Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  Those times were different, Callum now remembered clearly, from the times he’d spent with Darius, his father, who had been Otec then but wasn’t now. Callum had also transfigured for Darius, who was Otec then, but things with exact corners, precise lines; clean and strong and stable; upright and built to last. Callum remembered puffing up his own small chest to show the crispness he’d woven atoms-deep into his clothes: the shine of silver buttons he’d hummed outward from their core. They’d shone so much that Darius could be seen in their reflection (his mouth-lines smoothed in the halo of my button). Darius had not said words of praise, but had made this style the official uniform, and so everywhere, on every chest, Callum could always see his father’s pleasure inside his buttons.

  Darius’s pleasure had been crisp and still like that. An inside kind of pleasure. Immaculate. For a prince, growing up straight like the straightest stalk.

  But with Kells, oh with Kells and Lorelei out of doors, Callum wasn’t the stalk because leaves and buds were everywhere, rolling, teeming, bursting. Even weeds, uninvited but yawping too, hot with sunshine and the squishy sink and stink of mud.

  Callum furrowed his brow, confused again. Something had happened, hadn’t it? Because at some point, the green-time ended, and Kells—that Kells who was not Otec, that Kells not from now but from before—had disappeared. Callum searched and looked in his mind, but they were no more: no hand-in-hand Kells and Lorelei, no two heads bowed, no laughing in the dark of thistle-wild black-blue hair.

  It had happened when Darius had adopted Callum’s uniform, hadn’t it? Callum couldn’t see it clearly: the thrusting green, the smears of dirt swirled up into a silver spiral. Callum tried to see more closely, but like so many things these days, it blurred into sea and fog. The fog was thick, and squinting made Callum feel quite tired. Easier, and less exhausting, simply to turn around.

  Except.

  Except Kells was here. The same Kells, but older now and also Otec. Somehow Kells belonged here—but somehow he didn’t too. Things were supposed to be neat, and fit precisely. Messy made Callum feel uncomfortable.

  Callum huffed. He did not like to feel unsettled.

  He sighed, resigned. He had no choice. He grimaced and searched his mind for Kells again, starting with the scenes he had already found and watched. The memories, round and clear through his boyhood eyes: Kells in the garden, making things grow, rough crisp hands and Lorelei’s laugh—

  Fog. Road block. Callum gritted his teeth but his muscles slagged and whimpered. Can’t go through.

  Callum forced his mind sluggishly to think. Perhaps he could go around?

  Kells again, but later. Still not Otec Kells, still Kells back then, but older, grayer, than those first memories. On the other side, Callum assumed, of the block of fog. Kells’ hair and body were the same, but something in his face maybe, the kiss-lines at his eyes, looked different. More like cracks. His leathered hands seemed scaly.

  Kells was with Lorelei in the garden, but the garden was no longer riotous but grey. Callum was on a bench, a little taller than before the fog, and gangly. There was another boy now too, sitting at Callum’s side. He was smaller (Judah, my brother, who is difficult to love). Judah was scowling, fidgeting, kicking at the ground, impatient to be elsewhere (but wait, Judah, I can’t leave yet, I’m trying now to see).

  Callum in this memory was like Callum now, watching Lorelei and Kells, heads bent close, whispering rapidly in agitation. A pang echoed in Callum—then and now—for Lorelei was wearing a dark cloak, hood up, covering her hair. And her face was sad, dragged down, as she held tight to Kells’ scaly hand.

  Callum leaned closer—then and now—straining to hear what they were saying. But then the smaller boy (Judah, remember, my younger brother, who I had to learn how to love), kicked Callum’s shin as hard as he could. Callum flushed with pain and fury and whirled to Judah, who was smirking. Callum wanted to scream but turned his rage inward instead (Be patient, Callum! Grown and patient! He does not know better and you do!).

  By the time Callum—then and now—remembered to look back and listen, they were gone, Kells and Lorelei, and only fog was in their place (Judah! Why can’t you see!). Callum now did not want to look away, but again, the fog was too thick, too hard. Callum tried but his body turned to jelly and he began to fall asleep.

  Callum fought this time, fought harder, refused to close his eyes—but then he became afraid. For in the fog now were phantoms howling in warning. Old, shriveled hunchbacks with Kells’ eyes, but angry and cruel, as if the Kells from Callum’s memory had been vacuumed up and spit out twisted.

  Callum stopped following Spider-Eye in the hallway. He closed his eyes, bent to brace himself on his knees, willed the phantoms to leave and go away. He trembled, knew it was all his own fault. He knew better than to question, to try to see inside the fog. He knew better than to use what felt like a horizon; he needed instead to trust his instruments, calibrated by the rules and laws outside.

  “What are you doing?”

  Callum barely registered the voice of Spider-Eye as he turned and walked away from him. One thing, at least, Callum now knew clearly: Callum needed someone to lead him. Spider-Eye was a fellow soldier, just like Arik. Callum needed someone to recalibrate his horizon line, realign his levels, make sure he refound an even keel. Someone to decide, to take the burden, to draw the map and show Callum where and how to make … whoever … proud.

  When Callum reached the door, it was open, and the man inside was alone.

  “Do you have a moment?” Callum asked politely.

  The Otec smiled kindly.

  “Of course, my son.”

  • • •

  With every step into the Tunnels’ deepest netherworld, Noa and Hilo knew they likely would not rise again. Not unless they found the Seer, who more likely than not, had never existed at all.

  Each turn grew darker, deeper, the air heavy beneath its own building weight. Soon Noa could not see even the bright beacon of Hilo’s hair, even though it had been blinding before, even though Hilo was right beside her, barely half a step ahead to guide the way.

  Then the light swallowed itself entirely, licking syrup-covered chops.

  Noa gasped in the moist, thick dark. It felt like drowning.

  “It’s okay, hold on.” Hilo’s words made tiny, calm, clear spaces, inside which Noa breathed.

  Then, in the place where Hilo’s hands were hidden, small sparkling lights began to dance and warm like candle tips, or fireflies.

  “Stellabugs,” Noa murmured, drinking in the halo of the tiny suns. “Did Judah train those too?”

  Hilo’s sudden laugh made Noa jump. Her face looked soft in the Stella-light. “Judah claims he trained all the Stellabugs,” Hilo chuckled, “but they just follow warmth. Anyone can breathe on them to wake them up, and then they’ll follow you. Especially down here, where everything else is so cold.”

  Noa shivered, realizing only now how icy it had become beneath the darkness and the air.

  “Oh sorry, got distracted,” Hilo said, and Noa’s body warmed again.

  “Wait, are you warming me up?”

  “Both of us. I thought it would be okay—”

  “No. Thank you, it helps,” Noa said quickly and, she hoped, gratefully, “but your gift is with emotions. Are you … changing mine?”

  In the Stella-light, Hilo’s eyes slid sideways in embarrassment. “Stoking a little bravery. It kind of lights a fire inside. I figured we both could use it….”

  “Oh,” Noa bit her lip. “Um, I guess that’s okay. But…” Noa didn’t want to offend Hilo, or set her off—she wanted Hilo there, no matter what she’d said before. “But it’s important to me to know what feelings are really mine. So maybe just give me a heads-up or—”

  “The feelings are yours,” Hilo snapped defensively. “I can’t manufacture anything, just amplify or red
uce what’s there.”

  “Still,” Noa insisted more firmly, “it’s hard enough for me to figure out for myself how I feel.” She thought of Callum and Judah. “Really hard sometimes. So let me know. Cool?”

  Hilo eyed her, making Noa nervous, then she cracked a grin and said, “Cool,” trying out the word with amusement. “I think it’s cool.”

  Noa nodded, tried not to show her deep relief.

  Hilo took a breath and stood up straight and formal. “Noa, will it be cool to stoke some of your bravery, as I am stoking mine, both to embolden us and to keep our bones from freezing into icicles?”

  Noa smiled. “That will be cool, Hilo. Thank you. Good luck finding some bravery in me though.”

  Hilo looked at Noa in disbelief. “You have a lot of bravery, Noa. More than most Fae.”

  Noa was shocked. She didn’t know what to say.

  Hilo laughed again. “I guess you do have trouble reading your own emotions.” Noa found herself laughing too, and the combined chorus made her suddenly think, with a pang, of Olivia. She had avoided thinking of Olivia and Miles since arriving in Aurora—had they made it home okay? What did they remember? Did Miles remember anything at all?

  Noa’s laugh faded in the effort it took to shut away her best friend’s face.

  “You okay there?” Hilo asked.

  “Yeah,” Noa demurred, knowing full well Hilo could sense her heartsickness.

  Hilo nodded, looked ahead. They walked onward in silence.

  After a while, their twin steps fell into unison.

  “Noa?” Hilo asked, oddly tentative.

  “Yeah?”

  “Usually I’d just look for myself, but … I really do want you to trust me. So I’m gonna ask, and if you don’t want to answer, I won’t cheat.”

  Noa’s stomach fluttered uneasily. “Okay.”

  “The brothers. I already felt before that you love them, but … are you in love with one of them?”

  Noa’s heart began to thrum. She exhaled slowly.

  “Forget it,” Hilo said, embarrassed, step quickening.

  “No,” Noa said softly, “it’s not that. I’m not ashamed or anything, it’s just … hard.”

  “You could … talk to me about it. If you want. I mean, most likely the Seer’s a bust and we’re dead anyway,” Hilo smiled; Noa tried not to see the pleading in her eyes.

  Noa hesitated, but Hilo was right: she didn’t want to go to the grave carrying all this around with her. And with what they were risking…

  Before she could stop herself, Noa was speaking: “I guess I’d have to begin by saying, I definitely fell in love with Callum. It happened right away, and I’m sure that’s what it was. Before that, I never believed that you could just meet someone and know. It seemed like the stuff of books, movies—not real, not for real people. But I felt it, the certainty of it. I don’t know how else to explain it.” She took a deep breath. “It was like he freed me when I was suffocating, like he gave me back the world. So even with his lies, it’s like I can see past them because I know his heart is good, I feel it. And of course, he gave me Sasha.”

  Hilo watched Noa carefully. “But.”

  Noa sighed, nodded. “But here in Aurora, and in the In Between world inside the Portal? The things I knew with that incredible certainty at home feel … strange. And I can’t tell, is it my mind or heart or memory that’s unsettled? Am I remembering it different than it was, or am I seeing it now for the truth I missed? Is some part of me undoing what I once just knew I believed?”

  Hilo chewed her lip. “If there is a Seer—”

  “For the sake of both our sanities, Hilo, let’s just start talking as if she is real. What with not being able to turn back now and everything.”

  Hilo nodded, chuckling a little. “Well, then. The Seer will help with that. The confusion is probably not even you—just being out of your proper world and away from what you know.”

  “But it feels … inside … somehow.”

  Hilo shrugged, smiled a little. “For your sanity, then, maybe that’s another thing not to think too much about.”

  Noa nodded, laughing a little. “Okay, I’ll hope you’re right then. The Seer will fix my memories of Callum. Just like she’ll help Callum survive the mind control, and”—Marena’s face flashed in Noa’s mind, making her voice shake—“that when she does, I won’t see this other Callum every time I see his face … because if I do, if I see this terrible Callum and what he’s done, then…” Noa’s voice broke, angry tears choking off the words.

  “Then what?” Hilo breathed.

  “I might hate him.”

  Hilo didn’t comment. They walked in silence a few steps as Noa collected herself.

  “And Judah?” Hilo asked.

  Noa closed her eyes, felt herself smile a little. “Judah. I have no idea. God, he reminds me of Sasha. His tantrums and his—”

  “To protect himself,” Hilo interrupted defensively, not meeting Noa’s eyes.

  Noa bit her lip, flushed a little. “I guess Judah always surprises me, and sometimes that’s good but sometimes it’s not. Most of the time I just want him to grow up. Like, not just dump out his feelings and expect that to be the end, and get pissed when all it does is make a mess.”

  Hilo snorted appreciatively.

  Noa sighed, smiling. “I didn’t feel the same rush when I met Judah, not like with Callum. Actually he freaked me out and then was an arrogant ass I frankly would have been happier not to know. But Callum got in trouble and we had to work together, and I don’t know, we became … friends, I guess. But during that time, I always knew it was Callum for me. I never doubted it. Callum was my revelation. Judah—”

  “Didn’t change your world,” Hilo smirked.

  “No,” Noa nodded. “Just kind of … sent it careening.” She and Hilo laughed together. “It wasn’t even until he said, out of the clear blue sky, that he…” Noa bit her lip again, not wanting to hurt Hilo’s feelings.

  “That he had feelings for you,” she supplied softly.

  Noa nodded, suddenly shy. “It wasn’t until then that I looked around and realized, it’s all a mess, and maybe the world’s changed after all.” She paused. “But then again who knows with Judah? That’s the thing. He tells the truth—sometimes too much—but he also tells it slant. So it sounds like one thing but means another, even if it’s not really a lie.”

  “So…” Hilo met Noa’s eyes nervously. “You’re not sure about Judah?”

  “I-I’m not sure he’s sure about me.” Noa was surprised to hear herself say it, having not realized until that moment it was something she feared.

  “But you,” Hilo pressed.

  Noa furrowed her brow, tried to be honest. “I-I don’t have that feeling of safety, of a kind of otherworldly magic like I do with Callum. Everything with Judah’s all … messed up. Muddy. But still…” She hesitated. Hilo was studying her carefully.

  “You really don’t know,” Hilo said, disappointed. “I’m not looking, it’s just wafting off your aura.”

  “You’re disappointed.”

  Hilo sighed. “The thing is, Noa?” she said plainly, openly. “I do know. It took me a long time, but when they were gone, and I thought they weren’t coming back … I knew it was Judah.” Her voice wavered, and Noa looked away, sensing Hilo would not like Noa to watch her cry. Noa heard the pixie swipe at her cheek as she continued. “Callum had dazzled me, to be sure, but once I had lost them both? None of that mattered. It was Judah. It was always Judah. He’s like my other half.”

  Noa nodded, feeling tears of her own burning behind her eyes.

  Hilo continued, and Noa felt how much she wanted Noa to understand. “His face—every day it grew finer, sharper, in my memory, like I was remembering in my heart and not my mind, and my heart kept adding strokes. It wasn’t long before I couldn�
�t even picture Callum, but Judah—he burned brighter and brighter, and without him … I hollowed out.”

  Noa wiped at a falling tear, unable to hold it back.

  “So I guess,” Hilo continued shakily, “I … I know he says he loves you now. And it’s what I deserve, right? For abandoning him, not telling him about the Faefyre. He rebuilt himself without me, and I’m happy for it”—Hilo didn’t even try to stop the tears now, falling through her words—“because I want him to be happy, more than I want him for myself. So if that means that he’s with you, that’s what I want.” Hilo broke off, took several deep breaths. When she spoke again, her voice was small and thin, and so un-Hilo it hurt Noa’s heart. “But Noa? Please … if you don’t want him, don’t lead him on, okay? He seems so strong sometimes, but he gets hurt. He really gets hurt. And if you don’t want him”—she took another breath—“let me try? Let me and Judah try to find our way back to each other?”

  Every breath was painful; Noa didn’t know what to say or do. Should she hug Hilo or try to comfort her? Because in that moment, with Hilo’s tear-streaked, plaintive plea, Noa found she could not say what Hilo needed most to hear: that she would step away from Judah, that she would give him up if it meant his happiness; that her heart, her blood was not screaming, screaming, screaming:

  Do not ever, ever let him go.

  • • •

  After a time, the whisper of Hilo’s tears dried beside Noa, chafed raw by the sandpaper of what Noa did not do, what Noa did not say. As they walked in silence, Noa wrapped her arms across her chest and shoulders, squeezing herself tight, as if suddenly afraid her body might come apart. The chill of the darkness raised goose bumps across her skin, and she thought ungenerously that Hilo wanted her to freeze—though deep down, Noa knew it was the stalactites of their words and non-words, icy and dripping, dripping, dripping, that really chilled them both. Just like their footsteps, whose syncopation now was quicksand, sucking Noa under no matter how she tried to change the beat.