Marcus was born? I bet you’re still traumatized from the sea of shit.”
Marcus is my younger brother.
Marcus does not exist.
He’s just another fictional element in the landscape of the fictional life that I’ve created for myself. The devil’s in the details. Any good storyteller knows that to hook a reader, you need the minutiae—the stories, and experiences, and the little details that flesh out the skeleton of your tale. They put meat on a story’s bones. Marcus is the lynchpin of many of my stories. How many times have I regaled Mara and my other friend, Presley, with such classics as, ‘The Day Marcus Broke His Arm” and, “The Day Marcus Swallowed the Penny’?
We’ve reached the steps that lead up to the academy’s entrance. I wrinkle my nose, pretending to recall the chaos and destruction that accompanied the arrival of my fake newborn brother. “Yeah. Hate to say it, but kids are no fun. They’re cute as hell for the first couple of days, but it’s all downhill after that.”
“Think you’ll ever have one?”
“Hell no. You?”
Mara fake-barfs. “No way, dude. I like my vagina the way it is, thank you very much. Oh—my, my, my. Would you look at that?”
Mara elbows me in the ribs. I turn, squinting into the weak sunlight filtering over the treetops of the Forest, and my vision adjusts. There, at the very bottom of the driveway in the distance, three small figures emerge out of the mist, shirtless and covered in sweat. They run full tilt up the driveway, jostling each other and whooping like idiots as they race each other up the hill.
Mara purrs her approval. “Goddamn, what I wouldn’t give for a shot at that.”
I shield my eyes with my free hand, watching the figures roughhouse as they approach the huge fountain at the foot of the drive. During winter, the groundsmen seal off the water to prevent the pipes from freezing. Now that the days are getting longer and there’s no frost on the ground, they’ve recently turned the fountain back on again. Its jets arc up ten feet into the air, peppering the brisk fall morning with a fine mist that throws rainbows in every which direction.
“Which one?” I ask.
Mara snorts, taking a sip of her coffee. “Wren. I’d give my right arm for half an hour on the backseat of a car with him.”
The Dark Lord.
The Sun God.
The Anarchist.
The Sun God reaches the fountain first. Dashiell Lovett, Fourth Lord of the Lovett Estate in Surrey, England, hollers at the top of his lungs, startling a flock of starlings from one of the naked trees down by the lake. The tiny birds take flight, pinwheeling across the stark, cloudless sky. The Dark Lord and The Anarchist shove and jostle their friend, The Dark Lord wearing a broad, shit-eating grin on his face. The Anarchist’s expression is savage as he attempts to get Dashiell into a headlock, his corded arms full of tattoos.
“Have you ever seen Pax smile?” Mara asks.
I shake my head.
“I have. It was terrifying.”
I can’t even imagine it. I try, and an uncomfortable shiver runs the length of my back, goosebumps sprouting across the backs of my arms. The third boy in the group, The Dark Lord, halts his attack on Dashiell, suddenly noticing us standing at the foot of the school’s steps, watching them. The three boys turn and look at us, then, and my first instinct is to hurl myself sideways into the bank of rose bushes to avoid their gaze. I am such a chickenshit. It takes sublime effort, but I stand my ground.
“Wren Jacobi.” Mara sighs his name like the guy single-handedly cured cancer. She holds the lip of her coffee cup to her mouth, smirking deviously. “I bet he fucks like a demon.”
There are plenty of girls down in Mountain Lakes who would be able to confirm or deny that suspicion. Rumor has it that Wren has no qualms with screwing women who are much older than him, or married, or inappropriate for a whole slew of other reasons.
“Which one would you do?” Mara asks. “Y’know. If you had your pick?”
Ask any female member of the Wolf Hall student body this question. If they tell you they couldn’t care less, then they’re a dirty, dirty liar. I’ve had so much practice at lying now, though, that when I do it, it sounds like the honest to god’s truth. “Jacobi. Definitely Jacobi.”
Mara nods, swallowing down this falsehood like it was the only natural answer. She