It makes you want to scream a bit, how little Alex seems to understand about how the world works. It also makes you want to spend the rest of your life making sure the truth never comes out.
You don’t sleep at your own house in the summer anymore. Theoretically, it’s because you don’t all fit in the bed, your arms and legs end up twined in ways that might be awkward to explain, even though you all know there is nothing to tell. Really it’s because you want a vacation, and if you’re somewhere else you can pretend. Alex is very, very good at pretending—and even better at ignoring innuendo—and you are rather shameless about using that as an escape. You make it up in other ways. You whisper when the three of you are roasting marshmallows, and you never roll your eyes, no matter what Alex says. You always let Tab sleep on the outside, even though you hate crawling out of bed to go to the bathroom.
You find that you have become the center, pulling them in the way the lake pulls their families back every summer. You are afraid that they are drifting, that one day they will get a job or go to a university that’s far away, and you will be alone in a town that only has a population in three digits two and a half months of the year. They have come into your world for their entire lives, but you’re not sure how you’ll fare in theirs, if they would even want to see you when you try.
You don’t want to see the world come down on Alex because you don’t want to feel it come down on you.
Chance or reality.
Choose.
3.0
The longer you spend traveling on this, your first quest, the more you feel like your knight masters left far too much out of your apprenticeship. They never mentioned how terrible oatmeal tastes when you can’t cook it without dropping in half a cup of cinders. They never mentioned how awkward it is to pitch a tent in the dark. They never mentioned that, away from the castle, all horses turn into beasts of the devil. They never mentioned that you would be lonely.
You’re not alone, of course. Quests are not meant for one person, unless there is some decree from the queen or from one of the gods. Your companions are the ones you would have chosen anyway, with skills that complement your own—a mage and a . . . well, a thief, to be quite honest. Both of them are young, like you. The mage you know from the castle. The thief you had never seen before, but the familiarity with which you are treated makes you think the thief is also a spy. Both of them are terrible cooks.
The mage has a writing desk to use when you are in the saddle. You’re not sure that you’ve done anything worth chronicling yet, but the scratch of the pen is constant, and sometimes in the evenings the mage has to make more ink to replace that which has been used up. You caught a glimpse of the pages once: flowers and trees drawn with fine lines, and lettering so tiny you couldn’t read it in the seconds you had.
You have absolutely no idea what the thief’s job is, and by the time you work up the nerve to ask, you’ve reached your destination and several things are on fire. Then it is your turn to act, with your bright sword and your strong shield and your noble courage. Mostly, you think, you are very lucky, but the skirmish ends with the dragon laid out at your feet and both of your companions still breathing, so you decide you can’t have done too poorly.
The journey back is different. The mage sits closer to you, and asks you to check the pages over to make sure they are accurate. The thief makes fewer cutting remarks and no longer disappears for hours at a time. Most of your gear was lost to dragon fire, but you can all sleep in the same tent, and you do, though you leave your armor in saddlebags with the horses because the smell is pretty bad.
There were other apprentices when you were learning to be a knight, but they were competition. This is different. This is the sum of the parts, though you never really thought of people as parts before, and you’re reasonably sure that between the three of you, there’s very little you couldn’t accomplish.
You miss the solitude of training, though. The hours on horseback, or firing arrows at the practice targets. The study of old battle tactics and military history. There’s something to be said for teamwork, but there’s something about blessed quiet that you long for, even as you plan for a future with these two by your side.
Space or company.
Choose.
When the mage-teachers pick you, of all your siblings, for further study, you are so proud of yourself you nearly burst. Pride, you know, is not an attractive feature, but your parents are too busy to be proud of all of their children, and gods know, someone should be proud of you, so you are. You do your best to keep it under control.
The classwork is easy, and you all but fly through it. Your teachers commend your neatness and accuracy, and classmates are outright envious of your memory, and you do your best not to reveal how much effort it costs you to be so brilliant. For some reason, natural talent is considered more worthy than hard work.
In the end, you are chosen to chronicle the first quest of a new knight you’ve seen a few times around the castle. Like the others, the knight is tall and broad shouldered. You hope that somewhere under that thick skull there is a brain, or this quest is going to be very, very long indeed. The thief you’re saddled with, for reasons passing understanding, has enough brain for all three of you. Pride should make this unattractive, but you can’t stop looking.
You idle away time and ink with drawings of all the plants you see. Most of them are well recorded already in the archives, but you know that context is important, and it’s always possible that you might find something new in the process. You are terrible at making camp, but your mage’s fire is perfect, and so neither of your companions complain. You never wander far once the tents are pitched, even though you’re always curious about what might be on the other side of the hills in the directions you’re not going.
The dragon is beyond anything you might have imagined, and you can hardly watch the knight take it on. This, you realize, will be troublesome when you sit down to write your account of the battle. You decide that most of these must be made-up stories anyway, and resolve to ask both of your companions for their input when the time for writing comes. Now is the time for not being lit on fire, and you do your best to stay out of the way.
You’re not used to asking for help, for different insights to use in your work. You suppose it’s all right: these two are not your rivals for the teachers’ approval. Your name will be the only one affixed to the scholarly work that you produce. All that will matter is that it’s your hand that holds the pen.
You won’t get famous drawing plants. You won’t even get famous teaching other mages their craft. You’ll get famous following a knight, this knight, and chronicling battles and victories for public record. It’s a victory this time, with the dragon reduced to a smoking pile of scales and ichor at the knight’s feet, but next time you might not be so lucky. If you stay home, you’ll be nothing. If you venture out, well, it really could go either way.
Privacy or security.
Choose.
You agreed to come on this ridiculous adventure because they promised to feed you. You eat well enough in the city, most of the time, but you have to work for it. Now all you have to do is sit on a horse, follow the others, and there’s three meals a day with better meat than you’d ever get from a month of picking pockets.
The horse is the biggest difficulty. The knight tries to teach you how to sit properly and reassures you that your seat is getting better, but the first few days are outright agony. Your feet burn and your thighs burn and your rear, well, suffice it to say that if you had to make a quick escape, you’d be unable to. That is the worst part of all. In the end, the horse becomes accustomed to you and you to it, and the knight smiles at you when you swing up into the saddle, and you wonder how in all hells this became your life.
The mage doesn’t notice you very often, because there are so many flowers to draw and only so much daylight.
Your task, you were informed, is to keep the knight and the mage alive. Though both of them are very
well trained and the best of their classes, they have not been out in the world before. If they need to buy food, you are to make sure they are not swindled. If their nobility appears to be blocking their ability to get the job done, you are to take care of it.
You are profoundly bored.
The knight assumes that you are companions in truth now, and treats you as an equal. If this bothers the mage, no sign is given. The knight, you realize, believes the stories, and since it is the mage’s ilk that have written them down, you can’t really be surprised that the mage believes them too. Companions on a quest, bound for life by their mutual triumph over danger, and friends and comrades for eternity. It’s a pretty tale, and you wish you could buy into it as they have, but you can’t.
You know better, and you know what waits for thieves. If you’re lucky, you’ll be knifed in the heart by someone you know who is trying to take your place in the gang. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be caught. Then it’s torture for information, which you don’t have, and a public hanging, which you would really rather do without. Thieves might get called to go on quests from time to time, but their endings don’t change, not for real.
When the knight goes up against the dragon, you and the mage hang back and stay out of the way. The mage is clearly terrified, and you can’t say you’re not, so you say nothing at all. The knight puts up a good fight. Each swing of the bright sword is slower, though, and each stroke of the dragon’s claws against the strong shield seems to put more pressure on what by now must surely be a broken arm. There’s no opening for the killing blow, and you don’t think the knight can last much longer.
You scream, loudly, and the mage cries out too, more startled than anything else. The dragon looks at both of you, as if aware for the first time that the knight is not alone, and in doing so reveals soft belly to steel. The knight does not miss, and then the dragon is dead at your feet.
They know what you did. The knight believes the stories more than ever now, and the mage is writing yours down as you ride. But still you cannot quiet that restless doubt and consider fleeing into the night before you reach the city walls. They would miss you, maybe, but then they would forget, and you wouldn’t have to watch them do it.
Chance or reality.
Choose.
Hurdles
BRANDY COLBERT
“Feeling good about next week?”
My father asks me this before every track meet. The closer we get to an event, the more his questions about my preparedness replace normal inquiries, like asking about my day or how school is going.
“Yup,” I say, watching the toaster. He didn’t even say good morning.
“You know, some big scouts are going to be there.” He opens the cabinet and reaches for his silver travel mug. “Carl from SC and Troy from Arkansas and—”
“I know. You told me. I’m ready.”
My two pieces of toast pop up. Dad fills his mug while I slather on butter. He looks over when the knife clangs against the counter and frowns.
“Mavis, what’d I tell you about toast? If you insist on having that over something more rich in protein, you could at least eat it with peanut butter.”
“I’ll make up for it at lunch.” I bite the inside of my cheek so I won’t sigh as I walk my plate to the kitchen table.
Probably other people my age have way more exciting fantasies, but my dream come true would be only having to deal with my father at one place: school or home. Not both. Everyone at school loves him—his health and wellness students and my fellow teammates. I love him, but I think I’d like him a lot more if he were just my dad and not my coach too.
Jacob says I’m lucky. His parents don’t understand what track means to him. But sometimes I wonder if my relationship with hurdles means more to my father than it ever will to me.
I get my period as I’m walking to my first class and make a detour to the English-wing bathroom. The bell sounds while I’m still standing at the sinks, digging through my bag for a tampon. Shit. I’ll have to go up to the office for a late pass.
I take my time walking to the front of the school, thinking about the meet next week. I am ready—I’m always ready . . . the part of me that everyone’s watching, that is. But something’s missing. I used to feel a rush of excitement at least a week before I’d be competing. I used to go online to look at the members of the opposing teams to see who I’d be up against and then picture their faces as I practiced jumping.
This year is different. Dad is being even harder on me than normal because I’m a junior. He says now is when scouts are going to start looking at me, and that if I want to get to the Olympics, I have to start treating hurdles like they’re my job.
The older secretary is working the attendance office. She barely even looks up as she scrawls on the square of paper and rips it from the pad, sliding it across the counter.
“Thanks,” I say, and when I turn around to walk back out, I run straight into a guy. I lose my grip on the late pass, and it flutters to the floor. “Sorry,” I mumble automatically, bending down to grab it.
When I stand, I’m face-to-face with the love of my life.
“Hey,” he says, appraising me with his sleepy brown eyes.
I haven’t seen him in three months. I feel like someone has sewn my throat closed. I open my mouth, and all that comes out is air. I swallow and try again. “Hi. Bobby. I . . . Edwina didn’t tell me you were coming back today.”
He shrugs. “I think she liked it better when I was gone.”
We both know he’s right, but I don’t acknowledge it.
“How are you?”
“Sober,” he says with that wry smile that still makes my knees feel like pudding. “Been staying out of trouble?”
“My life is basically school, hurdles, and listening to my dad talk about school and hurdles, so . . .”
Bobby touches my elbow and I try not to melt into a liquid version of myself as he pulls me into the hallway, a few feet from the office door. “You want to get out of here?”
I stare at him. “Didn’t you just get here?”
“Yeah, and two minutes back in this place is enough to remind me how much I fucking hate it.” He cocks his head to the side. “Got my car back. We could go grab some breakfast. Or head down to the beach? Your choice.”
I can’t think of anything I want more than to blow off the rest of the day and spend it with Bobby Neeley instead. I feel like another part of me comes alive when I’m with him. Even when he was just sitting in the same room as his sister and me, not paying attention to either of us, I’ve always felt better with Bobby around. We’ve never talked about it, but I think he feels the same way.
“I can’t,” I say, after the pause has become too long. “I’ll have to miss practice if I get detention, and my dad would kill me. I have a meet next week.”
There’s also the matter of my boyfriend, Jacob. He knows I’m friends with Bobby, and how upset I was when he had to go to rehab. But Jacob is so easygoing and trusting, I don’t believe it would even occur to him to think I could have feelings for someone else. And I like Jacob. It would feel dishonest to spend a whole day alone with Bobby, no matter how badly I want to.
“You sure?” Bobby raises his eyebrows, like it’s possible I could be missing the best day of my life.
“Sorry.” I bite my lip. “You should sit with us at lunch, though.”
“If I make it that long.” He salutes me and starts walking backward into the office. “Good to see your face, Mavis.”
“Yeah. You too, Bobby.”
The next day after practice, Dad says he has to wrap up a couple of things before we leave and tells me to meet him in his office. But when I get there, Jacob is sitting in the folding chair across from him. They’re laughing, and like always, their ease with each other makes me uncomfortable.
I guess that’s not fair. My father has been his coach since freshman year, since before Jacob and I started dating. Still, I feel like they should keep things stric
tly business. I don’t like the idea of a guy who regularly sees me naked being all chummy with my dad.
I knock on the doorframe, and they both turn toward me. Both smile. Jacob pats the empty seat next to him, but I decide to stand. “Almost ready?”
Dad slides some papers into a folder. “Sure. I can finish the rest of this at home. Your boyfriend here distracted me.”
Jacob grins, and I feel bad that I want to roll my eyes.
“Your mom’s working late tonight,” Dad says. Like he even needs to announce it at this point. Mom’s an attorney at an environmental law firm, and she’s working on a big case right now. I feel like I haven’t seen her in weeks, and when I do, it’s usually just a quick kiss good morning or good night. “So it’s just us for dinner. Should we do salmon and brown rice?”
“Um, actually, I’m going to Edwina’s for dinner.” I pause. “If that’s okay.”
“You’re going to leave your dear old dad to fend for himself?” he says in mock horror. “What if I end up eating ramen noodles?”
“You’ll survive,” I say. “Or, you know, you could live it up and swing by a Mickey D’s drive-through.”
Dad gives me a look, then turns to my boyfriend. “Well, what are you doing for dinner, Jacob? Do you like salmon?”
This time my eyes flick toward the ceiling before I can stop them. “I’m going to wait in the car.”
I like being at Edwina’s house—when no one is arguing. It’s a nice house, clean and comfortable and decorated well. And her parents like me. They seem to find it fascinating that I’m good at something physical. None of the Neeleys have ever played a sport in their life. Edwina’s father is an executive at a bank, her mother is a wedding planner, and Edwina is managing editor of our school’s literary magazine.
Bobby’s not particularly athletic or academic, and he always lists that as another reason he’s the black sheep of his family.
Three Sides of a Heart Page 18