by Chris Howard
I was on my back in the dirt and grass, staring up at the night sky with the walls and windows of St. Clement’s Education Center looming over me. For a minute I couldn’t remember why I was outside so late.
Found some water we can use yet? Praxinos asked enthusiastically.
I opened my mouth to speak but only a gasp of air came out. clawing at the ground, I sat up and reached for my stuffed pillowcase as if that would make me feel better.
“Prax—”
It hurt to use my voice. I leaned back on my hands and took deep breaths until my heart stopped hammering around wildly in my chest, settling into a quick rhythm.
“I fell, Praxinos.”
Fell? It was like he didn’t know the meaning of the word. Off of what?
“Off the roof. Didn’t you hear me? I’m surprised the whole school isn’t awake.”
What about the Gulf of Mexico? We have to find some nice water. Flowing water’s necessary.
“No shit! Hold your horses.”
Hold my what?
“Just wait.” Thinking geography, maps, I got to my knees. “Gulf of Mexico.” I concentrated on remembering the big pull-down map in my classroom that showed the whole country, with Canada and Mexico above and below.
Bits and pieces of Vilnious’ first day of school responsibility pep talk came to me. Think about the future, stake it to the ground, and then work your way toward it. Don’t veer. Keep an eye on it. Straight to the goal.
Now, move.
Texas curved around the western end of the gulf. It was becoming clearer in my head. The gulf was almost directly south of Nebraska, maybe a little east, if I was remembering correctly.
I looked around for something to help me to my feet.
Holy crap. I’d be dead if I’d hit that.
I had landed three feet from an iron pipe sticking out of the ground. It bent at a right angle, ending in a faucet. It was where the gardener hooked up the hose to water the playground.
I crawled toward it, determined to use it to get to my feet. Dropping my stuffed pillowcase, I reached out and grabbed the pipe just past the elbow, using it like a cane to pull up one foot, planted it firmly, and pressed my other hand on the ground for support.
“Yuck!”
As my hand sunk into the sloppy pool of water under the spout, the whole world moved under me and spun in circles. There was a rushing sound in my ears, like a waterfall.
Two things happened at that exact moment. In a dark room inside St. Clement’s Education Center, Ms. Matrothy shot upright in her bed, screaming in a high voice, “Forgive me!”
And miles away in a motel room in Mullen, Nebraska, Limnoria frowned and looked at her sisters, saying, “Now that’s odd. Why’s the girl building a path outside the school? Why not use one of the sinks or showers? Much easier.”
Everything whirled by me, smears of darkness and bright bars of streetlights. St. Clement’s blurred in between the black stretch of field and the row of trees at the end of the parking lot. I fell over, lifting my hand out of the muck. My whole body was off the ground, spinning like a motor until my arm twisted painfully and I released the pipe.
It was like being launched by a catapult. I flew through the air, and landed in the grass thirty feet away.
Again, I found myself staring at the stars, blinking dizzily. I dug my fingers into the ground next to me, feeling for the rest of the world before I realized where I was.
I had been thrown to the edge of the playground. My back was on the grass, the flat cut green blades rasping against my skin where my shirt had been pulled up above my waist. My feet stuck out across a narrow concrete sidewalk that bordered the grassy field.
“What happened?”
You tell me? Praxinos said, annoyed. Are we in the water yet? I’m still holding my ‘horsizz.’
“A horse is an animal. Hold your horses means to wait.”
I rolled onto my stomach, trying to focus on the two hard black lumps sticking up from the ground right in front of me. It took me a second to figure out what they were.
I gasped and pushed away, a dull ache in my head threatening to split me open.
Ms. Matrothy stood over me, her big shoes sunk into the grass.
“While we’re on the subject of animals...” The director shoved one of her shoes into my ribs, not really a kick, nothing savage, but it hurt. Still, it tossed me back to the ground. “There’ll be no waiting for you. You’ll be punished right now. Move it, back inside!”
The school blocked out the night sky in front of me, three stories of the girls dorms of St. Clement’s, that drab face of gray bricks, cut with darker rectangles of windows and wedges of shadow. Looked more and more like a prison every day.
Crawling to my feet, I staggered a few steps toward the school, still too dizzy to defend myself. Matrothy kicked me in the ankles, tripping me.
Movement came in sharp confusing spurts, the world halting between each. Spitting grass from of my mouth, I pushed down, got to my feet again. Normally I would have been quick enough to avoid these things, but my head was fuzzy and my eyes wouldn’t remain focused on anything. They wobbled all over the place.
I got my feet moving, stumbling away from the director, and along the way, snatched up my clothes, twitching at every move from Matrothy. The night brightened and then went dark. It came back into view. I caught myself wincing against a rhythmic ache in my skull. The director hovered over me, gave me a few more shoves, herding me toward the open main doors, back into St. Clement’s.
“You think they hate you now?”
“Who?”
“You don’t even know what it’s like to be hated...yet.”
I fell on the stairs, but using one hand to grab the next step, I pulled myself up, and managed to get slightly ahead. With some of my balance returning, I made the distance to the dorms in good time.
The director caught up just as I turned the doorknob to the nine-to-sixteen’s, shoved me against the door, then with one hand against my back, used me to open it, her voice right in my ear.
“Sneaking around the school in the middle of the night!”
Matrothy turned on all the lights and raged up and down the hall. “Go. Stand next to your trunk, you little shit.” She gave me another shove. “Up! Everyone up!”
The girls in the nine-to-sixteen department tossed away their blankets and got to their feet, assembling in two facing lines next to the trunks at the foot of their beds. They shivered, blinked sleepily, rubbing eyes, straightening pajamas.
Most had already started turning some pretty nasty looks at me, the only one not dressed for sleeping.
“Kassandra!” Matrothy screamed hysterically, her hair, normally up in a tight bun, was loose, flapping around her face like a shredded flag in the wind. “Kassandra wants all of us to get up with her at...” She turned to Deirdre Milhorn. “What time is it?”
“Two-thirty, ma’am.”
“...at two-thirty in the morning! Kassandra doesn’t like to play by the rules. She wants to run away from St. Clement’s while we want to sleep.”
Matrothy stomped along the aisle, glowering at the girls she passed. “She shouldn’t be allowed to do that, right? The rules say that no one—No one—is allowed outside after eight-thirty.”
She pointed a finger at me. “But she doesn’t want to follow our rules. Princess Kassandra wants to make up her own, and she expects you to follow along!”
Every muscle in my body went tight. The director couldn’t have known. Ephoros said he’d taken away her memories—and sent her to brush her teeth.
Matrothy swung her hand in a gesture that took in every girl in the hall. “Everyone’ll remain standing for an hour. You will remain silent and you will remain standing because Kassandra feels like breaking the rules.
“Kassandra is a stupid, selfish little fuckup who can’t follow simple orders. That’s not really my problem, is it? It’s yours. So, because all of you can’t seem to cleanup your own mess, and because Kas
sandra cannot follow the rules, you will all be punished.”
Matrothy dumped out the stuffed pillowcase onto my bed, going suddenly cold and quiet for a moment when she saw my copy of The Odyssey come tumbling out.
Picking it up, her hand was shaking with rage.
Matrothy walked around the end of the bed and stopped in front of me, her anger winched down tight like a catapult straining to hurl a car-sized boulder into the air. I was already starting to duck.
She slammed the spine of the book down on my head.
“What—do—I—have—to—do—” She hammered down with the book on each word, and I put my hands up to take some of the pain. “—to—make—this—stupid—”
“Leave her alone!” Jill shouted over Nicole’s almost identical demand. Actually, Nicole, much closer to the action, yelled, “Get away from her you fucking ugly rhino!” but since Jill’s voice was a lot louder, Matrothy heard, “Get—leave her alone—rhino!” which still made enough sense to get the director’s attention.
Matrothy whirled, stomping her foot, very much like an angry rhino. If there had been dust on the floor (I had dusted the hall) she would have kicked it up. I expected her to start snorting.
“You two,” she said coldly, wiggling a finger at Jill in the opposite aisle and Nicole, who was glaring right back, arms folded, as she stood beside her trunk at the end of the next bed. “Will spend the next two hours standing.”
Matrothy paced to the end of the hall and then headed back toward the door.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear about whose fault this is? If Kassandra hadn’t broken the rules, you would be asleep in your comfortable beds. You are cold and awake because Kassandra breaks things she shouldn’t touch, and none of you should stick your noses out for her.” She bared her teeth. “Unless you want it chopped off!”
A few of the nine year olds at the hall’s end whimpered and put their hands over their faces, covering their noses.
“I’ll be making surprise visits!” Matrothy shouted with a finger in the air.
As if anyone would be surprised by that.
The director made another sweep of the hall with her prison-searchlight gaze, turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I glared at the door and pretended to mutter some curse against her. Actually I said, “Praxinos, I got caught by Matrothy before I could run away. I’m back inside the hall, being punished.”
Maybe it is just as well. I have been thinking about this dream, what little you described. You told me yesterday...or the day before (Time being a little shaky for past Wreath-wearers) that you do not remember anything before St. Clement’s, so it is not possible that you can know about the lithotombs. There is little chance you could have heard a childhood story about them. Lithotombs have always been the popular threat for taming unruly children. Scary damn things—scary place to find yourself.
Either you had some sort of vision in which you heard your imprisoned father’s voice...or someone wants you to think your father is imprisoned...and... He made some noises, tried the starts of a few words and gave up. I do not know. It is not one of the other wearers. So far, I am the only one who is awake. I think someone sent that vision to you. Perhaps they want you to go after him? It could be a trap.
“What are you talking about?” I pushed the words through my teeth in a barely audible voice.
You are not the first fifteen-year old to wake up one day to discover you’re carrying a burden as great as the weight of all the oceans. You are not the first fifteen year old Wreath-wearer. The Wreath has been both a curse and blessing to our line, to House Alkimides. A curse for an accursed people...
His voice trailed off, as if on a path of thought he had no desire to tread.
I am the oldest wearer you’re ever likely to hear. My father and grandfather have both faded and gone to sleep...permanently. I have not heard their voices in hundreds of years. Your mother never met them. I think Queen...what’s her name? ...Andromache was the last wearer to speak with my grandfather three or four hundred years ago. We are long-lived. I reigned as king for over a century. I passed the Wreath on to my son when I was one hundred and thirty-two. Most wearers have not been as long lived as I was. Many have been...murdered.
“What?” I choked the word out, glancing around and then dropping my gaze to the floor. There were too many hate-filled eyes staring back at me.
You carry something that many seaborn want but cannot have. Your own grandfather, King Tharsaleos of House Dosianax, is such a man. He is from a noble house. He is very powerful. But he never loved Pythias. He married your grandmother in order to control her, and he used her as a path to the throne. Pythias was the Wreath-wearer, but when she told him he couldn’t use her power for his ends, he sent assassins to kill her. He would rather have his wife dead and the Wreath destroyed than have it used against him.
I shifted my weight to the other leg, tightening my fists to stop them shaking.
Now, some of the enwreathed got what they deserved. You’ll meet some of them—He stopped suddenly. He did not add, assuming you live long enough, but I heard the tone in his voice. Some of them, he repeated. Some of the Wreath-wearers were vicious people who shouldn’t have been allowed to wield its power. That is always the way it is with monarchy. Sometimes it was a wicked father passing it on to his wicked son, sometimes it was out of necessity, pass on the Wreath to someone unworthy or let it be destroyed forever.
“How? It can be destroyed?”
If the wearer dies before passing on the Wreath, all its power, all of us past wearers will vanish, disappear into the oceans, which is the source of all our power. As I said, a blessing and a curse.
I would have gone on talking to Praxinos in front of every girl in the hall, but I was at a loss for anything to say, and Praxinos understood my silence.
I will tell you more at another time...when you are ready to hear more.
There wasn’t much to do but keep my eyes on the floor in front of me, not wanting to meet anyone else’s eyes. Even Jill and Nicole must hate me now. They defended me and look what it got them.
Murder, I thought, and just as a warm fear started to spill through my body, something inside stopped it and drove it away. My anger rose in fear’s place. How dare anyone—especially my own grandfather—treat me like this. How dare that asshole king Tharsaleos pretend to love my grandmother and marry her just to take the throne and use her power. And then kill her. She was the Wreath-wearer.
Lifting my head, I jutted my chin out at an imaginary adversary. Someone might try to murder me? Rage slammed around inside my head, and I tried to keep it from showing on my face. Some of it got through. I felt it in my eyes narrowing, and I couldn’t stop the tightening at the corners of my mouth.
“Right.” The director of the girl’s department has been trying for years and I’ve managed to avoid death so far.
Of course, I had managed to make a whole pile of new enemies in one night. I heard them whispering to each other. Everywhere I looked, hate and plotting.
They had been thrown from their warm beds by “that trouble-making loser Matrothy hates so much.” They mumbled and folded their arms and glared at me for what seemed like three or four hours.
If looks could kill...
Two beds down from me, Charisma sobbed uncontrollably with her face in her hands.
I wish she would stop. I can smell her tears in the air. I can feel them in my toes, each one a little saltwater thump in my bones when it hits the floor.
And I swear the clock conspired with the director/dictator. I glanced at the far wall and shook my head at the minute hand, which stood frozen at 3:05 for what felt like twenty minutes.
Matrothy made sudden, random entrances, throwing the door open, snapping her fingers and pointing at girls who’d been whispering.
After the first hour the director dismissed everyone except Jill, Nicole and I.
After the second hour, which passed slower than t
he first, she ordered Jill and Nicole to sleep. She made me stand for another hour before jerking her chin at the bed and stomping off.
As tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep. I had no trouble closing my eyes. They shut on their own, but the dream of my father returned as real as ever. What had he called Tharsaleos? A squidfuck of a king? That was good. I’m going to have to use that one.
End to end, I replayed the memory in my head and heard him clawing at the stone from the inside, sobbing and cursing, trying to scratch his way free.
Chapter 11 - Beautiful Water
Mrs. Vilnious stood at the door to her classroom, watching us as we filed out on our way to science class with Mr. Henderson.
I liked Mr. Henderson and paid more attention in his class than most others. Mr. Farber taught physical education—and he was okay, if a little old to be out kicking a soccer ball. Mrs. Culpin, the librarian, was like a dragon with its gold. She was determined to stop anyone from checking books out of the library. Not that there were many to check out. Half the shelves were empty and there were few books printed within the last decade. Mrs. Steck taught a subject called “language arts” that had something to do with what people in different parts of the world ate, bought at the store, and watched in video. Mrs. Steck occasionally gave us useful information, like how to say “hello” in Peru, Thailand, China and Vermont. She taught all of these things with a knowing condescension, but I got the feeling Mrs. Steck and generations of Stecks hadn’t set foot out of the Sand Hills of Nebraska for a hundred years. It was a puzzle how the woman could know so much about the eating utensils used in the street cafes of Manila and Pasadena.
