by John Goode
“Kinda,” I said, reluctantly letting go of him.
“Kinda?” he asked, the word sounding like an entirely different language coming from his mouth.
I sighed and held my hand out. He laughed as he unfastened the earring and placed it on my palm. I slipped it in and looked at him. “Kinda.”
His smile got wider as he exclaimed, “Of sorts!” And then tried again. “Kinda.” He looked at me. “Kinda?”
I nodded. “You’re saying it right.”
His head cocked slightly. “I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth anymore. That sounded like a convenient lie.”
I touched the earring as I asked, “It’s a lie detector?”
He nodded. “Part of the spell.”
“Spell?” I asked. “As in magic?”
“So you do know of it.” He sat down, somehow making our old kitchen table look five times more valuable by just leaning on it. “Is it still taught somewhere?”
“Magic?” I asked, trying to rein in my disbelief. He nodded. “Magic doesn’t exist,” I spluttered.
He stared at me for almost five seconds before bursting out laughing. Make that guffawing. He pounded the table as his bare feet slapped against the floor. I didn’t see what was so funny, which made him laugh harder. What had been kinda amusing at first, faded, and I began to suspect Hawk had found an excuse to laugh at me. Grim faced, I asked over his braying, “What’s so funny?”
Face red with mirth, eyes glistening with tears he’d been laughing so hard, he tried to say something. “You… you’re….” He gasped between erupting chuckles. “You’re wearing a magic bauble, and you claim that magic doesn’t exist.” Which sent him off into another fit of laughter. “I knew humans lived in denial, but I never dreamed—”
The bell went off on the microwave and that brought his attention back quickly. He stared suspiciously at the machine after he dried his eyes on his sleeve. The speed with which he went from utterly silly to dangerously focused startled me. “The oven chirped,” he said, attempting to sober himself up. Little hiccups of laughter escaped every few seconds despite his best efforts at keeping his lips tightly pressed together.
“Food’s done,” I said, popping the microwave door open and pulling out the hot plate. I set it down in front of him, and he marveled at the steam coming off of it.
“It’s burning up,” he remarked, examining the plate from all sides and then, after tapping the rim to check for heat, lifting it up and peering underneath. “The plate is not enchanted?”
“The oven heats things up,” I explained, grabbing a couple of forks from the silverware drawer. “The food, the plate, everything. Here.” I handed him a fork, watched him tap the food with the tines.
“What is this?” he asked, picking at the food.
“All I have to eat,” I said, digging in. He watched me swallow and then took a bite himself. At first he nibbled hesitantly and then he began chewing in earnest. His eyes widened, and he nodded as he took another bite enthusiastically. “This is good!” he said, talking through a mouthful. His exuberance was infectious, and I found myself laughing with him.
“I’ve never seen anyone so pleased with leftovers,” I said.
He stopped in midbite. “Scraps?”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about until I remembered I still had the earring on. Leftovers translated as scraps in a weird sideways logic, so I nodded. “Close enough. This is what my father and I didn’t finish last night.”
He spat the food in his mouth across the room as he shoved his chair away from the table so he could stand.
Surprised, and not sure what had happened, I dropped my fork and pushed away from the table also. The table jerked, and the plate fell to the ground, shattering. “What?”
“You dared to feed me table scraps?” he raged. Even furious he was handsome, the way his features became sharper, and his eyes narrowed in anger. Where I should be concerned, I was just turned on. It was cosmically unfair.
“Dare?” I screamed back. “It’s food, you jackass! You were liking it just fine before you spit it up like a freaking child!”
His eyes widened in fury. “I am the heir of the nine worlds, prince of Arcadia and holder of the right of ascens—”
“Hawk!” Spike bellowed from the kitchen entrance. I spun, startled at the sound. The creature was standing at the doorway to the kitchen, his face grim, reminding me of a teacher who had caught a student goofing off.
I glanced back and saw the absolute chagrin in Hawk’s expression as he slowly closed his mouth. A silent conversation passed between the creature and Hawk, and it was obvious Hawk was getting his ass kicked. He looked down at the spilt food and looked, for a moment, mortified. “I am…,” he said in an absent tone, like he was talking to himself. Then he looked up at me. “I apologize,” he said, putting a hand over his heart, almost as if he was saluting me. “I was your guest, and I behaved abhorrently.”
His words were so formal now they were painful.
“I shall leave,” he said, edging around the table and into the living room. He jerked his boots on, and Spike stepped around toward him, his feline paws morphing into hands to assist Hawk. “I have this,” I heard him say. “Find him compensation for my breach of etiquette.”
I could see the very human intelligence in those cat eyes as Spike shot a glare over at me before slinking off to the knapsack. He dug around inside it while Hawk tightened the straps on his boots, every motion chopped and echoing his anger. After a few seconds, I saw the thing pass his master something before it bundled the sack back up.
Hawk turned toward me, his face as expressionless as a statue. There was no warmth in his eyes as he looked at me and made a half bow. “I humbly apologize for my behavior. Please accept this as payment for your kindness and patience.” He handed me a ruby the size of a baseball, cut into what looked like a tiny Death Star. The living room light caught it and I saw what I suspected were words engraved inside the rock’s core. As I watched, they floated across one of the broad facets of the ruby as the light shifted.
Hawk glanced up, still bent in that bow, the ruby in his hand extended toward me. He realized I’d made no move to take the enormous rock. “Is this not satisfactory?” He stood quickly and snapped his fingers. Spike started toward him with the bag in hand.
“No!” I cried out, stopping both of them. “I mean yes, it’s great, but I don’t want it. It’s too much.”
He seemed puzzled, looking back toward the jewel that had to be bigger than the Hope Diamond and then to me. “Then take it for payment.”
“For what?” I asked, still not daring to get near the thing.
“For the meal and the servants that will have to clean it up,” he explained.
“I have to clean it up,” I said frankly.
“Oh.” He seemed embarrassed for me. “Well, then take it for… um… your work then.” When I refused to touch the gem, he set it down on the coffee table. “My apologies again,” he said, moving toward the door.
I tried to intercept him. “Hawk! Why are you leaving?”
He looked back at me and held my gaze for a long, hard, few seconds. “Because I don’t belong here.”
“You don’t have to go,” I pleaded. “I can order new food!” I hated that I sounded so needy.
“It isn’t the food,” he replied back, facing me. His voice sounded almost wistful as he said, “Good-bye, Kane.” There was no emotion on his face, but I knew it wasn’t to be trusted. I just knew that if he was a prince he’d been schooled on how to keep his emotions unreadable.
He opened the door and pulled his jacket free of my grasp. Then, never once looking back, he strode down our walkway. Spike followed him a few feet and then turned back and looked at me. It’s hard to tell with a cat, but I could swear he was silently laughing at me.
As Hawk reached the sidewalk I saw Jewel hurrying toward my house from the other direction. When she saw him, she paused, her expression of shock visible f
rom where I stood at the door of my house. Hawk nodded at her as he walked by; I noticed Spike was nowhere to be seen. After Hawk passed her, she looked at me, pointed at him as she mouthed, “Is that him?” I suddenly felt cold, as if part of me were leaving with him.
She scurried up the walk, glancing a few times over her shoulder at him. “Oh, crap, he is hot! And real!” I raised an eyebrow at her and she shot me a glance. “Oh, please, I had money he was either a huge rabbit only you could see or a leprechaun that was going to tell you to burn stuff.”
I didn’t laugh as he turned the corner and disappeared.
“So what was he doing here?” she asked.
I had to admit to myself, I still had no idea.
Chapter Seven
“OH MY God! He’s real?” Jewel exclaimed instead of asking as she rushed into the house.
I nodded and sat down in my dad’s chair. It was still vaguely warm from where Hawk had sat.
“And he is hot!” she said again for emphasis, pacing the living room in nervous excitement. “And he goes to our school?” I nodded again. “Really? Does he have a cloak of invisibility or something?”
I laughed to myself as I said, “You have no idea.”
She heard the tone of my voice and paused. “What’s wrong? You had the hottest guy in the… well, ever in your house, and you’re bummed?” She didn’t even give me time to form a response much less answer as she went on, “Oh, is he homophobic? Did he get mad when you hit on him?” Another non-pause. “Did you hit on him? Oh my God! Did you kiss him?” She clapped her hands in glee. “Is he a good kisser?”
She looked at me, clearly wanting an answer, so I just waited for her to take a breath.
“Done?” I asked, raising one eyebrow at her. She nodded. “He isn’t a homophobe, I wasn’t flirting with him, and we didn’t kiss.”
She waited for me to go on, but I just sat there, hoping there was a point to what she was saying.
“Why not?” she called out as she walked toward me to slap the top of my head. She went to swing at me and I winced away from the impending blow. Jewel might be a girl, but she packed one hell of a wallop when she wanted to.
I heard a voice say, “Protect” from behind her at the same instant I saw the jewel on the table flash brightly. She went flying back onto the carpet. I opened my other eye, and we both looked at each other in shock. Then she began to laugh. “Did I just trip on nothing?”
I glanced over at the gem. It had returned to normal ruby coloring. On any other day, I would have wondered if I had imagined Jewel taking a flying leap, but after the talking cat thing, being stabbed with a knife that didn’t leave a wound, and wearing an earring that let you understand languages, a glowing ruby that takes offense to slaps was just not weird enough for me.
I laughed the best I could and got up to help her to her feet. As I passed the table, I kneed the edge, knocking the ruby off toward the couch. It made an audible thud as it hit the floor.
“What was that?” she asked as I pulled her up.
“Old house,” I replied quickly. “Makes a lot of weird noises.”
She looked confused. “I never heard that before.”
“My dad’s gone. Lack of white noise makes everything louder,” I added, sitting down on the couch, covering the gem with my feet.
“Right,” she said, suddenly remembering. “My mom wanted you to come over for dinner tonight since you’re pulling a Macaulay Culkin for the week.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why does everyone think I’m Home Alone all of a sudden?”
That same voice came from between my feet saying, “The comparison of a young boy left alone during the holidays being juxtaposed against you being left alone for the first time in your life is a viable popular cultural reference.” I kicked the gem under the couch as I waited for Jewel to comment on my new talking rock.
Instead, she shrugged as if she heard nothing and said, “I dunno, but it has to beat take-out,” she said glancing over at the kitchen table, seeing the broken plate on the ground. “Kane, what happened?”
Her question didn’t even register with me; I was too engrossed in wondering how she could not have heard those words. She snapped her fingers at me. “Kane! What happened in the kitchen?”
“Nothing,” I said, getting up, moving to enter the kitchen before she could. I grabbed a broom and dustpan from the cellar stairway as Jewel kept talking.
“Did he do this?” Her voice was angry, and I could tell she’d begun to craft another little soap opera in her head. “Did he throw it at you? Is he Greek? Greek guys are hot but they can be dicks. Kane, you have to be careful with him because Greek guys have tempers.”
As I swept up the mess I said, “He’s not Greek.” But I knew it was a waste of time.
“I think they are like the guys on Jersey Shore.” She was now just talking to herself. “No wait, those are Italians.” She looked back at me. “Is he Italian? With that dark hair and those dreamy blue eyes, he could be. Have you seen him with his shirt off? Is he hairy? Because if he’s hairy he’s Italian.” She paused. “Or Greek, I think they are hairy too. Is he hairy?”
I lost it.
On any other day, I could take this kind of banter. Normally, I’d be the same kind of brainless chatterbox. After all, all we used to do was talk about nothing and dream about what life was like outside of Athens in conversations that sounded like Jewel’s current babble. But today, today was different. I felt like I was forty years old and working on my last nerve as I snapped, “Don’t you ever shut up?”
She froze, the same look on her face as when I pushed her in the hallway.
“He isn’t homophobic. We didn’t kiss. I didn’t see him with his shirt off, and he isn’t Greek, Italian, or any other nationality you’d know. Can we please talk about something else?”
Her shock faded and scorn replaced the startled expression on her face. “Well excuse me, Mr. Pyromaniac. I guess I’m not good enough to hear about your new boyfriend.”
“He’s not my—” I tried to interject but she just rolled on.
“I came here to tell you about dinner. I’ll just tell my mom you’re too good to eat with us.” She spun on her heels and marched out the door. Part of me wanted to call out to her and apologize, but I honestly did not have the energy. Instead, I threw the broken plate in the trash and let the broom drop to the kitchen floor.
I collapsed into my dad’s chair, wishing he was home. Then I was glad he wasn’t here because he’d just be another person I couldn’t talk to about the insanity that was Hawk. “Why does this have to be so hard?” I asked out loud.
“Because without adversity there is no natural selection possible, inviting an inferior creation.” The voice came from underneath the couch.
I knelt down and felt for the voice’s owner with one hand. I pulled it out along with a dust bunny the size of my head and vowed that we needed to clean better. Holding it up to my face, I studied it close up. There was some kind of inner light inside, like a candle was somehow contained in it, so I wasn’t losing my mind. What was amazing, though, were the letters that swirled around the circumference of the core, seemingly carved into the gem itself. They floated by, and I thought I was just able to make out what they were spelling, but the more I tried to concentrate on them, the harder it became. My head began to ache like I had eaten ice cream too quickly as I squinted, really looking inside. “Why can’t I read them?” I exclaimed.
“Because the enchantment on the bauble does not allow for the deciphering of arcane symbols. It serves only to facilitate normal communication.” The voice was pleasant and sounded vaguely British.
“My enchantment?” I echoed, as the last shred of common sense I possessed checked out for the night. Literally nothing was going to surprise me anymore. Ever.
“More specifically, the enchantment placed on the earring you wear.”
I almost asked what he was talking about when I remembered I still had Hawk’s earring. I felt its wa
rm surface between my fingers and realized Hawk had taken off without remembering I had it.
“He can’t understand English without this,” I exclaimed, suddenly worried.
“No, he cannot,” the gem agreed.
I looked back at it suspiciously. “Why are you answering everything I ask?”
I could swear the gem’s voice became boastful as it said, “I am the Raatnaraj Ruber Scientia, first consular to the Stone Throne and was a personal gift to the royal family of Arcadia by the Djupur himself.”
“Ruber?” Not wanting to ask the stone what any of that meant because the gem seemed so proud of it that it might be taken as an insult.
“You may refer to me as that, yes.”
“Okay, Ruber, why are you talking?” I settled back, the sense that Ruber’s response might be longer than ten words.
The ruby made a slight noise that sounded a lot like a hummmpph before answering. “To answer it in a way that you would understand, I am a life form that instead of flesh and blood is composed of minerals. I am a gem elemental, if you will.”
“Living ruby, got it.” I nodded.
I saw the letters pause for a moment and had the feeling I was on the receiving end of a withering stare from the talking rock. “I was in direct line of succession for the throne, I’ll have you know. I am not just a ‘living ruby’,” it answered.
“Gems have thrones?”
“Well, not thrones as you know them, but we do have a hierarchy, yes,” it explained.
“Wait, so there are living gemstones where Hawk comes from, and you were a royal one?” I summarized.
“Not from Hawk’s world per se, but one connected to his, yes. Hence my title.” Its voice was almost literally dripping with condescension.
“Okay, so you’re saying that rubies are in charge? What about diamonds?”
I swore the temperature in the room dropped forty degrees. “Diamonds are excessively pampered, ignorant inbreds that rule only because of tradition. I assure you, anything a diamond can do a ruby can do better, and with color I might add.”