Otherbound

31

Nolan couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t go to school. His parents had been watching him, and he couldn’t prove he was getting better, and soon … Nolan didn’t think they’d fill the rest of the prescription. He’d heard them fight about it. Inside the house his parents usually talked in Spanish, with Dad throwing in what little Nahuatl he knew, and fights were no exception. This time they peppered their shouts with English words, which was how Nolan knew it was serious. They used whatever words came to mind.

Mom said Nolan was getting worse, not better, and that Grandma Pérez said they needed to be tougher on him. Dad said that unless Dr. Campbell agreed the pills were harmful, it was Nolan’s opinion that mattered most—if he said he felt better, they couldn’t force him to stop.

At the dining table on Friday, Nolan thought they’d agreed with each other. Apparently not.

“What’s going on with you?” Pat stood in the doorway to his bedroom. Her eyes spat fire, but the rest of her seemed reserved. The way she used to be around him.

Nolan had been screwed up for most of Pat’s life; he didn’t know when she’d first given up on him. He thought this might be the second time.

Pat held out his old notebook. “Explain. You’re not writing a book.”

“How would you know?” He put the notebook on his desk, next to the new one that lay open in front of him. He’d have to keep the last half of the old notebook empty; if he wrote anything new after already breaking in the other one, he’d mess up the order.

“You don’t even read,” Pat said. “And you would’ve told Mom and Dad. You know it’d make them happy.”

“I’m not writing a book,” he agreed.

Pat blinked as if she hadn’t expected that answer. “I asked Mom and Dad who Amara and Maart and those others were. They wouldn’t tell me.”

“Don’t—don’t say that name.” Nolan shook his head. “You know those hallucinations I used to have? Amara was in them.”

“So that means you’re still having those hallucinations?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“But what about the part where you write about how all of a sudden you can change things because of the pills? And where you’re talking about, oh, is this a hallucination or isn’t it? Your doctors always said the way you acted wasn’t right for seizures. And the pain? And walking off at dinner? Stop lying,” she pleaded.

“Should I say it’s real? You wouldn’t believe that.”

“No. You need to tell Mom and Dad you’re still seeing things.” She pointed at the notebook. “It’s not healthy. And now you’re acting like this and … in the journal you wrote … I’m worried, OK?”

“Do you think it’s real?”

“Of course not.” Her pointed finger went from the notebook to him, accusatory. “But I think you think it’s real. Don’t you?”

And just like that, tears burned in his eyes. His face flushed with heat. As if all of a sudden he couldn’t breathe.

“Nolan, I didn’t mean—”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. It didn’t help. “I really—” he said, and gasped in a breath, “I really wish I didn’t.”

“Didn’t believe it’s real, you mean?” Pat sounded quieter.

On the Saturday Amara had scratched her arm in that cell, Nolan had shakily tried to make himself breakfast. He’d dropped a cheap jar of peanut butter when the wood tore Amara’s skin. He’d screamed and squeezed his arm, whole and uninjured but hurting like hell.

He thought of Ruudde’s threats.

“It would be a lot easier if it wasn’t real,” he whispered—

—and when he closed his eyes the moment Pat left his room, Ruudde was there, standing outside the cell’s bars. His arms were crossed, obscuring part of his tattoo, which glowed so fiercely it pulsed.

“Oh, good,” Ruudde said. “Talking to Amara can be so exhausting. Why do you bother going home, anyway? I always thought the moment you learned control, you’d either stay on Earth or claim Amara permanently.”

If Nolan were in his own body, he’d narrow his eyes, clench his jaw.

Amara did it for him.

“Talk to me, kid.”

Amara was waiting for Nolan to take over. She expected him to push her to the back of her mind and step forward. He supposed he deserved that. He’d taken over at the farm in Roerte. He did it whenever he went to sleep or woke up, to warn her, like he’d promised, and he felt her despair every time. He’d felt it two days ago, in the form of wood stabbing her arms.

“This world has magic. It could destroy us if we’re not careful …” Ruudde extended his hands. Tiny lightning bolts twined between his fingers, creeping up his arms like electricity, and he kept them a fraction of an inch away from his skin, just barely touching, just barely safe. “But it’s magic. From bedtime stories and fairy tales. What’s so good in your own life that you refuse to accept this gift? We could time things better, if you want. If Amara sleeps while you’re awake, you’ll have both lives.”

It’s all right, Amara thought. Answer him.

“How did you keep Cilla alive right after she was cursed?” Nolan asked. He’d keep his movements to a minimum. In and out. The more Ruudde pushed him toward taking over, the less he wanted to. “You discovered Amara by accident, right? You must’ve seen her in the palace at some point and recognized my presence, or you saw her heal. When you realized she was still in control, not me, you had Jorn take us away.

“The thing is, to realize you needed Amara, you’d need to know about the curse, which meant it activated at least once before you found her. So how did you keep Cilla alive then? She was only a toddler. They injure easily. You either used magic to keep her alive—and you wouldn’t have risked that—or you used your own healing.”

Ruudde only watched him. Not a flicker of emotion.

“That’s what happened, isn’t it? One of you smeared her blood on yourself and endured whatever the curse threw at you, and you cowards decided, oh, that’s not what you came to this world for! Pain wasn’t part of the deal!”

His signs sped up. “So you find a little healing girl whose tongue you already cut and you hold her down and smear Cilla’s blood on her instead, and when she’s done screaming, you tell her that’s what life will be like from now on.”

Nolan lifted his chin. “Am I right?”

Ruudde smiled thinly. “Grow up, kid.” He turned to walk away. As he went, he called, “You’re running out of time.”