The Raven King
Page 9
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He froze.
Slowly, he realized what he was looking at.
He said, “Shit.”
Blue Sargent had been thrown out of school.
Only for a day. Twenty-four hours was supposed to cure her of willful destruction of property and, frankly, Blue, a surprisingly bad attitude. Blue couldn’t quite make herself as sorry as she knew she ought to be; nothing about school felt particularly real in comparison to the rest of her life. As she had stood in the hallway outside the administration offices, she heard her mother explaining how they’d had a recent death in the family and that Blue’s biological father had just returned to town and it was all very traumatic. Probably, Maura added – smelling of mugwort, which meant she’d been doing a ritual with Jimi while Blue was at school – her daughter was acting out even without realizing it.
Oh, Blue realized it all right.
Now she sat beneath the beech tree in 300 Fox Way’s backyard, feeling cranky and out of sorts. A very faraway part of her realized that she was in trouble – more serious trouble than she’d been in for a long time. But the more immediate part of her was relieved that for a whole day she didn’t have to try to pretend that she cared about her classes. She hurled a bug-eaten beech nut; it bounced off the fence with a crack like a gunshot.
“OK, here’s the idea.”
The voice came first, then the chill across her skin. A moment later, Noah Czerny joined her, dressed as always in his navy Aglionby sweater. Joined was perhaps the wrong verb. Manifested was better. The phrase trick of the light was even more superior. Trick of the mind was the best. Because it was rare that Blue noticed the moment Noah actually appeared. It wasn’t that he gently resolved into being. It was that somehow her brain rewrote the minute before to pretend that Noah had been slouching beside her all along.
It was a little creepy, sometimes, to have a dead friend.
Noah continued amiably, “So you get a trailer. Not an Adam trailer. A commercial trailer.”
“What? Me?”
“You. You. What do you call it when it’s everyone, but you say you? It’s grammary.”
“I don’t know. Gansey would know. What do you mean Adam trailer?”
“Internal you?” he guessed, as if she hadn’t said anything. “Whatever. I just mean, like, a general you. So you come up with five, like, super great chicken recipes. Like, rotisserie. Those are the ones that cook for ever, right?” He ticked off his fingers. “Like, uh, Mexican. Honey-curry. Barbecue. Uh. Teriyaki? And. Garlic-Something. The other thing you need is, like, beverages. Crazy addictive beverages. People have to think, I’m craving that honey-curry chicken and that, uh, lemon tea, hell, yeah, to the max, yeah, Chickie-chickie-chicken!”
He was more animated than she’d ever seen him. This cheerfully prattling version of Noah was surely closer to the living version of him, the skateboarding Aglionby student with the bright red Mustang. She was struck by the realization that she probably wouldn’t have ever become friends with this Noah. He wasn’t terrible. Just young in a way that she had never been. It was an uncomfortable, sideways thought.
“— and I would call it – are you ready – CHICKEN OUT. Get it? What do you want tonight? Oh, Mom, please get CHICKEN OUT.” Noah smacked Blue’s little ponytail so that it hit the top of her head. “You could wear a little paper hat! You could be the face of CHICKEN OUT.”
All at once, Blue lost patience. She exploded, “OK, Noah, stop beca—”
A cawing laugh from overhead silenced her. A few dry leaves floated down. Blue and Noah tipped their heads back.
Gwenllian, Glendower’s daughter, lounged in the sturdy branches above them, her long body leaned into the trunk, her legs braced against a smooth-skinned branch. As usual, she was a terrifying and wonderful sight. Her towering rain cloud of dark hair was full of pens and keys and twists of paper. She was wearing at least three dresses, and all of them had managed to hitch clear up to her hip through either climbing or intention. Noah stared.
“Hi ho, dead thing,” Gwenllian sang, taking a cigarette out of one side of her hair and a lighter from the other.
“How long have you been there? Are you smoking?” Blue demanded. “Don’t kill my tree.”
Gwenllian released a puff of clove-scented smoke. “You sound like Artemus.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Blue tried not to sound resentful, but she was. She hadn’t expected Artemus to fill a gaping hole in her heart, but she also hadn’t expected him to merely shut himself away in a closet.
Blowing a credible smoke ring through the dried leaves, Gwenllian shoved off the trunk and allowed herself to slide to a lower branch. “Your little shrub dweller of a father is not a very easy thing to know, oh blue lily, lily blue. But then again, that thing down there now is not easy to know, either, is it?”
“What thing – Noah? Noah is not a thing!”
“We came across a bird in a bush, a bird in a bush, a bird in a bush,” Gwenllian sang. She slipped down, and then down again, enough to dangle her boots at Blue’s eye level. “And thirty of its friends! You were feeling pretty alive-oh, little dead thing, between the two of us, weren’t you? Lily blue with her mirror-power, and lily gwen with her mirror-power, and you in the middle remembering life?”
It was annoying to realize that Gwenllian was probably right: This effervescent, lively Noah had almost certainly been made possible only by bookended psychic batteries. It was also annoying to see that Gwenllian had completely murdered Noah’s good mood. He had ducked his head so that nothing but the whorl of his cowlick was visible.
Blue glared up. “You’re horrible.”
“Thanks.” Gwenllian plunged to the ground with a great, flapping leap and stubbed out her cigarette on the beech’s trunk. It left a black mark that Blue felt mirrored on her soul.
She scowled at Gwenllian. Blue was very short and Gwenllian was very tall, but Blue very much wanted to scowl at Gwenllian and Gwenllian seemed intent on being scowled at, so they made it work. “What do you want me to say? That he’s dead? What’s the point of rubbing that in?”
Gwenllian leaned close enough that their noses brushed. Her words came out in a clove-scented whisper: “Have you ever solved a riddle you weren’t asked?”
Calla thought that Gwenllian had begun singing and riddling as a result of being buried alive for six hundred years. But looking at her gleefully bright eyes now, remembering how she’d been buried for trying to stab Owen Glendower’s poet to death, Blue also thought there was a very credible chance that Gwenllian had always been this way.
Slowly, he realized what he was looking at.
He said, “Shit.”
Blue Sargent had been thrown out of school.
Only for a day. Twenty-four hours was supposed to cure her of willful destruction of property and, frankly, Blue, a surprisingly bad attitude. Blue couldn’t quite make herself as sorry as she knew she ought to be; nothing about school felt particularly real in comparison to the rest of her life. As she had stood in the hallway outside the administration offices, she heard her mother explaining how they’d had a recent death in the family and that Blue’s biological father had just returned to town and it was all very traumatic. Probably, Maura added – smelling of mugwort, which meant she’d been doing a ritual with Jimi while Blue was at school – her daughter was acting out even without realizing it.
Oh, Blue realized it all right.
Now she sat beneath the beech tree in 300 Fox Way’s backyard, feeling cranky and out of sorts. A very faraway part of her realized that she was in trouble – more serious trouble than she’d been in for a long time. But the more immediate part of her was relieved that for a whole day she didn’t have to try to pretend that she cared about her classes. She hurled a bug-eaten beech nut; it bounced off the fence with a crack like a gunshot.
“OK, here’s the idea.”
The voice came first, then the chill across her skin. A moment later, Noah Czerny joined her, dressed as always in his navy Aglionby sweater. Joined was perhaps the wrong verb. Manifested was better. The phrase trick of the light was even more superior. Trick of the mind was the best. Because it was rare that Blue noticed the moment Noah actually appeared. It wasn’t that he gently resolved into being. It was that somehow her brain rewrote the minute before to pretend that Noah had been slouching beside her all along.
It was a little creepy, sometimes, to have a dead friend.
Noah continued amiably, “So you get a trailer. Not an Adam trailer. A commercial trailer.”
“What? Me?”
“You. You. What do you call it when it’s everyone, but you say you? It’s grammary.”
“I don’t know. Gansey would know. What do you mean Adam trailer?”
“Internal you?” he guessed, as if she hadn’t said anything. “Whatever. I just mean, like, a general you. So you come up with five, like, super great chicken recipes. Like, rotisserie. Those are the ones that cook for ever, right?” He ticked off his fingers. “Like, uh, Mexican. Honey-curry. Barbecue. Uh. Teriyaki? And. Garlic-Something. The other thing you need is, like, beverages. Crazy addictive beverages. People have to think, I’m craving that honey-curry chicken and that, uh, lemon tea, hell, yeah, to the max, yeah, Chickie-chickie-chicken!”
He was more animated than she’d ever seen him. This cheerfully prattling version of Noah was surely closer to the living version of him, the skateboarding Aglionby student with the bright red Mustang. She was struck by the realization that she probably wouldn’t have ever become friends with this Noah. He wasn’t terrible. Just young in a way that she had never been. It was an uncomfortable, sideways thought.
“— and I would call it – are you ready – CHICKEN OUT. Get it? What do you want tonight? Oh, Mom, please get CHICKEN OUT.” Noah smacked Blue’s little ponytail so that it hit the top of her head. “You could wear a little paper hat! You could be the face of CHICKEN OUT.”
All at once, Blue lost patience. She exploded, “OK, Noah, stop beca—”
A cawing laugh from overhead silenced her. A few dry leaves floated down. Blue and Noah tipped their heads back.
Gwenllian, Glendower’s daughter, lounged in the sturdy branches above them, her long body leaned into the trunk, her legs braced against a smooth-skinned branch. As usual, she was a terrifying and wonderful sight. Her towering rain cloud of dark hair was full of pens and keys and twists of paper. She was wearing at least three dresses, and all of them had managed to hitch clear up to her hip through either climbing or intention. Noah stared.
“Hi ho, dead thing,” Gwenllian sang, taking a cigarette out of one side of her hair and a lighter from the other.
“How long have you been there? Are you smoking?” Blue demanded. “Don’t kill my tree.”
Gwenllian released a puff of clove-scented smoke. “You sound like Artemus.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Blue tried not to sound resentful, but she was. She hadn’t expected Artemus to fill a gaping hole in her heart, but she also hadn’t expected him to merely shut himself away in a closet.
Blowing a credible smoke ring through the dried leaves, Gwenllian shoved off the trunk and allowed herself to slide to a lower branch. “Your little shrub dweller of a father is not a very easy thing to know, oh blue lily, lily blue. But then again, that thing down there now is not easy to know, either, is it?”
“What thing – Noah? Noah is not a thing!”
“We came across a bird in a bush, a bird in a bush, a bird in a bush,” Gwenllian sang. She slipped down, and then down again, enough to dangle her boots at Blue’s eye level. “And thirty of its friends! You were feeling pretty alive-oh, little dead thing, between the two of us, weren’t you? Lily blue with her mirror-power, and lily gwen with her mirror-power, and you in the middle remembering life?”
It was annoying to realize that Gwenllian was probably right: This effervescent, lively Noah had almost certainly been made possible only by bookended psychic batteries. It was also annoying to see that Gwenllian had completely murdered Noah’s good mood. He had ducked his head so that nothing but the whorl of his cowlick was visible.
Blue glared up. “You’re horrible.”
“Thanks.” Gwenllian plunged to the ground with a great, flapping leap and stubbed out her cigarette on the beech’s trunk. It left a black mark that Blue felt mirrored on her soul.
She scowled at Gwenllian. Blue was very short and Gwenllian was very tall, but Blue very much wanted to scowl at Gwenllian and Gwenllian seemed intent on being scowled at, so they made it work. “What do you want me to say? That he’s dead? What’s the point of rubbing that in?”
Gwenllian leaned close enough that their noses brushed. Her words came out in a clove-scented whisper: “Have you ever solved a riddle you weren’t asked?”
Calla thought that Gwenllian had begun singing and riddling as a result of being buried alive for six hundred years. But looking at her gleefully bright eyes now, remembering how she’d been buried for trying to stab Owen Glendower’s poet to death, Blue also thought there was a very credible chance that Gwenllian had always been this way.
