by Jamie Pacton
As if awakened from a spell, the crowd loses it. They’re on their feet, stomping, cheering, and throwing their colorful scarves and cheering cloths into the arena. Eddy Jackson and his buddies are whooping and raising their pitchers of beer in my direction.
Dalton’s gotten to his feet and he stands with Eric, his Squire, shooting me death looks. I want to stay there and bask in the crowd’s praise, but Len looks like he’s ready to fire me then and there. I grab Shadowfax’s reins from my Squire and swing myself into the saddle. With one last wave and a bow, I gallop out of the arena.
CHRIS WAITS FOR ME BACKSTAGE, A TAKEOUT CONTAINER IN his hands and a grin on his face. There’s a roar from the arena signaling that more of the Knights have appeared to finish up the show.
I slide off Shadowfax as a groom takes the reins. Adrenaline pumps through me. I want to dance and barf at the same time.
“That was amazing!” I say, gripping Chris’s arms. “You never told me how FUN it is to be out there. Or how good the crowd feels!”
He grins at me ruefully. “You were supposed to leave your helmet on.”
“I couldn’t help it!” I fling a hand across my heart. “Éowyn called! I mean, that setup was perfection!”
“You are such a dork,” says Chris affectionately. The last notes of the show play, and then there’s a loud bunch of applause. Chris steers me out of the stables and toward the back door. “I’ll go get your stuff out of your locker; you go to the car. I’ll deal with Len once I drop you off at home.” He plops his keys on top of the takeout container.
“But I’m supposed to meet Jett,” I say, peering over his head. Two Serving Wenches—Lizzy and Mags—walk past us lugging tubs full of dirty plates.
“Nice one, Kit!” says Lizzy. She’s a tall, pretty white girl who plays volleyball and just got voted “Most Likely to Dress like a Librarian for the Rest of her Life” in our senior class. Quiet and bookish in real life, when she’s at the Castle, she trades her cardigans and patterned dresses for a low-cut Wench dress that hugs her curves.
“Epic,” Mags nods, giving me a high five as she walks past. Mags’s parents are from China, and she’s got short black hair and dark eyes. Her piercings and tattoos (which she started getting the minute she turned eighteen) are never covered, as they should be under company policy. “Are you going to be out there every show?”
“I wish,” I say.
“Well, if you figure it out, let me know. I’ve always wanted to fight as a Knight!”
Before I can reply to her, Chris opens the back door.
“Go,” he hisses. “Before anyone else sees you.”
Waving to Mags and Lizzy, I stumble outside, stunned for a moment by the contrast between the loud, smelly Castle and the warm spring night. The moon rises beyond the office buildings in the east, pale yellow, like the moonfaced girls who were so popular in the Middle Ages. When I get to Chris’s car, an ancient tan Volvo that was old when our mom bought it fifteen years ago, I consider myself in the reflection on the window.
Hero? Loser? Knight? My face is sharp and chicken pox scars remain on my long nose. “Striking” is what my grandmother used to say, but that was just polite.
Exhaustion hits me and I have no more time to contemplate my stupid face. As I drop into the passenger seat, my adrenaline crashes. I think of only one thing: Have I just gotten myself fired?
6
HOME IS NOT A CASTLE. IT’S A PEELING-PAINT, ROTTEN-ROOF, split-story ranch on the edge of the freeway. Prime property when my parents bought it fifteen years ago. Before the Fall. The Separation. The End of Times.
Now, we’re the working poor. Mom makes barely enough to pay the mortgage and weeds long ago took over the landscaping. We’re the ones who lower the property value of all those around us.
Chris’s Volvo rattles into the driveway. I glance at the house. No lights on, even though it’s nearly ten at night.
“She’ll be home soon,” says Chris. “Don’t say anything to her until I talk to Len. I’ll head back to the Castle and do some damage control.”
My bones ache and the beginning of a headache eats at my brain. I’ve taken off Chris’s armor, but I’m still in the faux chain mail leggings, tunic, and my boots. I look like I’m ready for yoga at a Marilyn Manson concert.
“I’ll just shower and wait up for you,” I say, grabbing my backpack. There’s a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, like some part of me knows I really, royally screwed up. But the rest of me is too tired, bruised, and hungry to dwell on it.
Chris waves as he pulls out of the driveway, and his headlights make my shadow huge against the house. Once he’s gone, I look up. Far above us, almost hidden by the light pollution of the suburbs, the stars wink their centuries-old message. I could be seeing light from stars that burned out during the Middle Ages. Light that’s been racing for seven hundred years across the galaxy to shine for a moment on me.
That’s a heavy thought. That we’re just the souls of stars in exile, as Plato says. Or that some girl might be alone on a night seven hundred years from now, waiting for a sign from the universe. And all she’s got is starlight from tonight.
Overwhelmed suddenly by my smallness, I sit down on the driveway. It’s damp from the rain we had earlier, but still warm. Bumpy asphalt rises under my fingers, and I remember the many times my dad would stand out here, slopping driveway sealer on the stones, making a mess that always somehow came out tidy and better looking by the end.
I lean back, resting the takeout container on my stomach, and stare at the stars. They blur together in my vision as I let my eyes go out of focus. As I lie there, I’m still half in the arena, my ears full of the crowd’s shouting. Almost like a long road trip—where you drive all day, and then when you close your eyes to sleep it’s more of the same: road and highway all the way through your dreams. Suddenly, I’m back on my horse, and the lance sits heavily in my hand. Resting the takeout container on the ground, I hop to my feet.
I can’t help it. I grab a stick from the ground, like a seven-year-old fighting imaginary dragons—and yes, I was that kid; I even made a scabbard for my imaginary dragon stick—and brandish it like a sword.
The moves come to me like music rising. Back, forward, and into the other Knight’s guard. It’s a dance, and each step must be placed just so.
I’ve sword fought my way nearly to the mailbox at the end of the driveway when an Audi station wagon drives past the house, music blaring.
“Freak show!” a girl yells as the car races past. She throws a bottle out the window. I leap out of the way as a green long-neck shatters against the mailbox.
I flip them off, but their headlights are just red smears—a Balrog’s whip, my inner nerd chimes in unhelpfully—in the night. I drop the stick, grab the mail and my takeout container, and stomp up the stairs to the front door.
When I’m inside, I fumble around in the dark for a moment, then flick the switch closest to the door.
Nothing.
Shit.
Did our power get shut off again?
I shine my cell phone down the split-level stairs. Chris’s basement bedroom is dark, none of the telltale lights of his thrift store electronics shine.
Heading up the stairs, I try every light in the living room and kitchen. Nothing. And the stove clock is out. We had power this afternoon before my shift, so that means that the food in the fridge might still be okay. I drop the mail on the kitchen table and put my phone on the counter, so its light makes a column in the dark kitchen. Good grief, I hope no one calls the cops because they think I’m breaking into my own house. I light a few candles using the lighter my mom left on the counter. Then I pull out the cooler we keep under the table for occasions like this and start stuffing all the food from the freezer into it, hoping to make a cool bottom layer. Fridge stuff—a half-eaten pack of bologna, a bag of apples, and some leftover gas station burritos—goes on top, layered like a portrait-of-poverty lasagna. I empty two ice trays over the food f
or good measure and slam the cooler shut.
My stomach grumbles, and I take a candle to the table with my takeout container. Inside are two turkey legs, roasted potatoes, a pile of garlic bread, and some lemon cake. Layla, bless her, must’ve filled the box for me and then handed it off to Chris. For one selfish moment I don’t want to save my mom any of it, but I can’t do that. She never takes time to eat when she works a double shift. And this is far, far more appetizing than the other stuff in the cooler. Or the expired cans from the food bank in the pantry. One of them is silver—no paper label—and it just says BEEF underneath the silhouette of a cow. None of us have been brave enough to open that one yet.
No one’s watching, so I tear into the turkey leg, licking my fingers and nibbling on the bone like a puppy. I don’t slow down until I’ve devoured my turkey leg and started in on the potatoes.
I almost choke on a laugh when it occurs to me that despite my job, eating a turkey leg in the flickering light of a guttering candle is probably the most medieval thing I’ve done all day.
Except most people back then didn’t eat meat and most of them didn’t have candles. It’s easy to forget such little details about the Middle Ages when the pageantry of it all sweeps me away, but they really were the Dark Ages in the sense that the world was pitch-black when the sun went down. Maybe you had a fire in your castle or hut, maybe not. Candles, torches, and lanterns would’ve kept the darkness at bay a bit, but just beyond the circle of your light lurked beasts, real or imagined.
And the meat thing? Forget ninety-nine-cent burgers from McDonalds to feed poor kids like me. Meat was mostly the privilege of the upper classes. Regular eating of it was such a class-based thing that some churchmen saw eating too much roasted meat as a gateway to hell. I read a book once where there’s this great exchange between a friar and a noblewoman on her deathbed.
To paraphrase liberally, he says to her, “So, you’re pretty much dead, do you think you’re going to heaven?”
She replies, “You better believe I’m headed there.”
Then, he—big jerkwad—says, “Yeah, probably not. Let’s face it. You’ve lived in castles and eaten roasted meats every day of your life. Don’t you think that’s going to count against you?”
Wherein (in my mind) she gives him a withering look, like the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, and says through clenched teeth: “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but my husband is a terrible asshole. I don’t care how much roasted meat I’ve eaten. I’m going to heaven for putting up with him for all these years.”
History doesn’t tell us the clergyman’s response, but roasted meats were definitely up there with fornication, witchcraft, and dancing too much.
It was a different time.
My mom’s headlights illuminate the kitchen windows as she pulls in. I jump up from the table. I’m still in my fighting clothes. She’s been sewing these fighting outfits for Chris for years, so she’ll know immediately that something has happened if she sees me in them.
I shove the takeout container into the cooler and head to the bathroom. There’s nothing left on the toilet paper roll, but by the sink, Mom’s left a pile of napkins she swiped from a fast food restaurant. I’ll be lucky if there’s any hot water at all, but at least I get to bathe.
I shove aside the army of medieval-themed rubber duckies that line the tub’s edge (a present from Jett last Christmas) and twist the faucet. As hot water pours out the tap, I say a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of hygiene and public health. One thing I’m always forgetting about the Middle Ages is how badly everyone must’ve smelled. Sure, it was no match for a few hundred years later when the Industrial Revolution turned cities and countryside alike into cesspools and cholera-breeding grounds, but it was close. The medieval church undid centuries of Roman bathing habits and convinced people that baths were immoral and basically one-way tickets to all sorts of sins. Washing your face was thought to weaken eyesight, and kings and queens were applauded for the claim that they’d only ever bathed twice in their lives.
Twice! In their lives!
Imagining the stench of a crowded medieval royal court on any given summer day boggles my modern-plumbing and four-different-types-of-body-wash (thank you, Layla for the birthday set) self.
When I’m done showering in nearly total darkness, I throw on the first things I can find in my clean laundry basket—thrift store PINK sweatpants with holes in the knees and a Wonder Woman T-shirt—and twist my long hair into a bun on top of my head.
Five texts have come in since I got into the shower. Layla, twice. Jett, twice. And Chris.
Before I can open any of them, Mom calls for me.
7
SHE SITS AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, STILL WEARING HER diner uniform. It’s supposed to be an adorable throwback to the 1950s, but coffee and ketchup stains cover the yellow-and-white dress, and it’s stretched across her chest, like it’s about to pop open. Mom’s only forty-five with a strong jawline, dark eyebrows, and a head of reddish brown curls like I have, but the circles under her gray eyes are deep trenches of fatigue.
“Hello, darling,” she says as I walk into the room. She’s lit a bunch of candles and turned on an ancient camping lantern.
I kiss her cheek, get the Castle leftovers from the cooler, and sit down beside her. “Long day?”
She covers her teeth as she laughs her smoky, tired laugh. She’s not had dental insurance in years and her teeth are broken and stained. She sends Chris and me to a dentist rather than go herself.
“It was rough. Got the worst section because I was late after dropping off a money order at the electric company.”
I look around. “Why don’t we have lights if the electric company has your money?”
She shrugs. “They’ll cash it on Monday. Until then, we’ll have to make do.”
It’s only Friday, but that’s okay. We “make do” a lot. Luckily, we’re all pretty crafty and there’s a lot of “making” possible. Mom sews; Chris makes blacksmithing stuff he sells online; and me, well, I don’t do much of any of that. I mostly study and go to work. Because part of my Big Plan is to get a good job to get us all out of this mess.
“It’ll be fine,” I say. “I can stay at Layla’s tomorrow night and get a jump on my homework and charge my phone over there.”
Mom nods. “How was your night? Anything new from the Castle?” As she talks, she takes out a wad of fives and singles from her apron pocket. A few coins also fall onto the table. “Count it, will you?”
In the candlelight, I smooth out all the dollars and fives and divide them into piles. “Eighty-five sixty-eight,” I say.
“From a double shift.” Mom swears, shaking her head. “That place is getting slower and slower every day. How much did you make?”
She picks up the cash and stuffs it into a Mason jar on the table. We all put our tips in the jar to pay for food, groceries, toilet paper, and things like that. Mom’s day job as a custodian at an office pays the mortgage. Barely.
“I haven’t counted it,” I say quickly, hating myself for lying. “I’ll put it in later.”
“How’s school? Still going to graduate?” She grins at me, a forkful of potatoes halfway to her mouth.
It’s one of our oldest jokes. But it’s not funny. Mom dropped out of high school to marry my dad and follow his band around the country until she had Chris. Basically her life was one long music video as she hitchhiked around the US and couch surfed through the Pacific Northwest before it was cool. She’s asked me every day since the start of freshman year if I was going to graduate. The answer is always, of course, yes. But the implication is always that I wouldn’t make her mistakes. Which is really all she wants for me. But it just makes me want to hug her and tell her I know she’s doing her best.
“It was good. AP exam results will come back soon, and the guidance counselor says I should hear about colleges in the next few weeks.”
I haven’t told Mom about all the rejections yet. She doesn’t need the stress.
A worried look crosses Mom’s face. I know she’s thinking of tuition bills, room and board, and all the other things we can’t afford. College is ridiculously expensive. I used a month’s worth of tips from the Castle just to pay for my AP exams. I have no idea where I’m going to come up with thousands of dollars a semester.
“I hope you get those scholarships,” she says. “We can’t ask your father for help.”
We probably could ask my dad. In fact, on nights like this, when we’re eating secondhand poultry in the dark and I’m thinking about which fast-food place I can steal more napkins from to use as TP, I’m really tempted to ask my dad for help. Last I heard he was a musician at a megachurch a few towns over. His weaselly face no longer hangs in photos around our house, but sometimes I see him on giant ads at the bus stop and on the TV late at night, doing infomercials and praying for old ladies to send him money so he can give it to Jesus. Scammer to the core. Like the Pardoner in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, my dad is as oily as a bunch of sardines in a can and has about as much of a moral compass as those dead fish.
He refuses to divorce Mom, because the Lord told him divorce is wrong, but he also refuses to pay any child support or his part of the bills unless we come to church with him. Mom says she’ll be deep in the ground before that happens. So, we “make do.”
Mom offers me a piece of cold garlic bread and I take it. We chew in silence for a moment, when my eyes fall back to the mail. One of the letters has a return address from Marquette University. It’s skinny and in a normal-sized envelope. My heart skips a beat. My other rejection letters looked like that too.
I can’t open it now because I don’t want Mom to ask me about it until I know what it says. And because some part of me doesn’t want to know yet. Plus, disappointment goes down easier for me when I don’t have to share it with anyone. But it’s all I can do to sit there, eyeballing the letter.
Mom’s phone rings, and she puts her turkey leg down. “I’m going to get changed. You can have the rest of the food.” She points to what’s left in the takeout container.