Mending Dreams

By B. A. Lamb

I find my father standing on the balcony overlooking our courtyard, his arm drawn back, a trident in hand, aiming at my airship.

“This invention is worse than Icarus’s wings,” Páppa shouts.

“Don’t!” I drop my sewing. Strips of whalebone scatter on the floor. Instead of winding through my side of our U-shaped home, I dart across our garden square, charging past the cylindrical columns and into Páppa’s side, into spaces where girls do not belong.

Bursting onto the balcony, I lunge for Páppa, but he’s already thrown the trident.

Pop.

“What’ve you done?” I cry. Betrayed, I race back downstairs to my outdoor laboratory. No time to sew a new bladder. But I must attempt a repair if we’re to escape Atlantis.

Páppa pursues me. “Stop this foolishness, child.”

“I’m not a child. I’m seventeen. If I were a boy, the admiral would have considered my invention.” Snatching a jar filled with a fine, gray powder made from ash and Pegasus droppings, I dash to the hearth to stir the powder into a roiling sap mixture. The amber liquid quickly thickens into a paste. With my airship nearly deflated, I hustle to the rear of the ship before the glue sets. Kneeling beside the largest hole near the rudder, I hastily slop glue around the edges, then slap fabric remnants on top.

“Not true. Icarus’s foolhardiness was mythological in proportion. The admiral couldn’t risk Atlantean lives on a similar fate.”

“I’m not planning on flying into the sun. But thank the gods you only speared my airship. Had you torched it, you might’ve blown yourself up,” I say, still feverishly covering holes.

“And you say you’re not like Icarus? Foolish girl.”

Desperation pulses in my temples. “Atlantis is sinking.”

He waves a hand in dismissal. “This is not news, Lycia. The lower market has been submerged for weeks. The navy is taking civilian passengers. We’re leaving in two days.”

“This is our way off Atlantis,” I say, pointing to my airship, my voice rising like the tide. “Or was, until you harpooned it. I am not going with the fleet.”

His eyes mist and his lips quiver. He fears for me. My frustration ebbs.

Grasping his hands, I soften my voice, “Páppa, you will not survive if you go with the fleet.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I saw it in a dream. A tidal wave will sink Atlantis at the Feast of Poseidon. Tonight.”

Páppa pulls away. “I don’t believe in prophesies, Lycia.”

Collecting my pack, I wince, then adjust my altered chiton and stiffen my lower lip. “Mama would’ve believed,” I say, and toss my belongings into the woven willow basket.

Distant yips and howls of Atlanteans baying at the moon accentuate rhythmic drumbeats. The Feast of Poseidon has begun. Páppa turns and heads toward the square to join the revelry meant to appease the god of the sea.

“Don’t go!” I grab his hand but he pulls away.

The sun sinks below the horizon, darkening the twilight sky. I’m out of time.

My repairs have held, but the airship is oddly misshapen. Less than two-thirds the original size, more bulbous than tubular, but more buoyant than I expected.

As I head toward the ship with an armload of nuts and dates, the ground rolls beneath my feet like waves on the ocean, dropping me to my knees. My provisions spill onto the path, clattering amid the homes crumbling around me. Dust fills the air and my lungs.

Distant howls turn to screams. Drumbeats stutter, then stop.

I scramble to my airship and dislodge the anchors. Spinning the opalescent orb that powers the engine, I release two bursts of flame, giving the ship lift. Though I’m low enough to the ground to spot bodies, the dust covering them makes them indistinguishable. They’re strewn like refuse among the broken columns and the rubble in the streets. How will I find Páppa before the seismic tidal wave arrives?

A second shock wave rumbles beneath me. The wind picks up, pushing me toward the sea. Waves crash against the shore with a thunderous roar, one after another, building in size. I lick the salty sea spray from my lips. On the horizon, a great wall of water forms. Revving the engines, I turn the ship around, back toward Atlantis to search the one place I neglected. The cemetery.

Ahead, marble stelae shimmer in the moonlight. The wind whips past me, howling in my ears. Am I too late?

“Páppa?”

“I’m here!”

I steer in the direction of his voice. Past the funerary monuments, on Mama’s gravemound, Páppa sits. Hope inflates within my chest. I let down a rope ladder.

“Climb!”

Páppa grasps the ladder. A gale-force wind catches me, pushing the aircraft sideways. I give the engines another thrust of energy and adjust the rudder to right the ship. Then I stoke it with three more bursts, readying us for the height we’ll need to overcome the tidal wave.

He ascends, but with each rung, we sink. I yank at my controls, blasting heat into the bulbous bladder. Still, we descend. The great wall of water approaches, looming like a ghoul. Far-off shrieks confirm our demise.

“Forgive me for not believing you,” Páppa shouts above the storm. Then, he lets go of the ladder.

“Don’t give up now!” I lunge overboard, plummeting headfirst after him. Reaching for his outstretched arms, I grab him and release the belt that gathers the folds of my whalebone-lined chiton. My garment catches the wind like a sail. An updraft lifts us high into the air, so high that I snag the ladder with my free hand.

Below us, the water blankets Atlantis, smothering all life in its wake.

After climbing onboard, we head toward the nearest island. Páppa pats me on the shoulder and says, “You know, you are a little like Icarus. But I can live with that.”

I wink at Páppa. “I know. I saw that in a dream, too.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B. A. Lamb believes it is her sense of awe and wonder that keeps her young. That being said, she primarily leaves her daredevil escapades to the page. She is discovering the joy of flash fiction while working on her first YA fantasy novel. B.A. Lamb is inspired by vivid sunrises over her backyard pond, writing characters whose inner strength is key to their invincibility.

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