Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

The bus stops in front of the old corner store a quarter mile from Peel’s campus. My heart is still bouncing around in my stomach as we walk through the woods.

“I’m nervous,” I say. “I’m trying to hide it from you, but my hands are trembling; and do you see that tree over there? That’s where Abe kissed me for the first time ever. I’m about to walk into a fountain of memories, then add my dead dad to the mix, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll blow the whole thing.”

Yellow squeezes my shoulder, which makes me jump. She pulls her hand away. “Sorry,” she mutters. “But you’re not going to blow this. I think you’re like physically incapable of blowing anything.”

“Oh, so should I not tell you about what happened at that tree over there?” I point.

Yellow looks at me with shock.

“That was a joke!”

But she’s already grinning so hard that she can’t contain it, and then she collapses into a fit of giggles. I tuck my head down and laugh, too. Just a little at first, but then so hard that it hurts to breathe. It hits me that I’ve forgotten how good it feels to laugh. To completely let go. I look at Yellow and see a similar realization on her weary face. She’s really come through for me. I misjudged her big-time.

Peel comes into view. There’s a guard at the gate, and I pull Yellow out of view.

“Can’t we just slip the guard a twenty to get us in?” she asks. “It will pretty much wipe out the rest of our funds, but if it’s going to get us in, I’ll part with it.”

“Only if you want to pay twenty bucks for the pleasure of getting arrested. Come on, there’s a way in around back.” Or, rather, a way for students to sneak out, frolic in the forest, and buy beer at the corner store. It’s supposedly been there for years. I’m pretty sure the administration knows about it, but no Peel kids have ever gotten into serious trouble on any excursions, so they allow it.

There’s an eight-foot evergreen hedge that runs the entire perimeter of the campus and an iron gate on the other side, but I know where to go. Right to where there’s a small hole in the hedge and the iron bars are bent enough that most kids can fit through them.

I go first, and Yellow follows behind me. We’re way back in the corner of campus. Right in front of us is where the maze was set up on Testing Day. Well, will be set up. Many years from now.

We stick to the perimeter rather than cut across the wide, open field. There’s no one around, so I guess classes must still be in session. I look down at my watch. Nearly eleven thirty. Assuming they haven’t changed the schedule, we have about twenty minutes to kill until the lunch bell rings and everyone fills the quad on the way to the dining hall. Headmaster Vaughn will be among them. He always eats with students, sitting up there on his dais looking down at us. I think it was supposed to make us feel nervous. It did.

We reach the quad, and my heart lifts for just a moment before crashing into my toes. Peel looks the same. The exact same. A wall of ivy snakes up Archer Hall, the dorm where I spent two years and a couple months of my life. The looming oak trees are bare now but come summer will provide a canopy of shade. Sidewalks crisscross in perfect order. It’s almost as if I never left. I half expect the bell to ring and Abe to trot down the steps. We’ll eat lunch together and swap physics homework.

Stop.

I force Abe out of my mind. This isn’t a homecoming, it’s a mission. Maybe the most important mission ever in the history of Annum Guard.

The bell rings and echoes across campus. I stand up straight and look all around as kids wearing the same Peel uniform as mine pour onto the quad. My eyes dart from the science building to the math building, over to the humanities building. I look for Vaughn. Not my dad. I really don’t even know what my dad looks like. My only memories come from the two pictures at home and the one in Alpha’s file. No, I train my eyes on the administration building. Any second now Vaughn will come waltzing down the steps and walk toward the dining hall.

A lock of hair falls in my face, and I flick my neck to bat it away. And then—shit. I see my dad.

He’s coming out of the government building. He’s holding hands with a girl who is very clearly not my mom, and he’s smiling and laughing. My heart stops. Stops beating in my chest. Because there he is, clear as day. He has the same crooked nose as in the picture in his file. The same floppy haircut. But mostly I know it’s him because of my heart. The heart knows.

“Have you seen Vaughn yet?” Yellow whispers beside me, then she turns. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her head whip from me to my dad. “Iris. Is that your dad?”

I choke out a breath and nod.

“Iris.” Her voice is soft, sad.

My legs start walking. I don’t mean for them to. They just do. “I just . . . I have to . . .” I don’t finish the thought. I don’t know what the end of the thought is.

Yellow doesn’t follow. At least I don’t hear her behind me. I’m looking straight ahead, watching my dad run two fingers under his collar, unbutton his top button, and loosen his tie. He drops the girl’s hand, and she plants a kiss on his cheek and takes off for the dining hall. My dad watches her go.

I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s so young. He looks like he belongs here. A student. My body doesn’t know how to feel. My stomach is nervous, but my heart is lifted. I’m light-headed, but I’m thinking clearly. My legs are tingly, but my feet are strong.

My dad is right there, two feet away from me. A real, living human being. I clear my throat, and he turns around. His eyes grow wide with surprise, as if he can’t believe a nonstudent managed to break into one of the country’s most secure government training schools.

“Who are you?” he asks.

His voice. It’s different than it was at the Kennedy assassination. The day he died. His voice isn’t rushed or frantic. It’s as smooth as silk, yet warm and inviting.

“My name is . . .” Amanda. My name is Amanda. I’m your daughter. “Iris.”

“How’d you get in here, Iris?” He looks beyond me, toward the dining hall. I turn my head and peer over my shoulder. Most of the kids are filing inside, but there are a few stragglers, mostly guys, standing around watching us.

“I know about the hole in the hedge and the bent bars,” I say.

My dad makes this face that I only assume is his stern face. The stern face I never got a chance to see. But I can change that. I can change that right now by telling my dad what I know. So why am I hesitating?

“It’s not important,” I say.

My dad’s eyes flick over to the dining hall, then back at me. “Look, do you need me for something?”

I take a breath, ready to open my mouth and spill out everything. How I know that he is going to leave Peel and someday join Annum Guard. How Headmaster Vaughn is going to pay him to go on certain missions. How he’s going to die on one of them. How it is absolutely critical that my dad plays it straight and clean.

And then my dad’s face changes. He looks right into my eyes—the same shape and color as his own—and recognition dawns on his face. I see him struggling to put two and two together.

“Do I know you?” he asks.

I’m going to lose it. I’m not this strong. I want to leap into my father’s arms and have him hold me, to make up for all those scraped knees and wounded souls he wasn’t there for.

Yes! my mind screams. Yes, you know me! You made me. You left me. Please don’t leave me. My mother is sick, and I can’t take care of her. You’re the only one who can. She needs you. I need you.