2.7

 

Previous

I didn’t want to go home. But I didn’t want to go back to the clearing either. Fuck. I had that same feeling in my stomach that preceded me pushing past that voice in my head and skipping school.

Why hadn’t I taken Ellie’s offer? Why wasn’t I walking back with her right now like I would have been even a couple months ago? Maybe I hoped everyone would forget about my mood tonight and tomorrow would just be a big reset. I could arrive with my mask back on and could pretend like I’d always been like this.

I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to wander through the woods in the early morning a couple weeks ago. I knew I could deal with whatever shit I encountered in her now. A quick transformation and wham, bam, the creepy guy following me was done.

I stopped walking once I was far enough away that I knew my friends weren’t following me and that they couldn’t see or hear me. My fingers felt sharp as I pressed my hands against my face. Or maybe just grabbed my head was more accurate. The tips dug into my hairline and cheeks a bit.

Fuck, I felt confused. And groggy. I was tired and that tiredness was compounding on top of the last couple days that felt like I just needed to get through them and I could reset to my normal. But that fucking reset wasn’t coming. I just wanted to sit in the dark for two days and pretend I was the only person on earth.

But my door was becoming a flimsier barrier than it had really ever seemed. My dad hadn’t spoken to me since our fight. Argument. Fucking whatever it was. But I could hear him walking and stomping around angrier than usual even though he hadn’t shouted or made a single noise to confirm he was pissed. Anytime his footsteps passed my room I tensed. Because it was either going to be another list of things I was doing wrong that I couldn’t argue against or it was going to be an apology that was never going to change anything.

I took in long, aggressive breaths. My stomach was twisting and my chest felt heavy and the motion from my stomach was trying to bring that weight up into my head and eyes. Fuck. I hated crying. Wasn’t going to cry. Wasn’t necessary or worth it. My fingers dug deeper into my scalp and bones and skin and I could feel my nails carving tiny imprints.

I let my hands fall and then just started walking. At first I had no real direction. Away was more along the lines of what I was thinking. Then after a minute or two or three of aimless and fast walking that safety voice in the back of my head started worrying about how deep into the woods we were wandering without paying attention and I stopped and looked around.

To the portal then. I was close enough.

I had no plans to go back inside. I’d promised I wouldn’t. And Lady had very plainly explained why that was a bad idea.

I know you’re smart Pandora, but you act pretty fucking stupid sometimes

And

All three of you are intelligent. Please continue to display that going forward

It felt the same to me. Doing dumb stupid things that felt dumb and stupid in the moment but were overridden by some lack of voice in my head that let me fall into these deep dives of shit. Skipping class and jumping into branches without much backup. Arguing with my dad even though I’d never done it because I knew there was no way to win.

Sometimes when I sat alone in my room, with music on to block out the noise of everything and my face turned to the wall to block out the light and the sights, it felt almost like floating in a sensory deprivation tank. I was disconnecting everything that tethered me to this world and letting myself pretend I was nothing. Therefore nothing could touch me and bother me and pull me down.

Now I was starting to feel those connections slip away outside the dark and the silence of my little personal void. And part of that lack of lines was me not finding a way to care that this was happening. I was hanging over a big pit by precious few threads and nothing in me was screaming for the eldritch giant holding scissors to stop snipping.

I had slowed down as I got closer to the doorway. I hadn’t really meant to. I just really wanted to get through whatever train of thought was riding through my head before I reached my destination. But some vague instinct told me to look up and suddenly the clearing we had fought the shades in blossomed before me. I slowly looked down and saw my toes settled right before the line of foliage I’d have to cross to enter. I sighed and breathed deep and scuffed the vinyl tips of my sneakers and walked forward.

Pedro was at the portal again. I walked through the clearing and through the trees and scuffed my shoes and kicked dirt for another few minutes and then I hit the strange bent tree and it’s companion supporting it. He was walking around the doorway, drawing things on it with coloured markers and writing down in a notebook. A gym bag and backpack were dropped not-very-gracefully a few feet away from the left side of the door. The gym bag was splayed open and had a couple labeled bottles I couldn’t read along with various boxes.

I stopped when I saw his silhouette because my lizard-brain got startled by another shape in the forest and wanted to run. Then I saw the boots and the scruffy jeans and the scruffy hair and recognized him, even from the back. He was wearing some sort of short-sleeved collard shirt that fluttered in a way that looked like it was an undone button-up. He looked like a mechanic at a garage.

He turned to throw the red marker he had in his hand back into the gym bag and also startled a bit when he saw me. He relaxed almost instantly and completed the underhand throw that put the writing utensil in it’s place.

“Hi.” He said. Nodded at me like guys do.

“Hi.” I replied. He gave me a small distracted smile and began to flip through his notebook again. We spent a solid minute in silence as he padded along the floor of dead leaves and fallen twigs and glanced at the door every so often.

“You’ll find out from Shannon but we just had a meeting. Figured out how to beat this thing, we think.” Pedro stopped and look back at me. Made a sound like huh or uh and I took that as permission to continue talking.

“Those small dudes. The guys who were praying or whatever. They feed it through worship or belief, but once they die that kinda stops, so it can use them to heal itself.”

“So we gotta get through all of them before we can kill the thing?’ Pedro asked. His notebook was hanging by his side, almost closed save for a finger slipped between the two pages he had been looking at.

“Or play keep-away long enough for us to do enough damage.” Pedro nodded slowly at that. Turned to look at the doorway and stared in silence for a few moments.

“So what’s my role in this?” He asked. I shrugged at that.

“Originally I was here to maybe close the gate, if you guys couldn’t beat this thing. That’s what Lady told me, anyways.” He pondered the doorway again for a bit before continuing.

“Maybe could find a way to temporarily close it so nothing escapes…” he trailed off into muttered words. Caught something about trapping us and that was it.

“What’s this?” I gestured to the bags and the runic drawings and his notebook after another few moments of silence. Pedro cleared his throat and looked at me and then stepped back and took his work in.

“It’s, uh. Hmm.” He paused for a moment and cleared his throat again.

“Our language. For mages. Doesn’t really have a spoken equivalent from what I know, although some really old, esoteric families may have some books that say otherwise, who knows with people like them. Most of us just call it Silent Speech.” He trailed off a bit and made a correction to one of the runes.

“It’s how magic is done?”

“Yeah, partially. Magic is usually a weird hodgepodge of the Speech, some basic geometric connecting shapes, maybe a power source from some sort of creature and some chanting in one of the old human languages. Latin, different forms of Ancient Greek, Sanskrit are the big ones I’ve heard. I’ve caught some Coptic and really old European stuff as well, Old Norse and English and High German.”

“Huh.” I didn’t really know what half of those even related to. But I didn’t want to say that.

“The Speech represents ideas for each symbol more than words. So like, humans have something like apple and it means the fruit. And some of the Speech, it’s like that, the runes for fire and water and all that, but other things can be a bit up for interpretation; there’s one that lets you bind, capture, whatever, but it’s also used to represent safety and security. That sort of thing.”

“So you have to be careful with how you write the stuff around it?” I asked. My words were slow and measured out very carefully. I liked that Pedro seemed swept up in telling me about this though. Like he’d been dying to let someone know and it was all coming out now. It made it seem like he wasn’t really focused on me as a person and it made it easier to talk. To not be weird and awkward.

“Uh, yeah, basically. Context matters. I’ve never written anything more complicated than the equivalent of a third-grader writing full sentences. Some of the smarter and more moneyed people can write spells that basically look like peaking into computer code to me. And that, uh, that requires a lot of fucking power.” He looked over at me quickly as that curse word slipped out and when I didn’t react, continued on with the last word.

“Huh.” I said again. I didn’t really know what else to say. This was really fucking cool and for not-the-first-time I was wishing I was just a mage and not a magi. Less power and less responsibility. But I didn’t want to say any of that because it sounded lame and would make me sound lame. So my brain just drew a blank. Like usual.

“You okay?” He asked. I blinked once. Blinked again. My first reaction was confusion. How did he know about the fight with my dad and Lady and Shannon seemingly being unhappy with me and everything else surrounding that. But he didn’t. We had been in a fight together. That’s all he was asking about.

The few seconds of too much silence seemed to have taken him aback. I don’t think he expected me to shut down when eh asked that. It wasn’t a hard question.

“Yeah. Arm still hurts.” I wriggled my fingers even though they hadn’t been affected. Tried to fully extend my left arm and got to the point where I had ten degrees left until it was straight, maybe. Had to stop then. I winced. More for him than for myself. Performative emotions that made other people feel comfortable around me.

I gently brushed the sleeve of my very baggy t-shirt up to show the bruise on my arm. Going purple now. Had a hell of a time sleeping last night, being a side-sleeper. Pedro raised his eyebrows at it. Whistled a little, although the sound came through dry lips so it was a bit choppy.

“You?” I asked back. He shrugged.

“Nothing physically or mentally scarring. Drained a couple resources I wanted to keep. But that’s life, I guess.” He paused for a moment and looked towards the door.

“Although that was the worst creature I’ve fought by far.” He stated absent-mindedly.

“How did you manage to set those guys on fire?” I asked. Magic felt cool to talk about. Being a magi used to feel cool to talk about as well. A distraction from my dad and school and my future. Now I was fucking that up as well, in slow motion.

“Very very very tiny amount of power from an elemental. Kept it in my zippo lighter.” He fished through his jeans pocket and took out said lighter. It looked a bit charred around the edges. Had a symbol encased in a circle carved into the metal body. There was a bit of what I think was dried blood on the thing. And now I also noticed the not-my-flesh toned Band-Aid around his right thumb. Probably connected.

“How did that work?” I asked. He smiled at me again. Less distracted this time. Crooked and lopsided but fully focused on me.

“If you weren’t a magi I’d be a lot more weary about telling you this.” I shrugged at that. Let out a little air of laughter.

“Won’t tell. Promise.”

“Yeah, you three seem alright, I know. And Lady already gave me the rundown of how you know literally nothing about this world. Doubt you’d even know where to go to sell this info.” I nodded at that. He wasn’t wrong. If this was what permeated the bigger cities, I was even more worried to visit Toronto now.

“I do feel way too young for an apprentice though.” He let out a ghost of a chuckle at his own kind-of-lazy joke-slash-comment. I did too.

“That would at least get me out of here.” Halfway through the sentence I was already muttering the words because I very much didn’t want to have stated that. Humour and a kind-of easy back-and-forth had made me comfortable for one fucking second. Bleh. Fuck Pandora. I looked down at the ground and dug my fingers into the skin near my gently-throbbing bruise to try top distract myself from my words and the pain.

I had imagined me not as a magi, for just a moment. Getting classes from Pedro on a new alphabet of sorts, on how this combines with that and how you can do this but not that. And then I’d just go back to Toronto with him. Apprentice and teacher. Something simple but fulfilling I could do that let me get away from Atwood and family and the terrifyingly and cripplingly boring plain stretching out for the rest of my life. School and school and maybe more school and then for sure a job I couldn’t and wouldn’t stand.

And for an even shorter and guiltier second, a thought of getting away from my friends.

Nothing was said for a few moments. This was my least favourite part. The stretched awkwardness that went on into infinity until throats were cleared and one of us made some excuse to leave.

“You eaten yet?” he said suddenly. When I looked up from underneath my eyebrows and eyelashes, he was tossing his notebook in the gym bag and bending down to, I assume, zip it up.

And now another part of my brain suddenly turned on. Flashed a couple low-key sirens in my head. Lady and Shannon and Ellie had never given me an exact age but he was maybe twenty or twenty-one. Would probably be going to college or university. If he didn’t hunt down weird magical artifacts for a living.

And I was seventeen. At least three years younger. I knew how I came off to a lot of people. Awkward and stoic, maybe, if you were feeling generous and wanted to make me sound cool. I knew a lot of older guys would latch on to that like a fucking leech. Because yeah, some stupid, deep part in my stomach went wow, this older guy just asked you to breakfast! But nothing else about me really liked it.

I had seen this a lot at school already. Atwood had its fair share of graduates who just never fucking left.

I think he noticed something about my hesitation and seemed to maybe key in on the fact he was alone in the woods with a younger and not-of-legal age girl and maybe rewound the words he had spoken in his head. His eyes slid to the side and he seemed to look off into the distance before snapping back to me.

“I did in fact mean that platonically. Very very platonically.” He quickly zipped up the gym bag and then stood and placed fingers around the bridge of his nose. He grimaced a bit.

“Yeah. Fuck. Don’t really think about how these things come off sometimes. Sorry. Hundred percent didn’t mean to come off like a dude zeroing in on the youngest girl at the bar or whatever.”

“It’s fine.” I said. Waved my hands around vaguely and let out another breath of air. A kind-of laugh. My shoulders must have visibly relaxed or something because he also looked severely less stressed after that.

“I haven’t eaten yet. Didn’t want to leave you in the middle of the woods. Even though you could probably rip me in half if I was a threat to you.” He trailed off and winced a bit as he stopped talking.

“Offer’s still open though.” I thought for a second. I was hungry. And I wanted to know more about all this. It was like studying for something I actually cared about. That probably wasn’t useful to me in any Particular way but whatever. I nodded.

“Know any good places?” He asked. Again, I nodded.

 

 

Amy did look mildly concerned about who the fuck I had brought on a solo outing to the Gull, but took our orders without any fuss and flashed us a couple of her patented smiles as she left. Breakfast poutine for me. Eggs and carbs and assorted meats for Pedro. He waved off my attempt to get something small and cheap after he’d told me he was paying. We both sipped water to stave off the midsummer heat.

“So what’s this place like?” Pedro asked. I blinked. Opened my mouth to clarify whether he was talking about the Gull when he continued on.

“Atwood, I mean. Town. Although feel free to give me your opinion on this place as well.”

“The Gull’s good. Amy and the other waitress Leia know us well, because this is kind of the only non-alcoholic place that serves food. So we come here a lot after school and on weekends.” Pedro nodded and sipped at his water. Didn’t say anything. Played with the condensation on his glass a bit.

“Atwood is like a lot of other small towns I guess. From what I’ve read and seen or whatever.” I paused. Let the pause draw out for longer than I meant to. Because I was stuck on what to say. My opinion of Atwood was really fucking low. But I didn’t want to get into any of that with someone I was actually having an okay time with because it all sucked. My dad and my lack of a huge friend group because I’d seen the same people for almost twenty years now and I knew I didn’t like most of them. The fact that I needed to get into university because if I got stuck here and Shannon and Ellie left I may never get out. I’ve seen people that said they were taking a year off. Five years later they’re still working down at one of the bars.

“Probably have to agree with you on that. Seems pretty average for rural Ontario.” Pedro said. Picked up the slack from the very obvious silence.

“You been to a lot of small towns?” He nodded at that while he sipped some water, and then did a so-so gesture with his hand that wasn’t steadying the glass.

“I’m not a seasoned traveler or anything. I’ve been around a lot of southern Ontario for jobs. So yeah, I’ve been to a couple small places. Some were, uh, really small. They gave me commune vibes, so I wasn’t in them long.” I quirked my eyebrow up as he said that. He sighed and I saw a smile touch the edges of his lips.

“Can’t remember where it was off the top of my head. Drove into the place around midday and it was overcast but not raining. And there was maybe ten houses and some train tracks and a small sign that pointed to a downtown-“ He put finger quotation marks around that word ”-and everyone was just standing in the street talking or sitting on their porches. Twenty or thirty people all just stared at me as I drove into the town. I didn’t love that. Was very lucky I didn’t have a job there. Was just passing through.”

“Huh.” I said. Took a sip of water. He nodded sagely at that.

Amy brought us our meals at that point and the silence that was on it’s way to creeping up on us because of me was interrupted. She gave us another smile and seemed slightly less uneasy about whatever she thought was going on here. We spent the first minute or two eating and drinking before we settled down a bit.

“What’s Toronto like?” I asked. Suddenly. Even for me. I was almost as surprised at the words as Pedro was.

“It’s, uh. Well, I guess compared to Atwood it’s fucking huge.” He tripped over that curse word again and gave me another look. I didn’t say anything.

“There’s a lot more variety in basically everything. You and me definitely don’t stand out at all.” I remembered that. In the moment, as a young kid, I really didn’t take that in on our visit. I was too busy being surly and scared and clinging to my mom. But looking back at the memories in hindsight I realized how much the three of us blended into the crowd. Not really the case in Atwood. You’d be able to pick me out of a lineup if it consisted of my entire school, I think.

“It’s, yeah. Kind of hard to describe a place when you’ve just grown up there your entire life. Feels obvious to you.” He chewed for a moment or two and then gestured to me with his now-empty fork.

“Any of you three planning on going there?” He asked. A question prodding a subject I was uncomfortable with.

“Shannon wants to go to U of T for medicine. Become a doctor.” Pedro’s eyebrows raised at that one. “Ellie is thinking of psychology as a base. Decide her graduate program when she sees what she really enjoys.” I pushed the dregs of soggy fries and cheese and meat and egg around with my fork.

“Any plans for you?” Ah fuck. I kind of let myself be cornered by that one. Fuck.

“Uh-no. Don’t really know yet.” My voice was quiet on that part. As if it would matter less if it wasn’t as clear.

“I didn’t really know either. As you can see.” He gestured to himself and his car outside, I think. “You got time.”

I shrugged at that. Felt something building in the pit of my stomach and my chest and behind my eyes. Like a sinus headache and pressurized tears. Fuck fuck fuck.

“It’s easier in Toronto. Actual shit to do if you’re not in school.” I said. Quietly again. Pedro looked at me and my eyes fell down to my bowl. Unfinished. Hunger was gone again. I’d finished two-thirds of it, which was a landslide record for me in recent months.

Pedro didn’t stop looking at me after a couple passing moments though. I felt him staring at me for ten or twenty seconds.

“That why you mentioned wanting to get out of here?” He asked. Not lowly. Not seriously. He said it casually but with weight. It didn’t feel like a guidance counsellor at school asking about this seventeen-year old’s problems that he made specifically feel like a seventeen-year old’s problems.

“Yeah.” I paused. Felt my throat and tongue and teeth and lips try to block it but it came out anyways. “Feels like this place is gonna suck me in if I don’t leave. Like quicksand.”

Because my dad was still here. And his life wasn’t a life. Nate had gone but he’d left me behind as a sacrificial lamb or some fucking whatever. My mom had left. Went to Toronto after seeing what Atwood was doing. And she had died. Hadn’t even got setup, really. So her kids got to stay in Atwood. That was the price.

Pedro didn’t say much to that at first. He took a sip of water and swished it around in his mouth for a couple moments.

“You tell anyone else how you feel?” I shrugged at that. His glass clinked dully against the table as he set it down.

“Shannon and Ellie kind of know. A bit.” My hands were clasped together in my lap now. I wasn’t really aware of when I’d moved them. I was staring down at the remains of my breakfast. It looked as unappealing as a corpse right now.

“Parents?” I shook my head. My first thought was to make the action as violent and sudden as possible. It felt right because fuck no. The hesitation of social awkwardness made it a small action.

“Mom’s dead. Dad’s-“ I swallowed. Just to interrupt the sentence. I had eight different things I could have plugged into that blank spot. Shitty. Unable to listen. Selfish. Whatever. It all felt like it wasn’t enough to explain the depth of the fucking problem. I could never communicate this to anyone without sounding like a spoiled, stupid fucking teenager who wanted to rebel against her dad.

“Sore spot?” Pedro asked. This time it was pitched low. He was staring down into his food as well. Biting his lower lip. I nodded. Clenched and unclenched my hands.

“Yeah.” He paused. Cleared his throat. His tone sounded like this was a sore spot for him as well. “Yeah.”

I nodded again.

“I wanna say everything I do feels wrong but I think every teenager would say that. It’s-“ I paused this time. Swallowed heavily. That pressure was back. Someone was finally being nice to me and it didn’t feel judgmental and I didn’t hear any criticism and now the fucking dam wanted to open and let everything out. All the tears. All the words.

No. Fuck. Just be normal. Say a normal amount of things.

“I feel like a dog who was given to a trainer to be trained. And then the owners just never came back. The trainer only knows how to train so that’s how it raises the dog.” Pedro was looking at me now. I could see it in my peripheral vision. He was slowly stirring the remains of his breakfast around with a fork or something. Listening but using his hands.

Nothing yet. No critiques. No ways I could do better. Okay.

“All these lectures and pointing out my mistakes and talks feel- like an obligation. Like- I don’t know, like I just need to listen. No opinions necessary. My brain isn’t a thinking thing. It’s just here to be filled and to listen.” That was the best way I could put these stupid fucking jumbled thoughts. My head was broiling right now because I always pictured telling someone this with advanced warning. A boyfriend or a new friend I’d known for a while.

“Yeah. I, uh- yeah. Don’t talk with my parents anymore. Get it.” He cleared his throat again. Opened my mouth to ask but he continued. As if he didn’t wanna wait for the question.

“They had a whole thing with my sister. Big Catholic parents. Us two kids weren’t not Catholic. Just a bit looser with it. She was gay. Then she mentioned it and she wasn’t allowed in the house anymore so I went with her.” He took a sip of water. I nodded. Put my hands back up on the table.

“Don’t really know what you wanna take from that but- but she’s still here. I’m still here. We talk.” I took a deep breathe as he finished. It shuddered a bit as it came out again. No crying. Do not fucking cry.

“Okay.” Another nod. I sipped my water that hadn’t been touched for a few minutes now. I didn’t want to mention Nate. Because there was no way I could have come with him. No way I could have asked him. University student in Toronto can probably barely feed himself. Let alone a fucking dependent. And our dad would have just said no. Absolutely fucking no.

Which is probably why he hadn’t asked me. But now he was gone. I wasn’t. And we didn’t talk.

Pedro paid the bill. Went back to his elemental lighter and told me about it. He’d pricked his thumb and smeared some blood on the thing. Explained something about enchanted items needing both a power source and a charge. Which could apparently come from the same creature. He’d only been lucky enough to get a single charge in the thing. So, his own energy as a power source. He’d slept for fourteen hours that night, so he said.

“Do you want a ride home?” He asked. The door hit the bell as it closed behind us, and the little ring was partially muffled. I shook my head.

“Don’t wanna have to explain that to my dad.” He moved his head side-to-side as he nodded.

“Yeah, that’s fair enough.” He pulled out a carton of cigarettes as we reached his car. I must have visibly blanched at that even though I’d wanted to keep my face steady.

“I know. Quitting soon. It’s hard when you’re constantly on the road.” I nodded at that. Didn’t really know much about that lifestyle so I just agreed.

Before he flicked the lighter open he paused. Kept the cigarette between his lips and pulled his phone out.

“If you need anything like back in there, we can trade numbers. Up to you.”

I looked at the device in his hand for a second. Then two. Then three. Then nodded. Softly at first and then with a bit more certainty. So we exchanged numbers. I sent him a sunglasses emoji to test it worked. The empty half of his mouth turned up in a bit of a smile. He gave me a small salute as I turned the direction of my dad’s house and began to ten or so minute walk.