The Queen

by Skye Warren

  I do think of him in a sexual way, these strange and feverish thoughts that come to me at night. I think of him, having become a woman. I was just a child when Damon Scott visited me in my bedroom, when he held himself away from me. When he gave me my first kiss.

  Professor Stanhope gives me a crooked smile, and I have a glimpse of the playboy he could have been had he a less focused mind. Handsome and intelligent and kind.

  You’d be safe with me, that smile seems to say.

  But I’m not sure I’m ready to resign myself to his dusty shelves, more an intricate proof than a partner, a cherished volume that he would run ink-stained fingers across. I would never go back to Tanglewood. There would be nothing left to hold me there. The thought brings a strange ache to my chest, as if I’ve lost something I can never get back.

  Chapter Two

  I get to the Emerald late that evening, the sun streaking over sloping hills of dark moss. In the morning the sunlight will sparkle off the dew, which is what gave the house its name. Originally built as a vacation home for a powerful industrialist and a real-life Spanish princess, the house was eventually converted to a luxury hotel.

  And then purchased by Gabriel Miller as an outright gift for Avery James.

  A place for her to be safe and comfortable while she continues her graduate studies. A place for her to call home, to replace the one she lost. The hotel is still operational, only the top-floor penthouse reserved for Avery.

  Gabriel still has a mansion in Tanglewood, but this is owned by her.

  When I first came to Smith I lived in the dorm rooms with all the other freshman, but I have a hard time relating to the girls with their platinum credit cards and prep school backgrounds. Avery offered me permanent residence in one of the other suites, but that wouldn’t feel right either.

  Instead I started working in the kitchens and found a room reserved for on-site staff members. I’m much more comfortable among the waitstaff and line cooks and maids than I am upstairs.

  I slip through the back door, past the bustle of the kitchen where Lorenzo shouts orders among the clamor of pots, past the steaming laundry room, into the dark narrow corridor. This used to be where servants slept, back when this was a single household. It’s not so different now that I live and work in the kitchen part-time in exchange for rent.

  I’m the modern-day servant, even if I am friends with the lady of the house. My cell phone buzzes as I drop my backpack on the twin-size bed. A text message from Avery. Let me know when you’re done. I want to go to the library.

  The Library isn’t a place we go to study. It’s a coffee shop by day, a bar by night. Basically where everyone hangs out when they aren’t on campus or out clubbing. It’s also a sweet compromise for when we want to loosen up, without actually joining the party scene.

  I text her back. Phone call tonight. I’ll text when I’m done.

  Then I flip open my notebook to keep working on the elasticity question, my phone faceup on the desk. For an hour I lose myself in linear equations and minimized surplus, finding comfort in the hard challenge of them, the struggle that always comes before revelation. In some ways it’s not the solution I want, not the oasis; it’s the mental test of endurance, a long trek through desert sands.

  A knock comes at the door, startling me. I open it to reveal Avery, dressed in skinny jeans and a deep green cable-knit sweater that brings out her hazel eyes.

  She frowns a little. “I was worried about you. The calls don’t usually last this long.”

  I glance at the clock, my stomach clenching when I see the time. “He never called.”

  Ever since I left Tanglewood, ever since Daddy went to work for Damon Scott, he’s called me every week like clockwork. As if it’s part of his new job, and maybe it is. I wouldn’t put it past Damon to keep tabs on me through him. Then again, that’s probably pride talking. Maybe even perverse wishful thinking, because part of me wants to keep tabs on him.

  But Daddy doesn’t say much about it. I doubt Damon has ever even asked him about me. Our conversations are short and tense, both of us holding back more than we’re saying. He hasn’t missed a phone call in three years. Even when he caught the flu last winter, he called, hoarse and miserable.

  Some worry must show on my face, because she says, “We don’t have to go out. I’m tired anyway.”

  Such a people pleaser, but her eyes couldn’t be more clear. This girl isn’t tired. She wants to go out. And why shouldn’t she? For that matter, why shouldn’t I?

  “We’re going,” I say firmly, grabbing my phone. “I’ll call him on the way.”

  I take a moment to look at myself in the dresser mirror, the brown eyes considerably more tired than Avery’s, definitely more wary. The chapped lips and windburned cheeks. This is what Professor Stanhope saw? He really must be interested in my mind.

  With a sigh I swipe some lip gloss so it looks like I didn’t stumble in from a major exam, and drag my hair into a ponytail, which is a lazy version of dress-up hair. It falls down my back in shiny blonde curls as if I had anything to do with it.

  Then I grab my coat and phone, pulling Avery along.

  “I’ll call Gabriel while you do yours,” she says, falling beside me.

  It’s a fifteen-minute walk to the Library. We could use Avery’s car and driver, but that takes almost as long through the heavy foot traffic around campus. Plus it’s crazy conspicuous.

  We head down the lit sidewalk, well-groomed flowers on both sides.

  She pulls out her phone and hits speed dial while I do the same.

  I put the phone to my ear. Ring ring ring. And then my father’s voice: It’s me. Leave a message and I’ll call you back. It makes me smile because that’s so much like him.

  And then I frown. Something serious must be happening.

  Don’t freak out, I tell myself. Missing one call out of a hundred doesn’t mean anything. His phone battery probably died or something like that. No big deal. I swipe the red circle to end the call.

  Biting my lip, I contemplate my phone wallpaper, an abstract swirl of nothing.

  I type a quick text before I shove the phone into my pocket. Missed you. Call me when you can.

  It feels a little strange to even say that much. Missed you. Like I’ve revealed something unsavory. Like I’ve put ammunition in an enemy’s hand. Maybe normal kids tell their father they love him. Maybe other dads say it back. We’re anything but normal.

  Avery’s still on the phone. “We’re going to have a drink. Some dinner.” A pause. “Yes, at the Library. No, we didn’t take the car.”

  I can hear a low sound, Gabriel’s voice through the phone. Though I can’t make out the words, I can guess what he’s saying. You shouldn’t be walking alone at night.

  “I’m not alone,” she says, proving my guess. “Penny’s with me. There’s safety in numbers.”

  There’s safety in numbers.

  Her words bounce around inside me, held inside by my skin, by every wish and hope and fear too real to name. That’s what I’ve always believed, what I’ve always wanted to believe. The reason I should fall into Professor Stanhope’s arms, no matter how inappropriate it might be.

  Beyond the glow of the lamps, pitch-black night presses in. Anything could be out there. Anyone. I’m not sure we’re safer in ones or in twos. I’m not sure we’re safe at all.

  Chapter Three

  By the next night I’m really worried about Daddy, but I have to work. Lorenzo barks out dishes as the room service orders come in. Crab cakes and lobster rolls. Surf and turf.

  A lone order for pancakes and grits comes in around ten p.m., making me smile. That will be Avery, having forgotten to eat dinner at a regular hour, preferring some comfort food for a late-night snack. Mostly I chop vegetables in large quantities, refilling steel rectangular containers so the line cooks can raid them. I also put garnishes on the dishes with breakfast food and dessert, turning strawberries into stars and beets into accordions.

  I spend
an extra minute to turn the end of a banana peel into a dolphin, its mouth holding a plump blueberry like a ball. Lorenzo raises a stern eyebrow at my creation, but he puts a silver dome on the tray. And when he thinks I’ve looked away, a small smile appears.

  He’s not an easy man to work for. I lived in terror that I was going to lose my job—and my home—when I first started working here. Then I stayed up all night studying for a chemistry exam. In my delirium I sliced open my finger while cutting zucchini. Lorenzo stormed over to me, and I thought, through the pain and exhaustion, This is it. I’m fired.

  Instead, red-faced and cursing in Italian, he cleaned my wound himself, his rough knife-scarred hands gentle around mine. Ever since then he’s been a hard-ass about making sure I don’t work too much.

  I finish refilling a deep well of chopped green onions and then wash my hands, one of fifty times I’ll do that tonight. From experience I know that the scent will linger on my skin tomorrow. I’ll pause between taking notes, my chin resting on my hand, and get a whiff of something fresh and green.

  “Get out of here,” Lorenzo growls, and I glance at the clock. Break time.

  On another night I might tease him for worrying about me. Tonight I’m eager to take my break. I grab my phone from my work cubby and head outside. There’s a small courtyard that would have been reserved for the servants—modest by the old standards of mansions and royalty, but a luxury after the heat and clamor of the kitchens.

  I sit on a cracked stone bench, pressing the speed dial.

  It’s me. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.

  This time I do leave a message. “Hey,” I say, the sound of blood rushing blocking out my own voice. “It’s me. You didn’t call last night and… anyway, I worry about you. I understand if you’re busy. Can you just drop me a quick text so I know you’re okay?”

  There are other questions caught in my throat. What does Damon make you do for him? Is it dangerous? Of course it’s dangerous. Do you hate me for putting you in this position?

  I hang up on dead air, staring into the night. “It’s fine,” I say into the quiet. “Everything is fine. His phone is probably broken. He’s at the store getting it replaced right now.”

  With a leaden feeling in my stomach I return to the kitchen and complete the rest of my shift. It’s a good thing that I mostly have to chop vegetables, because my hands can work without my mind. Lorenzo shouts at me once to pay attention, that I’m going to lose a pinky finger, but I end the night with all my appendages intact.

  Only when I’m curled up in my bed after midnight do I turn on my phone again.

  There’s a text from a study partner about meeting up tomorrow. An e-mail from a professor about the exam next week. Nothing from Daddy. No return phone call. No text telling me he’s okay.

  Because he’s not okay, a dark voice whispers inside me.

  I should probably go to sleep. That’s the rational thing to do. I can deal with this in the morning. And probably Daddy will have texted me by then. There’s no reason to worry.

  Except I find myself dialing the information line for Tanglewood.

  “Damon Scott,” I tell the robotic voice.

  A digital sound and a pause, like a catch in her mechanical breath. Even the natural language processor knows I’m making a mistake. Then there’s a ring, and another, before I have time to rethink what I’m doing. Miles away, over plains and mountains, across state lines. We’re so far away, but he sounds like he’s right next to me.

  “Hello?” That low voice. That arrogance, that mystery.

  There are years between us, a lifetime, but it might as well have been a minute. It all comes crashing back to me as I huddle on my twin bed, remembering the man who saved me, the man who stole me. The man who holds my father’s life in his hands.

  Chapter Four

  In the space between us there’s a cool breeze, full of sweet memories and dark secrets, bringing with it the unique scent of boy and man. Everything that I tried so hard to forget, rushing back to me in a deep, soul-waking breath.

  A fist tightens around my throat, but I don’t know if it’s in the shape of Damon Scott’s hands. Am I afraid of him? Or am I afraid of who I am around him?

  Silence stretches out in mocking accusation. Afraid, afraid, afraid.

  “Penny,” he says on a sigh that sounds almost obscene, so carnal and pleased.

  I’m no longer a sixteen-year-old girl, even if I feel like it right now. “Where’s my father, Damon?”

  There. I spoke in an even tone, not tripping over the words. No tremor to match how I’m feeling inside. It’s a testament to years spent around young women like Avery, most of them raised with good breeding and high-society manners. The kind who have their picture in the newspaper after a night at a charity gala. I can pretend, even if that will never be me.

  His rough laugh obliterates all my grand ideas. “Is that how you say hello? You don’t call. You don’t write. If I were inclined to that sort of thing, I might think you didn’t care about me.”

  “He works for you. That means you know where he is.”

  “Then he’s probably busy. He must be, for what I pay him.”

  “Every Wednesday he calls me. And now nothing.”

  “How much do I pay him?” he asks, his voice thoughtful. “I’ll have to check the books to be sure, but it must be a lot. Enough to cover your private college tuition.”

  I flinch, glad he can’t see me across two thousand miles. Even working in the kitchens most nights only covers my food, my textbooks. Not the tuition bill. “You’re the one who wanted him to work for you. You’re the one who made him the stake in our last game.”

  “And you’re the one who lost,” he says lightly.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Of course. Like you said, he works for me. I would be a careless employer if I let my men go wandering off, gambling and racking up debt and questioning their loyalty to me.”

  A shiver runs through me. “Then where is he?”

  “He’s a grown-up, Penny. Like you are now. He’s responsible for himself. You only need to worry about your studies. I’m sure Algebraic Topology is taking up plenty of your focus.”

  It’s one of my courses this semester. How does he know that?

  “Stop playing with me.”

  “Why should I?” he says with a soft laugh. “It’s so much fun.”

  Frustration stings my eyes, hot and damp. I look up at the wide-open sky, willing myself not to cry. There are a million stars visible here, most of the land owned by Smith College or one of the other campuses. So much land, so much pride. There aren’t buildings climbing on top of other buildings, as if they might sink into the concrete ground if they don’t. There aren’t glass towers reaching to an endless black sky.

  “I’m never coming back,” I say abruptly.

  His laugh falls silent. “I know.”

  “I hate it there. I hate Tanglewood and being powerless. And most of all I hate you.”

  The last part is a lie, because I don’t hate him. I’m drawn to him; I’m repelled by him. It’s far too complex a relationship, an equation I’ve never been able to write. It makes me wonder if I’m lying about the other parts—if maybe some twisted part of me misses home.

  If some twisted part of me misses being powerless, too.

  “Ah, Penny,” he says, sounding infinitely weary. “I hate you too.”

  The words shock me, but the hurt inside shocks me more. He shouldn’t be able to wound me. Three years away from home, growing up, growing strong. It should have been enough armor to protect against anything he could say to me. But the arrow sinks deep, proving that I’ll never be able to escape him.

  “What did I do to you?” I ask, quiet, in a voice like I’m six years old again. Like I’m speaking to the wild boy I found by the lake, one I lured into my trailer like a wolf.

  He answers the same way, a surly teenage boy, fierce and vulnerable at once. “You made me care. You
made me want, when I needed to leave. You made me feel, when I would have preferred to die. You brought me back to life.”

  And I condemned him to torture. That’s what happened when he sacrificed himself so that I could stay safe. Two children with so few choices. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Don’t worry. I got my revenge, after all.”

  My blood runs cold, almost subzero at the words. There’s only one person left in my sad little family. One person he could hurt. “Did you hurt him?”

  “By giving him a job when he couldn’t hold one down? By paying him enough that his daughter could escape the city, could go to a fancy college instead of becoming a corner-store whore? Yes, I’ve been horrible to him. A monster.”

  “Then why isn’t he answering his phone?”

  In the pause I can picture him in a three-piece suit, reclining in one of his ridiculously expensive leather chairs. Some amber liquid in a crystal-cut glass. “Don’t come back,” he says, his voice grim. “You made it out of here. Let that be enough.”

  A soft click ends the connection, leaving me bereft.

  And more worried than before.

  Something is happening in Tanglewood, something bad enough for my father not to call, something horrible enough that even Damon Scott has warned me away. I look up at the infinite stars, but they’re dimmer than before. The whole world muted. It wasn’t a new life that I found so far from home. It was a long dream, and now I’m painfully awake.

  Chapter Five

  I go to class the same way, trying to pretend nothing is wrong. And it’s not that hard, because I’ve gone numb. The worn wood of the desks doesn’t register beneath my hands. The chatter of other students around me can’t make its way through thick cotton.

  Calculating projective spaces in my Algebraic Topology class doesn’t hold my attention. I write down random numbers, draw random lines and spheres. My mind is filled with nothingness, as bleak and oppressive as the Tanglewood sky. Don’t come back, Damon told me, but it feels like I’m already there. In mind if not in body.