Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 38711 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38711 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
“Mhm.”
“Daciana always carried so many protective charms, her belt was like one of those baby mobiles. You didn’t have anything. It makes sense now, looking at it as an adult, but at the time I had no clue. When your pencils turned into snakes, I didn’t even know what I did. I couldn’t undo it, I tried. I told them I didn’t mean to, but nobody believed me, since I had a school rap sheet a mile long.”
She gave him a skeptical glance.
“My parents were called. It was a big deal. The second time, I realized what happened as it was happening, so I looked down to try to contain it. I ended up looking at your shoes. And then you had shoelace snakes, and I went back to the office. My mother talked to me, my father talked to me, everyone talked to me. Everyone explained how I couldn’t keep doing this crap. My father put a bone charm on a cord and told me to always wear it around my neck.”
“Mhm. And the third time?”
“The third time was…intentional. Again, not targeted at you specifically, but intentional.” He could still recall the splash of boiling hot anger that overtook him.
“What happened? Something must’ve happened.”
“It wasn’t good.”
“You’ve come this far, Roman. Let’s have all of it.”
There was no escape. He sighed.
“The night before, Lena, one of my sisters, was doing her homework. She was always a good artist, and she was drawing portraits of Nav’s gods. She gave Chernobog a longbow. I told her that wasn’t what the bow looked like. I had seen it up close. I’d held it and fired it, although I kept that part to myself. She didn’t believe me. I had a teenage moment. You know when you’re twelve, and you are absolutely certain that you’re right and the world is trying to wrong you? I dragged her to my brother, all indignant, because I knew my father had taken him to see Chernobog, too, and, as the future Black Volhv, he would settle this.”
“And?”
“I didn’t know it at the time, but when my father and brother had gone before Chernobog, he’d looked at my brother, said two words, and sent them back out.”
“And what were they?” she prompted.
“‘Wrong boy.’”
Andora let out a short laugh.
“My brother knew me really well. He’d watched me get in trouble with the school enough times, and he could tell I wasn’t lying. He realized that I must’ve seen the bow. A light bulb went off in his head.”
“He’d figured out the right boy.”
“He did. He looked at me, and there was hatred in his eyes. I saw it. It was like a physical thing. He’d said, ‘Aren’t you tired of being a fuck-up? Every day you shame our family. Nobody wants to hear anything that comes out of your mouth. Learn to be silent. That’s the best thing for you.’”
He remembered it word for word.
“Wow.”
They had reached the end of the woods. The Glades waited ahead, a wide opening, wrapped in a wall of forest. Roman stopped. Andora stopped, too.
“I didn’t sleep that night. I just got angrier and angrier. In the morning, I went to school, and I don’t remember most of the day. I sat at my desk and stewed in my rage. I was so pissed off, it felt like I went blind. I hadn’t asked for any of this. I was tired of trying my best. They thought I was a fuck-up, so I would be a fuck-up.” He took a deep breath. “I let go. Because that’s what fuck-ups do. I didn’t care if anybody got hurt. I just pushed it all out. All the hate, all the anger. All the bad feelings. My dad’s bone charm turned red, burned through my clothes, and broke. And then you had a viper instead of hair. I felt terrible. I still feel terrible.”
“You never apologized.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, Roman. Back then, when we were kids. You never apologized.”
“I punched Kovalyev when he was laughing about it.”
She stared at him. “Punching an unrelated third party doesn’t count as an apology.”
“They moved you out of our class. I was told to not come within fifty feet of you.”
“You could’ve found a way.” Her voice was merciless.
“I could’ve,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what to say. That’s why I left chocolate in your desk.”
She blinked. “That was you? I thought it was Lisa.”
“Lisa would’ve left you gummy bears.”
“True.”
“Again, the blame is mine. I just want to be clear that it wasn’t personal in any way. Ask Dabrowski when we get back to my house. That last one made him sick as a dog. He vomited for like an hour, and Daciana passed out. So I wasn’t picking on you. I wasn’t trying to get your attention. I didn’t derive any happiness from tormenting you. I had so much of my own shit going on, I barely registered the fact that you existed.”