Corinne Duyvis - Otherbound

Cilla hesitated, then added, “Whatever you do—do you want to do it with me?”

Cilla. That was another choice, wasn’t it? Because right now that girl on the bed was smiling, a hopeful, tiny smile that burst with wanting even as Cilla tried so hard to contain it.

Amara rested one hand on the bed to push herself up. She brought her lips to Cilla’s.

This time, the kiss was quieter. Sweeter. When they parted, Amara didn’t want to sit down again. She wanted to stay here, close, where she could feel Cilla’s breath and heat and smiles.

“You’re not crying this time,” Cilla whispered. “That’s an improvement. Does it mean yes?”

Amara crawled onto the bed, next to the warmth of Cilla’s legs. “Maybe.” She smiled, feeling oddly calm. “You don’t know me. You knew a servant who had nothing in this world.”

She was still a servant and she always would be. That kind of thing settled into your bones and heart and mind. But every day, she’d move a little farther away from it. Become a little less what people had made her and more what she made herself.

Maybe she needed Cilla to build that person. Or maybe she needed to stay far away.

“I want to know you.” Cilla touched Amara’s shoulder.

“Me, too,” Amara said, which was not an answer, but she kept smiling anyway.

So many choices.

Nolan must’ve read the notebooks a hundred times.

He had a theory: It wasn’t just one traveler who’d possessed Jorn, but all of them. They rotated. Most of the time they reveled in their minister bodies, and one year in every half dozen or so they were on Cilla duty. That was why Jorn went years between drinking and punishments. That was why he’d tell Amara one thing, then another. That was why, two years ago, Nolan’s journals had been filled with Jorn calling Amara kid .

All these tiny pieces fit together so well and they helped Nolan not one bit, and they helped Jorn, the real Jorn, even less.

“What did Jorn say?” Nolan said. He stared at the notebook on the kitchen table in front of him. “Before I hit him, he tried to say something. ‘I’m sorry.’ Or ‘I’m scared.’ ‘I’m …’ I don’t know.”

Pat frowned at him from the living room couch. She slapped the space bar on the laptop to pause whatever movie she was watching. “I don’t either, Nole.”

“I should know, though.” Nolan paused. “I’m not dreaming about him or anything.” He’d gone from years of notebooks and empty smiles to killing an innocent man. Took a stone and bashed in his skull. He should have nightmares. He should turn away every time he saw a brick, or wallow in guilt, or something .

He’d spent a lifetime wondering who he was. It couldn’t be this. He wasn’t a killer.

“Isn’t that good? Not dreaming?” Pat sounded more awkward than anything.

She’d had nightmares after Nadi possessed her. So why hadn’t Nolan?

“I’m constantly sucking up to Mom and Dad for everything that’s happened, and at the same time I’m a murderer. How am I supposed to fit those things together?” He slammed his hand on the table, shoved aside the journal he’d meant to write in. It fell facedown to the floor. He didn’t know what to write, anyway. The story was over. He’d left them. He hadn’t gotten to say I’m sorry or I hope you have a nice life or I hope this makes up for everything. The journal ended before he’d walked Amara back to the palace.

Pat hissed for him to stay quiet, looking anxiously at the staircase. Mom was asleep upstairs.

“At least you admit you’re a suck-up,” Pat said once she was satisfied Mom wasn’t coming down.

She was trying to make him feel better, but he couldn’t fake his old laughs anymore. “Well, this time, sucking up isn’t working.”

His parents and Dr. Campbell had blamed his behavior—including going cold turkey on his pills—on side effects. It could’ve ended a lot worse, Dr. Campbell had said. Nolan’s parents still seemed shaken, though. They watched him so carefully, smiled so encouragingly, and tried so hard not to bring up the night of Pat’s play that it might’ve been funny under other circumstances.

“I’m sorry about the play,” he said for the tenth time, though it came automatically, and he hoped she didn’t notice. “I’ll help you rehearse next year. Every year.”

“What you did was more important. I get it.” Pat finally slapped the laptop shut and dropped it onto the couch cushions. She joined Nolan at the kitchen table. “Do you want to talk about it or whatever?” She tried to look genuine. Her eyebrows contorted weirdly. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m being nice .”

He’d gambled with Pat’s life. It’d worked out, but it’d been an incredible risk. Nolan had placed the life of a far-off girl in a far-off world over his sister’s. He’d felt Amara’s desperation as keenly as his own, and that didn’t make it right, but …

Part of him missed that. Feeling what Amara felt. Thinking what she thought. Fuck this life , he’d written once. Now it was the only one he had left.

“I don’t know who I am when I’m not trying to pretend everything’s OK,” he told Pat. There. Straight-up. Words that would’ve normally gone into a journal or been pushed into a far corner of his mind because he had no right to an identity crisis while Amara went through hell.

Was she still going through hell? He couldn’t check. She lived worlds beyond his reach.

“I figured … If I was going to be a blank slate, just bouncing off whatever happened to Amara, I might as well keep people around me happy. But I’m not bouncing off anything now. I’m stuck.” He jammed a finger at his head.

Right where he’d hit Jorn.

“You’re not a blank slate.” Pat dropped to the side of her chair, fishing underneath the table for the journal Nolan had dropped. She slapped it in front of him. “I mean, look at this journal. You’re way precise. And trying to keep Mom and Dad happy for so long couldn’t have been easy. It’s something good people do. Not blank slates.”

He couldn’t find the words to argue.

“And,” she said, on a roll now, “remember all your good ideas? You walked half an hour to my school in crazy heat, stayed up all night, you overdosed . You’re kind of an impulsive idi—um, you’re impulsive.”

He nodded. Swallowed. “I know.” He hesitated, and his next words came like sludge, slow and dark, and he couldn’t stop them once he’d started. “I killed Jorn without—I didn’t even think about alternatives. And now I don’t have nightmares.”

Then, in a small voice, he added, “I was so excited when I first got control. And look what I did with it. Look.”

And in a whisper: “I thought I was screwed up before .”

“No. Stop.” Pat shook her head wildly. “Stop. It’s only been a week and a half. You might still get nightmares later. But they’re no good. They suck, Nolan, they suck. Why would you want to feel terrible?”

She’d gone from joking to having tears in her voice.

“I want to care ,” he said.

“You saved me.” She palmed her eyes, rubbed them. “You saved them. That’s caring.”

He looked at Pat and exhaled painful air from his chest. He tried a smile, a real one.

She pushed the notebook his way. “Maybe—maybe you should finish this.”

There’s nothing to write , Nolan wanted to argue.

He’d do it anyway.

And Cilla and Amara lived happily ever after , Nolan wrote.

He imagined them fighting, Amara shouting because she could, because she needed to know she could. He imagined her turning away when Cilla needed her, because if she didn’t, she’d still be that servant she thought she’d escaped. She wouldn’t be able to make sacrifices for Cilla without wondering if it was love or duty that made her do it. She couldn’t feel concern without remembering a million times she’d been concerned before, with Jorn looming over her and a curse rattling at the edges.