Of course. what was i thinking? Obviously his majesty Prince Ethan had a condo rented for the summer, paid for by a generous grant from the Daddy’s Wallet Foundation. How else would he be kept separate from us peasants?
Emma stood in front of the door politely, waiting for Ethan to answer the chime of his doorbell. I, on the other hand, remained rebelliously poised to the right of the doorway, back to the boards, arms folded. That’s what cool guys did, right?
“Hurry up, Ethan,” Emma said, bouncing on the balls of her feet, hands stuffed into the acid-washed pockets of her thrift store coat.
“He’s probably picking out the right blazer to answer the door,” I scoffed. Put a cigarette in my mouth and surely I would have looked like James Dean. Emma didn’t exactly find it charming however. She cast me a fiery glare.
Long, exhausting seconds passed as I waited for the door to open. Nothing made me more impatient than waiting for Emma who was waiting for Ethan Webb. It was excruciating. Briefly I considered practicing my Nightcaster.
Finally, the gate to the royal palace opened, but instead of trumpets and red carpets, Emma and I were treated to a Run-D.M.C. song and a cloying waft of Drakkar Noir.
“Emma!” Ethan said, and reached out to envelop her in a hug. I knew it was a trap all along, and now he had her in his clutches. No longer able to hold back, I coughed at the pungent cologne. Ethan emerged further from the doorway suspiciously, still wearing that same turquoise polo, and his eyes became slits when he saw me.
Ideal reaction achieved.
“And Quincy tagged along,” he said mockingly. “Perfect.”
“Charming to the last,” I said, quoting Star Wars. When in doubt, right? “You ready to go or what?”
Ethan squeezed back between the door frame and Emma, taking her hand slyly. “Actually, I was hoping you’d come up for a drink first. Check out the new digs?”
Emma politely pulled free of his grip and smiled. “We could probably swing that. Right, Quinn?”
With a sigh and a nod, I was following Emma into the heart of darkness. The condos didn’t usually feel as seedy as Ethan’s did—they were actually pretty nice. A quick jog up a short flight of stairs led to a kitchen and a den and a view of the patio behind a sliding glass door. Up another stairway was a bedroom. So, needless to stay, the first floor was as far as I’d go. The music was coming from an oversized boombox on the raw-tree dining room table. The ghetto blaster didn’t come standard with the rooms, but the pictures of wolves and moose and the tacky snowflake wallpaper did. Although nothing was tackier than the silky kerchiefs Ethan had used to dim the lamps.
In true form, he already had a drink shaker in his hands, mixing wildly like he was Tom Cruise in Cocktail. I tried to quiet my gulp. I was terrible at parties, but I did even worse around booze. Riding that fine line of “I don’t drink but I’m cool with it” was always particularly challenging for me.
“I only have two martini glasses,” he huffed at me. “Sorry, I guess.”
“No worries,” I said relieved.
Elegantly, Emma vaulted herself up onto one of the matching, wilderness-inspired bar stools and crossed her bronze legs. She made a pinching gesture with her index finger and thumb and told Ethan, “Just a small one, okay?”
“You got it.”
While I found another wall to resume my James Dean impression, Emma found a Rolodex-looking box on the counter and began to sift through it. I squinted to see the contents.
Polaroids, neatly arranged.
“Are these from your trip?” Emma asked him.
Ethan nodded, pouring out the contents of the shaker into ridiculously large martini glasses. “Yep. We hit all the hot spots—Dublin, Amsterdam, London.”
Emma’s eyes lit up. “You went to England?”
And that’s where my ground control lost contact with Emma. From then on she was on planet Ethan. “Did you see the castles at Alnwick? How about the city? Is it true the sidewalks in London are made with Manganese?”
So it was a trap after all. And here’s the Matlock-esque breakdown: Ethan had strategically placed the photo album where Emma would find it. Knowing she couldn’t pass up a conversation piece, he laced the album with pictures from the most exotic locale he’s ever been—a foreign country. Could he have known Emma was on the cusp of studying abroad in England or was that just a lucky coincidence? Either way, it was more fiendish a plan than I had thought Ethan capable of.
Cunning, Webb. Very cunning.
It wasn’t exactly the perfect plan, however. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ethan backpedal his way through Emma’s questions. I think it was the first time I saw him stutter. Of course he didn’t know anything about castles and Manganese, and eventually Emma got bored of him relating everything back to a pub or a story about his frat buddy puking in sacred relics.
Although, I could still see the stars in Emma’s eyes. She was still dazzled by the idea that someone she knew had been where she wanted to go. The real drink Ethan had given her was hope. To her, it tasted like possibility. To me, arsenic. And you don’t need to be an alchemist to get that metaphor.
Outside the sliding door windows, the sun had only begun to dip towards the peak of Wind Elk Mountain. Imagine that, the world kept turning even when I didn’t have Emma’s attention. With a sigh, I tried to let the sight soothe me. My setting was more than that room filled with Ethan’s one-dimensional anecdotes and lavish treasures. He was the material girl, not me. Although I was fairly jealous of the Nintendo hooked up to room’s archaic tube TV.
After a couple deeps breaths, and a few strange looks from Emma, I loosened up. I even uncrossed my arms and came closer to the two of them, feigning interest in the tail-end of Ethan’s story.
When I was sure he was mostly finished, I interrupted innocently, “You know the grill’s probably fired up.”
Emma set down the cocktail, nearly full, and took to her feet. “Yeah, I could use a bite or two. Thanks for the drink, Ethan. Shall we mosey?”
Slamming his drink like a professional college scholarship-rider, Ethan shot me a sinister look and wiped his chin clean.
Check, I thought. This time it was my point and Ethan knew it.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.”
With that, Ethan took what I hoped was one final trip to the bathroom. We can only assume that some major league primping took place. Although, I know one thing he did for sure was strap on that ridiculous sword. He strode back into the room, weaving around stools and furniture with his new friend hanging from him like an awkward tail.
I couldn’t stop myself. “You aren’t wearing that thing to the cookout.”
“Of course I am,” Ethan replied, squeezing into a pair of leather driving gloves. After that he grabbed a long, black coat from a peg and threw it on, making sure the collar was stiffened to perfection. He looked like some absurd vigilante. Ethan Webb could pull off Bruce Wayne, but not Batman. “I’m not going to leave it here for someone to steal.”
“From your secret headquarters?” I said. “How?”
Emma stifled a laugh. Ethan shot me a middle finger. I had to admit, the gesture looked pretty classy clad in black leather.
The three of us strode onto the main patio like a trio of rock stars returning to stage for an encore. We were rock stars, in a way. In a remote place like this, the number of familiar faces grew fewer with each year. Staff members who didn’t need to be trained in each season were a commodity at the lodge.
Just outside the lodge’s restaurant—really a glorified bar cheesily named Spellbound—was a fire pit surrounded by picnic tables and people. Staff of AHL, more specifically. I tried to pick out the ones I knew first. There was Babbit, of course, with his can of 7-Up in a bright green cozy. He smirked along with a few maintenance guys. When he saw me arrive on the scene with Emma, he gave me an approving nod. I hid a laugh with a shake of my head.
Rounding out the returning team was Penny, the middle-aged queen of the front desk and Emma’s supervisor. A bad bleach job and too much makeup, Penny was a real sweetheart behind her thick Elton John glasses. Jovial, chubby, with a big personality.
“Oooooh!” she squealed loudly.
She all but lost her mind when she saw Emma and bounded over to her, spilling neon splashes of her wine cooler. I stepped out of her wake as she collided with Emma.
“Hi, Pen,” Emma laughed, trying to get her arms around the woman.
“I’m so glad to see you!” Penny told her. “I heard you were coming back, then I heard you weren’t. I couldn’t do another summer with out my little M-and-M!”
“Yes, well,” Emma said, rolling her eyes at the nickname, “the rumors of my not coming back have been greatly exaggerated.”
Full disclosure: Other than Babbit and Emma, I didn’t really have “friends” at my workplace. It was just a job, after all, and a seasonal one at that. Between the ever-changing staff turnover and my natural aversion to being a socialite, I wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular. I think this was probably the thing that bothered Emma the most about me. In a pinch, she could have struck up conversation with a wolverine. Making the rounds with all the staff was almost an unconscious reflex for her. As I followed her around the get together, I noticed everyone was happy to see her and greeted her by name. Emma remembered names of kids, pets—she even remembered that group sales guy—Brandon? Brian?—had had car trouble the summer before.
I realized maybe the staff hadn’t changed as much as I thought. I just had never bothered to remember them. Still, I followed Emma around like the puppy metaphor I had resigned to being, sampling bits of conversations and offering a greeting when noticed. I was grateful when the first burgers came off the grill—not only was I starving, but it was also something to do with my hands instead of flinching them like a bad actor as I floated on the fringes of Emma’s conversations.
Ethan only held to our trio until he saw the first set of Brazilian babes who were interns to the rest of us. They were his exact type: big brown eyes that were full of curiosity, spoke little English, and, most importantly, hadn’t seen his sword yet. They giggled and took turns trying to heft the blade. Honestly, what did mage girls see in inept guys? I know, I know, inept isn’t politically correct, but it’s a hard habit to break. But seriously, South Americans have some of the most amazing, unique metaphysikal gifts—and that sword impressed them?
The barbecue came and went just like Babbit’s brief appearance, and the sunlight faded faster and faster. In addition to the usual yard games like bocce ball and lawn darts, we took turns playing mage-specific games like Sandsweeper—a little like a beanbag toss but instead of beanbags all we had were handfuls of colored sand. The goal was to fill the same-colored receptacle. The catch is we had to do it from a few meters away, meaning we had to use a little meta if we wanted to score. It really was anyone’s game. For example, an aeromagus had the advantage of controlling air currents, but if the sand was rich in a particular element, then an alchemist might get the upper hand. And as a mage, my odds were pretty choice. Of course, it was an honor system whether or not we messed with another player’s sand. But honor only went so far in yard games, especially when drinking was involved.
The bonfire was lit and Penny pulled aside some of the staff’s children for scary campfire stories and s’mores. A few others had taken to the outdoor pool, splashing and laughing and screaming about the cold when they had to get out to do another cannonball. Emma and I sat at an empty picnic table—me on the bench, her on the tabletop—munching on a plate of potato chips while snippets of Pen’s “The monster of Wind Elk Mountain” caught our ears.
“Pretty mean game of Sandsweeper there, slick,” she said, wiping her greasy hands off on her napkin.
“Green is supreme,” I replied, meaning my lucky-colored sand.
“Nope,” Emma said, shaking her head. “The white has the most Barium. I’m good with Barium.”
“Didn’t see you winning much,” I said slyly. It wasn’t often I got a chance to trash talk somebody about something that wasn’t a role-playing game. Sandsweeper was about as close to a sport as I got.
Emma shrugged it off. “Ooh, look at the big mage on campus. Floats some sand into a cup and now he thinks he’s Larry Bird.”
The reference was lost on me. “I’m just messin’ around. Speaking of campus, though, I never really asked you about your year. Did you, you know, find yourself, Emma?”
She laughed. “Funny. Yeah, school was good to me. Albion is a pretty chill place. Very liberal.”
“Albion?” I questioned. “Isn’t that a private school?”
Emma bit her lip. “Well, yes. Technically.”
“Technically how?”
“Technically in that, yes, we are a private college,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “But we’re not all high and mighty elitist magists there.”
“Ha. Sure.”
Coming from a state college, I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to go to an all mage school. At Cloud Falls State University we were a fairly homogenized mix of meta and non-meta students. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it did make for a few differences. Namely, the course options were limited and less specific to accommodate everyone. And our sports teams sucked. Or so I’d heard.
“Don’t act like that,” Emma scolded me.
I furrowed my brow. “Like what?”
“Like I’m just some white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant.”
I choked on a handful of chips. “Emma, honestly. I wasn’t. My mind just wandered. That’s all.”
“Where to?”
“What?”
“Where’d your mind wander to?”
“Oh. Just thinking how sweet the classes must be at a school like that.”
Emma frowned. “It’s not a prison sentence going to a state college, Quinn. I’ve heard Cloud Falls is a nice school.”
She even remembered where I was going to school when I hadn’t remembered hers. Damn, she was good. Or maybe I was just the worst.
“In a way, I’m kind of jealous of you,” Emma went on.
“Jealous? How?”
“It’s a good opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. For me, it’s just mage, magus, alchemist, repeat. Boring. At least you get a little variety.”
I had to laugh at that. “Pretty sure a girl who goes to a private college could’ve gone to a state college.”
For a second, I was afraid I’d offended her. But she just gave me that don’t-be-such-a-know-it-all look and put me in my place. “Albion gave me a scholarship and none of the state colleges were offering.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling rather sheepish. “I see.”
“You have a nice opportunity, Quinn,” she said sagely. “Don’t blow it.”
I nodded. It was about all I could do. The way she kept on staring was unsettling. Intense. It sort of roiled inside me. Pushing me to make something happen. What was she waiting for?
I stood up. “Do you, uh, want to take a walk or something?”
She stood and clapped away the potato chip crumbs. “No thanks. I think I’m going to go check on Ethan and those Brazilian girls. Emiliana was looking pretty doe-eyed in love. Somebody’s gotta warn her.”
Emiliana? She’s not new either? Geez, what’s wrong with me?
“Have fun,” Emma said. “Meet up later?”
“You know it.”
I watched her wander off, leaving me to seek out my nemesis. I sighed. Had I just been shot down? Or did I just give off the vibe that I was the kind of guy that liked a romantic stroll with or without a girl? Either way, I would’ve looked like an idiot if I had sat back down. So I did what any self-respecting mage would have done in my shoes.
I took a walk.
The light from the fire barely reached me, and the sound of laughter and the crunching of aluminum cans was drowned out by the suckling filter of a pool that had long since been cleared of swimmers. Most of the families had gone home. All that was left were the hardcore partyers and the students and interns who lived on the property.
Which included me, of course.
The walk was relatively quick, and when I returned I found myself lying in the cool grass that sloped near the back stairwell. I watched the embers of the sun disappear behind the pines that lined up like an army along Wind Elk Mountain.
This was my backyard for three months out of the year. I couldn’t complain.
My head still swirled thinking about Emma. Had she found Ethan? Where did they go? How much did tuition cost at Albion?
Yeah right, like I’d actually be able to transfer there. After my mom passed away, my already small family grew smaller, and the budget even tighter. Dying ain’t cheap, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. My dad could barely afford to keep a roof over his head, let alone food on his plate. But I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t like I was in a much better situation, fiscally-speaking—if I couldn’t afford a car, how was I going to afford tuition at a private institution?
Still, the idea of going to class without bumping elbows with hundreds of Ethan Webb clones on their way to Advanced Mediocrity 101 was pretty tempting.
“Hey.”
Speak of the devil. Emma. I waved away my vision of the future like it was smoke from a cigarette. In a way, thinking of Emma was a little like smoking. I was trying to quit. Really.
I rolled my head back to meet her gaze. She was just as beautiful upside-down, a vision in denim and tattered cutoffs. A sappy grin bled across my face. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Nada,” she replied, but gestured at her hair. “You like?”
I flipped around, reeling from the inversion. When I focused, I saw that there was a feather braided into her long locks.
“That’s, uh, definitely a look,” I laughed.
She rolled her eyes. “Penny’s daughter did it.”
“That makes sense.”
Emma folded those lean legs and sidled up next to me. For a moment, I panicked. Do I sit up? Stay lying? Readjust? The guesswork was getting exhausting. In the end, I just kind of froze into place until I heard the sound of a can cracking open wetly.
Emma looked sheepish. From behind her peaked knee she gave me a glimpse of a beer can. “Stole it from the adult cooler.”
My inner cop jabbed me in the ribs with a nightstick and I sat up nervously. “Nobody saw you?”
“Tons of people saw me,” she replied. “Lighten up.”
Emma took a hearty swig and offered me the can. I wondered if she could hear the quiver in my breath as I took it and sipped. I hid my grimace. I hated beer. It was like drinking pumpernickel bread.
“Yep,” I said, managing to swallow. “It’s beer.”
She snickered and took another quick pull. Then another long one that I could barely stand to watch. Smacking her lips, she said, “Humulus lupulus. Hint of coriander. Show a little respect.”
“My apologies to the hops.”
“Hey, you want to see something?” Emma scooped up a handful of dirt, caressing it with her thumb, picking out a weed or two. When it was pure enough, she carefully funneled the soil into the can, barely spilling a crumb onto the rim. Then she cupped the base and closed her eyes, concentrating. I watched, but I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. Part of me wanted to shield my eyes in case her hands had become like a hotplate. I settled for pulling my head away a fraction, as if that would save me from an explosion of caramelized shrapnel.
“What—”
“Ssh.”
I zipped my lips and continued waiting. It took a few seconds but, even in the fading daylight, I could make out a few tiny green sprouts blossoming from the can. It was almost like one of those time-lapse videos of a beansprout. Little needles would rear from the mouth of the can and then explode into leaves.
“Wow,” I whispered.
Emma kept her eyes pinched tight while she whispered back. “Is it doing it?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “How though?”
“Top secret alchemist stuff,” she said, opening one eye slyly. Then she shook her head, letting go a single wild laugh. “Not really. I just reintroduced the nitrogen to the barley. It’s all very technical.”
“Wow,” I said again, still watching the sprout. “Incredible. You don’t even need a solistone.”
The smile shied away from Emma’s lips. She allowed herself a long blink and looked away across the property.
I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. Smooth move, idiot.
When she finally returned my gaze, Emma was wiping away the mascara at the corner of her eye. Was she crying?
“I’m, um … that was dumb,” I said finally. “Sorry.”
She tried to deliver that famous laugh, but I could tell it was forced. “It’s fine. It’s just … it’s not lack of ability. A solistone is like tuition—or a prerequisite. You can’t study at Alnwick without one.”
“I get it,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean it like—it was supposed to be a compliment.”
“I know,” she said, baring her dimples. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Welcome,” I snorted, giving my head another shake. “That was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?”
“Little bit.”
“Can I ask you something else?” I pried.
“Is it equally dumb?”
“Probably.”
“Shoot.”
I went at the question a few ways in my head first before actually saying it—or trying something new, as I like to call it. From every angle, it sounded too aggressive. Too threatening. And I wasn’t in a hurry to see more of Emma’s tears. “Forget it.”
She looked at me sternly, square in the eyes. “Say it.”
“I guess I was just wondering how, like—if you got a scholarship to this really nice private school, why couldn’t you do something like that to get into Alnwick?”
Emma sighed a long leak of air. “It’s not that simple, Quinn.”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t want to ask the question.”
“The solistone is a way to weed out the alchemists who don’t take their studies seriously,” she explained. “Otherwise any underage college kid that wanted to see the inside of a pub would be signing up for this super-prestigious course.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does,” she agreed, plucking leaves from her little beer plant. “So it’s not all about money and ability and grades. It’s about drive and focus.”
“Which you have.”
Emma smiled. “Yeah, okay. Maybe it’s a little about the money too.”
“Always is to some extent.”
“Okay, okay,” Emma said, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t want to think about it. It’s the first night. Change the subject.”
I was trying to think of something to say when I heard a rustling of leaves. Our heads snapped to the small thicket that formed the boundary of the property. Emma moved a little closer to me. I could feel the faint wisp of downy hairs as her arm brushed against mine.
I didn’t know what creature was about to breach those trees but, at that moment, I really didn’t care. My cheeks warmed with a drunken flush. My only fear was that whatever came out of the woods would interrupt this moment.
Out stepped Tristan. He had the hood of his sweatshirt up over his curly black hair. The whites of his eyes appeared as he caught Emma and me staring at him. There was an awkward, jittery moment where he just watched us and we watched him. Nobody breathed, let alone uttered a word. After a frozen moment, Tristan retreated the exact way he’d appeared.
For a few moments, Emma and I just watched the breach point, wondering if Tristan would pop back out. I shook out the chill that prickled along my skin.
“He’s … weird.”
Emma backhanded me in the chest, and her hand lingered a bit too long. “Stop. He’s nice. Quirky.”
“Quirky?” I said, returning my back to the grass. “That was quirky?”
Emma ignored me and shivered lightly. Before I knew it she had laid down as well, her sleeve pressed against mine.
I couldn’t help but tense up. I began to question everything and ramble. “Are you cold? Do you want to move closer to the fire? We can move. The fire. It’s over there.”
“No,” she sighed. She shut her eyes and put her cheek to my shoulder. “Can we just stay here for a bit?”
I swallowed loudly, my adam’s apple felt like a shark fin jutting from my throat.
“Okay.”
In that moment, it was just me, Emma, and the sunset. I don’t even remember breathing, although I’m sure I must have, right? It wasn’t about getting the girl—okay, it wasn’t only about getting the girl. Emma deserved that solistone. She deserved a shot at Alnwick. She was that once in a lifetime rare breed of human being everyone just knew was going to make the world a better place. Cheesy, I know, but in that instant—that eternity between heartbeats where Emma’s head rested on my shoulder—I knew I had a duty to get Emma to England.