Avalon's Last Knight

by Jackson C. Garton

  “No, you’re not missing anything,” I finally admit. “And it’s not the first time he’s kissed me, either. I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier.”

  Arthur turns around and raises his hands in the air, then lets them drop to his sides. “I don’t understand,” he says. “I thought you said there was nothin’ to worry about, that you two were just friends? Are you lyin’ to me?”

  “You’ve kissed plenty of girls. In front of me!”

  “Yes,” he responds. “I know I have, and I can’t change that. I would if I could, but I can’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that we weren’t together then. We are now, or I thought we were anyway, and I would never dream of touchin’ another girl or guy, or whatever.”

  Arthur’s right—we weren’t together back then, and I can’t hold that against him. Not if we’re going to get past this. I have to let things go, because jealousy is not a good look.

  “And I can’t change the fact that Mordy has feelings for me. It’s not like I’m over here, trying to attract men or something. It’s not like I can help it. I’m not actually doing anything.”

  “Maybe I haven’t done a good job of showing you how much you mean to me.” Arthur runs a hand through his hair. “How absolutely fucking scared I am of losing you, of pushing you to the point of not coming back. For good.”

  I sigh. Why do things have to be this messy? It’s now or never.

  “Arthur,” I say, trying to maintain composure, “I’ve been in love with you ever since you moved here. The entire goddamn time, but I didn’t want to be a creep because you were in the ninth grade, and because Todd had convinced me that no one would ever want me, not as I am. I know that I’m a trash heap, and that I’m hard to be around most of the time, but when you told me you loved me last year, I reread the text over a hundred times. I still have it. I never deleted it.”

  “You never said anything, though. Were you even going to mention it?”

  I shrug. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here. If we’re being honest, I have no idea. I thought maybe, I dunno, maybe you would have moved on after a year, or whatever. You were always hangin’ out with girls. I didn’t know if you loved me as friend, and I didn’t want to hope for anything more.”

  Arthur stalks over to me. “Move on? Yeah, real love can change, but it never ends. What would you have done if I never said anything?”

  The sun is completely overhead now, I notice. The lake is a gleaming cobalt blue, and across the way, someone is pushing a paddleboat into the water.

  “I guess deep down, I figured it would all just work itself out. I never considered the possibility that our friendship would end over this.”

  Arthur closes in on me, his arms big and warm. “Todd Butcher is literal human garbage,” he says. “Sometimes it scares the absolute fuck outta me, the intensity of my feelings. And I don’t know how long I’ve felt like this, but it feels like forever, like it’s always been there.”

  Because it has, I realize now. There are many versions of our story out there, and not a single one has a happy ending, but we’re here, together, and we have the opportunity to change things. I’m not going to tell Arthur that our love is nearly a thousand years old, because that would probably freak him out, but I am going to tell him about Emrys, Morgana and our theory that something bad has happened to Tammy. Maybe not right at this very moment, but definitely sometime this weekend. I just hope the others are ready, because I am.

  After lunch we decide to light the morning fires and say our prayers. Gwen and I have been doing this for the past three years now, and even though Arthur’s watched us do it before, having Morgan and Mordy present makes me feel self-conscious. Maybe it’s because I haven’t officiated any ceremonies or rituals in their company, or because this is a purely pagan celebration being held per Gwen’s request, but it’s a little embarrassing. Then, after the last of the copal burns, Mordy and Morgan sing songs in Spanish, offering their blessing as well, and I take this as a sign that they’re accepting of our personal blend of witchcraft. Our holler magick.

  Once the fire dies down, Arthur removes his shirt and beckons for me to come swim with him. Mordy and Morgan are already dressed for the occasion—Mordy in a white binder and a pair of white swim trunks and Morgan in a white one-piece that has Gwen practically swimming in a puddle of her own drool.

  Mordy is already in the water by the time I reach for the sunblock. I’m wearing a pair of swim trunks and a tank top, my usual summer outfit, but today I’ve decided to try something different. Seeing Mordy swim in his binder has given me the confidence to remove my shirt. Arthur watches me with great interest as I do this, and when I hand the sunblock to Gwen, she throws it to Arthur and tells him to do it.

  His hands fumble with the cap, and suddenly he’s awkward and shy, not at all the self-assured man who picked me up from the store a few weeks ago, but the silly, dorky boy I remember leaving here last summer. When he finally removes the cap, too much lotion catapults itself out of the bottle all over his hands, and I wait for him to lather it on my body. Even though his hands glide across my back and chest methodically, I can tell he’s nervous.

  “Don’t you think that’s enough sunblock on my chest?” I ask. “Jesus Christ, dude!”

  Arthur answers with a shake of his head. “Nope,” he says. “Oops, look, I think I missed a spot. Oh, there’s another one. And another. Shit! I hate to break it to ya, but this might take all day.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “You sure seem to be enjoying yourself.”

  With a swallow, he replies, “You have no idea.”

  I laugh. Oh, but I do.

  I do.

  Chapter Eleven

  Excalibur

  And just like that—the weekend is over.

  The Wheel of the Year has turned again, with Flora and Minerva switching places, and my return trip to Lexington looms in the near distance.

  But I don’t want to go back to school, not yet. I don’t want the twins to return to California, either, to end their year-in-white. I don’t want to leave the lake house. I want to be selfish and keep everyone to myself. For things to remain as they are—perfect, in sync.

  Before we head home the next morning, to prepare for our confrontation with Emrys, Mordy and Arthur decide to go for one last swim. Gwen and I finish loading her car and join Morgan, who is eating a raisin bagel like it’s a chore, not a pleasure.

  Last night, things had felt somewhat tense after we’d finished swimming and come inside to make dinner. When Mordy had asked Arthur to go for a walk, I’d thought things were going to come to a head, and that our perfect weekend was going to end in Band-Aids and bruises—but then they’d come back from the walk laughing and chatting about music, and a heavy weight had lifted from my shoulders. From our shoulders.

  This morning, they’d both gotten up and made breakfast for everyone. Arthur taught Mordy how to make grits, and Mordy taught Arthur how to make café con leche. We’d had our final meal on the patio, and made plans to hang out this coming week. When Morgan had asked Gwen to have coffee with her in front of everyone, I’d thought Gwen was going to die from embarrassment. She likes to talk a big game, but at the end of the day she’s just as awkward as the rest of us. Morgan wouldn’t take no for an answer, either, so that made things worse for her—and better for us.

  “Do you think he’ll believe us?” Gwen asks.

  “Who?” I say. “Arthur?”

  Gwen removes her sandals and places them beside Morgan’s beach towel. “Yes.”

  “Probably not? I mean, who the fuck in their right mind would believe they’re a reincarnation of a dead king? We don’t really have any proof of this, either. Just a hunch.”

  Gwen takes the bagel from Morgan’s hand and takes a bite from it. “Do we really have any proof of anything? What have we seen that he hasn’t?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “Morgana le Fay literally attacked me.” Morgan leans forward, looking at me sheepishly, and
I continue, “I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying, I’ve seen and heard things that Arthur hasn’t. So have you, Gwen. We will just have to make him believe. Somehow.”

  “And how exactly are we going to do that?” she snaps. “Unless Morgan wants to demonstrate her powers by turning into a werewitch again, and I’m not sure anyone wants that, no offense, Morgan.”

  “None taken.”

  Gwen adjusts her sunhat. “I don’t know how the hell we’re going to convince him, because all it sounds straight-up insane.”

  For the next few moments we sit in silence, the heat from the sun boring into our exposed skin. Arthur and Mordy are taking turns running and jumping off the dock, trying to out-cannonball each other. I’m not sure if they’re doing it for my sake, or if they truly want to be friends, but watching them splash around in the lake like children warms my heart.

  Gwen is right—I have changed, or maybe I’m finally allowing myself to open up to others. I’m not sure.

  “Look at those two,” Morgan says. “My brother is a goddamn idiot. He’s going to break his neck doing backflips like that. Mordy! Mordred! Fuckin’ Christ!”

  Morgan gets up from her towel and marches toward her brother, who might actually break his neck doing jumps, because the water is shallow in that area of the lake. Arthur swims farther out, until eventually he’s nothing but a bobbing golden head in the distance. If I weren’t so invested in trying to figure out a way to convince Arthur that he’s actually King Arthur, I would swim out to join him.

  “You know,” Gwen says, “one day, that boy is gonna ask you to marry him.”

  I turn to her, surprised by her sudden change in tone. Her eyes don’t leave the lake, though, and she continues, “And you’ll hee-haw for the next several years, like you always do because you’re a stubborn ass, but then you’ll eventually say yes, and pop out two of the most beautiful babies we ever saw. And I’ll finally be an aunt, who spoils them rotten.”

  I laugh at the outlandish idea of Arthur and me being dads. “I’m glad you seem to think so.”

  “There’s no thinking involved,” she replies flatly. “Morgan saw it that night in the scrying bowl. Plain as day.”

  Gwen turns to face me, no hint of a joking smile anywhere, and looks at me fixedly, until shouting draws our collective curiosity toward the lake. Mordy’s screaming and waving his hands in the water, calling Arthur’s name. I hop to my feet as fast as I can and run to the shore, slipping on sand twice before reaching the water.

  The reading. The card. Oh God.

  “I told him not to swim that far out,” Mordy says, after coming up from the lake, his mouth full of water and his voice hoarse from shouting. “That we don’t know how deep the lake is! I don’t know where the fuck he went! Can you see him anywhere?”

  Without thinking, I dive into the warm water and swim past the dock, past Mordy, past the neon orange signs that read Danger. Mordy’s and Gwen’s voices overlap as they urge me to stop.

  Everything’s a blur. I dunk my head under the water and open my eyes, but I can’t see anything other than brown water and fallen debris from trees. I try to hold my breath as long as I can, diving deeper and swimming farther into the dark abyss that rests at the bottom of the lake.

  Arthur. Not yet. Please, God, not now. Our songs haven’t had time to be written.

  After my lungs start to burn and panic sets in, I realize that if I push any harder, I might actually die, and begin battering the heavy waves with my fists. I open my eyes in the murky lake once more and drive my body as hard as I can, struggling to follow the rays of sunlight penetrating the surface.

  “Lance!” is the first word I hear when my head breaks through the top layer, followed by, “Oh God, there he is!”

  Air violently shakes the insides of my chest, flooding my deprived lungs, and I flail my arms, emerging from the water like a fish on a hook, the sound of Gwen’s voice to my left immediately demanding my attention. I whip my head around, still desperate for oxygen, my eyes chasing her voice.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  I follow Gwen’s gaze to a spot in the lake that appears to now be on fire, and I kick my feet frantically, trying to distance myself from the dazzling phenomenon. Then a flash of lightning strikes the now boiling water, and a glittering sword thrusts upward, momentarily mesmerizing me with its presence, followed by a resplendent golden hilt and Arthur’s head. I choke back a bizarre mixture of sobs and laughter and propel my body toward his.

  “Dude,” he says, completely unfazed by the fact he was underwater for so long. “You are not going to believe me when I tell you what I just saw.”

  “Try me,” I say, staring at the sword with trepidation.

  Faces are long and patience is thin by the time we return to the beach. Mordy looks like he wants to throttle Arthur, and Gwen is wearing a similar look. Morgan appears more interested in the sword than anything, and doesn’t remove her eyes from the long, shiny blade.

  Nobody wants to say it, but my best friend, Arthur Pendragon, just drew an untarnished sword from a flaming lake—and not just any lake, but Neve Lake. The realization sends me to my knees down on the sandy bank. There’s no turning back now, not when we have a magickal sword, an impending battle to fight and a goddamn wizard to destroy.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two of Cups

  For the next week or so, everybody lies low. I go back to work—only two days a week now, because that’s all Emmett can stand, I guess, even though I’ve never been rude or cross with him, but whatever—and try to gather as much intel as I can, which isn’t much. Caspian never leaves me alone now, is always ready to turn the corner when I am, trying his best to act nonchalant but possibly serving as another set of eyes for Emrys. If I didn’t think he might be helpful in the future, I would have busted his ass for going through my bag the other day. I really had to restrain myself when I saw Caspian shaking half of the contents onto the floor and just leaving them there. Was he raised in a fucking barn? The scene played out during my first full shift after returning from the lake house, further solidifying my suspicions that Caspian was not only a dick, but a snoop as well.

  Mordy hasn’t been messaging me nearly as much since we came back from the lake house, and I’m honoring his feelings by leaving him alone, but fuck if I don’t miss him. I suspect he has some internal shit he needs to process before we can reform and forge an actual plan. Our friendship is important, but then again, so is saving his sister and stopping Emrys, or the Merlin, as Mordy has taken to calling him.

  His heart is in pieces, and I can’t put it back together. That’s not something I can help with at all.

  Gwen, Morgan and I had coffee yesterday, speaking in depth about the list of sacred places we’d assembled the last time we were at the library. So far we’ve decided on our local town cemetery, a structure in Avalon known as the Little Henge, and possibly an abandoned cathedral on the outskirts of town. I hope Mordy is able to come with us. His participation is crucial, especially if we’re going to exorcise whatever it is living inside of his sister, and because I’ll have an excuse to talk to him. God, how I miss him.

  When the clock strikes twelve, I clock out and walk over to the door. Avalon is an oven during the summertime, and I hate the heat so much that I’ll suffer through Caspian’s awkward attempts at small talk. But seriously, who the hell wants to talk about what carrion eats with their co-worker? A fucking psycho.

  Arthur’s truck pulls up to the front of the store, and I nearly tear the door off its hinges. When I step into his truck, I take note of his clothes immediately—a black tie and a blue button-down shirt, tucked into a pair of khakis. These are his nice clothes, the clothes he wore to his graduation last month. I slam the truck door and reach for my seat belt.

  “Where the hell did you just come from?” I ask, poking him in the shoulder. “You sure are dressed up.”

  I’m covered in sweat and I haven’t washed my hair in two days. Who knows if I remembe
red to change my shirt when I got up this morning. I don’t even want to think about what Arthur sees when he looks at me.

  “I thought I told you about the sermon my mamaw was asked to give today.”

  “Oh, shit,” I say. “I forgot all about that. How was it? Was she nervous?”

  “Nervous, yes, but eager. She did really well.”

  Arthur’s grandmother is a Sunday school teacher at the Baptist church here in Avalon, and occasionally the preacher will ask her to give guest sermons. His mamaw is his closest relative, and one of the nicest old ladies I’ve ever met. But I’m surprised he still goes to church, given that his parents and siblings go every Sunday as well.

  “Was your dad there?” I ask. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He was.” Arthur bridles. “And he didn’t so much as look in my direction. Cassidy was there, Mom too, but they sat in the back. Cassie waved, but my mom just sat there.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. This is all my fault.

  Arthur’s truck hits a pothole and everything on his dashboard flies onto the floor. I bend down to gather a handful of assorted mail, unopened letters mostly, and he places a hand on my thigh. “Leave it. I’ll get it later. And I’m not sorry.”

  We haven’t spoken about him moving out, other than his act of doing it. Gwen claims he did it because of me, but she loves to romanticize things, sensationalizing them to the point of being unrecognizable.

  “Don’t you miss Gary and Cassidy?” I ask, not knowing how to navigate the conversation. “Your mamaw?”

  “Gary and Cassidy will understand someday soon. I’m sure Cassie is already feeling the heat. I remember one time last year when my dad shouted at her for painting her nails, and threw the nail polish into the trash. I pray for them at night, but my dad is a lost cause.”

  Arthur pulls his truck into the trailer park. “My mamaw was the one who suggested moving out. I told her what Dad did to you and she said it was unacceptable, that I didn’t need to be around that anymore.”