bagels. You covered the big one.”
“Look, maybe you should just be in charge of the whole thing. Tell me what to conjure, and I’ll do it.”
Pomni didn’t much care for the idea of bossing Jax around, except maybe in jest. Besides, none of it was really her idea in the first place. She wanted Jax to be able to take ownership of this, or at least to give it the necessary personal touch. Ribbit would appreciate it more if it came from both of them.
“I bet you know more than you think you do. Here, let’s start with the basics. Location. What kind of setting would she want?”
Jax sighed. “I don’t know! You pick.”
“You have to at least choose this part,” Pomni insisted.
“A treehouse,” Jax grumbled. “She likes those. The Forest Fortress adventure was her favorite.”
“Okay! Perfect. Go for it.”
“Oh, so we’re doing this in my abstraction?”
“Where else would we do it?”
“I . . . don’t know,” said Jax. “I guess we can’t do it in Ribbit’s abstraction, because they’d have to conjure everything themselves.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright. Fine. Boom. Treehouse.”
Suddenly they were surrounded by dense forest, and they were standing at the base of an enormous sycamore tree, which was covered in knobbly wooden handholds that circled their way up toward some kind of . . .
“It’s beautiful,” Pomni breathed.
“It’s a bunch of tree corpses attached to a tree,” said Jax, underwhelmed.
“ . . . In a very artful manner.”
“Whatever. What’s next?”
“We get up there and start decorating!”
Jax snapped her fingers, and suddenly they stood on the wooden balcony of the treehouse, looking out across the canopy.
“I . . . don’t even know what colors they like,” Jax said dejectedly.
“Me neither,” admitted Pomni, “but I bet if we just get a lot of different colored balloons and streamers, it’ll be good enough.”
Jax didn’t say anything.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want it to just be good enough. I want it to be perfect. I’m so tired of just messing everything up all the time. I wish I could just do everything right all the time from now on.”
“Everyone messes up, Jax. You’re never going to be perfect. Nobody is.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
The cartoon line of Jax’s mouth quivered.
Her hands clenched into fists on the dark wooden balcony rail.
Pomni waited.
“What am I even doing? One birthday party isn’t going to fix what I did. Even if it was enough to fix everything, I’d have to do it for every single one of you, because I was horrible to all of you, and–”
“Jax.” Pomni lightly rested one of her hands on the rail, her right pinkie just barely grazing Jax’s left one.
It wasn’t until after she’d said Jax that she realized she didn’t really have a plan for what else to say.
So she just sort of existed there, trying to beam the right combination of words directly into Jax’s brain.
And Jax, she . . . ducked her head, expelled a fast stream of air through her nose, squeezed her eyes shut.
“One day,” she said, “I’m going to be able to do something for you. I don’t know what. But I’m going to . . . I’m going to make it worth it for you.”
“Jax, what are you talking about?” Pomni asked, worried.
“I just want you to know what this feels like. I want you to have it for yourself, somehow.”
“What . . . what feels like?”
“ . . . Nothing,” she said, tearing her hands off the rail and turning to the interior of the treehouse. “Let’s get some decorations in here.”
Pomni knew better than to pry at that particular moment, so she walked into the center of the tree house and calmly helped Jax decide where to put certain things.
They ended up with an open dance floor, a disco ball, and several enormous speakers at various intervals throughout the space–some standing upright on the floor, some hanging from the ceiling, all flashing their neon LEDs against the disco ball where they scattered into sparkles across the room.
Jax conjured a long buffet table and covered it with an assortment of pastries and breakfast items. The centerpiece, of course, was a beautiful tower of plain bagels, which was surrounded by many smaller towers of bagels of other flavors. At Pomni’s suggestion, a spread of interestingly-flavored cream cheeses was positioned nearby.
Jax stepped back and frowned at the speakers.
“Do you need a way to hook them up?” asked Pomni.
“No. It’s my head, I can just magically say it works.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I’ve never listened to any of her favorite bands, or anything. I can’t conjure music I’ve never heard before. I can’t imagine it.”
“Oh. Well . . . maybe we let her put on whatever music she wants when she gets here, then?”
“I guess. I just . . . I had imagined her walking in to something. That might be stupid, though.”
Pomni paused and thought about it.
“I have an idea,” she said, “but you might hate it.”
“I can almost guarantee that I will.”
“But I think Ribbit would love it,” Pomni added.
Jax sighed and swiveled her head around sharply to give Pomni a sideways glare. “What is it?”
Pomni grinned.
_________________________
Caine watched from outside the aquarium as Ragatha swam through the water and guided Ribbit’s abstraction, which Kaufmo was currently occupying, down into Jax’s.
Two people and three abstractions all together was a larger gathering than anyone had attempted since the Scratch incident, so Caine, Gangle, Zooble, and Kinger were all outside to supervise.
Pomni and Jax were up in the treehouse, pacing nervously.
“Stop pacing,” Jax said.
“You stop pacing!”
“I’m not pacing. I’m just . . . casually exploring the space.”
“You don’t need to explore the space. You built it.”
“Fine. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m nervous!”
“Well, stop.”
Neither of them stopped.
Suddenly, they heard movement down below. The rustling of branches, and then muffled voices.
“Ragatha, what’s going on?” A familiar bright giggle floated up from the forest floor, followed by a mumble of reassurance that must have come from Kaufmo. Ragatha had filled him in already.
“Up here,” Pomni heard Ragatha saying. “I’ll give you a boost.”
“Oof–thanks,” Ribbit laughed, beginning to clamber up the side of the tree.
“She’s coming,” Pomni said frantically, racing toward the piano bench.
Jax came skidding in beside her, hands poised and ready to play within what felt like half a second.
They both sat there, panting, hands hovering awkwardly above the keys for an absurdly long amount of time, until Ribbit’s head finally poked over the edge of the tree house.
“What is–is that–?” Their jaw dropped. “Oh my god.”
Pomni looked at Jax and took a deep breath.
They began to play and sing.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Ribbit,
Happy birthday to you!
“Cha-cha-cha,” Kaufmo added helpfully at the end.
Jax and Pomni reluctantly turned away from the keys to meet Ribbit’s eyes, each fearing their own sort of specially-tailored nightmarish rejection.
Ribbit’s webbed hands were clapped over her mouth, but they couldn’t suppress the disbelieving breath of laughter that escaped them, or hide the happy flush spreading across their face.
“Welcome to your birthday party,” Pomni said awkwardly.
“Sorry if it’s weird and dumb,” Jax added. “You . . . don’t have to stay.”
Ribbit dropped her hands and ran up to wrap both Jax and Pomni in a spontaneous group hug.
“YOU GUYS ARE SO SWEET,” she shouted, squeezing them tighter than Pomni would ordinarily tolerate if she weren’t so relieved.
Ribbit stepped back, and her gaze flicked over to the buffet table. Her eyes went wide. “Can you excuse me for a minute?” she said quickly, pushing past them and heading straight for the bagel towers with a giddy expression.
“I didn’t actually think this was gonna work,” Pomni whispered as they watched Ribbit devouring bagels at a ridiculous speed.
“WHAT?” Jax hissed. “Then why did you make me do it?”
Pomni shrugged. “It was your idea.”
“No it wasn’t.”
Before they could continue arguing, Ragatha walked up. “Well done,” she said, grinning.
“Thanks for your help,” Pomni grinned back. “This party is gonna be awesome. I’ve been practicing my dance moves.”
“Ooh, let’s see,” Ragatha said eagerly.
Pomni shuffled her feet back and forth across the smooth wooden floor, crossing her hands over her knees as she went.
Jax snickered. “You’re so cringe.”
Kaufmo fell into step and started copying Pomni.
“Not you too, Kaufy,” Jax groaned.
Kaufmo just flashed an apologetic grin and motioned for Ragatha to join him, which she did with a shy, reluctant smile. Ribbit turned around, a totally blissed-out expression and a staggering quantity of bagel crumbs fighting for prominence on her face.
Jax looked happier than ever, and then her face fell abruptly.
Pomni had some idea of what she was thinking, now. Something about how she didn’t deserve any of this, how she had no right to be this happy.
“Jax!” she said. “Make yourself useful and restock the bagels!”
“Oh! Yeah.” Jax nodded enthusiastically and made another tower of bagels appear to replace the one Ribbit had just demolished.
“You’re my hero,” Ribbit sighed dreamily, already delving into the next tower.
“Sorry you’re having to do all the work and pull all the weight here,” Pomni said, leaning over to Jax. “It’s just . . . it’s your abstraction. None of the rest of us can do it. So all the hard stuff is falling to you while the rest of us just get to have fun.”
“Oh,” Jax said, blinking. “I, um . . . it’s fine. I can handle it. I’ll do the hard stuff.”
Pomni watched with satisfaction as Jax’s muscles relaxed and a small smile began to show on her face.
Jax turned on the blacklights with a flourish of her hands, starting the disco ball spinning, and flashed the LEDs on the speakers in a mesmerizing rainbow pattern. She smiled to herself as Ribbit laughed excitedly. Then, she restocked the bagels yet again and leaned back against the wall, admiring her own work.
Very hard work, and not fun at all, Pomni thought. Look at her. Finally enjoying herself.
“Thanks, Jax,” Ribbit called over her shoulder through a mouthful of cinnamon sugar bagel.
“You’re welcome,” Jax said. “Happy to do something useful, for once.”
Ragatha stopped dancing with Kaufmo and froze, a strange, contemplative look on her face.
“What is it?” Pomni asked her.
Ragatha shook her head, blinking. “Nothing. Just . . . she reminds me of me sometimes. That’s all.”
Pomni smiled. She knew exactly what Ragatha meant.
“Hey, um . . . thank you, Ragatha. We couldn’t have done this without you. We couldn’t do just about anything without you.” Pomni squeezed her hand.
We need you.
Don’t forget.
Ragatha squeezed back gratefully.
“This whole thing is amazing,” she marveled.
“It looks like the bagels are the main attraction here,” Pomni said. “But that’s okay. Probably as it should be.”
“It’s hard to outshine a good bagel,” Ragatha agreed.
“Oh my god, wait, can you make the bagels glow?” Ribbit asked Jax, apparently having overheard the last part of their conversation.
Jax grinned. “It would be my honor.”