by Etzoli
The rest of my shift passed in no time at all, as Jacob went home and we were replaced by the overnight duo. I drove home with the radio blasting at the highest it could go. The tinny, weak speaker was actually comforting now, a taste of familiarity and stability. It never changed, as awful as it sounded. I appreciated that.
That golden path I’d seen just two days ago seemed so far away now. I’d wanted desperately for nothing to change, for my world to go back to the way it had been, but fate seemed determined to deny me any respite. Even as I’d thought we could just settle in and return to our old lives, Jen seemed haunted and withdrawn. She wasn’t adapting yet, and that scared me.
On the surface, she was totally fine. She lapsed here and there, but we all had. That was normal. To be expected. I knew her better than that though, and I knew how good of an actress she could be. Jen could hold in problems as long as she needed, and she was so much quieter than before. She seemed reluctant to engage with the world now, always hiding something.
She just needed time. She’d spent the better part of six years in a virtually alien culture, speaking a different language, adopting their customs. She’d grown accustomed to using magic, a concept completely at odds with reality. The elves’ magic let them avoid so many of life’s usual hassles. How could she possibly adjust in such a short time from that lifestyle to the mundane grindstone of the real world?
Her old life would reassert itself. I was confident of that—I had to be—and I’d do whatever I could to help her adjust. I was really worried about the other member of our group.
Not only was Carl clearly just as dramatically changed as Jen, he was in a position I couldn’t really support. Much as I wracked my brain for solutions, I came up empty. Carl and I had too much animosity in our past, even with bombshells yet undropped. We’d been on opposite sides of a vicious war, in surprisingly influential positions for two twenty-somethings from the suburbs in Oregon.
Our forces had been circling each other for some time. I’d known from the modern tactics and total disregard for feudal practices of honor and duty that it had to be him commanding the other side. I’d been using the same, since I was running a rebellion anyway. We were trying to overthrow the whole government; who were we going to bow to and swear fealty? It was ludicrous. I wasn’t a lord. My generals were gutter trash and I was a nobody—and yet we defeated legions of Cellman forces with ease until Carl took command.
In all honesty, I think we both probably would have ended up dead, but for my sister. Carl’s men were fanatically loyal to him. They would have fought to the death, even once we started to outnumber them. Between that and Carl’s personal abilities—and penchant for assassinating officers—my neck felt particularly soft and vulnerable for weeks on end.
If Carl hadn’t found Jen in that dungeon. If he hadn’t betrayed Reynir.
If, if, if.
I shuddered. I truly believe Carl would have sent a man for me. My head would probably be mounted on top of the walls outside Candir along with all the rest, a macabre warning to strike fear in the hearts of the next would-be revolutionaries.
I feared him.
At the same time, though, I did respect him. He took a situation where anybody else would probably have just died, and he carved out a life for himself. He was strong, he treated his subjects well. It sounds bizarre to refer to Carl as having ‘subjects’, but he did. There was a reason he commanded such a steadfast, unwavering army.
Most important of all, Carl was intelligent. Certainly smarter than me. I admit that freely. Carl seemed to know more about everything, down to the minutiae of any subject, than I could ever hope to learn. Not only that, but he could actually apply that knowledge—which he did, with terrifying efficiency. As the receiving end of his military strategy, I could attest to that personally.
So, given all that, what was Carl’s play now? I turned it over and over in my head, like roasting meat over a fire that stubbornly refused to finish cooking. By now, I assumed he must have visited Blake’s house. He’d be certain Blake was dead now, something I’d already come to accept. Where to next for a man who’d lost almost everything he valued, who’d been forced back to a life he believed long dead?
A man whose entire world had literally been taken away.
I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t empathize with Carl. I was eternally grateful for the elf witch, the one who’d given me the way out. I hated Cyraveil, hated what it had done to me. What it had done to Jen.
To Blake.
I’d sent one of my friends to die. Knowingly, deliberately, he’d gone to his grave, on my orders. That odd smile he always seemed to wear was forever fixed in my mind. He looked so confident, so self-assured when I laid out the plan, fully aware what it meant. It could have been him, after all. A foreigner, an outsider like the rest of us. Jen and I were too well-known, but Blake could get inside unhindered, thanks to Carl’s betrayal.
Carl could never be allowed to learn that his own actions inadvertently led to Blake’s death. He’d never recover. As I pulled into the garage, that single thought became firm and clear in my mind. No matter what, I would protect Carl from that revelation.
My mom was already home, which meant I was definitely running late. I hurried inside. I’d wanted to help prepare dinner, since I hadn’t been able to spend much time with her since the night we came back, and last night was so full of worry about Jen and what came next. I wasn’t going to waste any more valuable time.
“Mom, I’m home,” I called out down the hallway as I kicked off my shoes into the closet. I sniffed the air. Garlic. “What’re you making?”
“Tortellini soup,” she said, waving a spoon at me. “You’re late, bucko.”
“Bucko?” I teased, washing my hands.
“Showing my age?” she asked sarcastically, before she handed me a towel to dry off. “Start choppin’.”
***
“So, school’s good?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She smiled, pushing aside her bowl for a moment and leaning on her hands. “Since Jen’s gone, I figured it was a good time to have this talk.”
Jen was out at Sara’s house, which was a regular Thursday thing. I wondered what she was doing there. I still hadn’t gotten any details of what she’d told Sara. I trusted Jen, but I needed all the details if I was going to come up with a plan. I was feeling a bit claustrophobic without it.
Not unlike the feeling my mother had just sprung on me. “Uhh, what talk?”
“About your future.”
I breathed an inward sigh of relief. Mom was referring about how I always hated talking about my life around anyone else. I appreciated that she never brought it up again, even around Jen, since I’d mentioned it.
“What about it?” I asked, taking a sip of the tomato soup.
“Well, have you made any plans for after you graduate?”
I scoured my brain. Had I made any plans yet? It was so long ago. I had no idea. “Not really, no.” It was the most honest reply I could think of.
“Well, you need to start. I know it can really suck, but now’s the time. College will sneak up on you sooner than you think.”
College. I’d forgotten all about it. I mean, not that it existed—I’d actually briefly attended a university of sorts, out in Dekinport. Not for education, though. I wasn’t there for the lectures, I was there for the cache of gold and magical weaponry a few floors and couple dozen feet of solid rock below my desk.
While I hesitated, my mother started going into detail about options, applications, acceptance, funding. “A state school’s probably the best option for you, I think,” she added, in between mouthfuls.
A sudden realization struck me, and interrupted my unbidden memory of the desperate chase and fight with the Dekinport city guard. There weren’t any state universities nearby our home. Not close enough to commute, anyway. “You sure you’d be okay without me around?”
“You gotta leave the nest sometime, Matt.” She sa
id it so nonchalantly, I was taken aback. I knew I’d leave eventually, but I assumed it’d be way later in life. I helped out with all the household chores, and I helped take care of Jen, and anything else Mom asked of me. It was my job—or so I assumed.
“What about—” I started, but Mom cut me off.
“Look, I’ve saved up a bit over the years, and I know you’ve been saving too. You’ve got enough to cover four years of college if you apply for financial aid, and you won’t even end up with any loans. I’ll be quitting my job at the mall after this year, thank God. Between my savings and the raise I just got, it’s going to be a lot more relaxed around here.” She smiled. “Your sister and I will be fine. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you. No need to spend it hanging around here.”
“I don’t mind.”
Mom laughed. “You’re a good man, Matt.” She stood up and started clearing the table. There was only a little more time left before she had to head off to the mall, so she was rushing it already. I should have gotten up to help, but I was still sitting, considering everything she’d said.
As she talked, my life plans had come back to me—how I’d seen myself taking care of her and the house for decades to come. I fully expected Jen to leave and make her own way, but I just assumed I’d be there forever. Now, my mother was not only giving me permission to leave, she was practically pushing me out the door—not in a bad way, but it was the impression I got.
She thought she was letting me off the hook. She’d probably been thinking I felt pressured into being the man of the house. It wasn’t like that though. I’d just wanted to help. I wanted to be productive and useful, part of the team.
Was it time for me to move on?
It didn’t take long for me to reject the idea. It was laughable, in a cold, cynical way. My mother was correct two days ago, but seven years had passed her by in the meantime.
Would she still call me a good man, if she knew what I’d done? I’ve killed, Mom. I killed a man with my bare hands, gruesomely, the same hands that helped her make dinner tonight. I hated what I’d done, and I wish desperately I could have found another way, but in the same situation I’d probably do it again. I’ve fought and bled and killed many times. The blood of hundreds, of thousands was on my hands. Maybe not personally, but they were forever fixed in my mind, lives snuffed out before their time, at my command.
There was no way I could even think about leaving right now. I had a potentially ticking time bomb in Carl, and in the long term, I had a sister who I still wasn’t entirely sure how to help, but it was clear she needed it.
I still don’t know what happened to Jen. I wanted to ask her, but at the same time, I was afraid to. The details were scarce, but I knew that most of the people involved were dead, if not all of them. I couldn’t possibly confirm it, but I had reason to believe Carl put them to death personally. Certainly, the discovery had been enough to shift his allegiance, at great personal cost. All I ever got out of him was that he’d found Jen in a dungeon, in the heart of cruel Vennenport.
For what purpose, I’d never found out. In fact, I knew far too little about anything she’d gone through. Even after Carl had rescued her, I’d only been able to spend a week with her before we had to send her away. We needed the elves’ support before we were crushed by the advancing Cellman forces using Carl’s strategy, and Jen was the only one they trusted. When we’d first lost her, they’d broken away immediately. They’d never stab us in the back, but without Jen to interpret and negotiate, cooperation was virtually impossible.
In that one week, I’d seen how paranoid and violent she could get at the slightest twitch. I was the only one she’d trust anywhere near her for over half the week. I’d sleep just outside her room, with a few trusted guards patrolling the outer chambers. She’d nearly killed a poor, hapless servant who’d had the misfortune of slipping inside to trim the lamps when I accidentally fell asleep. The boy never set foot inside that building again.
She was my little sister though. I’d promised Mom I’d look after her and protect her, and I’d keep that promise no matter what universe we ended up in.
The front door opened quietly, brushing my thoughts away. My mom was on the couch reading a book. We both glanced up expectantly, but Jen didn’t emerge from the hallway. I assumed it was Jen, anyway.
“Jen?” I called, suddenly worried.
“Yeah,” she answered, to my relief. Her voice seemed strangely muffled.
“How was Sara’s?”
“Fine.”
Something seemed off. I expected some teasing, a jab about the two of us again. I glanced at Mom, but she didn’t seem concerned, returning to her book. I went out to the front door, but Jen was nowhere to be found. I glanced around, and saw her disappear around the corner upstairs. She was utterly silent at climbing the staircase.
I followed (making a great deal more noise despite my own efforts), and got to her door a moment before she slid it shut. I stuck my foot in, blocking it. Jen’s eye appeared at the crack between the door and the frame, meeting my own.
Her eye was puffy and red.
“Jen?” I murmured. Fear and concern were threatening to overwhelm me.
“Nothing happened,” she mumbled. “ Vei torl. ” Her foot pushed mine away, and the door closed with the softest click possible.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the wooden door, with the cheerful ‘Jennifer’ banner across the top, and tacked up pictures of Jen and her friends plastered in a haphazard collage. My little sister, the cheerful bubbly teenager, whose biggest regret in life was picking the wrong cell phone and losing all her pictures. Who loved to go to the mall, or take a day trip to the beach, or just sit out in the sun reading a good book or talk for hours on the phone.
Not for the first time, I wondered if that girl had died in a cold stone cell, in a dungeon on another world.
Not for the last time, I wondered if she might be better off in that world.
Chapter 9 — Jen
“Hello?”
“Portman, it’s Clark. Might have something.”
“Go ahead.”
“There was a chat window still open, between him and the best friend. They were getting together Tuesday night.”
“Details?”
“Not much. Just that he’d be picked up around 9pm.”
“Picked up? Carl doesn’t have a license. Or a car.”
“So there’s a third party here.”
“Talk to the mother again. Friends with cars.”
“…I wasn’t sure if you were still coming,” said Sara awkwardly, the front door half-open.
“‘Course I came,” I said brightly. “It’s Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing.” I gave her the best lopsided grin I could manage. “You gonna make me stand out here all day?”
I was just outside Sara’s door, at the end of a stone path lined with little lanterns and flowers, plus—no joke—a white picket fence at the edge of the lawn. Could’ve been a painting. After a long afternoon spent in in the woods recovering, I finally worked up the courage to return to civilization. I was lucky it was Thursday; any other day, I’d probably still be out there paralyzed with worry.
But it was Thursday. Thursday was dinner at Sara’s. I never missed Thursday at Sara’s.
It took me a long time to bounce back from that conversation with Carl. I’d spent hours just poking the ground with a stick, tracing out long and increasingly incomprehensible rants in Etoline about Reynir Cellman and incredibly specific insults about his henchmen. Worthless stuff, really, since there wasn’t a thing I could do about it anymore, but it made me feel better. Scratching out Etoline in the dirt was as nostalgic as I’d allowed myself to be since coming back. I grasped those threads of identity like a drowning woman, pulling myself out of despair.
And it worked , dammit. I was here, I was alive, and I was eager to hang out with my best friend.
Sara finally opened th
e door fully, still bemused.
“Anybody home?” I asked, walking past her and kicking off my shoes into the neat pile by the stairs.
“Mom’s out back.” Sara shut the door quietly. I glanced around, remembering what the house looked like.
The staircase wall was packed with pictures of their family—Sara and her mother and father. Real, professional stuff, every one of them. Proper lighting and framing and all that. Her dad worked in computers as a something-something-engineer. Something really typical for our area, but he was on the upper end. They were rich, but they didn’t flaunt it very much. He drove a normal car, so did his wife, and their house really wasn’t that much bigger than ours. From the outside, it was all neat and well-kept, but very middle-class.
Inside? Gizmos and gadgets galore. I couldn’t tell you what half of the stuff in their house even did, but I knew it was all pretty expensive. Her dad loved his fancy toys.
A hand touched my shoulder.
Despite everything, despite knowing exactly who she was and what she meant to me—I flinched. My hand shot up and knocked hers away.
I turned, prepared to apologize, but her expression was… satisfied?
“You’re still hiding,” she prompted.
“Sara, look,” I started, but she just shook her head. Her hand took mine, and she dragged me up the stairs two at a time.
In moments, we were in Sara’s room, door closed tight. This room I remembered perfectly. Sara’s bed, the most comfortable bed I’ve ever felt, tucked into the corner. Posters and drawings stuck all over the walls (some by me, the better ones by her), and a closet full of clothes, way more than I’ve ever had. In the other corner, near a window, a wide desk with a line of screens (three, count ‘em), along with speakers, keyboards, and everything else you could ask for as a techie.
Her computer, more expensive than possibly everything I owned combined (I’d never asked—don’t think I really want the answer, either…) sat underneath, with wires trailing away in every direction. A bookshelf near the bed was stuffed with great novels (my personal borrowing library. The gaps in it were probably books I had back home right now), and “my” laptop sat on top, where I’d probably left it the last time I was here.