The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Three (94 page)

"It is not!" Parci yells. "We don't have epilepsy. It's something completely different."

"Shut up, Parci," Czigany says. "We have to tell them."

"You shut up," Parci says. "You say anything else and Mom will seriously kill you."

"Shut up both of you," Bad says. "Save your breath. There's a steep bit here."

At last they are at the summit. They are all panting. Czigany's breath comes in sobs. When she jerks at the handcuffs, Parci stumbles. "Quit it," Parci says. "Just quit it!"

Here is the tree, and here is Nikki, up in the branches. She grins at Lee and gives her the thumbs-up. She has her iPod, loaded up with several hours' worth of
Project Runway
, her yarn and plastic needles, her Thermos and a sandwich.

Maureen says, "Czigany, you can stop. You and Parci sit down here."

She helps the two sisters sit down with their backs to the tree.

While Maureen winds the rope around and around Czigany, Parci, the tree, Bad explains. "Most Ordeals are kind of lame. For mine, they put a personal ad on Craigslist and I had to go sit at Rosie's Strong Brew, wearing a rose in my hair, and meet all of these ancient guys. The last three, it turned out, had all been told to show up at the same time, and I wasn't allowed to explain, either. The creepy thing was how none of them were surprised that I was a fifteen-year-old lesbian. So the ad must have mentioned that. Whatever. My point is that I wanted this to be different. So I went and did some research on Ordeals and what I found out is that you used to have one if you were going to be a knight. You had to go into a church and kneel on the stone floor all night long and stay awake to pray, and if you did, they made you a knight."

"We checked the weather," Maureen says. Maureen's Ordeal was so humiliating that she refuses to talk about it at all. "It's not supposed to get down past forty degrees tonight. Thank you, global warming. The church thing wasn't going to work, but when we talked about it, Lee said that we could come here."

"You can't leave us here all night!" Czigany says.

"We'll be back to get you in the morning," Bad says. "And, just in case, someone is going to be keeping an eye on you. You know. So don't try to get loose. It's a long way down the mountain."

"Call my mom," Czigany says. "Just call her and tell her what's happening. I can't believe you guys are doing this to me! You said we were going home. You said we were going home!"

When no one says anything, she begins to thrash, horribly. She throws herself against the rope at her chest as if she means to cut herself in half. This is not how the Ordeal is supposed to go. Lee's stomach hurts as if she is the one caught in the ropes.

"Ow, ow, ow," Parci says. "Quit it, Czigany. You're making it really tight."

Czigany says, "Take off the blindfolds. At least take off our blindfolds!"

"Stop whining," Bad says. She sounds exasperated, as if she can't believe how ungrateful Czigany is being. "The whole point of an Ordeal is that it sucks. The blindfolds are just part of the suckiness."

"Am I going to be a knight, too?" Parci says. "Or whatever? Because it isn't fair otherwise."

Bad says, "Hear that? Your little sister's a badass, Czigany."

Czigany's shirt has ridden up as she wriggles in the ropes. Lee bends over to pull it back down. As she bends over, she says, as quietly as she can, "Czigany? Don't worry. We'll be back sooner than you think. Okay?"

"You lied to me," Czigany says.

"I know," Lee whispers. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," Czigany says. And presses her lips together tightly.

"Don't worry about us," Parci says. "We'll be fine." She's grinning like a mad fiend.

No one says anything on the way back to the van until Maureen says, finally, "Maybe we should call the Khulhats. Just in case. Czigany was really freaking out."

"You would, too, if you had her mom," Bad says.

Lee says, "Good luck getting a signal. My aunt has Skype, but we can't call from her account. I don't want her to get in trouble. Maureen, you made Czigany leave the note, right? What did she say?"

"We had to improvise because of Parci. Something about needing space. And wanting a chance to do some sister bonding. I had Czigany say they might take the train into the city to see a matinee."

"Solid," Bad says. "It's like you've been kidnapping people for years."

"Yeah, well, next time let's kidnap somebody who isn't such an ungrateful freak," Maureen says.

"That's not fair," Lee says.

"Like the Ordeal is supposed to be about fairness?" Maureen says. She's practically yelling. "Like
my
Ordeal was cake and roses and champagne? Czigany has no idea. No idea whatsoever. It's like she thinks this is all about her."

"I've got a rash on my arm," Bad says. "It had better not be poison ivy, is all I'm saying."

"Probably just goat saliva," Maureen says, calming down. "They ate one of my tennis shoe laces. They're cute, you know, but they're kind of a pain in the ass, too. Like boyfriends."

It's three thirty when they get back to Peaceable Kingdom, and Maureen complains about boyfriends the whole way down. Dodo is boiling water for pasta salad. "How did it go?" she says.

"That depends on who you ask," Lee says. "Czigany isn't very happy. Her parents are pretty strict."

Dodo chops scallions and doesn't ask anything else. When Lee first asked her if they could bring Czigany to Peaceable Kingdom for her Ordeal, Dodo had a lot of questions. What will your mom say? What about missing classes? What's the point of the Ordeal anyway? After Lee described some of the Ordeals she'd heard about, Dodo sighed and said she guessed Lee and the others had everything all figured out.

"I thought you guys might want to go for a hike," Dodo says. "I thought we'd have an early dinner, then make a lot of popcorn and take it out to the goat barn. We could watch a couple of movies. You guys like Jackie Chan movies?"

Lee says, "We have to be back up there around eight. I want to get back just a little early, to be on the safe side."

"Four hours isn't much of an Ordeal," Bad grouses. She's still annoyed that no one else was willing to go along with the full knightly Ordeal, her original plan.

"The real Ordeal will be when they get home," Lee says.

"It's going to be kind of an Ordeal for us, too," Maureen says. "We have to ride back with them. Czigany's kind of scary when she's mad. Dibs on the front seat. You get to sit next to Czigany, Bad."

"Does anyone ever refuse to go along with this Ordeal business?" Dodo asks.

They all stare at her.

"Never mind," Dodo says. "Clearly I am out of my mind for asking."

Maureen and Bad opt for the hike. Lee guesses Maureen wants to complain about the new boyfriend. Lee sits in the kitchen with Dodo for a while, telling her about school. She wonders if Czigany is still trying to wriggle free. Nikki is under strict orders to document the part they are missing.

Eventually Lee heads back to the Ferris wheel with her book. She isn't sure she understands Clementine, why Clementine keeps hoping Cabell will finally notice her. Lee's never felt that way about anyone, and she's not sure she wants to, either. She reads until it's time to go and call the goats to dinner. Bad and Maureen come back from their hike still talking about Maureen's difficulties with the new boyfriend. Sometimes Lee wonders if Bad has a crush on Maureen. It's how Bad looks at Maureen sometimes. Not that Maureen would ever notice.

Dodo has made plenty of pasta salad, and garlic bread with goat butter, and iced tea. After the dishes are washed and dried, they all help make popcorn, which it turns out is not for them. It's for the goats.

After browsing through Dodo's limited selection of movies, they decide on
Lawrence of Arabia
. Dodo says, "But it's four hours long. You won't be able to see all of it!"

"We've seen it before," Bad says. "Like four times. It's okay if we don't get to the end. And it seems like the right kind of movie to watch with a herd of goats. The only thing that would be better would be if you had camels."

"It's not like it's a happy ending anyway," Lee says, and Maureen nods in agreement.

The goats are done with the popcorn before the theme music has even started. They pick their way from couch to couch, never setting foot on the floor of the barn, talking loudly. There's a reason why movie theaters don't encourage people to bring their goats. Dodo has left the barn doors open so that the goats can come and go. "They're always a bit mad when the moon is full," Dodo says. "Little terrors. Little monsters."

"Hey! Don't eat that!" Lee says, holding her book up and out of reach. The Nubian gives her a haughty look.

"Good book?" Dodo says.

"Not sure yet," Lee says. "I'm not finished. Bad's read it."

Bad grunts. She is pulling clumps of hair from the sides of a very pregnant LaMancha. "It was so-so. You know. There's this girl and she's crazy about this guy and does all these stupid things and then at the end—"

Lee says, "Shut up! I haven't gotten to the end yet!"

"I'm going to get more popcorn," Dodo says. "Anybody want anything?" The goats all go trailing after her.

"This is nice, isn't it?" Maureen says. She comes and leans over Lee's couch, gives Lee a voluptuous hug. "Being here. How come you never brought us here before?"

Lee says, "I don't know. We're here now, aren't we?"

"Can we come back?" Maureen says. "Could we come back sometime with Nikki? I feel bad for her, stuck up there by herself. Missing
Lawrence of Arabia.
"

"Now in stereo with goats!" Bad says. She's lying on the next couch over, and Lee can't see Bad's expression. Only the back of her head.

"What about Czigany and Parci?" Lee says. Maureen rests her chin on Lee's shoulder. She blows on Lee's hair, garlic and goat cheese. "Quit it, Maureen!"

Bad says, "Not the same as goats. But sure. There are two of them, so I guess it's in stereo."

Maureen says, "They're just so weird. I didn't like the way their house smelled."

"I don't like the way your breath smells," Lee says.

"It's just, we went to a lot of trouble to set this up for Czigany, and I don't think she appreciates it at all. We could have done something really mean, but instead Bad had this cool idea, and I just think it's wasted on Czigany. And I wish it was just us here. You and me and Bad and Nikki. That's all." Maureen stands up and begins to play with Lee's hair.

Over on the other couch, a voice says, "What Maureen said."

"What'd I miss?" Dodo says, coming back into the barn. Goats stream after her, bleating and shoving.

"T. E. Lawrence just drove his motorcycle off the road and died," Bad says. "Then he went to Cairo."

Maureen, who enjoys complaining as much as she enjoys everything else, says with great satisfaction, "What a very epic day this has been." Peter O'Toole's insanely gorgeous face is filling the screen.

Nobody ever got an e-mail from Cabell. Or a phone call. After six months his parents put in a request with the American embassy in Bucharest. The embassy put out a bulletin, but if anyone had seen Cabell they were keeping it to themselves. Dancy and Clementine cried a lot every time Clementine went over to babysit, and then Dancy met a guy online and she and Lucinda Larkin moved out to Seattle.

To Clementine's surprise, this was even worse than Cabell. Somehow Seattle seemed a lot farther away than Romania. In her heart of hearts she was still convinced that someday she would see Cabell again.

After her freshman year at Queens, Clementine worked at a local veterinary clinic until she had enough money for a plane ticket and a Eurail Pass. By then there was the boyfriend, a guy with family money who had dropped out of Duke in order to play poker online. The boyfriend and Clementine went to Rome together. And Dublin. And Prague. And Bucharest, because Clementine told the boyfriend that she wanted to try to find an old family friend.

The best clue she had was that Cabell had married someone named Lenuta who lived in a castle that wasn't very close to Râmnicu Vâlcea. So they went to Râmnicu Vâlcea and rented a car. They began to ask about wolves. The boyfriend was into the whole quest thing. He had a phrase book. He seemed to like playing detective.

It was difficult, sometimes, to figure out what was up with the boyfriend. It was a good thing he had money. Otherwise you would never have heard a single word he said.

They stayed in a pensione in Râmnicu Vâlcea and went to the springs to bathe. The room in the pensione was stuffy and hot, the window painted shut. All night long, Clementine dreamed of Cabell. She sat on a surfboard, looking toward the shore. When she turned to look over her shoulder, she saw Cabell, running toward her at an astonishing speed, over the top of the waves.

They had decided to drive all the way to Sfântu Gheorghe, but first they came to a town that wasn't on the map. It was hardly a town at all. But there was a gas station and a bus stop, and at the bus stop was a woman who spoke a little English. She told them there was a castle up in the forest above the town. There was a family up there with many daughters. One of them had an American husband. The boyfriend consulted the phrase book over and over again. When he and Clementine tried to ask her about wolves, the woman at the bus stop made the sign of the cross. Which really made the boyfriend's day.

In Clementine's guidebook, there was no mention of a castle. The forest got a couple of paragraphs. It wasn't clear which road they were looking for, and there were no signs. Then again, there seemed to be only one road that went up the mountain. They went up it, and after twenty minutes, the boyfriend suggested a picnic, perhaps a bit of a walk. They could scout things out first, rather than just driving up to the castle, if there was a castle. It was only eleven in the morning. Better to show up after lunch. People were usually in a better mood after lunch, right? (said the boyfriend.) Clementine agreed.

All day long, every time the boyfriend opened his mouth she'd wanted to burst out laughing. She was afraid the boyfriend would notice she was behaving strangely and wonder why. She was convinced he would read her mind and at last ditch her. Go back to Bucharest without her. Leave her all alone to find Cabell. Or not find Cabell, which seemed more likely. Except it didn't. She knew she'd find Cabell. She'd woken up in Râmnicu Vâlcea knowing that she would find him.