Everyone has a “to be read” pile, and depending on how obsessed the person is with books, the stack (or shelf. Or shelves. Or entire bookshelves) vary in size. But when you’re a librarian? Your “to be read” pile is the stuff of legends. I have books stacked all along the west wall in my bedroom in varying columns, some that go taller than my head. If I squint, the different sized columns look like a city skyline, made entirely of hardcover and paperback books. I stand and look at it now, my hands on my hips as I listen to the tear of thunder that arches through the sky again, and—in the kitchen—the insistent and cheerful whistle of my teakettle.
And I ignore my “to be read” stacks entirely, and cross the room to my bedside table. The porcelain unicorn on my lamp looks up at my dolefully as I switch it on and kneel down to fish under my bed, the hiding place of my favorite comfort reads.
My fingers grasp a familiar and well-worn volume, and I sigh with relief as I bring it out into the light.
It’s an old blue hardcover, worn and threadbare on the corners and spine, and printed there in dull, gold letters are the words The Knight of the Rose. I hold it to my chest now, and rise, feeling the familiar skip of my heartbeat that I get whenever I pick up this book. I’ve picked it up a thousand times—maybe ten thousand times—but it’s always the same feeling, that little pit-a-pat of my heart that tells me I’m holding a treasure.
And it is a treasure. This is the book that I’ve turned to in times of sadness, of happiness, of joy and sorrow. This is my comfort book, my heart book. And I need it again tonight as I wander back into the kitchen, and—unthinking and unseeing—pour the hot water over my two teabags of chamomile (it was such a rotten day, I need my calming tea at double strength). I take my mug into the bathroom, toss a handful of lavender bath salt into the tub, and let the robe fall to the ground. The water’s too hot for a lobster, but I get in anyway, sink down, gritting my teeth and let the boiling liquid cover me. After a lot of pin-pricking discomfort, I sigh happily and lean back in the tub, my flesh now medium-rare and able to withstand the heat.
Then I reach over the tub’s side, towel off my hands on my fluffy blue robe, and I pick up the book.
And then I crack it open. Again. The steam curls the bottom pages, just like it has several hundred times before.
I don’t even need to read the first line (or, really, paragraph), but my eyes move over the worn words I know by heart, and my lips move along to them, the sadness corralled in my heart, for a moment, out of sight and mind as I slip into the story.
Once, there was a brave young girl, who wanted—more than anything—to be a knight. She wished to don the strange, bright armor that her older brothers wore, she wished to wield a shining sword like her older brothers did, and she wished—more than anything—to leave her sad, small town and journey the world and have adventures.
“But you can’t, because you’re a girl,” her brothers, all knights, taunted her.
This girl’s name was Miranda, and this is how her story began: with a wish, and a will.
I remember, as I always do, when I read the first page, the first time that I read it. I was fifteen, standing in the first row of shelves at my school’s library, having just come from the bathroom where I’d tried really very hard with makeup and a lot of cold water, to make it look like I hadn’t been crying. These hadn’t been a few sad salty tears I’d shed. I’d been sobbing in the bathroom stall, heart-aching, gut-wrenching sobs, for twenty minutes. I had, of course, failed miserably to mask my red, blotchy face and puffy eyes.
I came out in high school. In the nineties. It was not a pretty picture by any stretch of the imagination. I wanted to be out and proud when, really, not that many people were out in high school then, and the ones who were lead terrible, miserable lives full of homophobia. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I really believed it’d be okay. Yes, even then, I was pretty idealistic. I’d had this idea that coming out would make my life better, not worse. That, if I came out, I might even be able to find the girl of my dreams and have some sort of wonderful teen romance. But my coming out didn’t result in anything more than non-stop bullying that made my life a perfect replica of hell.
That day, like most days of my teen years, I was imagining my life as being lived anywhere but there, in that stupid little town with all of its stupid, little, narrow-minded people.
In short, I needed escape like I’d never needed it before.
And, somehow, I’d wandered into the fantasy section of the library.
“Hey,” said Miss T, our school librarian, as she wandered by and happened to take note of me crumpling my face into a tissue. “Are you all right, dear?”
“No,” I told her truthfully. It was a small school. She knew what I was, and why I’d been crying. But—strangely unlike the other teachers—she came up to me and offered me another tissue without flinching, staring down the row of books with a thoughtful turn of her head and its super-perm.
“You know,” she said, tapping a finger to her mauve lips, “I have a book I think might interest you. If you’d like a recommendation.”
“Sure,” I muttered, and like some sort of magical creature, she darted forward and pulled down a slight volume with a worn, blue cover from the nearest shelf. Emblazoned on the book’s spine were the words The Knight of the Rose.
“Everyone needs a heroine like them,” she said with a smile, handing me the book. “Tell me what you think of it.”
I’d had no idea, that weird, distant afternoon, what she was talking about. But I took the book home, because she’d given it to me. And I read it.
So, The Knight of the Rose? It’s about a girl named Miranda who becomes a knight, who has a bunch of really wonderful adventures…who falls in love with a princess, and marries her at the end of the book.
A girl knight. Marries a princess. And is the heroine of the book.
Everyone does need a heroine like them. I’d never realized how much, until I read that story. And it saved my life. It changed me, in a way that only books can. It gave me a sense of strength, of place in the world, because I was no longer “Holly the homo” (as charmingly unoriginal as it was), what they chanted at me in the hallways of my stupid little school. I was just me. Just Holly. And I could do or be anything, because there was a story about someone like me. And hey, the heroine of that story had done pretty all right for herself. So maybe I could, too.
I turn the page now, sinking deeper in the water as I take a sip of tea. It burns the roof of my mouth, but I don’t even notice as I dive into the words again. The steam from the bathtub crinkles the already-crinkled pages further as my breathing becomes soft and even, as my muscles relax, as I feel the warmth of the water and the story and the tea cradle me and take me to someplace else, someplace better, just like they always have.
Here’s the secret: in the beginning, when I first read this book, I thought I wanted to be Miranda. Go off on countless adventures, be able to ride any magnificent steed, woo any lovely lady. But I don’t want that anymore. If I was going to be perfectly honest with myself (and, really, when am I ever honest with myself?), I know the truth: I wish Miranda was real, so that I could fall in love with her.
Growing up, I had to be the strong one. I had to be, and I’m glad I was. But I’ve always been the aggressor in every relationship, and I’ve always been the one who went after the girl and after the woman, and I’ve always been the one to hold it together. But when I read these lines, this story, see how dashing Miranda is, how she builds this beautiful character of chivalry and honor and romance and devotion, I feel parts of myself beginning to crumble.
I want that, I know, as I close the book because the words are becoming too blurry. I set the hardcover on the edge of the sink and slip down, down into the water again, letting a single tear shed down my cheek.
I want that.
And I honestly don’t think I’m ever going to get it.
I have the tendency to fall for exactly the wrong woman. Carl
y could tell you that I have really terrible taste in the romance category. Yes, I want the kind of love that’s written into a book, a woman sweeping me off my feet, fully devoted to me, thoughtful, considerate, kind. But instead of a woman who exemplifies those things coming after me, I don’t wait to see if it will happen. I end up going after the woman I feel might be what I want, but who never ends up being that way.
I don’t wait, I don’t have much patience when it comes to dating, but secretly, I want to be gone after. But I’m never in the right place or the right time for someone who makes my heart flutter and wants me, too. The one time that a woman aggressively pursued me was this lady who worked at the local coffee shop, who had a husband and a kid. I honestly believe that I just have really, really terrible luck in the love department. I mean, have you ever heard of anyone else this unlucky? Someone who gets impatient waiting for someone to come along, so pursues all the wrong women?
Through the open bathroom door, I see another white-hot blast of lightning, and I begin to count until the thunder, but I don’t even whisper the word “one” before the deafening explosion of sound makes the walls of the house shake. From out in the hall, I can hear Shelley whimpering and then she comes dashing into the bathroom as the lights flicker. I reach out with a wet hand, pet behind her ears as she plaintively puts her long nose on the side of the tub, staring up at me with wide eyes, her long, feathery tail wagging limply.
“It’s okay, baby…it’s just the storm…” I whisper to her as the lights flicker again. “You’re okay, baby, you’re okay…” I murmur, and she lies down beside the tub, flattening her head between her paws, and staring up at me morosely with big brown eyes.
I glance up as the power flickers, as the lights begin to dim. For half a heartbeat, they come back brightly.
But then they go out.
“Well, crap,” I mutter, reaching over the edge of the tub and patting the bathroom floor as I search for the soft, plush fabric of my bathrobe. My fingers connect with soft plush and long dog hair. Shelley’s lying on my robe. I tug at the corner of the robe trying to gently dislodge her off of it, and I’ve almost gotten her off of it when I stop, because every hair on my body stands to attention in that instant.
Shit, is the house going to be struck by lighting? I scrabble out of the bath—I’m sure being in the tub isn’t the brightest idea if lightning is about to hit the house—and I shrug into the robe with shaking hands, crouching down onto the tile floor and hold Shelley tightly, feeling her heart beat much too quickly beneath my fingers. She feels it, too. Maybe the house is going to be struck by lightning. But wouldn’t it already have happened by now?
And then I hear it.
My first thought is that it’s a scream. But not really. It couldn’t be, because I’ve never heard a sound like that before. It’s like a cross between a bellow, and a growl, and a scream all at once, and it’s got to be an animal—no human could make that noise—but I can’t imagine what kind of animal it could be that could sound so…so enormous, so angry…so terrifying. The scream makes the floor shake beneath my knees, makes the jar I keep my q-tips in on the glass shelf in the bathroom rattle loudly and move toward the shelf’s edge.
Every hair is still to attention as I struggle to rise, my hands shaking as I try to knot the robe’s belt at my waist. The sound comes again, deafening, roaring, ending in a deep, guttural yowl that is pure horror, that goes on for a solid minute, a sound that will live in my nightmares forever. I stumble down the stairs. It’s an animal, it must be. And it’s right outside.
In my backyard.
I stand in my living room, drawing my robe closer about me as I shake, dripping on the floor. I stare out into the backyard. The rain comes down in buckets—it’s impossible to see anything beyond the water-washed sliding glass door—and every hair I possess is still at attention, and my skin’s crawling as I peer out into the darkness, try to see.
A flash of lightning arches across the sky so brightly that it looks like day for half a heartbeat.
There’s something out there.
Someone.
Chapter 3: Virago
I make my way across the room to the sliding glass door and stand, open mouthed and staring into the abysmal darkness of the out-of-doors. I thought I saw…
Nope. Absolutely not. I could not have possibly seen what I thought I saw. I blink, swallow, fiddle with the ends of my robe’s belt.
But I thought…
Another flash of lightning. My breath catches in my throat.
I flip up the lock of the door, and suddenly I’ve pulled the door open, the sash in my hand. And before I know it, I’ve moved, unthinking, out onto the back porch, and down the three steps and I’m standing on my soaking lawn as the rain roars down around me, beating against me like the crashing wave of a tsunami.
The sound of metal against metal clashes out. I see a spark in the darkness as I run across the grass, angling toward the back of my yard.
“Stand and fight me, bastard of darkness!”
This makes me stop, makes me skid to a halt. It was a woman’s strong voice, ringing in a bellow, rising loudly around me.
Another bolt of lightning hits a nearby tree, or it must have hit something nearby, even though I didn’t see the bolt connect. Because the crash and sparks that follow almost deafen and blind me.
But as I stand there, rubbing at my eyes, the rain pouring around me, I see something move in the backyard again. What I thought I’d only imagined. What can’t possibly be there.
What can’t possibly exist.
It’s as tall as my house is my first thought, an abstract thought that slowly prostrates itself in my head and dies as the fear takes over, the fear that rises in me until it seems that all I am is fear. Because whatever that thing is, it’s as tall as my house, and it’s dark, and it’s enormous, and I think those are teeth in a gigantic mouth, and if those are teeth, then they’re as long as my arm, and the mouth is as big as my car, and what the hell am I staring at as it rears up like some strangely misshapen dinosaur.
I’m staring at something that I know doesn’t exist, but at the same time…I’m staring at it.
And it’s then that I notice the person-sized shape at its feet, and thanks to another dangerously close lightning strike, I see the person-sized shape raise something that if I did not think that I was absolutely dreaming, right in this moment, I would say it was…well.
A sword.
“Fight me!” comes the woman’s voice again, demanding and absolute as she brandishes the sword overhead, pointing it at the sky. But the lightning flickers and is gone, and there’s suddenly too much darkness to see anything. But I can hear everything. I can hear the sound of metal against metal, the clanging, the hot hiss that sounded a lot like the air being punched out of a tire.
There’s the roaring silence of rainfall and nothing else besides for a long moment, as my skin crawls, and I try desperately to see something—anything—in my dark backyard.
That’s when I hear that sound again, the sound that first brought me to the door, the bellow/scream/growl/hiss that really does sound like the cross of a tyrannosaurus rex (if Jurassic Park movies actually got that sound right) and a tiger, and it rises all around me, that terrible, nightmarish scream, and then there’s a crunch, and a slithery shushing that makes my entire body shudder involuntarily…
And then the silence of the pouring rain.
More lightning. The…whatever-it-was is gone. There’s nothing in my backyard now but that person-sized shape, and it’s no longer standing—it’s kneeling, crumpled.
Pure instinct takes over, makes me put one foot in front of the other, and I’m running the rest of the way across the yard.
If this is a dream, it’s a very real one as I draw closer, because she looks up, this woman who’s crumpled on my lawn, and she says with a strong voice that shakes only a little, and only at the end: “M’lady, don’t draw closer…the beast could still be about, and it’s very dan
gerous…” She can hardly get out that last word as she uses her sword—oh, my God, she has a sword—to try and lever herself into a standing position, but her hand slips on the hilt, and she crumples further, to her hands and knees. “Please leave, I will give it chase, and I will…” She coughs a little, and then she’s fallen over, onto her back, sinking down into the mud and grass.
I run the rest of the way and kneel down beside her, sinking down into the mud, too, as I stare down at this woman, my heart beating so quickly, I think it’s going to erupt from me, squeeze out from between my ribs and run around in the grass screaming. Her eyes are closed, her brow is lined, and her lips are crumpled in a cry of quiet pain, but her eyelids flutter for just a heartbeat, and she gazes up at me.
Her eyes are so blue, they’re like ice.
No.
Stars.
Yes, they’re like stars. Bright, burning, ice-blue stars.
Everything else disappears in that moment, the pouring rain, the squelching mud that clings to my legs, the fear that was everywhere a handful of heartbeats ago as I stare down into her ice-blue, star-blue eyes.
But then it’s over, and reality comes crashing back as she closes her eyes and folds forward a little, and that’s when I notice that she’s wearing…well, I don’t really know what she’s wearing. It looks like armor, but it isn’t, really: it seems to be leather and metal combined together, and it covers her chest and shoulders, and she has a fur capelet and a cloak. Her sword, still gripped in a white-knuckled hand, is currently blade-deep in the mud. As I stare down at this woman, this ridiculously beautiful woman wearing armor and wielding a sword in my backyard, I realize that she must be from the Knights of Valor Festival. Of course she must be. And there’s something wrong with her—she looks like she’s hurt.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice shaking, my teeth chattering together. The rain’s too cold—it’s early July, but the rain that pelts down around us is as cold as the water I store in a pitcher in my fridge.
A Knight to Remember Page 3
