The Fortress in the Middle of Everything

Paintbrush Mountain stood right in the heart of Fairy Tale Land — bold, tall, and impossible to miss.

It wasn't really a mountain, of course. It was a fortress built to look like one, with two towers shaped like giant paintbrushes rising from its peak. From a distance, it looked like someone had pushed two enormous brushes into the sky and just left them there.

Ms. Paintbrush Dragon liked it that way.

She landed on the wide stone balcony near the eastern tower, folded her teal wings behind her, and took a slow breath of mountain air. Her orange scales caught the late afternoon light, and her blue-and-black supersuit barely had a wrinkle, which pleased her.

Below, on the grassy hillside, seven small kid goats were chasing each other in wild, noisy circles while their mother watched from the shade.

"Every single afternoon," Ms. Paintbrush Dragon said with a grin. "Like clockwork."

Then, somewhere deep beneath her boots, something rumbled.

The Song Beneath the Stone

The rumble came again — deeper this time, like something enormous turning over in its sleep.

Ms. Paintbrush Dragon spun toward the fortress doors. Before she could move, a second shudder hit, and the entire stone balcony tilted three inches to the left.

From the hillside below, the mother goat — a calm, white adult goat who rarely made a fuss about anything — let out a sharp cry.

"My babies!"

Ms. Paintbrush Dragon looked down and her stomach dropped.

The seven little kid goats had been chasing each other toward the fortress entrance when the first rumble happened. Now they were inside. All seven of them.

The heavy stone doors had already swung shut with a grinding boom.

Then the cracks started — thin, fast lines splitting up both paintbrush towers like someone drawing them on with a pencil, starting at the bottom and racing toward the sky.

A chunk of stone the size of a wagon broke loose from the left tower and crashed down the mountainside.

The whole fortress was coming apart.