How the hell would I know?
All their piping little voices went quiet, so I knew I had to answer.
“Well,” I cleared my throat and tried to remember all the cheesy sayings I had read in various greeting cards. “It’s unexplainable.” I looked at Abigail, which turned out to be a stupid decision, because when my eyes met hers something stirred and fluttered in my chest. “And unexpected,” I whispered to myself.
RING OF FIRE
I remember when Thursday mornings meant getting breakfast at the town square just before I left for Earth. And by getting breakfast, I mean killing innocent creatures for the fun of it.
This Thursday morning, however, the moment the sun rose I stormed out of my room and made for the door.
“Woah, Gideon! Slow down. Where are you going in such a hurry?” Valoel asked as I rushed down the stairs.
I stopped. My entire family was in the living room, and all of them were staring at me.
“I…” I looked from my father to my mother and then to Valoel. They all wore the same look on their faces—surprise. “School. I’m going to school. You know, to try and kill Tristan’s ènas and stuff.” And then, without waiting for them to respond, I raced off.
“Is he all right?” I overhead my mother asking.
“I don’t know. I think so,” Valoel answered her.
“Can you find out if he’s OK?” Not wanting to hear more, I flew into the air.
When I arrived at school, I stopped in front of the main gate before making myself visible. Since I couldn’t sense Tristan, I knew Abigail wasn’t at school yet.
I forced myself to become visible and paced in front of the main gate. Students who passed either smiled or waved. I had formed a plan—I would follow Abigail to the library, and when everyone was distracted by the story and the children’s questions, I’d kill her before Tristan knew what was happening. I could pretend to be involved and let the children play games that would get them laughing. Tristan would get caught up in their laughter, and when he was least expecting it, bang! I’d kill Abigail.
Five minutes passed as I paced, just waiting for her—the longest five minutes of my life. I was about to give up when I spotted the Cells family’s Mercedes pulling into the parking lot, with Tristan flying invisibly beside it.
Abby waved to me as she got out of the car. I was about to wave back when her mother got out of the back seat and signaled for me to come over.
I stretched out my hand to greet her. “Nice to meet you again, Mrs. Cells,” I said politely, and Tristan, who stood beside Abigail, tried not to giggle.
“Nice to see you again too, Gideon,” Mrs. Cells looked from me to her daughter. “So, you’re the boyfriend from the library?”
Abigail blushed. “He—”
Her mother cut her off and turned to me. Suddenly, I felt as if I were under a klieg light. “A librarian called yesterday to remind Abigail to bring her boyfriend today because the children requested it,” Mrs. Cells said. “A boyfriend named Gideon.”
I didn’t know what to tell Mrs. Cells, and the situation would have been much better if Tristan weren’t standing beside Abigail with that insufferable grin on his face. “Mom, would you just—”
“So, are you and my daughter dating?” She ignored Abigail.
Based on the expression on Mrs. Cells’ face, I knew she wanted me to say no, but I was pretty sure no would be the wrong answer. I took a deep breath. “I… Abigail says I’m a jerk, and unless I can prove otherwise, I can’t answer that question.” After I said this, both Abigail and her mother gawked at me.
“Honey, is he a jerk?”
We both looked at Abigail. “Hmm… he’s… well, you know, he’s… Don’t you have work, Mom?” Abigail’s mother and I laughed.
“All right, all right. I know when I’m not wanted.” Mrs. Cells turned to me again. “I’ve got my eye on you, young man. More importantly, Abigail’s heavily armed bodyguards have their eyes on you. My girl deserves to be treated like a princess.” It was a good thing this woman didn’t know how I’d actually treated the one princess I’d met. She gave Abigail a goodbye kiss on the cheek and got back into the car.
Abigail and I waved as it drove away. Abigail looked like she’d just been drained of half her blood.
“That could have been worse,” I said, just above a whisper. I nudged her with my shoulder.
Abigail looked shy and awkward as she responded, “Way worse.” We started into the school with Tristan close behind us.
The day went well—too well. I spent every moment with Abigail and didn’t get any chance to kill her because Tristan was everywhere.
When school was over, I found myself at the library once more. One moment Abigail had been leaving school and saying her goodbyes and telling us she was going to the library, and the next moment I was telling her I wanted to join her, because the children loved me. I didn’t tell her how much I didn’t love them back.
Felix and Ben were both a bit surprised when Abigail said I was going to be riding with her to the library. All during the ride Abigail kept looking at Ben and then back to me, as if she were waiting for something to happen. I asked her what was wrong, but she said it was nothing.
Tristan followed us, of course. When we got to the library I held up a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and pointed from it to him. He was not amused.
The book Abigail wanted to read to the children had been delayed in shipping, and I suggested we make up our own story. Thanks to me and my big mouth, that’s exactly what we ended up having to do.
We had come up with a ridiculous tale about a pirate captain, an evil stepmother, a beautiful maiden, and a brave and chivalrous knight. Now the children wanted to act it out.
“I’ll be the pirate!” a boy named Vincent exclaimed when we asked for volunteers, covering one of his eyes with his hand to simulate an eyepatch.
I would play the knight, because he was awesome, and Abigail was unanimously chosen to play the beautiful maiden. An argument erupted over who was going to play the evil stepmother, until finally a freckled little girl stepped up saying she’d do it if she could choose her character’s name.
Once all the roles had been assigned (including that of Charlotte Emanuella Arianna Windsor the Great and Mighty and Also Really Evil) we started acting out the scenes of our story. Abigail ran away from home to escape the evil machinations of her stepmother, Charlotte; Vincent the pirate captured Abigail to hold her for ransom; Abigail tickled the pirate and stole his eyepatch; and finally we reached the ending, when I, Sir Awesome Knight, rescued Abigail.
“O wonderful knight, thank you so much for rescuing me.” Abigail curtseyed.
“My pleasure, beautiful maiden.” I bowed. I awkwardly shifted from my bow to one knee. Smooth, Gideon. “Marry me,” I said, kneeling. I took Abigail’s hands in mine.
Stepmother Charlotte had a few objections, but they were quickly silenced with the announcement that she had been called away to Paris on urgent business concerning becoming Queen of France.
“As I was saying, fair lady: please marry me.” I took Abigail’s hands again, and under my fingertips I could feel, literally feel, her pulse quicken.
I still couldn’t believe the unexpected twist in my plot to kill Abigail. How had I let four days go by without murdering her? Was I going soft? Why couldn’t I just get rid of her? Had I even been trying hard enough to get rid of her? Of course I had.
So why the heck was I kneeling before her with her hands in mine, playacting with a bunch of useless children?
Charlotte the Long-Named being crowned queen seemed more plausible than that.
“Where’s the pastor?” one of the children in the back asked. I stared into Abigail’s beautiful eyes.
What the hell was I doing?
“I’m here,” a little boy in a black tee shirt said, tucking a strip of white paper into his collar to make himself look a little more pastorly. “Dearly beloved—”
“I object!” Vinc
ent shouted, and both Abigail and I turned to him.
“If you object you end up being a queen. That’s what happened to Amelia. I mean Charlotte,” said a little boy with shining dark hair.
“Oh. I didn’t think of that. Sorry.” We all laughed, except for Tristan. Was it because he was feeling protective of Abigail, or because he was feeling offended at the lack of honor shown to royalty? I didn’t care enough to give it much thought.
“We are…blah blah…” the young pastor said. “You are married. You may now kiss the bride.”
My eyes met Abigail’s again, and for a split second, I wanted our fairy tale to be true. I wanted Abigail to be my mine, to be my girlfriend. I wanted it to be true so I could kiss her. Talk about unexpected plot twists!
Abigail’s face turned first red, then white, as I leaned toward her. “We don’t... ” Whatever she had started to say trailed off.
I could feel her soft breath, we were so close. It took every bit of willpower I had to not kiss her fully on the lips. When my lips finally did touch her, it was only a quick peck at the corner of her mouth.
The children cheered, and at the sound of their voices, I pulled away.
My eyes met Tristan’s, and the look on his face was impossible to read. Could he tell something was wrong with me? Was he as surprised as I was?
After that rather awful loss of my sanity I said a quick goodbye and left with the ridiculous excuse that I needed to go home and help my mother move furniture. Abigail offered to drive me, but I said I’d take the bus.
But, of course, I didn’t go to the bus stop or home to help my mother with her furniture. I went straight to the Underworld to visit D. I wanted, no, needed to see her because she was the only friend I had. I needed to ask her if she knew of any sort of early-onset angel dementia, or a rare brain fever that claimed supernatural beings as its victims. There had to be something. I was certain I was sick.
“D, open this stupid gate or I’m breaking it down!”
Every time I visited D I had to wait outside the monstrous gate for her to open it. It was huge and made of black iron, and rose so high into the darkness that its top wasn’t even visible. It must also have a damn complicated latch, because it always seemed to take D forever to open the thing.
The Underworld was the darkest place I knew. Behind the gate lay an envelope of darkness, murkier even than the clouds of Grands, out of which the cries of unfortunate souls could be heard.
The Underworld wasn’t my favorite place, perhaps, but I didn’t dislike it. The sad cries and the screaming were like sweet melodies to my ears. I liked listening to the wailing of lost souls asking for help in a place where help never came.
“D, I swear if you—”
D appeared beside me. “Relax, Gideon. I could hear you all the way from Earth!” “What’s the problem?”
“Remember the human girl that I wanted to kill?” I didn’t know why I said wanted to kill, because I did still want to kill her. Didn’t I?
“Tristan’s human? Is she dead? Did you come here so we could celebrate?”
“No, she’s not dead!” I shouted angrily. “She’s still alive and—wait, wouldn’t you know?”
“Mortals. They all kind of blend into one another. I can’t keep track of everyone. So she’s alive?” she sounded surprised. “Don’t you have a three-day policy or something?”
Worst friend ever, pointing out my failures when all I wanted was help.
“Why are you so worked up? Can’t you just kill her now? Or tomorrow? What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I can’t kill her!” I was shouting, and I didn’t normally shout at D. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, as if the air around me was too dense and was suffocating me, thickening like cement in my throat. Was I having a meltdown? “Whenever I try to hurt her, I feel… I feel something.”
“Feel something? What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I wanted… I want to kiss her”
D broke into laughter. “Wait. You’re serious?” She stopped laughing after seeing that I wasn’t joking. “Well, go kiss her, get it out of your system and then kill her. Problem solved. I’ve seen it millions of times before.”
“But I can’t. It’s Friday tomorrow.” What the hell was wrong with me? So what if it was Friday tomorrow?
“And it’s Thursday today. Your point?”
D didn’t understand the extent of the problem. She did seem to understand that I couldn’t explain it to her.
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t kill her tomorrow. How about the day after, or the next?”
“Well, she ordered a new book for the library, and it’s supposed to come in this Saturday. We want to, er, we have to read it to the children on Monday, so I can’t kill her.”
“The children? A book?” D looked more surprised and confused than she had since, well, I’d never seen D confused or surprised. “Excuse me? You can’t kill her this weekend because of a book?”
When she put it like that, it did sound pretty stupid. I wanted to kill Abigail—well, maybe not as much as I had before—but what if I killed her and… and I…
Gideon, back away from that thought.
D’s look changed from surprise to mild amusement. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that you are f—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because I grabbed her by the neck, and she choked on her words. “Don’t you dare say that out loud,” I whispered through clenched teeth. I released her. She didn’t even rub at her neck.
“We have a problem,” D said when I let go of her. “Come on. Let’s go hit you on the head with something nice and heavy and return you to normal.”
Now that was the friend I was looking for. I had actually been thinking of doing the same thing. “I vote for a car,” I said as D took my hand, and we disappeared into the darkness.
HAPPINESS
Abigail
“Of all the worst things I could do,
why, oh why, did I choose to be happy?”
Over here, Abby.” Gideon waved me over the moment I entered homeroom. He pointed at the empty seat beside him. “I saved you a seat,”
Since Jake was occupying my seat beside Tristan I went over and took the seat Gideon offered.
As I sat down, he asked, “So, are we going to the library today?”
“We?” I asked as I took out my books to get ready for class. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you liked those children.”
“You don’t know any better. I hate those children.”
We both laughed.
“I can’t today, I have training.” I waited for him to comment or ask why I trained, but he didn’t, and I was happy for his silence, because I honestly didn’t feel like talking about it
The more time I spent with him, the less he looked like the Gideon from my nightmare.
Yesterday, after I’d got home from the library, I’d agreed with me, myself, and I that the Gideon I knew wasn’t the same as the Gideon from my nightmare. I wasn’t completely convinced, but I believed it enough that I’d gone to bed last night hoping he’d call.
When Mr. Bernard came into the classroom and started his lecture I didn’t pay much attention, because Gideon was telling me about his little sister, Valoel, who was the reason he didn’t like children. Apparently, she’d been skull-meltingly annoying when she was little. I thanked my lucky stars that I was an only child.
“Valoel is a beautiful name,” I told him. “I’ve never heard it before.” I whispered, keeping my voice down so Mr. Bernard wouldn’t hear us.
“My first time hearing it too. I’m pretty sure my parents made it up.”
We laughed, and Mr. Bernard called us on it, so we didn’t talk the rest of the class period, though we kept exchanging looks and smiles. The girls in the classroom were looking at me as if I were bullying them for their lunch money. I could ignore the rest of them, but when I s
aw Sarah giving me the same look I knew she was going to make a very big deal out of it.
When the lunch bell rang, Gideon took my hand. “Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.” He stood up, school bag already in hand, because he’d started packing half way though the lecture.
I hurriedly gathered up my books, “You’re paying?” I asked teasingly.
“I’m not normally that much of a gentlemen,” he joked. “But, since I told the kids at the library you were my girlfriend I figured I owe you.” I knew we were just pretending, but my heart leaped every time he called me his girlfriend.
“Aww. What a romantic you are.” I zipped my bag.
“I know” He reached for my bag and slung it over his own shoulder. I was about to ask why he’d done that when he grabbed my hand and started to lead me over to my friends. The moment his hands touched mine, I felt a current run through me, causing my every nerve to tingle, and causing a few to actually backfire, so even if I’d wanted to say something, I wasn’t sure the words would have come out.
“You guys coming?” Gideon asked my friends.
Tristan noted our joined hands when he saw us. For a second I thought I could see fear in his eyes, but then it disappeared.
My friends joined us, and we made our way to the cafeteria together. Everyone who passed stared at me and Gideon; some of them whispered among themselves. I wanted Gideon to let go of my hand so they’d stop staring, but I couldn’t get the words out.
Gideon still had my hand in his when we turned a corner and walked into the cafeteria. I felt the magic of his touch rushing through me like electricity, leaving me shaken and breathless.
“You eat that human stuff, right?” I stopped walking when Gideon asked this. What? “I mean food.” Huh? That last bit certainly made him sound normal. Not crazy at all.
He might not be the Gideon from my nightmare, but he was still weird sometimes. The more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed. Like how he’d known about how I’d saved my friends during the accident. How he’d heard me say I hated him even though he hadn’t been in earshot. And twice now he’d made comments that sounded as though he didn’t think of himself as a human. Curiouser and curiouser.
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