Family issues have to be dealt between the family. You’re not a Mitchell, and you dropped the idea of being Scott Bickelmeir nearly a day ago, so you feel it’s best to give Taylor wide berth. You did enjoy hanging out with your own friends again – you almost forgot how nice it was, even if they can be jerks and assholes sometimes – but you choose to return home early, recalling that your mother’s probably alone.
You ask Sean to take you home, and he agrees to even though the movie is still going. The screen’s projecting the moment where Neo learns about the nature of the Matrix, and you can’t help but feel that you’re somehow close to the character, just learning about the reality of the world. Magic exists. The enemy could be anywhere, everywhere, wearing the faces of the people you love. It can be terrifying, but as you recall the end of the story, it’s a journey of realization. You feel that, if Taylor and Lucy ask you why you’re trying to learn about the Libra, you have a plausible answer.
You’re just trying to recall if it was "know thine enemy" or "fear thyself" ...
--
Sean drops you at your house, and you see both Robert and your dad arrived before you did. They look at you, your father making the obvious question. "Where were you, Will?"
"Watching a movie with Caleb, Keith and some other guys. Decided to cut out early, though." He doesn't look satisfied by the answer, so you add, "Sean Mitchell was there too. He’s a nice guy." That gets a smile from your dad, and he drops the subject.
Your mother calls you in to dinner, and the atmosphere is less tense than it has been recently. You tell them about the movie you watched, and about how these two schoolmates have a YouTube channel where they do movie reviews, and how they invited you to contribute. You even have the presence of mind to add that maybe it could get you extra credit in your Film as Literature class. That seems to further impress your parents.
Upstairs, you decide to continue the respite from your magical studies, and pull out your math homework. You oddly find Calculus oddly soothing than previously, but your mind still gravitates towards the sigils, as you find yourself doodling some of them in your notebook. You notice, in particular, you’ve accidentally replaced Leibniz’ notation for integrals with a sigil from Blackwell’s notebook, and have to erase it.
--
You visit the hideout on Sunday, full of ideas sparked by your calculus homework, and you even take your math textbook with you to the hideout. Taylor and Lucy are there, and you note that they have started constructing a kind of next in the corner of the basement, with blankets, pillows, a couple of sleeping bags, and other homey touches. They're occupied with their cell phones, though, so you don't feel like you're intruding when you settle in with the length of the old conference table between you and bend over your calculus book.
Last night's experience has given you the idea of trying to treat the sigils as a kind of calculus problem, and so you study in detail—and with new and excited appreciation—the textbook's explanations of derivatives and integrals, noticing that mathematics tends to rely on actions that oppose each other: addition to subtraction, multiplication to division, derivatives to integrals. You also gain for yourself a fresh insight on how mathematics is taught in a very specific way: how addition is taught before subtraction, for instance, and how multiplication is just a way to add multiples of the same number, while division is just the opposite of multiplication. Derivatives and integrals work a similar purpose, but they’re used to simplify equations. In fact, you notice in your textbook that some of the most famous equations in Physics were derived or integrated from existing equations. That only strengthens your hunch that sigils work in a similar way. With a sense of anticipation and confidence, then, you pull out the notebooks you stole from Blackwell and tackle that idea you had for reconstructing sigils from the simplifications you are sure he jotted down.
However, three hours in, you’re still stumped. You do feel you’re making progress – though you can tell you’ll need to sharpen up on your math skills some more – but you take a break when Taylor gets up with a grunt to declare that he's taking Lucy out for another drive. You stop him long enough to ask if he wants to talk to his brother, but he tells you thinks it's still too early. Something in his manner makes you think it's not a matter of it being "too early," but a matter of him not knowing how to make the approach.
--
So you're startled on Monday afternoon when, as you're loping out after school into the student parking lot, you spot two figures in football gear standing nose to nose in the practice fields.
At first the scene makes no sense at all, for you are now so used to seeing Taylor outside of Scott's mask that for a long moment you actually take it to be Taylor talking to Scott. Only when you realize that would be impossible do you see that it's Sean, not Taylor, who is glaring at Scott.
Then, to your dismay, they launch themselves at each other.
Hardly knowing what you're doing, you hurl yourself across the parking lot at them, shaking your backpack loose and dropping it as you sprint over the grass at them. They are clutching each other, struggling to throw the other down, when you leap at them in a flying tackle.
You might as well have tried tackling a dump truck.
But even as you bounce off them, at least you surprise them into letting go of each other turning to see who the moron was who tried tackling them.
"Thun of a bitch!" you snarl up at them as you nurse your bruised nose. "The fuck are you guyth doing?"
"Prescott?" a thoroughly bewildered Sean asks. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Trying to thtop you guyth from being a coupla moronth." You touch your nostrils, then study your fingertips. It doesn't seem to be bleeding.
Scott flushes. "It's none of your business, Will. Just let me handle things."
"Handle things how? Is this your idea of talking to him?"
Scott's eyes blaze, and for a moment you think he's going to hit you. But he only turns and stalks away.
You glance back at Sean—who is watching all this with astonishment—then hurry after Taylor. "What was going on back there?" you ask.
"Nothing."
"It looked like something to me."
Scott glares. "I can't talk to him," he says. "Not like this." He jabs a finger at his face.
"So take it off and show him who you are!"
He stops in mid-stride. "Jesus, Will, I can't do that here! Not out in the open!"
"So do it someplace private. Do it back in the clubhouse."
Scott makes a face, and his fists bunch up. It's a long moment before he answers.
"It would be a shock," he says. "How the fuck could I explain it?"
"If you don't try, then you never will." And when he doesn't answer, you point to his face.
"Maybe it's like a band-aid," you tell him, "and you just have to rip it off. Because if you wait for it to be easy, it'll never happen. And then why did we go through all that shit to figure out how to take it off you?"
Scott's face turns gray.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
"Remember what you told me at Blackwell's, about trusting my gut?"
Scott winces, and his shoulder sag. "Alright," he says as he turns to trudge back to the school. "But make it work."
--
You trot back over to Sean, and ask if you can meet to talk when he gets off work at Salopek. He's clearly puzzled, but agrees. You return home to wait for five o'clock, then on your way out again you stop by the school long enough to warn Lucy that you'll be bringing Taylor's brother back. She shakes her head and calls you an idiot.
Sean follows you from Salopek back to the elementary school in his own truck, which spares you an awkward conversation at least. You're vexed to see that Scott's truck isn't out front when you pull up.
"So what's this all about, Prescott?" Sean asks as he dismounts to join you. He sounds tired and a little pissed off. "I gotta get home soon."
"You don't want to miss this," you assure him. "It's about your brother. Scott ... Well, he's got something to say."
Sean's expression freezes, and a flush rises up his neck. "I don't have anything to say to that son of a bitch," he says. "Especially not about that."
"Look, just give him a chance." You grasp Sean by the shoulder. "There's something he has to say, something he has to show you."
"I'll wait five minutes, and then I'll give him thirty seconds to talk. Then I'm gone."
"That'll be enough," you assure him. "Let's wait inside. Uh, Cindy Vredenburg's sister is meeting us here too, and she's probably here already." But if you thought that might catch his interest, you're disappointed, for Sean only shrugs.
"What's your problem with Scott, exactly?" you ask Sean as you lead him to the basement door.
"He took my brother away from me."
"I'm sure he didn't mean to," you stammer. Sean just makes a face. At least, you've enough tact not to make the obvious, tasteless joke: I wish someone would take my brother away from me.
But it's like you're punished anyway just for thinking it. For when you're halfway down the steps, you look up to see that Lucy isn't the only one waiting for you in the basement.
Robert's waiting there too.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author