John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

Because Victor would not want her to be a good sport about it. This was serious. This was not a cricket match. We were Indians and they were Cowboys. We were Jews and they were Nazi prison guards.

Dr. Fell was going to do something horrible to us if we did not get away, like erase our brains. He had already done it to Quentin once.

Even if Amelia’s body was going to stay alive, for all practical purposes, they were going to kill me. Part of me.

I was thinking of Victor. I was thinking of what Victor would have thought, a look of polite disbelief on his face, deepening to a never-to-be-erased disgust, when he asked, “An enemy in time of battle turns his back on you, offering you a perfect target, and you did what, again, exactly? Picked up a rock and then… what? Apologized for running away?”

Duty. Do what you have to do.

Think of Victor. Get angry.

Come to think of it, what business did Boggin have anyway, turning his back on me? It was so very polite, so Victorian, so proper.

So condescending. There are women in the military in Israel. Tough women, who do whatever they have to do to survive. No one turns their backs on them, I bet.

I picked up a heavy rock from the cave, one about the size of a softball, used my little trick to make it heavier instead of lighter, stepped up softly behind him, and brought it swift and hard into the back of his skull. Clunk.

There. That will show him how to treat a modern girl!

“Ow!” he said, and he fell forward onto his knees. I suppose if I had really been trying to kill him, I would have simply inserted the rock through the fourth dimension “past” his skull and directly into the delicate tissue of his brain. Maybe I didn’t think of that at the time. Maybe I did and could not make myself do it. Maybe I wasn’t really trying to kill the angel who just saved me from Grendel.

I ran past him. All I can say about running stark naked and barefoot through the pines in the wintertime is that it is very, very cold. Actually, I will also say that it is a very good argument for the invention of clothing. It is amazing how many sensitive places on your skin a sticky pine needle can stab you when you are running quickly between two trees.

The world turned dreamlike for a moment, and twisted like taffy. My thoughts were confused and sleepy.

Then everything snapped back into focus. I woke up, and the cave was directly in front of me again. Boggin was climbing to his feet, looking very annoyed. He had done some sort of space-manipulation effect, similar to what I had seen Mestor do earlier to propel himself through the water. It was the same type of energy-substance I had seen clinging to the planks of the White Ship.

I turned to run another direction. He pursed his lips and made a sucking noise.

A tube of vacuum, with the power of a gale-force wind, like the spout of a tornado, picked me up and yanked me toward him.

He caught my naked body in midair with one arm, with his lips forming a little circle of painful suction on my back between my shoulder blades. His other hand was still clutching his head.

He puffed (his breath was like the air from an open freezer) and dropped me at his feet.

Boggin looked at his foot, and said, “Bran! Hear me! I hereby close the boundaries between this place and Myriagon.” To me he said, “Now let’s have no more nonsense, Miss Wind-rose, or I shall take that rope and truss you up again like a Christmas goose. Ow. Ouch.”

He took his hand away from his head and stared, aghast, at the blood on his fingers. “That was really quite savage of you, Miss Windrose! I see I am going to have to be quite severe.”

I stood there, hugging myself and shivering.

He snapped, “Please get dressed at once. I should not like you to escape your punishment because you catch pneumonia.”

“Turn your back,” I said, pouting, wondering how stupid he was.

He must have been wondering the same thing, for he just crossed his arms and said, “Do not annoy me, child. I gave you an order. Be quick about it.”

I put my back to him while I put on my bra and blouse. I glanced back to see him glaring down at me, while I tugged my panties into place, picked up my jeans and pointed my toe to step gingerly into them.

He must have thought I was trying to show off my bottom to him, and glancing back to be coy. (Nothing could have been farther from my mind; when you are cold and scratched enough, you think about how cold and scratched you are, and that is all you think about.) He said in a cross tone of voice: “I would be more in a mood to appreciate your considerable charms had I not such an acute headache at the moment, Miss Windrose.”

I put my coat, boots, mittens, and scarf back on, and retrieved my aviatrix cap, which I began tucking my hair under.

He stepped forward and pulled the cap off my head. “No,” he said. “You look better with your hair down. You apparently think you are old enough to wear it that way.”

I looked at him with something akin to hate in my eyes. “Do you get to say how I wear my hair, now?”

He threw the cap back at me. “Touché. I concede the point. You are the mistress of your hair, Miss Windrose. You may wear it in any fashion which is appropriate for school.”

I let the cap bounce off my folded arms and fall to the ground, untouched. Because I was angry, and because I did not care, I said, “You pick my uniform and shoes and everything else I wear. Do you want me to look prettier for you? Why don’t you just dress me up like a Barbie doll, and order me to report to your bed at night. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

“Speaking for the males on the staff, I am sure that is what we all want, Miss Windrose. It may even be said to be my prerogative as your rescuer. You are, however, too young.”

He stooped and picked up the cap. He winced when he did it; the act of stooping brought pain to his head wound. “I am sorry I made an inappropriate comment about your hair, Miss Wind-rose. Do you want your cap?”

“Well… yes. I mean, it is rather cold.”

“Of course. Everyone gets cold around me, sooner or later.” He watched while I donned the aviator’s cap and tucked up my hair.

He said, “I am now going to give you a choice, Miss Windrose. I fear I cannot trust you to walk beside me back to the estate, without getting into mischief. I cannot ask you for your word of honor, because you have given and broken that to me, and I find I can no longer trust it.”

He bent over and picked up the rope, and began drawing it into coils. I noticed he once again winced when he stooped over.

I said softly, “What’s the choice?”

“If we walk, I am going to tie your hands, and lead you on a string like a cow to market. This will not stop the nonsense, I am sure, but it might minimize it.”

“What’s the other choice?”

“I carry you. I am reluctant to offer this, because I see you have been given reason this day not to believe that all members of our establishment are above reproach, and you may feel this is an unwanted intimacy.”

“Carry me in your arms? All the way back to school?”

He spoke with slow and condescending tones: “Well, yes. I cannot very well carry you with my legs, now can I? And the school, I must point out, is our destination. I will not be under any need to restrain you, since you will hardly be in a position to do anything too athletic, all things considered.”

I looked at the rope in his hand, looked at his face. “Um, Headmaster, is there something I am missing here? I don’t think I understand what…”

“Through the air, Miss Windrose! Carry you through the air.”

“You mean… fly?”

My face must have lit up, because he actually smiled back at me.