by Brian Olsen
“Liar.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Why are you here? Sally said you’re on leave.”
“There are a few last things I need to finish up.”
“But why go on leave at all?”
She grins at me. “Are you asking what we’re planning, Chris? Have we got you worried? Having some sleepless nights, maybe?”
She can’t know about my nightmares. I’ve never told anyone about them, or about the floating room. She probably doesn’t mean it literally.
“No,” I say, “I mean, why bother even putting in for a leave? This is Neve Armstrong’s job, and you say you’re not her anymore. Why do you care if it all falls apart?”
She shrugs. “Mr. Miller thinks we shouldn’t do anything that calls too much attention to ourselves. I agree. I don’t need fake people bothering me day and night with their pointless fake problems.”
“Then why do you call Dad?”
She looks down at the ground. “Same reason.”
“But you call him every day.”
She plucks a hair off her skirt. “I don’t want him trying to find me. I had to give him an excuse.”
“But every day?”
She doesn’t answer. She looks up, past us, at the office building.
“You miss him,” I say.
She laughs. “Hardly.”
“You love him. You call because you want to hear his voice. Does Mr. Miller even know?”
“That’s enough.” She steps towards me, away from the car. “I am not Neve Armstrong. I am not married, and I do not have a son. My name is Kelle Gerddinchild. Any…any…” She waggles her fingers around her head. “…intrusive thoughts that might make it seem otherwise are not my fault. Neve Armstrong isn’t a person. She is something that was done to me against my will. By my enemies.” She puts a finger on my chest. “By your enemies, my king. They did the same to you. And you’ll accept that, as I have. Soon.” Her expression softens. She rests her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll save you from your prison.”
I put my hand over hers. “I don’t want to be saved. And I don’t think you do either. Will you answer me one question? Honestly?”
“If I can.”
“Who was happier? Neve Armstrong, or Kelle Gerddinchild?”
Her mouth tightens. Gently, she pulls her hand away. “There’s more to life than being happy.”
“Is there?”
She steps back again. “The traitors who resisted your reign. Liefer and the rest. They wanted you to be happy in your new life.”
“I know. So I wouldn’t question it.”
“We had just enough time to insert ourselves into this narrative they created for you. To make sure we’d wind up as close to you as they did, instead of scattered randomly around the world. But we had no control over it. I didn’t know I’d be your mother any more than Liefer knew he’d be your headmaster.”
“Okay…”
“So of course Neve Armstrong was happier.” She laughs without humor. “She was created to be the perfect mother to the perfect boy. She had no choice to be anything but happy. But she never worked for it. Not really. Oh, I remember working hard. Loving this job. Loving…” She shakes her head. “But it’s not real. I didn’t earn that life. Kelle Gerddinchild grew up on a failing farm and worked her way to the inner circle of a king. It wasn’t an easy life and it wasn’t always a happy life, but it was my life and it was real and they took it from me!” She clenches her fist and punches the car door. Frosts forms where her skin touches metal. “I’m taking it back. I’m taking all our lives back.”
Nate steps forward, next to me. “What about me, Mrs. Armstrong? What about my life?”
Her bitter expression melts. “Nate. I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have…” She trails off.
“What?” he says. “They shouldn’t have created me at all? I have a hard time being sorry about that.”
“Your life is a fiction. Aren’t you as angry at Liefer and the rest as I am?”
“Angry?” He laughs. “I’m pissed. I’m pissed at Liefer and you and Miller and Chris. I’m pissed at everyone.”
“Good!” Her eyes light up. “Good, you should be—”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up for a second.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. She looks exactly as I’d expect my mother to look if one of my friends told her to shut up. But she shuts up anyway.
“You’re talking about the parts of your life that are fake like they don’t matter. My whole life is fake. Does it matter? Any of it?”
Mom doesn’t answer.
“Do I matter?” Nate continues. “If you want to have your identity crisis about how your rich white lady life isn’t real enough, go ahead. But I’m Native and trans and I’m telling you, you don’t know shit about identity issues.”
“I didn’t do this to you, Nate!” my mother shouts. “I’m sorry your life is a lie. But that’s not my fault.”
“A lie?” He takes a step towards her. “A lie, Mrs. Armstrong?”
“They rewrote—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it! They rewrote the world! I don’t need to hear it again.” He puts his hands on his hips. “We define who we are. If the whole world is telling us we’re one thing, and we know we’re something else, then the whole world is wrong. Do you know who told me that?”
Mom’s eyes glisten, threatening tears. I hold my breath.
“I did,” she says softly.
“You did. You and Mr. Armstrong were the first people I told I was a boy, after Chris. You helped me tell my parents. You were there for me.” Nate wipes his nose with his sleeve. “You were always there for me, Mrs. Armstrong. Was that a lie?”
My mother bows her head. She covers her face with her hands.
I touch her elbow. “Mom—”
It breaks the moment. She whips open the car door and stands behind it, but pauses before getting into the car.
“When the time comes,” she says, “I’ll save you if I can, Nate.” She looks at me. “Your father, too.”
“Mom, please don’t go.”
“Don’t try to find me again.”
She gets in and slams the door. She rests her hands on the wheel for a moment, then starts the car.
I could put up another barrier, but I don’t think it would stop her. Not now.
She drives away.
Nate takes my hand. We stand for a moment in the parking lot. More and more cars pull in around us.
“Thanks,” I say. “I think you got through to her.”
“A little, maybe. I hope so.”
“Are you okay?”
He shudders, slightly. “I don’t know.”
I squeeze his hand.
Jasmine wraps her arms around him. “What did she mean,” she asks, “about saving you when the time comes?”
“She means they have a plan,” I answer. I let go of Nate and start towards his car. “So we’d better get one, too.”
Five
“Chris!” Alisa catches me just as I’m about to enter the dining room for lunch. “How’d it go with your mom?”
“Not as good as I hoped. Better than I expected.”
“She didn’t come home with you?”
I lean against the wall. “No. But she said she’d protect Nate and my dad when the time comes. Whatever that means.”
Alisa bites her lip. “Sounds ominous. But it’s not like we expected Mr. Miller to do nothing. Did you get in trouble for skipping?”
I shake my head. “That long assembly this morning pushed everything so late that we made it back for second period. First period we have Mrs. Kumar, and Shonda said she didn’t take attendance.”
“She’s so stressed about being acting headmistress,” Alisa says. “I’m not surprised.”
“Can we talk over food? All I had for breakfast was two bites of egg.”
“Nope. Somebody you need to see first.”
She opens a door leading out to the school’s central courtyar
d and I follow her outside. The path runs around an inviting patch of lawn with a big, shady oak tree in the middle, which only seniors are allowed to sit under. On the far side is a slightly less comfortable patch which the juniors have claimed. Sitting there, eating her lunch alone, is Lily Deng.
Lily has been one of my closest friends since junior high. We even dated for a while, before I came out. She’s awesome. Laid back as hell, but a killer at field hockey. Super smart.
Oh, and also she’s one of the logomancers out to kill me.
Last time I saw her was two weeks ago, during the big fight at the junior prom. She was working with Mr. Liefer, and he teleported her to safety along with their other allies. She’s supposedly been out sick from school since then, but none of our friends have been able to get in touch with her.
“Have you talked to her?” I ask Alisa.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
I swallow. “Today’s a day for confrontations, I guess.”
We cross the courtyard. Should be safe to talk. There aren’t too many students eating outside today, and nobody’s within earshot.
Lily sees us approach and puts her lunch down. Up close, she looks terrible. She’s got heavy bags under her eyes, and her long black hair, which she usually wears in a ponytail, is loose and messy around her shoulders.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
Alisa taps her foot in the grass. “Can we sit?”
Lily nods, and we join her in the grass. “Before you ask,” she begins, “yes, Chris, I still remember who you really are.”
“How much do you remember, Lily?” Alisa asks. “About your old life?”
Lily raises an eyebrow. “How much does Chris remember? That’s the question.”
“Nothing,” I answer. “The world before the Moment is still a mystery, like calculus, and why straight boys flirt with me.”
Lily doesn’t react to my joke, not even a smile. Alisa tenses a little, I’m not sure why. She says to Lily, “I don’t remember much either. I’ve used my word to jog my memory, but I only get fragments. And whatever I do manage to remember, the Moment takes away again.”
Lily nods. “It’s the same with me. I’ve got a little. My parents are my real parents, which is a relief. But most of it’s still foggy.”
“So…” I yawn and stretch like I’m going to put my arm around her shoulders. “You’re still my favorite ex-girlfriend, then?”
She smiles, but quickly suppresses it, pulling away. She folds her knees up to her chest, buries her head in them, and groans. “This is so hard! I’m supposed to hate you but I don’t feel it.”
“Good. I don’t want you to hate me.”
She stretches her legs back out, then raps on my head with her knuckles. “You promise me there’s no sign of the Common King in there? No flashes of memory? No urge to kill?”
“I promise.” I knock my head in the same spot she touched. “I’ve still got the magic, but otherwise I’m one hundred percent Chris Armstrong.”
Lily squints at me, then turns to Alisa. “Is he telling the truth? You can tell, right?”
Alisa nods. “He’s telling the truth.”
Lily waits a moment, then sighs. Her shoulders relax, releasing tension I hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. “Okay. Good. Because I don’t want to do what he wants me to do.”
I shoot an alarmed look at Alisa. “Who? Liefer? What does he want you to do?”
“Relax. He hasn’t put a hit out on you or anything. I’m a spy. I’m supposed to pretend to abandon Liefer, and get back into your inner circle.”
“And then tell him what you learn,” Alisa says.
“Yup. Let him know if you’re planning anything. If you’re in contact with Miller or your mother or the Nightmare Queen. And most especially if you show any sign of becoming the Common King. But I’m sick of lying to the people I love. Hiding all this from my parents is bad enough.”
“Wait.” I hold up my hand. “Rewind. There was something important in there you glossed over. Nightmare Queen?”
Lily shudders. “That’s what Liefer calls her. We think Miller found her and restored her memories, and now she’s working with him.”
“Nightmare Queen.” Alisa rubs her forearms. “She doesn’t sound friendly.”
“Was that an honorary title,” I ask, “or was she, like, the actual queen?”
Lily smirks. “Actual queen. Your legally-wedded wife.”
I have to rest my palms in the grass to support myself. “No. No way. I was straight before? No. Tell me I was bi or pan. Please.”
She rolls her eyes. “Chris, I can’t even remember my own name. I’m sorry I don’t remember the details of your sex life.”
“Maybe it was an arranged marriage.” I nod. “Yeah. That’s gotta be it. Like she was a princess from a kingdom I needed to make peace with or something.”
“There were no other kingdoms, jerk.” Lily picks up her sandwich and takes a bite, talking through her chewing. “No human ones, anyway, and you weren’t interested in making peace with the other kind.”
Alisa snaps her fingers in my face. “Worry about losing your gay card later, okay? There are more important details right now.”
“Right. Sorry. How do you know Miller’s working with this Nightmare Queen?”
Lily swallows and points at the dark circles under her eyes. “See the raccoon mask? Nightmares. Every night for a week. Me, Liefer, Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Palakiko.” She shakes her head. “Horrible things. She knows exactly what we’re each most afraid of, and shows it to us on a loop night after night. I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee.”
“Oh!” Alisa puts her hands to her mouth. “Lily, that’s horrible!”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
Lily shivers. “I did remember something because of it. Something people used to say as a warning against rebellion. ‘The Common King will burn your body, the Nightmare Queen will burn your mind.’”
I don’t know what to say to that. It’s me she’s talking about, after all.
Lily takes the last bite of her sandwich. “Anyway. Our nightmares are your reprieve. Liefer’s put killing you on hold. Decided that since you’ve been quiet these last two weeks, I should keep tabs on you while the three of them work on finding Miller. Miller wants to wake the Common King up and you don’t, so he’s the priority for now.” She wipes her mouth on a paper napkin.
“Is that what you’ve been doing these past two weeks?” I ask. “Looking for Miller?”
“Mostly.” She rolls her eyes. “And arguing. And lying. It’s been awful. I’ve been home pretending to be sick most of the time, except when Liefer sneaks me out. He was already exhausted before the nightmares, teleporting all over town, looking for the bad guys, making sure me and Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Palakiko are safe, that our families are safe, watching you…”
“Watching me? He’s been watching me?”
She snorts. “He thinks you might destroy the world, dumbass. So yeah, he’s been watching you.” She flicks my shin with her finger. “But that’s my job now. Liefer’s a wreck, is my point, and we’re all tired and snapping at each other and fighting about what to do. They’re in hiding but I can’t go missing like three adults can. My parents don’t know anything and I don’t want to bring them into it, but I can’t fake sick forever. So here I am, back at school.” She looks around. “Where an invisible evil history teacher could stick an invisible knife in my back at any moment.” She shudders again. “Yay. I wish I could do something more useful, but Miller’s too good at staying out of sight. With his illusion powers, we’ve probably looked right at him and didn’t know it.”
“You want to do something useful?” I say. “You could help us.”
Alisa puts a warning hand on my arm. “Chris. Don’t.”
I shake my head. “She’s trusting me, Alisa. We have to trust her back.” I look at Lily. “Can we? If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Liefer?”
&n
bsp; She furrows her brow. “If I think it’s something that’ll lead to you getting your memories back, then I’ll have to tell him.”
“It’s not.”
She smiles brightly and tosses her wadded-up napkin in her lunch bag. “Cool! Okay, go for it.”
“We’re going to bring back the magical creatures.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh. Wow. Really? All of them?”
“I mean, not all at once. We’ll figure out a way to do it safely.”
Alisa leans forward. “It was wrong to imprison them without giving them any say. Even if the Common King was going to wipe them out. That wasn’t the humans’ decision to make.”
Lily sighs. “You’re right. The person I used to be would probably disagree with you, but I know you’re right.” She flashes a grin at Alisa. “We were friends before. Did you know that?”
Alisa smiles back. “No, I didn’t know. I know I was part of Liefer’s group until it came time to cast the Moment. But I don’t remember any details.”
“It was a memory Mr. Ambrose helped me recover. Yeah, even though in this world we only met first year here at school, really you and me were best buds since we were little girls.”
“Aw.” Alisa touches her heart. “Thanks for telling me. That’s the first thing that’s sounded better about the world before.”
I pretend to be very interested in the grass. It’s unlikely that anyone’s going to recover any fond memories of me.
“So,” Lily says. “Good plan, I guess. Or good idea, I don’t know that you have an actual plan yet. What do you need me for?”
I pluck out a blade of grass and flick it at her. “The book. Creatures of Myth and Legend. We need you to get it for us.”
Her eyes widen in surprise, but then her expression tightens. “No.”
“We need that book, Lily,” I continue. “Liefer teleported it away during our fight. He must have it.”
“He sent it to the same place he sent us.” She shoves the cellophane wrapping of her now-eaten sandwich into her lunch bag. “I’m not telling you where it is, and I’m not getting it for you.”
“Lily.” Alisa touches her hand. “The book is the key. The magical creatures are all imprisoned inside different artifacts, and all the artifacts are depicted in the book. We think it’s the way to get them out.”