Jennet lifted the gaming helm. She felt woozy from the passage back through the golden light.
“Well.” Tam had unhooked from the system already. He stood beside her chair, arms folded. “I’m ready for that explanation.”
“Give me a minute. Jeez.” She sat up, then clambered out of the chair, on the opposite side from where he waited. “Want some tea? We could heat some water—”
“No. Talk.”
There was no avoiding it. She let out a slow breath, then went across the room and perched on the couch in the sitting area. Tam slouched down in a chair across from her.
“All right,” she began, but no more words would come out.
She pressed her lips together until they stung. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a mouthful of that disorienting light. Tam just watched her from behind his hair, his green eyes wary. God, she hated how this was going to feel. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it across her middle.
“Ok,” she tried again. “You know the kids with chips, the rich ones….”
The silence stretched between them, until he spoke. “The ones like you?”
“Yes.” She squirmed inside. Time to lay it all out. “The snobs, the bullies, the privileged. The ones who will kick you for being a loser, the ones who know everyone else is worthless. Those kids. Exactly like me.”
He frowned, though it wasn’t directed at her. “You’re not—”
“I was, though. Before.” She drew in a deep breath.
“Before what?”
“Before we moved here. Before I lost to the queen. I was arrogant, just like that. I thought that appearance mattered more than what was inside. I mean, I knew better, a part of me did, but when you’re surrounded by it…” She squeezed the pillow tighter. “Well, thinking like that becomes as natural as breathing. There was a kid at our school - and you need to know that it was a much richer school than the one here - anyway, she was so obviously poor, such a misfit. We made fun of her, all the time, of her raggedy clothes and hair that stuck out all over the place. She was different, and that made us, the privileged, that much tighter. Does that make sense?”
He nodded. That thoughtful expression was back on his face. At least he didn’t look like he hated her. Yet.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
“Nothing too dire, if that’s what you’re thinking. But we treated her badly, in lots of little ways. She was still there when I left. Maybe things are better now, since I told the teachers and admins about the bullying before I moved.”
“So - what does this have to do with losing to the queen?”
Jennet swallowed. “Thomas warned me about being unkind, but it’s a hard habit to break. Anyway, when I started playing Feyland, there was this little hob-type creature. Raggedy clothes and hair that stuck out all crazy-like. She kept showing up asking for my help, but she wasn’t acting like a quest-giver or anything.”
Tam sat up a little straighter. “So you refused?”
Regret burned through her. “I wish I could go back and change that. It was only little things she needed. Sweeping out a cottage. Hanging some clothes. Fetching water from a well. It would have been easy to do, but I blew her off.”
“Three times?”
“Three. Yes, the magic number. Because she was odd and poor and even in-game seemed worthless.”
“Like the girl in real life.” He shook his head. “Like me.”
“No! Not like you. Tam, I—”
“You found a poor boy who would be easy to use, huh? A loser.” His expression hardened into dislike - for her? For himself?
“It’s not like that!” She flung the pillow on the floor. Leaning forward, she grabbed his hands. He didn’t pull away. “No. Not a loser. I found the best gamer in the school, who turned out to be a pretty decent guy.”
He met her gaze, the hard look in his eyes easing. The feel of his hands in hers tingled through her. After a long moment he cleared his throat and sat back, slipping free.
“So. Your fight with the queen.”
She fished the pillow off the floor, but didn’t hug it again. “It wasn’t a normal kind of battle. Even then, I could tell things were getting odd in the game. Anyway, it started out with fighting. I was zapping the queen with my staff, and she was casting these dark spheres that floated around and protected her while doing damage to my character. But then things changed.”
The memory was hard to catch hold of, a hazy wisp of half-dreaming. There had been stars and a gibbous moon, and a silver goblet full of dark, perfumed liquid that she had almost, almost sipped.
“Changed?” Tam prompted.
“We weren’t battling any more. We were sitting together at a high table, and the queen asked me a riddle. I tried, but… I couldn’t answer it.”
“Do you remember what it was?”
She folded her hands into fists. The problem was, she had been trying for months to forget the whole thing. “She told me the answer at the end - it was Life.”
“Ok.” He gave her a cautious look. “What happened next?”
Jennet closed her eyes, pulling the memory up from deep shadows. “The queen smiled at me, a terrible, beautiful smile. She beckoned to a figure in the shadows, and there was the pathetic hob-creature. Show your true form, my handmaiden, the queen said, and the creature shuffled forward. She transformed, right in front of me, into a beautiful faerie maid.” Jennet shivered. “She laughed at me. Laughed and said that my own arrogance and blindness had cost me dearly. If I had helped her, she would have helped me in turn to solve the queen’s riddle. But I had not. And so I lost.”
Lost. Lost. The word echoed in her mind. She kept her eyes closed, hoping Tam didn’t hate her.
He was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was sober. “You lost. And not just the game.”
“No.” She made herself open her eyes, but kept her gaze fixed on the plum-colored upholstery. “The queen said a part of me was now forfeit to Feyland. She inscribed some glowing runes in the air, and there was this ripping cold. Next thing I knew, I was out of the game. I was really sick - spent a week in the hospital. The doctors called it ‘summer pneumonia,’ as if they had any clue. And…” Her voice trembled, but she had to say this next part. “I think Thomas must have figured out what happened. I think he went in to get that part of me back, and ended up trapped forever. Not only did I lose, I… I was responsible for his death.”
Grief hit her, hard and sudden, like a punch to the stomach. She curled up and gasped from it. Tears of regret, of blame and loss, etched down her cheeks.
“Hey, shh. Hey there.” Tam was suddenly beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his hand stroking her hair.
He didn’t tell her everything was all right - they both knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t tell her not to blame herself, or to stop crying. He just was there, accepting. Somehow that made it easier to bear.
Finally she pulled herself together and breathed away the tears. She sat up and pulled her sleeve across her face, trying not to think about how she must look - her eyes red from weeping, her hair stuck to her cheek with tears. Tam didn’t seem to notice, or it didn’t bother him. Either way she was grateful.
“Better?” His voice was gentler than she’d ever heard it.
She let herself lean against him and took a deep breath. He was solid and safe, and for a minute, she let herself believe that things were going to be all right.
“Yes,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Give me a couple days to sort all this out,” he said, dropping his arm and scooting a couple inches away. “Feyland is intense, and what you just told me, well - somehow it all fits together. But I’m not ready to go charging in quite yet.”
“Me either.” She wished he would hug her again. “Anyway, it’s ok. We can take a day or two off. There’s still time.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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