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The Stone Tribe

When I sleep, I walk a different world.

It's not a dream world. The land of dreams is an insubstantial plane of smoke and hallucinations, forgotten as soon as the alarm clock roars to life. My midnight existence is a very real place, both like and completely unlike the daylight world.

When I was a child the landscape was smudged, the colours bright and vivid as a crayon drawing. As I grew, my world grew with me. The trees became more realistic, the night time air sharp and tangible.

I learnt early on that my family didn't share this world. When I spoke of it to my brothers and sisters I was hushed. My parents dismissed it as a child's fantasy and so it became my secret, private joy.

When other people began appearing there, squatting amongst the ferns or hanging from the smooth boughs of the trees, I was furious. This was my domain, my retreat. Why were they intruding?

At first I only stared at them and willed them away, but their numbers continued to grow. Soon there were twenty or more. The first to speak to me was pretty Elsa. She approached while I was sitting on the riverbank, dangling my bare feet in the warm water and playing with the fish. She crept on all fours, her pink skirts trailing on the ground. When she reached my side she knelt and watched me. I pretended not to notice her so when she spoke she startled me.

"Can I play?"

"The fish won't like you" I replied.

"Let me try."

Elsa swung her legs into the water and laughed when one of the larger, golden fish brushed the soles of her feet. She turned to me triumphant, her eyes shining. "He likes me" she said.

I scowled.

"Don't be sad" Elsa said. She snaked a hand beneath my crossed arms and tickled my ribs until I smiled and laughed.

*

Elsa became my closest friend and most trusted confidante. She introduced me to the others. I met the twins, Sally and Patrick; and Big Bob, frightening at first with his tufts of midnight blue hair and bulging belly.

By the time we were ten years old we had tired of the river and the sand pit. The swings beneath the jungle canopy were childish and the waterfall no longer held the same fantastic allure. We became preoccupied with the glittering caves and underground lakes. We were explorers and would run through the passageways for hours, holding court amidst the stalactites. When we were alone in the glow of the half-dark, Elsa would ask me about my other life.

"Are you a princess there?" she asked one day. "Do you live in a castle? Or a mansion?"

I shook my head. "I

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