Beneath

Chapter 1

It wasn’t quite night anymore when I met Nolan, but rather nearing the peaks of dawn. It was still pitch black though, as my ten year old self crept past the piers and sauntered through the empty streets. I was going up an incline with my hood pulled up, when I heard voices behind me. I snapped around to face a group of boys shrouded behind a curtain of darkness. They quickly cornered me, leaving me no escape. Then one of them shoved me into the brick wall at my back.

He sneered over his shoulder, “Go on, Nolan, don’t be a pussy. Beat this lad up.” This boy sounded like a teenager, but his voice held no youthful innocence.

A figure emerged from the amalgam of shadows. I presumed this person to be Nolan. He stood in front of me, shorter than the rest of group yet just as tall as I. He stood there for a good ten seconds until someone on my left yelled “Go on!” Nolan hesitantly threw a punch at my shoulder. I heard a whoop from the darkness. With this encouragement, Nolan punched again, then again, and soon gained enough ruthless momentum to cause me to cry out.

Nolan began pummeling my face. He kicked my shins and battered my body. I fell to the cobbled floor and cried silent screams of anguish at every punch, every jab, and every blow. I heard nothing but the shrieking of my own mind and the muted thud of every bash of the boy’s knuckle and boot on my bloodied skin. I welcomed unconsciousness with open arms.

The sun hid behind behind trees when I regained my senses. The streets remained empty, but I was not alone. A boy sat near my crumpled body, his face close, too close, to mine. His striking blue eyes were stretched wide open, and he stared at me in disbelief.

“You’re . . . you’re a girl!”

“Sorry?” My head pounded. My whole body throbbed.

“You’re a girl and I beat you up!” His eyes stretched wider.

He beat me up? This was Nolan? I ran my eyes over him carefully. He looked twelve and gangly, and his arms were caked with blood. With my blood, I realized. I tried sitting up. Pain coursed through my body. I cleared my throat instead, and Nolan looked up.

“What happened?” I asked weakly. He told me. His group of friends were teasing him at school, and they all reminded him that they’d all of them beaten somebody up. All him except for him. His friends had taunted him and forced him to prove his worth by beating a stranger up. If he couldn’t, Nolan would be the one getting beaten.

“That’s why I beat you up,” he admitted. “But I didn’t want to!” he added quickly. “I didn’t and I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have listened to them. I know I shouldn’t have. But I didn’t them to hurt me so I went beat you and now you turn out to be a girl! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He started sobbing.

To me, Nolan’s apology seemed sincere as he kept going on. “Your mom’s going to kill me,” he said in gasping breaths. “And I deserve it, I do. I shouldn’t have listened to Thayer and Jack and Finn and the rest of them. I’m sorry! I know you’ll never forgive me! But still, I’m sorry!” He glanced through his matted hair at me.

I sat there for a while, deciding what to say.

Forgiveness. Forgiveness, I thought, was best. My next words were whispered to the boy with the bright eyes filled with remorse. “I forgive you.” I felt no hatred toward him. There was no turpitude in his being, only his judgement.

“Really?”

I nodded, which sent a pang down my neck. Oww. I tried smiling. That was easier.

The boy sat up, pushing his brown hair up his head. “Will you be my friend?” he asked eagerly. “I don’t want to be friends with Thayer and Jack and Finn anymore. I don’t want to be mean like them.”

“But . . .” I began. “I don’t have any friends.” My voice was meek.

He clasped my hand. “I’ll be your friend! We’ll be best friends!”

I was too sore to refuse. “Okay.”

His eyes lit up. “I’m Nolan Andere.”

“I'm Ebony Wynn.”

Cows graze nearby when we finally reach Nolan’s school. He gives my hand a quick squeeze. “I’ll see you when I’m done, all right?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Nolan heads off to his classroom. I turn around and begin to run. I run past the old woman spinning yarn. I run past the blue barbershop. I run past the bookshop, the jewelers, and the pier. I hope I’m not too late. I stop running when I get to a modest house with a manicured lawn and a white picket fence.

There’s a bus stop across the street, so I walk over and sit on the plastic bench. I hope I’m not too late. Just as I’m sitting down, the front door of the house opens. It’s my father.

Nolan and I found out this man was my father when we broke into the Mayor’s mansion a month ago. We hacked into the one place where everything about Pareylem is stored: the System. We were able to hack in with little difficulty, seeing as Thayer, who had still remained friends with Nolan after he beat me up, was Mayor Naise’s son. Well, adopted son, but still his son.

I look at my father. I’m not afraid to stare. The sun creeps from behind me and hits my father’s house. My father is a tall, stately man, with an evident penchant for corduroy pants and black button-up shirts. He walks out onto the sidewalk and heads down the road toward his workplace at the bank, but not before giving me the briefest of glances. I hold my breath. My father has never once acknowledged my presence, even though I’m here almost every day at the bus stop, expecting him.

I wonder what his family is like. According to the System, my father has a second wife named Timberly, and they have two daughters and a cat. I wonder if they watch films together in the living room, or if my father helps the girls with their homework. I wonder what time they go to bed, and what types of dinners Timberly enjoys cooking. In another life, would he help me with my homework and watch films with me? As much as I wonder what life would be like with my father in it, I cannot change that he has a different family now. I used to be his family. 16 years ago, I used to be his family, with the three of us: my mother, my father, and me. Now it’s just me. My mother is dead and my father is gone. He’s moved on. He threw me away and started a new family. But why? I struggle to think. Why did he want to get rid of me once my mother died? I don’t even know how my mother died. How did she die? Was I somehow the cause of her death? I need to find out.

I think. I ponder. I decide.

I decide that I need to break into the Mayor’s mansion again.