“What’s in his hand?” The elder of the two men asked, stepping closer to the car.
Behind him, the other said, “Surely it’s not the—”
“You will leave her alone,” Ander warned.
Eureka heard Ander’s breath coming quickly, the tension straining his voice. As he fumbled with the clasp on the box, a gasp came from the foursome on the road. Eureka realized they knew exactly what the box held—and it terrified them.
“Child,” one of the men warned venomously. “Do not abuse what you do not understand.”
“Perhaps I do understand.” Slowly Ander flipped open the lid. An acid-green glow emanated from within the case, brightening his face and the dark space around him. Eureka tried to discern the box’s contents, but the green light inside was nearly blinding. A sharp, untraceable odor stung her nostrils, dissuading her from peering any deeper.
The four people who had been advancing now took several quick steps away. They stared at the case and the shining green light with sick trepidation.
“You can’t have her if we’re dead,” a woman’s voice called. “You know that.”
“Who are these people?” Eureka said to Ander. “What is in that box?”
With his free hand, he grabbed Eureka’s arm. “I’m begging you. Get out of here. You have to survive.” He reached into the car, where her hand was stiff and cold on the gearshift. He pressed down on her fingers and slid the lever to reverse. “Hit the gas.”
She nodded, terrified, then reversed hard, wheeling back the way she’d come. She drove into the darkness and didn’t dare look back at the green light pulsing in her rearview mirror.
From:
savvyblavy@gmail.com
To:
reka96runs@gmail.com
Cc:
catatoniaestes@gmail.com
Date: Friday, October 11, 2013, 12:40 a.m.
Subject: second salvo
Dear Eureka,
Voilà! I am cooking with gas now and should have additional passages for you by tomorrow. I’m beginning to wonder if this is an ancient bodice-ripper. What do you think?
The prince became the king. Tearfully, he pushed his father’s blazing funeral pyre into the sea. Then his tears dried and he begged me to remain
.
With a bow, I shook my head. “I must return to my mountains, resume my place among my family. It is where I belong.”
“No,” Atlas said simply. “You belong here now. You will stay.”
Uneasy as I was, I could not refuse my king’s demand. As the smoke from the sacrificial mourning fires cleared, word spread throughout the kingdom: the young King Atlas would take a bride
.
So it was: I learned I would be queen via a rumor. It occurred to me that the gossipwitches might have spoken the truth
.
Had true love entered into the story, I would gladly have exchanged my mountain life for it. Or, had I ever dreamed of power, perhaps I could have overlooked the absence of love. I had lavish chambers in the palace, where my every wish was granted. King Atlas was handsome—distant but not unkind. But when he became king, he spoke to me less, and the possibility of ever loving him began to flicker like a mirage
.
The wedding date was set. Atlas still had not proposed to me. I was confined to my chambers, a splendid prison whose iron bars were velvet-covered. Alone in my dressing room one dusk, I put on my wedding gown and the lustrous orichalcum crown I would wear when I was presented to the kingdom. Twin tears welled in my eyes
.
“Tears suit you even less than a vulgar crown,” a voice said from behind me
.
I turned to find a figure sitting in shadows. “I thought no one could enter.”
“You’ll grow accustomed to being wrong,” the shadowed figure said. “Do you love him?”
“Who are you?” I demanded. “Step into the light, where I can see you.”
The figure rose from the chair. Candlelight caressed his features. He looked familiar, as if he were a fragment of a dream
.
“Do you love him?” he repeated
.
It was as if someone had stolen the breath from my lungs. The stranger’s eyes entranced me. They were the color of the cove where I swam in the morning as a girl. I could not help wanting to dive in
.
“Love?” I whispered
.
“Yes. Love. That which makes a life worth living. That which arrives to carry us where we need to go.”
I shook my head, though I knew it was treason to the king, punishable by death. I began to regret everything. The boy before me smiled
.
“Then there’s hope.”
Once I had crossed the blue boundary of his eyes, I never wanted to find my way back. But I soon realized I was trespassing in a dangerous realm
.
“You are Prince Leander,” I whispered, placing his fine features
.
He nodded stiffly. “Back from five years’ traveling in the name of the Crown—though my own brother would have had the kingdom think that I was lost at sea.” He smiled a smile I was sure I’d seen before. “Then you, Selene, had to go and discover me.”
“Welcome home.”
He stepped from the shadows, pulled me to him, and kissed me with matchless abandon. Until that moment, I had not known bliss. I would have stayed locked in his kiss forever, but a memory returned to me. I pulled away, remembering a piece of the gossipwitches’ timeworn chatter
.
“I thought you loved—”
“I never loved until I found you.” He spoke sincerely from a soul I knew I could never doubt. From that moment into infinity, nothing would matter to us but each other
.
Only one thing stood between us and a universe of love …
SWAK
Madame B, Gilda, and Brunhilda
19
STORM CLOUDS
On Friday morning, before the bell, Brooks was waiting at Eureka’s locker. “You weren’t at Latin Club.”
His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he looked like he’d been waiting there awhile. He was blocking the locker next to Eureka’s, which belonged to Sarah Picou, a girl so terribly shy she’d never tell Brooks to move even if it meant going to class without her books.
Rhoda had insisted it would rain, and though the drive to school had been clear and bright, Eureka had her heather-gray slicker on. She liked hiding under its hood. She’d hardly slept and didn’t want to be at school. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Eureka”—Brooks watched her twirl the dial on her combination lock—“I was worried.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “And late.”
Brooks’s green sweater was too snug. He wore shiny new loafers. The hallway was choked with shouting kids, and the seed of a headache was splitting open and sprouting a razor-wire beanstalk in Eureka’s brain.
Five minutes separated them from the bell, and her English class was two flights up and at the other end of the building. She opened her locker and threw in some binders. Brooks hovered over her like a hall monitor from an eighties teen movie.
“Claire was sick last night,” she said, “and William threw up this morning. Rhoda was gone, so I had to …” She waved her hand, as if he should understand the scope of her responsibilities without being told.