Ascendant: Chronicles of the Red Lion

by F. C. Reed

  Moving closer to her opponent’s goal, Amalia found herself at a strategic advantage and turned as her teammate flicked the ball towards her. She paused and positioned herself to catch the ball. As soon as it hit her net, an array of pain and bright stars exploded into her vision as Christina plowed into her from behind. The blow lifted her from the ground and sent her sprawling across the field. She rolled over, wincing.

  Christina stood over her, glaring. Her body blocked the sun as she stood there, deciding if it was worth the punishment for embellishing her assault, perhaps by kicking Amalia in the stomach. Amalia struggled to her feet and shook off the sparkling white spots that clouded her vision before Christina had time to do anything else.

  Coach Norris’ whistle blew again and again in a series of urgent, rapid tweets as she ran over. Christina dropped her head and kicked at the ground.

  “Cross! What the fluff was that?” Coach Norris demanded.

  Christina pointed to the ground. “I tripped,” she said.

  “You what?” Coach Norris questioned as she stepped closer, unconvinced.

  “I tripped,” Christina said. She pointed to the ground again. “Look. There’s a hole in the field. I think my foot caught it and I tripped.”

  Coach Norris eyed the upturned grass patch in disbelief and then gazed back at Christina. The rest of the team looked away or down at their shoes, not wanting to make eye contact with Coach Norris, Christina, or Amalia. They saw Christina kick the spot into existence as Coach Norris ran over. But most everyone knew all too well Christina’s personal words of advice: snitches get stitches.

  “Cut out the rough stuff, Cross, and start running.” Coach Norris thumbed over her shoulder at the track that encircled the field.

  Christina grumbled. “How many laps?”

  “You will run,” Coach Norris said with some sarcasm, “until I say stop. That fluffing many.”

  Christina turned away with an exasperated look and took to the track. Apparently, the attack on Amalia was worth the laps, as it did not seem to bother her at all. She flashed a vicious, almost predatory grin at Amalia as she made her way over to the track.

  Amalia brushed herself off and plucked out the tufts of grass lodged in various spots on her uniform. Remembering the spectators, she hazarded a look at the bleachers, glancing sidelong over her shoulder. To her relief and disappointment alike, Donovan was absent, but the dark-haired girl was still there, sitting in the same spot.

  The embarrassment that swelled in her moments earlier subsided easier knowing that Donovan did not just see her get flattened. What’s better is that she didn’t have to pretend like it didn’t hurt, because it did, although not near as much as she imagined it should. She just made a note to try harder to steer clear of Christina.

  The rest of practice dragged uneventfully into the late afternoon. Amalia was yelled at more than usual for her dodging passes and rolling out of position at the wrong moments, or completely ignoring an excellent opportunity to make a scoring attempt. She also avoided Christina at all costs once allowed to stop running and rejoin practice. She made it to the end of practice without having to encounter Christina again, although some of her teammates were not so lucky. Someone had to go home with bruises. That was the order of things, and Christina made sure of it.

  Coach Norris blew her whistle, signaling the end of practice. She still barked at them praise or criticism while they gathered their things and headed off the field, beaten and bruised. As Amalia made her way to the locker room, Coach Norris pulled her aside by her elbow.

  “What is the matter with you, Anders? You played like you had a rabid squirrel in your shorts,” she snapped. “I put you starting because I know you are good. I’ve been coaching lacrosse for a long time and I know when someone’s blowing their game,” she hissed. “And you are blowing your game.” Coach Norris’ pudgy finger stabbing into Amalia’s shoulder accented the last three words.

  “I don’t know,” Amalia replied. “Just not feeling it, I guess.”

  Amalia would never admit to Christina being a problem for her. The entire school believed and spread a rumor for years that Coach Norris was Christina’s aunt. They were both mean, loud, big, pushy bullies, so the rumor was that they were family.

  “Don’t lie to me, Anders. If you tried out for the team fluffing around like you did today, I can guarantee you I would not have picked you up. Unfluff yourself, and I mean with a quickness. You play like that again, and I will cut you, because it’s never too late to cut you,” the coach warned. “Try going to state with that carton of fluffing nonsense you called offense today and they’ll laugh you clean out of your socks. And I’ll bench you for the rest of your life.”

  Amalia lowered her head and sighed.

  “Now go get showered up,” Coach Norris said.

  Amalia entered the locker room and went straight to her locker. The steam in the locker room hung in the air in hot, vision-obscuring tufts of white fog. Amalia glanced over her shoulder as she took off her jersey, half expecting to see Christina emerge through the haze like an angry ogre lumbering through a foggy forest with an itch to beat on something.

  One of her teammates walked by and patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’s already gone,” the girl said. “Didn’t shower, as usual.”

  Another of Amalia’s team mates standing nearby chuckled to herself. “Probably why she smells like spoiled coconuts all the time.”

  As the other players chimed in with comments like ‘hot garbage,’ ‘day-old socks,’ ‘potted meat,’ and ‘a box of dog farts,’ Amalia felt herself relax a little. She was not worried about Christina so much as she was about her therapy appointment after school, but that was not worth the effort to share with her teammates.

  Chapter Seven

  Dr. Gadot fixed his eyes on her. “Whenever you’re quite ready, you will tell me about the dream you had most recently,” he whispered as he took a slow and steady breath.

  “I remember walking across a huge desert. It was hot. There wasn’t much of anything around,” she started. “A girl who introduced herself as Jess, walked beside me.” She paused, uneasily glancing up at the old man. “And you were walking just behind us.”

  The old man raised his eyebrows. “Go on,” he prodded, a click echoing through the room as he struck his pipe against the ashtray next to him.

  “We kept walking until we saw something in the distance. It looked like a bonsai tree, but it was huge. It sat in a red clay pot, big enough to hold the trunk upright. The branches fanned out in a circle, a lot like an umbrella. We walked towards it for shade. But as we got closer, the ground began to shake.”

  The old man frowned and pressed his lips into a tight line.

  “A sinkhole opened as we reached the underside of the tree. Jess was right near the edge, and she slid down towards the hole. On instinct, I grabbed her wrist with one hand, and wrapped my other arm around the trunk of the tree.”

  Dr. Gadot only nodded to prompt Amalia to continue.

  “I was afraid for her. All I could do was hold on. I looked at you—

  “I assure you I was not there,” the old man corrected. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows, striking the pipe against the ashtray again.

  “Well,” Amalia started again. “I looked at the man, whoever he was, expecting him to do something. He just stood there. I was yelling at him and screaming for him to help. But the noise of the shifting sand was too loud for me to even hear myself.”

  “And this man did nothing?”

  “He stood there and watched,” Amalia said with a shrug.

  “Hmm,” Dr. Gadot pursed his lips again. “Then what?”

  “The hole widened, and I realized that it would soon be wide enough to swallow us both if I didn’t do something.” Amalia paused and frowned at the images of her dream swimming around in her head.

  “Then?”

  “The man spoke to me. He was trying to convince me to let go of her and let he
r fall. I heard his voice even with all the other noise. It was like he spoke directly into my head. But I tried to ignore him. I couldn’t let that girl die.”

  “And yet you did. You are far too selfish despite your best efforts,” he said, shaking his head.

  Amalia glared at Dr. Gadot, thinking him cruel for stating his opinions as if they were obvious facts. “I felt the pain in my shoulders, like they were ready to pop off my body. It was too much. I had to let go.” A single tear of bitterness and frustration emerged from her eye. It ran the length of her cheek before she swiped it away. She warded off other would-be tears with a series of rapid blinks. “When she disappeared into the hole, it closed behind her and I fell to the ground,” Amalia said. “I couldn’t save her.”

  “And you did this with no fear for your own life? I find that hard to believe.”

  “Just what is that supposed to mean?” Amalia fired back. She leaned away from him as though he just struck her across the face.

  “That means your cowardice,” the old man said flatly, “would compel you to release her to save yourself. And so you are a coward.” Amalia opened her mouth to protest, but Dr. Gadot raised his hand. “Courage, however, would either compel you to hold on to her like you did, or in a fit of stupidity, sacrifice yourself for her. You didn’t sacrifice yourself, even in the least. And so you possess the foundation of courage,” he said with a shrug. “Courage is not without fear. I think you may just have a hard time telling one from the other.”

  Amalia blinked, the creases in her forehead shifting from confusion to annoyance and then to anger.

  “Nod with me, child. At least pretend you understand what I’m saying,” said Dr. Gadot.

  “I tried to save her,” she spat through gritted teeth. “What does it matter if—

  “And you summarily failed,” Dr. Gadot concluded. “Your thoughts and feelings?”

  Amalia tensed with frustration, wanting to tear something apart, and would have loved to start with his face, but had grown tired of arguing with him. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her flustered. Instead, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing.

  “The old man didn’t have a face. It was smooth and white. Like glass, or maybe marble. What does that mean?”

  “I thought you said he looked like me?”

  “The first time I glanced up, he looked like you. But there was a lot going on right then.” Her thoughts dissipated at the tink of the pipe against the ashtray.

  “That’s right. Sliding, and sinkholes, and screaming. Something about a crisis of conscience and a moment of cowardice or courage. I forget which. All well and dandy.” He waived his hand around dismissively as he spoke. “But how did you feel about your failure?” Dr. Gadot pressed her as he leaned forward. “I didn’t catch your answer.”

  “You know how I felt,” Amalia growled as she worked to suppress the burst of anger.

  Dr. Gadot raised one bushy eyebrow, letting her outburst dissipate within the walls of the room. A long moment passed before he continued.

  “So,” Dr. Gadot said. “A faceless man.” He tapped his gnarled wooden pipe on the nearby ashtray. “Tell me about this faceless man,” he said. The pipe covered his eye momentarily as he peered into it, then he stuck a pinkie finger in the chamber and dug around. He then tapped it against the ashtray again, although nothing fell from the chamber.

  “I knew. I could almost feel his satisfaction. Like he enjoyed watching the struggle. Watching the death. I turned to face him. I wanted to confront him. Then I woke up. My mom’s cat was licking my face.”

  “Ah yes. Saved by the cat. Mr. Pow Pow, is it?”

  “That’s what I call him. My mom calls him Renfield. Or Rennie Boo-Boo when she’s hormonal.”

  “What an awful name for a cat, to be sure,” Dr. Gadot grumbled, almost as an afterthought. “But if someone was calling me Mr. Pow Pow, I’d do something horrible a cat might do out of spite for that more than awful name. Like maybe relieve myself on your sofa cushion.”

  He set his pipe on the end table and slowly pushed himself away from his cane until his shoulders came to rest against the chair’s cushioned surface. There was a long moment of silence and stillness, which always gave Amalia a knot in her stomach. Dr. Gadot stared over her head, thoughts churning through his mind. His shriveled, pale face looked like that of a man who squinted in the sun. Still, none of that took away from the fact that she suddenly wanted to punch his nose for the arrogance and insults he was sure to hurl at her.

  Dr. Gadot heaved in a huge breath, refocusing on Amalia with an intense stare. “You are feeling unsteady on your foundation, hence the shifting sands. That’s not uncommon for someone your age. Find yourself before you are lost to this trivial madness. This is most important because there are qualities you envy in others. Qualities you do not have, but you wish you had, and you wonder if the road on which you travel will lead you to that goal. Hone your own skills. Don’t go pining after someone else’s.” Dr. Gadot paused long enough to shake his head.

  “Attacks on your reputation will line themselves up before you,” he continued. “Barrenness, loneliness, isolation, hopelessness, and an overall feeling of being left behind. Or a feeling you are leaving behind something. All these things will surely task your spirit when you are in the mood to revolt. In these moments you must monitor your conscious mind while you consider what your instincts are telling you. It is all those things if not a simple lesson.”

  Those barrages of metaphor and psychobabble were typical of a Dr. Gadot response, even if the ordeal sounded like she was having her palm read. Amalia found them to be annoying and confusing before she’d had time to think about them. The jumbled collection of words nearly always stunned her, even though she knew they were coming.

  “That doesn’t sound promising,” Amalia said after a time.

  Dr. Gadot smiled a slight smile that resembled pity for her. He groaned as he stood from his chair, which signified the end of their chats. “You will see in time that it is more promising that one might think. Listen to those instincts. That’s what they’re there for, to be heard. Do as you normally would when faced with such a terrible decision that it scares you to think about it. But for all the green goblins in hell, don’t hesitate, or your friend may end up in the bottom of a sinkhole.”

  Amalia was beyond confused, but decided long ago against saying anything.

  “Tell me, child,” Dr. Gadot said. “What would you have done with the other man’s help?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I see,” he said, thoughtfully eying her. “Then why ask for it?”

  “I guess it’s better than not trying,” Amalia said.

  “So if the man in the dream handed you his cane, that would somehow have helped you to save your red-haired friend whose name I’ve already forgotten?” He struck the pipe against the ashtray while he stood.

  Amalia frowned as she studied his question, but could not get past his practice of making random noises. “Why do you do that?” she said as she watched him shuffle across the room.

  “Do what?” he asked with raised eyebrows, looking around himself in a befuddled way.

  “Hit your pipe against that ashtray. You do it all the time.” Amalia crossed her arms and waited for an explanation she knew would not come.

  A smile spread itself across Dr. Gadot’s face. “Old habits for an even older man. And stop dodging my question.”

  “I’m not. It’s annoying. That tapping all the time. It kicks me out of the zone.”

  “That annoying tapping is for me,” Dr. Gadot said as he coaxed her out the front door, poking and prodding her elbow with the crook of his cane. “It marks my time with you, believe it or else. It also marks my mistakes as well as yours. Anyway, think about what I asked you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Amalia muttered as she navigated her way over the broken cobblestone walkway. The door closed behind her with a faint click. Her stomach churned
and twisted and heaved at the sudden, sickening realization that she never mentioned that Jess had red hair. She also did not mention that the old man in the dream had a cane.

  She thought to run back to confront Dr. Gadot about his knowledge of things he should not know. Or did she actually tell him those details? She could not remember. The session became a cloud of images and jumbled thoughts as her memories refused to cooperate. She decided that she’d had enough of him for one day, feeling persuaded to just leave instead. She chalked his insightful guessing up to dumb luck.

  At least that’s the thought that popped into her head without her thinking it.

  Chapter Eight

  It was the first day of the weekend and the weather in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania could not have been any better. Saturday morning came bright and early for Amalia Autumn Alister. She looked forward to the time she would have to unwind and take it easy. Taking it easy consisted of lounging around the house, taking several naps throughout the day, and eating peanut butter straight from the jar with a spoon. That was the extent of her list of things to do during her weekend.

  An escape from school was always nice. She didn’t find much time to invest into the overhead and maintenance that popularity demanded. She was on the varsity lacrosse team, was a star gymnast, and also a straight-A student. Despite all of that, she did not register on any of the many varied high school social radars. That suited her just fine.

  “Amalia, honey,” her mother called up the stairs. It was still early yet. “Amalia come down here, please.”

  Her mother waited at the bottom of the stairs while her father rushed around, stuffing papers into his briefcase.

  “Tara, have you seen the red portfolio with the silver letters on the front?” Amalia’s father scurried from the living area into the kitchen, while attempting to navigate cufflinks into his sleeves.