In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  Nobody had ever given him a birthday present before.

  Elliot avoided Myra for the few weeks until the end of the year. She might or might not be sympathetic, and he did not know which would be worse. It took enough energy to pretend for Serene and Luke. Elliot avoided most people. Elliot still had to teach his thirteen-year-olds, though. It was during one of his lessons that he broke for the only time.

  He stopped in the middle of talking about the fauna of this new world, and said: “I can’t help but wonder . . . why I’m not teaching any of you anything about advanced mathematics.”

  All their little faces looked blank. Except for Cyril Leigh, who was a bit of a delicate plant, and who already looked alarmed.

  “Or German or French or Japanese or any of the languages that might be useful in the real world. You’re not going to have evidence you completed school. You definitely won’t be able to attend universities. And of course you not only won’t learn anything about coding or computer programs, but you will end up hopelessly behind on and possibly alarmed by technology.”

  There was something savage in Elliot’s voice. Even he could hear it. Cyril was swaying.

  “Has it ever occurred to you all that the books about magical worlds in our world might be lures? Shiny toys dangled in front of children so we go ooooh, mermaids, oooh, unicorns, oooh, harpies—”

  “Nobody goes ‘oooh, harpies,’” said Miriam Price. “Harpies kill you.”

  “Unicorns are no picnic either, but that’s not my point,” Elliot snapped. “We’re shown all this stuff we were trained to want, shown the great adventure, and we jump at it like the dazzled fools we are. We’re too young to know any better, to know that we won’t triumph and be heroes, that we won’t be returned to the other world as if no time had passed, that the lies in the stories aren’t about mermaids or unicorns or harpies—the lies are about us. The lies are that we might be good enough, and we might get out. We could fail at everything we try to do here, and we will never be able to go back home. Even if we wanted to.”

  A silence had descended on the little group. Nobody seemed inclined to make any further helpful points about harpies.

  “Look at you,” Elliot said softly. “How am I supposed to teach you? We’re all in a glittering trap, and too stupid to even realize it.”

  Cyril wavered and then burst into tears, the sound shattering the scared hush, and then as if on cue Luke’s voice came from the door.

  “What’s a trap? Why is a kid crying?”

  “Pull yourself together, Cyril!” Elliot snapped.

  Luke strode into the room and went to Cyril’s desk. He put an arm around him, sweet and concerned. Cyril immediately flung his arms around Luke’s neck and wept into his shoulder. All the other students leaned toward Luke, like plants yearning in the direction of the sun.

  Elliot was getting a headache. “Okay,” he said. “Class dismissed. I mean it. Get out!”

  They did leave, even though they seemed loath to leave Luke with an obvious madman. Luke did not seem especially concerned for his own safety. He leaned back in the chair Cyril had been sitting in and watched Elliot with a frown on his face.

  “I thought I’d get you for your training, since we don’t want you getting soft over the summer—”

  “I’m not going to do that anymore,” Elliot said flatly.

  Luke paused for a moment, evidently decided there was no point arguing when Elliot was in a mood, and continued: “I thought I’d see what your classes were like. I didn’t think there would be children crying!”

  “Oh yeah, it happens every class,” Elliot lied. “You didn’t think it was funny?”

  “No,” Luke said slowly. “Because children were crying.”

  “Huh,” said Elliot. “Well, no surprise that you have no sense of humor.”

  He busied himself with cleaning the blackboard, the marks of chalk blurring and then lost against the black. He saw that they were fitting back into their usual roles, Elliot making children cry and Luke comforting them. He had enjoyed being the nice one, the one who could afford to be kind. It was easy to be generous, when you had something to give. He missed being happy.

  Luke cleared his throat. “About the summer. If you want, I guess it would be okay if—”

  “I don’t have any reason to come anymore, do I?” Elliot asked casually.

  Luke was silent for a moment, then he laughed shortly. “Wait until you’re asked. I wasn’t inviting you to my place. I was going to say something, um, quite different.”

  “Oh?” said Elliot, and left a deliberate, expectant pause for Luke to fill.

  Luke did not, but in the pause Elliot found the time to feel ashamed. Luke hadn’t hurt him. Luke hadn’t done anything wrong. It was nice of him, in a misguided way, to take pity on Elliot.

  He wanted to be kind to Luke, even if he didn’t feel there was much kindness left in him, and any kindness there was he fiercely wanted to save for himself. But that wasn’t how friendship worked, was it?

  “Well, whatever,” said Elliot, more gently. “I misunderstood. Anyway, it would be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it? Better to have some space. And I’ll have a lot to do this summer: get reacquainted with computers and phones and jeans”—Luke made a face—“make some sort of large chart with a life plan on it, possibly using a projector—”

  “I don’t think your life plan should include teaching,” Luke remarked blandly.

  “You’re hilarious, loser,” said Elliot, rolling his eyes. “Well, see you next year. I have to go see the commander now.”

  He headed for Commander Woodsinger’s tower, because he did not want to be instantly caught out in his fib. He went up to the top of the tower and looked outside. He’d been sitting there for a couple of hours, thinking, when he heard the sound of firm footsteps on stone, and looked up to see the dark serious face of the commander.

  “Cadet Schafer. A few of the students you were teaching have announced that they are leaving the Borderlands and do not plan to return after the summer.”

  “Whoops,” said Elliot. “Sorry ’bout that. I did try to tell you me tutoring was not the best idea in the world.”

  “I am glad of it,” said Commander Woodsinger. “It is true that recruits from the other side of the Border are very valuable.”

  Elliot nodded. He remembered Commander Woodsinger, the first time he had ever met her, giving money to his teacher so she could test children to see if they could see the wall between them and another world.

  “Though they do not like to admit it, many of the proud Borderlands families interbred with the people of the otherlands long ago when there were fewer humans. This means most of them cannot climb the wall from this side. Recruits from the other side mean we always have guards who can travel between the worlds. It has always been our way to find children who can see the Border, and encourage them to adopt Borderlands ways and Borderlands names.”

  All his suspicions were proving true. Elliot had been sure there was way more interspecies romance going on than anyone would admit to. He instantly believed the Wavechasers had got their name based on forbidden mermaid love.

  “No matter how valuable the recruits are,” continued the commander, “I do not want to have cadets who are not committed to their cause. I am not in the business of trapping children.”

  Elliot bit his lip. “I believe that. You’re not. You wouldn’t.”

  Others in this world might. He didn’t know what expression he wore, but he guessed how desolate he must look when the commander’s expression changed. He hardly recognized the emotion, it was so unfamiliar on her face. She looked uncomfortable.

  “Cadet Schafer, if you come up to my tower for any sort of—reassurance, I have to tell you that I am not a—maternal person. I am a soldier, and I do not desire a personal relationship with any of my cadets.”

  He must be so pathetic, to make her feel she had to say that. There was no need: Elliot had never thought she liked him or anything.

&
nbsp; “Of course, Commander.”

  Commander Woodsinger cleared her throat. “I will see you next year, Cadet.”

  She did not wait for a response, but turned and made her way back to her office. Elliot had made no attempt to give one.

  He stared out at the expanse of green, at the brimming blue where the mermaids swam and the deeper green of the forests where harpies flew. He thought of the commander saying that nobody understood the otherlands, and thought of everything here that he had not seen. He did not know if it was enough to stay for, mermaids and a challenge.

  He’d thought he would always have one reason to stay—but that was not true, because he did not have much anymore.

  He saw, down at the dusty ground at the foot of the tower that was their training camp, two figures he could not possibly mistake. As Elliot watched and they walked toward the Trigon pitch, Luke put his arm around Serene’s shoulders. That was not usual for them: Serene might be upset. Elliot had no doubt she would get over it.

  The other students who were leaving probably had more to go back to than he did. But if he went back and stayed, he could create a life there. He could build something real in the world where he had been born. He was smart enough to make up for the lost time, he hoped, but if he stayed two more years he did not know if he could do it. Time was passing. He was losing hope and losing ground there, and he did not know what he was doing here. Either way, he would lose.

  He didn’t have an answer, and he did not have it in him to face Serene and Luke right now. He tried to distract himself with a more cheerful thought.

  He’d already figured out that he definitely was not made for a life of tragic celibacy. He was so lonely, and obviously no good at friendship. He hoped, with an embarrassed hope mingled with fear, that he was all right in bed. He thought he could pay attention, and see what the next girl wanted and try to give it to her. He thought that quite possibly his previous experience meant he would be uniquely qualified to understand how difficult it could be, being someone’s girlfriend, all the small indignities that you suffered when you were trying to be intimate with someone trained to believe you were not altogether their equal. He could be careful not to hurt her, and careful to be fair with her. He thought that he might manage to be really great with his next girlfriend.

  Later Elliot was to think this was typical of the way his plans usually went. He had not planned at all for what actually happened next: that instead, he got a boyfriend.

  IV

  Elliot, Age Sixteen

  After a week at home, Elliot was more miserable than he had ever been in his life.

  The kids down the road—and they could hardly be kids now, any more than he was—were on holiday with their parents, their whole house shut up. Elliot felt as if his house were shut up, too: there was dust in his bedroom, layer upon layer of it. Nobody had come inside it all year.

  The first day he was home, his dad did not speak to him or look at him. The second day, he looked up from the meal the latest housekeeper had prepared and said, “Oh, you’re back,” in a tone of mild surprise.

  It was halfway through dinner.

  “Of course I’m back,” Elliot said in a small, furious voice.

  Everyone else noticed him. Nobody could help but notice him. He didn’t know how to get people to love him, but he knew how to bang on the door of people’s attention, lean on their bell until they answered in the vain hope he would go away. He knew how to be inescapably irritating. But the one person he had learned it for was the one person it didn’t work on. He barely existed to his father, insubstantial as the dust in his room, only there because nobody cared he was.

  He threw his fork down on the table and stormed out. When he came down later to clean up the plates, he saw through the open door his father sitting in his usual chair. Elliot doubted he’d noticed the door slamming or his son being gone, any more than he noticed Elliot being here.

  He had lain awake at night and felt alone for years and years, but it was much worse now that he knew about waking up with Serene, how it felt to reach across the bed automatically and have someone warm there, have someone happy you were there. At least when he was in his horrible unheated cabin he had his idiot roommates for company.

  Sometimes he woke up happy and reached for Serene, only to grasp a fistful of cold sheets. Sometimes he hardly slept, cataloguing all the ways he’d got it wrong with Serene, not been good enough or lovable enough, thinking of all the ways he could have done better now it was too late to do anything.

  The days were unhappy and lonely too, but more than that, he found he was restless. He, who had always been happy being indoors before, was bouncing off the walls of the house, tapping the arms of his chair and kicking table legs and walls. He took several trips to the music store, where old Joe who worked there said he’d grown and was kind enough that Elliot stayed until closing time every time. He went down to the library, where no elves yelled at him for being immodest.

  On the fifth day he got up from the window seat in his room, where he was tucked up much less comfortably than he used to be—he could stop growing any time now—and drumming his feet against the glass. He flicked the photo of Serene and Luke he had tucked up under the frame of his mirror.

  “Thanks for ruining my life, jerkface,” he said, and went for a run.

  He raced through the streets of the town, under telephone lines that looked like alien, spidery things menacing the clouds, down hard gray roads with cars running alongside. He jumped whenever anyone leaned on the horn, at every screech of tires, but he kept running until his lungs burned and his head was finally empty.

  He went home long after it was dark, peeled off his sweat-soaked clothes, and got into the shower. Usually hot running water cheered him up, but he was all alone and his own body had become a strange and treacherous thing.

  What had he been thinking, imagining staying here? He wasn’t fit for this world. He wanted to go back to where there was one person at least who really liked him, even if she didn’t love him. He didn’t know if he could last the summer, let alone live here.

  Maybe he didn’t have to, he thought. If he just showed up at Luke’s house, he would probably be allowed to stay.

  You didn’t have to come running because of an invitation I didn’t mean, Luke had said. Elliot did not have to be more pathetic than he already was.

  On Saturday, his father was home. It was so much worse to be silent and alone in company. Elliot bore it for a couple of hours, and then went down to the music store. The little shop was dim, but Elliot pushed at the door and found it unlocked.

  “Joe?” he called out.

  No answer. He figured Joe was in the bathroom or taking a cigarette break, and knew he was welcome anyway.

  “Hi, Joe!” he called out. “I’m trespassing! I’m shoplifting! I’m a teen delinquent and I must be stopped!”

  He wandered in and over to the corner where you could play songs in privacy, fitted the giant headphones over his ears, and selected an album called Goodbye Blues. There was an electronic guitar near the station: Elliot only knew how to play piano, but he picked it up and played with it as he sang along.

  The shop only stayed open until four on Saturdays. Elliot was going to have to go back to his house and his father.

  Maybe he could go to Luke’s after all. Maybe Luke wouldn’t really mind.

  Elliot shook his head at himself, and switched songs. The next was good, jaunty, with a clapping, swinging beat: Elliot vigorously strummed the guitar and sang at his own dumb feelings.

  He looked down automatically at the touch of a hand on his: not in alarm, as Joe had tried to teach him the basics of guitar before.

  When he looked down, the hand was definitely not Joe’s. Joe did not have barbed-wire tattoos on his knuckles.

  Elliot squawked, twisted around, and brandished the electronic guitar in a threatening manner at a total stranger, some blond guy with a goatee and a few more tattoos.

  “Whoa,” said
the stranger. “Hi. Don’t worry, I work here.”

  “What do you mean, you work here?” Elliot asked. “Nobody works here! Where’s Joe?”

  “He’s having a cigarette break,” said the stranger. “He’s my uncle.”

  Elliot lowered the guitar as his blood pressure lowered on its own. “Oh. You’re Jason.”

  Jason nodded. “Jase. I assume you’re Elliot?”

  Oh good, Elliot had now been rude to Joe’s beloved nephew, and he was about to lose his last sanctuary earlier than scheduled. “Crap,” Elliot added, heartfelt. “I thought you were like ten.” He was desperate enough to give the eyes for the elves a try, and willed: Don’t make me leave. “You could not be left alone with the musical equipment if you were ten. That would be highly irresponsible.”

  “Well, we’re even then,” said Jase. “The way Uncle Joe talked about you, I thought for sure you were a little kid. But you look plenty grown up to me.”

  “That’s me,” Elliot confirmed. “Mature. Like a fancy cheese. But unlike a fancy cheese, I can be trusted with the musical equipment. I won’t—I won’t come into the store and mess around unattended again, though.”

  “You can come in and mess around anytime you like,” said Jase.

  Victory! Elliot glowed and beamed.

  Jase sorted idly through album cases without looking at them. Elliot glanced at the black barbed wire inscribed around his fingers.

  “Uncle Joe said you went to a military academy in the north.”

  “Uh . . .,” Elliot said. “Sure, yes. Really north. Very military academy.”

  Jase nodded and looked at Elliot consideringly. “I can see it.”