The Lost Gate (40 page)

As usual, Stone was right. But toe-wiggling did nothing for the sore arms. And Stone wouldn't let him go through a gate until he was sure the immunizations had had time to work. “If you ‘heal' your body by gate before the injections have a chance to stimulate the immune system, then the shots will have been for nothing.
Think,
Danny. Don't be such an adolescent.”

I'm going to high school, Danny wanted to say. But he knew that Stone was right. He could not afford to be self-indulgent the way other teenagers could. He might be planning to live among drowthers, but he was not a drowther, and he could not afford to forget it.

When he was ready, Danny made a public gate between the attic room where he had slept at Stone's house and a spot against a wall in Veevee's condo. He doubted they'd discover it by accident, so at some point, when he judged it might be a good idea, he'd tell them about it.

Veevee was marvelous as his aunt who was moving to Buena Vista to explore opening up a small clothing factory. “For certain boutique clients in New York and L.A.,” she explained, “who
must
be able to tell their customers that the clothing is made in America by seamstresses who are paid a fair wage with full benefits. Though it will take time to assemble the funding, you understand. And since this will be my most
stable
address, poor Danny and I agreed that this is where he should live.” The principal seemed happy to know that there might actually be a new employer in town; and in the meantime, Veevee's story would have no impact on Danny's desired image as a not-rich kid who lived pretty much alone in a semi-crummy house. If anyone asked about his aunt's plans to start a clothing factory, he'd simply roll his eyes as if there was little truth in it, or she was crazy, or whatever teenagers assumed.

Danny intended to be a good student, but not speak up much in class; to dress decently but not too well; to be a little wild, but not dangerously so; to be funny but never the class clown. He might try out for the school play. He knew that boys were always at a premium, and he figured that a con man like him would be a decent actor. He knew he could memorize the lines. There'd be girls in the cast.

He had it all planned out.

18

T
HE
F
ATHER OF
T
RICK

The boy called Oath had walked at nine months of age, having never spent much time upon his knees, as King Prayard often pointed out. He was talking in clear sentences at fourteen months. It was far too soon to look for signs of any affinity, but this was Iceway, and so every time the boy even glanced at water it was taken for a token of things to come. The King had carried him upon his shoulders, taken him to councils, shown him off before ambassadors, flaunted him especially before the representatives of Gray.

But then, as Bexoi's belly began to grow with yet another child, a strange thing happened. The King became solicitous of Bexoi and spent more time with her. He wasn't often seeking out Prince Oath. And though the tot was only sixteen months of age, he felt the change; he felt it as a loss. “Where is Papa?” he would ask. And his nurses would answer, “He's the King, and he must do his work.”

But in truth King Prayard was not working, he was rubbing salves into the tight-stretched skin of Bexoi's belly, hearing her say, “
This
is the child you put inside me on purpose,
this
is the child that will be the product of your love, and not your contempt.”

“Don't taunt me with my old mistakes,” King Prayard murmured.

“I'm celebrating our newfound love,” said Bexoi. “Politics are finally gone. This will not be a political child.”

“I hope that she's a girl,” he said, “and that she looks like you.”

“So you can marry her off to some foreign king, and we'll never see her again?”

“But a boy will be a rival to Oath,” said Prayard.

“A boy will be a protection for the kingdom,” said Bexoi. “This boy that is so ripe that in two months he'll burst forth into the world, he will step behind Prince Oath in every way, ready at a moment's notice to take his place, if something dreadful were to happen to his brother.”

“You fear your nephew Frostinch, don't you?” asked King Prayard.

“Your heir will have so many enemies. Two sons will serve the kingdom better than one. Look what happened to the children of your concubine.”

“You know I never think of her,” said Prayard, “and yet you grieve me by mentioning her again and again.”

“I think of how she disappeared so tragically, and her sons—you can never have too many sons.”

Wad heard all of this. He heard, and knew that Bexoi knew he heard. These were subtle threats against the boy that she called Oath and he called Trick. Yet what could he do? He was Wad the kitchen boy, Wad the Squirrel, Wad the silent roamer and runner of errands; now that Hull was gone he had become less than nothing, barely tolerated in the kitchen, and not endured at all anywhere else. If he was found in the stables they thrust him out as if his presence would poison the horses; if he was found in the armory, he was treated as if he would dull the blades of all the swords.

How could such a one be granted even a moment in the presence of the Prince?

But Wad the Gatefather, Wad the Man in the Tree, Wad the lover of a queen and warden of three royal prisoners, the Wad that no one knew of but Bexoi herself—how could he be prevented?

So while she lay there, manipulating the King's affections, Wad was listening, yes, with half an ear, opening the tiniest of gates between his ear and her chamber so he heard without having to see what passed between Prayard and her, he also kept a tryst of another sort.

He gated little Trick to a garret room that Wad had set up as a child's playroom—not overpopulated with bright-colored toys, as fools think children want their world to be, but thick with dust and ancient furniture and trunks and weapons and other forgotten detritus of bygone kings and queens and stewards and princes, where there are nooks and dens and lofty places and deep but tiny dungeons to explore. Here he and Trick would play at hide and seek, or Wad would let the toddler dress him up in dusty old clothes, or they would play with toy soldiers and carts and carriages.

“I will always call you Trick,” Wad told the boy, “because it's a trick on everybody when we play together. You can't tell anyone or I'll be sent away. You must pretend that you don't see me when you're with your nurses or your mother or the King. Pretend that I'm invisible. Because I am.”

And then he winked out of existence in one spot, and then winked back a few feet off, and Trick clapped his hands and laughed and shrieked.

Meanwhile, back in his nursery, a lifesize wooden baby doll pretended to be young Oath, the well-tended Prince, asleep in his high-sided bed, the one that kept him safe—but also quite invisible to his lazy nurses, who dozed or gossiped or did needlework while supposedly he slept. When, even after an hour's nap, he seemed fitful and tired as if he hadn't slept at all, they took it as a sign that he missed his father the King, never realizing that the father he was missing was the much-despised kitchen boy whose presence in Nassassa no one understood.

Sometimes, though, Trick fell asleep while he was with Wad in their secret garret playroom. Then his father would sit and look at him, and whisper to him silently: Your mother is a monster of ambition; your father a monster of cruelty for her sake. She plots against you. She plots your death. But I will keep you safe. She will know that she dares not harm you, for the consequence would be too dire.

Deep inside himself, Wad felt the answering echoes of hundreds of other minds. Usually they were a sea of turmoil, and for long years he had not understood what they were, thinking them to be a part of himself. Now, however, he knew this much: They had memories that could not be his own. They had wills that would not choose what he had chosen, and when he acted in a way that distressed them, any of them, they'd protest, a sort of indigestion in his mind. How he came to have such madnesses within his mind he could not guess, but he must live with them, he knew. They were powerless to harm him.

When it came to Trick, however, they were of one mind and heart with him. He is your son, they echoed, when he said, He is my son. You must protect him now because that's what a father does. You must die for him, kill for him. Whoever puts the boy in danger, even if it is his very mother, is your enemy. If you can't control the woman, she must die.

19

R
OPE
C
LIMB

On Danny's first day of school, he ran. He had no books to carry, and though it was going to be a hot day, the morning wasn't too warm for a good run. Dressed in tee-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, with a pen in his pocket and a spiral notebook in his minimal backpack, Danny locked the front door behind him and started loping along the street.

He wasn't running particularly fast; he simply saw no reason to walk when running would do. Nor did he have any need to slow down just because the last stretch of road that wound up the hill to the school was so steep. Danny had been running up and down steeper hills than that, with much less even ground and a lot more obstacles, since he was little. To him, it was an easy jaunt. He wasn't even out of breath when he reached the office to get his class assignments.

“Coming in as a junior, Mr. Stone,” said Principal Massey, “we thought you might appreciate a little help getting acquainted with the school.”

That explained the presence of a bored-looking girl without a hair out of place.

“That's cool,” said Danny. “Thank you.”

“Here's your class schedule,” said Massey. “Laurette will help you find your classes.”

“Thanks, Laurette,” said Danny. He gave her a big smile that was designed solely for Massey's consumption. Danny had read enough young adult novels to know that Laurette was probably popular and bound to look down on him.

She flashed him a quick cheesy smile—also for Massey's consumption.

“I'm glad you came early,” said Massey. “That'll give the two of you time to get familiar with the layout of the school.”

They left the office together. “Why are you all sweaty?” asked Laurette as soon as Massey couldn't hear.

“Because you're so amazing,” said Danny.

“Ew,” said Laurette.

“Because I ran to school.”

“What are you, some kind of jock?” she asked.

“I don't have a car,” he said.

“Well, I guess you won't need to know about parking passes.”

Danny laughed.

“What's funny?” she asked.

“What's your story?” asked Danny in reply. “Why did you get stuck with showing the new kid around?”

“Because I mouthed off to my English teacher so I've got to do service hours.”

“This is the first day of school,” Danny pointed out.

“I have three weeks of service hours left over from last year.”

“You must have some mouth.”

“This is the hallway,” said Laurette. “That's a classroom. Can you count?”

“Usually,” said Danny.

“Then you can probably figure out the room numbers. They're mostly in order. Any questions?”

“Will you be my best friend?” asked Danny.

She barked a laugh. “If you're going to run to school, invest in a better deodorant.”

“For a girl who doesn't care if anybody likes her, you sure go to a lot of effort to show off cleavage,” said Danny.

She reached up and spread the lapels of her blouse about an inch farther. “Got your eyeful?” she asked.

“No. I'll be studying your cleavage all year.”

“You've got a filthy mouth, Danny Stone,” she said.

“I'm betting that the average total will turn out to be two.”

She walked away from him.

So far so good, thought Danny. Either she likes me now, or she hates me. That means either her friends will hate me and her enemies will like me, or vice versa. No way does this girl not have friends and enemies.

Danny had first period English. He made it a point to answer no questions the teacher asked, even though he was interested in some of the things she said and he had a strong temptation to blow the teacher away with all the cool stuff he knew about the language. Instead, he said nothing at all, barely looked at her, and adopted the slightly sullen attitude he saw some of the boys wearing. He knew he could always be smart later, if that turned out to be a better strategy. But once you admitted to being smart, there was no going back. At least that was his hypothesis as a high school anthropologist.

Calculus was going to be easy and dull—a repeat of stuff Danny had mastered the first year he was living with the Silvermans. AP history was going to be funny, because everything the teacher said was either misleadingly incomplete or flat-out wrong, but it didn't matter because the students weren't listening anyway.

Lunch was what mattered. Where would he sit at lunch.

He got his tray and carried it over to the table where Laurette was sitting. She had three girlfriends with her. One was chubby but dressed like she thought she was thin, complete with bulgy bare midriff. Another was doing Goth, and the third had medium bad acne and a sour-looking expression that made the Goth look cheerful. Compared to them, Laurette looked like a cheerleader.

“Look,” said Laurette when he sat down. “We're not friends.”

“Oh, I know,” said Danny. He looked at the Goth. “I just had to know why you aren't wearing any of your piercings.”

“None of your business,” said the Goth.

“Just tell me and I'll go away,” said Danny.

“Go away now,” said the Goth.

“He thinks he's cute,” said Laurette. “He talked about my cleavage.”