The Velvet Pine Gala

"It smells like a hospital in here," I said. I was sitting under a table that had a very long white cloth. The cloth reached the floor and hid my sneakers. My sneakers were dirty because the mountain mud was the kind that stuck to you like glue. Above me, the table groaned under the weight of glass bottles and tiny, fancy crackers that looked like pieces of cardboard.

"It's the gin, Toby," Betty Crane said. She didn't look down at me. She was busy looking at a book with shiny pages. She was wearing a dress that was so pink it hurt my eyes. It made her look like a giant strawberry that had been stepped on. "It’s synthetic. It’s supposed to smell like the future. Instead, it smells like bleach and regret."

She took a sip from her glass. Her face scrunched up like she had just sucked on a lemon. She flipped a page in her book and made a loud, huffing noise. "Look at this, Jim. They’re calling this a miracle? It’s so last season. I saw three of these in Paris last week. They’re basically just oversized glow-worms."

Jim Silver walked over. His shoes made a loud, click-clack sound on the marble floor. The sound was sharp and mean. He smelled like expensive soap and old cigarettes. He reached down and grabbed a cracker, then spit it out into a napkin. "The storage is the problem, Betty. Look at that glass pine-box. It’s too small. It’s cruel. I should call someone. I should post about this. The ethics are completely basement-level."

"You just want the price to go down," Betty said. She laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. It sounded like glass breaking in a sink. "You don’t care about the bug. You care about your wallet."

"I care about the optics," Jim snapped. "If I buy a miracle, I don't want people thinking I support shoddy glasswork. It’s about the brand, Beatrice. It's about how the miracle looks in my foyer."

I crawled out from under the table. The room was huge. The ceiling was so high that the lights looked like tiny, angry stars. Outside the giant windows, the mountain was dark and jagged. The trees were blooming with white flowers that looked like popcorn, but they didn't smell like anything. Everything at this house felt like it was made of plastic, even the air.

In the middle of the room was the box. It was a long, skinny box made of glass and wood. Inside, something was moving. It didn't have a shape. It was like a cloud of glitter that couldn't decide if it wanted to be a bird or a puddle. It was glowing a soft, sickly green color. It looked tired. Every time it touched the glass, it made a tiny, sad buzzing sound.

"Is it a pet?" I asked, tugging on Jim’s sleeve. His suit felt scratchy, like sandpaper.

Jim looked down at me like I was a bug he had just found in his salad. "It’s an investment, kid. Now go find some juice or something. The adults are talking about serious things."

"Serious things like money?" I asked.

"Exactly," Jim said. He turned back to the box. "The ventilation is definitely subpar. I’m going to have to make a huge scene about this. Maybe I can get the auctioneer to drop the starting bid by forty percent."

Betty tapped her chin with a long, fake fingernail. "If you do that, I’m going to claim it’s a health hazard and try to get it for fifty. We can split it."

"Split a miracle?" Jim asked. "That defeats the purpose. You can't have half a dream."

"Watch me," Betty said.

They started arguing louder. Other people joined in. All the adults were wearing black and white, and they all looked like they were participating in a very fancy funeral. They stood in circles, holding their drinks and talking about things that didn't make sense—interest rates, tax havens, and 'the current climate.' They didn't look at the mountain or the flowers. They only looked at each other and the box.

Suddenly, the room went quiet. A man in a suit that was too tight for him stepped onto a little stage. He had a microphone that squeaked. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "The Miracle of the Mist. It manifests your greatest desire. It is the only one of its kind. We will begin the bidding at ten million."

Jim stood up straight. He looked like he was about to go into battle. "Excuse me!" he shouted. "I have a point of order! The cage is inhumane! This is a violation of the Dream Act! I cannot in good conscience allow this auction to proceed without a formal investigation!"

Everyone started whispering. It sounded like a forest full of dry leaves. Betty was nodding along, but she was also checking her phone. She looked bored. "He’s right," she whispered to the woman next to her. "It’s practically a crime. I’ll give them five million just to take it off their hands and put it in a better box."

I walked closer to the glass box. The glitter-cloud inside was moving faster now. It wasn't green anymore. It was turning gray. It looked like the sky right before a big storm. It pressed its face—or what looked like a face—against the glass. It didn't look like a dream. It looked like it was having a nightmare.

Crack.

The sound was small, like a twig snapping. But everyone heard it. The glass box had a long, thin line running down the side. The glitter-cloud stopped moving. It became very still. It started to grow. It didn't grow like a balloon; it grew like a shadow. It got taller and wider. The gray color got darker until it was the color of a rainy sidewalk.

CRASH.

The glass exploded. It didn't fall to the floor. The pieces just hung in the air for a second before they were sucked into the gray shadow. The shadow wasn't a cloud anymore. It was a man. But he was a very tall man. He was ten feet tall. He was wearing a gray suit that looked like it had been ironed with a heavy rock. He had a very straight tie. He had a very square jaw. And in his hand, he held a giant, shiny metal clipboard.

He didn't have eyes. He just had two flat, white circles where eyes should be. He looked like the most boring person in the history of the world, but he was terrifying. He was so serious that it made my stomach hurt.

"What is that?" Betty screamed. She dropped her synthetic gin. The glass shattered on the floor, and the clear liquid sizzled like acid. "That’s not my dream! I wanted a yacht! I wanted a yacht with a helicopter pad!"

"My dream was a private island!" Jim yelled, backing away. "Why is it a giant accountant?"

The giant man in the gray suit didn't say anything. He clicked a very large pen. The sound was like a gunshot. Click. Click. Click.

He stepped toward the table where the food was. He looked at the tiny crackers. He shook his head. He took his giant pen and checked something off on his clipboard. Then, he looked at Jim. He didn't have a mouth, but a voice came out of his chest. It sounded like papers being shuffled in a cold room.

"James Silver," the monster said. "You have seventeen unpaid invoices for your soul. You have attempted to write off your kindness as a business expense. This is a violation of the universal code."

Jim turned pale. He looked like he was made of flour. "I... I donated to that thing! The one with the kids and the trees! It was a charity!"

The monster checked another box on his clipboard. "The charity was a shell company, James. You used the trees to build a fence around your ego. The kids were just an AI-generated image for the brochure."

Then the monster turned to Betty. "Beatrice Crane. You have spent forty years consuming things you do not need. Your heart is currently being held in escrow because you haven't paid the emotional interest."

"This is a mistake!" Betty cried. She was holding her phone up, trying to take a video. "I’m calling my lawyer! I’m cancelling you! You’re over! You’re so last season!"

Suddenly, the papers in the room started to fly. There were papers everywhere. They flew out of the adults' pockets. They flew out of the auctioneer’s briefcase. They were long sheets of paper with lots of numbers and tiny writing. They swirled around the room like a paper tornado. The monster stood in the middle of it, looking very calm.

"Look!" I pointed at the swirling papers. "They’re the bad papers!"

They weren't just papers. They were the lies the adults told. I saw a paper that said 'Tax Return' and it was glowing a weird, greasy purple. I saw another one that said 'Charity Gala' and it was covered in black mold. The monster started grabbing the papers and stapling them to the guests' clothes. Every time a paper touched someone, they got smaller. They didn't disappear; they just looked shrunken and tired, like old balloons.

"My exit strategy!" Jim yelled. He was running toward the door, but the paper tornado was blocking the way. He pulled out his phone. "I need to get a selfie with the monster! This will get so many views! It’ll make me look like a survivor!"

"Move over, Jim!" Betty shoved him. "I need the light! The fire makes my skin look amazing!"

Fire? I looked toward the kitchen. A tray of fancy candles had been knocked over during the panic. The long white tablecloths were catching fire. The flames were bright orange and very fast. They weren't scary like the monster; they were just hot and hungry. They started eating the chairs and the tiny crackers. The smell of burning synthetic gin was terrible—it smelled like a hair salon on fire.

"The house is burning!" I shouted. "We have to go!"

But the adults weren't listening. They were all crowded together in the corner that wasn't on fire yet. They weren't trying to find the stairs. They were holding their phones up, trying to get the perfect angle. The blue light from their screens made their faces look like ghosts. They were arguing about whose followers would care more about the fire.

"I’m going to go live!" Jim screamed. "This is the content of the century!"

"You’re blocking the flames, Jim! Get out of the shot!" Betty was fixing her hair while the room filled with gray smoke. The smoke tasted like burnt plastic and old paper.

The giant monster in the gray suit looked at me. He didn't have any papers for me. He didn't have a clipboard for a kid who just wanted to play in the mud. He pointed toward a small door near the back of the room. It was the door for the people who brought the food.

I ran. The floor was getting hot under my sneakers. I pushed open the door and found myself in a dark hallway. I ran until I hit the cold mountain air.

I stood on the grass. The mountain was quiet. The white flowers were still there, glowing in the moonlight. Behind me, the big house was glowing, too, but it was a bright, angry orange. I could see the adults through the big windows. They were still standing there, their phones held high like little glowing flags. They looked like tiny dolls in a burning dollhouse.

I sat down on a rock. My sneakers were melting a little bit, and they smelled like rubber. I looked at the fire. It was very pretty, in a scary way. It looked like the miracle should have looked—bright and wild and impossible to catch.

From the woods, a small gray shape drifted toward me. It was the monster. But he wasn't ten feet tall anymore. He was small, like a regular person. He was still wearing the gray suit. He sat down on the rock next to me. He didn't have his clipboard. He just had a single piece of paper.

He handed it to me. It wasn't a tax form. It wasn't an invoice. It was just a blank piece of paper. It was clean and white and smelled like a fresh book.

"Thanks," I said.

The monster nodded. He looked at the burning house. He looked at the adults taking selfies in the middle of the fire. Then, he lay down in the grass and turned back into a cloud of glitter. The glitter didn't stay in a box. It floated up into the air and got lost among the stars.

I stayed there for a long time. The house made a loud whump sound as the roof fell in. A few sparks flew up into the sky. I wondered if Jim got his selfie. I wondered if Betty liked the lighting. The mountain was very big, and the fire was very small, and for a second, everything was finally quiet.