That’s it—that’s all they’d give me. Just things, not answers. Not even my picture of Jinx that I’d taken with me, or the brand-new sketchbook I’d bought for the trials.
Yet I had no way of even filing a complaint.
Pretty sure The Ledger threw all my letters in the trash the moment I turned away.
Mother came to let me know we’d be going for a picnic by the lake with the whole family—the whole familybeing my two uncles who lived nearby, their wives and their children. People I grew up with, who refused to even look me in the eye long enough to make me feel like Iwasn’ta four-fingered monster.
I considered telling her that I was just going to stay home, but I knew for a fact thatthey’dstay home if I did, and also the lake sounded so much better than my backyard. I couldn’t even spar, and I couldn’t apply for a summer internship, and school was out—there was literally nothing for me to do except read and draw.
I’d rather do both by the water, so I went.
Reality had taken on a different quality since I came back from Neverwhen. Not entirely sure how to explain it, except some hours and moments were crystal clear andheavyon my mind, and others (most) were fleeing, faded, like they were rushing by intentionally to make sure I didn’t register them properly. Like they weren’tmytime but someone else’s.
Or maybe I was just too lost inside my own mind trying to find things in the dark that were probably not even there.
One or the other.
But the way to the lake, and the smiles and waves andhi, you look good, Ora!were lost on me. Before I knew it, I was sitting by the edge of the lake with a sketchbook on my lap, drawing eyes and smiles and wild curly hair that I could almostfeelbeneath my fingertips.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The sound of my family gathered around my uncle’s grill-on-wheels was distant, even though they were loud,and not even twenty feet away from me.I preferred it.The edge ofthe lake was always supposed to beprivate—my favorite spot in all the realm.
At least it had been before.
Now, it felt like it wasn’t.Like I had another favorite spot in the realm.
I just couldn’t remember where it was.
The lake in front of me was shaped like an octopus, with a round head on the far left, and eight separatelegsall around it. It was the biggest lake in the Court of Spades, so it had earned the namethe Spade Lake. It was calm here, the sky blue, the sun bright, time flowing forward, as it should.
I tried to close my eyes every once in a while, to breathe in deeply, to empty my mind. But when I did, for that first split second, the darkness in my head was flooded with shapes I didn’t understand, and words that popped all together in several different voices—Talik—blood—glowing blue rings—Cheshire—axes—talking flowers—arms wrapped tightly around my body—Reggie—red masks—timeometer—music-and laughter-and timesand?—
Then they all disappeared and I couldn’t catch a single one, and I was left with my heart rushing and my breathing heavy, wondering where I’d heard that melody that was so familiar, yet the memory was so slippery I could never catch all the notes.
Tears in my eyes again but I blinked and looked up at the sun, and I refused-refused-refused to let them slip. The lake had all my focus for the next minute. The smell of it, the deep green surface of the water that reflected so beautifully under the sunlight, the trees on the other side that chased the natural shape of the water that I could barely see from the distance.
This all held my attention, and I thought about putting it on paper like I’d been meaning to since I came back, but somehow the moment my pencil touched the surface of thepaper, I ended up drawing different things. Mostly the Heart boy with reddish eyes, but the other Hands, too, as well as trees that were made out of gears, and crescent moons that sometimes looked like grinning teethfor some reason, and hourglasses full of timesand, too.
“Hey, there, Ora!”
My eyes popped open. I recognized Finn’s voice instantly, and I knew he wasn’t alone. Where Finn went, that’s where Allan was. They were raised together, born in the same month, a week apart, and they were inseparable since before they could walk, though they were not siblings. Just cousins.Mycousins, too.
“Do you ever get tired of that thing?” said Allan a moment later as they came closer. “You’re always drawing. Why are you always drawing?” Questions he’d asked me at least ten thousand times in my life.
That’s why I no longer bothered to answer. It wouldn’t make a difference what I said, anyway.
“Leave her alone. She’s relaxing,” said Finn when they stopped to my sides and squatted near me, eyeing the hands I was working on, one smaller (possibly mine), the other bigger, reaching for it from across the page. Their middle fingers almost touched in the middle. Almost, but not quite.
“Aren’t you, Ora?”
Well, I wouldn’t call thisrelaxing.More liketrying to hold onto my sanity,but…
“Yep. I’m relaxing,” I said.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Allan said, trying to reach for the pages of my sketchbook to see what else I’d drawn.
I closed it over my lap and threw him a look—he knew better than to try to touch my sketchbook. My drawings weremein my rawest form. The world didn’t get to see me like that.
