Otherbound

37

When Pat had found Nolan’s journal, it’d felt like an intrusion, Amara’s world worming its way into places it shouldn’t. Nolan’s life wasn’t much to speak of, but it was his. His parents, his sister, his journals, his pool.

This? This was nothing compared to Pat reading his journals.

The lines were crumbling.

Pat downed one glass of water, then another, and set the glass on the kitchen table with a bang. “What’re you gonna do?” she asked. Her cheeks were still wet.

“Cross my fingers?” Nolan said feebly. “Amara has a plan. The last thing you read in the journal was—”

“They were escaping the island.”

“They succeeded. Partially.” He recapped what had happened—Roerte, the palace, Cilla’s food strike and worse, Amara’s escape. “Pat, I’m sorry. This was never supposed to happen.”

“You can’t go back to your old life. I knew your seizures sucked, but I—I never knew—I mean, that you had to deal with that kind of pain all the time.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Nolan repeated.

“I—” She sucked in a rattly breath. “I’m not crying,” she said, her voice muffled.

“I didn’t say you were.” Nolan wanted to offer her another glass of water, a hug, anything to make things better. He wanted to tear even the memory of Ruudde from her body.

“In the journal, you wrote … you said … ‘fuck this life.’”

He’d heard Pat swear before, but in a way that was both offhand and probing, like she was testing the word on her tongue and seeing if anyone would notice, or like Ruudde, spat in anger. Not like this. Quietly. As if she didn’t want to say it at all.

“I didn’t mean it,” Nolan said. He didn’t know if that was a lie. The next part wasn’t: “I didn’t mean you.”

“Never mind. I get it.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But you can’t go back. Not because of me. We’ll tie me up or something. Ruudde can’t hurt me then.” She tried a smirk.

“That’s not funny.”

“You have some time, right? Before he … ?” She went for another sip of water, only to find the glass empty. She rolled her eyes, this time in a way so comfortably Pat instead of Ruudde, so much Farview, Arizona, and not Dunelands, that Nolan wanted to grab her and pull her in safely for the millionth time. He wanted to run.

But running would make no difference to Ruudde. Taking his deal was the smartest plan. The only plan. They’d go back to traveling alongside Jorn and find a way to stop it all from within.

“I’m trying to pretend it’s a TV show,” Pat said. She probably aimed for casual, but she sounded shaky. “Makes it easier to think about it all. ’Cause if this is real—whoa.”

“Whoa,” Nolan agreed. In more ways than one.

He’d always believed Amara wasn’t a hallucination; he’d needed to in order to function. But on some level, in some corner in the back of his mind, he’d always wondered if his parents and neurologist weren’t right. He was epileptic, had hallucinations, end of story.

Unless Pat sitting there all gray-faced and fake-smiling was a hallucination too, though, it was real. Everything Amara had been through—real. Every risk Amara still faced—real.

Ruudde’s threat to his family—real.

And he was going to sit here and wait for Amara to risk her life to fix it?

He needed to stop improvising. He needed to think like Amara. He needed a plan. Nolan looked at Pat, determined. “You’re a fast reader, right?”

“Look for any encounter with the mages trying to kill Cilla. I know that this book, and this one, I think”—Nolan handed Pat the right journals—“have them attacking. I need to know if they said anything useful. Aside from that, we need to collect physical descriptions. I know there’s a tall Alinean woman who uses this hooked knife, an Elig man, and … we need all that on a list. Names would be even better.”

Pat nodded. She still looked paler than she should. All his urgency probably didn’t help her pretend-it’s-a-TV-show strategy.

Nolan thought of the last time they’d sat on his bed together, watching a movie on the laptop, laughing at one actor’s wooden expressions, trying to turn up the volume beyond what the tinny speakers could handle.

He’d hated that his own life had paled compared to Amara’s. It still did. He’d barely even thought about Sarah Schneider’s grin since Maart’s death, or movies or Nahuatl or school, but this—Pat—Pat mattered.

He wanted a second chance to mock shitty actors with her.

And this might be his only way.

Nolan hadn’t really expected to find anything in a journal so far back. Amara’s first encounter with the mages trying to kill Cilla—with the knifewielder—had been weeks after she’d left the palace. He checked the book for thoroughness’s sake, his fingers trailing over the words.

He’d been six at the time, so he could write, but not fast and not well. Dr. Campbell had been worried he wouldn’t keep up with the journal if he had to do it himself, so he and Mom had spent ten minutes together before and after school and once in the evening, wherein he recounted what happened in his hallucinations. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table with his juice, shutting his eyes for seconds at a time so he could describe what he saw. Mom would ask questions: What are these people talking about? What do they look like? What do you think about that? What does Amara think? Are you scared? It’s not real, honey. You’re safe.

Nolan wondered how she’d felt, looking at her son sipping his drink and talking about a child getting hit in the face for dropping a dinner plate.

Once, Mom asked him to speak Dit. He’d been clunky. She’d looked relieved—at least until he’d raised his hands and formed the fluid motions of servant signs, nothing like what a child would make up.

There wasn’t a mage attack in this notebook. Instead, in Mom’s rapid cursive, it said: The same man (Yorn?) who talked to Nolan about how quickly he healed yesterday is back and dragged N out of bed. Yorn cuts him again to see if he’ll heal (yes)

N looks scared. Ask to describe man: he’s Dit(?) and he’s not very tall and

Dit?

N: means he has dark hair. curly and long, like this (elbow) He looks a bit like Dr Zhang from the hospital but only his face, Yorn is darker and really strong!

Darker like N or like Dad?

N: Like me I think.

Yorn moves him to other bedroom. N didn’t want anyone to know he heals. Scared.

Yorn talking to someone outside: minister Ruda(?). N says Amara is confused, waiting at door even though Y said to stay in chair. Scared. They’ll punish him (N: “Amara”) if they find out.

Yorn: I’m taking Amara. The stable girl, too. We can use them.

Min.: You know what to make of her? If she heals like that (…)

Yorn: Does it matter (…) And not using it’s a waste, Naddi(?)

Min.: Ruda. I told you. Ruda.

Yorn: Come on. Even for …

Min.: Even for you. It’s hard for all of us. Ok?

(…) Yorn: Can’t leave the girl alone this long. Not safe.

Nolan rarely reread old journals. Amara took up enough of his life already.

He’d skimmed this one as recently as two years ago, though. Nolan hadn’t made much of the conversation. Jorn had kept working as a palace mage even after he’d smuggled Cilla to safety, so “borrowing” a healing servant and stable girl from Ruudde for a supposed routine job in central Bedam had been easy. Nolan had thought Ruudde’s uncertainty referred to Amara’s irregular healing, not Nolan’s just-as-irregular presence. More importantly, he hadn’t thought anything of Naddi. Amara might’ve misheard, Nolan might’ve misspoken, Mom might’ve misspelled; maybe Ruudde and Jorn had a history and it was an in-joke, a term of endearment, a Continent word Amara wasn’t familiar with.

His fingers lingered on the name. Naddi. It must be the name of the traveler possessing Ruudde. The traveler must be from Earth. He’d known how to pronounce Nolan’s name, and he’d looked utterly unimpressed in Pat’s body. This world was familiar to him.

Naddi wasn’t a Western name, probably, but Google didn’t help Nolan narrow it down. Mom had transliterated the name with a double D, but what if it was Natty? It could be short for a dozen things. Nadi? Was it a first name, last name? Shortened? Too many options. Nolan had no gender, no location, nothing.

He needed more.