Chapter

Fourteen

The vision of Solia tumbled its way through his mind. He’d seen her, a goddess, and she was real. He wished he could deny it, take comfort in ambiguity, but he couldn’t. She was real, she was out there, and she knew his name. But what did she want from him? Surely she’d saved his life and given him [Know What’s Real] for a reason. But what? There didn’t seem to be an answer, so he let the memory splash around in his mind until it started to fade.

Playing music with Jeffrey soothed the aftershock of having his third eye forced open to stare at the sun, and within a few days he was talking and laughing again.

The next month of Brin’s life was a lot less difficult than the previous two had been. He did his shift in the morning, played with the children, and practiced music when Jeffrey had time.

Jeffrey didn’t use any [Bard] Skills when they practiced together, he just made regular music. Sometimes he played simple things and had Brin repeat it. Other times Brin played a melody and Jeffrey played along, turning a wobbly, shaky solo into a magnificent duet. Mostly, though, he had Brin run through drills, building up his muscle memory. The exercises were painful sometimes but over the month he gained a little something from the System, three separate times.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Dexterity +1

Jeffrey’s music also warded off his nightmares. He slept perfectly every night, until Jeffrey went on the road again. That night, Brin dreamt of Travin’s Bog and the undead. He woke up on the floor, a blanket wrapped tight around himself, panicking at how warm he felt. He didn’t think he screamed—a small mercy.

Even after waking up completely he couldn’t shake the feeling that the army was out there. Just out of sight, behind the tree line. He pictured them lined up in ranks, waiting for him to be alone again.

Honestly, did he know they weren’t there? Hogg had mentioned that they didn’t know where the army was, and that was a very, very bad thing. For all he knew, they really were scouting out the town, setting up an ambush. It might not be long until he was living in the ashes of another dead town, watching this group of people rotting in the middle of the street until they slowly, one by one, joined the army that killed them. He could see Hogg, Zilly, Davi, even Perris, all zombified and wearing those eerie tight black clothes that all the undead soldiers had worn. They would attack him on sight, and before he’d die, he’d see a faint glimmer of recognition in their eyes...

He shook off those thoughts. He wasn’t the only one who knew about the undead. The entire kingdom was on the lookout now, and they didn’t need the help of a twelve-year-old boy. There was no reason for him to worry about it.

He set off for his chores, another day at the mill. Stocky, dependable Davi worked circles around him like always. But when the work was done and after the [Millers] passed them each a small loaf of warm bread for lunch, Davi slouched forward as if he were trying to look smaller, shifted his eyes back and forth at least three times, and then started quickly walking away from his family’s farm, towards the town walls.

Brin obviously had no choice but to follow him.

Davi zigzagged down the streets, crossing from boardwalk to boardwalk, even though you really weren’t supposed to do that. Luckily the day was dry enough that he didn’t track mud everywhere, but it was obvious to anyone paying attention that Davi felt extremely guilty about whatever it was he was about to do. Which just made Brin want to follow him more.

Lots of people were out and about, but no one gave the boy a second glance. After all, Davi was just walking down the street in the middle of the day. But just watching Davi’s body language, you’d think he was breaking into the Louvre.

More people gave Brin suspicious looks, which wasn’t fair. He was cool as a cucumber.

Davi ducked down an alley, and Brin followed close behind.

Behind the houses there was only the wall and one of the guard towers. The gates were half a mile the other direction. Brin hadn’t seen the inside of a guard tower, but they weren’t large enough to hide much. From the ground floor there looked to be just enough room for a ladder inside, or maybe a narrow spiral staircase.

Davi raised his hand to knock on the guard tower door, but took one last look around. He saw Brin, and jumped two feet in the air before leaning his shoulder against the door, no doubt trying to look casual.

“Hey, Brin. Uh, yeah, I’m just… All I’m doing is… I wanted to be alone for a minute. You know how it is,” said Davi.

Brin laughed. “Sure, Davi.” He walked past Davi and knocked on the guard tower door.

The door opened, and Zilly was on the other side. Her brown curls bobbed as she pulled open the door, smiling. Oh, shoot, was this a date? Davi and Zilly…?

“Finally! I wasn’t sure you were really going to—wait. Davi! I can’t bring my brother but you invited Brin?”

Oh. If Zilly had tried to bring her brother, then at least this wasn’t a… romantic encounter. How embarrassing would that have been?

“Your brother can’t keep up. And I didn’t invite Brin, he followed me!” said Davi, eyes wide in panic.

“He looked so suspicious, I knew I had to be a part of it. Whatever it is,” said Brin.

“Makes sense,” Zilly said, nodding sagely. Davi’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion until Zilly mouthed the word “[Rogue]” at him.

“What was that?” asked Brin.

“Nothing. We’re just waiting on Myra, then we can go,” said Zilly.

“Oh no. Do we have to?” asked Brin.

“Well Myra was actually invited, and you only got here a moment ago. You can hardly complain about waiting a few minutes,” said Zilly.

“It’s not that. It’s just… Myra. Let’s go without her,” said Brin.

“You don’t like Myra?” asked Zilly. “But she’s so sweet! Everyone likes Myra.”

Spoken like a true golden child. “She’s literally the worst.”

Despite his protests, they ended up waiting for Myra. Zilly let them into the guard tower, and Brin had guessed correctly. A very narrow spiral staircase led the way upwards to above the walls, where it opened up. It was fairly cramped inside, but only because Davi was an absolute unit of a twelve-year-old.

“So what are we doing?” asked Brin.

“We’re sneaking over to the snake pond,” said Zilly.

“Oh,” said Brin. That didn’t sound great. Like any sane person, snakes creeped him out. If he’d known this was their goal, he probably wouldn’t have come.

Except if he was honest with himself, he was waiting for an opportunity like this. He needed friends. He needed people to talk to. Sure, it would be nice to have friends his own age, but the problem was that there was no one his own age. People his mind’s age would see him as a child, even if they knew his secret like Hogg. People his body’s age were actual children. But at least children wouldn’t look down on him.

A knock sounded on the door. Zilly opened the door to find Myra.

Myra noticed Brin right away, and her innocent happy smile turned to a sneer as quick and easy as taking off a mask. “Oh. Brin’s here. Well, I should’ve expected it. Is someone breaking the rules? There Brin will be.”

One sign that [Weavers] weren’t as revered as everyone claimed was a little bit of slang that Brin had picked up: Instead of saying “You’re lying,” the people of Frenaria would say, “You’re weaving.”

“You’re the one who planned this. I’m just tagging along. But please go on. I love to see you weave your weaves, weaver,” said Brin.

“Better a weaver than a pre-[Witch],” said Myra.

Zilly gasped. “You can’t say that!”

Myra harrumphed. “Everyone is saying it.”

“Everyone didn’t know Siphani. But I did. And so did you,” said Zilly.

“Look, let’s just go already,” Davi said, chiming in for the first time.

Everyone was all too happy to comply.

The other kids suddenly hushed, and stepped on their tiptoes as they climbed the spiral staircase, as if they hadn’t just been having a loud conversation two seconds ago. Brin rolled his eyes, but copied them.

At the top of the tower deck, there wasn’t anything to look at. During wartime, if that ever happened, there would be archers up here and probably supplies, but for now it was empty. Davi tied a rope to the beam holding the roof up, then walked over and hopped off the edge.

One after another, the three kids rappelled down the side of the watchtower with practiced ease like they were special forces or professional rock climbers. Even Zilly and Myra in their nearly floor-length skirts glided down like it was nothing.

Brin followed suit, not nearly as smoothly, but he made it down without hurting himself. Maybe he’d been too quick to congratulate himself for catching up to the other children attribute-wise. Then again, these were the town’s three golden children. It was natural that they’d be more athletic than normal kids.

Though the area between the wall and the forest was completely clear, there was a farm only half a mile away, and several people working the field would see them easily if they looked in this direction. The four of them sprinted across.

Honestly, this was a dumb plan. Brin could think of at least six ways to sneak out past the walls without drawing any eyes. Somehow, no one saw them. Or no one cared.

It wasn’t exactly allowed for children to enter the forest, but it also wasn’t unheard of. Hogg claimed the [Hunters] and [Rangers] kept the area nearby completely clear of monsters, and the rest of the town acted like this was the case.

The forest was exciting rather than terrifying now that he wasn’t alone, and now that he knew he wouldn’t be immediately eaten by a horde of giant spiders. That particular memory put a chill in his spine, and he found himself scanning the area cautiously, even though he knew there was nothing there.

“What’s wrong? Scared of the forest, little Brin?” asked Myra.

“You would be, too, if you knew the kind of things that are out here,” said Brin.

“Oh? Maybe we’ll run into a relative of yours,” said Myra.

“Maybe,” said Brin.

He glanced behind, to see Zilly glaring daggers at Myra, who looked completely unapologetic.

It wasn’t exactly secret what had happened to Brin’s family. This body’s family, that is. The boy’s parents had probably died in the town and been taken by the undead. Maybe they had died with those that the Heroes had killed, but maybe they were still out there shambling around, looking for more unlucky villagers to kill. He didn’t think he’d ever know for sure.

“What other things did you see in the forest?” asked Zilly, to change the subject.

“I saw a giant spider,” said Brin.

“Oh, I’ve seen one of those!” Zilly said. “What else?”

“Not much. Things were pretty calm after I got rescued. You know, I don’t remember much from… before. But I remember a story about the forest. Want to hear it?”

“Yes please!” said Zilly.

“Once there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood…”

Little Red Riding Hood translated pretty easily to “Vercappsi.” It could all be said as one word in Frenarian, just like in the original German, a rare example of things taking less time to say in Frenarian than it would in English. He told the story fairly straight. Red goes to visit her grandma with a basket of food. She’s warned not to stray from the path, but she does anyway, and a wolf finds her. He stuck to the Grimm version, where the wolf swallows her grandmother and her whole, until they’re saved when a lumberjack cuts the wolf open.

So far, no one had liked his stories. Especially not his badly retold recitations of Star Wars. But these three liked “Little Red Riding Hood.” That story’s relevance had been lost to modern America, but these kids knew the forest, and the story stuck with them. He could see it on their faces.

When it was done, as if on cue, [Know What’s Real] showed him something on a tree branch up ahead. Something invisible.

He stopped. “What’s that?”

“Come on, Brin! Not funny!” said Zilly. She chuckled nervously, maybe a bit spooked from the story.

It was probably just one of Hogg’s invisible spies, watching his “son” to make sure he didn’t get into any real trouble. Brin almost appreciated the sentiment, but it still bothered him to be spied on.

Brin picked up a rock from the ground. It took a second to find one, as the soft ground around there was low on stone, but he found one and hurled it at the invisible something.

He missed, of course.

“Hey Davi, I need you to throw a rock, right where I say,” said Brin. “See the second branch of that fat tree? Right where it twists a bit the second time off the trunk…”

Of course Davi hit it the first time, going off of nothing except Brin’s directions. The invisible something disappeared without a sound.

“I guess it was nothing,” said Brin.

Zilly punched his shoulder. “You really had me going!”

The kids chuckled off their nerves and kept walking.

“Tell another one,” said Myra.

“Well, ok then,” said Brin. He told them Cinderella this time.

Lots of people who thought they knew more than they did would say the same thing anytime the conversation of Cinderella came up. Namely that Disney ruined the story, but in the real version it was much darker. The truth was that there was no “real” version. The Brothers Grimm never created any stories, they only wrote them down. Those stories had been passed down mother to child for literally hundreds of years before that. An earlier version of Cinderella was actually happier than the Disney version. In that version, Cinderella promptly forgave both of her stepsisters and did her best to find them rich suitors, and they all lived together happily in the castle. Brin didn’t tell that story. He told the version where the stepsisters cut off their toes to try to fit in the slipper, and where Cinderella, in her righteous fury, ordered her animal companion doves to pluck out their treacherous eyes.

Davi, Zilly, and Myra patiently waited for him to finish his story. Then, when it was finished and he said the words “happily ever after, The End” they all broke out in hysterical laughter, all at once on cue.

“That… that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Myra, gasping in between roars of laughter.

“What’s wrong with her feet that no one else in the kingdom has her shoe size? And they… they cut off their toes? Did they think he wouldn’t notice?” said Davi.

“And that love story. What’s with that? They just… love each other all of a sudden? He didn’t even know her name!” said Zilly.

“Oh come on. It’s a classic story! It’s time-tested. A thousand years older than Hammon’s Bog!” said Brin, though he really had no idea how old Hammon’s Bog was.

“It’s not even a love story,” said Zilly.

“Well I like it,” said Brin. “Not every love story has to start with them hating each other.”

“Um. Yeah, duh, it does. Otherwise it’s not a story,” said Zilly. “Hey, I’ve got a story like Brin’s. Two people met and then all of a sudden they were in love. The End.”

The three of them burst into laughter again, with Brin scowling, but mostly to play the part.

“Well, maybe I’ll be an [Illusionist]. Then I could make way better stories than the clichéd garbage Gustaff keeps playing,” said Brin.

“It’s like, a whole troupe of people that makes those movies. I doubt some hick from a swamp could even get hired on with them,” said Davi. “No insult intended.”

“What insult? Hick pride,” said Brin, then held his fist out. It wasn’t really a thing here, but Davi caught on and gave him a fist bump.

“Ok, one of you guys tell a story next,” said Brin.

“No need,” said Zilly. “We’re here.”