Page 1 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter One

T here's this thing in stories called the "inciting incident".

And mine? It's a goddamn doozy.

It’s the part of the book, right at the start, where you pinch the pages between your fingers, and whisper to yourself: here we go.

It's the bit where the lovers have their meet-cute, the farm boy leaves his family behind for the wider world, the Chosen One is attacked by her first evil monster, blah, blah, blah.

You know what I mean. It's my favorite part of the book.

It's the place where everything opens up and you have no idea what you're in for—only that it'll be exciting.

I know all about Inciting Incidents because I was going to be a writer.

No, I thought I was going to be a writer.

Historical romance, that’s my jam. Dukes, rakes, windblown-gowns, dropped handkerchiefs, cliffside confessions—I am a slut for that stuff.

Forget real history (totally flunked ‘We’re-Feeding-You-Colonialist-Narratives-Disguised-As-Education101’).

Give me made-up kingdoms and far-flung pirates.

Give me the fantasy of a happily ever after that lasts beyond ‘the end’.

Give coffee and stories , and I am a very happy boy.

But right before he got sick, in the summer between my first and second year of university, my Dad and I had a serious talk about writing. How much work it is. How long it takes to start paying off, how little mid-list writers make. Backup plans.

And then… after, I thought, well, he wasn’t wrong.

If life was going to be pointlessly, stupidly, cruelly short, then I should spend my time trying to do something good, right?

I switched majors. Science makes sense. Science is logical.

Science creates vaccines and saves lives.

Science can bring species back from the brink of extinction.

Science doesn’t break your heart.

All of this is to say that I can—with complete and utter certainty—point to the exact moment when my life became a trash fire. It was my twenty-fourth birthday, and my big sister Gemma gave me the dumbest, but most totally plot-initiating gift: a sunrise alarm clock.

My Inciting Incident starts like this: in Mum’s pokey poppies-and-roosters kitchen, with Gemma turning over the box that the wrapping paper reveals, trying to figure out where the English description is hidden.

"It's an alarm clock," Gemma says, when I don’t comment immediately. She's leaning on the back of my chair, the braid hanging over her shoulder long enough to tickle my neck. I flick it away.

"I have a perfectly good alarm clock." I hold up my phone, then let it slap back down onto the plastic tablecloth. "Goes ding when there's stuff."

My sister heaves the kind of sigh only eldest-born siblings make, indulgent and frustrated at the same time. I love making her make that noise. It's hilarious.

"It wakes you up gently," Gem says. "So you’re not cranky."

"M'not cranky."

Everyone laughs. I may have snapped at Stuart just this morning when he shook my foot through my childhood bed sheets like an aggressive chihuahua.

Okay.

So I'm cranky in the mornings.

"I don't see how it's supposed to work." Stu grabs the clock. "How can you see the light if your eyes are closed?"

As the younger brother of twin siblings, I am used to having the toys I’m playing with getting pulled out of my hands. Instead of trying to snatch it back, I fiddle with the iridescent green bow that was on the box.

"The same way you can see sunlight through your eyelids. It just works, okay? I've been using this exact same one for months. I promise you'll wake up in a better mood."

"You know, it's rude to give someone a present that benefits yourself," I say, playing with the tape on the bottom of the ribbon. I stick it to my ear. Mum smirks at my accessory, but otherwise her prim little 'all my babies are home to roost' face stays in place.

Makes me feel a bit shitty, because I'm the only one of us who went away to school, and stayed away.

Gem came back to live with Mum straight after she finished her undergrad, so Mum wouldn't be alone in the house after Dad.

Stuart never left the city, though he's got his own place now.

But that's why I stayed away after I graduated last year.

Mum and Gem don't need me, and if I came back, Stu would try to get me to join his construction crew.

To be fair, I do go weak in the knees for the kind of person jacked enough to pick me up and consensually throw me around.

Standing on a roof next to a whole crew of pretty roughs trying to help them replace shingles?

That's gonna lead to me swooning, falling off, and dying of a broken neck. Stu doesn’t want that on his conscience.

Because she's a bossy know-it-all, Gem takes my present from Stu and opens it to show me how it works.

Suddenly empty-handed, Stu helps himself to another piece of my birthday cake, licking the icing off his fingers and the serving knife.

Mum slaps the hand holding the knife, and Stu flushes up and sets it down in the sink. He descends on his third piece like a wolf, but at least now he's watching his manners.

"There's instructions," I point out as Gem tosses the booklet on the table. "I don’t need you to do it for me."

"The day you read the instructions," Mum says, "is the day I'll know for sure the fairies swapped you back."

It's an old joke, me being the Changeling child. I'm the only one of them with dark hair. The rest of my family are blond as heck.

Mum’s grinning at her own cleverness, lips curving into that little curl in the side of her mouth that holds secrets.

Dad always called it Mum's 'Peter Pan Kiss’. It’s the spot where her sense of humor lives.

He'd wrap his arms around her waist and kiss that corner, and Mum would swat at him for ruining her lipstick.

Thinking about Dad reminds me that he's dead.

I hate the swoop-and-stab sensation in my chest that comes with remembering.

Especially when there's a moment you want to share, and you think I should say that to Dad , and you straighten up a bit and take a deep breath, and turn your head to his chair and start composing the sentence in your head: "Hey, Dad, Mum's doing that—" and then you stop.

You stop composing. Stop turning. Stop thinking about sharing. Stop breathing.

Because that chair is empty.

Dad's dead.

And you'll never get the chance to point out the Peter Pan kiss again. Or watch Mum swat him. Or listen to him tease us for falling for Mum's Old World fairy stories. Or hear his stupid har-har-har donkey laugh, thick with his Lower Canada accent.

It's my birthday.

He's not here.

I'll have another birthday, next year, and he won't be there for that one either.

I try to control my breathing, but Mum hears it hitching. I'm already staring at Dad's terrible empty chair, so it's not like I can hide what I'm thinking about. Mum curls her fingers over my knuckles.

"I wish he was here too, mo leanbh ," she says softly.

Stu and Gem go quiet.

"Sucks," I cough out, deciding to give no one the pleasure of watching me actually cry.

I'll save it for later, when I'm back in my own apartment.

Not because of any kind of 'real men don't' toxic masculinity bullshit, but because I hate the fuss.

They take the shit my therapist tells them about being my support network too much to heart.

"More tea, Mummers?" I ask instead, standing, breaking her hold on my hand to pick up the teapot on the counter beside the decimated cake.

"Time for something stronger, don't you think?"

"I've got it," Gem says, leaping at the chance to be helpful. She pops my gift back into the box and pushes the whole thing into my arms, forcing me back down into the chair. "Four glasses?"

"Extra ice in mine," Stu calls at Gem's back as she breezes into the living room and over to the booze hutch. We all pretend Gem's not wiping at her eyes. "I gotta drive."

"You're not staying for dinner?" Mum asks him.

"One of my guys got in the weeds with something at the museum, and the city wants it done before the kids start showing up for summer camps."

"But Colin's come all the way from St. Catharines," Mum protests. "I thought you'd at least spend the night."

"I have a perfectly good bed a ten minute drive away, Mum."

Mum's lips pucker. I hate seeing her unhappy, but what am I gonna do? Tie Stu to the chair?

Ha.

"Could use your advice," Stu says to me. "Figure out the best place to—"

"I know what you're doing, and the answer is no," I say, but I force a smile through it. "Try all you like Stu-pid, I'm not coming to work with you."

"It'd be nice to see both my boys working in their Dad's company," Mum says, trying to keep the peace.

"I need a landscaper for the summer—"

"My degree is in environmental and sustainable tourism," I remind everyone. "I wrote my thesis on biodynamic viniculture. Y'know, the science of eco-forward vineyard management? Not grass-cutting."

"It's all outdoors and nature, isn't it?"

"Give it a rest."

"It’s just a job," Stu presses. "I know you're still figuring out the career thing, but you gotta make money in the meantime—"

"I have a 'just a job'. Hadhirah pays as good as you, and I don't have to get eaten alive by bugs in the backwoods—"

"Orillia is hardly the 'backwoods'," Mum tuts.

"I'm happy in St. Catharines," I say, trying to stay firm but non-confrontational, like Dr. Chen taught me. "I like my friends, and I like Beanevolence. I don't want to work for Stu when he has no idea what it is that I actually do."

"It's not like I'm going to kidnap you and force you to wear a tool belt. Don't get your feathers in a ruffle, mo leanbh ," Stu says, in his best imitation of Mum's Scots brogue.