Picture: Evie's dream castle life on the left and Evie's real castle life on the right
Bow Wow Castle Complex, April 5, 2016
02:14 local time,
City of Cuyahoga Castles, Sovereignty of Ohio, UCSS
In a far-off land, a long time ago, Evie was a princess in a
luxurious castle.
Draped in the finest silks and the brightest jewelry, she
sparkled from head to toe- a living testament to how fulfilled her life was in
that perfect moment. Servants tended to her every need, not out of obligation
but devotion, and she repaid them with kindness in turn. In the castle halls,
everyone seemed to move in quiet harmony, as though nothing had ever gone
wrong.
That morning, Evie rose from her bed fully rested, wrapped
in the comfort of the finest linens. She dressed herself- a riding shirt
beneath a fitted bodice, a skirt meant for the saddle, soft leather boots, and
a light cloak over her shoulders. She braided her hair with her own hands,
unhurried, content.
In the courtyard, her trusted steed Stanley waited. He
greeted her as he always did, pressing a wet kiss to her cheek.
“Oh, Stanley,” Evie laughed, wiping her face. “You treat me
so well. Would you like to go for a ride around the courtyard today?”
Stanley neighed enthusiastically- because Stanley always
said yes.
They rode together beneath the warm summer sun, hooves
striking stone and grass as the country air rushed past her. Evie leaned
forward in the saddle, laughing freely, feeling the world open beneath her in
every stride.
This was life…and it was beautiful.
Then the steady drip pulled her awake.
Stone replaced silk. Cold replaced warmth. Hard springs and
cheap foam replaced the soft, fluffy horsehairs and fathers. The dream faded,
leaving behind only the ache of the life she wished she had- and the quiet
certainty that it had never truly been hers at all.
Evie got up to find her mother, Stacy, and her brother,
Cameron, already examining the leak. Like many of the residents of Cuyahoga
Castles, the Sicarios actually lived inside castles, but this was not the idyllic
experience of her dreams or the fantasies the tourists imagined.
No one knew, exactly, who built the castles along the Rocky
River just west of Cleveland. Historians suspect they were built by the Empire
of Buffalo somewhere in the 8th and 9th centuries as
Buffalo expanded, and thus the castles served as trading posts instead of
military outposts as they were in Europe. At some point in the 15th
century, before European activity in the Great Lakes, the Iroquois took over
and they used them as defence against European aggression, in particular the
expeditions of the Romans and the British.
By the late 18th century, when the United States
of America took over the area, the castles had been abandoned after decades of
wars between the Iroquois and the Europeans, but the Americans believed in
preserving them, with President John Adams even believing the castles to be
worthy enough to be a Presidential Palace. Unfortunately, their engineers
struggled to retrofit the castles into something that could accommodate modern
luxury, and whatever work that had been done to the castles was abandoned in
the wake of the American Civil War. When the Republic of Columbia took over the
territory in the wake of the American collapse, it had neither the time nor the
resources to really finish the job the Americans started, resulting in a
patchwork that they said was “good enough”.
So the castles were never really built for comfort, and
their layout was far more workmanlike than paradise. Their walls were thick,
their rooms vast or awkwardly narrow, their layouts shaped by defense and
storage rather than domestic life. Over time, those spaces had been divided,
subdivided, and redivided again- great halls split into apartments, towers
turned into stacked bedrooms, former guardrooms repurposed as kitchens and
living spaces.
No two apartments were alike. Engineers had been forced to
fight the odd geometry of an architectural beast never meant for modern living.
Stair lifts replaced elevators where shafts could not be cut. Insulation was
uneven, installed only where stone allowed it. Modern utilities were added
where they could be and routed where they had to be — pipes running openly
along ancient walls, radiators hissing through winter, wiring clinging to stone
that had been standing for a thousand years. Concrete sealant patched the
damage left by wind and water, but erosion was patient; new cracks always
formed, awkward and uninvited, reminders that the castles endured in spite of
every attempt to tame them.
Bow Wow Castle, for its part, seemed especially resistant to
containment. Its courtyard sloped unevenly beneath strange masonry and stranger
acoustics, overgrown in places where maintenance never quite held. Dogs-
domesticated and feral alike- favored it instinctively, drawn to spaces where
sound lingered and barriers confused rather than stopped. Electric fences and
modern barricades were installed and reinstalled over the years, each one only
half-effective, as if the castle itself refused to cooperate.
The work was functional, uneven, and permanent in the way
temporary solutions always became.
The result was housing that was solid but never warm,
distinctive but never comfortable. The castles endured. The people inside them
adapted.
Evie’s apartment occupied a wedge-shaped section of the
south tower, carved out of what had once been a storage level. The outer walls
were bare stone, uneven and perpetually cold, while the interior partitions
were thin drywall added later, stopping just short of the old arches. In
certain corners, the castle’s original curves pushed through, subtle but
insistent, as if the building were reminding its occupants that it had never
been meant to bend this way.
The main room served as kitchen, living space, and passage
all at once. A narrow counter ran beneath a deep-set window cut into the stone,
its sill broad but never warm. Cabinets had been bolted directly into the rock
and no two hung quite straight. The floor sloped slightly toward the outer wall-
not enough to notice until something spilled.
Evie’s sleeping area sat just beyond a half wall that didn’t
reach the ceiling. Her bed was positioned carefully away from the stone seams,
close enough to feel the cold radiating from them but far enough to avoid the
worst of the damp. The leak announced itself a few feet away, along the outer
wall near the corner where stone met drywall. Water darkened the masonry there,
gathered slowly, and fell with patient regularity into a bucket Cameron had set
on the floor.
Stacy stood nearby, tracing the stain with her eyes. She was
convinced the water wasn’t coming straight down from above, but seeping inward
from an exterior channel higher in the tower- an old drainage groove meant to
carry rain away from battlements that no longer existed. Years of erosion had
widened it just enough to let moisture slip inside, where it traveled unseen
through stone and insulation before finding its way out.
The bathroom, tucked off the main room, didn’t help. Its
ceiling was low, its fan unreliable, and damp clung to the air no matter how
long the window was cracked. Stacy suspected the humidity fed the problem,
giving the castle more water than it was ever willing to give back.
Nothing in the apartment was broken. Everything functioned-
unevenly, imperfectly, and with quiet insistence. The castle did not intrude
dramatically. It simply reminded them, drip by drip, that modern living here
was an accommodation, not a right.
Evie leaned against the half wall, listening to the bucket
fill. The sound was steady- distant enough to tolerate, close enough to ignore
only if she tried.
“Is someone going to fix it?” Evie asked, arms folded tight
inside her hoodie.
“I gotta call them tomorrow,” Stacy said, eyes fixed on the
drip as she nudged the bucket a fraction of an inch, “but who knows how many
weeks that’ll buy us.”
Evie sighed and drifted toward the kitchen. She wasn’t sure
what bothered her more about the apartment: the cold, foreboding weight of the
walls, the spotty cell service, the way the temperature seemed to change its
mind hourly, or the strange sounds that traveled too easily through stone never
meant to separate lives.
She opened one of the cabinets.
Her favorite gummy snacks lay torn open inside, the bag
ripped and its contents scattered across the floor.
“Cam,” Evie said, half angry, half exhausted, “did you open
my gummies again?”
“No,” Cameron said immediately- too immediately- before
launching into his defense. “The quokkas must’ve struck again.”
The quokkas.
It was always the quokkas.
That was what Evie hated most about Bow Wow Castle.
Evie sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. She picked a
few gummies off the floor and ate them anyway, deciding she didn’t care anymore
where they’d been. Caring felt like work, and she was already tired.
She went back to her room and crawled into bed, piling every
comforter she could find on top of herself in a clumsy, uneven stack. It didn’t
help much. The cold still found its way in, slipping through stone and fabric
alike.
She wrapped herself tighter, turning the blankets into a
makeshift cocoon, and closed her eyes.
Stanley came back to her then- the steady rhythm of hooves,
the warmth of sun and motion. The dream followed, as it always did: a noble
castle, a softer life, a version of herself who belonged somewhere without
effort.
More than anything, she wished for what Rayna had with Greg-
someone warm beside her, someone who could curl close and make the cold
irrelevant. Someone who could whisper, with certainty rather than hope, that
one day it would all get better.
Bow Wow Park, April 6, 2016
12:15 local time,
City of Cuyahoga Castles, Sovereignty of Ohio, UCSS
Evie splashed water on her face and beelined for another cup
of coffee, but the loud yawn that followed- and the shadows under her eyes-
betrayed her sleep-deprived state. As an attendant at a coffee bar at Bow Wow
Park, the so-called “dog resort” owned by the same developer as Bow Wow Castle,
she didn’t have the luxury of easing into the day. Powering through was the
only option.
Her body felt like molasses. Every movement lagged a
half-second behind her intentions, and she crossed the floor with the grace of
a giant attempting the tango — earnest, uncoordinated, and painfully aware of
every misstep.
“Wow,” said a wide-eyed tourist, turning slowly as she
fished through her purse for her credit card. “These castles look so nice. I’m jealous
you get to live inside them. It must be so much fun.”
Evie smiled on instinct- the polite, practiced version that
didn’t quite reach her eyes. The card reader chimed, and the tourist accepted
her drink with a satisfied nod, already tugging her dog along so they could
join one of the resort’s curated walking tours.
As they moved off, Rayna Embers, Evie’s best friend and also
a fellow attendant at the bar, stepped up beside Evie, watching them go.
“‘It must be so much fun’,” Rayna repeated quietly, deadpan.
Evie huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Yeah.
Especially the leaks.”
Rayna bumped her shoulder gently as she reached for the next
cup. “At least today it’s someone else’s fantasy.”
Evie glanced back at the stone walls rising around them-
clean, framed just right for photos- and then at the line of guests waiting,
cameras out, expectations high.
She put the smile back on and reached for another drink.
“Are you OK, Evie?” said Rayna, voice full of concern. “You
look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”
Evie laughed as she poured herself another cup of coffee.
“More like my apartment reminded me of why this place isn’t
a fantasy novel,” said Evie with a wry chuckle.
“Oh,” said Rayna, “what happened?”
“First,” said Evie, taking another sip of her coffee, “I was
woken up by another leak in our ceiling. Another crack in the castle wall, I
think.”
Evie then took another big swig of her coffee before continuing.
“Then,” she continued, “as if that wasn’t enough, I went for
my favourite gummies and the quokkas got to them again.”
“Oh no,” Rayna gasped.
“I went to bed,” said Evie, “and tried to sleep. I dreamt of
the courtyard and Stanley again, but my blankets were so cold that I just
wished I had someone like Greg who I could curl up with, keep me warm and tell
me I could live like a princess one day.”
Rayna smiled and wryly laughed as she washed a coffee pot.
“Greg’s not always a prince,” said Rayna, washing the pot
and putting it in the brewing station.
“Oh?” said Evie, surprised at the admission.
“Yeah,” said Rayna. “He snores…loud. Like the castle’s trying
to breathe back.”
Evie laughed- a real one this time- and hated herself just a
little for how much she still wanted that problem.
They paused their conversation as Ryler Riccoli stepped onto
the small stage, doing so like he already knew it wouldn’t argue with him. He
wore a denim jacket he’d clearly lived in- open, sleeves softened by time- and
carried his guitar with an easy familiarity that came from hours, not lessons.
When he adjusted the strap, it was muscle memory, not nerves.
He tested a chord. Then another.
They rang clean.
He then stepped forward to the mic with the purposefulness
of making an announcement.
“Um,” he said with a nonchalant deadpan. “This is a song?”
The audience looked baffled upon his statement. Evie and
Rayna both gave each other a look that said, “does this guy even know what he’s
doing?” but Ryler then began to play so they didn’t have too much time to dwell
on it.
When he did start playing, it was immediately obvious he
knew what he was doing. His fingers moved with confidence, drifting and then
snapping back into place, shaping melodies that felt intentional even when they
wandered. The song wasn’t tight, but it was alive- lyrics folding over
themselves, reframing lines mid-verse, finding hooks by accident and keeping
them because they worked.
Ryler leaned into the mic without urgency.
“I’ve been messing around with this one,” he said, like that
explained everything.
It did, mostly.
The crowd didn’t hush because they were told to. They did
because something in the room had settled. Even the dogs went quiet, heads
tilted, as if the sound had found a frequency they recognized.
Ryler smiled when he hit a line just right- not proud,
exactly, but pleased, the way someone is when they’ve surprised themselves.
He ended the song gently, letting the final chord hang until
it decided on its own to fade.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding once. “That’s it.”
The audience still applauded- not a thunderous ovation, but
genuine, appreciative claps. Even Evie and Rayna joined in. Rayna caught
Ryler’s eye and gave him a thumbs-up, and he answered with one of his crooked,
goofy smiles.
“Thanks,” he said, punctuating it with a quiet, breathy
laugh- uneven, self-amused, like the sound surprised him on the way out.
Ryler lingered onstage, puttering with his guitar and
mumbling his thanks to the audience, adding that he thought he had a few more
songs if people didn’t mind. He adjusted a cable, tested a string, and seemed
content to exist in the space he’d created.
As he set up again, Carl Ratzinger and Pratley Casmire
slipped into seats near the back, still mid-conversation.
“I really don’t know how you do it, Prat,” Carl said,
shaking his head. “Girls just throw themselves at you. Meanwhile, I try to be a
decent guy and all I get are girls who blow me off.”
Pratley smirked. “Rat, how many times do I have to tell you?”
he said. “Women don’t want a knight in shining armor. They don’t want to be a
princess.” He waved a hand dismissively. “That’s romance-novel bulls***.”
Carl frowned. “So what,” he said, “I’m supposed to be a
jerk?”
“No,” Pratley said easily. “You’re not supposed to be mean.
You’re just supposed to stop being so… safe.” He leaned back in his chair.
“They want someone unpredictable. A bad boy. Someone exciting. Someone they
think they can fix.”
“I don’t know,” Carl said after a moment. “I don’t think I
can be like that.”
Pratley chuckled. “You don’t have to be like me,” he said.
“You just have to stop being so sickly sweet that I get a toothache listening
to you.”
Onstage, Ryler strummed a chord and smiled to himself,
oblivious. He drifted into his next song and once again caught the room — even
Carl and Pratley, who both found themselves listening despite themselves.
“Didn’t expect him to be this good,” Pratley muttered.
Ryler played a few more songs. They were loose and
half-finished, wandering wherever they felt like going, but beneath the
meandering lay melodies that danced- hints of something great if they were ever
forced to settle. When he finished, the applause was louder this time,
boisterous and genuine. Ryler accepted it with a sheepish grin, an exaggerated,
breathy laugh, and a flat, almost startled, “Thanks,” before slipping offstage.
He dropped into a chair near the back and reached for his
pocket.
“Ryler,” Rayna called out without looking up. “No smoking in
the stage area.”
“Oh- right. Sorry,” he said, hands already retreating as he
slouched into his seat, entirely unfazed.
That was when Richard Head, dean of Bow Wow Way Collegiate,
sat down beside him without invitation.
“That was a marvelous job,” Head said, his stentorian voice
cutting cleanly through the noise. “With the right adjustments — the proper
discipline — you could be a prominent musician.”
“Uh,” Ryler said. “Thanks… I guess?”
“I mean it,” Head pressed. “Frankly, I don’t understand you.
You’re clearly talented. Smarter than you look.” He smiled thinly. “So why
don’t you try? Don’t you want to be something?”
Ryler shifted in his chair, gaze drifting back toward the
empty stage.
While Head continued his lecture, the MC scanned the room
for the next performer. Nearby, Pratley leaned toward Carl, already whispering
encouragement — or something that sounded like it.
“Come on,” Pratley said. “You talk about wanting this. Go.”
After enough prodding, Carl stood.
He reached the stage looking like he might bolt at any
moment.
“Um,” he said into the mic, voice thin. “I’m… I’m Carl.”
A few people smiled. Someone waved. Someone else called out,
“Hi, Carl,” and the crowd laughed- Carl included, the sound nervous but real.
“I-I’ve always wanted to be a singer,” Carl continued,
stumbling forward on the words. “P-play on a stage. Maybe at a festival
someday, but-”
He stopped, took a breath, then another.
“I have a song,” he said, fumbling through his pockets until
he produced a wrinkled sheet of paper. His hands shook. “I was going to sing it
but… I don’t have a guitar.”
Almost instantly, Ryler was on his feet.
He was back onstage before the hesitation could turn into
panic, guitar already in hand.
“It’s okay, man,” Ryler said easily, flashing Carl a wide,
genuine smile. “You lead. I’ll follow.”
Carl blinked. “Are you sure?”
“Totally,” Ryler said- confident, effortless- and just like
that, Carl’s shoulders dropped an inch.
What followed wasn’t a masterclass. Ryler’s playing gave the
song shape and atmosphere, easing the audience into it, but Carl’s lyrics
tangled over themselves, overworked and overwrought. He oversang, reaching too
hard for moments the song hadn’t earned yet.
Still- it worked.
Not perfectly…but enough.
When the applause faded, Carl stood frozen with it, caught
between gratitude and panic. The room waited. He had nothing left.
Ryler glanced over and stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“You don’t have to be done,” he said. “We could do a cover.
Something easy.”
Carl shook his head immediately. “I- I don’t-”
From the back, Pratley leaned forward in his seat, grinning.
“Come on,” he called out. “Do Not That Way.”
A beat.
Pratley laughed, louder now. “The Sidestreet Singers. That’s
Carl’s favorite.”
The room reacted before Carl could- murmurs, a few surprised
cheers, someone already humming the melody. Carl felt his stomach drop. He
stared out at the crowd, then back at Pratley, betrayed and seen all at once.
Ryler blinked, processing it in real time. He looked at Carl-
really looked this time- and waited.
“You want me to?” he asked, quietly.
Carl didn’t answer. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded
just once.
Ryler turned back to the mic and strummed the opening chords
of the Cantonese boy band’s hit, careful and familiar. Recognition swept the
room. A few voices joined in almost immediately, tentative at first, then
stronger.
Ryler kept the rhythm steady, unshowy, leaving space.
Carl hovered at the microphone, heart pounding. The words
were already there, waiting- the song he’d never admitted to loving, the one he
knew better than anything he’d written himself.
Someone in the crowd sang the first line.
Then another voice joined.
Carl swallowed and leaned in.
At first, he barely sang, letting the room carry him. The
melody, though, was muscle memory, and slowly his voice emerged- shaky,
earnest, real. By the chorus, he was singing along with them, not over them,
not behind them.
Ryler glanced over once, nodded, and kept playing.
Carl barely had time to breathe before Ryler shifted the
rhythm again, smiling like he’d found something worth staying with.
“Same band?” he asked, already playing.
Carl laughed- a breathless, disbelieving sound- and nodded.
The second Sidestreet Singers song landed easier. Carl
didn’t overthink it this time. He leaned into the melody, trusted the crowd,
trusted himself. The lyrics still weren’t perfect, but they didn’t need to be.
When the song ended, the applause came fast and loud, dogs barking again as if
they understood this one mattered.
Carl stepped offstage shaking, grinning like he might float
away if no one stopped him.
Evie did.
“Hey,” she said, catching his sleeve before he could
disappear. “That was… really good.”
Carl blinked. “R-really?”
She nodded, smiling wide now. “I’m a huge Sidestreet Singers
fan. Like, huge.” She laughed, suddenly a little shy herself. “You should add
me on FriendZone. We can message about them.”
“Oh- yeah. Yeah!” Carl said quickly, already reaching for
his phone. Evie found herself in the search results and clicked the “add”
button herself. Carl was about to ask Evie to accept the friend request before
remembering something. “Oh, right-”
“I’m working,” Evie said, lifting her hands. “No phone…but
I’ll add you when I can. Promise.”
They hugged- awkward at first, then not. Carl pulled back
just enough to look at her, eyes bright, and before his nerves could catch up,
he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
Evie didn’t hesitate.
She kissed him back, quick and warm, just enough to leave
him stunned.
The room seemed to notice all at once.
Rayna raised an eyebrow. Ryler smiled to himself. Even
Pratley went quiet, watching something he hadn’t expected to work actually
work.
Carl stood there grinning like the world had finally tilted
his way.
Evie squeezed his hand once before stepping back toward the
counter.
Sparks lingered in the air long after the music faded.
Everyone could feel it.
Carl walked away on unsteady legs, already cataloging the
many ways he might screw it up- no matter how often Pratley clapped him on the
shoulder and told him to relax.
Rayna leaned in toward Evie, lowering her voice. “So,” she
said lightly. “What did you think of Carl?”
