Playlist for the Dead

15. Despair

I TRIED TYPING BACK. Hayden, is that you? What’s going on?

But ArchmageGed was already gone. He was so annoyingly cryptic that I was starting to believe it really was Hayden’s ghost. I looked around the room, for some sort of sign that this was really happening, that I was even awake. The wizard figurine sat silently on my bookshelf, like it always did. Staring at me. I felt a chill in the air and saw goose bumps on my arms again. Did I really have a choice?

Maybe Mage Warfare was a good idea; I could really use a few kills.

I clicked on the icon.

I played on my computer for a while, as myself, and while there was something satisfying about going in and kicking ass, I didn’t see the point, ultimately—why would ArchmageGed have told me to play the game? And then, just when I was getting really irritated, my in-game chat window popped up.

Not here.

I heard the opening music of the game again, and I looked over at Hayden’s computer. Somehow the music was coming from there, even though I’d already shut it down. It was impossible, but no more impossible than the other things that were happening. I opened the laptop, unsurprised to find that it had already powered on, that Mage Warfare was already loaded, with Hayden’s character already logged in.

Okay, Archmage, I get it.

I played as Hayden for a while, just to see what would happen. I wandered through the woods in the game, finding a castle I usually ignored because the mission was to go in and save a bunch of serfs I normally didn’t care about. But I was ArchmageGed now, and it was my job to do things like that. It felt strange pretending to be him, and even stranger pretending to be him pretending to be someone else, especially since I felt an obligation to honor his playing strategy and fight for good, instead of just wreaking havoc like my character tended to do.

But it was getting me nowhere, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. What was the point of all of this? Why wouldn’t ArchmageGed just let me sleep?

I could almost feel the Archmage getting sick of me being so dense. Surely there was a reason he’d not-so-subtly nudged me over to playing Hayden’s game as Hayden on Hayden’s computer. I had to be missing something basic.

Thankfully, before ArchmageGed could make me feel like even more of an idiot by doing it himself, I figured it out. I clicked on the in-game chat window and waited. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for; maybe ArchmageGed would tell me I’d done the right thing, or would give me a hint about what I was looking for. But five minutes went by, and then ten, and I looked at the clock again to see that it was almost three in the morning. I couldn’t believe how the night had flown by, but my exhaustion had passed and now I was wired—there was no point in trying to sleep. I’d have to overdose on caffeine in the morning if I wanted to make it through school.

For now, though, it looked like I was on my own. Okay, Hayden, if you won’t come to me, I’ll find a way to you. I clicked on the chat logs. There were hours and hours of records of chats between me and Hayden, and a bunch of logs of chats with the random people we encountered in the game. Hayden was unfailingly polite to them, whereas I tended to get into online screaming matches with the strangers I encountered. But then, in addition to all the logs I was expecting to see, there were several files’ worth of chats with someone else.

Someone named Athena.

So Hayden had another friend in the game, one I’d never known about, one significant enough that he’d used the name Athena as his password. I couldn’t wait to find out more.

I decided to go back to the beginning. It had started last summer.

ArchmageGed: How lovely to meet such a fair maiden.

Athena: And thou as well, good sir.

Nauseating, but not shocking. Hayden had this thing about being courtly to female characters, as if the game were some extension of the Arthurian legend and not the thinly veiled excuse for violence it really was. It was the only place where he was willing to take the risk of actually talking to girls. Most of the time it bit him in the ass—there were tons of dudes who created weak-looking female characters to trick saps like Hayden into letting their guard down so they could steal their weapons or beat them up in the most humiliating of ways. If Trevor had been in the game, that was probably what he would have done; my initial reaction was to think that Hayden was being set up.

ArchmageGed: I see thou has accumulated much gold. Art thou as crafty as thou art beautiful?

Athena: I do not believe thou hast chosen the right adjective. Though I am but woman, I have studied the art of swordsmanship since I was a little girl. Every piece of gold I possess was hard fought. Athena is, after all, the goddess of war.

ArchmageGed: Forgive me, my lady, for making such an unfair assumption. I can see thou possesseth great skill.

She’d let him off the hook for that minor misstep; his chivalry, for once, was being rewarded. And while her player history bore out her claims about being good with a sword, it also indicated that she might really be a girl: she spent a lot of her accumulated gold on jewels and armor that looked like dresses. And she was definitely playing the fair maiden in those early chats with Hayden. It was enough to make me gag a little, but clearly they thought it was super cute. They carried on for hours; it was the flirtiest I’d ever seen Hayden. Whoever this girl was, she really seemed to like him. I didn’t yet know what role this Athena had played in Hayden’s decision, but I was starting to suspect it might be a big one.

I kept reading. They finally dropped the Lancelot/Guinevere-speak and started sounding like normal people after the first chat session.

ArchmageGed: I had a great time talking to you yesterday, but trying to remember all those “thous” and “dosts” was giving me a headache. Would it be okay if I was just myself today?

Athena: More than okay. I was starting to worry I’d have to find an Olde English dictionary. But you were doing a great job.

ArchmageGed: Thanks! I’m not usually a words person. It was fun to think of it like a puzzle.

Athena: I know what you mean. I would have kept going, just to keep talking to you. This is better, though.

They were like this at first, flattering each other a little, both wanting to make it clear that there was something there but without having to say it too openly. That broke down pretty fast, though, and after a week or so of chatting they started getting real.

ArchmageGed: Sometimes I worry that I’ll always feel as alone as I do now.

Athena: Me too. But it makes me feel less alone to know that you feel the same way.

It was so fucking sad. I hadn’t known Hayden thought that; we’d been around each other for such a long time that I’d felt like it would be a betrayal to admit to him how lonely I was, even with him as my friend, and it turned out he’d felt the same way the whole time. It made me think I could have been helpful, if I’d just spoken up. Even as I discovered there were other reasons Hayden might have made his decision, it still seemed even more my fault.

Still, I needed to know the whole story. I kept going, and so did the chat transcripts.

ArchmageGed: It’s so weird that we’ve never met, and yet I feel like I really know you.

Athena: You do know me. You know me better than almost anyone.

ArchmageGed: Do you really think so? Do you think it’s possible for us to know each other as well as we think we do, even though we don’t even know each other’s real names?

Athena: If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to make fun of me?

ArchmageGed: I would never do that. If you really know me, you have to know that.

Athena: I told my friend I had a boyfriend.

There was a pause in the transcript; I could only too easily imagine Hayden sitting in his room, completely freaking out, not knowing what to say. Finally:

ArchmageGed: Not to sound like an idiot, but did you mean me?

Athena: LOL. Of course I meant you. Did that freak you out?

ArchmageGed: No. It just made my day. My week. My year? You were serious?

Athena: As a heart attack.

Which meant that by the time school started, Hayden had his first girlfriend.

And he hadn’t told me.

I didn’t know what to think. My gut reaction was to be offended; we were best friends, and while he tended to be shy about revealing personal things—I’d always seen him as cryptic, but really, I knew how much of it was shyness—I had trouble imagining he’d hide something so significant from me.

But in some ways I could understand why. Because all I could think about was the possibility that Athena wasn’t really who she said she was. The voice in the transcript seemed real, and she was saying all these really open and honest things to Hayden, so much so that I felt a little ashamed reading them, like I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Which I basically was. But I couldn’t help but think of that Catfish thing where people used the Internet to totally humiliate people who thought they were in love. I didn’t think Ryan and his buddies were computer-savvy enough to trick Hayden in Mage Warfare, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some other unscrupulous person out to scam him. Hayden knew me well enough to know that I’d at least ask the question, and I was sure it was a question he wasn’t interested in discussing, let alone finding out the answer to.

I was getting tired again; it was hard keeping my eyes focused, and I found myself reading and forgetting to scroll and reading the same thing again. But it was too late to go to bed; the sun was going to come up soon. And besides, I had to know the whole story.

I finally got up to go to the bathroom, then went downstairs for a Coke—I needed caffeine now if I was going to get through this. The house was quiet in the way only an empty house can be—Mom was at work, and Rachel had taken the opportunity to go stay at Jimmy’s, though Mom would kill her if she found out. Every step I took seemed to echo off the walls. The old stairs creaked as I climbed them, which normally I could ignore, but tonight it kind of freaked me out. I kept expecting ArchmageGed to show up in person again, which I knew was crazy, but it didn’t stop my head from spinning around every time I heard a new noise.

Finally I took Hayden’s laptop into bed with me and continued reading. The relationship between ArchmageGed and Athena kept heating up; I’d gotten to the part where they talked about music, and I’d been right that a lot of the songs he’d put on the playlist came from her, like the one I was listening to now, a song that was a strange mix of desperately sad and optimistic. But things changed at the point where Hayden decided it was time for them to reveal their real names. Whereas Athena had always been open with him before, now she was withdrawing a little; I could see that this was going to be a real turning point for them. But I knew where Hayden was coming from. He wanted to know if this was real; he wanted more than an online relationship.

ArchmageGed: I get that you probably live a million miles away, or are a hundred years old, or a dude, or whatever, but you can tell me. I’ll get over it. I just want to know who you really are.

Athena: It’s not like that.

ArchmageGed: That’s even better, then.

Athena: Not necessarily.

ArchmageGed: I don’t understand. We’ve already said that we know each other better than anyone else. I feel so close to you, but I need to know whether this is real.

Athena: It’s more complicated than you realize.

ArchmageGed: I’ll uncomplicate it. Hi, I’m Hayden Stevens. I’m sixteen. I’m a sophomore at Libertyville High in Iowa. See, it’s not so hard. And now you know who I am. But if you don’t tell me who you are, it’s over.

There was a gap in the time stamps of the chat transcript. Athena was clearly thinking things over.

Athena: Fine. But I want to do it in person.

ArchmageGed: Really? How?

Athena: All those things you just told me—I already knew.

ArchmageGed: How?

Athena: I’m from Libertyville too.

There was another gap in the transcript while he processed what she’d just said. It probably completely freaked Hayden out.

ArchmageGed: So we didn’t meet randomly here.

He’d figured something out, anyway.

Athena: We had some help. I’ll explain everything when we meet.

ArchmageGed: Where? When?

I could tell he wanted her explanation to be a good one, one that was fitting of who he believed her to be.

Athena: There’s a party next weekend at Stephanie Caster’s house. We can meet there.

ArchmageGed: If you really know who I am, you’ll understand why that might not be the best place.

Athena: It wasn’t my idea. That friend I told you about—she thinks it will work. There will be a ton of people there. No one will pay attention to us.

ArchmageGed: Why can’t we go somewhere and be alone?

Athena: Because I’m afraid.

ArchmageGed: Of me? I promise, I’m not scary.

Athena: I’m not so good with people. And I’m afraid that when you meet me I won’t be what you wanted me to be. I really want to talk to you in person, but I need to feel safe.

She was pretty self-aware; she knew herself well enough to know that being honest with someone at home in front of a computer screen was very different than dealing with them in real life.

But she’d given me one of the pieces of the puzzle—why we were at that party in the first place.

Who was Athena? Had she even showed up? How did she know how to find Hayden in the game?

My mind was racing again. I didn’t know where to start figuring out the answers to all my questions. I finally looked away from the computer to realize that I could see the sun rising. It was almost time for school—I really had stayed up all night. The questions would have to wait. I closed my eyes. With the computer still sitting on my chest, I started to drift off. But right before I fell asleep, I came up with one more:

How did Astrid know about Athena?