Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 17 ~ Closer

Two weeks had passed since she killed her Grandfather.

Things were the same, and not the same.  Her father tried not to show it, but she knew he was sad.  She knew that he regretted not having a chance to reconsider.  Now that his father was dead, there was no one to be mad at but himself.

And her, if he only knew what she’d done.  But she didn’t tell him.  She didn’t tell anybody.

They didn’t go to the funeral, and it was just as well.  Jake seemed upset with Russ for rejecting their father a day before his death . . . as if it had caused him to give up hope and lose his last lingering drive to live.

It almost made Elly want to intervene, say it wasn’t so, tell them that he’d still be alive and there’d still be a chance if she hadn’t meddled.  If she hadn’t wielded her power like an inept, messy child . . . .

Almost.

She didn’t miss any school, because she didn’t know the person who died, didn’t know the man who was “her grandfather” and so no one seemed to think it should prevent her from going on as normal.  She wasn’t about to tell anyone otherwise.

She found herself sitting in class, thinking of nothing else.  And when a teacher would point to her and ask, “Elly?  Do you know the answer?” she wanted to say, “I killed my grandfather.”

But she didn’t.  She just shook her head, and the teacher paused with a disappointed look before moving on to the next student.  Disappointment was better than the shock, loathing, and horror that people would feel if they knew the truth.

It was two weeks after her grandfather’s death, and three weeks since she’d last seen Sien.  She walked down the steps at school, at the end of the day, looking for her mother’s car.  Instead she saw Sien standing by his motorcycle at the curb.

She stopped.  And stared.  But didn’t know what to do.  Their eyes met and she looked away, fixing her stare instead at a light pole across the street.  But still she was aware of him leaving his motorcycle and slowly walking towards her.

He stopped a safe distance away, close enough to be speaking only to her but not close enough to touch.  “Elly?”

“Yes?”  She only half looked at him, turning her face toward him but letting her eyes rest noncommittally over his shoulder.  She was acutely aware of how he used her generic nickname, not the intimate Eleanor or even Eliasha.  Three weeks seemed like so much longer — they’d parted on bad terms and now there was a barrier of careful formality between them.  But she’d had so much more than him to think about and deal with since that she could barely remember or care what had caused the falling apart.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you.  I know you probably don’t want to see me, but—”

“I don’t mind.”  She spoke the words quickly, quietly, only meeting his eyes briefly before glancing away again.  It was barely enough to interrupt, but he fell silent for a moment.  It was a thoughtful silence, as if he was processing the unexpected lack of hostility.

“Can we go somewhere?” he asked.

She allowed herself to look at him fully.  “My mother should be here any moment to pick me up.”

“Oh . . . .”

“Where do you want to go?”

He hesitated a moment, then reached for her hand.  “Come on.”

---

She didn’t realize until she was on the back of the motorcycle, arms tight around his waist, just how much she had missed Sien.  He had a smell that was the mingling of worn leather jacket, motor oil, and tangy citrus degreasing soap.  She breathed it in.  It was only appealing because it was Sien, she knew, but it made her long for the way she’d felt one long month ago.  She hugged him tighter, because she could, and tell herself it didn’t mean anything other than that she didn’t want to fall off the bike.

He pulled into a park and rode his bike all the way up the lane to stop it next to a tree.  She let go reluctantly and slid off.

A little ways off an old man was walking his dog.  She stared at him for a moment, wondering if he had any grandchildren.  If they saw him.  If he was as healthy on the inside as he looked on the outside, in his jogging pants and windbreaker as he trotted along behind the dog.  If her grandfather had had a dog . . . .

“Elly?  Are you alright?”

She snapped out of it and looked at Sien.  The same urge she’d been having for weeks pushed itself forward again; the urge to suddenly announce, “I killed my grandfather.”

Instead she replied, “I’ve had a lot to think about lately.”  Then she sat under the tree and shaded her eyes as she looked up at him.  “What do you want to talk about?”

He lowered himself next to her, and absently fiddled with the cuff of his jacket sleeve for a moment.  “I’ve missed you,” he said finally.  “I don’t want to leave things the way they’ve been.  Not seeing you.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”  She said it quietly, but firmly.  “Airidan.  I’m not your queen—”

“That’s not what this is about,” Sien said, with an earnest shake of his head.  “I don’t want to talk about all of that.  I want it to be like before.  When you didn’t . . . when you weren’t . . . when you weren’t angry with me.”

She looked at the ground.  “But it’s there.  The fact you want me to go away with you and become a queen, and I don’t want to be that person.  I’m not that person.”

“I understand.  I’m serious, I’m not here to bring that back up again, that’s not what I want.”  He leaned toward her.  “I just miss you, Eleanor.”

She tore her attention away from the ants and grass blades to meet his eyes again.  “Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

Somehow, she doubted his sincerity went all the way through to the core.  He might believe it, at that moment, but she could almost feel the thoughts and dreams of Airidan still lurking below the surface.  He’d always be searching for his Queen, in his heart.

Still, she wanted to relent.  Wanted to believe that she could go back to the way things were, at least so far as it came to Sien.  Maybe it could ever become better, now that the stuff about Airidan and queens and rules was out in the open.  She needed something to become better.

“I’ve missed you too.”  She moved her hand slightly toward him, an invitation, and he took it.  They sat in silence for a while, not moving any closer.  Elly’s attention was focused on their hands, thinking obtusely about how normal and human both looked, clutched together like any other pair of young lovers.  There was nothing there to tell an unknowing observer that one belonged to an otherworlder and the other to a girl who had murdered her grandfather with her thoughts.

“Are you alright?”  There was that question again.

She looked up, at his face.  He was staring at her quizzically.  She almost lied, but settled on an evasive, “Why?”

“You’re so quiet.”

“I’m . . . thinking.”

“You don’t look happy.  If you don’t want to see me, I’ll understand.”  He started to let go of her hand.  “You don’t have to—”  He stopped abruptly when she tightened her grip, not letting him draw away.

“It’s not you, Sien.  Alright?  I’m glad you’re here.”

“Will you tell me what’s the matter, then?”

She shook her head.  “You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

He half laughed, though it was muted with concern.  “I do.  And we can sit here going back and forth about it all day.  You won’t convince me otherwise.”

“Sien—”

“I mean it.  I want to know what’s bothering you; I haven’t seen you in weeks, I want to know what’s been going on, what—”

“I killed my grandfather.”  It came out softly, barely audible.  But he heard it.

He stopped, mouth open in an “o,” then clamped it shut firmly.  As if swallowing everything he was going to say about how much he cared.  Elly shook her head and looked away.  “I killed my grandfather,” she repeated, saying it loudly this time, wanting random passersby to hear.  Wanting them to pause in shock, even if they decided they must have misheard or heard out of context.  Even if they moved on.

“How?” Sien asked, finding his voice faster than she expected.

She looked at him again.  His expression was no longer shocked, just serious.  She realized then that he really did want to know.  And she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or not.

“I willed it,” she said simply.  “I willed his life away.  With my mind.  With my powers.  My amazing, magical powers,” she added, letting bitterness ooze from her words.

“Why?” was his second question, as measured and patient as the first.

She shrugged.

“Why, Elly?”

She felt her chin tremble and the sting of tears behind her eyes, but repeated her shrug.

“Did you want to kill him?  What did he do?”

“No.  Nothing,” she said, and her voice cracked.  “I just . . . he was dying and I was trying to s-save him.”  She tried to fight the hitch in her voice, but couldn’t.  “He had cancer.”

Sien nodded slowly.  “You said you could turn things invisible.  Is that . . . how did you . . . .”  He stopped, frowning thoughtfully.

He wasn’t recoiling in horror or looking at her in revulsion.  He had never let go of her hand.  Even when he asked if she’d done it on purpose, there was no judgement.  He just wanted to know, to understand what had happened.  Elly took a shaky breath.  “I can make things disappear.  I wanted to make the cancer disappear.  I willed it away, but . . . I made a mistake.  I made his — his life disappear.”

He nodded again.  “I see.  Are you sure?  How do you know?”

“It was the exact moment.  He was sleeping and he stopped breathing just as I was trying to . . . to heal him.”

Sien just stared at her for a long moment.  She didn’t know what he was thinking, and it disturbed her.  He didn’t blame her, or disapprove, it seemed, but something guarded had entered his eyes.  “Who have you told?”

“No one.  You.  I want to tell my parents, but I can’t.”

“Don’t.  Don’t tell anyone.”  He squeezed her hand.

“But—”

“It won’t do them any good to know.  And you don’t know that it was you, after all, if he was dying already it could have just been bad timing.  Alright?”

She looked into his eyes — those warm golden eyes that had been able to wash away her doubts and captivate her so early on.  They reassured her now.  It was alright not to tell her parents, not to tell anyone besides Sien that she had murdered a person with the power of her mind.

“I love you,” he said.

She didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and hugged him tight, closing her eyes against the cracked leather of his old jacket.  He let go of her hand to put both arms around her.  He held her as tightly as she held him.  But she didn’t kiss him, and he didn’t kiss her.  It didn’t seem right, somehow.

---

After he dropped Elly off at her house, Sien didn’t go back home right away.  He just drove, and drove, not going anywhere in particular, just following the roads wherever they led — so long as they didn’t lead back to the Golden Jade Campground.  He didn’t want to be around his father tonight.

It had seemed so clear.  He missed Elly, he didn’t want to lose her because of an old legend.  He didn’t want to lose a real girl because of a mythic queen.  If Elly Markson just wanted to be a regular girl, he wanted her to be his girl.

Now he didn’t know.  Her abilities were clearly more than he had thought.  More than the mere ability to turn things invisible.  That seemed barely worth mention, a magician’s trick, compared to what she was really capable of.  To steal the breath of life with nothing more than her thoughts — that was a power greater than any other Queen’s.  That was a power that could destroy the age old enemy of Airidan once and for all.  A power that so clearly called out her name as the Queen of Seven.

And yet.  And yet.

“I want her to be mine.”  He said it out loud, to the wind as it whipped by in the night.  She belonged to Airidan, to the Heirs of Auriel, to the spirit of Jun — everything in his heart and mind told him so.  And he felt like a thief, a robber, coveting what should not be his.  Not a true Son of Auriel at all.

He couldn’t tell her, of course.  He would lose her, Airidan would lose her, if he told her now what he was thinking.  What he felt.  For now he could do nothing but tell her he loved her.  Because he did.  He really thought he did.