Mercuria was the next one to play in the Circle of Amplifiers at her grandfather’s funeral, who refused to be buried when the moment arrived. Her mother had played the drums frenetically, and her father played his bass alongside her uncle, interpreting a smooth melody, and now she was advancing to the stage they had placed under the view of all the assistants, feeling their eyes penetrate her skin and watch the fear inside growing. The girl connected the amplifiers’ cable to her guitar, Revolutionary, a black and brown Fender Stratocaster with drawings of flames and stars, respectively on the lower and superior halves, and stems with thorns that ended in beautiful flowers that surrounded a golden crown and ascended through the neck, in such a good state that spoke of both its quality and the care it received. She grabbed her favourite pick with the right hand and looked at the burning pyre on which the old man was, with his arms crossed over his chest and the hands making the sign of the horns, slowly fading into eternity as ashes.

“This is for you grandpa”

Mercuria was determined to show her emotions with her guitar, all the pain, the joy, the anger, everything. The sorrow wouldn’t sadden the sound, enjoying it and celebrating the memory of the old man, his life and all that he brought to others; as he wanted. She placed the fingers in position and strummed the strings, starting a solo of moderate velocity, neither very fast nor very slow, causing the wind around her and in front the amplifiers to turn into coloured lights that surrounded the burning wooden structure. When she finished she left a long silence of eight quarter notes, making the lights to flicker and progressively go out. She then picked up accelerating the rhythm, changing to the style of Hard Rock, the deceased’s favourite and of herself, and an exit valve for her frustration, for the betrayal she felt her grandfather’s death meant, for being such a damn selfish brat that couldn’t let go the brightest light in the confusion. None of all that mattered as she was absorbed by the music and focused on the movement of her fingers.

The grass and the hair of the assistants stood on end under Mercuria’s spell, as well as the fire that was burning the pyre, which under the command of her notes adopted the form of a great elongated dragon that opened its maw and devoured the entire pyre as Mercuria pressed the string, maintaining a last sad whisper of her instrument as tears rolled down her cheek despite smiling.

“Goodbye gramps”

Her grandfather’s death had affected her deeply, with his stories and songs accompanying her as she grew up, giving wings to her knowledge and imagination and always bursting with joy whenever he stopped traveling and came to visit. She always enjoyed the stories he told her when he came back from his travels around the world with his motorbike and his guitar, the Wayfinder. He had ridden the Crazy Train, defeated a spinetearer with his instrument, visited the monument of Kiala, the Four-Armed Beast, took part in races with his bike against the Crazy Engines and the Metal Fuckers and much more.

After picking up everything and say goodbye to all the attendants, Mercuria and her family got on the bus, black with flames painted, to return home. As soon as she entered, Mercuria placed herself on a seat separated from the rest, wanting to be alone, with her guitar inside its briefcase to her side, and took out of one of her pockets the copy of her grandfather’s testament. She had already read it before when she knew about the death, but she lost control of her emotions and couldn’t continue and see what she had in inheritance. This was a moment as good as any other.

She opened the envelope, unfolded the paper and read carefully after the death notification, and opened her eyes as much as she could.

“Fuck,” Mercuria spoke to herself the only word that could express her surprise.

She couldn’t believe it, her grandfather left her his chopper motorbike, the leather jacket, his journal and the very Wayfinder, some of his most prized possessions. She continued reading voraciously and saw that amongst the elder’s legacy was also a box with an unspecified content and a personal letter written by hand. She finished and decided that she had to pick everything up as soon as possible when they returned to the house, what made the way back long and uncomfortable, with every minute feeling like an hour and expressed by a constant shake of her leg all the journey. Suddenly, the bus made a harsh move and stopped, forcing Mercuria to instinctively hang onto whatever she could reach first and get up afterward to see the cause behind it.

“Motherfucker, learn to drive!” said Lita, Mercuria’s mother, enraged as she pulled her head out of the window and shouted every kind of profanity against a group driving in a convertible driving at full speed, sticking her arm out and showing them the middle finger before they could get too far away.

“Assholes,” muttered Lita before calming down.

Mercuria’s mother settled on the driver’s seat, shook her blond curly hair, pulled her red leather mittens back, grabbed the wheel and stepped on the accelerator again. Lita was, without doubt, a flamboyant woman, with her purple lips and the silver studs on them contrasting with her white skin and her nails painted with different rock symbols, which alongside her choice of clothes what made her similar in some way to her recently deceased father and vastly different in others, usually with a simple yet colourful attire, even with a liking for leather. Mercuria thought once again how her mother’s attitude went so well with her instrument of choice, the drums, that most wouldn’t discover the caring and playful sides of her persona.

As soon as everything went back to normal, her father continued to improvise a melody with his bass, showcasing a taste for Blues Rock. He was a dark-skinned man with a view of life so relaxed that his style was always based in being the most comfortable possible, from his short hair to his tendency to wear sandals whenever the weather allowed it, passing from his short trousers.

When she finally saw the family home, Mercuria’s heart began to race, and her body prepared to run to it as fast as her muscles allowed when the door would open, with the guitar on her back.

“I’m going to take your motorbike Mom, it's important!” the hurried young said before her mother could answer a negative and jumped out the vehicle, going over the wild grass with her black sneakers towards her house.

Back in the bus, she had caught her mother’s attention, who watched her running away, with the wind shaking her favourite T-shirt, with an upside-down crow over a white background, which she used most of the time. Lita couldn’t hold a smile as she saw her daughter’s messy brown hair dancing around, with a thin braid hanging on the right side, always a reminder of the time she was a little girl running around the house and stepping over the garden.

“Where do you think she goes in such a hurry?” the mother asked Jaumes, wondering about the thoughts on her little monster’s head with her chin resting on her arms over the wheel.

“I’m sure it’s important,” said the girl’s father with part of his concentration still on his instrument “Maybe it has to do with her inheritance”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lita though without stopping worrying about her daughter.

A rustic and remote three-story building made with wood from a nearby sawmill, crowned by a vaulted ceiling with curved ends. Wooden supports held the upper floors, wider than the ground one, and square and circulars windows brought natural light to the interior. On the outside, a large garden was part of the property and it had been in use since the day Lita’s parents finished the building alongside a force of workers, wetting the wood with their sweat, with the girl’s grandmother still pregnant, and time somehow had only made the house look more distinguished.

Mercuria went up to the attic, jumping over many steps to get sooner, where her room was and took a jacket she had lying around, backtracking to the first floor the same way she got up. Once there, she picked up her mother’s motorcycle keys, flung the garage’s door open and put on a helmet and tinted glasses, returning her attention to the button and pressing it over and over in hopes the exit would be removed faster.

“Come on…,” the young woman muttered as she got on the device and started the engine, heading to the city when the way was clear.

She went through the road the fastest she could, taking advantage that there was no traffic, with a cold wind shaking her face and surrounded by green meadows until she reached the union with the way that led to the city, where she reduced her speed. After taking a curve she could appreciate the full landscape, that never ceased to amaze her even when she had seen it more times that she could remember: a great valley through which a perpetual rainbow crossed and on whose centre was a mountain with the form of a hand that gave the impression of closing around the colourful arch. On the right, in the mountains, was the city, whose buildings gave the impression that they were stacked one on top of another for the sole reason of defying gravity, after being built largely on the hillside itself. When Mercuria was approaching the exit, she was received by a sign with an open mouth and many drawn fingers and a long tongue pointing to the name of the place: “Wunderland”.