Page 2 of One Bad Knight

The boy’s sandy hair was windblown, and he wore dark clothes under a beat-up jacket. I’d spent my fair share of time hiding in this tree, drawing in my sketchbook so my cousins couldn't bother me. I’d stay up there reading until my fingers turned numb from the cold and it was hard to turn the pages. My dad didn’t mind as long as I was at dinner when he told me to be.

The boy didn’t answer, but a forward tilt of his head told me everything I needed to know. My mom used to say I was extra good at seeing into people’s hearts. Mine told me his was cold.

That bothered me, a lot.

“If you come in, we can make hot chocolate. Since you’re taller, I won’t have to climb up on the kitchen counter to reach the box.” I knew people liked to feel useful.

A thick tree limb stretched over my balcony. I held out a hand. The boy looked down at my hand and then back at my face, as if calculating something.

I could be patient. I’d once been so patient and still, I’d gotten a squirrel to come over and grab a peanut out of my hand. It took hours, but was so worth it.

Just when I was about to curl my arms around myself to keep what little warmth was left near my body, he moved. The boy easily crept from limb to limb without even having to look. In the last bit of distance between us, he regarded my hand as if still considering leaving.

Then his frozen hand slipped into mine and I closed my fingers around his bigger hand and smiled. For some reason, my heart wanted to burst. This was far better than the squirrel.

I was right. Standing next to him, he was taller than me by almost a head. He smelled like pine, and his face was thin and serious. Most of the boys in my class still had round, ruddy cheeks and obnoxious laughs when they did something stupid or teased each other.

Suddenly, I would have given anything to hear this boy laugh. But I didn’t know any jokes, so I just gave him another reassuring smile, and led him inside.

We paused inside my room, as he looked around with a perplexed expression. It felt like bugs were crawling inside my stomach as he examined my special place.

The last time I let someone see my room, it was a girl, Devin, who didn’t go to my school, but we met at one of my parents’ work parties. She lived in a different town, but I wanted to be friends, so my parents let me have her over for a play date. But after she saw my room, her mouth turned into an “o” and she looked sad. Like I’d done something to hurt her.

I loved my bedroom. Toys, paint sets, and books covered nearly every inch. The big doll house filled one corner of the room and the other side had a comfy purple chair next to my bookcase. I spent hours there. But the ceiling was my favorite. My mom painted it for me. On the side where my bed was, it looked like a starry night before it morphed into pinks and oranges to a sunny day with fluffy clouds on the other side.

Devin told me I had too many toys and that I was a spoiled brat. I hurriedly offered her my favorite doll to play with to prove I wasn’t. She took it, and said she got to play with two more while I could only use one since I had them all the time.

I didn’t mind. She came over a few more times, but after a while she only wanted to play with my toys and didn’t want to talk to me. The last time I saw her, she grabbed the scissors and started to cut and tear off the heads of some of my stuffed animals. I begged her to stop, but she screamed that I didn’t deserve it. Why did I deserve good things, and she didn’t? I tried to tell her she deserved good things too, but she didn’t listen. My mom found us screaming and sobbing, fluff covering my entire room.

After calling Devin’s mom for pickup, my mom tried to console me by saying the girl was very poor and didn’t have a lot of toys. That it made her hurt inside and do things to try and fix the hurt, but that Devin's hurt also wasn’t my fault. But I knew my room was something to be ashamed of. I loved it, but I never invited anyone over from school. The girls in my class were all interested in makeup and clothes now, but I still liked making up stories and playing by myself.

Suddenly petrified that the boy would tell me I was a spoiled brat and leave, I froze. As if sensing my fear, he turned toward me, his face softening for the first time. It wasn’t a smile, more thoughtful and almost… protective. Then he stepped in closer to me and I knew he was telling me he wasn’t going to leave.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and led him out to the hallway. I didn’t turn on the lights, so we crept in the dark, down the big winding staircase, past the sitting room, library, and my dad’s office until we got to the kitchen at the back of the house.

With the boy’s help, we got down some hot chocolate packets. I was careful to boil water but not let the kettle scream and wake anyone up. Though I tried to get the boy to sit, he refused. He just stood at the edge of the big island, casting glances at the door as if someone might come in any moment.

I dumped extra marshmallows into his and slid the mug toward him with a smile. He looked at me, then back at the mug. Leaning over, he sniffed at it. I tried to suppress my giggle, not wanting him to feel weird, but it came out anyway. He shot me an uncertain look before his lips gave me a lopsided imitation of a return smile. My heart fluttered in response.

He bent over, his nose dipping in the whipped cream. Then he jerked up. Though he looked silly with white fluff on his face, his eyes turned sharp and focused. Steps approached down the hall.

My dad entered the kitchen, still wearing his work clothes, which were rumpled. Though it was past midnight, he’d just gotten home from work. My head snapped back to the boy, but he was gone. He’d disappeared, like magic.

“Kat. What are you doing up late?” my dad asked with a frown. I was about to explain when he caught sight of the second mug. “Is that for me?”

Deep lines creased under his tired eyes, and his thick hair was messy. His usually pale skin neared orange because one of his advisors told him a spray tan would look better on TV. But it made his skin smell weird.

I heard tense whispers in the hallways of our house for weeks that the election wasn’t going well.

I nodded mutely, looking back at the spot where my new friend disappeared. The boy didn’t want to be seen. He’d been scared. And I worried if I told anyone about him, he’d be mad I didn’t keep his secret. So I said, “Yes, Daddy. You can have the one with extra marshmallows.”

“Thanks sweetie,” he said, then he paused. “You look more like your mother every day.”

My dad and I looked almost nothing alike, but we had the same upturned eye shape and thin nose. My medium brown skin, dark hair, and full lips made me look more my mom.

I smiled at first, but then I let it slide off my face. My dad hadn’t looked up from the marshmallows as he said it. Something about the way he said it made me feel he didn’t like that I resembled my mother. He seemed… unhappy. My fingers picked at my nightgown. Maybe if I were like the other girls and put makeup on, it would make me look different from my mom. Would he want that?

Then my dad picked up the mug, ruffled my hair, and made me promise to go back to bed once I finished my hot chocolate.