LITMIR.BIZ

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Daniel looked around, saw me, let me know that he had seen me, and said, “She was not mistaken. This place has meaning to the gods.”

      “But she is not here.”

      “You know I cannot answer that.”

      Silence again as Messenger absorbed that answer, and after a moment nodded his acquiescence.

      “I do not forbid you, Messenger. Even you are allowed a life, pleasures, as you carry out your destiny. But as a friend, I wonder if you do yourself harm. I wonder if your already burdened heart only becomes heavier.”

      “I can’t give up,” Messenger said with a note of helplessness. “That would be despair. That would do more than burden my heart, it would destroy me.”

      Daniel nodded and smiled wistfully. “Love is a power to equal that of the gods. Your apprentice is with us.”

      Messenger turned his gaze on me, not searching, knowing where I was. “She needed rest. She has seen terrible things.”

      Without willing it, I was with them.

      Daniel said, “You have begun to see the nature of your duty, and the pain it will cause you. But you have not broken.”

      “I . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” I was about to say I had not meant to eavesdrop, but of course I had, and there is little point in lying to people who know instantly whether you are speaking truth. “I don’t understand why—”

      “You are not my apprentice,” Daniel said, cutting me off. “I am not your master.”

      With a nod to Messenger he was gone.

      An uncomfortable silence stretched between me and Messenger. Then he took an audible breath and said, “This place is called Parque Lago Azul. It is in Brazil.”

      “I recognized it.”

      “Did you? Ah.”

      I wanted to ask him about Ariadne. The shadow of Ariadne had been on him since our first encounter and at times his obvious devotion to this girl annoyed me. Oriax would no doubt have some snarky remark to offer on the subject, along with the rude suggestion that I was attracted to Messenger in a most un-apprentice-like way, and thus jealous.

      Was I jealous of Ariadne for being the object of such love? How could I not be? Who does not want to be loved beyond all reason? Who does not want to be needed as Messenger needed his Ariadne?

      For Messenger I felt sadness. He did not speak of his pain, but knowing some small part of what his life had been during his service as Messenger, having touched him for a fleeting second and thus felt viscerally some fraction of what he had felt, I could only be sad.

      But another part of me was jealous in a different way, not of him as a boy in love with someone else, but of the fact that he had something to hold on to.

      Did I?

      Had I ever loved anyone in that way? Could I ever love someone that way?

      Yes, I thought, in time. But the one I might someday come to love was not to be touched.

4

      We were back at the Iowa school. It was time to see what was happening with Trent.

      Trent was in the office of the school’s vice principal, along with Pete. The vice principal’s name—on her desktop nameplate—was Constance Conamarra.

      “I’ve got a report of an incident between the two of you and a Muslim student yesterday,” she was saying.

      Messenger and I stood in the corner of the cramped room, invisible, of course, inaudible. But I felt conspicuous just the same.

      “That’s bull . . . um, not true at all,” Trent said. “Is it, Pete?”

      “Totally not true. Whatever that chick said—”

      “I never mentioned it was a girl,” Conamarra said.

      That stopped Pete, but not Trent, who said, “Whatever. Okay, look, I was just playing around, no big deal.”

      “Actually it is quite a big deal. It’s a three-day suspension big deal. And I’d be within my rights to make it much worse, believe me.”

      Pete groaned, but Trent’s face turned sullen with rising fury.

      “No way,” he said. “You can’t suspend me just for grabbing some towel-head’s scarf, that’s BS.”

      “I can and I have,” Conamarra said.

      “This is crap! Special treatment just because she’s some terrorist.”

      “Samira Kharoti is a terrorist?” The vice principal’s voice dripped scorn.

      “They’re all terrorists. Bunch of foreigners come over here and start getting treated like celebrities. She’s not special. She’s not some big thing.” He did a hand-waving gesture around that “big thing” that started off sarcastic and ended with a violent thrust. He practically spit when he did it.

      “All you had to do was leave her alone, Trent. And this is not your first incident. Last month you—”

      “Yeah, whatever,” Trent said, shoved his chair back, and stood up. Conamarra was a small woman, and between Trent and Pete they made an intimidating pair. “Everyone’s special, because they’re girls or black or Mexican or a towel-head or—”

      “That. Is. Enough. You can come back to school on Monday. Until then, you are not to come on to school grounds.”

      They left on a wave of muttered curse words and slammed the door behind them.

      In the hallway Trent said, “I’m going to find that bitch and give her something to complain about!”

      “What are you talking about?” Pete asked.

      “That Samira bitch. I’m going to have a little talk with her.”

      “Dude . . .”

      “What?” Trent snapped.

      Pete put up his hands defensively. “Hey, I’m already suspended, I don’t want—”

      “Are you pussing out on me?”

      “I’m not—”

      “Are you seriously pussing out on me? A little bit of trouble with Conamarra and you turn into her puppy dog? Oh, oh, pet me on my little head, please pet me, waaaah.”

      “Aw, man, it’s not like that.”

      “That’s just what it’s like. Don’t you know what this is? All of them against us. Ni—ers, Jews, Mexicans, now we have to put up with camel-jockeys, too? They’re taking over, man, taking over. Taking. Over.”

      “Dude, I just don’t want to get all into some big thing over this,” Pete pleaded. Then his eyes lit up with a crafty light. “Hey, how come it’s just the two of us? Why isn’t Marlon down here with us?”

      “Conamarra probably got to him first, and he wimped out, just like you’re doing. That’s the game, man, they play us against each other. Make us weak.”

      They had made it most of the way down the hallway when a security guard stepped in front of them and spoke into a walkie-talkie. “I got them both, right here. Yes, ma’am.”

      To the boys the guard said, “You two need to get your stuff from your lockers—which are not down this hallway—and get off the school grounds.”

      An argument followed, but in the end Trent and Pete, with their backpacks full, walked off the grounds to Pete’s car.

      The car had no backseat in which Messenger and I might conveniently wedge ourselves, so we simply walked

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