Haven (War of the Princes) (3 page)

A fractured finger of lightning snaked above us as we hopped out of the coach. I stared after it with morose fascination, waiting for the distant growl of thunder that followed.

Kyle climbed down from the driver’s seat, patted the waiting horse and smiled. “Here we are! And it’s not even raining.”

“It’s still so warm out,” Ruby mused.
 

 
The Fairgrounds looked haunted in the dimness. Vacant booths, empty tables, and the skeletons of tents before the backdrop of a brooding sky were eerie reminders of the bright and crowded festivals this place was made for. The oblong shaped Clockwork Ferris Wheel and the massive oak tree beside it were like a pair of towering giants, looming over Dragonfly Lake.

“Come on,” Kyle urged, leading the way through the creaky gates.

I trailed behind, feeling vacant, just wanting to crumble into a dusty heap. Calvin’s cruel actions stained my thoughts.
Why would he do that?
I asked myself over and over in my mind.

It hurt. He used to be important to me. This public lie was a worse betrayal than finding out he was seeing another girl behind my back. At least
that
time the only person whose reputation he ruined was his own. Pushing me into the river was just icing on the cake. My humiliation ran as deep as Dragonfly Lake.
 

I hadn’t realized we had reached the foot of the Clockwork Ferris Wheel, appropriately nicknamed The Wheel, until the lights came on. Ruby was walking back from the central building with a shy smile on her face. She’d worked at the fairgrounds one holiday and still remembered how to get things running.

“
Ru
, it looks amazing,” I said honestly.

Hundreds of lights in soft blue, green and purple spangled the Clockwork Wheel and glinted dimly off of the lake water below. Lightning bloomed overhead. It looked like a scene from a dark fairy tale.

“Nice one,” Kyle said appreciatively.

Sterling stared up at Ruby’s handiwork looking quietly impressed.

With sudden apprehension, I realized how much the whole thing seemed like a double date.

“I wish I could turn this thing into a robot,” Kyle said, staring up at the Clockwork Wheel. Ruby tripped over a fallen branch, Sterling paced away to cough and spit, and the semblance of any romance was instantly shattered. We were just a bunch of kids messing around in an empty park.

“Now check this out,” Kyle said with a devious grin. He pulled a small case out of his jacket pocket, clicked it open and revealed a small set of tools beside a mechanical beetle. For a minute, he sat on the steps of The Wheel and worked on the beetle like a surgeon. When he got up, he wore a triumphant grin. A final poke at the little bug brought it to life.

We followed him into the control booth and he placed it gently atop The Wheel’s mechanisms. It dug its little metal claws into the grooves of the board and there was a very audible groan as the Clockwork Wheel swung into motion.

“Hah!” Kyle beamed, ducking out of the booth. “Good job, me! Why thank you! Big of you to say so! Come on you guys! Hurry, hurry!”

“How did you do that?” Sterling asked. I wasn’t used to hearing his voice.

“Let’s just say Tinkering runs in my family,” replied Kyle with obvious pride. “Get ready guys, next basket’s ours!”

Doubt fluttered in my chest. The heavy rotating gears above us were unnerving as The Wheel pulled sturdy wooden baskets up, down and around their course.

“Our” basket paused for maybe half a minute, barely giving us enough time to pile in before swooping back up into the air. The feeling was exhilarating. Warm night wind poured over us and the oak tree showered us with leaves as we brushed up through its overgrown branches. We crested the top of The Wheel and I could see the sparkling lights of
Rivermarch
, the many bridges crossing my hometown’s snaking rivers, and four of the five watermills. It was beautiful.

The Wheel tilted, extending our basket far out over the lake and bounced to a halt a good forty feet above the surface. Nothing was between our basket and the water below.

Wide eyed, Ruby stared at Kyle. I held my breath.

“Why’d it stop?” Sterling said before we could stutter out the words.

“Timer!” Kyle said cheerfully. “Oh calm down, I’ve done this at least twice before. You don’t trust me?”

“What’s to trust?” I asked. I’d meant it as a joke but my words reminded me of Calvin and I felt an invisible dagger stab at my heart. A hint of bitterness had crept into my voice.

The following silence told me that the connection wasn’t lost on my friends.

“So is that what you’re going to do Kyle? After you’re out of school?” Ruby asked hastily. Her hands were clasped together. She only did that when she was nervous. Sterling was sitting a foot away from her.

“It
has
to be,” Kyle agreed brightly. “I mean, I love it and I’m pretty good at it. What else could you ask for?”

The smile slipped off of his face. I was the only one who noticed. Knowing Kyle, he was pensively balancing ambition against practicality to double check its actual likelihood. He was half rascal and half genius.
I
had no doubt he’d get as far as he wanted to.

“You’re lucky,” Ruby sighed, somewhat deflated. “I still have no idea what I’m going to do. I’ll go to the university, for sure. But I have no clue what I’ll apprentice in.
Wh
-what do you want to do Sterling?”

He glanced at her and straightened up like he didn’t expect to be part of the conversation.

“Um,” he said, drawing out the sound as he considered. “Well there’s music. I don’t know where that will go. My dad wants me to be a constable, but mom wants to send me to culinary school.”

“
Culinary
school?” Kyle burst in with a disbelieving chuckle. “I have a hard time picturing you as a chef.”

Sterling shrugged.

“I think culinary school sounds great!” Ruby put in quickly. “It’s like they say, the quickest way to a person’s heart is through their stomach! Not that you need to cook for someone to like you-“

“What about you Kat?” Kyle asked, separating our conversation from her nervous chatter.

I sighed unable to feign a good mood. It was exhausting.

“I don’t know either. I get the feeling that my family expects things from me, but I have no idea what that is. I’m pretty sure I’d figure out a way to mess up going to the university,” came my somber response. “I know my dad wants me to get married too, but I’d probably disappoint him by marrying someone with a different letter.”

It was a custom and tradition to name one’s children using the same first letter as their last name in Haven Valley. It wasn’t that it was
bad
not to have your first and last name sync up, it was just considered lucky if they did. And that went doubly for marrying someone with the same letters as you. I guess you have to create your imperfections in a near-perfect world. Sterling Mason was one of five people I’d known in my whole lifetime whose name didn’t match.

           
“Seriously. My parents won’t leave me alone about that. We could get them off our backs you know. You could marry me and be Katelyn
Kiteman
,” Kyle said jokingly.

           
He’d gotten me to laugh with him. Considering my mood he should have been lavished in silks, pelted with confetti, and had an ice sculpture chiseled in his likeness for
that
feat. Kyle always was good at cheering me up. It sunk in belatedly that he might not have been entirely kidding.

           
“Thanks Kyle,” I said with a little smile. “You’re such a selfless friend.”

           
He patted me on the back like a buddy.

           
I liked Kyle, I did, but not that way. For a moment I searched within myself, wondering if I was missing out, wondering if part of me could picture being Mrs.
Kiteman
. Maybe there was a little feeling.

The stress Calvin was causing in my life was enough to deal with. I didn’t have the heart for another complex situation.

Resolve hit me like a big, red, steam train. I was done with boys for a while.

A rumble of thunder caught my attention. The weight of the goliath cloud seemed like it was bearing down on us.

“You know, I wonder how safe it is to be sitting in a metal and wood Ferris wheel during a lightning storm,” I said, feeling a bite of worry as the gravity of our situation finally occurred to me.

“Not very,” Sterling said lowly.

“Good point,” Kyle responded with perturbation.

“Oh no! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Ruby said, stricken.

“Quickest way down,” I said and Sterling read my mind, pointing down.

“No. No, no
no
,” Ruby said clutching the side of the basket for support. “I’m not doing it.”

I smiled at her.

“Isn’t one dip in the water enough for you?” she whined desperately.

“Kyle?” I asked. “Will your stuff be okay?”

“Waterproof,” he winked tapping his jacket pocket where he kept his tool kit.

“It’s… like, forty feet down! I’m not doing it!” she declared stoutly, crossing her arms.

“More like thirty five,” Kyle corrected.

“Come on Ruby,” Sterling said, offering her a hand up to stand on the bench. I watched her expression melt with attraction before stiffening with fear again. The two sentiments made for a pitifully torturous combination. I felt bad for her, but in a way that dragged a smile to my face.

“This is crazy,” she hissed.

I looked over the edge of the basket, keenly aware of the distance. I loved heights. They worried me and excited me in equal proportions.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ruby’s strangled voice complained one last time.

We jumped; four dark silhouettes plummeting from the dully shining Clockwork Ferris Wheel into Dragonfly Lake.

Chapter 5: Seven Hundred Year Old Secret

           
When I got home, the spell was broken. Nothing stood between me my dread for school the next day.

           
It was only a matter of time before someone teased me about my “fall” into the Wendy River, or until I ran into Calvin again. He’d be so full of himself right now; so smug. My hurt was beginning to harden into hate. It was probably about time I hated him, after everything he’d done last year.

           
I ascended the tall wooden steps to the second floor of our cottage. The first story included a hobby room, two small stalls and a fenced paddock for dad’s thickly set horses, Molly and
Grendel
.

Creaking open the front door, I tip-toed in, as if it mattered. My dad, stepmother
Kassey
, and five year old half brother, Kevin, were all in the dining room eating peaches-and-cream pie.

I ghosted to the archway and watched them laughing and trying to steal each other’s food until my dad noticed me.

“Bug!” he said, calling me by the nickname that only he used. It was short for
Katiebug
. “Did you see the lightning?”

“Of course,” I said, softening at the affectionate tone in his voice. “I was up in the Clockwork Wheel for most of it.”

“The one at Harvest Fairgrounds? Now, Bug, that could be dangerous,” he said patiently, and that was as angry as my father ever got. “But I know you’re careful.”

“Katie, sweetheart,” my step-mom, said kindly. “Come have some pie.”

As far as I was concerned she was my only mother, even if she wasn’t the real one. No, my father had not been ridiculously lucky to find a woman like her whose name fit into his “K” family, but she had been more than happy to change her name. Her name had been Debora before. Extreme, I know.

“Katie,” Kevin said in a crackly voice. “
Katieeee
… pie monster wants to eat you!” It was code for my little brother smearing pie in my face.

“It might eat you first
Kev
, you’re closer,” I said and gestured that I was going upstairs.

“Have a good night sweetie,” Mom said.

“Good night Bug,” Dad said and then added, “Stay out of trouble.” It was like the man was psychic. But even if I were headed for trouble, he trusted that everything would work out; that there was never anything to worry about.

“Pie monster will get you in your sleep!” Kevin called after me.

“It better not,” I shouted down. The last thing I needed before school was caramelized peach in my hair.

He really was a cute kid, my parents’ pride and joy. I wasn’t exactly jealous of him, I loved the little guy. My dad was thrilled that he had a son, and Mom deserved to have a child of her own. I guess I just felt left out. They were the perfect little family and I was a leftover from a broken life.

The way I was thinking was unfair, I knew that they loved me and that I shouldn’t be so self-loathing, but my bad day justified it. Everything seemed worse than it was.