They’ve been goofing around in the backyard, just Callie and Billy Taugent and Kevin Collucci. Compared to slim, scrawny Callie, Billy and Kevin are big boys—teenage-bulky, on that border between chubby and musclebound. Imposing to Callie, but they wanted to hang out, and she so rarely has anyone include her anymore. Her parents are at work, but they wouldn’t care that she has boys over. So she’d said sure.
Climbing the decrepit tree in the corner of the yard, Billy chucks crabapples down to them. He pauses to snap off a couple of the straight vertical branches, the sappers.
“Hey, Cal,” Billy calls down. Callie ignores the old name. “What’s the name of the Jogin’s dog?”
“Ah, whattaya asking him for?” Kevin laughs. “Just because they’re neighbors, Cal doesn’t know any more about the giant than the rest of us.”
Callie thinks about proving Kevin wrong, then decides anyone as willfully ignorant of what people want to be called as Kevin and Billy are don’t deserve to know the dog’s name.
Billy throws the sappers, one at a time, into the Jogin’s yard, trying to get the dog to play fetch. When the dog doesn’t rise to the occasion, Billy switches to the crapapples. The dog yelps with each near-hit.
“Having an off-day, pitcher?” Callie jokes, to draw Billy’s attention from the dog before he hurts it. Billy twists in the tree and winds up. Two of the apples he launches at her do peg Callie, hard little things unforgiving against her bony shoulder and hip. But she doesn’t complain. She knows what Billy wants, probably Kevin too—to establish their dominance. Today she doesn’t feel like giving them the satisfaction of wincing or crying. She locks it up, turns around and scoops the apples off the ground.
She lobs them back at Billy, knowing she wouldn’t hit him even if she was really trying. She smiles just enough to look like she’s in on the joke but not so much that Billy would feel like Callie was fighting back. That’s how you dealt with bullies effectively: let them think you’ll take their abuse as part of their game, and they’ll lay off the heavy-duty beat-downs they put on the other kids.
It’s all fine until Kevin discovers the broken lock on Callie’s father’s storage shed. Busy half-heartedly tossing apples at Billy in the tree, Callie doesn’t see Kevin go into the shed. She only becomes aware of what the other boy is up to when Kevin emerges from the shed, shaking cans of wasp spray and gear lubricant.
The sound brings Billy out of the tree with a solid “thwump,” and a thick lower branch, perhaps weakened from age, perhaps not, crashes down under him. The bigger boy lands hard and grimaces as he loses his balance. He probably landed wrong on his ankle, Callie thinks, but he won’t show any weakness. Callie stills her face, no indication that she’d seen the grimace or that she knows she could have jumped from higher in the tree and landed without rolling an ankle. No indication at how the sight of the downed branch, or the moist sappy spot where moments ago it still connected to the tree’s trunk, makes her heart ache.
She knows every branch of this tree, her favorite from when she was a babe. At his first birthday, the story goes, Cal’s uncle had carried him around the yard, pointing to different plants and naming them. Cal coo’ed and ahh’ed as babies do, until they reached the tree in the corner of the yard. The uncle told him it was a crabapple tree, and baby Cal laughed, reached out, wrapped his arms around the nearest branch and said something that sounded to everyone at the party like “MINE!” Cal cried when his uncle walked him away from the tree and crawled back to lay on the tree’s roots four times that afternoon.
Callie stands frozen as the two bigger boys talk quietly, passing the metal aerosol cans between them. Before Callie can even react, Kevin paints a nonsensical pattern with the lubricant across the side of the shed and into the shrubs next to it. Billy arches a thumb at the fence that separates Callie’s yard from the Jogin’s.
Billy produces a cigarette lighter.
“Awesome,” Kevin grunts.
Billy depresses the nozzle on the aerosol can, flicks the strikewheel on the lighter. A breath of flame shoots from the nozzle, and Billy advances on the crabapple tree, waving the makeshift flamethrower left and right. Some of the dryer, lower leaves spark.
Callie’s blood boils. It doesn’t matter what the plan was—burn the tree or something in the shed or launch a flaming projectile at the Jogin’s dog—it would not stand. She would not let them do the same damage to her own property, or the Jogin’s, that they were known to do to every public space in town.
“No!” Callie shouts. “Put the cans down, and get the hell off of my property.”
“Little boy’s got spunk,” Billy laughs, turning back to the apple tree with the aerosol can in one hand, finger still on the nozzle, flame now licking the bark. “Like to see you stop me, Cal. Or try.”
Callie makes a move towards Billy, knowing she’ll just end up knocked on her ass or with a faceful of flame to scare her backwards. Kevin grabs her from behind, hauling hard on Callie’s right elbow. Callie yelps in pain. Billy smiles.
“You know better, man,” Kevin laughs. “You can’t stop him.”
“BUT I CAN,” a deep voice rumbles from the other side of the fence. Billy pulls up short, yanking his finger away from the nozzle of the aerosol can and quickly dropping the still-hot lighter into his pocket. Callie takes small satisfaction in the look of discomfort on Billy’s face, the only indication the hot metal of the rim or the striker has reached through Billy’s pocket. Callie hopes there’s a nice red mark on Billy’s leg, not that she’ll ever see it. Billy is not a boy whose pants she wants to get into.
The Jogin’s head, shoulders and upper torso appear above the top of the wooden fence. Callie hadn’t even sensed the portal to the Hidden Lands opening this time; unusual for her and a sure sign her anger is getting the better of her.
“We didn’t know you were home, sir,” Billy responds, his voice less confident.
“THAT SHOULDN’T MATTER, BILLY TAUGENT. RIGHT IS RIGHT. THAT PROPERTY IS NOT YOURS TO DESTROY.”
Kevin releases Callie’s arm and starts to inch towards the walkway out of Callie’s yard.
“I SEE YOU AS WELL, KEVIN COLLUCI. YOU WILL BOTH APOLOGIZE TO CAL AND LEAVE NOW. DO NOT COME BACK. AND DO NOT THINK ABOUT CAUSING PROBLEMS LATER.”
“Sorry, man,” Kevin says without looking at Callie, head bowed and slouching towards the walkway along the house to the street. Billy doesn’t even say that much, just pulls the lighter out of his pocket and absentmindedly flicks it to life as he follows Kevin.
Callie watches them go, knowing without looking that the Jogin is watching her and not them. When they reach the bottom steps of the walk, she rounds on the giant.
“That’s it?” Callie barks, tears filling her eyes. “Go away, don’t bother Callie again? No punishment? They were going to burn down my tree, Jogin! My tree! And probably hurt your dog, too!”
“CAL …”
“Callie!” And now the tears do burst. “You, of all people, should be calling me what I want to be called, not the name they gave me!”
Before she knows what she’s doing, Callie has snatched the large downed branch Billy had broken earlier. The thinner end is in her hand, and the thicker end drags behind her, just reaching the ground and heavy enough to scratch a small trail through the grass. She’s running on pure emotion. This level of anger usually only outwardly manifests when she’s alone. She tries always to be the good boy, the quiet one who sits on the edge of the playground reading comic books or scratching pictures into the loose soil where the grass has died. But today …
“CALLIE, DON’T …,” the Jogin calls, but she is beyond hearing him. Callie is tired of the platitudes, of being told she’ll come into her own, tired of being told she needs to keep her head down and stay calm and not let anger get the best of her and educate through her actions and words. Despite what the Jogin might think, and Callie honestly can’t tell what the giant is thinking in this moment, this anger is not about her identity. It’s about Billy and Kevin damaging Callie’s haven, her tree that she climbs up and reads in and peers into the Hidden Lands from. It’s about Billy and Kevin being willing to injure the Jogin’s dog, and not being afraid of the repurcussions because for them there never are any. They are just boys being boys. So she shuts the giant’s words out and runs out of the backyard.
As Callie rushes down the walkway along the side of the house, the heavier end of the branch bounces on the gray cement unevenly laid by her father when Callie was still a baby. The branch beats out a rhythmless meter. It makes her feel stronger, helps her channel the anger.
By the time Callie clears the front steps of the house, Billy and Kevin are two houses down the hill and headed for the lake. She leaps the bottom three steps, lands in the center of the street in a crouch, and snarls.
It’s not a loud snarl, but the sound carries, somehow, over the usual afternoon small community sounds of kids laughing on another street, someone mowing a lawn in the distance, cicadas chirring. Billy and Kevin turn, their posture indicating that they’re not sure what they heard, what caught their attention. Callie rises out of her crouch, scrapes the branch along the blacktop so it rests in front of her.
“Dude,” Kevin barks at the same time Billy laughs, “Are you serious? Goody little Calvin is finally standing up for himself?”
“You tried to burn down my tree,” Callie responds. “I AM serious, Billy. I’m sick of you two getting away with shit like this. All you do is wreck stuff.”
“A talent for destruction is still a talent,” Billy mocks with a smirk on his face. Kevin’s eyebrows quirk as if to ask, Who the hell are you quoting?
“Don’t come near my house again,” Callie shouts. “And don’t come near me.”
“Or what, baby boy?” Billy’s voice grows hard; he takes three steps uphill towards Callie. Kevin looks unsure of how to react: assist or back away.
“Come and find out,” Callie answers. She hefts the branch so the heavier end leaves the ground. The cords in her right arm pop, and her hand tightens around the lighter end of the branch, drawing the whole thing up and back.
“Billy. Let’s just go. He’s not worth it.” Kevin reaches for his friend’s shoulder, casting a wary eye towards the Jogin’s house even though he knows the Jogin cannot leave his own property. His fingers touch Billy’s shirt, but the bigger boy just shrugs him off, advancing up the street. “Cal,” Kevin starts to plead, “Dude, back down, so we can all walk away.”
“No,” Callie shakes her head. “Not this time. I’m tired of walking away. Billy burned my tree. Almost hurt the Jogin’s dog. The Jogin won’t … can’t … do anything because you’re not on his property threatening the Boundary to the Hidden Lands. I can do something, and it’s time I did.”
“Yeah,” Billy agrees, and a disturbing leer appears on his face. “You can get the crap beaten out of you.” He breaks into a run, shoulders hunched forward, fingers clenched into fists.
Callie plants her feet, brings the branch up like a bat. Adrenalin pumping, it doesn’t feel as heavy as it should. Muscle memory from Little League bubbles up, and she imagines Billy’s head as a steady slowball pitch high and center. Her mind lines up the shot. Billy doesn’t slow despite the branch’s clear positioning.
“Faggot nancy boy,” Billy blurts, obviously hoping his words will distract Callie. They don’t.
She swings with precision, bringing the branch down like a golf club (more muscle memory, from outings with that same nature-loving uncle) instead of out straight like a bat. Billy has one second to sneer at what he must think is a predictable failure of will before the branch—thicker than he’d realized, harder for how fresh and green it is— slams into his left leg just below the knee.
Callie hears the snap of bone, feels it through the shudder of the branch, followed by Billy’s surprised grunt as his momentum carries him into her. She didn’t expect to come out of this unscathed, of course. As he hits, she relaxes her braced legs and falls with his impact. There’s no time to roll; the best she can do is keep the back of her head from slamming into the road. Her ass hits the ground first, then her shoulder-blades. Her legs start to launch into the air, but she manages to bring them back down.
Billy’s scream only starts when his injured leg hits pavement. It doesn’t start low, the way Callie has seen it play out in the movies. One second Billy is grunting from the bat’s impact, and the next he is keening, a high-pitched sound Callie can only associate with banshees. Billy rolls off of her, clutching his leg, landing on the branch and keening more. Callie jumps to her feet, weaponless but ready to defend against the follow-up attack she expects from Kevin.
But Kevin is still halfway down the street, and his posture suggests he is not about to charge. He looks angry but unsure of what to do about it.
“Get away from him, you little bitch,” he calls. “I don’t want any more trouble. Just leave so I can help Billy get home. If he can walk, that is.”
“First gender reference you’ve gotten right all day, Kevin,” she answers.
“Is that what this was about?” he shouts back.
“No. It’s about my tree. And the Jogin’s dog. And all the other property you guys have wrecked this summer. Someone has to protect this side, the human side of the Boundary, since the Jogin can only protect the Boundary itself. Because you two, and other kids like you, will just keep screwing with everything you don’t like or don’t need until someone stands up to you.”
“You mean screwing with people like you.”
“Billy doesn’t like me.” Callie pauses, looks down at the still-moaning bigger boy. “I thought you used to, when we were little. Maybe you never did. Either way, you don’t need me now.”
“Cal …”
“It’s over, Kevin. Get Billy help. I tried not to hit too hard, but he’ll still need a cast. Don’t come back to my house, even if your parents come to dinner like usual. Don’t come near me when school starts again. And don’t … don’t think about revenge.” She looks down again. “You hear that, Billy? This is over. New era. You spread the word: I’m the new human protector of this town.”
“That’s just a legend,” Kevin starts, but Callie’s look cuts him off.
“Doesn’t matter,” she nods. “It’s real as of now.”
Callie stoops down close to Billy. He’s no longer moaning. She reaches under him and grabs the end of her branch. Billy’s eyes lock with hers, an unspoken easy way or hard moment between them, and then Billy eases himself up enough for the branch to slide free. It looks for a moment like he’s going to grab the other end as it passes his chest, but he doesn’t move. Callie hefts the branch over her shoulder, nods once more at Kevin, and turns her back on the boys.
Doors shut quickly on several of the houses up the road. People were watching. People heard. Word will spread quicker than if she had to rely on Billy and Kevin alone. She’ll face challenges—Billy’s parents will likely pursue legal action for injuring their boy—and that’s okay too.
Callie keeps her posture erect, her face schooled to stillness, until she’s in her back yard and out of sight of everyone. Everyone except the Jogin, who is leaning on the fence between their yards, or at least leaning as much of his weight as the fence will hold.
“You knew.” She exhales. A light dances into her eyes. “You’ve known all along and you never said anything!”
The giant shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. “THE HIDDEN LANDS CREATE. THEY DESTROY. YOU HAD TO COME TO IT IN YOUR OWN TIME, CALLIE, AND FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. YOU ARE THE BALANCE BETWEEN MY WORLD,” he pauses, nodding at the portal to the Hidden Lands and then again at the street, “AND THEIRS.”
Callie drags the branch off of her shoulder. It’s heavy again, the way it was when she picked it up. Being a protector, speaking up for that part of the world that can’t speak for itself … she feels a moment of trepidation.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“IT IS NOT MY DECISION. THERE ARE NO CHOSEN ONES, ONLY THOSE WHO THEMSELVES MAKE A CHOICE.”
“My parents are going to freak out.”
Anthony R. Cardno calls northwest New Jersey home when he’s not traveling the country as an instructor on regulatory compliance. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Shroud, Willard & Maple, Chelsea Station, Beyond the Sun, Oomph (A Little Super Goes A Long Way), Tales of the Shadowmen, Vol. 1, Full Throttle Space Tales Vol 6, and Galactic Games. He edited the charity anthology The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno, with work by twenty-two genre authors, and wrote a short Christmas novel, The Firflake. He can usually be found on Twitter as @talekyn and on anthonycardno.com.