by Einat Segal
I’m still so angry, I can’t even express it. He was my dad. He was mine. Everyone is mortal and parents too. But this shouldn’t happen to me. When he had his first heart attack, this was my biggest fear. And I did everything I could to help him, to stop this from happening.
But my everything wasn’t enough.
This is what it means to be weak. This is what it means to be helpless.
This is what it means to be just human.
I tear across my room and open the chest in my bookcase. My fingers trace the edges of the envelope. I pick it up and look at it, taking a few steps back, turning it over in my hand.
It’s too soon to jump to conclusions about the world. I know I’m in a terrible state. I’m certainly not thinking straight.
But fuck it. Fuck everything.
I rip open the envelope.
12
I Hate Playing Make-Believe
I always found the thought that magic isn’t real comforting and never fantasized about going to another world. I understand reality; that’s why I always managed to manipulate it so that it’d take the shape I want. And my demands out of the world around me were never too big. I never aimed to go to the highest place and do the biggest things. That’s why my first choice for college was NYU and not Columbia. You have to be pretty damned good to get into NYU, but in my mind, aiming for Columbia would give me no room to relax. I’m competitive, but I choose the competitions that I can have a fun time winning.
Sometimes things are harder than what they seem, but sometimes—like with getting into college—they turn out to be easier. I don’t know why I was scared of aiming for Columbia this whole time.
I never felt lacking in my life. I never wanted anything.
I never wanted magic—until now.
I slide the thick letter from the envelope and shake it open. Something falls out of the folds of paper and lands on my bedcover. I look down. It’s a feather. Light dances on its amber surface. The feather isn’t reflecting the light in my room; the light is coming from within. I leave it there on my bed and scoot away from it to read the letter.
It’s surprisingly short—all the paper was there to hide the feather. But it’s handwritten, which is sweet.
Dear Sophie,
I know by the look in your eyes when you left me on the hill that nothing can turn you back to me aside from your own desire to turn. I told you, and I will tell you again (if you let me) that what we have between us isn’t a lie. I can’t convince you of the truth unless you feel it in your heart. I’ve never felt this way before, and I don’t want to lose you. But all I can do is write this letter, extending my hand to you. If you let me show you, you’ll see that my world isn’t terrible and is inherently connected to yours.
If you’re reading this, love, maybe you decided to take the risk and give me a chance to make you believe me. If that’s the case, take my feather, touch it to your lips, and I’ll come to you.
Love,
Landon
Say what? He wants me to kiss his feather? Ew. Is that supposed to be romantic? I’m not going to go around kissing feathers. Talk about making this harder than it should be. Couldn’t he just end it with “give me a call”? I take a tissue from the box on my bedside table and pick up the feather from my bed. I need to give this back to him.
My phone rings. With the feather still in one hand, I dig my phone out of my pocket. The number is blocked. Creepy.
I answer anyway. “Hello?”
“Whatever you do, don’t kiss that feather,” says Landon’s out-of-breath voice. “It will bring me right to you and I’m not fit to be around people.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I say.
“Oh. Well, you opened the letter. At least that’s something.” He just told me not to kiss the feather, and now he sounds sad?
“Landon, cut the puppy act. You show up at the funeral but don’t even come to talk to me. You don’t even come by once to see if I’m all right and you expect me to kiss your feather?”
“I didn’t think you wanted me around,” he says dejectedly. “I can’t read you, Sophie. You never show what you feel. You left me on the hill, and then it was as if I didn’t exist anymore. You wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I was traumatized. There are monsters in the world, and that white lizard thing almost killed me, Landon. How was I supposed to act?” I take a deep breath. “But okay. I read your letter. I have your feather. I’m willing to talk, but if you want to do this over the phone, then no thank—”
Landon gives out an agonized cry, forcing me to take the phone away from my ear. “Now isn’t a good time,” he says in halting tones, disturbed by panting.
“What the hell? It sounds like you’re giving birth.”
“Let me take care of this,” says a different, gruff voice. “Hello, sweetheart. Our boy Landon’s dying, and there’s nothing you can do. If you want to see him one last time, come to Sutherland Tower in Manhattan, but I warn you, it ain’t pretty.”
“Charlie.” I hear Landon’s strangled voice in the background. “How is that helping?”
Charlie? That’s that midget guy I met at the Four Seasons. “Okay,” I say. “Give me the address, Charlie, and then hand the phone back to Landon. I’m not done talking to him.”
“No can do, sweetie. He hasn’t got any hands at the moment.”
Does he mean that literally? My stomach gives a little lurch. Serves me right for opening that letter. Well, you don’t dive down the rabbit hole and get snippy over having to bite some cakes. “I’ll be there in a little over an hour,” I say.
* * *
I took my mom’s car, which is my car now since my mom will use my dad’s car, and here I am, standing in Fifth Avenue at the entrance to Sutherland Tower. I try to get my mind wrapped around the idea that, technically, this whole skyscraper is, in fact, a dragon’s “den.” On TV and in the newspapers, Ambrose Sutherland, the dragon of Manhattan, is young and hot enough to be a Hollywood movie star. He’s got a red-brown complexion and broad shoulders that look amazing in a suit. His face is sculpted out of perfect soft and hard angles, and his eyes are dark and piercing. He has the type of look that would be cast in a movie as either the hero or the villain.
I step through the glass doors, over which is a stone engraving of the icon of the Sutherland corporation—which is a coiling dragon biting its own tail. Duh.
The farther wall of the cavernous entrance hall is made of dark carved stone, the same stone paving the floor in huge slabs. I eye the enormous glass statue in the center, another dragon, this one with its massive wings outstretched over the entire hall. There are glass orbs hanging on invisible strings around it and painted with a gold lace design, out of which soft yellow light glows.
This is definitely a dragon’s den. I hurry in the direction I believe is the elevators. Once I pass the sculpture, there’s a round, glass, and gold receptionist desk with two blondes who could have easily been on the cover of Vogue sitting behind it wearing headsets.
One of them looks up sharply at me when I approach and flashes me a cold smile. “Welcome to Sutherland Tower. How can I help you?”
“Um, I’m Sophie Green,” I say. “I’ve come to meet—”
“We’ve been expecting you, Miss Green,” she says quickly with absolutely no change in her expression or her voice. Is she a robot or something? “Wait one moment, please.”
She presses a button on her keyboard. “Miss Green is here,” she says into the headset. “Shall I send her up?”
Someone on the line says something.
“Understood,” the receptionist says in her snappy voice. “Miss Green, someone will be here to escort you in a short moment.”
“Miss Green,” says someone not three seconds later. When the receptionist said “a short moment,” she actually meant it. I turn around to find a stunning Asian man standing before me. He’s tall with longish wavy brown hair, a total baby face, and big eyes. He looks like he would fit perfectly
in one of those K-pop bands. Such eye candy. Everyone looks stunning in monster-land. I wouldn’t expect anything different.
“Hi, I’m Derek Nae, Mr. Sutherland’s intern.” He extends his hand to me.
I hesitate but then decide that if they’re all planning to eat me, they won’t do it by shaking my hand.
His hand is smooth and his handshake firm. Why is it so much easier to trust beautiful people? This guy is a total snake, and yet I’m just eating him up with my eyes. “Come, Mr. Sutherland is waiting to meet you,” he says with a smile.
And I was hoping that the dragon was only ornamental. “I’m actually here to see—”
“We know. Mr. Sutherland would simply like to discuss Mr. Pearce’s situation with you first,” Derek says. “It is a somewhat delicate matter. Right this way, please.” He starts walking toward the elevators, but I remain rooted to my spot.
It’s not too late to run back home and call it a night. It’s not too late to end all this before it can go too far. I’ve successfully been avoiding it until now. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t just forget about it for the rest of my life.
That would, doubtlessly, be the smart thing to do.
The elevator doors slide open, and Derek walks inside and turns to me. “Are you coming, Miss Green?” he asks in a voice as smooth as marble.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I say, and follow him inside.
* * *
Derek and I stand side by side as the elevator speeds up. I watch the blue numbers on the LED screen above the number panel change rapidly. There are more than sixty floors in this building.
“Is it considered impolite to ask what kind you are?” I ask.
“What kind I am?” He appears puzzled, and for a second, I think that maybe he’s just a normal person and isn’t in on all this monster stuff. But it’s just for a moment. Even perplexed, he looks too amazing to be real. I know he’s one of them.
“You know . . . like what kind of . . . monster?”
He grins at me. “Oh, that.” His eyes crinkle when he chuckles. “I’m a hobgoblin.”
Instantly, I imagine a small green man with long thin arms, a gigantic nose, and wispy white hair. “That kind of sucks for you. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he replies brightly.
I don’t say anything.
“But in case you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” he continues, “I don't know how the humans’ version of hobgoblins came to be, but you guys got us confused with that thing you call angels. We’re the most awesome race there is.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” I point out.
“You were thinking it.”
“You can’t read thoughts.”
“You’re right,” he says, with his voice and smile freakishly bright again. “But I can control the weather, so there.”
“Good for you.”
We arrive on the last floor, sixty-three, and the elevator doors silently slide open. The decor reminds me of the Ty Warner Suite, only maybe leaning toward the more old-fashioned side. There’s a whole lot of window directly in front of me. I don’t even think it can be considered a window anymore. It’s more like the wall is made of glass. I can hear the trickling notes of a piano playing from somewhere.
I look at Derek, who’s got his finger jammed on the Open Doors button. He gestures with his hand. “This is where you get off, Miss Green.”
Hah.
“You’re not coming?” Not that I want him around or anything, but at least he’s nice to look at.
“The Dragon of Manhattan wishes to meet with you in private.”
Great. That’s just great. That doesn’t sound ominous, not one bit. What have I gotten myself into? “It’s too late to back out, isn’t it?”
Derek’s grin widens. He’s got very nice teeth. “It was too late the day you were born.”
I shudder visibly from his words. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t give myself the option of freaking out. I just step out of the elevator.
“Miss Green,” says Derek. I turn. “Whatever you do, don't make him laugh. If the dragon laughs, you know you’re in trouble.”
“Speaking from experience?”
Derek shakes his head and presses the Close Doors button. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I were,” he says as the doors slide shut.
Holy cow on the moon, what am I doing here?
I stand there for a moment wondering where I need to go. I decide to follow the sound of the piano. I recognize the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and by the sound of it, it’s no recording. I pass a fancy sitting area with the wall of glass overlooking New York on my left. The entire farther wall features shelves shaped like a bee comb from floor to the cathedral-height ceiling. In each of the dozens of wooden slots, there’s a palm-sized black-and-white sculpture. I pause to look at these since they’re creepy in a good way. Each sculpture is shaped like a different animal, with half its body in white and half in black.
I hurry on. There’s a doorway before me. The bee-comb shelves with the sculptures continue on the wall ahead as well, even going over the doorway. I pass into a library that smells very strongly of leather. In the corner, in front of the piano, is a little girl in a white dress with thin copper arms and lots of long curly hair. She can’t be more than seven or eight, and she’s playing like a goddess.
When I take a step closer to her, she suddenly stops. She doesn’t make a sound and rushes away from the piano, running on bare brown feet through a trap door in the wooden wall panel, and slams it behind her. I hurry up to where she vanished, but I can’t find any trace of the door in the wall.
Okay, that was spooky, but now what? I look around myself. There aren't any other doors aside from the one I came in from.
I jump at the shrill creak of hinges on my left. My heart races, ramming against my ribs. One of the book-laden bookcases lining the wall slides aside on its own, revealing a dark opening.
I bite my bottom lip. Nah uh. No way. Not going in there. I’m going to stay here where I have a clear view of the elevator. I select one of the armchairs by the hearth and sit down, crossing my arms. I pull out my phone and try to call Landon but reach voicemail instantly.
Great.
“I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the view,” I announce loudly, leaning back and crossing my legs. I don’t think they’re planning to eat me, but if they are, I may as well be eaten in this room and not in that one.
I’m so stupid for coming here. My initial motivations don’t seem strong enough.
“Are you making me come to you, Sophie Green?” says a deep voice from the other room. I don’t have to ask myself who this voice belongs to. If the deepest shadows and the darkest nights could speak, if fire could talk and if terror made a sound, this would be its voice. My bones shiver from the vibrations in the floor beneath my feet, and I can’t move. I grasp the arms of the chair, my eyes open wide. I can barely draw breath around this sudden lump of fear that forms in my stomach.
Run for your life. Run, run, run—everything inside me screams. But for some reason, like in a bad dream, I don’t run. I hold my ground as the dragon melts out of the shadows and comes to me.
He’s a tall man, and to top that, I’m sitting down. I have to tilt my head all the way back to look into his face. The papers, the TV, they don’t do him justice. They make him seem like a perfect human man, but up close, it’s clear to me that he’s too present to be human. It’s like an inferno has just joined me in this library. His personality is too big to be contained within the boundaries of his physical body. It presses down on me.
Yikes. Oh my lord. Let me get out of here. I feel too small.
I want to weep, to disappear as every drop of blood in my body screams in terror. I won’t survive, my body seems to say. This man is the end of everything.
“Welcome, Sophie Green,” he says. He doesn’t wear any expression at all. His face—his perfect fac
e—is an absolute mask. “I have heard that you are a human with a faulty nature.”
He stalks over to the sitting area and settles down into the armchair across from me. It’s even harder to stand him from this close. I just want to close my eyes and for all this to be over.
But I don’t. He’s gazing at me, right into my eyes. At first, I think his eyes are an intense brown, but the longer I look, the more apparent it becomes to me that they’re crimson. Like dried blood. I want to flinch and look away. My eyes feel so dry. I need to blink them. But I stiffen my facial muscles as if we’re having a staring contest.
Deep inside me, I know that it would be a terrible mistake to avert my gaze.
He tilts his head to the side. A semblance of an expression passes over his face, but it’s gone before I can catch it. I really want to blink. “What do you seek upon coming here, little human?” he asks.
And then he rises, sidling toward me. No, no, no, don’t come any closer.
I tighten my jaw and make no attempt to answer. I’m in no state to talk. Right now, I’m capable of shrieking and swearing.
He crouches down and lands on one knee before me. Even like this, on the floor, he’s so tall that his head is about level with mine. He reaches out and grasps my chin, lifting my face. His fingers are warm against my skin. “Are you attracted to the power? Or is it glory you covet? Do you think magic will take you away from the pain of your loss?”
He brings his face closer to mine. I can feel the almost unbearable heat radiating from his body. “We are everything intensified, Sophie Green. Every pain, every sorrow, every loss you feel, we have felt it all a thousand times over through every age of this world. Humans who seek to come close to us only ever come to experience their own undoing. Is that why you came?”
Oh God. Oh God. What the hell does he want from me? My heart is racing too fast. I can’t breathe. I think I’m going to faint.