Even If We Break

by Marieke Nijkamp

  They roll across the floor and dance around my feet. There’s more here than my character ever had in-game. Hells, it would break the game; I could buy so much influence. Because while Gonfalon is sometimes a far better place to be than the real world, some rules are universal, and wealth will always equal worth.

  I try to keep my breathing even. I’ve bought influence before, and no one ever noticed. They only ever appreciated my money.

  But these coins… Why are they here? Who put them here?

  A small piece of paper floats down to the ground, and I snatch it up before it gets there.

  Six words and the chill from the room settles inside of me. My shoulders drop and my jaw tenses.

  Break the rules. Lose the game.

  I don’t recognize the handwriting. I don’t know if it’s a threat or an observation.

  I crumple the note and begin to pick up the coins, one by one. Copper. Gold. Silver. Each one goes back into my coin purse, tied together with pieces of string. By the time my fingers have passed across all the various pieces of metal, my heart rate has settled to a steady, cold drum.

  Break the rules. Lose the game.

  Someone knows what I’ve done. I’ll have to do something about that.

  Five

  Ever

  This was a mistake. I walk around the living room, making sure all the game clues are where they’re supposed to be. The storyteller’s robe clings to my shoulders. Normally, I feel more complete with it on, as if it’s a magic layer of protection against the world. But right now, the fabric clings like a pair of hands, pulling me back from the precipice.

  This was a terrible idea. Everyone is trying, more so than I expected in the first place, but this weekend can’t live up to anyone’s expectations, least of all mine. This game isn’t home anymore.

  I asked Liva about using the cabin and if her parents would mind. “The cabin isn’t an actual vacation spot for anyone but me,” she said. “It’s a status symbol. No one goes there.”

  The words took a moment to sink in. The idea that her family could have an extra home without caring about it was wild. I’m lucky to have a roof above my head and a place to sleep each night, but so many people struggle to find even that. And this cabin is just…here. Empty most of the time. That doesn’t seem fair.

  I didn’t know what else to say, but I accepted the keys to the cabin. Because it has an open-plan living room that’s twice the size of mine. Because it has all the potential to be a perfect getaway.

  Because right now, our group is all patched up and duct taped together. Everyone is angry. Everyone has secrets. I have secrets. And I’m also somehow somewhere in the middle, unable to make it better. I can only give them a make-believe world to escape into.

  While I wait for everyone to get ready and for the game to start, I stand in the middle of the still-quiet living room and whip out my phone. Before I think better of it, I scroll to my text thread with Damien. I still have my phone—we’ll all put them away in the pantry soon—and I need a helpline.

  This was a mistake.

  He replies instantly.

  Why?

  Damien doesn’t know the meaning of weekends—which is to say, his computer is always on, whether for his game development work or to chat with Finn and me. Our group chat started after Finn introduced us at WyvernCon, and Damien realized I have a passion for games too, be it TTRPGs instead of MMORPGs. We called the chat our greater transformation chat.

  After Finn got beaten up, Damien and I started our own private thread, a place where we could share our worries without burdening Finn. And over the months, we kept chatting. The distance and sense of privacy meant I told Damien all the hidden parts of me, the secrets, the worries I shared with no one else—not even Finn. I’m not entirely sure he signed up for that, but as Damien says, “Every trans kid needs trans elders.” And sure, he’s only twenty-something, but, “We’re family, after all. Perhaps not in blood but in other ways that count. So we link our arms and form shields. That’s how we keep one another safe.”

  Because the group isn’t what it used to be anymore. It’s not like the last time you saw us.

  I imagine it isn’t, after what happened with Finn. Hatred is insidious. It doesn’t attack once and then withdraw. Hatred is a parasite. It burrows. It gnaws at you. It tries to undermine the structures you have and leave voids where your safeguards were.

  He says it like it’s no big deal. Like that’s just the way things are.

  I don’t want it to be like that.

  Of course not. No one ever does.

  So what do I do about it?

  You fill those voids with love.

  The game?

  Yes, for example. You and Finn both love the game, and so does the rest of your group. It can be a place of healing. And trust.

  Yeah. So. Remember when we talked about how good role-playing games are about trust? I don’t think the group trusts one another anymore either.

  I hesitate, wanting to say, I don’t know if they can trust me. But I don’t.

  And I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t know how to fix them.

  I don’t know how to fix Finn. I can almost hear Damien sigh.

  It isn’t your job to fix them.

  Of course it isn’t. It’s not my job to fix everything—but that doesn’t stop me from trying to fix what I can.

  My friends are hurting. It’s my job to protect them. It’s my job to keep them safe.

  No, your job is to love hard enough to counterbalance the hatred. That’s all. And believe me, that’s enough.

  I don’t know if it is.

  I don’t know if I can.

  Have you considered my offer?

  An internship. A way out of this mess. An impossibility.

  I don’t know if it’s for me.

  He’s quiet for the longest time.

  What do you want to do, Ev?

  Run away.

  Hide.

  Scream.

  I want to be angry, because none of this is fair. This is the last time we’re all going to be together, and I know Finn is hurting, physically and emotionally. I know Maddy feels lost, and Liva’s parents have issues, and Carter has his sights set on a future far away from us.

  I know everyone is struggling.

  But so am I.

  And they still have their whole lives spread out before them. They’ll heal and mend. They’ll find themselves again or build something new. I only have this weekend left. Mrs. Lee at Paper Hearts, the bookstore where I work, gave me the whole weekend off to “go and have fun,” but I can only afford to take time off once a year. I need the money too much.

  I want to get angry, but I don’t. What’s the point of it? It’s the main thing Dad taught Elle and me. We don’t do angry. We don’t do despair. We don’t burden others with our worries. We keep our heads down and work harder.

  I want to make this experience memorable. Make everything worth it, whatever it takes.

  It’s cost too much already to turn back now.

  Ghost stories and all?

  Ha. That teases a smile from me. I’d almost forgotten I’d told him about yesterday.

  * * *

  Liva gave me access to the cabin a day before everyone else. It was empty when I arrived, a thin layer of dust on the tables, and nothing but howling summer winds outside. Well, and a rat when I opened the kitchen cabinets, but I certainly didn’t plan to tell her about that.

  I let my duffel bag clatter to the ground and put down the large crate I lugged here from the driveway—I’d been able to pull up pretty close to the house because the two blockages hadn’t affected the road yet. My shirt stuck to my back and rivulets of sweat ran down my face.

  I pulled the two loose knives from my belt and dropped them on the rich, red couch. I juggled saber
s and staffs. Locks and boxes. Everything I needed to make this elegant cabin into the perfect trap.

  Of course, they were Styrofoam sabers and wooden staffs. Plastic locks and puzzle boxes. But to the untrained eye—which is to say, anyone who doesn’t know anything about LARP or RPGs—it probably would’ve looked like I had an extremely sketchy hobby.

  Setting up the cabin was like coming home. Not the physical cabin itself, which I hadn’t been to before this weekend. Home was the scratching of a pencil on a page. The sound of dice rolling across a wooden table, and the shuffling of cards. The click of a lock when all the tumblers fell into place, the dull thud of foam swords colliding, and the joy of a solved puzzle.

  Home was Gonfalon, the world I built for my friends, where everyone can figure out who they want to be and what they want to do in an ever-changing society, but where no one has to go hungry and no one has to be alone. And while the real world waited for no one, it occasionally paused. It granted us empty afternoons, without school, or my job at Paper Hearts, or the responsibility of watching my sister. Without worries, and with nothing but birdsong—or storm winds—outside.

  It granted us this weekend to camp out in our imagination, one last time.

  As I started unpacking the first boxes, the theme from The Addams Family blasted through the empty room. Noelle’s ringtone. I nearly scattered the hints I was holding and dashed for my coat pocket. I told her only to call if there was an emergency.

  “What happened?”

  “Ever? Do you know if Dad bought more macaroni pies?” She sounded distracted. She always sounds distracted. My sister walks through life with her eyes on the world around her, but her mind on philosophical conundrums. She’s thirteen and reads Teresa of Ávila for pleasure. I would’ve laughed at her, but frankly, as Dad often told us, we both cope by solving puzzles. It’s the way our minds work.

  The thing is, though, it means she doesn’t always realize what’s going on in the world around her. And those were my macaroni pies. One of Finn’s mothers made them for me. Ostensibly because she liked to explore her Scottish heritage and she needed someone to test her recipes, but honestly, she just wanted to feed me in a way that didn’t hurt my pride. I knew it. She knew that I knew. But as long as we didn’t talk about it, it was fine.

  “Ever?” A hint of panic. “Are you there?”

  I swallowed my disappointment, hot and overwhelming. Elle was going through another growth spurt. She needed the food more than I did, even if I’d saved them so I wouldn’t have to eat a proper dinner later on. So she could have that full meal instead. “No, those were the last of them.”

  “Oh. Do you know—”

  “Elle, I told you to only call me when there’s an emergency. I only have today to prepare.” It came out stronger and more exasperated than I’d intended, but I had taken an extra afternoon off for this. I’d saved up gas for this. I had “forgotten” meals for this.

  “I know, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  “But what?”

  “Dad got called back into work for the afternoon and night shift, and I don’t want to be alone.”

  So much for pausing the world. “Do you want me to come back?”

  She hesitated briefly. “Yes? I mean, no. But yes.”

  I sat on the floor, right next to a cardboard strong box that Finn made, and pushed my nails into my leg. “Elle…”

  “I’m not feeling well.”

  Not feeling well was Elle-speak for anxious. She hated being alone, and she was terrified of storms, which was a terrible thing during monsoon season. She tried to cope, but it was easier when Dad or I were around. We could stop her from scratching herself until she bled or biting her lip until it was raw. She needed therapy. We just couldn’t afford it.

  “I know how much this means to you,” she continued, when I didn’t immediately respond. “I do. I really do. But they said there’s a storm coming in, and I just…I’m scared, Ever. At least come home before dark, okay?”

  Returning before nightfall would cut my preparation time in half. Still…

  “Okay,” I said. “But if it gets to be too much, call me. If you need to talk, call me.”

  She stayed on the phone for a while, as I unpacked the boxes and found my rhythm. Until her breathing eased and I felt confident again. I still had to finish these preparations, hide the clues, map out skill checks.

  After she hung up, the cabin was quiet. The birdsong felt more distant, and the creaking of the doors in the wind sounded like nails on a chalkboard. And I knew home was this too: laughter, company. Home was the opposite of loneliness.

  I wasn’t home in Gonfalon anymore. I had to pretend. For one more weekend. One last time.

  Then end it.

  As I unwrapped the last of the clockwork toys, the entire cabin grew quiet and even the curtains stopped moving. In the distance, the echoing notes of a music box started playing.

  I froze. Liva had told me ghost stories about this place, and though I knew better than to believe those tales, the haunting, lilting melody made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Liva had said the sound of a music box was the last thing the victims of the mountain heard…

  I grabbed a fake candelabra from the table and tried to figure out where the sound came from. “Hello?”

  I took a few tentative steps toward the middle of the room and tried to pinpoint the source of the music. It remained distant and yet felt just out of reach. The chills that curled up my arms and neck felt like featherlight touches. “Is anyone there?”

  A bright flash lit up the whole cabin, throwing shadows everywhere. I yelped before thunder crackled through the sky, and I realized the flash was nothing more than a lightning strike.

  But once the rumbling stopped, the melody was gone too. Disappeared, as suddenly as it came, leaving only silence and shadows.

  * * *

  Four sets of footsteps clatter down the stairs now, mirroring last night’s storm. I glance around me as if the music box might still be here somewhere—and wipe my clammy hands on my shirt.

  Ghost stories are for children, old man. It’s game time.

  It always starts with murder. Even here.

  There is a story that is told about Lonely Peak. A story about how the mountain got its name. A story that’s been passed down as a warning: Once upon a time, this mountain was home to a serial killer. A solitary figure, a human poacher, who lived in a cabin far from the known world. No one knew exactly where he hid, but every so often, there were sightings. Traps and carved wooden figurines of animals. Trails of bloody prints and shadows. Threads of an old nursery song carried on the wind. And horror stories that were only told in whispers.

  Travelers would go missing on the mountain. Hitchhikers and campers, who tracked the trails, never to be seen again. Locals, who would go for evening walks and never return. But when the sheriff’s seventeen-year-old daughter went missing, the local police were finally forced to act on the rumors. They searched day and night, underneath the hot summer sun. But all they found was an abandoned cabin, a handprint, a music box, and a bloody, torn-off finger.

  They tore down the cabin and excavated the grounds. They remained on the mountain for a whole month, desperately searching for traces of the man—or of the girl—but to no avail.

  For some time after, Lonely Peak stayed quiet. Over time, nature reclaimed the site where the cabin had been. But on a starlit summer’s eve, a young hiker reported hearing a girl sing in the distance. That night, an elderly man disappeared in the shadows of the cabin’s former location.

  In the years that followed, the mountain kept claiming people. But eventually, the story changed from murderer to nature—wildlife attacks and unprepared travelers. People started building cabins on Lonely Peak again. The cabins changed hands and were passed through families.

  But in the dead of the night, by cand
lelight and shadows, the story of the serial killer is still told. The sound of a music box is still heard. And it is said all the cabins are haunted by the killed—or the killer.

  The mountain is hungry. The night has teeth. And both demand to be paid their price in blood.

  But that’s not your story, tonight. Your story starts on a different peak, a thousand worlds away from here. Your story starts in a tower, where you’ve all gathered. You’ve known one another for years. You’ve grown up together. You claim to be friends, despite the secrets between you.

  You are the Inquisitors. You were trained in the art of blood and magic, taught to seek out all crime that threatens the city and council of Gonfalon. You fight for justice—and freedom. For love of this place you’ve called home since you were born.

  You are the council’s most talented young investigators; you’ve solved mysteries that others would not dare to touch. So when one of the city’s foremost councilwomen is found dead, you are the ones who are called.

  This is what you know: five days ago, Councilwoman Joanna Yester didn’t return to the city for a council meeting. Her body was discovered in this tower, in the center of an arcane circle, drained of all life. The tower was empty of all servants, cleaned of all tracks.

  There were no further clues.

  No one knows what happened. Some say the place is cursed. Some say it’s the perfect murder.

  And the council demands answers.

  So you find yourself in Yester Tower. Where, despite their inventor’s absence, Joanna’s tinkerings still whirr. Where she warded herself and her experiments against intruders. It’s up to you to solve her death. It’s up to you to outsmart and dismantle the entrapments of her work room, her living quarters, and the tower—and quite possibly its curse or its secrets.

  Welcome to the case of the lonely murder.

  Six

  Finn

  Ever has pulled on their robe and their role of game master, and there’s intense quiet in the living room as they finish their introduction.