by Lev AC Rosen
“He seemed angry.”
“We didn’t know Elega had retrieved the Hammer. We’d sent one of our guards with Reunne, of course. One from above, one from below, that’s the rule. But apparently, he died. Reunne may have killed him. You should be wary on this mission.” Severkin presses his lips shut but wants to come to Reunne’s defense. He knows her, and she wouldn’t have done that.
They stop in a small room with a desk in the middle of it. A man in uniform but without a helmet or weapons sits behind the desk. Siffon extends her hand.
“Badge for the fresh meat,” she says. The guard grins and takes a badge out of his desk drawer and hands it to her. She smiles and pins it on Severkin’s chest. She’s very close to him as she does this, and he can suddenly smell the chalk-and-roses of her sweat and feel the heat from her body. He swallows.
“Good,” she says as they leave the room the way they came, heading back to the main hall. “Now, the mission. You’re to meet Reunne at the Tower, in Grayhome, to the north. I’ll mark it on your map. The Staff, the piece of the machine you’re after, was kept in the Tower after it was broken up, but the new head of the Mages Guild says it’s…gone missing.”
“Missing?” Severkin asks.
“I don’t know. She said she needed some help getting it back—help of the skilled-warrior variety. She’s a dwarf—so be careful, it might all be a trick.”
“Why was the machine broken up originally?”
“The elves and dwarves agreed to separate it so that they wouldn’t use it on each other. Which is, of course, exactly what we’re thinking of doing now,” Siff says, tilting her head to the side as though she finds this amusing.
“How did a dwarf become head of the Mages Guild?” Severkin asks. Though a guard like Rel seems plausible, he assumes head of the Mages Guild is an important role, and it’s hard to imagine the elves letting a dwarf have it.
“She ran the university in the undercity. Very prominent and well respected. Wonderful educator. When the dwarves came up, she applied right away for a job at the Tower. As a sign of good faith, she was made vice dean. The dean retired a few months ago and left her in charge. We weren’t happy about it, but the Tower handles their own affairs. Her name is Frigit. She’s apparently very severe but very good at what she does. And supposedly she has no secret loyalties to Elega. But if they were secret, we wouldn’t know about them. The dwarves are very good at keeping secrets.”
Severkin nods. He wonders if this is what he sounds like—prejudiced. He doesn’t like the idea of being like that. Rel, after all, seemed kind, and Reunne seems to trust the dwarves well enough to work for them. And Severkin trusts Reunne.
“I think I know all I need to, then,” Severkin says. “I’ll head to the Tower at daybreak.”
“Good,” Siffon says. They’re back in the great hall, but it is empty, and she is standing close to him. “Come back with the Staff, and I’ll be very happy. But let Elega have it…and I’ll be angry. Which won’t be nearly as much fun for you.”
She kisses him lightly on the cheek and walks away.
Severkin takes a deep breath. It’s been an odd day.
NICK WAKES up to Dad banging on his door again.
“Breakfast!” Dad calls. “Come on, eat quick, we’ve got to get going so we have time to go over those questions with your mom before the movie.”
Nick closes his eyes again. He doesn’t like the idea of having everything he wants to talk to Mom about being picked over beforehand and censored. He lies in bed a while longer. The light in his room is a fuzzy blue-gray. Slowly he sits up and grabs his phone from next to his bed and sends Nat a text saying he probably can’t play much today, but he promises to meet up with her tonight, if she’s playing. She texts back right away:
I promise too
“Are you coming?” Dad shouts from downstairs. Nick rolls his eyes and stands, then heads downstairs. Dad is eating a bowl of cereal.
“No pancakes?” Nick asks, maybe sounding a little nastier than he meant to.
“I bought some of that instant oatmeal stuff, if you want something warm,” Dad says. “Now eat fast; it’s already almost noon. We’re supposed to visit your mom before three. They’re showing a German movie.”
Nick groans. “I have to watch a German movie?”
“Yep,” Dad says with the grin of a parent making their child learn against their will. “Plus, you need to talk to your mom for your assignment, right?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, opening a pack of instant oatmeal and adding it to some water in a bowl, then sticking it in the microwave.
“Probably should make sure you bring it, then, right?”
Nick nods, his head feeling heavy, then goes upstairs and grabs the questionnaire and brings it back to the kitchen. He puts it on the table so he doesn’t forget it. The microwave beeps, and he takes out the oatmeal and starts eating. It’s plastic-y, lumpy.
Dad takes one of those deep, parental breaths that Nick knows means he’s showing how nice he thinks he’s being. “Look, I just don’t want to upset her like the other day. No getting in her face. No getting upset. Just ask the questions, and if she can’t answer them, move on. Okay?”
“Fine,” Nick says, shoveling the oatmeal into his mouth.
“Good.” Dad smiles—a real smile. He seems happy today. Because he gets to see Mom again, Nick knows. It’s good to see that Dad misses her, too, but Nick feels guilty seeing his father’s happiness. Why isn’t he happy like that?
Nick finishes his oatmeal and heads back upstairs without saying anything. He showers, trims his hair with the giant electric clippers, puts on clothes, and goes online to look at the game forums—to see how much everyone else is liking it, and to tell everyone how awesome he thinks it is.
He knows he needs to be careful on the forums, though, now that the game is out. He hates spoilers. Even before the game came out, he read all about the graphics and controls but not the plot. Luckily the designers didn’t talk much about the plot—they said it was so varied depending on decisions you made that talking about it, or even where they got their ideas, would ruin it. They were going to talk more about it after it had been out awhile, at the big GamesCon in New York, in a month. Nick is still so jealous of Nat for getting to go. Maybe she’ll film it for him.
The boards that don’t have spoiler tags are basically just talking about character creation and controls. He posts a few of his own thoughts—on how real it feels, on how the controls are fluid—before Dad knocks on the door.
“You just walked away,” Dad says, coming in before Nick can tell him he’s busy. “Something you want to say?”
Nick looks up, shrugs.
“I just don’t see why we can’t do normal stuff with mom,” he says, staring at the Chichén Itzá poster, wondering if he’ll ever go to Rome with his family. Maybe he’ll go alone, when he’s older. Send postcards. “Go out to a real movie.”
“Well, this is normal stuff for your mom,” Dad says, sitting on the bed. “Maybe not the normal stuff you like to do, but your mom and I watch German films pretty regularly. Or we did. You just never bothered to watch with us. You played your game, or did homework, or watched TV in your room. And that was fine. But now, it’s about Mom. So if you want to see her, we’re going to do things she wants to do. We’ve been doing things you want to do for a while, Nick. I think your mother gets to pick now and then.”
Nick leans back in his chair and nods. He feels like he’s just been blasted with freezing air. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. I just…Is the movie going to be hard to understand?”
“There will be subtitles. I can’t promise you’ll like it. But pretend, okay? How about sometime next week, after school, you and I go see a movie you want to see? That sound fun?”
“A movie on a school night?” Nick raises an eyebrow. Dad must feel guilty.
“Yeah,” Dad says. “You’re old enough. I think you know you’ll still have to do your homework first. And…
we’re going to have to change the rules a little now. So I guess we can change them for the better, too.”
“Okay,” Nick says. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” Dad says, standing. “I’m going to go get changed. Come downstairs and we’ll head over to see Mom.”
Nick nods. He looks at his computer screen. On the forum, someone has just posted a response to him, saying the spear fighting feels especially fluid, and he should try it. The poster’s handle is GrayR97. Nick wonders if it’s the person who plays Reunne. His character name and handle are the same, after all—she’d know it was him.
“Downstairs in fifteen,” Dad says again, interrupting Nick’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” Nick says, without looking up. Dad leaves, and Nick clicks on GrayR97’s profile. It’s not Reunne—his bio says he’s a male, and he’s the same age as Nick. Nick is sure the person playing Reunne is older, and a woman. She just embodies the character so well—the way she explains things, the protectiveness—she’s like a mom. Like his mom.
In an instant, the idea of Reunne being like mom freezes him. His eyes open wider and air touches the parts normally covered by his eyelids, making them tingle. He inhales so deeply that his chest feels unnaturally huge, and then he realizes he needs to exhale and lets it out like a gale. She had painted those cities from the game, after all. They have a console that could play it there. She knows his character’s name—everything about him, in fact. Nick has told her all the stories of Severkin as she watched him play. And when she played, her favorite weapon was the spear. He swallows. He’s not sure if the idea is crazy or if it makes perfect sense. Mom playing Reunne.
But then, she would have told him, right? Unless there was some rule against it—they’re not allowed to visit every day, so maybe she’s not supposed to be communicating with him outside approved visits. They’d have to keep it secret, then.
Nick shakes his head. No. It’s a crazy idea. Insane. Mom would tell him. He just misses her. Except, she’s definitely playing. The paintings of Wellhall and Bridgefall prove that. But when he asked her, she couldn’t tell him. It was like she was wrapped up in blankets. Maybe the disease she really has—whatever it is—was causing that, or maybe the Alzheimer’s drugs. That’s what that look she gave him was. That wink. Mom playing the game. Mom is Reunne. It’s not that crazy.
He puts his shoes on and heads downstairs, where Dad is waiting. They drive with the radio on. Nick looks out at the passing scenery and tries to tell himself he’s wrong, Mom can’t be playing the game, she would tell him—maybe in-game. Except then she’d violate the in-game-only rules and get kicked off the server. It’s ridiculous. But he still keeps turning the idea over and over in his head, like he’s handling a precious artifact. Every reason he comes up with that Reunne can’t be Mom he can also disprove with one thought. It all fits together: even if it doesn’t make sense, it makes sense. When they arrive, Nick doesn’t realize it at first, like there’s a delay between his hearing the wheels on the white rocks of the parking lot and his knowing what the sound means.
Mom could be Reunne. And he needs to somehow find out if he’s losing his mind. Because if he’s not, then Mom is trying to tell him something, and he needs to catch up, because he didn’t even realize it was her.
They get out of the car and walk to the porch, the gravel crunching under their feet like broken glass.
“So, if I think the questions are upsetting her, I’m going to say ‘next question,’ okay?”
“Sure,” Nick says. He isn’t really listening. He’s trying to think of things to ask her about the game. Ways to confirm she’s Reunne. Then he can tell Dad about it, maybe the doctors. It must mean something. But until he can prove it, he can’t tell Dad. Dad’ll say he’s in some form of denial again and tell him he can’t talk to Mom about the game. Figure it out first, Nick tells himself. Figure out that it’s Mom, prove it, then we can tell Dad. And that’ll blow his mind. Nick can see the shocked look on his face already, big eyes behind glasses, hair bouncing, lips pulling together like a knot to form that perfect “Oh.”
Inside, an aide swipes them in and directs them to the lounge to the side, where Mom is playing cards with a very old woman in a wheelchair. She looks up when they enter and smiles, then says something to the woman in the wheelchair and gets up. She hugs Nick and gives Dad a kiss on the cheek.
“So good to see my boys,” she says. She runs her hands over Nick’s head, something Nick would have hated a few months ago but that he doesn’t mind now. “What do you want to do? Do you want to go for a walk? There’s a lovely little pond behind the house.”
“That sounds great,” Dad says. “Nicky has some more of those questions for the school project he wants to ask you, if you’re up for it.”
“Of course!” Mom says, ruffling Nick’s hair again. “Anything for my little Nicky.”
They walk back outside to the porch and then around to the back of the mansion. There are a few benches here, and a pond. The lawn stretches out like an arena. A few concrete paths weave around the grounds, and nurses stroll back and forth on them, leisurely checking on the patients. Nick sees Jess, Ms. Knight’s girlfriend, pushing an old man in a wheelchair. She smiles at them and nods but doesn’t stop what she’s doing. A few older patients have easels and share a small folding table among them, covered with paints.
“Is this where you painted those watercolors, Mom?” Nick asks. His father clears his throat.
“Oh, no. I haven’t painted outside yet,” Mom says. “Just as part of the class. Art therapy, they call it. Next week, we’re sculpting. I don’t remember ever working with clay before, so I think it will be exciting. Let’s sit down here.” They sit down on a bench by the pond, Nick to the left of his mother, his father to her right. “So, what did you want to ask me?”
Dad hands him the now crumpled questionnaire, marked up with both Nick’s handwriting and Dad’s. He looks over the questions.
“I was curious about the watercolors,” Nick begins.
“Nick,” Dad interrupts. “Let’s start with the questions for school.”
Nick looks down at the questionnaire to hide his scowl. “Okay,” he says, reading the first question. “Mom, can you remember what school was like growing up?”
Mom smiles, then tilts her head, looking off into the distance. “It was so many years ago,” she says. “But I remember the uniforms. Bright royal blue. When we were little, it was white shirts with blue scarves, and we did lots of marching. I remember a lot of marching. You had to be one of the Pioneers so you could join the FDJ—Freie Deutsche Jugend, the ‘Free German Youth’—they had blue shirts. I didn’t really understand why I had to join them, you know, but my parents made me, and when I was older and in the FDJ, I realized it was because if you didn’t join, you couldn’t really get a good education. The schools were state sponsored, you see. Training to make us good little communists. If you didn’t join, you weren’t loyal to the government and therefore weren’t allowed to learn anything. I wanted to learn other languages, and see other places—I’ve always wanted to, as far back as I could remember. But the chances of that happening were very small. And there was no way it would happen if I didn’t stay in the FDJ, so I did. And it wasn’t just that you had to be a member, you had to prove to them you were loyal, show them through actions that you believed in the cause.” She looks back down at Nick and smiles.
“How were you supposed to prove that?” Nick asks.
Mom taps her chest. “And they gave us badges! I remember that. Little badges that went right on your shirt. I don’t remember if that was the FDJ or the Pioneers, though.”
“Did you do well enough to get a good education?” Nick asks.
“Yes,” she says, and looks away again. “I got a very good education. I knew it was the only way to get out, to see the world.”
“So you were a good communist?” Nick asks. He shifts on the bench. He knows that communism isn’t exactly a great thing. People on the
news still call each other that. Although some people seem to think it isn’t so bad, either. But the communists in East Berlin, he thinks, they weren’t good. Everyone agrees on that. So if Mom was good at it…
“I did what I needed to do, Nicky,” Mom says in a soft voice. “I have regrets, but if the wall hadn’t fallen, it would have been my only way out.”
“Let’s move on to something else,” Dad suggests.
“But I want to know—” Nick begins.
“We can do some research at home,” Dad suggests. “Why don’t you ask something else?”
Nick stares at Mom, hoping she’ll speak up, defend herself, say she’s fine to keep talking. That the part of Mom that’s still totally her will emerge and wink and give him some clues—something so he knows if it’s her, and if it is, what she’s trying to tell him. But she just stares off at the sky, which is a clear pale blue, like a sheet of ice.
“It was cold in the uniforms,” she says suddenly. “That always seemed unfair to me.”
“What’s next on the list?” Dad asks.
Nick squeezes the paper in his hand so tightly that the edges almost cut him. “How did you and Dad meet?” he asks, reading from the list.
“I was studying anthropology at NYU,” Mom says, as if just remembering. “He was TA’ing…some other class down the hall. I kept seeing him. He kept seeing me. We paused at the same water fountain. One day he asked if he could take me to the movies, and I said yes. I hadn’t been out with anyone else since coming to America. I thought he was handsome and had a nice smile. And he didn’t mind my accent, or my stupid questions—”
“None of her questions were stupid,” Dad interrupts. “She was trying to learn. That’s something about her that made me love her. And she’s far smarter than me. Learned everything faster than I ever could.”