Because You Love To Hate Me

by Ameriie

  Next thing you know, Jack’s hand slips, and he cries out and nearly crashes to the floor. And then I hear her big mouth. I forgot all about that damned thing.

  “’Tis late, ’tis late!

  And who is this young man?

  A human boy, a wicked thief!

  Blood payment we demand!”

  I rush to the ornate wood cabinet against the wall that holds some of the more magickal pieces Mom and Dad and my great-great-great-great-great-I-may-as-well-stop-now-because-you-get-the-idea-grand-parents have collected from humans over the last two thousand years or so. I already know it’s unlocked because no one would dare burgle Dad, even though Mom locks the cabinet when we’re hosting feasts because you don’t maintain a monarchy by being stupid.

  I throw open the left door and reach for the topmost shelf and close my hand over the stupid harp. I know she won’t shut up now that she’s awake, so I do my best to smother her. She’s really a bust of a pearl-draped woman sculpted onto the front of a harp, but don’t let the serene face fool you—she isn’t afraid to throw you in front of a jetliner, especially when she’s screeching about you sneaking out when you’re just going to the kitchen for a snack. I press my fingers against her strings so she can’t vibrate them, and I swipe Jack up from the bull.

  A boom of thunder sounds from upstairs and I know it’s Dad. I sprint for the basement and head straight to the window.

  “Time to go,” I say as I shove Jack through and drop the harp after him. She’s a lot smaller than the average-sized harp so she won’t be impossible for him to lug on his own.

  “Is it gold-plated?”

  The harp gasps. “I am not an it, and I most certainly am not gold-plated.”

  “She’s gold-plated,” I hiss. “Now get going!”

  Jack hesitates. He looks up at me with this lopsided expression and I think this might be like one of those moments in a story where the guy says this awkward thing, and the girl says this sarcastic thing, and there’s a moment of silence and they just stand there until he lunges and kisses her anyway . . . You know the story?

  Well, that doesn’t happen, because first of all Jack’s, like, a fourth of my size, so not only would the logistics be off, I’m just not that into him; second of all, my dad’s thundering down the basement stairs, and I can already imagine him bellowing I’m going to kill you once he gets a look at Jack. Unlike in that aforementioned made-for-TV story, Dad will mean it.

  And he’ll probably eat Jack on top of everything.

  So, yeah, forget about the kiss.

  Jack ends up in the clouds every couple of weeks or so, but I never know exactly when he’s going to make his appearance because he doesn’t know, either; it’s something to do with the magick beans and the phases of the moon. It takes three beans to grow the stalk, and he has less than half a bag left because he wasted a bunch before realizing all moons don’t cultivate good beanstalks. Once he jumped on a stalk just as it started to grow, and as usual, it shot him upward. But it stopped about halfway. I was just hanging there at twenty thousand feet. It took me ages to climb down and I won’t go on about how many times I nearly slipped. I could’ve died.

  Jack has lots of Almost Dying stories. He’s explored underwater forests with faulty air tanks, still taking time to skim his fingers over swaying treetops. He’s spent two nights in the Gobi Desert with a half-filled canteen. He’s scrambled out of ancient tombs just as their tunnels are collapsing. He’s eaten python in a Beninese rain forest to consume the snake’s powers. He’s spent one full night alone in a haunted Japanese forest without a light source, his back against a tree trunk.

  Jack just isn’t afraid of anything, not even castle-dwelling giants in the sky.

  We’re sitting near the cloudline, near Lookout South, and I stare up at the constellations, feeling small despite my bigness. There are an infinite number of galaxies up there, but I’ve never given serious thought to leaving this five-mile stretch of cloud. I’ve always known my world to be practically microscopic, but since getting to know Jack, it’s managed to shrink even more. Part of me wonders if he’s telling the truth about all the things he’s done, when he’s summering here and there, tagging along with his antiquarian, wanderlustful uncle and his beloved tabby cat. Even though my only requirement was that he be honest, I realize it doesn’t really matter. Because Jack isn’t afraid to dream, isn’t afraid to try new things, and this has come to mean more to me than anything else.

  “What have you never done,” Jack says, “that you’ve always wanted to do?”

  I’ve been so caught up in his stories and the inability to offer any interesting ones of my own that I just blurt it out: “Everything.”

  Jack looks up at me with his fine-boned, deceivingly good face. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay. You just need to start small.”

  I know plenty about small. If we are only as big as our dreams, Jack is the giant, here. “You know I haven’t even looked over the edge of the clouds before? Not even at the lookout points.”

  “Isn’t this your kingdom? The seat of your empire?” Jack picks at bits of cloud and rubs them between his fingers until they evaporate. “You can do whatever you like.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll never look over. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Never say never. And anyway, you don’t have to set out to climb Mount Everest from the start.”

  We’ve got distant relatives there. They hate it. Used to be they could host vacations for giant folk, since anyone who witnessed them whooshing down the sides of the mountain never lived to tell the tale; but now humans have smartphones and the internet and it’s too risky, being seen, even if the giants stay up in the clouds. I tell Jack this and he asks me what’s so different about Mount Everest, why giants there might be seen even in the sky when giants aren’t seen everywhere else, like here.

  “Because,” I say, “when humans visit places like Mount Everest, they’re already prepared to see something they haven’t. They want to be blown away. So they see giants and villages in the sky and a bunch of stuff that isn’t even there. They want to believe.”

  Humans didn’t have a choice before, believing in us or not. They were forced to see us, reckon with us. But their numbers grew faster than ours, and they created guns and bombs and lasers, and magick doesn’t have the same kind of exponential growth as technology. Magick is an ancient thing; it’s always been here and always will be, and so it takes its time. It isn’t concerned that its wielder might need it to step up from anticannonball defense.

  I look at Jack sitting there and think back to the way I’d unknowingly put the squeeze on him in the basement. Is it bad that I want to do it again, to squeeze harder, to discover firsthand the limits to . . . ? To what, I don’t know. I just know I want to push.

  “Want to know a secret?” Jack says. “I used to be scared of everything until I was fourteen. I couldn’t cross the street without nearly having a heart attack.”

  I don’t believe it.

  “But then I went with my uncle to that rain forest and we ate that python, and lo and behold. New man.”

  The python story is one of Jack’s more believable ones, but I’m not sure about the instant transformation.

  Jack points to his head. “I think a lot of it is in here. It’s human nature. How we’re built.”

  But I’m not human. And anyway, giants don’t push, don’t test the limits, don’t strive to conquer—at least, not anymore. Somewhere along the line, we recognized when things got hopeless.

  “I’m summering on Martha’s Vineyard,” Jack says, “and a boy I know tattooed a toad’s head onto his chest.”

  I start.

  Jack goes on. “And this is a boy who never in a million years would consider getting a tattoo. It was his breakout moment, when he got outside himself. But it wasn’t some horrible tattoo that did it.” Jack points to his temple again.

  A toad’s head tattoo. Even the best artist can’t save
that one. “Maybe the tattoo was just a bad life choice.”

  Jack shakes his head. “No, I saw him out more, at the theater, different restaurants, beach bonfires.” Jack leans in and grins. “Then one day he disappeared. He finally broke out. He hated living there, on the Vineyard. So I think it did the trick.”

  “I need a breakout moment,” I whisper. High above the earth, all of us giants do.

  Jack hops to his feet and strides toward the lookout platform at the cloudline. “Come on!”

  Just the notion of going all the way out to the platform adds tons to my feet, but I stand and slowly walk after him. Still, when I get to the farthest point I’ve ever ventured, which is where I was when I flung the bags of beans to the earth below, I stop. Jack, however, is there, jumping up and down.

  “You’re almost here,” he calls from the platform. “If I can do it . . .”

  I want to, but I just . . . I can’t. The thought of standing at the cloudline, staring down at that vast unknown . . . It’s almost physical, this inability to move.

  Jack rushes over, his eyes determined as a TV general’s. “Your legs will feel shaky, but don’t let your mind trick you into not trusting your body, not trusting yourself. Even climbing Mount Everest starts with a single step. You can do this.”

  I can do this.

  Can’t I?

  I take a step, then another. Jack hoots and backs away, looking like one of those ridiculous parents in those diaper commercials, watching their kids toddle for the first time.

  It’s breezier at the platform. I take a step up and wobble even when my feet are rooted to the stone.

  “It’s all in your head,” Jack says. “Just a little closer to the railing.”

  I can do this.

  I raise a shaky hand and grab the railing.

  “Just a peek,” Jack says.

  I lower my head, but before I can see anything, I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m gripping the railing so hard I swear I might break it.

  Jack says, “Look down.” But when I throw my eyes open, I look straight ahead.

  Jack whoops and I jerk my head down to see him jumping onto the railing. He throws his arms above his head. His eyes are hard and wild and it’s enough to send me stumbling back off the platform.

  Unlike Jack, I’m not interested in plunging to my death. Jack doesn’t understand because Jack isn’t a safe boy.

  Another part of me doesn’t want to always be safe, either. If my people are going to be great again, we can’t hide behind safe anymore. My body’s buzzing and my fingers twitch and my eyes burn. We deserve so much more. But I’m not brave enough to lead my people anywhere.

  I take a step back. Another. Another.

  Jack jogs over. “Next time, then.” He looks at me with steely eyes gone soft. “Next time you’ll look down. There’s plenty to see. You’ll love it, I promise.”

  I nod, defeated and trying not to look it. “It’s just . . . kind of cold, that’s all.”

  “Definitely. I was getting cold, too,” Jack says. “Fireplace? You could work on your chair.” He rubs his arms vigorously, even though we both know it’s pretty warm up here, the magicked atmosphere and all.

  He’s a kind liar.

  We head back to the castle, and all I can think about is how badly I want to be like Jack, how badly I want an all-cares-to-the-wind risk-taker inside of me, too.

  But there isn’t.

  “You’re already here. You’ve done the hard part.” Beside me, Jack laughs. “All you have to do now is open your eyes.”

  It’s the first time Jack has been back in a month, and the first thing he did when he got here was ask me to take him back to Lookout South. I only gave in because he wouldn’t shut up about it.

  “There’s a special desert I’d like to visit,” Jack says breezily. “Rocks are said to slide across the baked earth on their own.”

  I’ve got a tight grip around the railing and my eyes are shut, just like they’ve been the entire five minutes we’ve been standing here. It was easier making it out to the platform this second time, but now that I’m here, my body betrays me. My hands shake and my legs feel like they’re about to float off with the wind, and the only thing keeping me from keeling over is my royal pride.

  “Are you familiar with the place?” Jack says.

  It’s a lot windier than last time, and my palms are slippery. “What?” I say, still refusing to see anything but the backs of my eyelids.

  “The desert. Mysterious forces . . . ?”

  “Let’s talk about it back at the castle.” I’m embarrassed at how breathless I sound but too scared to sound any different.

  “I’d love to see a rock pushing itself across the ground,” Jack says, as if he can’t tell I’m this close to breakdown mode. “I’m going to see it one day. It’s all in the mind, you know. Be clear about your desires and you’ll achieve them.”

  “I can’t concentrate on anything you’re saying. Can we please—”

  “Take a peek. Then we go back and we don’t come here again unless you suggest it.”

  “Jack—”

  “A peek. Otherwise I will haunt your dreams with my bucket list.”

  The guy’s persistent enough to figure out a way to do just that. I want to kick and applaud him at the same time. How can so much bravery fit into such a tiny body? How beautiful the human world must be, to create creatures as fearless as Jack. And it used to be ours. I’m the future Empress of the freaking Northern Hemisphere. I should at least be able to see it beneath my feet and be unafraid.

  I can be like Jack.

  No. I grip the railing even tighter.

  I can be more.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  I crack open my eyelids.

  Pinpricks of light shine against the dark curtain spread before me as far as I can see. And then I see past it, to everything I’ve only experienced on television: salt-spraying waves; rustling trees; red canyons; rolling knolls; sweltering jungles . . . The potential of it all is enough to make this cloud feel more claustrophobic than ever.

  I can be more. My own voice sounds so much stronger in my mind than it ever has in real life, and for one second I really believe it. I can be—

  A gust of wind rushes in, and my knees buckle, and just like that, my eyes are shut again.

  But I don’t step back. I take a deep breath and dare one more glance at the world below. A second later I feel like I’m going to fall over and I know I’m done. “I’m ready to go, Jack.”

  “As you wish, Your Highness.”

  I back away, and when the firm stone beneath my feet turns to soft cloud, I remember the way I felt just moments ago and I promise myself this won’t be the last time.

  We head back to the castle and Jack chuckles. “Your breakout moment,” he says, nudging my calf. “And you didn’t even need a tattoo.”

  “Spend a night in an ice hotel.”

  “Traverse the piranha-infested waters of the Amazon on a log raft. No paddle.”

  “Ride the back of a blue whale.”

  “Swim through space. Naked.”

  “Jack, you can’t swim through space naked.”

  “I don’t care. I want to do it anyway.”

  Jack and I are standing at the cloudline, leaning over the railing of Lookout South to stare at the land far below, lights winking through the darkness like stars in the midnight sky. We’re rattling off a bunch of things we’ve never done but want to. I’ve gotten better at this game, at being specific as I stare down the world.

  “Swim in the turquoise waters of Oahu,” I say.

  “Not too ambitious,” Jack says. “That will be one you check off first.”

  I hold up my hand and position it so that a cluster of lights fits in the space between my thumb and forefinger. “Maybe,” I murmur.

  Sure, I could swim off the coast of Hawaii, but right under my feet are all those lights, all that life. There’s a swath of black over to the left, where the ocean stretc
hes into the horizon and a lonely light from some yacht reaches out. We’re like the ocean, us giants—always here, still a mystery. Humans have forgotten they don’t know everything.

  The wind lifts my long hair off my shoulders and I close my eyes, and for a second, I imagine this is what it must be like to ride a beanstalk as it shrinks back down to earth . . .

  “Gold coin for your thoughts?” Jack says.

  I smile. He’s comfortable enough to make these kinds of jokes now that we both know he isn’t out to steal anything. But I don’t answer. Mom always says I’ll make a great ruler. You think but don’t talk too much, and you don’t wear your emotions on your face. I used to take offense to that because she might as well have been saying You’ll make a great robot. Sometimes it takes time to see the value in something.

  “May I ask you a question?” Jack asks.

  “Shoot.”

  “You’re always sanding that chair, etching another flourish. But it could’ve been done ages ago, right?”

  The wood chair is the best thing I’ve made so far. Sturdy, smooth, beautiful. It looks like the work of someone who knew what they were doing. I keep going over and over what I’ve already done, and if something has been holding me back from finishing the seat, I don’t know what it is, exactly. I shrug.

  Jack says, “Do you want to hear something funny? Well, I suppose it’s more a question.” He laughs nervously. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but . . . when I first started coming here, I thought you were planning to skin me alive or whatever. You know, use me as upholstery or something.”

  I laugh so hard I have to wipe my eyes.

  “Were you?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I say between giggles.

  “Were you?”