by Davis Ashura
“Listen. We don’t want or need anything from you,” Mr. Zeus said. “But we can offer you so much, something of which many dream but only a rare few are fortunate enough to receive. We offer you magic. Can you conceive it? All you have to do is come camping with us over the Christmas holidays. It’ll be to the state park in West Virginia, as we said. It’s near a saha’asra, a place of lorasra. We can protect you so your lorethasra will not fully come to life, but you’ll get to experience a taste of what it means to be a magus.”
William’s anger calmed enough for him to think again. “Why can’t we just go to this place Jason said was here in Cincinnati?”
“We need privacy,” Mr. Zeus explained. “In addition, the saha’asra in Cincinnati is too frail for our purposes.”
“If I go to this place in West Virginia, I get to do magic?”
“No. You’ll learn what it’s like to be a magus,” Jason answered.
“Remember the cost, though,” Mr. Zeus said. “If you become one of us there is no going back. The rest of the world becomes poisonous to you. You will be trapped on an island with few opportunities to leave.”
“But I get to do this whole magic thing?” William persisted.
“Asra,” Mr. Zeus corrected.
“Asra. Whatever,” William said. “Why can’t I just live here and do what you and Jason do? You guys aren’t trapped.”
“It isn’t as easy as that,” Mr. Zeus said. “Once you experience Arylyn, life everywhere else will seem like a pale shadow. Additionally, if your lorethasra doesn’t allow your survival in the Far Abroad, you will never again see the rest of your family.”
His words struck like a splash of ice water. To also lose his aunts, uncles, and cousins would be hard to accept.
“How did you know about me?” William finally asked.
“It’s different for everyone,” Mr. Zeus said, “but when someone with the potential to become a magus reaches a certain age we can feel it. It ripples through all the saha’asras scattered throughout the world, but the disturbance is softer than a feather falling on a lake.”
“The truth is, it was blind luck that we found you,” Jason said. “Most people with the potential for lorethasra are never discovered. In your case, Lien happened to be interested in this city and felt—”
“Lien’s a magus?”
“So is Daniel and the rest of his family,” Jason said. “But Lien is like me and you. She was born in the Far Abroad and came to Arylyn when it was her time.”
“Then why is she here in Cincinnati?”
“She’s from Liuzhou, Cincinnati’s sister city in China, and she wanted to see more of the world,” Jason replied. “She thought Cincinnati would be a fun place to visit.”
A niggling suspicion wormed its way to the surface of William’s thoughts, and his distrust flared again. “You all came here because of me,” he said. “Does that also mean that you’re only friends with me because of this potential I have?”
“No,” Jason answered immediately. “We did come here because of you. That part’s true. But we’re friends because we like you. You can be mad at me for lying to you, but our friendship has always been real. It’s got nothing to do with what you might one day be able to do.”
William studied him, and Jason stared back wearing the guileless appearance of a true friend. But that friend had also been lying to him for two years. It wasn’t something William could just blink away and forget.
“I’ll go camping with you,” William finally replied. “I’ll listen to what else you have to say. But what about Serena? I invited her, too. I can’t uninvite her.”
Jason grimaced. “I still wish you hadn’t done that,” he said.
“I wish you hadn’t lied to me.”
“We’ll take care of Serena,” Mr. Zeus said. “We’re magi. We have ways to keep her unaware of what we’re doing.”
Where’s everyone else?” Serena asked.
William shrugged.
They stood in line at the movie theater. Misty rain fell, and headlight beams glowed off oil-slick pavement. The smell of popcorn wafted through the air and mixed with exhaust fumes as parents dropped teenagers off in front of the theater.
“I thought it could be just you and me,” William said.
“For Star Trek?” Serena asked. “I thought Jason and Daniel wanted to see it, too.”
“They do, but they wanted to go some other time,” William said. It was the truth, but not the entire truth.
“What happened?” Serena asked. She held his eyes with her disconcerting gaze.
“What do you mean?” William tried not to fidget.
“I mean, what’s the real reason we’re seeing Star Trek without the others? There has to be something else. You’re upset. What’s wrong?”
William scowled. The pain of betrayal remained a deep cut. How could Jason, Mr. Zeus, and the Karllsons have lied to him like they had? Who were they really, and how could he ever trust them again?
In that moment, had he been able, William might have told Serena all about Arylyn, magic, and magi, but the uneasy sensation that kept him from thinking of her as anything more than a friend also warned him to stay silent about this. Best to keep it secret.
Besides which, he wasn’t able to tell her even if he wanted to. He couldn’t. Another of Mr. Zeus’ betrayals. Jason’s grandfather had done something to him, used his magic and made it so William was physically incapable of communicating what he’d learned about Arylyn and magic. No writing, speaking, or even miming what he knew. A collar was what Mr. Zeus had called it.
The notion that control of his body had been stripped away caused William’s anger to surge like a tide beneath a vast, black moon.
“That bad?” Serena guessed. She offered him a tight-lipped expression of sympathy.
“That bad,” William admitted. “I . . .” For a moment, he couldn’t think or speak clearly. A red haze of fury trapped his mind, but with a shudder, he managed to push it to the back of his thoughts. Rather than raging like lava down a mountain, it only bubbled like a pot on boil.
“William?” Serena frowned in concern.
“Jason and I got into a pretty big argument yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“He lied to me, and I’m trying to figure out some stuff about us.”
“Was it really that serious?”
“You have no idea,” William said.
“Maybe I don’t, but I know this much: you and Jason, I’ve never seen two people who are friends like you two are. You love each other.”
William snorted.
“It’s true, whether you want to admit it or not,” Serena said. “The two of you have a special bond. I’m jealous. I wish I had someone in my life I could trust like that, someone who made me a better person the way Jason does for you. And if I did, not even death could tear us apart.”
Yesterday William would have been in complete agreement with Serena. But now? Now he didn’t know. “You don’t understand.”
“Maybe not, but ask yourself this: did the lie benefit Jason?”
William opened his mouth to answer but shut it when he took the time to consider her question. He knew the answer, and while the sense of betrayal remained, the last of his anger simmered down, returning to linger like it always did just beneath the surface.
“By the way, what happened to your face?” Serena pointed to William’s swollen lip.
“Oh, that.” William gingerly touched his lip. “Jake.”
Serena’s eyes widened. “You fought? I thought the two of you had made peace with one another.”
“Not exactly,” William said. “We’re not enemies any more, but we’re not exactly friends.” He shrugged. “But this . . .” he pointed to his lip, “had nothing to do with fighting. It was part of the end of season rituals that Coach Rasskins put us through. It’s called an Oklahoma drill.”
“What’s that?”
William sighed. “Something stupid in football. T
wo guys line up and bash each other. It’s like sumo wrestling. That’s how me and Jake worked out our feud.” He grimaced. “We bled all over each other, but he won.”
“How was the movie?” Jason asked, standing in the doorway to William’s bedroom.
“It was all right,” William said. He sat at his desk with his feet propped up, and he didn’t look up from the book he’d been reading: The Stainless Steel Rat. He’d thought a lot about what Serena had said before the movie, about his friendship with Jason, and how Jason made him a better person.
It was all true.
In all their time together, Jason had been the truest friend William could have ever hoped to have. Yes, he and Mr. Zeus had lied, but they had their reasons—good reasons—and maybe it was time for William to tell them so. He could start by apologizing to Jason for the way he’d been behaving.
But William had never been good at it. His eyes scanned the same words on the page and his thoughts swirled while he tried to muster up the courage to say sorry.
Jason remained at the doorway. “You still mad?” he asked.
William looked away from his book and exhaled heavily. “No. But I said some things, and I need to tell you how sorry I am about it. You didn’t deserve how I treated you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jason said. “It’s done.”
William looked up, hope rising. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. You should be pissed off at us.”
“Yeah. I guess, but . . .” William shrugged. “You know.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it.”
William chanced a smile. “We’re good, then?”
“Always,” Jason replied.
William smiled more broadly. “In that case, the new Star Trek movie is about whales.”
Jason blinked in apparent disbelief. “Seriously? Whales?”
“Whales. And hardly any Klingons.”
“What the hell! Whales and no Klingons?” Jason sputtered. “How stupid is that?”
December 1986
The last day of school before Christmas break always felt like a Friday. This year it fell on a Thursday and was a short day, with Christmas Mass in the morning and no classes afterward. Throughout the service the auditorium sparked with an anticipatory buzz, and as soon as Mass ended all the students made a beeline for the exits.
William buzzed with as much anticipation as everyone else. Maybe more so. He’d spent most of his time since Thanksgiving thinking about what his future might hold, and during Mass, he almost vibrated in his chair with excitement.
Magic. Asra. It was like having an unasked-for dream made real. What would his parents and Landon have thought?
He figured they’d have been thrilled. All of them, even his mother, had been nerds of some sort, but what would they have wanted him to do? William wished they were still around to tell him, or at least to share in the joy of knowing that magic was real.
Arylyn. A hidden island of magi.
What Mr. Zeus had described sounded so impossible, and early on there had been times when William had doubted all of it, but those doubts hadn’t lasted long. Mostly because he saw Jason and Mr. Zeus use magic on a daily basis, things as simple as a pot of water freezing to ice over a hot stove, or a seed growing to a flowering plant in seconds.
And later today, they’d head out to the state park in West Virginia, for the saha’asra, the place of asra, and William would have his first glimpse of what it meant to be a magus.
He couldn’t wait, and he grinned in excitement, not caring that it made him look like a slack-jawed yokel.
Mass finally ended, and the auditorium emptied. The hallways quickly crowded as an infectious joy filled St. Francis. Students stood about and talked, most of them laughing and calling out to one another. Some discussed vacation plans for the holiday. Others talked about getting together during the break. And everyone smiled in relief at the notion of no school for the next two weeks.
“What’s got you so excited?” Serena asked at their lockers. “You’ve been smiling all morning.”
“Christmas holidays,” William said. “Same as everyone. No school. Camping.” He managed to fake a smile past his guilt at lying to her, even if the lie was one of omission.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually excited about camping out in the cold,” Serena said. “I don’t think it sounds all that much fun.”
William glanced at her in surprise. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m coming, but I’m bringing a kerosene heater. My California blood’s too thin to go camping out in the freezing cold in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, lucky for you, we won’t be camping in the middle of nowhere,” Jason said. He came up in between them and threw an arm around their shoulders as they left the school and entered the parking lot. “We’re staying in a lodge in the middle of nowhere. Big difference.”
“Seriously?” Serena asked with a hopeful expression.
Jason nodded. “Seriously. It’s got a kitchen, electricity, plumbing, all the modern conveniences a wimpy Californian could ask for.”
Serena punched him playfully in the shoulder.
“Punch him harder,” Lien advised as they approached the T-Bird. “He deserves it.”
Daniel stood with her. “Took you long enough,” he complained.
“You can always walk,” Jason noted.
“Shut up, and let’s get going. It’s cold,” Daniel said.
“What are your parents doing over the holidays?” Serena asked Daniel.
“Vacationing in Key West,” Daniel said. “They started kissing when they said that, and the way they looked at each other . . .” He gave a shiver of revulsion. “Gross.”
William shared Daniel’s disgust. Parents shouldn’t do stuff like that.
After an early lunch, everyone stacked their gear into Mr. Zeus’ old International Harvester Scout. It was the only vehicle big enough to hold all of them and their luggage. Otherwise they would have needed two cars.
“How long do you think we’re going to be gone?” William complained as he piled Lien’s overstuffed suitcase onto the roof rack.
“You never know,” Lien answered.
“And you really need all of this shi . . . stuff?”
“Just put it away,” Lien ordered in a haughty tone.
William muttered under his breath but did as he was told. “All done," he said as he tied down the last strap.
He climbed into the Scout, stuffing himself into the undersized third row next to Serena. It barely had enough room for both of them. Mr. Zeus and Jason sat up front, while Daniel and Lien occupied the middle row.
Mr. Zeus cranked up the engine, and the Scout rumbled to life. He slowly backed out of the driveway, and they were off.
A glorious energy trembled in the air, different than back at school; a sensation similar to when William and his family had driven out west to visit the Grand Canyon, or when he’d seen Star Wars for the first time. But this time it felt so much more potent. The greatest adventure William might ever take awaited, and he almost expected fireworks and fanfare to buoy them along their travels, something majestic to mark the moment.
Of course, there were no such spectacular events, and he had to resign himself to imagining them.
“You still excited?” Serena asked with a teasing grin.
William shook off his thoughts and returned his attention to the here and now. “Is it that obvious?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s that empty-headed smile you’ve worn all day.”
“It’s not that bad,” William said.
“Sure, it is. The lights are on, but the house is empty.”
“I wonder how hard it’ll be for you to stack your luggage on the way back.”
Serena wore an unrepentant grin. “Not hard. I’ll just ask Jason or Daniel to do it.”
“Just make sure to ask them nicely,” William advised. “They’re not nearly as kind as me.”
“Probably not.”
/>
“What’s your father going to do while you’re gone?”
Serena shrugged. “Work, I guess. He says he has a lot to do before Christmas. Bunch of customers needing last-minute orders filled.”
“Yuck. Sounds like we’ll be having way more fun.”
“Probably, but he’ll be fine. He likes what he does.”
“My parents were like that, too. Same with Landon. He was the scholar in the family.” William frowned. He shouldn’t have brought up his family. Most times, doing so didn’t bother him so much any more, but sometimes, like now, talking about his parents and his brother triggered melancholy.
His excitement ebbed.
Serena noticed. “Still hard, isn’t it? Thinking about your family. This is your first Christmas without them.”
“It’s not easy,” William admitted.
They fell into silence, and William continued to stare out the window, not really seeing or thinking about anything, until he turned to Serena. “You never told me why you decided to come with us,” he said. “I mean, you thought we’d be freezing and uncomfortable, but you still wanted to come.”
“Maybe I like the company,” Serena answered. “Some of you guys tend to grow on a girl.”
“Like a fungus?” Daniel suggested.
Lien smacked Daniel on the head.
“Ow!”
“Stop eavesdropping,” Lien said. “It’s rude.”
“So is smacking someone on the head.”
“You deserved it.”
“Let me smack you on the head next time I think you’re being rude,” Daniel replied.
“Sorry,” Lien said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
Serena and William shared a smile.
“You know, I don’t have cooties,” Serena said after a moment of quiet.
William’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’re all squished up on the other side of the seat,” she explained.
She was right. He was cramped into the corner of the back bench.
William straightened, but when he did, his leg touched Serena’s for most of the length of their thighs.
He shifted to pull away, but Serena reached out and held his knee in place. “I won’t bite,” she whispered so only he could hear. “Unless you want me to.”