Where Futures End

by Parker Peevyhouse

  It’s a bracelet, just a bracelet, Dylan told himself.

  But in his mind he could see the Girl Queen sliding it onto his arm.

  “Dylan?” Hunter said.

  “This is mine,” Dylan said.

  Hunter snorted. “It’s yours if you have three hundred dollars.”

  “It’s mine. I got it from . . . from . . .” Where? He reached for it with a shaking hand and touched cool metal. Instantly, the smell of moldering leaves came back to him, along with a barrage of images: the damp fallen trees in a shaded forest, a girl’s porcelain face. A gilded rooftop glimpsed through a puzzle of branches. She put her hand in mine, her fingers were so cold. Mud all along her hem and spattered on her bare feet. “Where are we going?” She looked at me over her shoulder and then the light was in the branches and in her hair . . .

  He remembered. Not only the Girl Queen but . . .

  . . . a forest.

  Where?

  He slid the band onto his wrist. The cold metal sliding up my arm. Her voice uncertain: “Remember me.”

  A prickle went down his neck. He remembered Dad reading from The Blue Fairy Book, remembered listening so intently that everything around seemed to vanish.

  He remembered the world parting to reveal enchanted trees, water churning over rocks.

  Things no one else could see.

  Hunter snatched the gold band off Dylan’s wrist. “You got it from the display. And that’s where you’re going to leave it unless you can pay for it.”

  Dylan’s hands trembled. He looked again at the gold band. Was it just a bracelet?

  Of course it was.

  And those memories? That place?

  A dream, he told himself. An image from a storybook. A childhood fantasy only a sad loser would still believe in.

  Chess returned with a stack of DVDs. “Wow,” she said, coming closer to peer at the gold band Hunter still held. “Looks like something from Lord of the Rings.”

  “Here, try it on.” Hunter held it out, and she slid the band onto her wrist before Dylan could object.

  “Looks good on you,” Hunter told her, spearing Dylan with a glare.

  “Yeah, it’s cool.” The girl turned her wrist to admire the band some more.

  “So keep it for a few days,” Hunter said.

  “What? You can’t take stuff from the store,” Dylan said to Hunter, his voice sharp with desperation.

  “She’s borrowing it,” Hunter said. He passed the DVDs back to Chess. “This all you want?”

  Chess nodded. She looked between him and Dylan. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to—”

  Hunter grabbed her hand and steered her toward the door. “You want bagels?”

  The bell over the door chimed again and they were gone.

  Dylan heaved plastic file boxes out of Mom’s closet and disemboweled them. Papers spilled over the carpet: Dylan’s childhood artwork. Paintings of green fish and bulbous insects, of uneven spirals like whorled snail shells.

  Shaky drawings of a girl’s face.

  Another memory rushed to mind: swimming through dark, frigid water. Around him, tiny fish, drifting insects, crustaceans felt their way along gravel and silt. The water brightened, and Dylan surfaced in a sunlit cave.

  A girl with ice-bright eyes pulled him by the hand up a rocky crawl that bit into his bare toes. He felt he was moving through a spell: the clinging mist, the chime of water dripping into shallow pools. The walls of the cave were dimpled with nooks where odd treasures lay like catalogued talismans. The girl picked them up one by one: a pearly snail shell the size of her fist, a yellow-green mushroom gone brown under the cap, a clump of water-logged feathers, a smooth river rock veined with blue and red. Her collection.

  Footsteps and then Mom’s voice interrupted Dylan’s thoughts. “What are you doing?”

  Dylan shoved the papers into a folder. “Looking through some old stuff.” He didn’t know why he felt embarrassed about it. But it was like being caught sleepwalking, like explaining a dream to someone only to have it come out sounding absurd. Plus, he never went into Mom’s closet, not even just to look at old papers. “Did you see that gold bracelet that came into the shop yesterday?”

  In the doorway, Mom held her half-open laptop in one hand and squinted at Dylan. “No, and I wish you boys wouldn’t offer loans on stuff like that without calling me in to do the appraisal.”

  “I think Hunter brought it in. He found it somewhere.”

  Mom set the laptop down on her desk and flipped through a stack of bills. “Where would Hunter get something like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mom frowned at Dylan.

  “Well, make sure you hold that stuff and wait for me in the future.”

  She straightened a framed photo she had knocked over: Hunter and Dylan standing knee-deep in lake water, smiling with the sun behind them. She glanced from the photo to Dylan, then bent to ruffle his hair affectionately.

  “Do you remember a girl at the lake?” he asked. “When you took me and Hunter there for Fourth of July? She showed me a cave.”

  The lines around Mom’s mouth deepened. “I don’t know, Dylan. Maybe.” She glanced at Dylan’s folder of artwork. “How about spending a little more time in the here and now? When am I going to see a progress report from school?”

  Dylan pushed the box back into the closet, but stuck the folder under his shirt. “When’s Hunter getting home?” Maybe Hunter remembered the girl, the cave.

  Mom’s attention was back on her laptop and the bills. “Late.”

  “How come when I take the car I have to be home by ten?”

  “He didn’t take the car, his girlfriend picked him up,” Mom said. “And from now on you’re here every night doing homework. Until I see a progress report, you won’t be so much as looking at the car.”

  “Mom—”

  She waved off his protest. “Enjoy the view from your room, sir.”

  “The view from my room is of your car.” Dylan waited to see if she would crack a smile, and she did.

  He stole away to his bedroom with the folder of drawings. The pine needles scrabbling against his bedroom window brought back another memory: searching in the yard for his pet rabbit, which had slipped the latch on its cage again. Worrying, absurdly, that it had crossed over into one of the magical lands in the books Dad read aloud to him and Hunter. And then yearning to be there, in that magical land, away from the sound of his parents arguing in the kitchen.

  Dylan closed his eyes now, listening to the wind, and imagined himself in a forest. He smelled damp wood, heard a stream rolling over rocks. One step to the side, maybe, and he’d be there again, in the imaginary land he used to call the Other Place.

  He opened his eyes to pine needles splayed across ordinary glass.

  He’d ask Hunter about the girl and the cave.

  He waited in the den, hoping to catch Hunter when he came home, but later he woke up on the couch with the TV still on, not knowing if he’d only dreamed about the Other Place in the night or if he’d actually gone there. He vaguely remembered chasing his pet rabbit, hearing his parents arguing in the kitchen. So, dream.

  Spread across the coffee table were the childhood drawings he’d taken from his mom’s closet: lopsided toads and spotted trees and a girl with overlarge eyes. Does the Girl Queen still wait for me? Does she think I’ve forgotten?

  He gathered the papers up and stumbled into the kitchen.

  Hunter came down while Dylan was still eating breakfast. Dylan was wearing one of Hunter’s school blazers—it looked good with the Battle of the Bands T-shirt he’d picked out from the pawnshop a couple of weeks ago. Sort of preppy punk. He hunched over his cereal bowl and hoped his brother wouldn’t notice.

  Hunter stopped short in the middle of the kitchen and narrowed his eyes at Dyla
n. Annoyed? Dylan tried to use his vorpal to control what Hunter was seeing. It snicked and pinged all over the place, like some kind of crazy radar—a sound only Dylan could hear. Hunter glared at his own blazer on Dylan’s back. He opened his mouth to say something. Dylan kept his vorpal bouncing off the fridge, off his back, off the fridge.

  “You got milk on your shirt,” was all Hunter said, and then he went to the fridge.

  Dylan smiled. He had pulled it off.

  He had a theory about why he could do things like that: He knew everyone had a vorpal, because he could sense them, but most people’s vorpals were weak. Dylan’s was strong enough to overpower anyone else’s. His vorpal could trick theirs into seeing what he wanted them to—when Dylan could control it.

  “Does your girlfriend still have that bracelet?” Dylan asked. Got straight to the point; might as well.

  Hunter swigged orange juice from the carton with a disinterested air. “It’s not yours. I don’t know why you think it is.”

  “Where did you get it?” Dylan asked. “Will you just tell me?” Tell me where you really got it.

  Hunter fumbled with the carton. “I found it,” he admitted.

  Dylan tensed.

  “Out in the shed. It must be—” Hunter almost dropped the juice, finally wrestled it back into the overfull fridge. “Something Mom put out there after Dad left, or . . .”

  Or I put there myself years ago. “I think it’s mine,” Dylan said, his skin going hot. “I think it came from . . .” The words whooshed out before he could stop them: “The Other Place.”

  A sound came from Hunter’s brain like whirrrr-crack! He turned away; Dylan couldn’t see his face. “I thought you would give up on that kind of thing after Dad left.” He turned back, smirking. “He used to love that stupid crap.”

  Heat spread up into Dylan’s head, settled behind his eyes. “Is that why you took it—you’re still mad about all that? Because he listened to my stories about the Other Place?”

  Hunter scowled. “I don’t care about Dad.”

  “You won’t even talk to him on the phone.”

  “Because I don’t care.”

  “He knew the Other Place was real. He knew I could see things.”

  “That’s a nice story.” Hunter smirked again. “Just like that story you told me about how Dad asked you to come live with him.”

  The heat behind Dylan’s eyes exploded. “He did. It’s not like he’d admit it to you. He didn’t want you to feel bad. He only had room for one of us on the houseboat.”

  Hunter glowered at him. “Then why didn’t you go?”

  “I . . . I didn’t want Mom to be sad. You know that.”

  “Is that also why you got yourself kicked out of Hevlen? You didn’t want Mom to be sad? Yeah, you’re making life real easy for all of us.”

  Mom strode into the kitchen, car keys jangling. “What are you two arguing about this time?”

  Dylan kept silent. He couldn’t win with Mom against Hunter.

  Why can’t she see what a jerk Hunter is? Another Impossible Question.

  Mom eyed the rumpled pillows on the couch in the living room. “Dylan, did you fall asleep doing homework last night? How are you going to keep your grades up if you watch TV while you study?”

  “Mom—”

  “I’m serious about what I told you last week,” she broke in. “If anything goes wrong this semester . . .”

  Dylan swallowed. “My homework’s right here.” He nodded at the folder full of drawings on the table and hoped she wouldn’t look too closely.

  Hunter snatched it up.

  “Hey!” Dylan grabbed for it, but Hunter’s reach was famous.

  “This what they teach in public school?” Hunter held up a wobbly drawing of a bird. “They give you the option to write your essays in pictures?”

  Dylan stood and tore the paper from Hunter’s hand.

  “What is all of that?” Mom asked.

  “Should we get a first grader to tutor you?” Hunter asked Dylan, snickering.

  “Hunter,” Mom said in a low warning tone.

  “What?” Hunter said. “He had his chance at Hevlen. He blew it.”

  “Shut up!” Dylan said, hands shaking with anger as he shoved the drawing back into the folder.

  “And now you’re screwing up public school too. Just like you screw up everything.”

  Dylan’s gut dropped. Nobody thought he’d ever live up to his older brother.

  Not even Hunter.

  His mom held out her palms. “Stop already. Once upon a time, you two were friends.”

  “Until Hunter’s head got too big for his body,” Dylan said. Until he made varsity. Until he started acting like he wouldn’t be caught dead reading any of the books we used to love reading with Dad. Just because he wants to prove that he doesn’t care that Dad left, that he never needed Dad anyway.

  Mom put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Leave Dylan alone about school.”

  “You know he cuts all the time,” Hunter said.

  “You would too if you had to spend your lunch hour hiding from punks,” Dylan muttered.

  Hunter smirked. “I wouldn’t have to.” He hooked an arm over the top of the fridge. “Neither would you if you didn’t read kids’ books in the cafeteria.”

  Dylan pushed away an ancient memory of Hunter reading to him from a book of fairy tales in the car on the way to the lake house: “I cannot return home,” said the girl as she moved in the water. “I belong here now.” And they saw that in place of legs she had a long, glimmering fishtail.

  How could Hunter forget how much we both loved those stories?

  “Grab your lunch, Hunter,” Mom said, heading for the front door. “And Dylan—no more cutting school.” She gave him a hard look and went out.

  Hunter slung his backpack over his shoulder and reached into the fridge. “Mom doesn’t need any more trouble from you.”

  Dylan’s throat tightened. The memory came again: the fairy-tale book, trees rushing past the car window. And then another flash: the two of them slipping into the Other Place, where a palace waited.

  “You remember, don’t you?” he asked Hunter. “You remember going there?” He felt his vorpal reaching out even as he said it, searching, searching.

  Hunter stood staring at a shelf of produce, his faraway gaze lit by the fridge’s glow. “You think that bracelet’s going to help you get back to some magical land?” He slammed the fridge shut. “Trust me, it’s not.” He turned toward the front door. “Just forget about it, Dylan. Life’s better in the real world.”

  “For some people,” Dylan mumbled as Hunter pulled the front door shut behind him.

  Dylan left his half-eaten cereal and went out to the city bus stop on the corner. He was supposed to walk to school. Drury High. But he wasn’t going to Drury. Everyone mistook him for Hunter; he might as well make the most of it.

  He got on the bus thinking of that gold cuff. Remember me.

  The bus dropped him off at Hevlen late. Can a person be late if he isn’t enrolled?

  He went to philosophy, which was the only class worth going to school for, and wasn’t offered at Drury. He had to do stuff like this when his brain went numb from boredom.

  Mr. Conrad looked up, brow furrowed, when Dylan walked in. Dylan could sense the man’s vorpal whirring weakly like a run-down clock. Dylan stood rooted to the spot and tried to figure out if Conrad recognized him this time. Or if he remembered that Hunter didn’t take philosophy this period. “I, uh, have to switch to first period for today, because . . .” Dylan’s voice trailed off.

  Conrad spoke to the class: “Mr. Yates here is demonstrating the principle of sufficient reason: There must be a reason he has walked in during the middle of my class.”

  Dylan’s face burned.

  “But that does
not mean his tardiness happened for any end,” Conrad went on. “A reason but not a reason. Have a seat, Mr. Yates.”

  Dylan hesitated. It took him a moment to figure it out: He thinks I’m Hunter after all. He dropped into an empty chair.

  Conrad turned back to the board, paused. His vorpal grated against Dylan’s bones, searching, and then retreated from Dylan’s reach. “Is it you who plays basketball?” he asked Dylan. “I’m told we won the game Saturday.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just went back to scribbling on the board.

  Everyone else in the room still had their gazes trained on Dylan. He could almost hear their thoughts. Great game. Nice job.

  It wasn’t so bad sometimes, being mistaken for Hunter.

  In fact, Dylan had to admit to himself the real reason it happened so often: He wanted it to.

  During morning break, Dylan found a bench in the quad and started scribbling in his notebook the things he remembered about the Other Place: the drum of bird wings under the tower roof, the whir of wind-up clocks in the hall.

  He remembered discovering a carved tree in the palace garden whose branches were really handles that rang hidden bells.

  He remembered the maze of boardwalks over marshland, and crouching to rescue a tiny creature all covered in spines, only to have it pierce his hand.

  He remembered floating in ocean water so buoyant he’d half expected to look down and find he’d grown a fish tail, and then wishing he had grown a tail, because it would mean he would never leave, that he belonged there.

  Something tugged at Dylan’s attention. He sensed Chess even before he saw her sitting under the trees at a table, sharing a pair of earbuds with another girl.

  He stood up and walked across the quad, feeling drawn to the gold bracelet glinting on her wrist. Could he get it back from her? Probably not, but Hunter could.

  That was another thing about Dylan’s vorpal—usually he could use it to convince someone who wanted to be convinced. And who at Hevlen wouldn’t rather be around Hunter than around Dylan? Especially Hunter’s girlfriend.

  She turned to flash him a knee-weakening smile. Then she froze, yanked the earbud away. The buzz of some pop song with an urgent beat accompanied her sudden confusion.