Thirty-One

Jordan

Adola bursts through the trees and I rush down to greet her. She slams into me, her body shaking. Cuts and scrapes litter her skin. She sobs and I hold her as the crowd joins us on the lawn, shouting in celebration. Fireworks pop in the distance. Drinks pass around on trays, and string lights illuminate a festive tent across the lawn. Tears streak down Adola’s face. She could have been killed in there. This is madness.

I hold her tighter. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

Something nudges my elbow. Beaulah beams as she hands me two small boxes.

“Adola, dear, I am so proud of you.” She pats her on the back.

“Pin, pin, pin!” the crowd chants, and Adola’s sobs turn to stutters as she tries to slow her breath. Her attendant throws her riband over her head.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell her. “Say the word and I’ll make an excuse.”

She shakes her head and wipes away the evidence of her humanity from her cheeks. Her gaze hollows and it sends a shiver up my spine. The girl she’s become in the last few years at Hartsboro is a phantom of who she was when we were small. Her emptiness radiates in my own chest, as if it were yesterday that I stood in her place. As if it were me out there, again, starved for breath under pounds of earth, wrestling mongrels to the death. Adrenaline buzzes in my veins, then and now.

I close my hands over the box. Nothing in me wants to put this pin on her chest, a silent salute to the practices that earned it. I look at my lapel, and the shame I’ve already been carrying intensifies.

How have I not realized this before? As long as these pins mean something to me, Beaulah means something to me. Her opinion means something to me. That’s why I’ve never fessed up to her about how I feel about her and this place. Running from Hartsboro was easier than looking her in the eyes and telling her the truth.

Trust my gut. Which is screaming, “This is madness!”

“I can’t do this to you, cousin.”

“Please—” With a weak grip, she lifts my hand holding the box. I take out the pin; its carved gold shape is a twin to the one on my own lapel.

“Come on, Jordan.”

“The scars will heal, but the nightmares never will.”

“I don’t care,” she says through gritted teeth. She presses her shoulders back, straightening her posture.

“Whenever you’re ready, nephew,” Beaulah says. And I may as well be twelve, standing over Ollie’s lifeless body.

My own pins catch my eye, and a reckless anger burns through me. My brother’s words come to mind again. There is more to the pins than accomplishment. They’ve linked me to this place, and its practices, for far too long. Maybe that’s what he meant. My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Yani: You need to see this. Location incoming.

“You don’t need this,” I tell her, holding up the box. “I understand you want it. I wanted it, too.”

“Pin me, Jordan, right now,” she says. The watching crowd begins to whisper. There’s nothing I can say to make her change her mind. The entire House is on the line. Hartsboro would be better in her hands. It’s the consolation I hold on to as I grab her sash.

“Adola Perl, Marked daughter and heiress of House of Perl, you’ve earned two distinct honors for valor and loyalty. Pin or not, you are the bravest person I know. And one day you will be the most heralded leader this House has seen in a century.”

I feel the burn of Beaulah’s stare on my skin.

“If you receive this honor, say I accept.”

“I accept!”

I press the pin through the fabric and the crowd explodes in excitement. Blind, all of them. Beaulah shoves a cup in Adola’s hand and urges it to her mouth.

None of this is okay. And turning my back on it doesn’t make it go away. This was my home, a House of great history. But it’s run like a cult. My phone buzzes again.

Yani: Pls hurry

“Jordan, are you sure you can’t stay?” Beaulah presses.

The sight of her face only boils my rage. Heeding my gut instinct, I snatch the six virtue pins off my chest, one by one. In at least this one thing, she will know I don’t approve.

Adola gasps.

“What are you—” Beaulah starts.

I hug my cousin one more time and whisper, “You’re better than her. Be better than her.”

“Jordan?” Beaulah still gapes at me, flabbergasted. The crowd watches. She shifts uncomfortably. “Everything’s fine, friends. Please make your way to the celebration. Adola, run along and get cleaned up.”

No one moves.

I toss the gold pins at Beaulah.

And something over me breaks.