Life In The Palace (19 page)

I hadn’t finished yet, “Won’t everyone think I’m weird?”

“Because being a Goth was a really mainstream life choice.”

She had a point.

“Just get over myself and do it?”

“If the best reason you have for not doing it is ‘what will everyone else think’ then yes, just shut up and live your life the way you want to.”

“Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

I felt a weight sliding off my shoulders. That was apparently all she had to say because next she changed the topic.

“Where’s Seth? I just realized that it’s Sunday morning and you have an hour to talk to me.”

I looked at the time, it was later than I had thought. “I actually don’t know. We slept at my house. We’re supposed to have lunch at his house, but boring as it is I wanted to wait here until my laundry was done so I could stuff it in the dryer before going over to his place.”

“That’s very conscientious of you.”

“I’m up to my last pair of underpants, the big baggy period ones.”

“Did Seth see you in them?” her voice rang with horror.

“Thank goodness, no. A girl likes to maintain some mystery. Anyway, now the laundry’s been done for a while. So I’d better actually go and find him. I’m sure he’s managing quite well by himself, but I’m getting hungry.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. Have a good one.”

I threw the stuff in the dryer, and hurried out to find my true love.

Seth wasn’t at home, although something smelled really good in the kitchen. He picked up on the second ring.

“Sweetness?”

“Where are you?” I asked trying to sound playful but not actually annoyed.

Seth laughed, “Guess.”

I shook my head. “Can you just tell me? I’m hungry and getting low-blood-sugar-grumpy.”

“If you’re at my house, then take some of the chocolate cake in the yellow box on the counter.”

I pulled open the lid. It smelled divine. Seth waited on the line while I cut myself a piece. I could hear someone talking in the background.

“It’s amazing,” I said with my mouth full.

“I got the recipe from Alec’s, my boss’ mother.” I didn’t bother asking when Alec’s mother had been in the bar to swap recipes with Seth.

“Feel better?” he asked with a smile in his voice.

“Yes, but where are you? No games.”

“Fourth building from the corner of Prince Arthur and Durocher.”

“You’re at the Ghetto Chapel again?”

Seth chuckled at my reaction. “I bumped into this Gal guy, lunch is in the oven so I figured I’d hang out here until you resurfaced.”

“I was talking to Spike,” I admitted.

“When it turned out to be a very long fifteen minutes, I figured as much. Lunch still has another hour, if you can wait that long. Do you want to meet me here or shall I come back?”

I opened the fridge. There was a nearly full carton of milk that would go very nicely with Alec’s mother’s unspeakably rich chocolate cake.

“I’m going to take another piece of cake and walk on over. See you in minute.”

*

“He’s really into it,” Noy whispered to Tal in the tiny kitchen. “Do you see them learning? This guy is on fire. Gal’s right, he has to be the one.”

“It is very impressive,” Dava agreed. “It makes me worry though, can it be that easy? He just walks in here, we teach him the Way and he goes happily about his life? A Serf that doesn’t Serve doesn’t create a sinkhole. There has to be something more.”

Noy shook her head, “You worry too much.”

“I don’t know,” Jov said quietly coming in the back door. “Where is the big bad? Dava’s right, we haven’t been risking our lives day after day just to get this guy in the front door.”

“All that effort isn’t what it took to get him here and learning? That in itself is huge.” Tal countered.

“It’s huge, we might have helped disable his Interloper enough for him to make the first move, but that can’t be it. We’ve been fighting against something massive, that’s only getting bigger. I don’t know about you, but I was fighting my guts out last night and that thing didn’t look any smaller. If this was all we had to do, wouldn’t each minute of his Service make the sinkhole smaller?”

Noy looked at the ground. Dava nervously glanced at Tal.

“You’re right,” Tal said after a few seconds. “I hadn’t thought of that. The sinkhole hasn’t gotten any smaller.”

“So he’s not the one?” Noy sighed.

“Who said that?” Jov scoffed. “This guy’s about as ‘the one’ as they come. I’m just saying that it’s not over yet. We have to ask He Who Sees All to guide us to find out where’s the real battle.”

“May it become instantly clear to us,” Dava murmured.

“Amen,” Tal and Noy said in unison.

*

Jen was standing by the top of the stairs as I walked in.

“On your way in or out?” I asked.

“Neither. I got here a while ago but there seems to be a minor conference going on in the kitchen and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I glanced over and saw Tal and her friends huddled around talking.

“Do they have battle planning sessions or something?”

Jen nodded, “I think so. I’m not sure if that’s one. I always assumed they were a bit more formal, like with maps or something.”

“And a table with sand and miniature tanks?”

We both laughed.

“Are there tanks in the Palace? I thought it was a bit more old school than that, all swords and arrows.”

“Have you seen the Palace?” Jen asked.

“If I’m standing next to one of the People in the Palace then I can see what they are doing.”

“But-” she looked uncomfortable.

“But I’m an Other? I know. No one seems to know why I can see the Palace at all. Apparently, I’m just lucky. What about you?”

Jen managed to look both uncomfortable to talk about it and relieved I’d asked her. “I started to see.” She looked thoughtful for a minute. “I’m a long way off from taking on any serious Service but I have to admit it is kind of nice.”

“I hear it’s unbelievably pleasurable.”

Jen blushed, “Beats watching TV.”

“Did you just come to hang out?” She asked me.

“Nope, not this time. My lunch date went AWOL.” I jerked my head over to where Seth and Gal were hunched over a book.

Jen shook herself. “I didn’t realize that was Seth. He’s really getting into it.”

I nodded, “You never know, he might just come to Serve someday.”

Jen looked at me with pursed lips. Whatever she was about to say was lost as Seth looked up from the page they were discussing and smiled.

“I think I’d better go and say hello.”

Seth did what he always does, stopped what he was doing when reasonably polite, stood and smiled at me as I walked over. Even though it was our daily routine, a warm glow rushed through my body.

I love the way he looks at me like I’m the greatest prize. Who cares about the adoring crowds when I’m the only one he looks at like that?

“Hey,” He said holding me with his eyes. He must have felt particularly comfortable because, instead of stroking my cheek or taking my hand, he leaned in and kissed me softly.

The kiss lasted for maybe four seconds. He was already pulling away when the crash came from the kitchen. Tal stood there surrounded by shards of broken plate, her face ashen. Everyone was staring, but not at her, at us.

Seth didn’t miss a beat, “Chlo, you already know Gal right.”

I smiled and nodded. Gal was frozen in his place.

“Gal do you want to keep going or shall we call it a day?”

Gal visibly shook himself. “Whatever you want,” he answered in a monotone. “Chloe’s your girlfriend?” Gal asked slowly.

Seth’s eyes narrowed, “I told you all about her the first day, remember.”

“I must have gotten her confused for someone else,” Gal said making an apparent effort to keep his tone light.

“Is there a problem?” There was a harsh edge to Seth’s tone that made me look at him confused.

“She’s an Other,” Gal replied.

Seth put his arm around me, “I guess we’ll be seeing you then.” He started to walk away.

The group in the kitchen suddenly broke up.

“Hey, Chloe,” Jov came bounding over, “Got any V?”

Finally someone is acting normal.

I laughed, “I must have left it in my other coat.”

“Hi, I’m Jov, you must be Seth.” Jov held out his hand.

Seth paused, and then shook it. “You might tell your friend over there to mind his own business.”

My goodness, Seth is being weird
.

Jov didn’t seem to care. “He’s pretty traditional. We’re about to have some lunch. Do you want to stay?”

“Both of us?”

“Of course. You should see what Tal can do with a can of tuna and some mayo.” Jov’s smile was warm.

“We have lunch waiting for us at home,” Seth said blankly.

I looked at my watch. “I thought it wasn’t ready for another hour?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t want to stay.” His tone was pretty final.

“Ok,” I shrugged. “See you later, Jov. Bye Tal,” I waved into the kitchen.

I waited to speak again until we got out into the street. “What was that? I thought the plan was to hang around until our lunch was ready. I could have actually gone for a tuna sandwich.”

“I made garlic braised beef with roast vegetables,” Seth smiled.

“I would have still eaten it. I sacrificed my breakfast to talk to Spike.”

“Do I need to pour the cornflakes into the bowl for you? Anyway, I thought you had cake.” Seth rubbed the palm of my hand with his thumb. I had a feeling I was being intentionally distracted.

“We could have stayed without ruining our appetites. Why the sudden, uncharacteristically rude, departure?”

Seth shut his eyes.

“I don’t know why I went there. I know what they’re like. I should have warned you, but I’m not about to start telling you where to go and who to hang out with. I thought it would be harmless. How bad can it be to visit the elderly? I didn’t suspect that you’d get so into it. That’s why I went over there. I needed to scout out to see if they were different. Looks like my fears were justified.”

“Your what? Could you try that again in English?”

“Could it wait until we get home?” Seth sounded pained.

We had less than a block to go so I left it.

Ten minutes later snuggled on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate to tide me over, I tried again. I twisted so that our legs overlapped and I was basically facing him.

“What was the problem just now? What were you so afraid of?”

Seth reached out and stroked my cheek. I kept my gaze unapologetically firm.

“They’re going to say we have to break up.” He said calmly.

“Why?”

“Because you’re not one of the People.”

“So?”

“They believe that People should only be with People. They say that if one of the People marries an Other then they die in the Palace.” His eyes were full of pain.

“Is it true?” I shuddered.

Seth shrugged, “You tell me. You believe in this stuff more than I do.”

There was a long pause.

“Can’t I just get into the Palace and become one of the People?” I asked.

“I think so. My cousin’s husband made the Quest before they got married.”

“So what’s the problem? I’d basically decided to do it anyway.” Finally, I could get my breathing under control.
Phew, I was really worried for a minute.

“Your Footman friends over there are going to say it’s not good enough. They’re going to tell you that you can’t get into the Palace just to marry someone, it invalidates the Quest.”

I was glad for the drink in my hands as a distraction, “How did your cousin’s husband do it?”

“They did it through my parent’s Chapel. They’re a bit more easygoing.”

“They’re Reinterpretors?” I said it slowly hoping I got the word right.

Seth nodded.

“Is that what you want me to do?” I asked carefully.

“I don’t care what you do,” Seth said angrily. “I don’t see what difference it makes. You’re my girl. I don’t need a bunch of old men with beards to give me permission. They think their God is running the world, well who do they think made us fall in love with each other? As far as I’m concerned we can go to Vegas tomorrow. I don’t need anyone else’s permission to get married.”

I smirked. He’s cute when he’s really worked up.

“If you want to be allowed into my family home, you might want to ask my Dad’s permission. You should at least learn from Rob’s mistakes. Also, Vegas is a bad idea. Eloping doesn’t go well in my family.”

Seth calmed down enough to smile, “That story with your cousin Randy is for real?”

“Why bother making it up? We really all ambushed them in the Chapel of Love. It was ‘My Big Fat Mexican Elopement.’ ”

“Okay, Vegas is out then.”

He still looked pretty tense.

“Why are you so sure they’re going to tell us to break up? What business is it of theirs anyway?”

“Did you see your friend Tal? She looked like she’d seen a ghost.”

She had looked pretty shaken up, but I wasn’t prepared to believe the worst. “Jov was still friendly.”

“He might just be a better politician,” Seth replied blankly.

“But they’re my friends,” I said as tears I wasn’t expecting welled up in my eyes.

Seth pulled me close to him. “They probably were, but before anything else they are Servants in the Palace.”

Chapter 15

T
al’s hands were
shaking. She pulled them quickly into her lap. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it. All this time I trusted her? Everyone kept saying it was fine. What harm can come from letting her hang out with us? What does it matter if she knows the truth as long as she’s on our side? But she wasn’t on our side. She was the thing we were fighting.”

“It’s hardly her fault,” Dava countered. “It’s not like we warned her.”

“Why would it be something we’d tell her? Don’t destroy the world? Keep the cosmic balance intact?”

“Yeah, Tal, but she doesn’t think she’s destroying the cosmic balance. She thinks she met a cute guy and started dating him,” Jov said calmly.

“I heard her talking about him. How wonderful he was, how perfect for her and I just went along with it. To think I was worried about her getting together with Josh!”

“Actually, Josh is his brother,” Jov said half to himself.

“This happens all the time, it’s not like we can go posting billboards, ‘Dear Others, please avoid dating People, even the Serfs, because it upsets the cosmic balance.’ If the Serfs don’t see any difference between themselves and the Others, then why shouldn’t they date each other? From where they’re coming from we’re the crazy ones.” Cale looked across the table.

“Chloe isn’t a regular Other. She’s seen the Palace. She actually believes us. How often does that happen? She should have known better.” Tal thumped the table.

“Not if we didn’t tell her.” Jov was adamant.

“This is not what matters right now,” Dava glanced at Gal who sat with his head in his hands. “We know what happened. We know what we’re up against. We asked He Who Knows to make it clear and He did. We should be thankful because it could have taken us months more to work it out.” She looked pointedly at Tal, “There’s nothing gained by beating ourselves up about it now. Yes, we should have warned her, but the moment of power is the present, so we have to decide what we’re going to do now.”

Gal looked up and nodded, “Dava’s right. Enough bemoaning our fate. This is the mission, let’s do it. As far as we understand it, Seth Wilks was sent from the Throne Room to play a part in the final battle. Right now the Adversary is trying to knock him out of the game. It’s neither her fault nor his but every day he stays with Chloe puts him closer to death in the Palace. Our goal is simple. We need to get them to break up and for Seth to take up the Service.”

“That’s a lot easier said than done.” Jov shook his head.

“She thinks he’s her soul mate,” Tal interjected.

“Then she’s wrong,” Gal’s tone was resolute. “It is not his destiny to die a spiritual death in the arms of his pretty girlfriend.”

“How do you suggest we break them up?” Noy looked around the table.

“The textbook answer is we get him more and more interested in the Palace until his desire to Serve is greater than his desire for her. Then he moves into the Palace and she goes happily about the rest of her life. Minimum suffering all around,” Gal explained.

“Except that’s not going to work here,” Cale added.

“I doubt it. Seth seemed pretty mad. He must know what we were thinking. His Interloper is never going to let him just gently let her go.” Jov looked to Gal for agreement.

“It seems unlikely. If we can’t get him to do it then it will have to be her.”

“Her?” Tal stared at her brother in disbelief.

“I think you and Noy, and maybe Dava too, should go and talk to her. Explain what’s at stake.”

“And just ask her to break up with her boyfriend because we told her so?” Tal interrupted.

“Unless anyone has a better idea.”

“Can’t we just pray a lot?” Noy asked.

“Normally that would be all we’d do. Throw enough Service at the problem and let He Who Turns the World take care of the details. But normally a Serf dating an Other doesn’t create a whopping great sinkhole. This is not a normal situation. We need more than just the standard response. I think this really has a chance. Chloe knows that the Palace is real. You have a relationship with her. Just explain to her what it means. She doesn’t want her boyfriend to die any more than we do.”

*

“Twice in one week? Either you have a lot of time on your hands or I’m very special,” Mrs. Hols smiled as she waved me into the armchair opposite hers.

I slipped out of my cardigan and was glad I’d remembered to wear multiple layers. The old age home was sweltering.

I got straight to the point, “Why can’t one of the People marry an Other?”

“Because they’ll die,” she replied calmly.

“In the real world or in the Palace?”

That got a smile, “The Palace is the real world, this one is the illusion. Here it is only physical, the physical decays. In the Palace it’s spiritual, that’s for keeps.”

“Dying in the Palace is worse that dying in the physical world?” I shot back.

“Much worse, it lasts forever. Die in the physical world and you can be reborn, die in the Palace and it lasts forever.”

I thought for a second, “Tal told me that if they lose a battle then they could get killed in the Palace.”

“She’s talking in short hand. You can ‘die’ in the Palace if you lose a battle, but really it means you get knocked out of the game until it’s your turn to come around again.”

“Strike three and you’re out?” I ventured.

“Something like that. Your Essence goes back to the Throne Room. It’s not something you want to have happen to you, but it’s not the end of the world. When one of the People marries an Other, then their Essence is destroyed. You can’t come back from that.” Her tone was unbearably factual.

“Why?” I asked quietly.

“It’s the denial of your nature. People were made to Serve. When you marry you tie your Essence to another individual. To perform the Service your Essence must be in the Palace. When one of the People marries an Other, then they tie their Essence to the physical world in a way that can’t be undone. They remove themselves from the Palace and so they die.”

“Isn’t that a little harsh? What if they fall in love?” I hardly dared breathe as I waited for the answer.

She looked at me quizzically. “You know, early in creation there were Angels that wanted to be human. They fell to earth, and here they lived and died.”

“I think I saw a movie like that once with Meg Ryan.”

She shrugged, “Could be.” I guess she doesn’t watch much TV.

“About Angels it’s easier to accept. We know that Angels have no free will, they are created only to do the will of He Who Knows. They get to live in Heaven, but the price is staying there.”

I nodded slowly, it was beginning to sink in.

“The People were created to Serve. We don’t get as much choice as you do. If you want to walk away and forget about all of this, then you can. There won’t be any repercussions. If one of the People wants to leave then there’s a price. The price is their soul.”

Her tone softened.

“It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. It’s a very complex equation. He Who Sees All doesn’t just go around cutting off souls willy-nilly. Something still exists, but they lose their place in the Throne Room.”

“Others don’t get into Heaven?”

She shook her head quickly, “What gave you that idea? There’s a place in the Palace for the Others, it’s just not quite the same. I guess you could say that they don’t sit up as close. One of the People who left the Palace will spend eternity looking at the People and seeing what they could have had. The Others who did what they had to in this world are rewarded richly.”

“But it’s not the same reward as the People get?”

“It wasn’t the same Service. Anyone who wants to get the same reward can enter the Palace and perform the Service.”

I looked around the room, buying time. Basically, she was saying I could live happily forever, but Seth was doomed to an eternity of suffering.

“It’s not really fair, though, is it? What if one of the People doesn’t want to Serve? What if through no fault of their own they fall in love with an Other? They have to suffer forever due to things they couldn’t control?”

She stared at the wall behind my shoulder for a minute before she answered. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that we were born in nice cozy Western countries with plentiful food supplies and good health care. It’s not fair that you were born into this generation and not the one in the sixties that had better job security. It’s not fair that you have brown eyes instead of blue. We don’t get to choose who we are or where we start our lives; our only choice is what we do with it.”

“Ok, but still … ” I stammered.

“In this life, we don’t get to know why things happen one way or another. But we do know that He Who Sees is kind. He doesn’t do things to hurt us, it’s not all a big cosmic joke. If something happened then it was for our good, even if it takes a lifetime to see why. You can trust that He has everything under control.”

I couldn’t help myself. I sighed deeply as I felt the tears well up.

“Having faith doesn’t mean you have to like what happens, it means you accept it.”

She watched me while I struggled to get my emotions under control.

“May you be blessed with a clear path,” she said softly.

“Thank you,” I whispered back.

It felt like an ambush; probably because it was. They were waiting for me outside my apartment. It could have been a coincidence, but it didn’t feel very casual.

Tal, Noy and Dava were standing huddled together on the steps leading up to the front door of my apartment block. They were each on a different step because all the snow had been shoveled to one side of the steps so there was really only room for one person to go up or down at a time.

I felt my heart drop down to my stomach as I rounded the corner and saw them.

“Hi guys,” I called out trying to sound natural.

“Hi Chloe,” Dava called back. She actually sounded normal and friendly.

“Chloe, do you have a few minutes?” Noy asked as I came closer. She sounded fairly casual, but the phrase “Do you have a few minutes?” never bodes well.

“We need to talk,” Tal added. Then I knew it was going to go badly. “We need to talk,” is the conversational equivalent of walking into your basement without turning on the light on a dark and stormy night when a known psychopath is on the loose. You might as well cut to the chase and slit your own throat.

I considered my options. I didn’t really want to have the big showdown in my living room. Simone would stay out of the way, but Seth might show up and that wouldn’t be pretty.

“Sure, Second Cup?” I shrugged.

“We haven’t seen you around the Chapel for a few days,” Dava said brightly as we started walking down the block away from school. The closest Second Cup to my house was a small one in the bottom of a big office building. It was really just a place for the office workers to get their caffeine needs met. It had the advantage that, unlike my other usual hangouts, we were probably not going to bump into anyone we knew.

“I wasn’t sure that I was still welcome,” I said calmly.

I saw them exchange a look, but no one responded.

“What’ve you been up to?” Noy asked after a minute passed.

“The usual. School, it’s amazing how much information they can cram into a survey course. Jen and I went to the movies yesterday.”

“Did you see anything good?” Dava was really trying.

“The Help, you know the one about the black maids in the South,” I said and then wondered whether they really would know.
Why are we pretending to be friends?

“Oh really? I wanted to see that, I heard it was really good,” Dava said.

Our arrival at the coffee shop ended the stilted conversation. We ordered drinks in relative silence. They only had those small round tables designed to fit two, so we had to bunch around it in a circle. It made it slightly less like me verses them, but only slightly.

“I guess you know what we’re going to say,” Tal began.

“No, actually I don’t,” I replied. “I know what Seth has to say and I know what Mrs. Hols told me about the Way this afternoon.”

“You went to see her?” Noy interjected, obviously surprised.

“Yes,” I nodded curtly. “Since the people I thought were my friends seemed afraid to talk to me, I went to find out the answers myself.”

They recoiled slightly from the sting in my words. Four days of silence had not endeared them to me.

“What did she say?” Noy asked carefully.

“That if an Other marries one of the People, then they are ejected from the Palace. That there are consequences for not staying in the spiritual place assigned to you.”

I saw Noy and Dava exchange a glance. “How do you feel about that?” Dava asked.

I hate when people use faux therapy on me. It gets me mad faster than almost anything else.

“How am I supposed to feel about that? Did you come here to tell me to break up with my boyfriend?” I shot back.

“Are you going to?” Tal asked coldly.

“No!” I realized I was talking too loudly for the café where we were basically the only customers.

I lowered my tone, “I don’t know that I am. Maybe if someone had just talked to me about it, instead of ignoring me and then mounting an intervention, I might have at least considered it.”

There was genuine concern in Dava’s eyes, “Do you understand what’s at stake?”

“Seth won’t get the same place in the Throne Room as he would otherwise. He’ll have to sit on the non-VIP table,” My voice dripped with sarcasm.

“It means he’ll die,” Tal looked at me with venom in her eyes. “There’ll be nothing left. What you think of as Seth will be gone. His body will still be there, he’ll be a walking, talking shell, but his Essence will shrivel and expire.”

“So he’ll be just like the rest of us Others.” I managed to make Others sound like the “n” word.

Dava shook her head, “No, he won’t. Others are complete and whole. Seth would be destroyed.”

Noy looked up, “It’s like in Good Will Hunting.”

I nodded to show I’d seen the movie.

“Mat Damon asks Ben Affleck what’s wrong with laying brick for a lifetime. Ben Affleck says nothing, it’s a fine, honorable way to earn a living, but for Mat Damon to spend his life laying brick when he could have done so much more, it would be a tragedy.”