“I wonder if that’s good or bad,” I murmured, tilting my head back and forth. “At least it’s not being erased entirely.”
“Another thread,” Olethros said, nudging aside a pile of discarded sketches with the tip of his boot.
The newly revealed rope was much thinner than the first two, as if it had hoped to remain unnoticed. We followed it as it snaked between leather-stitched walls and leaning stacks of drawings, until it finally wrapped itself around a plain, nearly unfinished paper door. Only the faintest lines separated it from its frame. In the tiniest script imaginable, it was labeled: “It’ll be good for her.”
I frowned. “No handle.”
Pushing it revealed it was stuck to its frame. With a big breath in, I charged it with my shoulder, and the door tore as I hit it.
Nora’s bedroom was just as chaotic as I remembered it. Bookshelves crammed with well-loved manga from a bygone era. Clothes in varying states of cleanliness were draped over a chair that had never once fulfilled its intended purpose. Posters in various states of decay clung to the walls desperately, with too little sticky tack.
Young Nora herself was in her designated beanbag chair, strangely intense over a single trifold of paper.
To: Elenora Beatrice Perez
I have been advised that you may be my biological daughter.
There are matters concerning our possible connection that may be of significance to you. If you wish to receive further information, you are to present yourself at the time and location listed below.
If you do not attend, I will take this as confirmation that you do not wish to pursue a relationship or further communication, and all matters between us will be considered closed.
A California address sat neatly at the bottom, along with a date and time that lined up with the middle of our senior year, a few months before the original story’s hiatus.
Olethros’s eyebrow twitched as a fang pressed lightly into his lower lip. “Her potential parent sounds simply charming.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, Nora jolted upright as if the beanbag chair was on fire.
Someone was climbing the stairs.
Nora shoved the letter into her desk drawer and slammed it shut just as my younger self appeared in the doorway.
“I’m here!” Rachel huffed, collapsing into the opposite beanbag. “What was so urgent?”
“Oh—uh—” Nora scrambled. “The deadline!”
“Deadline?” Rachel straightened, mirroring Nora’s panic. “Deadline for what? I can’t think of any projects due!”
Nora forced herself to sit back down. “The fan art contest. You brought it, right?”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped as she stared at the floor. “Oh, that. It’s in my bag but… I don’t want to enter it. It’s… you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” Nora replied. “You spent so much time on it. Why are you hesitating now?”
“It’s just a sketch,” Rachel said quietly. “I don’t know how to ink properly, and coloring with pencils is hard…”
“Then I’ll add some digital color,” Nora said quickly, gesturing toward the scanner on her desk. “It’ll only take a few—”
“No!”
Nora froze.
“No?” she echoed.
“I… I only showed you because… because you’re my best friend! But I don’t want anyone else to see it. What if they make fun of them—I mean, my skills?”
“Rae…”
Rachel pulled her hoodie shut with both strings. “Please, let’s just forget it, okay?”
“If that’s what you really want.”
Rachel let out a massive sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Nora waved dismissively.
Rachel hesitated. “When you called earlier, you sounded scared. Was there something else you wanted to talk about?”
“Your dad!”
Rachel blinked, lowering her hood. “What about my dad?”
“What does Maura think of him?”
“She never talks about him,” Rachel replied, fanning her hair out.
“Okay, hypothetical. What if… what if your dad sent you a letter saying he wanted to meet you? Well, maybe ‘want’ is strong. Maybe he said you could, you know, meet if you want. Otherwise… you know, simply move along?”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Simply move along?”
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Nora pulled at one of her curls, twisting it around her index finger. “So… Would you, being a good person and all… Would you meet him? Like, I bet… I bet you would be able to convince him that you’re amazing and having you in his life would only be for the better—”
“Why should I have to prove that to him?”
“Huh?”
I watched as Rachel angrily pursed her lips. “Someone who’s been absent for everything suddenly reaches out of the blue just to open old wounds? No way would I meet him. The only reason he’d be doing that is to serve his own purpose. And how would I even know it’s my real dad doing it? It could be anyone, even—”
“The trio pranking you!” Nora shouted, her face turning crimson.
Rachel slammed her fist into the beanbag. “That’d be a new low—even for them!”
Nora, however, started to bite her lip. “But what if you somehow knew it really was him. Would it be alright to ignore him? It wouldn’t make you a bad person, would it?”
“Of course not. You’re being good to yourself.”
“Yeah… You’re right.”
A loud chorus of quacking ducks erupted from Rachel’s hoodie pocket.
“Ah!”
Nora groaned. “Why do you insist on that ringtone?”
“I don’t know how to change it!—Hi, mother.”
Rachel nodded along to the unheard voice. “Yes, mother. No, mother. Now? But I—okay. I’ll be home in a few.”
She stood up after ending the call. “Sorry, I have to go home. Same time tomorrow?”
“Same time tomorrow.” Nora waved her off.
Rachel smiled faintly, then turned and disappeared down the stairs. A few moments later, there was a door slam.
“I’ll just tell myself it’s from the trio,” Nora muttered to herself. “That would be the best excuse—hmm?”
Her gaze drifted downward to Rachel’s bag, which had been half-buried and forgotten in the side folds of the beanbag chair.
Nora hesitated, then leaned forward and tugged it closer with her foot.
“I mean… I’m going to return it to her. It’s not like I’m stealing.”
She unzipped the bag and pulled out a folder, flipping through it until she found the sketch I’d made of the Holy Order of Gold. It was by no means a masterpiece, but I had taken care to do my best to draw them as I had pictured them.
No. As I had remembered them.
So this is how Euphridia found me.
Nora stood up and slapped the sketch face down onto her scanner. “I’m a good person. And it’ll be good for her. Good feedback builds confidence. And if it somehow wins…” She hesitated, then brightened. “Well. Then maybe I’ll have an even bigger mystery to solve!”
Swish!
Olethros and I were pulled back to the start, where the sketch of me had solidified into what I looked like now—armored, with sheared shoulder-length hair and no hachimaki. Her expression was a bit hard to decipher, as if she was still processing.
I gave Olethros a side-eye. “You’re awfully quiet.”
He shrugged, folding his arms behind his back in a mockery of innocence.
I turned to the sketch. “So is this where I say something like ‘leave the past in the past’? Or maybe ‘I can’t believe you did that’?”
Sketchy me turned away slightly as she gripped her left arm. A white portal formed nearby, clearly marked with a running man exit icon.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Nora,” I said, crossing my arms. “This session isn’t over yet. I’ll give you a break to gather your thoughts… But then we’re trying again.”
I rounded on Olethros. “And you. Animus overload?”
That didn’t sit right.
He spread his hands. “I just mentioned it as a topic of conversation. And you asked for my help, did you not?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “You really know how to clear a room.”
His tail flicked. “They weren’t helping either of you. And yes—I came along out of curiosity.” His eyes opened, gleaming. “You can thank me later.”
“Unlikely,” I muttered as I turned back to the framed sketch. “Are you ready to stop projecting and talk to me, Nora?”
It looked around, feigning confusion.
“Why don’t you start by showing me your sense of self? We’ve watched enough cartoons together to know that mindscapes always have a visual representation of the mind’s owner.”
Papers fell from the white abyss above us as the room trembled. The sketch darkened, collapsing inward into a swirling gray mass before bursting apart. Ink splattered outward in hundreds of tiny question marks.
Oh, now we’re getting somewhere!
Except I had forgotten—I can’t play the role of therapist.
I’m way too biased.
“You’re Elenora Beatrice Perez,” I declared. “A good person. My best friend. Messy and brilliant. You’re far from perfect, thank goodness, because if you were, I could never relate to you. Now—”
The question marks began to rumble loudly, colliding and devouring one another until only a single, massive glyph remained. Then the floor shuddered. From the base of the sketch’s pedestal, an electric-blue coolant line surged outward, snaking across the floor until it reached a bright-red diner door. Someone had scratched “I don’t know what you are” into its push plate.
Olethros stopped several steps behind me, crouching over to inspect the coolant flowing in the line. “I’m not meant to enter this place.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, pushing the door open. “I’ll be back soon.”
The smell of burnt coffee and old grease hit first. Rain poured from the black sky beyond the windows, filling the air with millions of metallic twangs. The diner itself was old, frozen in the pastel pinks and greens of another decade. Vinyl seats split at the seams, all of them mended with fabric patches that never stood a chance of matching.
Only two customers were present, and both were tucked away in a corner near the entrance.
The woman was much too thin and wiry, trembling with every movement she made. Her coat had once been fashionable, but now it appeared oversized and worn, making the dark circles under her eyes all the wider. In the aisle beside her stood a highchair. Its occupant was just past babyhood: too old to be constantly carried, but too young to be steady on her own. Her short, curly hair was in complete disarray, bobbing along as one small fist began to bang out an imperious rhythm against the tray.
Nora!
Behind the counter, a much younger Mama Perez watched them with concern. She frowned, then added a slice of cheesecake to her tray beside a sippy cup. As she made her way over to the table with it, she grabbed a fresh pot of coffee.
The woman tightened her grip as Mama refilled her cup. “But I didn’t order—”
“On the house,” Mama declared. “We bake everything fresh daily, and in fifteen minutes, that dessert expires.” She glanced at Nora. “And maybe some milk will help you sleep, nena.”
“Mama!” Nora laughed, grabbed the cup, and immediately banged it against the tray instead.
“Oh, I bet you say that to anyone who feeds you,” Mama said with a chuckle. She then turned back to the woman. “It looks like your friend didn’t show. Do you need me to call a cab?”
The woman swallowed. “I’ll wait just a little longer...”
“That’s just fine. We never close.” Mama nodded and returned toward the counter. Nora watched her go, wide-eyed.
“Mama.”
The woman in the booth stiffened, trying to summon a smile that didn’t fit her face. “Child, are you sure?”
Nora refused to meet her gaze, now wholly focused on maneuvering the sippy cup to her mouth. The effort only increased her frustrations.
“What if this was all a trap…” the woman whispered, eyeing Nora. “Oh, what have I gotten myself into…!”
“Bah!” Nora flung the cup aside, slapping her palms against the tray.
“Child, I don’t know what you are. You look like them both. But if you have any abilities, you should be using them to protect us!”
Nora turned slowly, her head cocking to give the woman the snidest of looks.
“Mama,” she spat.
The woman blinked, then gritted her teeth as she snapped her fingers. “Just as you wish.”
Several loud crashes came from the kitchen.
“?Dios mío!” Mama Perez shouted, running toward the noise.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the woman vanished with a sharp, electric buzz.
Nora righted her sippy cup and looked around with a fearful sniff. With her whole body quivering, she took a deep breath and started crying at the top of her lungs.
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