Jess’s house is glass and steel and modern art and money. Lavish flower arrangements on every surface are the only indication people might actually live here.
“Did someone die?” I touch my finger to the stamen of a lily and rub the orange residue between my fingers.
“My parents’ marriage.” Jess leads me through the common living areas, which look as though no one has lived communally in them since the house was bought, leads me past art worth more than the car my parents share, a sculpture that could probably finance my college education.
That month we had cold showers because my parents simply couldn’t afford to replace the broken water heater, I looked with longing at houses like these, all money and excess, cold showers only as part of some detox-cleanse-fitness regimen. But now that I’m inside a house like this? I wouldn’t want to live here.
Jess’s room is another planet. There’s not an inch of wall space, between the inspiration boards for medieval costume designs, snapshots of Jess and Summer and other theater kids, show posters I recognize from the school’s drama department, band posters that mean nothing to me, a large case displaying swords, and a prominent plaque for winning the district-wide spelling bee in middle school.
Jess beams at the plaque. “I won with eudaemonic. You should have seen the look on Marissa Solomon’s face.”
Even the high ceiling is covered, but it’s covered with an abstract mural, all swirling eddies and black holes, northern lights, a shimmering abyss. It makes our underwater mural in Nor’s room look like preschool finger painting.
“You like?” Jess says. “That took me an entire summer.”
I can’t even picture how they did it—it was hard enough for Nor and me to paint her regular ceiling—unless they rigged up some Sistine Chapel setup. “How did you . . . ?”
“I have my ways.” They flop on the bed and a framed photo on the nightstand clatters over. I reach to set it upright but: “Leave it,” they say. “Serves Summer right for abandoning me.”
I have to look now. Jess and Summer are a few years younger, at the giant fountain in Seattle Center. It might be Bumbershoot or Folklife. There are a ton of people in the background, but Jess and Summer have eyes only for each other.
“She’s your best friend, isn’t she?”
Jess rolls their face into a pillow and mumbles something.
“You’re lucky. To have a friend like that.”
They sit up and take the frame from me. “Shut up. I know. I’m such a baby. I just really wish I weren’t home all summer.”
I try to ignore the twinge of hurt. If they’d gone to theater camp, they wouldn’t have gotten to know me, wouldn’t be working with me on Marguerite’s story. But that’s me being selfish—again. If they were away at camp, they also wouldn’t have had to listen to their parents argue all summer.
“It’s hard to describe,” Jess says, “but this camp is the greatest place in the world.”
I laugh. “Is that all?”
“It’s this bubble where we’re not the theater weirdos, or we are, but we’re all theater weirdos, and the weirder you are, it’s almost like the higher your status is, because there’s still status or whatever, but it works completely differently.”
“And yours is high?”
“Obviously. I mean, (a) because I’m amazing. But also because I’ve been going there since sixth grade, so everyone knows me and the counselors all love me and it feels more like home than home.”
That wouldn’t be hard, though. To feel more like home than this museum.
“Thank god you’re here for the summer,” they say, pulling me down onto the bed. “I’m going to do something amazing with your hair.”
They reach to grab a hairbrush off the nightstand and my heart speeds up, someone bigger and stronger, arms wrapping around me from behind.
If that woman hadn’t been there on the steps—
“You okay?”
But this is Jess. “Yeah. Go for it.” I take a steadying breath and try to breathe away the hands gripping me tighter even as I said get off. It’s so stupid, nothing compared to Nor.
I focus on the hands in my hair, soothing on my scalp. I let Jess’s chatter roll over me like a lullaby, something about the last show they did at drama camp. By the time they’re done, my breathing is normal and I’ve almost forgotten those other hands. Almost. A French braid wraps like a crown around my head.
“Whoa . . .”
Jess shrugs and jumps off the bed. “Okay, so, I had an ulterior motive for inviting you over.”
I figured, since we’ve been hanging out for weeks, and anytime I mention going to their house, they have a reason it isn’t the right time.
“My parents are splitting up their assets or whatever. Selling stuff off to pay for legal fees, they say, but mostly to piss each other off. And these”—Jess gestures toward the display case of swords like a game-show host—“are worth some serious cash.”
I approach the case. It’s filled with weapons I’ve learned about in my research. Not blunt-tipped reproductions, but the real thing. These weapons have spilled blood. Longswords and spears, a falchion, a flail.
My eye is drawn to something smaller, but still deadly looking. The blade is around a foot long, tapering into a sharp point that could puncture chain mail.
“You like the rondel dagger?” Jess opens the case and pulls it out. “Rondel because of the rounded hand guard and the pommel on the end, see?”
Jess points out the beautifully carved and rounded grip, and my hand reaches out, greedy. I have to hold it. It fits my palm perfectly, and unlike the massive swords at Mack’s class that I can barely lift, this was made for me.
“Would Marguerite have used something like this?”
“Sure,” Jess says, eyes bright. “They were carried into battle all the time, a standard sidearm by Marguerite’s day. Richard the Third’s postmortem showed a rondel wound to the head!”
I hold it out in front of me, feel it like an extension of my own body. “It wouldn’t be a match for a sword, though.”
Jess shrugs. “Different uses is all. By the time you’re fighting with a rondel, you’re too close for a sword to be practical. Also a lot easier to land a surprise blow with a smaller weapon. Works for Arya Stark.”
“And your parents are selling them?” There are a lot more valuable things in this house than some old swords.
Jess takes the rondel from me and returns it to the case. “Most of them belonged to my dad’s brother, Alistair. Who my mom slept with.”
My eyes bug out.
“He’s dead and they never come in here, so out of sight, out of mind, but I think if either one of them remembers I exist—I mean the swords exist—they would summon the auctioneer so fast someone could cut off a hand.”
I tug on the end of my braid. “How can I help?”
“I’m so glad you asked!” Jess grins. “We’re going to keep them at your house for a while.”
“My house? But your parents—”
Jess waves a breezy hand. “Won’t miss them if they don’t see them. That’s the point.”
How could anyone have something so valuable and not miss it when it’s taken away? It feels like stealing, if they’re really worth so much money. Maybe it feels wrong because now that it’s a possibility, I want them like I want Nor to come back home. I want a whole armory; I want a dagger at my side that’s an extension of my fury.
“Sure,” I say. “If it’ll help.”
Through the magic of a supremely uncurious Lyft driver, we manage to transport the weapons. Less than a mile separates our houses, but they’re sets from completely different films.
The gleam of wealth so bright it hurts the eyes, but no amount of priceless art can save the marriage. Major studio production, total Oscar bait.
The ramshackle home so cozy it attracts all strays, but the family at its center cannot hold themselves together. Quirky indie starring that one guy from the show you used to love.
Mom talks about the Seattle of her teens, when Fremont was filled with blue-collar dockworkers, when the fishmongers at Pike Place Market could actually afford to live in the city where they entertained tourists, when Nirvana was nirvana and even kids in thrift-store flannel could afford a concert ticket.
But things change, except for all the things that never do.
I have to haul some stuff out from under my bed, but once it’s clear, the whole case fits neatly underneath. A bit unceremonious for valuable antiques, but we’re keeping them safe. And even if Mom or Papi happen upon them, Jess insists my parents love them and their eccentricities so explaining why I’m storing their weapons should be no problem.
Mom comes home bubbling over with excitement because a short story she wrote got accepted to an obscure literary journal. She’s been sending stuff out for years, stacking up piles of rejections, almost never getting any feedback, much less published. It always seemed so pointless to me. Why keep writing if no one’s ever going to read it?
For the first time, I kind of get it.
I’m writing Marguerite’s story for me. I thought that’s how it would stay. I wasn’t trying to write the Great American Novel or whatever. (That’s for white dudes anyway, right?) But now Jess is involved, invested. Which I love, but it adds this whole other layer. What if no one had ever read it? If a girl tells a story but there’s no one there to hear it, did it even happen?
Papi comes home with flowers and sparkling cider, which he drops on the kitchen counter so he can grab Mom by the waist and twirl her around. I hope he doesn’t throw his back out.
Jess watches it all unfold, bemused. Then they begin bustling about the kitchen like some sort of servant, pulling out wineglasses with a flourish, draping a dish towel over their forearm. It’s an act, a way to cover the hurt, I think, of watching a happy marriage.
Or maybe Jess is genuinely happy, folded into a family where no one’s screaming or selling off contentious heirlooms.
Jess serves the cider and fills a glass for me, but I leave it on the counter. It’s sickly sweet and reminds me of the day we found out Nor had been accepted into the University of Washington.
Of course she was accepted into the University of Washington. She was a top student, on one of the best high school newspapers in the country, internship at the aquarium, volunteer at the library, even a couple years on the track team.
But when we found out, we celebrated like she’d gotten into Harvard. Mom and Papi both cried, there was bubbly (or our version anyway, since my parents both come from hearty lines of alcoholics and never touch a drop), and then we all piled into the car and headed to one of those shops full of overpriced stuff branded with the university’s mascot and colors.
Purple reign! Go dawgs!
We left with sweatshirts and pennants, ball caps, and even a stuffed Husky. For the next week, gas and groceries went on a credit card, but we did it anyway. This was the dream, land of opportunity, only up from here.
When the house is quiet, I pull out the weapons and lay them on my bed.
There are three longswords, and one is significantly larger than the others. I run my hand along the blade. It’s smooth and flawless, like Jess has been polishing it, readying themselves for the battle to come.
The hilt is filigreed like the one Jess first drew in the margins of my notebook. I realize with a start that the sword is one and the same. When I try to lift it, it’s nothing like the prop swords we used in the church basement. I can barely hold it one-handed. Doing battle would be unthinkable.
But even the act of holding it sends a surge of power through me. Marguerite’s longing for a sword as she forges her path through the world makes perfect sense. The idea that a girl, stripped of everything but her grief and rage, might see no other options? It’s more real than ever before. If I’d been holding this weapon instead of an umbrella—
A weapon would have done nothing for Nor, though. By the time she got dragged behind the frat house, it was too late for that. By the time she was born, it was too late for that. Our world had already decided that a boy like Craig could take what he wanted from a girl like Nor.
So defense, prevention, justice are impossible.
Which leaves only revenge.