The Blind Palm

Maeve

Gunpowder in the tray. A flash of light. Face obscured.

I'm awake. Same dream again. The bedclothes twisted around me, drenched in sweat. Glance at my father's watch loose on my wrist: late for school again. Fuck it.

Aunt Maude's solution to my problems. The Gravesend prep school.

I pack my bag. Reach out to touch the book on my nightstand. The World in the Walls. I should just leave it here, but I can't put it down. Some addictive flood of strength from riffling the pages.

I step from the platform onto the Gravesend train, thirty minutes late. So I'll miss assembly. Shouting and clapping in unison.  The stupid shuffling mascot, felt feet building up static on the polished gym floor. It's supposed to be a goshawk. Looks like one of the filthy city pigeons.

I'll miss—Maeve. Assembly is the only time I see her. She'd smile at me, full of warmth and childhood affection. Long hair the color of honey spilling over her shoulders, gold against her dark blue uniform jacket. Her slender arm twined around Julian's.

I'm in love with Maeve, my childhood friend, the only one I could ever really talk to. But she's with Julian. My best friend. And yes, he notices. He sees the longing in my eyes when she passes me a cigarette. He jokes about it, says he loves us both. "You can have her as soon as I leave for Dartmouth, old man." He's two years ahead of Maeve and I, has a future at the naval academy.

She's following in his footsteps. Achieving perfect test scores, ready to fly from the polluted, noisy city. She wants to go to Oxford.

"Where are you applying?" She brushes my hair away from my face. Her touch a subtle electricity. Julian's at track. We're stealing time before third period, smoking in the grove of dogwood trees behind the school. Fifteen minutes. Constellations of gnats swirling above the damp lawn.

"I can't." Can't look her in the eyes. Can't tell her the truth. Can't tell her that I love her. Follow a piece of paper blown along the street. A flash of elegant blue penmanship on parchment. That's funny—there's no wind. "I-I'm not applying."

She's angry now, or faux angry. Her brows creased with concern, lips twisted in a frown that unfolds into a smirk.

"How can you say that?" She's incredulous. "You're the best in our class, especially at math!"

"You don't understand, Maeve." My voice is breaking, eyes moist with tears. What would she do if she knew? I feel as if I am about to tell her. Not quite. "I'm—I'm trapped. There's no way out. The only thing I can do—the only thing I can do, is go further in."

"Further in? Where?" She's shaking me. She's upset. "We're just normal kids, can't you see that? Don't you want to live?" She's crying too, pushes me harder than she meant to. The bag falls off my shoulder. The World in the Walls tumbles out. She snatches it up, shakes it in my face.

"Is this what you mean? Go further in?" She's shouting now. "Fillory and further?"

Collect myself. Close my eyes for a moment. I see the rectangle of the photograph, a cage, a snare. My soul is caught there, far from me. Bound, stolen. Gunpowder igniting in the tray. Face hidden beneath the black hood. Fear crashing over me. Look at her again.

It's beginning to rain. Maeve standing silhouetted against the mist, droplets sparkling in her honey-gold hair, a crown of diamonds. She is a queen. A goddess. Cigarette ember engraves a luminous arc in the murky air as she pulls it to her lips. Brighter as she inhales, then dim. A tiny dying star.

I can feel the distance between us growing. She's falling away. Good. She can't be close. Can't know what's going to happen. What I'm going to do. Take the book from her hand. Flick the cigarette into the flowerbed and walk to third.