by Brindi Quinn
Her mouth turns pouting. “It’s also embarrassing, you know. Why don’t you have to say anything, demon boy?”
“Because my part comes after yours, and only if yours works.” I remove the hand holding her to the wall and use it to tip her chin upwards. “Don’t look away,” I tell her. “It won’t work if you look away.”
“It won’t work period,” she grumbles.
“Positive thoughts, Sil. Positive thoughts.”
“If I say it and it doesn’t work, you’ll let me go, right?”
“For the time being.”
With hand against the skin of my chest, she clears her throat and begins anew, “Blood and smoke. Soul and shadow. Heart and void. I . . . I . . .” She cringes. “L . . . love you . . .”
She stops there.
But that isn’t the end. My name. She has to say my name for it to work. I raise a brow expectantly.
“. . . Wayst,” she finishes, voice small.
There it is. Wayst. My name is Wayst.
Pushing against the hand on my chest, I bring my body to hers, my face to hers, and wait for the signal to begin my part. Our energies are mixed. Our scents are mixed. But the signal doesn’t come. Damn it all, it doesn’t come.
“Ugh! Piss!” I force her hand harder against my chest. “Why won’t it work?!”
She shoves me away. “Hm. I dunno. Maybe because it’s a big walloping LIE?”
Or maybe she isn’t doing it correctly. She isn’t trying hard enough. “Stupid human,” I growl. “Why can’t you just be cooperative?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means why can’t you just admit that you love me?”
“Because I don’t! Obviously!”
I reach for my nonexistent horns. “Well, why the hell not?”
“Seriously?!” She looks at me as though I’m dense. “You’re kinda stupid. Have you ever even been in love?”
I don’t get it.
“I’ve loved plenty of women, Sil. I’m good at it. I don’t get why you won’t let me love you.”
“Look, demon boy. I don’t know how things are in Hell or wherever, but loving someone and ur, having . . . making love with someone are two completely different things.”
So she keeps saying.
“That makes NO sense,” I tell her. “And I’m not from Hell. I’m from Dhiant.”
But Sil isn’t listening. With a stern forehead she takes up her rucksack. “I don’t have time for this, demon. I’m already way late. WHY I let you talk me into this remains a mystery.”
While I stand and fume, she turns on heel and trots away to the fields. Damned spry thing. Like a brawny little rabbit. It pisses me off. I bang my head against the brick of the stout building and slide into a slumping position. Two weeks I’ve been in this place, and no progress has been made. Nothing has changed.
Well, one thing has changed.
The trees are dying for the year. I can see them from where I slump, yellowing, separating the fields from the street. I’ve even seen some around Sil’s house that are painted cranberry and amber. And the mortals find them beautiful. Even they see the appeal of watching something wither. I can appreciate that outlook. After all, I’ve contemplated killing Sil many times before.
I wonder if I’ll kill her before the month is through.
><
“There you are, demon boy. I was beginning to think you’d returned to Hell.” I find Sil waiting for me at the door to the classroom. “Suppose it was foolish to think I’d be so lucky, though,” she adds.
Ugh. Her hair is all sweaty. What was the point of fixing it? There’s nothing to be done but to wrinkle my nose at her. Taking the hint, she lifts her arm and blatantly sniffs her pit. “What? Do I stink?”
“No, you still smell like . . .” Mint. But that’s my little secret, so I correct with, “You smell decent. You just look sort of rank, that’s all.”
“Meh. No biggie.”
The bell rings and we take our seats. I’m in the back corner, near the window. Sil’s on the opposite side of the room. She sits with two of the girls from her team. Both are tall. One is fat. Porked up on cow’s milk, no doubt. Mortals drink so much damned milk. Sucking the juice out of creature with horns seems a bit barbaric to me. Then again, I’ve always been a sympathizer for things with horns.
I watch the two girls interact with Sil. Sil is bright and cheerful and strange. The side of her personality she never shares with me. Watching her is entertaining, but it’s also dangerous. Sil’s ‘appropriate behavior’ receptors are broken. I’ve only been here for two weeks and I already know they are. In the midst of interacting with others, she usually begins to dance or coo or sing or squawk, and I have to look away.
What a humiliating person.
Today, though, Sil isn’t too bad. She’s reacting something from her earlier practice with a conduct that’s milder than usual. Ah. I speak too soon. At the peak of the story she puffs out her cheeks, places her hands above her head, and begins wiggling her fingers, resembling some sort of bloated moose. Her friends burst out laughing. The fat girl can’t contain what I can only assume is brimming jolliness, so she doubles forward and slaps her knee.
Sil has a way with people. People that aren’t me.
“Staring at Sil again, are you?”
The copper-haired tick behind me has taken an unusual interest in my relationship with Sil. I don’t know his name. I’ve made it a point not to become acquainted with any of them. I say nothing. The teacher’s started going over the week’s mod schedule. Those of us taking Chemistry are to report to senior classroom two.
“Come on, Tran,” the tick coaxes. “Share your findings, man.”
Tran. Because I’ve made it a point not to socialize, the natives have coined me with the name ‘Tran’. Short for transfer student. Oh, the cleverness of humans.
I put an elbow over the back of my chair and convey my displeasure at being bothered. “What findings?” I say.
“We all know you’re staying with her. What’s she like at home? The same way she is here?”
“For the most part.” I’m not sure what he’s getting at, but my small patience is shriveling into something nonexistent. “What’s your point?”
“You’re part of an exchange program, right?” the tick persists. “And ever since you got here, you’re always staring at her. Have you two . . .?”
“What?” My dryness is at full force.
“Are you gonna try to crack her?”
“Her skull?” I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“What? Dude! No.”
Oops. I’ve said something inhumane. Luckily, the tick takes it as a jest.
“Eh-heh.” He laughs uneasily. “Anyway, Sil’s the most oblivious girl in Count’s. Poor Keek’s been her best friend for years, and even he says it’s hopeless. I was thinking you with your suave, out-of-towner charm you might be able to woo her or something. Is that your endgame?”
Hm. Surprisingly accurate for a tick.
I’m finished speaking with him, though, so I stop there and turn to face front. The teacher’s written some undistinguishable scrawl on the whiteboard. I pretend to copy it into a notebook.
“Psst.” But before I know it, the tick is at it again.
“What?” I hiss, not amused.
“Best of luck to you, man. Never once has Sil Tenor shown any interest in guys or chicks. If you figure out her fancy, be sure to share the wealth. I’ll make sure it doesn’t go unrewarded.”
But there is no reward he can offer that I’d have even the slightest interest in, so I don’t give him an answer one way or the other.
The teacher’s tosh continues to fill the whiteboard. Everything remains the way it was. Out of boredom I let my eyes travel to Sil. She looks to be paying attention, but I know better. I’ve seen her notebooks. Nothing but doodles and the like. She’s probably busy scribbling a deformed version of the instructor complete with bulbous neck growth or billow
ing shoulder pads or both.
Disobedient girl.
But while I’m right about my mark’s disobedience, it turns out I’ve misjudged her intent. When she looks up from her notebook, pencil in hand, she doesn’t look to Señior Tosh for artistic stimulus. Instead, the person her dimmed eyes drift to is . . .
ME.
Wait, is she drawing me?
What the –?
To make matters worse, the twit flashes an evil smile before returning to her work.
I don’t know why, but it’s imperative that I see that doodle.
I might end up killing her before the month is through.
But not before I see that doodle.
And not before we try again.
We’ll try again and again, and only then might I kill her.
Chapter 2: What’s a Heptagon Got to Do with It?
“Ready, you little demon?” Sil kicks the back of my chair.
An infuriating day full of trivial mortal studies, Sil’s brashness is the straw that breaks the glashtyn’s back.
Oh. Glashtyns don’t exist here? My mistake.
Moving on.
Sil’s impatient foot against the back of my chair is enough to set me off. Even so, however irksome it may be, I can’t strike her. Not here. Not now. Not ever. One of the rules. Technically, I’m not supposed to kill her either, but . . .
“I’m not a demon, Sil.” Sighing, I take out my aggression on the pencil in my hand. It easily snaps in two. After discarding the broken chunks beneath the table, I rise and shove past her. She follows me out the door, through the mesh of varied-age students, down four sets of boxy steps, and again to the outside, which has indeed warmed since morning, though clouds have found their way onto the formerly quixotic horizon.
“What’s wrong? You seem grumpier than usual.”
Wonder why.
“It’s nothing,” I lie. She doesn’t need to know why I’m bothered. She doesn’t need to do anything but fall for me. That’s all she’s good for.
She gives an enthused hop to come beside me, but the energy burst is short lived, as she immediately proceeds to drag her feet with lethargy. “Come on, demon boy. Fess up.”
Fine. It won’t do any good, but fine. “I’m tired, Sil,” I tell her. “Tired of getting nowhere. Tired of this town. Tired of everything.”
“Whoa! Demonic depression coming your way!”
I don’t feel like being patronized, so I say nothing. I’m coming off as moody, and truthfully, I know I’m pitying myself in an unprincely manner, but I can’t help it. School’s a drag. Sil’s a drag. This quest is a drag.
“Urgh!” I scowl at the now gray-splotched sky.
“Uh . . .” Sil appears awkward. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Is this it? Are you giving up? Returning to Dhiant?”
Dhiant? She just called it Dhiant. Of all the times for her to . . .
“I’m not giving up. And I can’t go back. They’ve revoked everything. I’m stuck here until the month is through. You know that, Sil.”
“Yeah but maybe if you tell them the truth, that there’s no way it’s gonna happen . . . maybe they’ll make an exception?”
We are to the sidewalk now. Walking past a neat green chain-link, fencing an equally neat yard. Within the barrier, not a single leaf has gone unraked. I pick a handful of yellowed death from the ground and toss it over. The leaves fall, scattering, onto the tidy lawn.
Satisfying. Destroying perfection is beyond satisfying.
Sil snorts. “Feel better?”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.” But I do feel better. A little anyway. Within my chest, a tight feeling has just been released. It’s warm and it spreads outward and it makes my breathing become off. One small act of release.
Sil is quiet, but contentment hides in the corner of her mouth. She’d been worried? Ah, but not about me. She worries what implications my return to Dhiant would hold for her. After all, this isn’t an act of charity.
“What did the king promise you, Sil? If you stick it out until the end?”
She hasn’t told me yet, though I’ve asked before.
At the inquiry, the contentment of Sil’s mouth leaves. I see it leave, and feel neither happy nor sad. “Something important,” she says. But she won’t say anything more.
It’s just like every time prior. And now Sil’s the one that seems moody.
Two grumpy beings trapped in a deal stagger side by side to a house that is dingy. The outside isn’t too bad, though. It’s a two-story farmhouse with peeling white paint and naked curtain-less windows. The yard is large and crabgrassed, but Sil’s mum keeps it short. Sil doesn’t have a father. From what I’ve heard, mortals – like daems – have both a mum and a father at birth, so I’m not sure what happened to him. Sil never says, and I don’t care enough to ask.
Before my arrival, Sil and her mum lived alone in the shambolic house, but because members from Sil’s wanderlust extended family frequently take up the main floor guestroom, I was placed in a storage room across from Sil’s chamber. The bathroom we share is through her room, hence our earlier kerfuffle.
Right now, Sil’s mum’s cousin is visiting. A creepy bloke with a curling moustache and an obvious lisp. He sings in the downstairs bathtub and leaves the television box on all night, and two days ago marked the overstay of his welcome – according to Sil, at least. In my opinion, Cousin Stache overstayed his welcome the day he arrived.
It was this hospitable disposition that lent to an easy acceptance of me by Sil’s mum. As far as she knows, I’m a normal student part of a month-and-a-half-long exchange program. The end of my stay is to be marked by the Galtia, a celebration in Dhiant that coincides with the mortals’ observation of All Hallow’s Eve.
One month. One month is all we have left.
“You turned grumpy again,” observes Sil. We have reached the door to her home. Cousin Stache’s bathtub sonata can be heard through one of the naked side windows.
I have nothing to respond. The bobbin-esque knob sits idly.
Sil hasn’t turned it. She just stands there, considering something unimportant, no doubt. And then –
“Do you wanna go somewhere?”
She asks this of me. I don’t expect it, so it takes a moment for me to catch up. Somewhere? Somewhere, she says. But why? Ever since I arrived, we’ve had the same routine. Morning practice. School. Home. Cold shoulder. Morning practice. School. And so on. This is the first time she’s proposed something other than that. Chicanery?
Yes, I conclude that it’s chicanery of some sort. I will refuse the offer. I’m bitter that she won’t cooperate with me. I’m angry that she’s incapable of getting the ritual to work. I dream of trapping her against the door and ending her fleeting mortal life. With hands that are stronger than hers. With bones more durable.
Effortlessly I could crush her.
But as she stands on the top step with her apathetic hand moving not to the knob, a gust of autumn wind pushes just a little of her mint smell into my nose. Inebriating. In the midst of minty intoxication, I catch myself doing something strange. Moving a step nearer to her, I lean in for a few drags.
Sil senses my presence and spins around. “W-what do you want?”
“I’ll go. With you, that is.”
It’s clear that my response is not the one she expects, for her eyes hold a suspicious squint. “Oh, really?” she says.
“What? Like I’m thrilled to listen to an hour of that.” I nod to the window, where Cousin Stache has just reached a crescendo of ambitious proportion.
“Right. Of course. So, uh, where do you want to go? Someplace morbid and-or sinister would suit you best, probs. Being a demon and all.” She tosses her rucksack at a bush and scampers down the steps. I’m left alone, but the smell lingers.
“You’re racist,” I tell her.
She plays at being shocked. “I am not! I’ll have you know I’m proud of both my mother and father’s ancestries. My dad’s family immigrated to Britain
from Kenya, and my mom is half Irish, half Swedish. See?” She holds up a honey-colored arm. “It makes for a handsome combination, don’t you think?”
“Handsome? Sil, you’re a girl.” I follow her through the back of her yard, which is littered with leaves and dead ferns. “And I didn’t mean you’re racist against Earth peoples. I meant you’re racist against beings like me. Or maybe I should say ‘quick to stereotype’.”
“Sorry, demon. It’s only because I don’t know any better.” She’s lying, as is made apparent by the sly, maniacal smile thrown over her shoulder.
Oh well. I don’t actually mind; I was just making a point.
Sil pushes through the woods at the back of her yard and begins a rabbit’s scamper through the fallen sprays and undressing trees. A swift change in demeanor. Apparently our destination is as important as morning practice. She bounces from hither to yon. Pile to pile. Her feet make a crunching stomp with each leap.
“By the way,” I say, following less enthusiastically behind. “What happened to your squishy minion? He wasn’t in Calculus today.”
“Keek is home sick,” she says.
Funny she knows who I’m talking about with only the term ‘minion’. What other name for him is there? Minion sums it up completely.
Sil continues, “I’m gonna bring him his homework later. Why the sudden interest?”
“I was hoping he might’ve died.” At least I’m honest.
Sil doesn’t see it that way. She yells something in the way of an insult, but because I don’t understand the reference, it isn’t at all cutting. There is one thing to be said about the girl. Though she knows my true identity – though she knows what I am capable of – she never hesitates to affront, and she never displays the slightest fear. Nervousness, but not fear. Sil doesn’t imagine that I might actually harm her.
What a foolish girl she is.
“Yah!” Out of nowhere, she gives off a harsh howl that is nothing like a girlish scream. I’d like it better, were it a scream. “Careful!” she warns as she catches her step. “There’s a sneaky dip there.”
