“I don’t know. Seems like we’re being followed, or someone is walking on the street with us.”
“Ah, yeah, of course someone is walking on the street, it is a town, smarty.”
“But I’ve been hearing it since we left the iron gate of Fairstone.”
“The wind, I’m sure.” Miles turns back toward the library.
“Maybe.” Pard squints harder, focusing along the facade of the closed boutique shops that sell fancy lace and trinkets only during the summer. A copper light post flickers on and off. It goes almost black, and as Pard is about to turn toward the library, a blazing orange glow catches his eye. Pard extends his neck out, peering into the muted space as his foot hits the first library step.
Star sucks in a breath from a cigarette, the glowing ember brightens like the sun then extinguishes, then he flicks the butt into a snow berm and steps backward, slipping into shadow and disappearing.
“So you ready to do this?” Miles says, distracting Pard. “Do you have your mind right?” Miles pulls the handle of the ornate oak door to the library and holds it open.
Pard, a few steps behind Miles, is still staring off at where he saw the star man.
Miles shakes his head and pushes off the door and snatches Pard’s wrist. “No getting the girl if you’re lost in space there.” Miles yanks Pard up the last few steps and nudges him into the library.
The front door swings shut, and Pard is still in a daze as the hot air hits him and his eyes adjust to the bright light. The star man, cool and deadly gaze, his one silvery eye peering at him through his monocle, almost as if it can read his thoughts, is fixed on his mind.
Miles spins Pard to face square to him, and he grips both of Pard’s shoulders with his hands. Miles crouches to get to eye level and gently shakes Pard. “Snap out of it and get your eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize.” Miles slowly nods in rhythm with each word. “Repeat after me.”
As if hypnotized, Pard nods in unison with Miles.
“Say it—eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, come on, eyes on the prize.”
Pard mumbles, “eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize.”
Miles gently pats Pard with both hands on the side of Pard’s shoulders. “Good.”
“Eyes on the prize,” Pard continues to chant, “eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize.”
“Good, now you’re with me.”
“Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize.”
“You got this.”
“Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize.”
“Pard,” Selby says in a sweet tone, standing a few feet away from Pard.
Pard flinches and faces her.
“Sorry to interrupt you, seemed like you were singing with your friend.” Selby smiles at Miles.
Miles gives Selby an upward flick of his head but doesn’t say a word.
Pard glances away. “Yes, well, we were just, anyway, you want to study?”
“Sure, but aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Right, Selby, this is my friend Miles, and Miles, this is my friend Selby.”
“Nice to meet you, Selby,” Miles says, giving her a slightly seductive look.
“You too.”
“Miles is going to study with us today,” Pard says.
Selby’s eyes widen. “Oh, your friend knows Rue too?”
Pard, seeing how happy she is, he glances at Miles and says the first thing that comes to his mind. “No, he’s a dummy.”
“A bit harsh,” Selby says, taken aback. “He doesn’t look that dumb.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“Ahem,” Miles says, “you both realize I’m standing right here and listening to the both of you?”
“Strange thing to say about a friend,” Selby says.
Pard backs down. “I didn’t mean always dummy, just with Rue stuff.”
“Oh.” Selby laughs and smiles at Miles. “That makes the two of us.” Then she pats Pard on his shoulder. “I guess that’s why we have you to teach us. So shall we?” Selby leads Pard and Miles through the library toward their normal spot in the history section.
Miles leans into Pard’s ear and whispers, “Dummy? Really? That was the best thing you could come up with?”
“At the moment, yes. Hey, no making sexy eyes at her. And don’t make her smile or laugh either.”
“But that’s like asking me not to breathe.”
“So don’t breathe.”
“Here we are,” Selby says, and then she sits at the table. “I’ve been practicing the vowels you taught me last time, and I’m starting to get the hang of it.”
“That’s great,” Pard says, and then he sits next to Selby.
Miles unslings his pack and plops down in the chair across from them.
The next few hours pass as Pard tutors Selby, and Miles slumps in his chair and continually stares off at two pretty blonde girls studying a few tables over.
Miles waves at the girls, and the girls giggle and wave back. Miles winks and then nods.
Selby points her pencil between Pard and Miles. “You know, you two seem like an odd pair.”
Miles turns back toward Selby. “You can tell that from where you’re sitting? I haven’t even talked to the girls yet.”
Selby chuckles. “Not the girls, Miles.” She again points her pencil back and forth between him and Pard. “You two.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Pard says, “we get that a lot.”
“I bet you do,” Selby says. “Your friend comes to the library to study Rue with us, and he hasn’t even looked at the book or even spoken in an entire hour. All he seems to be interested in are those girls.”
“He’s a slow learner,” Pard says, trying to deflect.
Selby chuckles again.
“No, really, he doesn’t know Rue. We study advanced mathematics together, and he came along in case you didn’t show up. Then we would study for our term tomorrow.”
Selby suspiciously eyes Miles’s closed mathematics book. “Right.”
Miles flips open the book to a random page. “Takes me a while to get focused.”
“Uh-huh.”
Miles glances at a page for a split second, but as if by force, he angles his head back toward the girls. He gives them another wink.
The girls giggle.
Selby shakes her head in awe.
Pard rolls his eyes. “Anyway, Miles?”
Miles slowly turns back to Pard and Selby while still giving off a seductive aura.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Pard says.
“I’m in the zone, professor, and you’re distracting me.”
“Well, get out of the zone, you’re freaking me out.” Pard pulls out his Ruen book from his pack.
Miles rolls his eyes, and then he winks back at the girls.
“You’re funny,” Selby says, staring at Miles.
“No he’s not,” Pard says, getting jealous.
“Yes he is.”
Miles nods, taking Selby’s compliment.
“I’m funny too,” Pard says, trying to lure Selby back to him and away from Miles.
“You?” Selby scans Pard’s face. “Yes, I guess sometimes. But not like your friend.”
Pard’s heart sinks. Shoot, she likes him more than me. He lowers his head in defeat.
“So what did you bring today?”
Pard, trying to control his disappointment, refocuses on Ruen. “It’s a Ruen text my mother gave me. I thought you may like to check it out. Though it’s much harder to read than Rue. First you have to know Rue. And then every third or fifth symbol in a sentence is En. Which the symbols can mean one word or can be the representation or meaning of an entire story. So it’s tough to follow. This particular book is like an encyclopedia of magical creatures.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yup.”
“That’s so neat, can I see?”
“Sure.”
Selby opens the worn cover, and her eyes fill with joy. She leafs through the pages scanning the words and illustrations. “I’ve been hoping to learn some En too, that would help me out immensely.” Selby points to a slug-like creature at the top of the page. “So what does this say?”
Pard leans in close to her and almost loses himself as the clean smell of Selby’s clothes and hair fill his senses. “You try—read it to me.”
Selby hovers over the book and traces the text with her finger. “The ssssl—”
“Slagenitch.”
“Slagenitch is found in the forests of Rann—”
“Ranin.”
“Ranin, and if, if, touched by the white residue it secretes from its belly, you will itch horrible, and then your skin will—umm—”
“Pus.”
“Pus and shrivel. Yuck, gross.” Selby laughs, and Pard joins in. Selby smiles and gazes into Pard’s brown eyes, and he feels as if he’s floating on a cloud.
Then Pard loses himself, and his mouth automatically says what his brain has said a thousand times in the last year. “Will you go to the Fairstone dance with me?”
Selby slightly shakes her head, snapping out of her slagenitch trance. She lets out a faint laugh. “Did you just ask me to a dance?”
“Umm—did I?”
“Yup, he did,” Miles says, chiming in.
Selby gives Pard a kind smile. “I’d love to go with you.”
Pard’s head snaps back in surprise and his eyes open wider. “You would?”
“Of course.”
“Great, umm, that’s, so—”
Selby points to the next page in the Ruen book. “So help me with the next one.”
“Sure.”
Pard sings inside and is a new man. Something inside of him changes, and he knows going forward he will never be the same. Pard spends the next hour deciphering and joking and laughing with Selby. In the meantime, Miles buries his head in the crook of his arm and sleeps.
Ding—
The library bell rings, and Ms. Cookle hobbles by their table while pushing the book cart. “One hour until the library closes, kids.”
Miles jerks up and sucks in some drool and mouths it. “Time to go?”
“I think it is,” Selby says. “It’s getting late, and I’m having so much fun I lost track of time.”
“Me too,” Pard says. “We do have terms starting in the morning.”
Miles stands and slings his pack. “Hiney’s phallus, great, so anyway.”
Pard follows Miles and gets to his feet, and so does Selby.
“So when’s the dance?” Selby says.
“It’s on the first Saturday in December, in about three weeks.”
“I look forward to spending the night with you at Fairstone, how exciting. But we can still meet before then and study more Rue, right?”
“Sure we can,” Pard says, and his face beams.
“I can’t tomorrow, though,” Selby says, “but how about Tuesday?”
Then Pard remembers his trial, and his excitement fades. He lowers his head. “I can’t this Tuesday. But maybe Wednesday—I don’t know.”
“All right, Wednesday works for me,” Selby says.
Pard’s shoulders slump. “But I don’t know if I can Wednesday either, I’m not sure yet.”
Miles steps in to save Pard. “He will meet you on Wednesday. He just can’t on Tuesday.”
Selby chuckles and stares at Miles, wondering why she’s addressing Miles when Pard is standing right next to her. “Okay then, Wednesday it is, it’s a date.”
Miles pats Pard on the back, and Pard steps forward from the jolt and almost bumps into Selby. “Wednesday night at six is perfect for Pard. He’ll be right here, his slagenitch lovely self will be ready to enlighten you on more pus-loving Ruen creatures.”
“Good to hear—pus and all, I love it,” Selby says with a faint giggle, then she smiles at Pard. “See you Wednesday.”
Pard forces a smile back. “See you then too.”
“Have a safe, warm walk back to Fairstone.” Selby steps away. A few seconds later, she peeks back toward Pard, gently flicks her hair, and waves.
Pard can’t help smiling, forced or not, his lips automatically react to the magic Selby exudes. Selby disappears as she turns into an aisle of books, and Pard’s smile fades. He collapses into the chair and his head falls into his hands, covering his face. “She said yes.”
Miles grips Pard’s shoulders from behind and massages. “Yup, she sure did, told you.”
Pard looks up and stares out the window as his body rocks back and forth from Miles’s hard massaging. “My trial is on Tuesday.”
“That it is, my friend. And you have another study date with Selby the day after. And she said yes.”
Pard lowers his gaze and shakes his head. “I’m done for. I can’t believe my luck. I finally get the girl of my dreams and I’ll be kicked out and homeless in a few days. Just my stupid luck.”
Miles hooks his arms under Pard’s armpits and hoists him to his feet. Miles spins Pard around to face him. “Don’t fret, professor. You aren’t kicked out yet. And she said yes.”
Pard gazes back at Miles, and he grins. “She did say yes.”
“Yup, she sure did. I told you I know the secret. You should just trust me.”
Out of nowhere, Pard feels an urge deep inside as his body relaxes. “I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll meet you out front.”
“All right, I’ll meet you by the fireplace in a minute.”
Pard strolls with head held high. Even if he gets kicked out of Fairstone, he overcame his fears and asked Selby to the dance, and she said yes. This is the best and worst week ever, weird. Pard enters the bathroom in the back corner of the library, goes, and struts with newfound purpose back through the main portion of the library and toward the front door. Pard’s legs move with ease, twenty pounds lighter from his burdens, and his body glides with bliss through the aisles of books. At an intersection between two aisles, he glances to the right, and a few feet away, a man in a black duster coat, slightly hunched over, faces him. Penter.
Penter’s black eyes, menacing, scan Pard. His small white splotch of hair noticeably pokes away from the rest of his thick, wavy black hair which extends down to the middle of his neck.
A chill runs up Pard’s spine and Selby’s image and smile quickly disappear, replaced with the glower of Penter and his piercing black eyes. Pard’s twenty pounds of burden firmly back, plus a few more for measure, his legs get heavy, but the adrenaline kicks in and he pivots away from the menace. Pard picks up his pace.
Miles, leaning against the window next to the front door, bounces off the glass and unfolds his arms. “Ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Anything wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Pard slips through the library door and back into the wintery night.
CROSSBONES
“Eat it!” Miles says, thrusting his mathematics term paper through the crack in Pard’s door as it opens. “That says C plus, professor.”
Pard looks over Miles’s grades. He sighs. “Sorry, I thought you’d do better.”
“Sorry? Sorry? Professor, this is the best I’ve ever done on a mathematics term. No need to be sorry, it’s time to celebrate.” Miles swings off his backpack and pulls out a glass bottle filled with dark-purple liquid.
“Umm, what’s that?” Pard says.
“It’s celebration time, that’s what this is.” Miles twists out the cork and takes a vocal chug then let’s out an equally vocal belch. Miles extends the bottle toward Pard who is looking at it as if it’s poison. “Drink up, it’ll put hair on your chest and make you a man.”
“But you don’t have any hair on your chest.”
“Which is exactly why I’m drinking, now take it and drink up.”
Pard grips the chilly bottle. “What is this, I don’t recognize it?”
“Something special my bro
ther left me for just such an occasion.”
“Why are there crossbones on the bottle?”
“It means its quality—take a swig and see for yourself.”
“But don’t we have to plan for our mission tonight? We really shouldn’t be drinking this stuff, it’s going to be dangerous.”
Miles waves Pard off. “Nonsense, we can’t go for a good three hours. Yitch will still be awake polishing his little nick-knacks with all the students up studying for terms. So we have plenty of time to plan and celebrate.” Miles stares at Pard expectantly.
“Okay, I guess one sip couldn’t hurt.”
“Right on!”
Pard holds his breath and throws back the bottle with the opening pressed against his lips. The purple syrupy liquid oozes into his mouth and bites his palate. Pard gulps once, he gulps twice, a sudden scorching pain grips Pard’s throat and his stomach gurgles as the molten liquid hits bottom. Pard chokes and removes the bottle, purple liquid seeping out of the corners of his lips. Pard cringes and coughs.
“Nice,” Miles says, “good, eh?”
“Yeah—” Pard coughs again. “Quality.”
“I told you.”
Pard’s skin tingles and the temperature in his chilly room seems to have risen twenty degrees within the last minute. A bead of sweat forms on Pard’s temple.
Miles nods. “Take another, professor, you deserve it.”
“I better not—”
“Go on, drink up.”
“I—”
“Drink—”
“All right, just one more, I guess.” Pard repeats the process, the gulp, the scorch, the gurgle, the cough, and the temperature rises again. Pard plops down hard on his bed while staring at the ceiling, and he imagines Selby’s face.
“Good,” Miles says with a devious grin. He throws his head back for another swig.
Two hours pass along with the rest of the purple liquid, the bottle empty, they prepare for ‘Peration ‘Aximus. They dropped the ‘O’ and ‘M’ an hour earlier as a joke when half of the bottle of crossbones was still left. But now they uncontrollably drop many of the first letters of all their words.
“‘O time,” Miles says with a slight sway. “‘Ot your lie ‘sick?”
The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) Page 14