Even If We Break

by Marieke Nijkamp

  “Maybe the cabin is haunted after all.”

  “Liva…”

  I stare at the fireplace, but I can’t seem to focus. I’m a million ants in a trench coat. I haven’t picked up the puzzle box yet, and the roar of the fire and the crashing of Carter’s mug echoes in my ears. If I was a lacrosse defender still, I would go running now, and I wouldn’t stop until I ate the grass.

  I like that image: eating grass.

  “Did you do it? Did you rig the fireplace? Play into the ghost story?”

  The world is twisting and turning, and tension crawls up from my knee. I hate ghost stories, and I hate people playing into ghost stories more. I hate the sound of things crashing, because I can feel it in my bones. I hate not being able to remember how to breathe. I hate everything. I hate them all.

  “Maddy?”

  The power comes back and a light flicks on. Finn’s face filters into my vision. Furrowed eyebrows. Worry, perhaps. Impatience.

  “Maddy, are you okay? Look at me.”

  I try to focus, but there’s a disconnect between my body and my mind, like nothing about it fits anymore. I don’t feel like I belong in this body, I don’t know how to interact with this world. It feels like I’m observing through a veil, and I don’t know how to move. Panic is a type of pain too.

  In my periphery, Liva laughs, and there’s an edge of scorn to it. “Why would I? I mean, I did tell Ever about the ghost story, so they could weave it into their introduction. You can’t have such a cool setting and all these legends without at least doing something with it. But no, I didn’t break the five-thousand-dollar fireplace for atmosphere, Carter.”

  “I’m sure Carter didn’t mean anything by it. It is your cabin, after all.”

  Ever’s words are met by silence. An intake of breath. “I know. I just don’t like the suspicion. I’m not responsible for everything all of the time. And besides…” Liva’s voice drops. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I also don’t believe in angering them.”

  My hands claw and tremble at those words.

  “Will you all shut up?” Finn’s voice. Anger.

  I flinch away from that too.

  “Maddy. C’mon, focus on us.” Ever’s face appears next to Finn. They keep their voice level, gentle. Do they lean in? Tilt their head? So much nonverbal communication is tone of voice too, but Ever is in game mode now, and their tone is neutral and unreadable. They built feet-thick walls around themself. “Is it too much? Too loud?”

  That sounds reasonable. It makes sense. I nod, but it’s as if my body reacts a moment later, as if I’m not fully in control.

  “May I touch you?” Ever reaches out a hand to me, and I stiffen.

  “Okay.” They withdraw their hand, but otherwise stay exactly where they are. “It was only a malfunction. I know it’s uncomfortable and you’re overwhelmed, but it was an accident, nothing more. Nothing will happen.”

  I hate that word. Accident.

  It was an accident too when a truck crashed into my car and mangled my leg under the metal. It was an accident when the car caught fire—even the fire department said so. It was an accident, but I should consider myself lucky that I made it out alive.

  I keep seeing the flames.

  “Slow breaths, Maddy. In and out. That’s it.” Ever’s voice is calm and low. I try to follow their counting, while my hands crawl to my knee, and my fingers dig deep into the skin.

  I wish I could see. I want to understand. I hate being so overwhelmed.

  In the background, Liva refuses to be silenced for long. “C’mon, I get being afraid of a ghost story. I remember the first time my father told me about the murders too; I didn’t sleep in the cabin for almost a month, and when I did, I had to keep all the lights on. I checked for bloody prints and songs everywhere. But my point is, I was eight and I didn’t know any better.”

  “Gods, Liva, some days you’re absolutely insufferable, you know that?”

  “So what, she’s triggered? Is that it? It’s only a story.”

  There’s so much scorn when Liva talks to Carter, and it’s always mutual. The richest kid of Stardust High and the wannabe rich kid. From the very first moment, the two of them loved to hate each other, but while they fight hard, they also play hard. Or used to, anyway.

  “Are you really that ignorant? Maddy is freaking out, and you peddle some nonsense about how she should suck it up? Triggers are reminders of trauma,” Finn snaps, though the words make it sound as if he’s repeating something someone told him. “If you’ve never been triggered, you should be thankful for that, because being forced back into the worst experiences of your life isn’t great. Being stuck in fight-or-flight mode and not knowing if you can push your way through is absolutely terrifying. And maybe Maddy was overwhelmed by stimuli and nothing more, because that’s also the way her brain works, but you could try being a friend instead of being touchy about it. It’s not a good look.”

  In the silence that follows, I push my fingers deeper into my knee. The breathing doesn’t ground me, but the pain centers me. It brings me back to my body. It reminds me I’m still here and this pain, at least, I can control.

  As the pain clears my mind and overwhelms me in a more familiar way, I can see Liva stare at us, her cloak pulled tight around herself until it makes her look smaller. At Finn and Ever, crouched over me, and Carter with his back turned toward her. She narrows her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. It’s still just a story, and you don’t have to get upset about it.” She sounds almost petulant. “And also, I am her friend.”

  Ever sighs. They rock to their feet and walk toward Liva, while I push myself up to a chair, leaning on my bad leg on purpose.

  We’re all such liars. Liva was my friend once. One of my closest. She and I and Zac spent endless afternoons together. They’d come to my games, and I’d been a foil for Liva’s parents.

  But something happened after the accident to push us apart. Maybe she decided to follow her father’s footsteps. He doesn’t have friends, believes that emotions are weakness. Or maybe we were never that close to begin with.

  Maybe I happened. Maybe I’ve been pushing her away.

  The others showed up, though. Finn and I grew closer after the accident. He came by the hospital. He went to PT with me. He let me ask him anything I wanted to know about pain and how to deal with it, although the answers weren’t always what I wanted to hear. None of my doctors told me about how pain wears you down until you sometimes don’t know where physical pain stops and mental pain begins. They didn’t tell me about the anger and the fear and the helplessness. Finn told me and then, when I finally let him, held me while I let it all sink in.

  I never asked him about painkillers, though. I swung by his medicine cabinet a few times, but I didn’t want to take the stuff he needed. I only ever asked Carter to buy me new ones when my prescriptions ran out.

  Because Carter was the only one who was allowed to take my hand and hold it without asking. Because I knew his body language better than my own. Because he was the other half of me, BTA and ATA. We were close and drifted apart. We foolishly tried to date once before we realized what a terrible idea that was. But no matter how much he and I changed individually, we didn’t. He was like a brother to me, before I knew any of the others, and I knew he could keep secrets well.

  Besides, he didn’t seem to mind spending the money. He had enough of it.

  Carter kneels in front of my chair now, right next to Finn, and brushes my fingers with his. “Do you need a moment, Mad?”

  I lean toward him, twisting my knee on purpose. Finn never told me how reassuring physical pain can be. It sends a thrill through me. A restless trembling that leaves me breathless—a hunger. “I’m okay. I just…” I wave a hand. “What Finn said. Too many things happening all at once.”

  Carter’s shoulders drop as he breathes out. Relief. Soft humor. “Good. I
would hate to have to carry you down this mountain.”

  I softly punch his shoulder. “No chance.”

  “With all the strength you’ve amassed photocopying papers and running around with coffee orders?” Finn puts in.

  Carter mock gasps. “Not all of us can hack their way into college, dude.”

  “It’s called development.”

  “Fine. What I do is called an administrative apprenticeship.”

  “Fine.”

  Finn’s words snap, but there’s a smile in his eyes when he looks at me.

  I turn my hand so my fingers curl around Carter’s. “I’m going to…throw some water on my face and maybe change into something a little more comfortable.” It’s far enough into the night that I could do with a hoodie instead of the opera cape. It’s a decent excuse, though I don’t need one after that trick my brain pulled.

  Carter helps me to my feet, and when I stand, my leg seems to be on fire. Perhaps that’s why my brain freaked out too. I had something for the pain around dinner, but that feels like hours ago. On days when I don’t know where physical pain stops and mental pain begins, I need a solution to both.

  The hallway is filled with shadows—when did it get so dark, anyway? I hold my fingers to the wall for a sense of security. No matter how clear I made it to Liva that I didn’t want to hear her ghost stories, she always told me just enough before I could cut her off.

  Some said murderers never leave Lonely Peak, that there’s always one.

  Some said the shadows are alive and like to play games.

  Some said, in the darkness, you can feel the victims reach out for help.

  * * *

  Once in my room, I dive to my bag and riffle around in the locked compartment until I find my bottle of pills. I reach in and grab a few, maybe three or four. When my doctor prescribed them to me, she told me I shouldn’t take more than three on a daily basis, but that was a long time ago.

  As I swallow them down, the panic that’s still at the edges of my mind crawls a bit closer again. Whispering at me that tonight, the pills won’t help. Tonight, the pills won’t be enough.

  But as I chase it with water and breathe, the edges begin to dull and my head grows lighter. I can feel myself smile, unconsciously. My shoulders relax. My knee doesn’t ache so much, and I feel calmer. More like myself.

  I stare at the painting of a dark and stormy sea on the wall.

  Everything around me dulls, and the restless trembling is replaced by a comfortable buzz. This is the only thing that keeps me standing.

  Now that I’m not cowering away from the world anymore, I can see it far more clearly. The shadows are empty. The deep darkness is nothing more than storm clouds obscuring the moon, and the darkness makes the world softer. There’s less everything all at once.

  Except. When I place my cloak over a hanger on my door and pull a linen hoodie over my clothes, I am absolutely sure I see the cloak ripple. The arms reach up and toward me.

  And I all but run back through the shadows to the living room, back to the game.

  As your investigation brings you deeper into Yester Tower, you’ve narrowed your focus to Councilwoman Yester’s atelier, where she worked on all her inventions. More information about her various contacts might be found there.

  The deeper you circle into the castle, the more you notice wards around this place that disobey council guidelines, to say the least. Trigger plates near her cabinets that are not merely warded with familiar defenses, but complemented by unreadable chalk markings and lore words. The door lights up with a soft crimson glow.

  You find three more carvings—a boar, some kind of catlike creature on six legs, and a hound. All the carvings are crude, and they all seem magical. With how they’re placed throughout the tower, it’s almost as if they’re observing your every action. As if someone’s playing a game with you.

  The air around the tower smells pungent and sweet, of magic and decay.

  In a world where the council has worked hard to eradicate even the faintest trace of rogue magic, seeing it on the doorstep of one of the council’s finest is troubling. It’s hard to believe one of your own would betray you.

  So when you reach the door you think must be the atelier, you steel yourself against what you may find inside. That is, if you manage to get inside. The floor in front of the door is covered with crimson markings that simmer with power. There is an icy cool air coming from the room itself. You keep your distance, at first. You all know from experience—and some, well, more unfortunate investigations—that a simple door or a simple ward might be an insurmountable challenge. Some locks, you’ve come to learn, are not destined to be picked. Some locks you can break your teeth on—and your keys on. Some wards can burrow beneath your skin and bite. You hope this isn’t one of those.

  At the same time, you also know you are the council’s best. You have no option.

  You have to try.

  Eight

  Liva

  There’s a tension in the air. I wonder if anyone else can feel it. When Ever describes music boxes inside the councilwoman’s tower, I can’t help but imagine them here, like they were in all those stories, echoing in the distance.

  “We should counterspell that ward,” Maddy suggests. After the panic attack, or whatever it was, she has thrown herself into the game completely. Or rather, she has thrown herself headfirst into her character, and I understand that. When she’s playing as Myrre, she doesn’t have to be afraid or broken. The game allows us to try on different people.

  A sense of discomfort has fallen over the group. Something no one can shake. It was the same after Zac left, except I thought we were past that now.

  I grit my teeth. “Unless it’s warded against sabotage. Remember that time in Kilspindle Fort?”

  Next to me, Carter flinches. “Why do you have to bring that up?” Kilspindle Fort was one of our first quests together, a few weeks after we started our Rune and Lore club—then still known as the Gnomic Utterances Tabletop Society, after one of Ever’s favorite books and because they didn’t settle on a name for their system immediately.

  In the quest, we were sent to the countryside to investigate the disappearance of two teen girls. We discovered the girls were part of a militant anti-magic group, part of an underground network that crawled its way through Gonfalon and its surrounding villages. The network hid their correspondence in a strongbox, half-buried underneath the roots of a tree. Carter spotted the strongbox first, but he never checked the weird collections of leaves and twigs around it. He simply tried to brush them away, and the next thing any of us knew, he was flying backwards, landing flat on his back. He barely survived.

  I stare at him. “Because we’re trying to learn from our mistakes.”

  “When have we ever?” he counters.

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “I can try to sneak in?” Maddy offers.

  “Cor and I’ll investigate first.” On my other side, Finn grabs a piece of chocolate off a plate, though his hands are trembling. He’s still not meeting my eyes. “Lente is…not wrong.”

  I’m very careful not to smile.

  All our characters fall into their traditional roles. Corrin—that’s Carter—and Feather—Finn—are our prime explorers and magic users. Maddy, as Myrre, is our thief, the very best at sneaking around and not being noticed. She used to team up well with Zac, who played our assassin. And my character, Lente, is the reluctant healer, here to protect anyone from harm.

  We’ve all found our way around the fireplace again—though I’ve shut its power off permanently, and we make do with lamps and candles for mood instead—and all we have in front of us are snacks and dice. After an afternoon and an evening of figuring out the various traps of the castle, it’s too dark now to try to unlock chests or solve puzzles. This last part is pure pen, paper, and dice role play.
Outside of our circle of light, the world may as well have ceased to exist.

  These have always been my favorite moments.

  This, I will miss. If I were anyone else but Leonard Konig’s daughter, I might have considered going into costume design as a career instead. But Father would never let me, and frankly, I don’t want to. I want to be more. I want to be everything.

  “I recognize value where I see it,” Father said once, after I started working for him. “And you should too, if you’re to take over this place one day. Recognize it and be on your guard against it. People like those friends of yours, they don’t see the world the same way we do. They will claim a part of it, and if you don’t work hard enough, they will claim your part of it.”

  I narrowed my eyes, recognizing a threat when I heard one. “I’ll work harder, then.”

  Father nodded. “See that you do. You’re by far the most talented person in this building, Liva. Don’t waste that talent. Don’t waste your birthright.”

  I smiled thinly. “Yes, sir.”

  I hated him, then. I hated him for pushing me harder than I thought I could be pushed, for seeing potential when I thought I’d dug to the bottom of it. But I loved him for it too. I loved that he believed my possibilities were endless.

  Finn and Carter both use skill points and rolls to gather as much information as they can about the ward, only to find out what we already assumed. Devouring magic. Powerful and doubly warded.

  “Three hells, what was the councilwoman hiding here?” Maddy grumbles.

  She pushes forward a little to check for any other clues aside from the glyphs. Doors or trapdoors. Footprints. Anything.

  In her haste, she trips, knocking into Finn and Carter.

  She sends them off balance, breaking the spell Feather and Corrin are casting.

  Disaster strikes.

  Ever, the only one who has been walking around, crouches next to me, their voice low. “You see the signs light up to a bright red that extends from the glyphs. It follows a winding path through the sky. Then, the symbols flash.”