Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 5 ~ Casting the Moon

The Golden Jade Campground was a trailer park, not a campground, and as far as Sien Auriel could see, there wasn’t any gold or jade near it.  Cheap imitation jewelry abounded on some of the female residents, but that was about it.

He thought about this every time he came home, steering his motorcycle through the rows of RVs and squat, rectangular houses.  Some looked respectable enough, big Winnebagos that no doubt sported all the finest luxuries that motor homes had to offer . . . but those were the vacationers passing through.  The difference between the transients and the permanents was obvious . . . and worrisome.  Weeds grew up around tires and duct tape patchwork covered up holes in screen doors that hung crooked in their frames.  He passed two camper homes which had a rope strung between them; frayed and faded underthings dangled from the line, illuminated in the night by the flicking light from TV sets within the homes.  Sien shook his head, puttering on past a lime green trailer home with lawn gnomes lined up on its flat roof.

This wasn’t the kind of place Elly Markson had ever set foot in, of that he was sure.  He’d seen where she lived, how she lived.  Like a princess. . . .  And here was the squalor to offset her royalty; a peasantville, for all its pretentious, tacky, signage tried to say otherwise.  Golden Jade, indeed.

Even his distaste for his neighborhood could not really keep his spirits down tonight, though.  It was all he could do to ride his motorcycle slowly through the park, and not gun the motor to race on home.  It was past midnight, he’d been out very late, and had hardly been able to force himself to return, but now he could barely wait to tell his father the news.

They lived at the end of one row, in an ancient yellow school bus.  From the outside it looked peculiar, with most of the windows painted black and long grass growing up around the wheels.  But Sien thought that the inside passed very well for a home . . . at least, he tried to make it that way.  All the seats save two had been removed and left more room to work with than one might think.

Curtains separated the long, narrow space into rooms.  In the very back were two narrow beds up against the opposite sidewalls, with a curtain between them and another spread across the bus, forming a T.  Those were the “bedrooms,” though there was actually no room between the beds and the curtains.  The “living room” came in the center of the bus.  On one side was a small TV set across from one lone bus seat.  On the other side stood a desk and chair, with a tall cabinet and shelving unit wedged between ceiling and floor.  All different sort of things were crammed into the particleboard structure, from books to clothes to bath and home cleaning items.  They did not have plumbing in the bus, so used whatever campground facilities they were staying at.  The huge cabinet/shelving unit would make the bus list to the left, if it weren’t for the way the kitchen items were stored.

The “kitchen” was in the front of the bus behind the driver’s seat.  On the right side by the door was the cabinet where all the dishes, utensils, and non-perishable food items were kept.  It balanced out the heavy living room storage nicely.  On the left side was a small refrigerator and a table with an electric hotplate.  They had a small charcoal grill that was kept outside: when they drove it was stored underneath the table.

It was a very basic set-up, but they were only two people.  Sien tried to keep it neat and tidy, though not everything could fit conveniently in the storage units, and there was much that was crammed into all the nooks and crannies available.  The curtains separating driving area from kitchen, kitchen from living room, and living room from beds, were almost always open as if they weren’t even there, but the fact that they had them and could close each room off if they wanted to made it feel more like a respectable house to Sien.

Sien was moderately proud of the way he’d made the bus into a comfortable enough living space . . . if left entirely to his father the thing would be as bare bones as could be survivable.  Sien actually found it cozy; well, it would be better if he didn’t have to stoop rather than stand inside it, but he had the whole outdoors to stand upright in, after all.

The bus did not actually drive, and hadn’t in a long while.  They still had all of America to traverse, but the bus wouldn’t have any of it.  And so they were stuck here, and had been stuck here for months.  Now, for the first time, Sien was very, truly glad that the old beast had died, stranding them at the Golden Jade Campground.  Otherwise he would never have found her.

Sien parked his motorcycle and trotted up the steps.  He grabbed the pole with one hand and swung around into the kitchen.  His father was still awake, watching a late night show on TV.  It was Sien’s personal opinion that TV was zapping them of their nobility, sucking them into this world’s habit of substituting everything that was good with cheap imitations.  He sighed to see his father spending hours sitting on the bus seat, caught in the glow of the tube.  If the Heirs of Auriel could see them, now . . . .

But this was all going to change.  He was going to change it.  She was going to change it.  Ren Auriel would have a reason to be proud again.

“Father,” Sien said, pausing with the weight of his discovery.  He felt electric, alive, flying high above the dark California sky though he was stooping over in a makeshift home.  “Father,” he repeated, searching for the right way to impart the most glorious news he’d ever share with another person in his life.

Ren Auriel was a man of 300 years, and looked it.  His few remaining hairs were almost translucent, and the mottled skin sagged like wet tissue paper, looking ready to tear if touched.  His eyes were a pale yellow, faded from the proud amber they had once been, and were sunken into weak red flesh.  He looked younger when he smiled, but he’d had precious little reason to smile lately.

“What is it?  Where have you been all night?” Ren asked, attention trailing away from the TV.  He had no anxiety, only curiosity; Sien was allowed to come and go at any hour without question.  But wherever Sien had been, it had made him glow with an enthusiasm Ren never felt anymore.

“I’ve found her.”

Silence hung between them for a moment, broken only by the low hum of the TV show.

“Sien . . . .”

“I’ve found her, Father,” Sien fell to his knees by his father’s side and took one bony hand in his.  “I mean it.  I’m not joking, I wouldn’t joke about this.  I’ve found her.”

Ren looked at his son pitiably.  “Sien . . . this world . . . not in this world,” he shook his head.  “We were sent here to look because it is certain she could not be here.  I’ve always been honest with you on that account.  I am not favored among the Heirs of Auriel.”

“No, listen to me.”  Sien shook his head more earnestly in return.  “Forget everything you think you know about this world, this country.  She is here.  There is magic alive.  I . . . when you see her you’ll know.”

“You have seen magic?  True magic?”  Ren’s eyes were unreadable, but he withdrew his hand from his son’s overeager grasp.  Sien’s excitement made him forget, unconsciously, not to squeeze the frail bones.

“I . . . well, no, not yet.  But the seventh rule, Father . . . the seventh rule applies.”

Ren sighed, as if what hope he’d had disappeared.  “The seventh rule means nothing if the other six can’t be verified.  You know that, Sien.  An Heir of Auriel can be mistaken easily.”

“But Father—!”

Ren held up a hand, wearily.  “Tell me about her.”

Sien didn’t need prompting twice.  “Her name is Elly.  Elly Markson.  I actually saw her a month ago, and I knew then, but I wanted to be able to talk to her before I told you . . . you see I’m not rushing to conclusions.  I watched her for a month.”

“So you talked to her today.”

Sien nodded.  “She goes to a private school, Ridgewalter High School.  I’ve been, well, hanging around there, looking like I was one of the students.  It’s easy to get in, but I’ve had to do some clever talking a time or two to convince people I belonged there—”

“School?” Ren interrupted the torrent of words.  “She is still in school?  Not even a woman . . . how old is this girl?”

Sien fought for patience.  It was obvious that his father was only showing interest in his find for Sien’s sake; he had no real faith that his son had found the Queen of Seven.  “She is 16.  But Duran of Dezang was only 14 when she was discovered, and she was the most powerful of them all.”

Ren smiled faintly.  “Dezang in the days of Duran was a very different place than this one, Sien.  Very different.  You know that, you have studied it, along with all the other homeworlds of the Queens.  None of them were like this world.  Shallow, empty place, full of buffers between its people and reality . . . devoid of magic, of wonder, of secrets . . . .”  He trailed off, a faraway gleam entering his eyes as he thought of places he’d been in his youth.

Ren had only been in America for a very few years relative to his long life.  Sien, on the other hand, was born there and had spent his entire 18 years there.  18 years was a single drop of water in Ren’s ocean of 300, but those 18 had aged him tremendously.  There was something debilitating about this world, something that leeched away at his life rapidly.  Even as Sien grew to healthy manhood, his father went from stately augustine to decrepit old cripple.  Sien had no memory of the man his father had once been, only saw hints of it break through the shoddy exterior, mostly when his father remembered the good old days, the days before exile to this world.

“Father.”  Sien took his hand again, trying to make him meet his eyes and see the hope and certainty he felt, to feel some of it himself.  “I will prove that she is the Queen of Seven.  I will show you that all seven rules are fulfilled in her.  And then what will all the rest of them say?  The doubters, the unbelievers, and the ones who exiled you here?  All of them will be proven wrong, will be shamed in front of you.  And Airidan will be like it was in the ancient days of glory.  Just trust me.  It will take time; I don’t want to scare her.”  He paused for a laugh.  “I don’t want her to think I’m a lunatic.  But it’s all going to happen.  Just like the old days.  I promise.”

Ren looked at his son with love — a little pity, and disbelief — but love too.  He touched Sien’s forehead with one pitifully gnarled hand, and said, “You’re a good son, Sien.  You’re my only joy.  You’re so like your mother, always believing despite everything . . . .”

“She had reason to believe, and so do I.  You’ll see, you’ll see, Father.”  Sien smiled.  He remembered Elly’s soft hazel eyes, the hints of magic lying hidden just behind them, something that most people would not see.  It made his heart beat faster and his blood rush . . . he had no doubt she was the one.

Something of Sien’s enthusiasm finally leaked over to his father, and Ren shut off the TV.  “Well, if you are so sure . . . then perhaps we should see what the moon has to say.”

Sien’s smiled widened.  Casting the moon was little more than a cheap magician’s fortune telling trick, but it was a trick of Airidan, of the old days, the days of glory.  Ren did not pull it out lightly in this suspicious world.

“Help me up, boy.”  Ren reached out his other hand.  Sien put an arm around his shoulders and helped him struggle from his spot on the bench.  Once up, Ren shooed him away, and moved slowly over to the cabinet.  He searched through the junk for a moment before he found what he was looking for: an old wooden box, carved intricately with scenes from the legends of a different world.

“Go.”  He held the box reverently.  “We’ll need fire.”

Sien went outside and went to work getting the grill ready.  To properly cast the moon the old fashioned way they should really build a fire in the ground, ringed with stones and kindled with wood.  But that would be breaking the rules of the Golden Jade Campground (no firepits) and they couldn’t afford to be thrown out.  There were plenty of neighbors who wouldn’t hesitate to tell should they see even the remnants of a ground fire.

He lit the charcoal and looked back to the bus, where his father had slowly shuffled his way to the steps.  Sien grimaced, and wondered if his father could be talked into staying inside.  But he couldn’t afford to dampen the little bit of spirit that had been kindled in Ren . . . and there was no way Ren would let him cast the moon himself.

Sien helped his father down the treacherous bus steps while trying to preserve a little of the old man’s dignity.  Sien could easily pluck his father up and carry him sideways through the narrow doorway, but there could be nothing more humiliating.  So he just assisted him, letting him lean his weary old frame on Sien’s strong young one.  Ren bore the ordeal stoically, and once he was on the ground he walked over to the grill with his shoulders squared.

“Hold the box,” he directed, and Sien obediently took it, trying not to look like the excited child he felt.  Holding the box was one of his joys . . . there had been a time in the not too distant past when even touching the box got him whipped.  Not that Ren was in any shape to give a whipping that hurt physically . . . but still.

Ren opened the box slowly, methodically, and in the moonlight he contemplated its contents.  There were dozens of small compartments, some locked up behind little doors.  Trays folded up and out to reveal more trays underneath.  He rummaged around before finding the right substance, a pinch of old powder between his trembling fingers.  They did not tremble with fear or excitement; they always trembled.

He cast the dark power onto the smoldering briquettes, and then they waited, both faces turned up expectantly toward the man in the moon.

“Green,” Ren finally spoke.  He smiled.  “A lucky color.”

“All your hopes will come to pass.”  Sien smiled back.  “I told you, Father.”

Ren nodded, but there was still doubt in his eyes, in every inch of him.  “All your hopes will come to pass.  I cast the moon when your mother became pregnant with you, finally.  The moon was green.  And so all my hopes did come to pass . . . .”

Sien didn’t reply.  His mother had died giving birth to him, after years of barrenness, and the bittersweet fulfillment of Ren’s dream of fatherhood had come to pass.  But Sien didn’t like to think about that.  He shivered involuntarily, then reminded himself that it was only a fortune telling trick, no more reliable than this world’s games with cards, crystal balls, and palm readings.

“Put the fire out, Sien,” his father said, sounding very tired again.  “We don’t want this world getting into a tizzy about the moon changing colors.”  He turned to shuffle toward the bus.

“Father—” Sien turned “—I want to enroll at Ridgewalter.”

Ren didn’t pause.  “It will be expensive.”

“I know.  It won’t be a problem,” Sien said, having no idea just how he was going to manage it.  In Airidan the Heirs of Auriel were royalty, wanting for nothing, but that was far away.  How could someone who lived in a house with wheels come up with the tuition for a private, upper crust school?  He didn’t know, but he knew he had to, if she was there.  It was getting hard to pretend that he belonged, sneaking in through locked back entrances, wandering the halls looking as if he had classes to go to, even commandeering an empty locker.  Devoting so much time to going with the flow and avoiding faculty took away from concentrating on her, on watching her, getting to know her, getting her to know him. . . .  Yes, he had to enroll at Ridgewalter now that he’d taken the first step toward bringing the Queen of Seven home.  He could not afford anything getting in the way.