Sword and Song Page 6

  “Eschew them. Avoid them.”

  “Oh. I thought you said chew.”

  They’re both laughing. “No, no . . . Eschew was my word of the day earlier in the week, so I’ve got to find multiple seemingly natural ways to work it in. So I learn it and it sticks.”

  She’s totally a geek, he’s totally falling for her, his stomach turns and sends electricity down his thighs; he can’t stop smiling. “What’s your word for today?”

  “Incipient.”

  “How have you worked that one in?”

  “Incipient, as in incipient madness.”

  She’s stopped smiling, shit, what did he say wrong? “Ah. Well, I don’t eschew cell phones. I just . . . you know. When I was a kid . . . No, it’s too embarrassing.”

  “Come on. You’ve got to tell me now.” Good, the sparkle is back.

  He takes a deep breath. “When I was a kid,” he lies, “I loved all that stuff about, you know, the lost chosen one who saves . . . you know. Knights. And wizards and stuff.”

  Her eyes get big and her face opens. “Chosen knights and wizards.”

  “Yeah. . . .” Why is she staring at him? “I’d imagine I was a knight or a lost prince come to save my people. Just kid stuff. It’s embarrassing.” He’s glad he pretended it was a kid thing.

  Ophelia says something so quietly he has to ask her to repeat it. “Me too.”

  “You’re a knight?”

  “No. You’re right, it is embarrassing. A . . . like a chosen . . . sorcerer.”

  “Sorcerer.”

  She nods. “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of being able to bring things together, to shape . . . I guess shape energy. And being able to transform into . . . maybe different creatures?”

  Her head droops again.

  “A sorcerer.” Yeah, he can see it. Something about it suits her—her volatile moods, her burning eyes.

  “A wizard. Like Harry friggin’ Potter.” She meets his gaze again and the smiling is back, the insane way he can’t stop smiling around her.

  “Maybe you are. Or were. In another life.”

  She raises one eyebrow the way his mother does, but on her it’s cute. “I don’t know how many wizards looked like me in medieval Europe.”

  “Oh.” He thinks about this. “But is . . . I mean, is it Europe? In your imagination, I mean.” He has asked himself this. It’s not Europe, not really, Antilia. In some ways it might be, but not quite. For one thing there are lions, and places that look like the haunting limestone hills of China. There are fjords but also sandy beaches, and blue water, so blue it hurts your eyes to look at it. Rowan shakes his head; what’s he thinking? That Ophelia has the same imaginary place? Stupid. The band’s going on again—good, it’ll stop this stupid conversation he’s started.

  Ophelia’s not letting go. “Maybe,” she’s saying. She looks thoughtful. “Yeah, maybe it’s more . . . because you’d really only love the actual past if you were a nobleman. No matter where in the world you were, for the most part.”

  “Of course. You wouldn’t want to be a peasant. . . .”

  “Or some sap in an army. And mostly you’d want to be a man, I think.”

  “Absolutely. Unless, your eminence, you are a wizard.”

  She whacks his arm with the back of her hand. “Shut up.” But she’s smiling. The band digs in, the sound hits them like a wave, and she’s smiling.

  —

  In the awkwardness of the aftermath—crush of people, cell phones under harsh sodium lights—he almost loses her. Looks around frantically, sees her walking away. “Ophelia!”

  She stops, she turns.

  Rowan says something to whoever he’s talking to, he doesn’t know what, swims through the crowd to her. “Where you going?”

  She shrugs.

  “Why don’t we . . . You want to walk a bit with me?”

  He thinks he sees the beginning of a smile bloom on her face but she ducks her head, takes out her cell to check the time. He must, must get her number before the evening ends.

  “Okay.”

  He’s so happy he forgets he brought his bike and has to jog back half a block to get it.

  They walk up the chestnut-lined road, talking about music: who they listen to, what they like. She likes a lot of old stuff—good strong vocalists, not surprisingly. Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday. Admits, shyly, to a bit of a Rihanna obsession. Serena Ryder, and they both like Tegan and Sara. Radiohead. He promises to make her a playlist: Tame Impala, he thinks, The Strokes, Young Rival, Arctic Monkeys, The Lonely Parade.

  He’ll never be able to admit to anyone that he writes songs. The stars wink through the heavy leaves overhead, shimmering down at them. Before he knows it, they’re standing at his doorstep.

  “Look, you want to come in?”

  He sees her hesitation, looking up at the shining door and the immaculate sweep of the front steps. His father repainted them last month in heritage colours.

  “Please? I’ll fix you a snack.”

  “Okay. I . . . don’t really want to go home just now, to tell you the truth.” That nervy energy is back in her, like she’s about to burst into flames.

  “Dad?” he calls as they walk into the front hall, but there’s no answer. “He’s probably snoozing.” Rowan gestures to the light under the door of his father’s study. “Pretending to work,” he whispers, then hates himself for repeating the cutting words of his mother.

  “You got a mother?”

  “Yeah. She’s a journalist.” He leads Ophelia down the hall to the kitchen. “You want a sandwich?”

  “Naw, I’m not hungry.”

  “You mind if I . . . ?” He starts making a grilled cheese sandwich, and when she sees that she changes her mind and he makes her one, too.

  “So your mom’s a journalist? Cool.” She talks with her mouth full; it’s cute.

  “Well, it’s cool if you don’t mind never seeing your mom.”

  “How come? Oh—out researching stories and all that? Does she travel?”

  “All over the world.”

  “Does she write about the war?”

  Rowan nods, finishing his sandwich. He could eat another. “That’s all she writes about. For years now.”

  “But it just started.”

  “But there was all the lead-up—you know, the maneuvering, the politics. And the Union. She had a field day when that came down.”

  Ophelia licks her fingers. Rowan has to look away; she’s completely unconscious of the effect her tongue and lips are having on him. “But really. It’s frightening.”

  “The war?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He thinks of his blank university application forms. “Yes.”

  Her gaze sharpens. “You okay?”

  Christ, his thoughts must be obvious as the nose on his face. “Sure.”

  “We’re the same age, right? So you could be called up because next year, when’s your birthday? Oh, never mind.”

  “What?”

  “Silly of me. You’ll be going to university.”

  He gets up, takes her plate. Drops it. It shatters on the tile floor.

  She tries to help him clear the shards away, but he fends her off, puts the bits in a paper bag, in the garbage. Conversation averted.

  “Look, Rowan, are you . . . You haven’t been called up, have you?”

  Conversation not averted. She’s looking at him with those penetrating eyes, a worried furrow between her eyebrows.

  “When’s your birthday?” she asks again.

  “In . . .” He clears his throat. “In February. February the fifteenth.”

  She stares. “That’s the same as mine!”

  “Really?” It fits—of course they share a birthday. Everything about this girl fits.

  “But you know what that means.” She’s not happy, her eyes are wide. “Rowan, you’re in the cohort that’s up for the lottery.”

  He takes a deep breath. He wants to tell her. He hasn’t spoken of thi
s to anybody, the daily fear of seeing that letter. “Yes. And yes. And yes, I charged myself with the task of filling out my university entrance forms.” His voice cracks, he doesn’t care. The words keep coming, dripping with bitterness and self-loathing. “My parents got them all lined up for me—applications to three prestigious institutions. And offered to help me fill them out. And that felt insulting. I can take care of myself. So I cleverly filed them.”

  “Didn’t you get in?” Her voice is a whisper.

  He bets she’s good at school. Probably a straight-A student. “Are you? Going to university, I mean.”

  She barks out a bitter laugh. “We can’t afford it.”

  “Oh.” Stupid, tactless Rowan.

  “You?”

  She’s like a bull dog. Fine, he’ll come clean. “When I say filed, I mean filed . . . on the floor. Under my bed.”

  A long silence. Finally, he looks at her.

  There are tears in her eyes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Island On The Other Side

  Rowan takes Ophelia on a tour of the house.

  They tip-toe past his father’s study; he doesn’t want his father to meet her, not yet. They go up the stairs to his mother’s office: papers everywhere, files, a giant cork board covered with clippings, maps, notes, headlines, things circled in coloured markers. A dead plant on the windowsill.

  “My mother’s not much for keeping other beings alive.”

  “She kept you alive.”

  “That’s mostly my dad. He does all the cooking and stuff.”

  “You have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No. You?”

  “Half-siblings. Darryl’s the baby, and I have two younger sisters—twins.” She says the twins’ names: Shakira and something that sounds like a fabric.

  “Chiffon?” He is incredulous.

  She giggles. “No, it’s an Irish name. Siobhan.”

  “What does your dad do?”

  Her face closes. “He’s not in the picture.”

  He’s sorry he asked. He wants to make up for this somehow, hears himself saying, “My parents kind of hate each other.”

  “How can they hate each other and stay married?”

  “They don’t even . . . Here, I’ll show you.”

  He leads her to two doors, side-by-side. He opens the door on the left. “My mother’s room.” A pristine double bed with a white duvet, clothes all over the floor, draped on a chair. He closes the door on it all. “And my father’s.” He opens the right-hand door. Very tidy, rigidly clean, except for the bed. It’s lumpy, unmade, and running the length of it on the far side is an undulating pile of books. Orange-spined books, and white, soft and hard covers, shiny carapaces like giant beetles.

  Ophelia gives a little scream. “Oh! I thought it was a woman!”

  Rowan looks again. It does look like a woman, a person lying there, half-seen in the dim light from the hall. A laugh comes out of him, a sound he doesn’t like; it’s the mirthless half-laugh of his mother. “A woman made of books. He’d probably like that.” Rowan shuts the door.

  “What’s your dad like?”

  “He’s a house-husband.” Still his mother’s voice; he has to stop it. “He’s a poet. He published a few books when I was a kid, I guess. Used to teach creative writing at university. Nothing for a long time now. So he reads. That’s what he does.”

  “Why do they have different rooms?”

  He looks down at her. He doesn’t know what to say.

  “I’m sorry. I’m prying.”

  He tries to find an answer. “I guess hating each other is as intimate as loving. That’s what it feels like to me. Besides, Mom says she hates the idea of paying him support. And she figures he’d make a bid to get the house.”

  Ophelia’s breath hisses in. “She said that? To you?”

  “She’s a very frank person, my mother.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Well, it’s okay. Dad’s got his book woman.”

  Silently he leads her back down the stairs. He won’t invite her up to the attic, to his room. It would feel like too much of a come-on. He wants to see her again; he must see her again.

  “I’d better get going,” she says, so quietly he can hardly hear her.

  “Yeah. Now that you’ve seen the creepiness,” he blurts. He hits the bottom step and she’s grabbed his arm, swung him around. Up a step from him she’s at eye level. She looks right into him.

  “No. That’s not why. I don’t want you to think that. Don’t think that.”

  He wants to kiss her so much, then. He takes hold of the newel post to steady himself. Her face is so close.

  A slow smile twists across her lips. “Besides, you haven’t met my mother yet.” Ophelia leans closer. “I told you. Nightmare.”

  They both begin to laugh and Rowan doubles over, trying to stay quiet. When they subside she’s staring at the map of the world hanging on the wall.

  “What’s that?”

  “A map from the early fourteen hundreds. Portuguese, which somehow came into the hands of my great-great-great-great-whatever-grandfather, and down the line. My dad likes stuff like that. Rare books, maps, and such.”

  She puts her finger on the glass, over the red island shaped like a dragon’s head. Her eyes are round, and she’s breathing like she just ran from somewhere.

  “What is that? In the middle of the Atlantic?”

  Careful. It’s the magic island, the fantasy. “The name is there.”

  “Ant . . . il . . . ee-ah,” she sounds out carefully. “A different language? Con . . . ymana.”

  “‘Island on the other side.’ And, ‘a volcano erupts here,’” he translates.

  “Rowan, what is this?”

  “Just an old map.”

  That red island is heavy with the freight of his childish dreams and fantasies. He thinks the rich red ink of the island almost pulses, glowing with secrets and visions. Can she feel it? How many hours of his life he’s spent putting himself there? Exploring its wildlife, forests, slopes of the great silent volcano? Swimming in its ocean, its lakes, practicing with swords, with bows and arrows, singing songs? Always with Ari. And always the gleam of snow on the great mountaintop, the old volcano; hasn’t erupted in a long time Ari says, but some day . . . and then Ari stops. There’s something he’s keeping from Rowan, something Rowan’s not ready to know.

  “Rowan?”

  He realizes he’s staring dumbly at the map, the island.

  She clears her throat. “That red island. Antilia. It looks . . . it just looks like something else I’ve seen, I guess. Like a dragon’s head.”

  Carefully, carefully; the air around them feels like it’s full of crystal shards. “Dad told me someone discovered it back in the 1400s. Mapped it. But no one’s been able to find it since. It might just be a Caribbean island, hopelessly in the wrong place. Cuba, maybe. They couldn’t do longitude very well back then.”

  “But it’s so close to Europe. Africa. How could someone make that big a mistake?”

  She’s practically vibrating with excitement; he rushes in with explanations. “Well, I know the Europeans didn’t even find the Azores . . . here—” and he points to a spot off the coast of Portugal, well-charted on the map “—until after they’d landed in North and South America. It’s easier to get to the Azores from North America than from Europe, even though Europe’s closer, because of the prevailing winds and currents. One theory is that the Chinese actually mapped the world first, and Europeans copied their maps. Also the Arabs were great sailors. The Tamils, too.”

  “The Chinese mapped the world? I’ve never heard that.”

  “Well, we have a pretty Eurocentric history system, right? It’s pretty cool, actually. One theory is that a giant comet destroyed the Chinese fleet—”

  “A comet?”

  “Yeah. They’ve found burnt and broken Chinese junks and giant treasure ships high up on the New Zealand and Australian coasts, and even on the Briti
sh Columbian coast, dating from the mid-1400s. And so the Chinese emperor decided there would be no more voyages. And then China sort of closed up shop, politically speaking. So Europe just stole the bits and pieces of technologies they’d picked up from China, like their maps, and took off.”

  She chews her lip. “Wouldn’t we have heard of all that?”

  “The comet? Well, it apparently landed in the Pacific, so Europe didn’t feel the effects; China was the only nation with a great fleet out on the Pacific at that time. And as for adapting Chinese technologies—”

  “I suppose the Europeans weren’t all that interested in crediting the Chinese with their discoveries.”

  “Right.”

  “And of course they themselves were competing like mad—the Renaissance, right? So many little city-states and rulers.”

  “Everyone trying to get their hands on new wealth.” It’s fun talking with her. She’s so interested in new ideas, so quick to make connections.

  “So this is a European copy of an older map?”

  “Maybe. My dad thinks so.”

  “But this island isn’t . . . there?” She’s leapt ahead of him. “No. That’s not possible. People’d know about it by now.”

  He nods. “Absolutely. You’re right. It’s not possible.”

  “No way.”

  “It’s just an old map.”

  She turns away and comes down off the step, and then Rowan hears himself saying, “You don’t really have to go yet, do you?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ask About Everything At Once

  Ophelia’s in Rowan’s room, and he’s so nervous he’s almost afraid to speak.

  She looks through his bookshelf, face lighting up. Makes gentle fun of his vintage black velvet fantasy posters. They discuss books, compare authors; they like the same things.

  Then the fatal error: Rowan, sitting on his bed, kicks his foot and taps his hidden guitar; the neck swivels into view from under the blankets. She seizes on it.

  “Is that a guitar? Do you play?”

  “Badly.”

  “Oh, please, will you play something?”

  Next thing he knows, he’s running his fingers across the strings. What sort of power does this girl have over him? He never plays for anyone. He sucks.