Sunset

Chapter One

 

Katie’s second full school year on the island went much as the first had.

 

Ten, and a half, as he always reminded people, year old Jason struggled with the heavy coat of armor.  He managed to lift it halfway above his head, then dropped it on his foot.

 

Katie burst out giggling.

 

“I look really stupid,” he said.

 

“You sure do,” said Michael, Jason’s oldest brother.  Michael lifted his own coat of armor high into the air, then dropped it over his head in one fluid motion.  “Why do you want to learn to wear armor, anyway?”

 

“Mom’s making him,” Katie inserted helpfully.

 

“Katie’s mother explained it all to me,” Jason added as he made another attempt to lever the coat of armor high enough to get into it.  “Something about how it’s symbolic for kings to be able to use lances and armor.”  He added in a more forceful tone, “I’m not going to have to fight anybody.”

 

“Good thing,” Michael said.

 

“How about helping me?”

 

“Uh-uh.”  Michael shook his head.  “Queen Susan didn’t tell me much, but she did say that you were supposed to be able to do this on your own.”

 

“It’s sort of nice that Mom has someone else to boss around besides me,” eight year old Katie interjected again from her seat on the fence of the practice field.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be learning to shoot a bow?”  Jason said to Katie as he picked up the armor a third time.  He squatted as Michael had, then tried to climb into it.

 

“I already learned to shoot,” Katie said.  She was lying.  Her brand new red bow lay untouched on the practice field.  She felt weird trying to learn something without Jason there to alternately laugh at and with her.

 

Jason’s glance at the unmarked archery target told her that he knew perfectly well she was lying.  So Katie gave him the look he would soon term her “innocent” expression, akin to the cat’s, Floss’s, when she was caught in the castle freezer.

 

Again Jason went back to his armor.

 

Katie maneuvered herself until she was directly in his line of sight, then stuck her tongue out at him.

 

Jason burst out laughing and dropped the armor again.  Michael sighed and rolled his eyes.  Katie could see Michael’s hands twitch, as if deciding of their own accord whether or not to help.

 

*  *  *

It was later in the day, all the outdoor things had been put away, and Jason and Katie were in the main room of the castle, sitting by the fire, supposedly doing their homework.

 

“What are you writing?” Jason asked.

 

“Math,” said Katie, with another innocent expression.

 

Jason made as if to snatch the paper.  Katie tucked it under her math book.  Jason slid the math book toward himself, then picked up the paper.  There was no one else in the room, no one else in the castle, so he read aloud in a melodramatic tone:

 

Seven more days and I’ll be free

From gym class, an eternity!

No more sit-ups, no more balls

No more running in the halls.

 

Seven more days and I’ll be free

From mean teachers who give me B’s.

No more minuses, no more bars.

No more green or reddish stars.

 

Seven more days and I’ll be free

From homework that takes hours to complete.

No more science, no more math,

No more late work you do in the bath.

 

Jason couldn’t go on.  “You do work in the tub?” he choked out.

 

“It rhymed!” Katie said.  “You find a rhyme for math!”

 

“You did,” he said.

 

“What?”

 

“Two days ago.  When we were all working together on that class presentation and we were all over the island doing research.  Your part was all blotchy.”

 

“I fell in the river!”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

Since he clearly wasn’t capable of reading more for laughing so hard, and since she’d already heard the first half of her poem, Katie decided she’d take over and read the rest.  She took her work back from Jason, and said in a much more melodramatic voice,

 

Seven more days and that’ll be all

Of arrows and armor that line the wall.

Enough of all those stupid locks,

Make you miss recess because of how far you walk.

 

Seven more days and I’ll be free

From island tours taking an eternity.

No more guppies, no more waits.

No more getting out of bed so I won’t be late.

 

Seven more days, then three months

All of bliss when the summer comes.

 

“And?” Jason said when he stopped laughing.

 

“And I’ll sleep all day and stay up all night!  I don’t know.”

 

“Your mom doesn’t think that’s very princesslike.”

 

“Yeah, well, I’ll sleep in the woods.”

 

“That isn’t very princesslike either.”

 

*  *  *

Katie’s fourth year ended much the same way her first through third years of school had.  She had grown from seven to eleven, and Jason had been thirteen for some time now.  He wasn’t clumsy with the armor anymore, and she didn’t hide her bow and arrow set.  When she wasn’t tying stupid things to her arrows, she had actually begun to enjoy archery practice.  It was a quiet space in her life, and one she was very good at.

 

There was a night, near the end of the year, when again she and Jason sat by the empty castle fire studying.  The castle living room seemed a little smaller than it had, and the fire a little quieter, but it was the same room.

 

The beautiful winged princess slowly settled to the ground in front of the enchanted castle.  She tilted her head and strained her eyes, looking for some way, any way, to get in.

 

It was not a Prince who awaited her inside.  It was only a labyrinth of mazes and traps, from which no one had returned to tell of the end.

 

But she must risk entry!  She must!

 

Before the Princess could conclude her line of thought, the castle shattered before her eyes.  It fell victim to a stream of knights on winged horses, millions, coming from above the sea in every direction, crashing through…

 

Katie made an unprincesslike noise, startling Jason from his science notes, and crumpled up her paper and threw it into the fire.

 

“Um, this equation is beating me up,” she temporized.

 

“Let’s see,” Jason said.

 

So Katie had to spend a half hour letting Jason tutor her before she could get back to trying to write a story.  She did learn something about math, though.

 

The race was down to two contestants.  None of the others mattered; the rest of the racers were as good as defeated already.

 

The White Knight leaned forward as his horse took the lead.  This was no idle race for sport, but a life or death contest involving the entire kingdom.  If he did not reach the finish line in time…

 

But it was too late.  Out of nowhere, the Black Knight’s cohorts appeared, and they numbered in the thousands.

 

This time Katie ripped it in half before throwing it in the fire.  Jason made another noise, but he didn’t ask what was wrong.

 

Katie kicked the table leg for good measure.  Jason got up and took his science to the armchair.

 

She was the only sorceress left.  One by one, the others had fallen.  It looked as if she would soon join them, but appearances were deceiving.  She had always been the strongest.

 

She readied yet another spell with all the skill of her clan.  With practiced timing, she waited for the right moment to unleash it.

 

The moment never came.  Hundreds of mage-creatures surrounded her, biting, clawing…

 

“What’s going on?” Katie screamed, sending the last story into the fireplace with enough force to jostle the last of the logs.

 

Jason put his books aside.  He’d gotten pretty good at that over the years—at taking the time that he was given to do his studying, ready to put it down at a moment’s notice.

 

Usually it was endearing, but that evening it was infuriating.  Katie threw her pen in Jason’s general direction.

 

He dodged it.  “I didn’t think you’d have any trouble writing this year,” he said.  “Not with the stuff you’ve been coming up with to pull in class.”

 

Katie didn’t answer.

 

Jason came up behind her, sounding more concerned.  “Katie?  I know you always write silly stuff at the end of the year, but maybe this year you actually had to work.  You know?  You’re smart, but silly rhymes won’t get you A’s.”

 

“Everything’s ending horribly,” Katie muttered.

 

“So don’t write.  Do something else,” Jason said.

 

He didn’t understand.