Revary Page 8

  “Doesn’t matter,” Alice cut in again. “I know you laugh at Lance and I for sticking our barbarian necks out for the kid, but he is under our protection. Meddling with his heart goes under that radar.”

  A cool breeze swept through the area and Clare shivered. She wanted to leap out from between them before the claws came out. The jump would land her in the fire, but that seemed like an okay alternative than being trapped between these two.

  “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” Stella glared across at Alice. “I am not meddling with his heart. Sure, his feelings are a little mixed up, but that’s fine.”

  Alice stood up and smoothed out her animal skin miniskirt with strong fingers. She glanced at Clare before she said, “Hurt him and you have me to answer to.”

  Alice flounced every so elegantly away to Lance where he sat in the dark with Jeff and Max. Clare watched her confident stride and had to admire her. No one ever stood up for Max like that.

  The next week found Clare at her newest job. She had quit her first almost as quickly as she had taken it up. Working at the arcade diner had sounded great because Jeff worked there and she would have had a friend to hang out with, but the food industry had been too demanding for her. The manager had been a hyperactive psychopath, always shouting, and said nothing was ever done right. The arcade bit had been fun, but when the manager was clocking your every minute until he could scream for you to come back and serve more pizza, the joy kind of drained out quickly. Jeff was sorry to see her go, but understood. He had a resilience Clare could never have. He was always cheerful and had more patience than a Jedi master.

  So instead, every few days after school from four in the afternoon to nine at night, she stood behind the incense counter of what her mother had deemed a ‘specialty shop.’ The windows were lined with tie-dye sheets and remakes of concert posters from the ‘60s to the late ‘80s. One section of the store was devoted entirely to dragons, magic, and cauldrons and the other was Egypt, Asia, and India. Little golden Anubises and seated Buddhas lined shelves with dark Khalis on top. Her favorite wall, featuring weapons, was covered in samurai swords, versions of Excalibur, battle-axes, and various popular swords from TV and books. Dream catchers and other aerial oddities hung from the ceiling amidst bizarre lamps.

  She was cleaning out the little desk fountains on display when Al and Lance came in. Al was wearing his typical vest and jeans combo while Lance was outfitted in bright soccer gear, a ball under his arm. She smiled as they came in. Neither of them actually shopped at this store, they only came to visit her.

  “Oooh,” breathed Heather, the female owner of the store, as the boys entered. “That is a good aura.” She closed her eyes and pulled her waist-length hair over one shoulder. “You have a pleasant spirit.”

  Clare and the boys chuckled. Heather was well known for her eccentricities. Even when not at work, she wore large gypsy skirts and would go grocery shopping without shoes on.

  “Uh, thanks,” Al said, a little embarrassed. “Nice store. Is the herb rack new?”

  Heather smiled wistfully at Al. “No, Allen, your spirit is rumpled. Something is wrong.” She pulled a tarot card off the counter in front of her. “Oh yes, the Two of Swords.”

  “What are you guys doing?” Clare asked before Heather could pull another card up. “I didn’t know you played soccer.”

  “Just volunteering at the gym to help kids in rehab,” Lance explained, a little bashful that she had noted his soccer shorts. “You know, extra stuff for the old collage application. They like that kind of thing.”

  “I like that kind of thing,” Clare said and wished right away she could retract the words. “You should check this out.” She quickly pulled the boys to a shelf containing dozens of statuettes of wizards, knights, and fairies. “Look, this one just came in.”

  She pointed to an eight-inch tall barbarian figure that was posed in a powerful action, its sword above its head.

  “I thought of you.” Stop! she yelled inside her head. She was acting ridiculous.

  “Anyway,” Al groaned, obviously annoyed. “We all have been noticing you’ve seemed a little off lately.”

  “I did fall asleep in math,” she shrugged.

  “No, that’s just it,” Al said. “You were awake and Ms. Havisham was ready to kill you when you wouldn’t answer. You stared right at her for about a minute.”

  A blush found its way to Clare’s cheeks as the memory came back. She had zoned out during a lecture on the graphs. She remembered seeing the white board, but over it were the eyes of that little elf she had left behind in the clutches of a dragon. There was no battle in her head over if the night had ever happened—the bottle was proof of that—the question was how did she get back? And how could she return to her new life? Was that even right? To want that other life?

  “It’s not dangerous,” Flynn, Heather’s motorcycle riding husband, said as he came out of the back room holding a giant ohm.

  Clare snapped out of her thoughts and looked at him. “What isn’t?” she gasped.

  He shook his head and began to hang the ohm on the wall. “Kids these days. You looked really high there for a minute, kiddo.”

  “No, good grief!” Clare cried. She quickly went back to cleaning the fountain. “I was just thinking.”

  Lance and Al exchanged looks as Clare pushed past them and returned to work as if they had not spoken to her.

  “Clare?” Lance said from across the table of mini fountains. She looked up as though just noticing him. “Al and I were wondering if you wanted to take the weekend off from Sun Age.”

  Her jaw popped open in horror. “No, why?”

  “You seem like you need a break,” Al said. “And I was thinking maybe you wanted to go to the skate rink with me?”

  “Us,” Lance corrected Al politely. “Everyone wants to go. I think we could all use the break from the game. And you gave Jeff’s mom quite the scare.”

  Sighing, Clare put her task down. A day off would be one day she couldn’t work on trying to get back to that amazing world.

  “Your spirit is spotted,” Heather mused quietly as her husband came around the counter and began swaying back and forth with her to the music. “Give it time to rest, Clare. Focus on what you have in this world.”

  A second time they had alluded to the other world. Maybe Heather wasn’t as strange as people thought. Could she see into other’s thoughts? Was she aware of the other planes?

  “You can have the morning off if you want,” Flynn said. “I know you kids have a lot going on during weekends right now.”

  “Shouldn’t you be encouraging me to study and stuff like that?” Clare raised an eyebrow at the strange couple. “My mother may make me quit if she finds out you’ve been a bad influence on me.”

  They smiled and continued their soft public displays of affection. Al turned away, embarrassed to watch them.

  “We want to give you some space too, if that’s what you want.” Lance offered the alternative in case she really didn’t want to be around people. “But we don’t know what’s up and we want to help you out.”

  Clare was touched by her friends’ attempts to help her, but they could never understand what had happened. The burning desire to tell them flared up with their every gesture to comfort her and make sure she was not falling apart so soon into the new semester.

  “Yeah, that’d be fun,” she said at last. “It’s only September and we shouldn’t be too bogged down with all this nice weather we’re having.” She smiled. “Some time off might be good.”

  Just then, even Clare felt the unwanted aura enter the store. The troll king Dwyerstoph entered with two cronies at his sides. One carrying his backpack, the other struggling to hold three soft drinks in his chubby arms. Without his troll makeup on, Dwyerstoph looked more like a rat with long hair.

  Heather usually greeted her guests warmly, but this time, she remained reclined in Flynn’s arms, staring at the boy like he were an uninteresting anima
l that had just walked in. Which, in Clare’s eyes, he was.

  “What do you want, troll?” Clare moaned.

  Dwyerstoph never even used his real name outside of Sun Age. Clare often wondered if the teachers at school knew his real name. She’d never heard it called before.

  “We are here to purchase the needed ingredients for my rite tonight.” His voice was smug as he announced his intentions. “We shall need sage, a goblet, and three red candles if you have them.”

  Clare showed the troll reluctantly to the new herb rack. “Here. And the candles are under the table back there. Goblets behind the counter. I’ll have to pull them out for you to look at. Plated in silver.”

  The troll king smiled and motioned for his slaves to come and help him pick out some sage bundles. “Very well then. Get to it, shop girl.”

  Lifting the goblets out of the glass case, Clare whispered to Heather and Flynn, “Why can’t I have better villains in the real world?”

  Flynn placed a dragon figurine beside Clare with a smile. “Because then these would be too easy.”

  School on Thursday was hardly tolerable because everywhere Clare went, the stupid troll was boasting of how he and his game mates had boosted their experience level by four the other night using an expansion for Sun Age that a long ago troll king had written for Clare’s world. A fight broke out in the hall when Al tried to explain the rites had to be done in the game with a council witness.

  “I don’t need your council!” Dwyerstoph shouted in the hall at Al. “I am the king and can do as I like. The game is always happening. The game is life and you are jealous I have mastered that. I am always playing that game.”

  “Get over yourself,” Max whispered next to the troll. “No one wants you shouting about our game here. That’s ours. We made Sun Age and don’t need you ruining its reputation. You have to separate the game from life or it’s not fun any more.”

  Dwyerstoph smirked at Max. “Listen, half pint,” he sneered down at him. “If you don’t stop trying to control me, I’ll have my guards here lock you up in the dungeons.”

  “Locker room,” Al corrected the troll. “But really, keep quiet and play by the rules. No rites without a council witness.”

  Al took Max by the scruff of his neck and marched him away before they started a new argument.

  Clare was not happy to hide out in English class with Mrs. Vander. The woman marched into the room like she always did in her old shoes and ratty skirt, slammed her folders down, and shouted for the kids to be quiet. At first the teenagers complied, but over the next fifteen minutes, cellphones and other devices sneaked out and came to life as Mrs. Vander reiterated the importance of the first essay.

  “I know you all have heard Shakespeare your whole life, but let me tell you again…”

  Her voice was a drone. Clare couldn’t even listen too long before she was zoning out and focusing instead on the childish paper cut out of a tree on the back wall. The classroom was used by freshmen as well and one teacher had the bright idea of having them illustrate a short story they had all written. Why couldn’t Mrs. Vander be that creative? She had the best job in school, as far as Clare knew.

  Professor LeGrand was next on her schedule. She liked his class. They had studied ancient Egypt for a while and had touched on old China for a few weeks before he decided to move to somewhere else before continuing in the East.

  “History is not a straight line,” he would say. “Sometimes to understand what happens in Haiti during the revolution, you must first study France.”

  “…ruled by the fairy king Oberon,” Mrs. Vander was saying.

  Clare jerked back to the present at the mention of a fairy king. Could this possibly be something interesting?

  “That is the basic idea behind A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We will begin by reading Act One and so on, like we have been doing in years past.” Her voice just trailed down and down like a staircase.

  She was making a play about a mischievous fairy king sound boring. What was wrong with this woman? Clare raised her hand.

  Mrs. Vander sighed, groaned, and finally said, “Yes, Clare?”

  “I was wondering if maybe we could read the parts? Like each week someone could be assigned a character and we read it out loud.”

  From the look on Mrs. Vander’s face that was out of the question.

  Everyone turned to look at her. Only her friends, who were all in this class, did not shoot daggers at her with their narrowed eyes.

  “Dumb idea,” the football captain said under his breath in a slurring voice.

  “Is it, Mr. Kent?” Mrs. Vander’s voice now resembled a vulture’s. “Well, Clare, you may start with playing Hermia and Mr. Kent shall be Lysander.”

  A part of Clare wished she hadn’t made the suggestion, but at least now the classroom would be livelier.

  “I am not making out with her,” Kent said.

  “There is no making out, I am sorry to say,” Mrs. Vander growled threateningly. “If I cannot get back to my lecture, no one will ever be making out again!”

  As Clare, Max, and Alice walked to history class, Al caught up to them and pushed Max out of the way to walk next to Clare.

  “I thought that was really cool of you to speak up in English class back there.” His voice sounded genuinely impressed.

  Clare smiled, but couldn’t reply before the bell rang again and they all rushed into History. Alice tried to pull Max to the desk next to her and Clare, but he dodged her grasp and sat down quickly to avoid her chiding gaze. He flopped his bag onto his desk, pulled his black hood up, and buried his face in his arms.

  Professor LeGrand entered the door to a suddenly hushed audience. Under one arm was an urn adorned with Celtic symbols and in his other hand, resting across his shoulders, was a sword. Alice and Clare exchanged excited glances.

  “Who were the Celts?” the professor asked, placing his items on the table and pulling his hair back out of his face. He had shaved his beard and Clare thought he looked six years younger with it gone. He also looked cleaner.

  Alice raised her hand.

  “I like an educated girl,” Professor LeGrand smiled.

  Another hand went up and he called on them, just to show he was not playing favorites with Alice.

  “The Celts were the ancient Irish, right?” the girl tried.

  “This is not a game show. Please do not answer in the form of a question!” The class laughed. “Who else were they?”

  Alice raised her hand again, a bright smile on her face. When no one else raised their hands, the professor asked, “Who was William Wallace?”

  Again, Alice raised her hand and no one else moved.

  LeGrand looked around the class. He sighed, picked up the sword, and put the point onto the tabletop he was sitting on. He shook his head.

  “Sad, sad day. What kind of seniors are you?” His eyes scanned across the class. They landed on Max and his hood. “Let’s change gears since no one will miss out on knowledge they don’t seem to need. Our young friend in the back is donning the style brought to us by the…?” he waited.

  “Goths,” Max said quietly.

  “I can’t hear you,” Professor LeGrand prompted him. “Speak up, child. We won’t harm you.”

  Max withdrew a little more into his hood, but he spoke up. “The Goths are Germanic in heritage,” he said cautiously. “They fought a lot and had a lot to do with the fall of the Roman Empire and therefore the development of medieval Europe. They’re mostly known today for their architecture and stuff. They have a pretty long history though,” he apologized for his choppy explanation.

  Professor LeGrand was smiling broadly. “There is a boy who knows his history. And I must say, you do the modern style well.”

  The student body was struck dumb by this strange turn of events. From now on, they didn’t know what to expect from this teacher.

  “The Celts were German, French, Scottish, Irish, and even Spanish,” he began his lecture. He picked up the sw
ord again and gave it a strong swish through the air to the amusement of all. “This is a replica of William Wallace’s sword. He was Scottish, in case anyone was wondering. Let’s start earlier though. How about the age of Arthur? A lot of speculation is written about this mysterious age, but if you take a close look at the history that surrounds it, you may understand it better.” His eyes glanced over the class again. “As with many things, isn’t that right?”

  The class didn’t reply and Alice’s hand didn’t go up this time.

  “What’s your point?” Kent asked snidely. “None of this matters in real life.”

  LeGrand rounded on him with the grace of a knight. “To know something, to know truth, to really understand, you have to know where it’s coming from. This goes for you. Your parents. Your job. Everything. But remember that history is only inspiration for you. We humans have free will, though many would like to say we don’t. What we do and what we make is just as important as what has happened. History is a story now. What matters is real life.”

  He reached over and picked up Kent’s cellphone like he had done on that first day of class. He showed the class and some of them snickered.

  “This is not real.” He dropped it with a thump just like before. “Everything on it is not real. Who has online banking?” he asked. A few hands went up. “Those of you who do not need to get a job.” Nervous laughter and snide looks passed among the students. “Those numbers that go up and down when you deposit your checks? Not real. Do you ever see any of that money?” he asked, grinning mischievously. “Not real.”

  He lifted the sword up into the air and brought the flat side down onto Kent’s desk with a clang. “This sword is real. The men who carry it wanting to take your land are real.” He bent down into the boy’s face. “The blood it can draw from your body is real.” He straightened up when Kent’s eyes widened in confused fear.

  He continued around the room. “The love between a man and a woman defending their home and children is real.” Clare blushed as his eyes fell on her. “The bond that makes people do stupid things for their friends is real.” He put the sword down and perched back on the desk. “Open your books to chapter seven and look at the map of ye old Europe. The battle over land was religious—not real to some of you. It was about power and freedom.” His gaze wafted over Max then landed on Clare. “Let’s read about what’s real.”