Queens of All the Earth

by Hannah Sternberg

  Marc answered in strangled grunts as he flexed his arm and wrist, stopping the motion with a suppressed expletive.

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Miranda asked again.

  “Tripped on something,” Marc growled, blinking away the water that had welled in his eyes. “Caught myself funny on my hand. Think I busted up my wrist. Hurts like a... Hurts something awful.”

  Miranda looked down and around, discovering a big, round piece of sidewalk chalk, like the kind children play with, rolling down the gently graded path over a faded design on the bricks, indiscernible now.

  “Is anything broken?” Miranda asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Think I just jammed it. Might be a sprain.”

  Miranda fidgeted close to him, itching to do something.

  “Let me see it,” she said. “Maybe you can—maybe it’s a—”

  “I really think I should just get back to the hostel and wrap it up,” Marc said. “An icepack and an ACE bandage should do it.”

  Marc started walking toward the garden’s exit gate.

  “Olivia!” Miranda said, first at Marc and then at the garden at large. “Olivia! We can’t leave her behind!”

  “You don’t have to leave with me,” Marc said, curtly through his pain. “I’m not an invalid. Stay here. I can go back alone.”

  Miranda ignored him, calling for Olivia until she finally emerged from a nearby trail, concern written across her face.

  “What’s going on?” Olivia asked.

  “Marc hurt his wrist and we’re going back to the hostel,” Miranda said.

  “You two should really stay and see the castle,” Marc said through his teeth. “You came all the way up here and I’d hate for you to leave just because of me. It’s not like you can do anything for me anyway.”

  Miranda blew off his objections with a shake of the head and continued following him. Olivia trailed behind.

  A gardening truck rattled by, leaving behind its burned-rubber stink and an immovable grimy cloud. They moved out of its haze and through the exit.

  The walk back down along the sides of the waterless Magic Fountain was a less vibrant rerun of the morning, and the pervasive noon sun made the stone-paved slope excruciating even for those travelers not suffering a sprain. There were two Metro lines to ride, both glinting and sharp-smelling.

  It took an hour to get back. Olivia flung herself up the stairs, mumbling to her sister that she had a headache, and left her behind with Marc on the sidewalk, where they were scrutinizing various maps for hints about finding the nearest pharmacy. She had barely seen the Plaça Catalunya. She had barely seen the restaurant where her sister had treated her to dinner the night before. She had barely allowed herself to look at anything.

  The squat, square door of Casa Joven was ajar, and she toppled into the lily-fragrant softness within. With the door, she nearly hit Sophie, who busied down the corridor with an armful of towels. Their eyes met.

  Olivia felt as if she’d committed a crime.

  Then she noticed the Browns sitting in the common room. Mr. Brown looked directly at her, a puzzled smile on his face.

  “Is something wrong? You’re back early,” he said with genuine concern.

  Greg merely started, stood briefly, looked as though he would escape, then sat back down again.

  “Uh, no. Oh, well, Marc’s hurt his wrist, but he’s fine,” Olivia whispered, fleeing to her room.

  There, she was surrounded by the Browns again—the room they had given her and Miranda. The orange curtains diluted the harsh sunlight, and a rotating fan in the corner blew a breeze through the room, by turns fluttering her bed sheets and those of her sister. It reminded her of her room in childhood, in the long-ago days when summer was interminable and the humming bees and drifting pollen vibrated the sunlight until it was just right to sleep outside in the afternoon, though only under certain trees.

  She slammed her fist on the bedpost when a sob escaped her. The day had gone terribly wrong, but so many of them had since the summers under the perfect trees.

  Above all things, she missed her mom.

  Miranda had seen her sister dart up the stairs to the hostel and, considering her safe, felt free to trail Marc to the closest pharmacy and back, dispensing small pieces of advice on sprains, medical attention abroad, and the various liability aspects of the garden’s responsibility toward visitor safety.

  At the door of the hostel, Marc told Miranda he was going to lie down until the pain meds he’d just bought kicked in, then left her there without waiting for a response. That’s what I get for trying to help, Miranda thought.

  Miranda hoped Olivia would be asleep by the time she got to the bedroom. Now, as she stood in the common room, she watched Mr. Brown reach out and pat Greg’s knee, then return to his book. Greg had a book as well, but he was more captivated by some invisible point in the middle-distance outside the window. Something in the dark, empty look in Greg’s brown eyes reminded her of her sister.

  Miranda dropped her picnic-laden backpack on a kitchen table and raced for the bathroom.

  She cleaned herself methodically. She picked the sand and dirt out from beneath her fingernails and toenails and scrubbed her face and the soles of her feet. She combed her hair into stick-like perfection and braided it tightly against the back of her head. She brushed her teeth, though she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and she cleaned her ears. She scrubbed herself back into feeling like herself, and it calmed her enough that she could approach Olivia.

  It was barely half over, but the day was already as battered and bruised as the previous one had been.

  Olivia wasn’t sleeping. She was doing battle with her book. When Miranda slipped in, Olivia sat up immediately.

  “How’s Marc?” Olivia asked.

  “Better. He’ll be fine,” Miranda said.

  “Hey, do you think we can go up to the castle this afternoon? Just the two of us, so we don’t have to deal with anyone else,” Olivia said.

  “I don’t know. It would take all afternoon to climb up there again. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  “There’s a gondola. I just found it on my transportation map. We must get there together. Come on, it’ll be an adventure.”

  “I thought you had a headache.”

  “I’m better now,” said Olivia. “I just remembered a part in one of my favorite books from middle school about a Spanish hill fort, and I thought maybe the castle is like that. It would be like visiting something from my book!”

  “I think you should rest up, if you’re not feeling well.”

  “I am feeling well!”

  “We have all week,” said Miranda. “We have plenty of time. We can take a break.”

  Olivia flopped backwards onto her bed again.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “You were so worked up about me seeing Greg again, and now you want me to stay in the hostel with him all day. It’s like you want me to—”

  “You haven’t eaten anything today, have you? No wonder you have a headache. Come on, I’ll fix you lunch.”

  Olivia scowled.

  “It’s important to show them you don’t care they’re here,” Miranda said in her ear. “Otherwise, he’ll think you’re interested.”

  “I’ve tried that already, and he—”

  “You can’t spend the rest of our vacation hiding in our room, Olivia. You’ve got to eat, and I’m not bringing your lunch back here.”

  Olivia had little choice but to shuffle behind her sister into the common room, where Greg still lurked in the window corner under the sagging lilies. Mr. Brown was in the kitchen, attempting to have a conversation in broken Spanish with Hugo, who looked gently amused. Miranda sat her sister down at the table and began to unload the picnic things from her backpack.

  “See, we have the place to ourselves,” she said, not softly enough.

  There were rolls and sliced ham and a block of cheese, battered water bottles and plastic forks.
There was a bag of chips and a carton of juice, and Olivia let Miranda set everything out just as she had watched their mom set everything out for lunch on weekends in grade school. Everything they needed magically appeared from the cabinets, but it wasn’t just a phenomenon of grade school. It was exactly what her mother had done for her just a few months ago.

  Olivia picked at a squashed sandwich, the taste of warm plastic still clinging to it though the wrapper had been removed. She saw a steno pad on the corner of the table and idly flipped it open.

  “Is that yours?” Miranda asked. “It doesn’t look familiar.”

  “It’s Lenny’s,” Olivia said. “I’ve seen her with it before. I wonder what she wrote about our trip.”

  Miranda wanted to know, too, but she was too mature to snoop for herself, so she let Olivia do it for her. Olivia craned her neck to see without touching the pages, but didn’t read long. She scanned a few lines, and then her eyes flickered to Greg, who sensed the gaze and looked back with incomprehension.

  Olivia pushed the notebook away and stormed to her room. Greg’s eyes followed her, then looked questioningly at Miranda.

  Miranda looked down at the page her sister had been reading and soon followed her out of the room. The remains of their forgotten lunch littered the table, wrappers and crumbs crowding around the notebook.

  Mr. Brown and Hugo continued to murmur in the kitchen. Cars and tourists continued to wash down the streets outside. Laundry continued to float from backwards-facing balconies.

  Greg sidled up to the table and looked at the open page.

  He came from the sea and he kissed her, it read.

  9

  YOU’LL HAVE TO LOAN ME PAIN

  “You told her all about it,” Olivia said to Miranda, quietly but full of passion. “You were all about being good sisters and keeping things between ourselves and you blurted it all out to someone else. A journalist!”

  “I was just—everyone needs someone to talk to—!” Overcome with embarrassment at being caught, Miranda didn’t try to cover up. She had told Lenny on the walk up the mountain, when their mutual disdain for the Browns had reached its highest pitch.

  “You have me! The whole point of this is you have me!”

  “Olivia—”

  “Don’t say my name like that! Like I’m—like you’re Mom. Like you still live at home and care about anything. You didn’t even come home when Dad died.”

  “Was I supposed to wait at home until we heard from him? And you never even knew him!”

  Olivia’s eyes went wide. Miranda was shocked at her own forcefulness. Never had she actually criticized Olivia’s feelings—only sought to protect them. But Miranda had carefully buried that week in her mind. She had so thoroughly rationalized her reasons for not attending the funeral that she assumed Olivia understood.

  “We’re both adults now,” said Miranda. “Can’t we get along?”

  “We used to.”

  Miranda sighed and sat down on her bed.

  “I’m going out,” Olivia said.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know—I just need to walk. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Remember what I told you about wandering around alone.”

  “Well, if I don’t remember, I’ll just ask Lenny!” Olivia yelled.

  “Do you want to talk about him?” Miranda asked with unexpected tenderness, just as Olivia’s hand encircled the doorknob.

  Olivia shot back a look that said you’re an idiot more venomously and emphatically than any words could. Then she left.

  It wasn’t until Olivia was gone that Miranda realized Lenny hadn’t yet returned, and therefore couldn’t have written those words in that notebook. Someone else knew.

  Greg had already vacated the common room, leaving his jacket draped across a chair. He took with him only his hostel keys, because they had never left his pocket, but as he left, he felt the only thing he really needed was not to be inside anymore.

  Outside, he swam feverishly through crowds of blue-jerseyed football fans celebrating that night’s game, flying blue flags and singing rude songs. He eased between pairs of mothers sorting out their children and restaurant reps hawking menus to passersby. He sliced through the fragrance first of fried calamari, and then of open flower stalls and the woodchips of gerbil cages. Through the worn soles of his shoes, his feet felt like stone. Water rushed above him and cast sprinkles on his face.

  He was in the Plaça Catalunya. No question mark warned her that he might be there.

  He said her name. She was there.

  She was rooted to the spot and flowering, and he came toward her, sweeping through the seething crowd. He remembered her hand in his hand. He remembered the scent of lilies in his dream.

  He captured her hand again. He shook the sea out of his hair. He held her against the tide of passing cars and football fans.

  He kissed her in the Plaça Catalunya.

  She pushed herself away from him and he realized he’d used up his last chance.

  “Please don’t do that again,” she said. “Please stop bothering me.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  Olivia shoved him. She only meant to push him away.

  But instead, he tripped backwards over his ankles, falling into the fountain behind him with a sickening crash. Olivia was afraid he’d cracked his head, but the clap was just the sound of water, his wide hands flinging out to catch himself.

  Greg floundered, unable at first to get a footing or a handhold strong enough to rise from the slimy fountain.

  A small crowd formed around them.

  Greg rose at last, dripping and shaking, though the water wasn’t very cold.

  Olivia shook, too.

  One of the onlookers gave a whoop of appreciation for Olivia. Another jeered.

  The crowd around them tightened, but Greg’s eyes fixed steadily on Olivia.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but it only seemed to hurt him more. He, and the fountain, smelled strongly of chlorine.

  He said nothing.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Olivia said. But still Greg said nothing.

  The crowd around them waited, but in a fury of shame, Olivia turned on her heels and ran away.

  Olivia swept back to her sister, who was surprised and happy to see her back so quickly from her walk. And Olivia looked much more energetic, though in a slightly scary way.

  “Let’s go to Africa,” Olivia said as she flounced onto the common room couch beside Miranda, plucking the book out of her hands.

  “What?” Miranda asked.

  “I want to go to Africa. I always kind of have. And it’s so close from here,” said Olivia. “We could cancel our last two days and go to Morocco or something.”

  “Morocco?”

  “Yeah. Morocco, or Tunisia, or something. We don’t even have to tell Mom we did it. We can come back for the last afternoon and fly back from here. It would be cool, like our secret adventure. You know, kinda like Casablanca.”

  “Olivia, I don’t think that’s a... safe idea,” Miranda said.

  “American tourists go to Morocco all the time,” Olivia said. “We don’t even need a special visa or anything. We can get anywhere with our passports. And there are super-cheap flights from the airport here. I read about it in one of the guidebooks.”

  “I really think we should call Mom first,” Miranda said. Her heart hammered, worrying that she’d set off another episode. But nothing Olivia had said so far was irrational—just impulsive. In fact, she seemed to have thought through some very real details.

  “Don’t call Mom,” said Olivia. “She’ll say no, and then we’ll never have the chance to go to Africa again. Together!”

  Olivia put her arms around Miranda, rested her cheek on her sister’s shoulder, and gave her a tight squeeze.

  “Please,” she said, more urgently. “I’ve always wanted to do this, Miranda. You can’t stop me.”

  “What about all the friends we’ve made
here?” Miranda said. “Aren’t you having fun with them?”

  Olivia pulled away and crossed her arms.

  “Seriously?” she said.

  Miranda leaned back as if slapped, and looked at her sister for a long while. “I’ll talk to Hugo this afternoon about checking out early,” Miranda finally said.

  She got up, but on impulse, she whirled around and knelt in front of Olivia, holding her face in her hands. Olivia bit her lips into her mouth.

  “Try to take a nap,” Miranda said. “You look warm, and you don’t want to come down with something while you’re away from home.”

  “I think I’ve slept more here than I ever do at home,” Olivia said.

  “Jet lag,” Miranda said, getting up again and giving her sister a proprietary pat on the head.

  As Miranda went to look for Hugo, Olivia cast a mental spell to make him indiscoverable. She drank in her solitude, laid her feelings on the couch beside her, and looked at them carefully. The closest she had come to this kind of confusion was the numbness that had deadened her that day, about nine months ago, when she’d stared at the acceptance letter from Cornell University. Four years of furious work, careful planning, deadlines, essays, nights of studying, and rigid scheduling, and now she’d held the results in her hands and realized, for the first time, that she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.

  She only knew she didn’t want to leave home.

  After a few trips up and down the main hall, Miranda found Sophie in the kitchen, draining the water from the lily vase.

  “Where’s Hugo?” she asked as if it were Sophie’s fault he couldn’t be found.

  Sophie shrugged and frowned, pushing the pedal for the faucet to flow, refilling her vase with fresh water.

  “Do you know where the Browns are?” Miranda asked impulsively.

  This time the answer was an impatient sigh as Sophie glided back into the common room, carrying her flowers to their place in the back. Olivia had disappeared. Sophie opened a window, sat at the computer, and sternly ignored Miranda until Miranda decided to ignore her.

  Miranda sat herself on the couch where Olivia had been and waited for anyone at all to arrive.