The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes)

by Raley, Richard

  My stomach couldn’t take being completely empty any more. I fried the egg medium, threw on some pepper, and ate it. It didn’t improve my mood. “Sucks that sometimes you can’t save people no matter what you do.”

  “Yes,” was Ceinwyn’s only comment.

  I thought about Mom for a bit. She was going mad but she only hurt herself. JoJo, Dad, me, Susan. Couldn’t blame her for that even. That was just caused by her absence. Not actual malice on her part. But what if she was hurting people? What if she was a pyromancer instead of a corpusmancer? What if she went around Visalia burning down churches and daycares one day? I’d have to do something . . . couldn’t just stand by. Have to put her in a real Asylum or . . . or . . .

  “Why were you wandering around the school grounds to begin with?” Ceinwyn asked. “The Eriksons weren’t enough?”

  “Wasn’t looking for a fight, if that’s what you think,” I said, putting it on like she’d offended me.

  “Never that . . . King Henry Price wouldn’t harm a fly.”

  “Only when they buzz too close.”

  “Winter War then? Need some downtime from the excitement?”

  “Nah.”

  Her smile doubled in size. “Interesting,” she said aloud.

  I got suspicious. “Surely you know. Ceinwyn Dale knows everything that happens at the Asylum, people tell me so all the time.”

  “A smile, silence, lends to the mysterious, but no, I’m rather clueless about whatever has you worked up.”

  I stared at what remained of my egg, just a bit of stale yellow yoke on a plate. “About the dance thingy.”

  Her smile doubled in size again. “Oh my.”

  “Yeah . . . I’m in the shit.”

  “Any particular girl?”

  “Yup.”

  Her smile was so large I’m surprised it didn’t split her cheeks open. “Sandra Kemp?” Ceinwyn guessed.

  “Not now . . . but she was a target.”

  “Eva Reti?”

  That stopped all thought. Eva? Why would Ceinwyn think I liked her? I mean . . . okay she’s nice and has a dusky voice, and pretty eyes, but . . . no figure and boyish, shorter than me too. I’ve been kissing up all my life and I think kissing down would throw me. “Why would you say her?” I asked, completely confused.

  “Ah, not her.” Ceinwyn seemed disappointed. “Perhaps that one will wait awhile.”

  “You’re doing the Asylum talking over me thing again.”

  “I know. Out with it then, who?”

  “Valentine,” I finally said, filled with despair.

  Ceinwyn’s smile disappeared. She watched me for a bit. I felt like I’d done something wrong. “I didn’t know you fancied her.”

  “I didn’t either until all this came up. I thought she was just a really cool girl who laughed at my jokes and didn’t act like I was something she’d stepped on, who actually would sit down and have a talk with me because she wanted to . . . and then . . .” I went into a horrified daze.

  “She’s a very special girl, King Henry.”

  “Starting to realize that . . .”

  “If you hurt her—”

  That snapped me out of it. “Never.”

  Ceinwyn raised her eyebrows.

  “On purpose,” I amended.

  “—I’ll have to stomp you many times.”

  “Didn’t know you watched over her.”

  “I watch over all of you.”

  “Some more than others.”

  “Some more than others,” she agreed.

  “I asked her but she turned me down.”

  “Ah, well, find someone else then.”

  “But, she said if I could get Miranda a date she’d think about it.”

  “You got the Daniels girl a date?”

  I laughed. “Really, ‘Daniels girl’ but you’re pretending you don’t have favorites.”

  The eyebrows again.

  “Yeah, Raj likes her a lot, so I worked some magic.”

  “Apparently I do need to pay more attention to the romances going on in your class, I had no idea it was so complicated,” Ceinwyn mused to herself.

  “So I did that, so it’s all good there. But Val also wants me to show her some hidden depths before she’ll go with me and I don’t have a clue how to do it.”

  If I expected an answer to my troubles, Auntie Badass wasn’t going to provide one for me. She just kept staring at me. Kind of like you would a prized racehorse, wondering what mare you’ll breed him with. That’s Ceinwyn for you. Thinking twenty years down the line about how she’ll recruit the next generation.

  “Guess I should be going,” I finally said.

  “If you want. I’d suggest heading directly to your dorm, but I know you won’t.”

  I took my egg dish and washed it under the water. It joined some spoons and forks in the dishwasher. Doubt she turned it on more than once a week. “Mind if I use your bathroom before I leave? Haven’t had much luck with the public ones today.”

  Ceinwyn nodded, waiting until I was into the hallway to call out, “Shout if you need rescued again.”

  Only . . . I didn’t make it to the bathroom immediately. I paused in the hallway, studying all the art Ceinwyn had up. Same as before, aero-pressed crayon sheets of all the teenager mancers she’d saved by bringing to the Asylum. Only . . . more of them. Two years of recruiting more. My eyes darted around, found a few familiar faces. Isabel sitting on a horse in the middle of some pristine farm land, Jesus eating at some trashy café with his face so dirty he looked black instead of brown, Val . . . Val sitting at a dinner table with her parents and a little sister . . .

  Me.

  Fourteen-year-old-me tossing an iPod out of a car window.

  Hidden depths, I thought, hidden fucking depths.

  Then I went to the bathroom and took a huge shit.

  You got to go, you got to go, kiddos.

  Session 129

  Someone had moved Val to her bed. Probably Peter. Father’s duty. Even when they tell you they’re all grown up . . . they never are to you. Even when they’re wandering the world trying to make it a better place . . . you still keep their room made up for them on the off chance they stop by.

  Suppose I should have just loomed over her, staring down at her sleeping face like her morning breath and the bit of drool at the corner of her lips contained the secrets of the universe . . . cuz that’s fucking romance, right? Not creepy at all. Ain’t a stalker, officer, ya gotta believe me! I just broke into her bedroom so I could watch her sleep!

  Didn’t have the time though.

  Had a hole nice and dug, had a conversation with God to get to.

  Time was ticking.

  Christmas and Conan the Corpusmancer had to be past Redding by now . . . or Eureka, depending on the route. Sucks being a mancer sometimes. Handling it the normal way we could have called some Amber Alerts, had checkpoints posted. Have to keep a low profile though . . . don’t think the California Highway Patrol is a match for the kidnappers either, even if they do got Erik Estrada on their side.

  Ceinwyn would have thought of the same thing. Bet she had people watching for the same make of van all across Oregon, license plate numbers flying through internet tubes. Black Bear Nation up that way is friendly with the Asylum, she’d put them to work too. Team of Recruiters in Portland . . .

  Maybe you shouldn’t have broken half the phones and communicators in the house, dumbass.

  Nah, that was a good move.

  Plutarch . . . Ceinwyn . . . only ones who could guess what I’m up to. Only ones who could point out to Estefan that he should stop helping me and zap me instead.

  After everything we’d been through the last couple days, Val deserved to be there for it. Yeah, it was dangerous—probably the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life. More dangerous than starting a war with the Coyotes, more dangerous than Joan of Arc’s little trap, more dangerous than the Curator too.

  My name’s Price, not Faust, I swear.
<
br />   I knelt down beside Val’s bed. In her room. Felt weird. There was a boy-band poster on the wall from before she left for the Asylum. Guess she’s not perfect after all. Map of Australia, few stuffed animals in a rocking chair, hell’a old computer on a desk. Kind of a timewarp all around. Felt weird. I’m not a guy to think twice about invading privacy usually. But this . . . Val’s room . . .

  She frowned in her sleep, eyes twitching from a dream or nightmare. But is she having a nightmare about the Curator or about herself? Unable to stop the flames . . . up goes the house . . .

  What’s that got to be like? Every day? Every minute? That much power? That much responsibility? There’s a reason why pyromancers have a suicide rate double other mancers . . .

  Don’t have to fear the flames with me around, Boomworm, I’ll snuff them out they ever try to take you over.

  I put a dirty, sore hand on her shoulder.

  Her eyes snapped open instantly. Dark as the void, something unseen and deep inside them burning like a star. The smile I gave her made her blink twice, first to clear the cobwebs and the second in recognition. “What . . .” A glance at the window with light seeping through it. “I fell asleep . . . what time is it?”

  “Couple hours past dawn.”

  She pushed the covers back and sat up. She’d taken her jeans and shoes off at some point and . . . Just a second . . . my brain will work eventually, I know it will . . . Long legs be long . . . “Any more news?”

  Why can’t I have her wake up with me every morning? I’d be good, promise. At least as good as I ever get, double promise. “I talked to Ceinwyn, she’ll be here soon. She knows the Curator exists but . . . it’s like with everyone else: whole lot of nothing.”

  Val let out a sigh, hands wiping at her face. Day old makeup on her face, bob-length hair a mess of twists, same beat-up, pink Tinkerbell t-shirt from the night before, smelling of grime and sewer . . . “Okay, let me get dressed and then we can plan our next move. I was thinking maybe an old-school attunement conjuration with Christmas’ hair might work and . . .”

  She noticed me staring like a twelve-year-old with a crush and blushed pink. “But . . . dressing . . .”

  She looks like a mess and you still want her more in this moment than you ever wanted Annie B or Sally or Eva or all the rest put together. Right here, King Henry Price, this is why you fuck around with every college girl you get in sight of. You know what this feels like, know what it’s like to have her trust you, to trust her in return, to have her count on you, give herself to you . . .

  And the days you can’t have it? Every minute you can’t have it? It fucking hurts. It fucking bleeds. You can’t settle for imitation . . . that’s even worse. So you drown yourself in a sea of pretty faces and sweat-soaked beds . . . praying it fucking stops hurting.

  I leaned in closer to her like a charmed snake. “Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are? I don’t think I have . . . not once all those years at the Asylum. I never said it. ‘Awesome’, ‘amazing’, all that kind of stuff . . . but never ‘beautiful”. That word can be a cheap point, but with you . . . I never felt I earned the right to say it, the way I always messed us up.”

  Her face buried itself in her hands so she wouldn’t have to look at me. “You have the worst romantic timing in the world!”

  I gave a little boy shrug, caught. “Yeah, that I’ll admit to. But you are beautiful, Valentine Ward, sorry I never said it before.”

  “I smell like a drainage pipe!”

  “Yeah . . . no whining about it though, just moving on, next plan. Then the next plan and then the next plan, right?”

  Her face finally peeked from behind her fingers. “Why do you smell like you’ve rolled in dirt?”

  “Kind of jumped to the next plan while you got your beauty rest,” I admitted.

  “Urgh!”

  “I could show it to you now, or we could do something else and then get dressed together.”

  “And he’s back.”

  “Just offering . . . I can barely stand, but I’ll lay there very solidly.”

  “Out of my room while I get dressed,” she ordered through a smile, “We don’t have a minute to waste much less an hour or two . . .”

  “An hour or two? You trying to kill me?”

  [CLICK]

  “It’s a hole,” Val said, staring down at it with the rest of us. “A big hole.”

  The extended family had left at some point, Agent Martin still hadn’t reappeared, but everyone who remained had gathered around our work. “Ain’t it beautiful?” I asked.

  Val rolled her eyes at my word choice.

  “Bet you never seen a hole that big, Jackson.”

  Val’s posture immediately changed, like I’d done something important, so I gave a questioning glance. “I was worried about you last night . . . but you’re back,” was all she said to explain.

  That just confused me more so I let it go. I waved at the hole. “My plan.”

  “And it does . . . what?” Ronnie asked, like I might have psychologically broken the night before.

  “Val and me get in it, then you lot bury everything but our heads,” I explained.

  Both of the Wards looked horrified. Jason looked eager. Estefan looked doubtful. Val . . . Val’s face had that expression of pure concentration on it. “Something to do with natural anima currents?”

  “Kinda. You remember the Camping Test our first month at the Asylum, right?”

  Realization came to Val. “The fairy that helped you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But . . . this isn’t the mountains.”

  “Don’t think it will matter with him.”

  “My goodness . . . you actually respect something in this world, I’m shocked.”

  I cleared my throat, bit embarrassed my rightful fear had shone through. “You know about how the fairy helped Miranda and me during the Camping Test, what you don’t know is that I talked to it another time at the Asylum. When I first trained with Plutarch—after our fight —he put me in the ground like this, told me if I used more than a thirty-second-pool I failed his test, and then told me he wouldn’t begin my Artificer training until I got out of the hole on my own.

  “Meteyos . . . helped me get out.”

  Peter and Ronnie Ward seemed shocked into silence by the idea that fairies existed, but Estefan motioned to the hole again. “But how does an Anima Concentrate help with the girl?”

  “Christmas,” Jason added, “say her name so you don’t turn her into an object in your head.”

  “Right, Christmas,” Estefan conceded, “But the point stands.”

  “The Camping Test,” I repeated. “The fairy knew where everyone was.”

  “But that was the mountains,” Val reminded me. “This is states apart we’re talking about. It’s a stretch, King Henry. I know we’re desperate but . . . it’s a stretch.”

  “Normally true,” I said, still not telling her Meteyos wasn’t your average Corporeal Anima Concentrate since I needed her to get into the hole with me, “but what type of mancer is Christmas?”

  Val gasped in surprise. A second later I was wrapped up in a spontaneous hug. “Geomancer, of course! King Henry, you’re brilliant!”

  “And good looking . . .”

  “Don’t make me a liar,” she teased, hopping into the hole without a single look back. “Hurry up!”

  “You are not burying my daughter!” Peter Ward woke from his stupor.

  “Not her head, just everything below it,” I pointed out.

  “She could be crushed by the weight!”

  “I’ve done this before, I survived, and I’ll be right with her, we’ll actually need to be . . . embraced . . . for her to . . . be with me . . . in the fairy dream thingy . . . I think. This is kind of experimental . . . but . . . it will work . . . trust me.”

  Now it was Ronnie Ward’s turn to put her foot down. “Absolutely not! And don’t you ever have ‘experimental’ come that close to ‘embraced’ when you
’re talking about my daughter in front of me ever again . . .”

  “Parents!” Val snapped at them to get their attention. She crossed her arms, eyeing them down even if she was six feet below them in the hole. “Twenty-four hours ago, despite my pleas, my witnesses, and the combined wisdom of every mancer on this planet, you had it in your heads to let your fourteen-year-old daughter decide for herself that dying from insanity at about thirty is no big risk at all. Well, your twenty-two-year-old, fully adult daughter is deciding for herself to get in a hole, be buried to her neck, and hug an old boyfriend while doing so, all so she can save her sister’s life. Stop being hypocrites!”

  Peter’s mouth worked for a bit. “If . . . if you’re going then I’m going. She’s my daughter too!”

  “Dad . . .”

  “She’s my daughter too!”

  “Dad . . . stop. Jason and Estefan will need your help with a shovel. Mom can make sure we’re okay. But only King Henry is getting in this hole with me.”

  “She said ‘hole’ . . .” I Beavis and Buttheaded.

  “What hope I’m filled with at that thought . . .” Ronnie mumbled under her breath.

  Peter picked up a shovel before returning to my side. “You promise this will work?” he asked me privately.

  “I promise I’ll die before she will,” was all I could give him.

  He nodded. “I was afraid of that.”

  I slid down after Val, making sure to not coat her in gravel prematurely. “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she returned. “Try to restrain yourself.”

  “I’ll try not to enjoy it too much.” Wrapping my arms around her, I locked my hands behind her back. “You don’t smell like a drainage pipe anymore . . .”

  To make up for the height difference, she slouched. From that, the only way I could tell she smirked was the way her mouth pressed against my shoulder. “You still smell like dirt.”

  “Oddly arousing, right?” I whispered into her ear.

  “My father is glaring at the back of your head, I think he heard you,” she whispered back.

  The first shovelful of dirt hit us. Val flinched and I squeezed her tighter. “Do you trust me?” I asked her.

  Big words between us. They had a past. I felt her arms at my side squeeze tighter as well. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.