by Etzoli
A couple days ago— vack , even a month ago, I could have said yes. Today… I said nothing.
“You should be at my side while we reshape the world.”
The way he said it, the attempt at grandeur, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, sorry. But seriously. Reshape the world? ”
“Why not?”
“Dunno. It just seems nuts to be saying that about a couple kids from Oregon.”
Carl shook his head. “It is nuts, but we already did it once. The four of us overthrew the whole empire.”
“We had help,” I said dismissively.
“Tell me you prefer this world over Cyraveil,” Carl snapped.
“You know what? It wasn’t all great,” I shot back. My own temper was rising, and at the moment, I really didn’t feel like controlling it. “Cool as your city and your guilds and daphut were, they treated me like shit.”
Carl’s conviction didn’t seem to waver, so I pressed on. “I’m not talking about the Pit. You took care of that. I mean after we won. They still didn’t want me around. I could walk down the streets and get spat on by any random human that walked by. Just because of where I came from.”
“I didn’t—” Carl started.
“No, you didn’t. Because I didn’t want you to know. I was going to handle it. Hard enough being a girl in a medieval fantasy world, but add on top of that a seriously racist kingdom and my half-Sylf… heritage,” I landed on the right word after a moment’s searching. Hard to give a good speech when I still struggled with the language. “I know you and Matt had plans to try and bring everyone together. But honestly? I was pretty close to just ditching you both and going back to my suunsyl .”
It was something I’d never meant to tell them. If Matt knew, he’d be crushed. I didn’t ever want to hurt him like that. But Carl, with his rose-colored vision of the world, needed a serious wake-up call.
When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and unsettled. “What makes this world so much better?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly, “but I haven’t given up yet either.”
***
Carl left not too long after that. He confessed what happened at his house, in full, and why he couldn’t go home. I had his cell number though (finally), and we’d promised to meet up again soon. He’d be camping out in public places where he could get internet access until we figured out how to handle the police. I felt like I’d gotten him to calm down for now at least. I could only pray to the stars that we found a more permanent solution soon.
When he left though, I could tell something had been lost. Carl didn’t quite trust me anymore. A bond we’d once held, something forged in shared experience and the many days and nights we’d spent alone on the run outside Vennenport. It was suddenly walled away. I could still feel our connection, but it was weak and fragile, and I didn’t think he’d reach out to me again. Not until he found a real solution, one way or another.
The stars sure weren’t doing much for me anymore. I blamed it on the night sky I no longer recognized, a void full of strange patterns and a single moon that was far too large.
Did I want to return to the sky I remembered? I couldn’t say. Everything I said to Carl was true, and yet…
And yet I’d already found I could barely live in this world as it was, either. As I said to Matt, I was barely hanging on by a twig. I wanted to return, but at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. I was caught between two worlds full of things I loved, and full of things I feared.
Eloquent, I know. If I could write it out in Etoline, it’d sound way better, but then you couldn’t read it, so that’s the best you get.
In that moment, I thought of my mother. She had always flitted around the edges of my life, but for one reason or another, she’d never really been a central piece. She and I were family, and I’d love her until the day I died, whether that was in eighty years or a few hundred. Mom was always closer to Matt than to me. I didn’t resent them for it. Matt had taken care of both of us for years, ever since our dad ditched us. He’d gotten more time to bond with Mom, before she’d been swamped with holding down two jobs to provide for us.
It made me mostly a solo adventurer. I spent most of my time out with friends, hanging out with Sara, being a kid. Home was a place to come back for food and shelter at night. I never brought friends over, I spent as little time there as I could.
I felt so stupid about now, but I’d been ashamed. I never wanted my friends to find out that we were poor. Whenever we went out, I’d do everything I could to avoid looking like I didn’t have money to spend. I’d say I wasn’t hungry if we went for food, and just sip water or leech off Sara while nobody was looking. When we went out for clothes, I’d buy something nice, wear it once, then trek across town alone to return it the next day. Movies? I’d snuck into the movies more than once. Got pretty good at it too, slipping in with the crowd past the ticket guy. Nobody ever came over to my place. I never had to face that judgment.
So ridiculous. So much wasted effort. I couldn’t care less now.
Only two people ever caught on. Matt was the first, spotting my clothes cycling operation one day. After I’d finally explained it to him, he offered to drive me back for the returns, no judgment at all, every single time. That was when I knew I could trust my brother with my life. Kind of a silly reason, but seriously. That moment on, we were always a team.
The other person was, of course, Sara, and we’d been best friends ever since.
Clearly, I should’ve just let more people in on the secret. Worked out great twice in a row.
I got up from the grass and walked back inside, where Matt was stirring something in a bowl. It already smelled great. “What are you making?”
“Well, you said we needed more cookies.” Matt smiled.
“Chocolate chip?” I asked eagerly.
“You got it.”
Okay, maybe today wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
***
A few hours later, we were munching our way through freshly baked cookies, out on the back patio in our cheap plastic chairs.
“Did you really have to shoot an arrow at us?” asked Matt, grinning.
I shrugged. “Seemed like the quickest way to shut you both up.”
“How do you plan on explaining that hole to Mom?”
“Oh, I figured we’d just blame it on you. This would be what, the third time you’ve broken the stairs somehow?”
Matt raised his eyebrows. I laughed. It was true—twice before, he’d caused some noticeable damage to our staircase. Once, by knocking out a support for that same bannister, tossing a ball around with friends. Heavy basketball and thin aging wood, it wasn’t hard to see that coming.
The second time, he’d tripped and actually knocked his head onto the end-piece, knocking it clean off. That time was less funny in retrospect. More heart-rushing-terrifying. Also, the first and only time I’d ever dialed nine-one-one. It turned out fine in the end, but… vack.
Reminiscing like this with my brother felt good though. I felt… peaceful. Happy, even.
So, of course, Matt had to go and ruin the mood.
“Carl’s getting worse, isn’t he?” he asked quietly.
I had to clear a chunk of cookie from my mouth before answering. “Yes,” I said finally. “He wants to find a way to go back.”
My brother… reacted. I couldn’t say what it meant, but I saw his eyes twitch. His voice remained steady. “What do you think?”
“Me?” I asked, taken aback. Was he asking my opinion on going back? Or about Carl?
“You know him as well as I do by now, I think. You spent more time with him in the last year, at least.” His eyes were studying me carefully. I hated that feeling, but I knew Matt didn’t mean me any harm. “What’s your take?”
I hesitated. “Carl’s on the edge. He could go either way. I don’t know what I could do to send him either direction.”
Matt sighed. “That’s… unfortunate.”
&n
bsp; “No kidding.”
“I’ll try talking to him again.”
“After how well that went today? ”
He frowned. “What else can I do?”
“Let him be for now,” I said. I wasn’t sure if it was right or not. It was what I would want though. Time to be alone, time to contemplate. And maybe, just maybe, I was hoping his search would pan out. That he’d find a way home. Options.
“Okay,” said Matt, with an air of finality. He adjusted his chair slightly, then leaned forward to rest on his hands, propped up on his elbow. “Now, about Sara.”
“How’d your date go, hotshot?” I teased. I was more than happy to shift gears entirely… but Matt, of course , was still all business.
“You told her,” he said. It didn’t sound accusatory, but I still felt like he was trying to express disapproval. I really didn’t think I deserved it.
“Yeah, I did.”
“We agreed, Jen.”
“If there was anyone, absolutely anyone in the world we could trust—” I started, but he raised his hand.
“It’d be her. I understand. In fact, I think you probably did the right thing.”
“So wha—”
“You should have told me.”
He was trying to be so calm and understanding, and it just made me more angry. It felt so condescending. I threw caution to the winds. I’d had enough of this. We were home now. “Matt, you’re not my father.”
“What?”
“Telling her was my decision to make. I don’t need your approval on everything I do. We’re in this together, yeah, but as equals. Brother and sister.”
“That’s not what I…” Matt trailed off as I stood up. I needed to leave. I needed some space.
“Think about it for a bit.” I picked up my bow, which I’d brought out to the yard with us. I felt very attached to it right now. It was a symbol of my identity, even if it wasn’t the bow I’d made a part of myself, with my own hands, sweat, and magic. The bow was already unstrung, so I just packed it away in the bag, and slung it over my shoulder. I double-checked the arrows in the quiver, and my knife at my belt, then pulled my jacket back on tight. “I probably won’t be home for dinner, okay?”
“…Okay.”
***
I took a bus out to the forest again. I’d covered my bag in a blanket, so that no one would spot the quiver of arrows sticking out. Didn’t need the random looks from other passengers, not today. Plus, the blanket was keeping me warm—and like I said earlier, it felt really cold out.
Even so, I still needed to be out in Cyraveil Forest right now. Something about the place was drawing me back. I’d been out there this morning, of course, just to get away from the world for a bit. I found myself needing to go out there just to get some proper rest. It made a weird disconnect between my mind and my body on that idea.
My mind clearly longed to be in the outdoors, out in nature. In my suunsyl , we usually slept outside, with just a light cover above to block rain and falling leaves, on soft beds built right into the trees. Every single night since we’d come back, I’d had trouble sleeping. The industrial noise of suburbia wasn’t a huge deal—I could shut that out if I needed to. It was the walls . The confinement. Being cut off from the world around me. I felt like I wasn’t able to feel everything anymore, and it disturbed me.
At the same time, when I went out into the woods behind our house, or came out to Cyraveil Park, my body was telling me a different story. It practically screamed at me to wrap up, defend myself against the elements. Only now did I realize it was the lack of magic. I couldn’t use the etovyla to protect myself against exposure, to keep a comfortable temperature and keep away the harsher parts of nature while I slept. My body begged for a bed and a roof over my head, and solid walls to keep away the wind and any other dangers that might lurk just out of sight.
Between the two of them, mind and body, I was trapped and totally helpless.
The bus arrived at the stop for Cyraveil Park. I thanked the driver and took off, bounding through the underbrush with ease. The memory of Sara tripping over the tree root earlier popped into my head. I giggled aloud. Yeah, I admit it, I’d been spying on them. Come on, you would have too, if you had my skills and spotted them wandering around in your forest together.
I’d learned how to get through thick forest without a care in the world. There was always an order to how a natural forest grew, how the roots took hold and shaped the landscape. Once my mind picked out the patterns, I knew exactly where to place every step, where every jut of a branch or root would shoot out. There were a couple surprises, of course, but for the most part, I always knew exactly where I was, and everything around me.
Which meant I spotted the trail on the forest floor instantly.
I didn’t recognize the footfalls at first glance, strange zig-zag lines and evenly spaced grids. It took me a moment to remember that sort of pattern would come off the soles of real world shoes.
Well, this could be fun . I hadn’t tracked anything in a while. Hard to track through cobblestone streets of Candir, after all. A bit of practice would be good.
I set off, following the trail as it faded in and out through the underbrush. I nearly lost the tracks a few times, but other clues kept the chase running. A snapped off branch, trampled undergrowth. An overturned rocket in a stream, wet on the wrong side. I followed it like a wolf on the hunt. I was determined to find the other end, if only for my own pride.
Instead, I ended up finding something truly life-changing.
The trail came out to a small clearing, barely wider than I was tall. Still, it was perfectly circular, a brown patch amidst the thick rolling greens surrounding us. It couldn’t have been natural. I stopped to examine it, since the tracks seemed to end there anyway.
There was a rock, pure white, sitting underneath a fern at the opposite end. It almost seemed to be glowing, lit by a beam of sunlight that filtered down through the trees above. I crouched down in front of it, curious.
I nearly fell over in shock. There, unmistakably etched on the surface, were scratchings carved in Etoline—in its native form. There was absolutely no one else in the world who could have read the words inscribed there. I looked up to the sky, to the stars that didn’t even exist in this universe, and I wondered.
The rock described, in perfect detail, how precisely three people might travel to Cyraveil. No more, and no less. Forever.
I sat down in the clearing. My mind was still reeling. As if to remind me I was still in Oregon, a shadow passed over the sun, the scent of petrichor filled the air, and soon the world around me darkened in a drizzle of raindrops, pattering down through the leaves.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I asked the sky.
The stars, smug in their devious machinations, did not deign to answer.
Chapter 13 — Carl
“Something was definitely up with those two.”
“No shit. Do you want to bring Westin in?”
“I’m not sure. Did we have anything listed about his sister?”
“Nothing at all. Didn’t even know he had one. Did you get a look at Carl though?”
“What about him?”
“Kid was sweating bullets the whole time. Practically soaking the carpet. He’s our in.”
“We still have to actually track him down though. Let’s go by his house again. That bag on his shoulder, I recognized it from his room. He’s been home since we were there. Figure out if the father covered for him.”
“You got it.”
If the internet is a marvel of modern technology, free wireless access to it is a genuine miracle.
I couldn’t go home. No matter what Matt said, there was no way I could chance the police picking me up, or running into my dad again. I was burning bridges left and right, but I really didn’t care. My mind was focused and clear for the first time since we’d come back. Instead of the nebulous goal of finding Blake and figuring out what to do next, I was laser-focu
sed on my mission: return to Cyraveil.
That might not seem much better, but I’d already been there once. I knew it was possible, so it was perfectly logical to assume it could be repeated. I was following in my best friend’s footsteps here. It was the best way I could think to honor his memory.
Blake had urged us to travel out to Cyraveil Forest that night. I’d gone along mostly to humor him. A weird, teal-colored light flying around deep in the forest? He spotted it from his bedroom window, and nobody else saw it? Sure, why not. I had nothing better to do, and it was a good excuse to force Matt out of his house to join us. This was back when I idolized Matt, of course.
Not so much anymore.
I was camped out at free hotspots. Fast-food places, coffee shops, bookstores, the library. I had plenty of money if I needed it, off a card tied to my parents’ account. I’d have to make use of it as much as I could before they shut it off, and keep moving right after any use without following any kind of pattern if I could help it. Anything to avoid suspicion.
So far, luck seemed to be on my side. It was already early Saturday morning, and I’d had no trouble with the police or anyone else. I slept in the woods, under a heavy blanket and in the shelter of a particularly thick-rooted tree. Unless someone had walked straight up next to it, they’d never have spotted me.
It reminded me of the weeks I’d spent on the run with Jen, outside of Vennenport. Even with all my influence and authority, with my friendships in the court and my own personal forces, I’d still become a fugitive in that city. I’d broken up a generations-old tradition, and in particularly bloody fashion. As a rule, long-standing institutions like that really don’t appreciate getting shut down. We never should have made it out alive.