There Will Be Lies (29 page)

You sure?

Yes
.

Jennifer looks hard at him.
You take it easy on her, OK?

Yes, my darling
.

I smile, for the first time. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.

That’s what I think then, anyway.

Later I think: I should stop saying these sorts of things to myself.

Boggle is AWFUL.

Not because I’m not good at it. Actually, it seems like maybe I’m too good at it. Jennifer, it turns out, is about 1,781 times more competitive than I realised. And she and Michael never lose, that’s the family story, the kind of myth of the Watsons. They take on, like, all their kids at the same time, their neighbours, their friends, whoever, and they don’t lose.

Until now.

We agree that I can write down my words instead of shouting them out, and when I bust out INCONSEQUENTIALLY for eleven points, it’s all over. James high-fives me.

Unbelievable
, he says.

I had that
, I say.
Last round
.

He laughs, but he’s the only one laughing. On the other side of the table, Jennifer has a bona fide pissed-off expression on her face, though she’s trying to hide it under smiles. Michael seems shell-shocked. I think he had me down as some kind of retard because I was deaf.

Have you applied for colleges?
says Jennifer. She has stood up and walked away from the table, almost like she can’t bear to look
at the Boggle cubes now that she has lost. I am seeing a whole new side of her – there is a hardness in her stance now, in her eyes.

I shake my head.

But your – Shaylene, she homeschooled you?

I nod.

OK. Well, the first thing we’ll need to do is check out what you know, and then have you take the SATs. Summer, I mean the CPS, is going to put us in touch with some people in Alaska
.

I shrug.

Let’s take it one step at a time, huh?
says Michael.
You want to watch some TV?
he asks me.

I look at the clock on the microwave. It’s late – past eleven. I unfold my hands like pages.
Do you have any books?

James nods.
I have some textbooks, a [        ]. A biography of Monet
. James is a fine art student, I learned that when we were playing Boggle.

Jennifer shakes her head.

Michael holds up a finger, like, wait. He goes into the bedroom and comes back with a thick book.
A History of the Arab Peoples
.

No fiction?
I ask.

They wince, like they’re failing a test. Maybe they are.
Sorry, honey
, says Jennifer.
We’re not really novel people
.

Not really novel people, I think. I didn’t know such a thing was possible. Even Shaylene usually had a mystery or a romance in her hands, when she wasn’t stitching Scottish insanity-landscapes. For the first time I realise how sheltered my life has been.

Speak for yourself
, says James.

Oh yeah
? says Jennifer, a glint in her eye, and I see the shared
history, the deep love between her and her son.
What was the last novel you read?

Moby Dick.

You did that for school
.

So? It’s still a novel
.

You didn’t even finish it. You googled the CliffsNotes
.

I start to stand up.
I’m sleepy
, I say.

Of course, of course
, says Jennifer.
We’ll get you a book tomorrow. What do you like? Harry Potter?

I stare at her. Wizards. Crones. A shiver runs through me. What is with people who don’t read novels? I mean, what kind of life is that?
I read them
, I say.

She waits for me to say something more, but I don’t, so she just nods eventually.
OK, well, we’ll go to the bookstore, you can pick something
.

We’re allowed out?
I say.

We’re allowed to do anything we want
, she says.
We’re a family
.

Yeah, I think. Sure.

That night, I lie in my bed in the spare room and I can’t sleep. I run through scenarios in my mind, fantasies, trying to lull myself into sleep, tell myself a story. A lullaby. This is something I have always done – when I was younger, like I said ages ago, I would fantasise that my mom was not my real mom, that my real mom was a queen, and one day I would meet her. That I was special, in some way.

Now I know this was the most stupid-ass fantasy of all time, because I know the reality now of my mom not being my mom, and it sucks.

So instead I imagine the opposite:

I imagine:

That none of this is real.

I mean, none of the stuff that has happened to me in the actual world, since I know the Dreaming isn’t real, because if it is, then I have gone totally and utterly mad, and I don’t like to get too close to that thought, because it’s like a fire and it burns.

This is not helping me to sleep.

I imagine:

That my mom is still my mom and we still live in Scottsdale, and every weekday apart from Friday, when Mom’s not working, we do school stuff, and then every Friday we go to the baseball cage and then we get ice cream for dinner and nothing ever changes and everything is always awesome.

It doesn’t work. I lie there wide awake for most of the night. But at some point I must fall asleep because one moment I’m looking at the ceiling of the rented apartment and wondering if I could actually just run away to Mexico on my own and start a totally different life, and thinking about what I could possibly do there, I mean being deaf and all –

and the next moment I’m –

And then I’m back in the Dreaming and I catch a glimpse of the great eagle swooping down towards me before I close my eyes tight.

Feathers flutter against the skin of my face, there’s a sensation of the air being disturbed by something fast, falling past me, and then –

Nothing.

I open my eyes and see the eagle standing on the ground in front of me. It cocks its head, regarding me with its mineral eye. It folds its wings neatly.

You are rather small, for the one who will kill the Crone, it says.

I blink.

Do you speak? Or do you communicate with your eyelids?

I, ah, speak, I say.

Good, says the eagle. It does save time.

I still haven’t got my heartbeat under control. I scoot back a bit, but don’t stand up. I don’t know which side this eagle is on.

You are alone? asks the eagle.

No, I say. I’m with Coyote. He has gone … to … um … hunt. He will be back soon.

Good, says the eagle. He will be glad of my support in this, I think.

You … want to help us? I ask.

Of course.

You’re not with the owls? The wolves? The snakes?

If it is possible for an eagle to look disgusted, then it does now. I am nothing like those low creatures, it says. I am Eagle. I am sacred. I see all. It puffs its chest, considering me coldly.

I’m sorry, I say.

For instance, says the eagle as if I have not spoken, I see that you have sent Coyote away. Why?

I blink again.

I’m sorry, says the eagle. Does that mean something?

No, I say. I … I did send Coyote away. But the elks told me not to trust him.

Why?

He caused the flood. He scattered the stars. He … I don’t know, stole fire. He also, oh, I don’t know, didn’t mention the small fact that the woman who raised me for seventeen years was not actually my mother at all but someone who stole me from a hospital.

The eagle actually rolls its eyes. You are a fool, it says.

What? I say. Screw you.

You are facing a challenging quest and you have sent away your strongest ally, says the eagle.

My stubborn streak is riled. He plays tricks, I say. That’s what the elks told me. What if all this was a trick of his? All this fricking
crap
with my so-called mother. What if it’s all some screwed-up idea of a joke on me, at my expense?

The eagle takes a step towards me. I flinch, but it merely gestures with its wing to the sky. Look up, it says.

I look up – the stars glitter above us, chips of ice, diamonds.

Coyote scattered those, it says. That is why they are so beautiful.
There is no order. There is only the vastness of the heavens, the randomness of the stars. Would they be more beautiful if they were lined up in rows?

No, I say.

It lowers its head. And the flood? Did the elks tell you why Coyote stole the River God’s child?

No, I say.

Because the River God had taken two human children. Coyote paid her back. And it was because of the flood that people climbed the reed to the Fourth World, and gained knowledge, and culture, and time, and all good things.

He created death, I say.

Imagine a world without death, says the eagle contemptuously. Imagine the horror.

I frown. It has a point.

Coyote is chaos, says the eagle. He is misrule. He takes order and routine and he breaks it, he scatters it. But always, when he has done so, the world that is left is a better one. Would you want a year with no seasons?

I shake my head.

Consider the rain, says the eagle. It is in Coyote’s gift to control. It can wash things away, it can destroy, it can drown. But it nourishes everything. The chain of life depends on it. That is the nature of Coyote.

To … nourish?

Yes. While washing away. Cleansing the past. Coyote opposes the Crone, says the eagle. The Crone takes many forms: the Owl, the Giant. But always Coyote is against that which seeks to harm people.

How do you know? I say.

I am Eagle. I see all.

I nod, slowly. But … I say. But, I mean, none of this is
true
, is it? Like, one hundred per cent actually true, in the real world. I mean, Coyote didn’t have anything to do with the moon and the stars and the sun, it was all the Big Bang, or whatever.

Coyote is the Big Bang, says the eagle.

Yeah, like, metaphorically, whatever, I say, but there was no First Woman and First Man, there was no –

Yes, says the owl, there was a First Woman and a First Man. One hundred per cent, actually, really, there was.

No, there was evolution, and –

The mitochondrial DNA of every person on earth can be traced back to a woman who lived 150,000 years ago in Africa. She is known to scientists in your world as Mitochondrial Eve. She existed. Everyone on earth is descended from her. Everyone.

I am blinking again. I see the eagle looking and I stop.

Your DNA, says the eagle, is a code for the creation of protein, a specific recipe, and it has been passed down, with only minor variations, since the beginning of life on this planet. This is a metaphorical and a literal truth. An unbroken line of DNA lies between a single-celled organism in the primordial soup and you. You have letters written in nucleic acid inside your bones that are a billion years old. You are older than you can possibly imagine.

I stare. I’m – How do you …

I am Eagle. I see all.

So, what, these stories are all true, then?

In a manner of speaking. There are different kinds of truth.

I nod. Coyote said that too, I say.

Coyote is more ancient even than you, says the eagle. You should listen when he speaks.

OK, I say. You think I should trust him, I get it.

I think you should trust him to be untrustworthy, says the eagle. You should trust him to take peace and make it war, to take order and replace it with chaos. But always, what is left will be better.

I nod. Fine, I say. So what should I do now?

Wait for Coyote. He will return. Go with him. Kill the Crone. Save the Child.

The eagle begins to stretch out its wings. Then it pauses. Quickly it stabs its beak down into its side, and when its head comes up again there is a feather in its mouth. It drops it on the ground in front of me.

Take that, it says. It will protect you.

Protect me from what?

Everything, says Mark, behind me. It is an eagle feather. It is perhaps the most powerful thing in the Dreaming.

I turn. He is standing there, I don’t know how he snuck up so quietly, over the dry grass and twigs of the Forest of Thorns.

Coyote, says the eagle.

Eagle, says Coyote.

This is their whole entire conversation, then the eagle flaps its great wings and lofts into the air. It lets out a loud cry –
Kiiiiii
– and wheels upwards, quickly reducing to a speck in the dark air.

Guard that feather, says Mark. It could save you.

I nod.

Are you ready to carry on? he says. Or do you require another tantrum?

I am about to shout but then I see the glint in his eye.

Jerk, I say.

He smiles. Didn’t you hear? I am misrule.

We press on through the Forest of Thorns. It’s weird, now that I have the eagle feather, the path seems a little wider, as if the thorny branches are shrinking back from it, withdrawing their grasping, twisting arms.

After a week’s walking, or it feels like it, Mark holds up a hand.

We’re close, he says.

I look around. The woods don’t look any different from before.

He points and I look up:

The spire of the castle looms above us, between the trees, like a cliff, like a rock formation.

We’re there? I say.

Not quite, he says. There’s a moat.

Mark presses on into the woods, not wasting time with talking, and I follow behind him. The undergrowth gets thicker and thicker, even worse than it was before, twisting with vines, bristling with thorns. I cry out as they scratch at me, despite the eagle feather, blood dripping from my arms that I raise in front of me to shield my face.

Not long now, says Mark.

I can’t believe it – it seems like the woods want to stop us, like the thickening vegetation is trying to trip me, to hurt me.

And then, very suddenly, we break through, into darkness, the
stars behind black clouds. Then – the clouds thin and part, and the castle reverse-dissolves, mists into being in front of us, bluely, like a photo in a developing bath.