The Curse of the King

“Awwww, really?” Barry said. “Nothing?”

With an exasperated sigh, Barry held out the shard to Cass. Both of us reached for it at the same time.

Before our fingers could touch it, Barry spun away. With a grunt, he tossed it far into the scrubby, trash-strewn woods.

“Fetch,” he said. “With an F.”

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“WHAT HAPPENED TO your face?” Dad stared at me oddly, standing in the front door.

I peeked past him to the sofa, where a strange man dressed in black was rising to his feet. “Thorns,” I said, touching my cheek, where the edges of thin gash peeked out from behind a Band-Aid. “We lost something in the woods.”

I didn’t want to mention the shard in front of a stranger. It had taken us about a half hour on our hands and knees in the woods to find it. Which made us very late for school. The cool thing was, no one seemed to care. Cass and I were like returning war heroes. Everyone was nice to us. The nurse cleaned us up and gave me a whole box of Band-Aids. The principal herself, Mrs. Sauer (pronounced Sour), brought a Welcome Back cake into homeroom. Barry ate most of it, but it was still nice. I even had a session with the school psychologist, who said she was screening me for PTSD. At first I thought that was some kind of a sandwich, like pastrami, turkey, salami, and dark bread, but it means post–traumatic stress disorder. The only stress I felt was from thinking about the great sandwich I wasn’t going to eat.

“Jack … Cass,” Dad said, “this is Mr. Anthony from Lock-Tite Security. After that strange little visit from the TV station this morning, I figure we’d better make ourselves safe from intrusions, wiretaps, recording devices. Somebody in this town—who shall remain nameless—thinks he’s going to win an Emmy Award for investigative journalism.”

Cass nodded. “I understand, Mr. McKinley. I met his son. I don’t blame you.”

“We’ll go upstairs,” I said.

We raced each other through the living room and up the back stairs. Cass reached the second-floor landing first. He quickly tossed off his shoes and socks before walking on the Oriental rug that lined the long hallway. “I love the way this feels. This house is so cool.”

“You could have a whole room of your own, you know,” I said. “We have a lot of them. There’s more on third floor, too.”

“We already decided we were going to share,” Cass said. “Are you changing your mind?”

“No!” I said. “I just thought … if you ever felt like you needed space. It’s a big house and all.”

Cass shook his head, his face darkening. “Besides we have to be prepared. We can’t be separated if it happens …”

“It?” I said.

“You know … it,” Cass repeated. “Dying.”

I leaned over, softly banging my head on the wood railing that looked out onto the first floor vestibule. “I thought we talked about this. We’re going to stay positive, remember? We’re feeling good so far, Dad is on the case—”

“Right,” Cass said. “But doesn’t that first part seem scary to you? About us feeling good?”

“Dying is scary, Cass!” I said. “Feeling good is not scary!”

“But we shouldn’t be feeling good!” Cass replied. “By now, both of us—or at least you—should have had an episode. Which would mean we’d need a treatment. No one knows how to give us one!”

“Dad is working on it,” I said.

“He has no contact with anyone in the KI, so how can he figure it out?” Cass said. “I’ve been thinking all day about what Barry Reese said. Why are we still healthy, Jack? We shouldn’t be!”

“Uh, guys?” Dad’s face appeared directly below me. He was scowling. “Can you please take it inside?”

Cass and I ran into our room and shut the door tight. I emptied my pockets onto the desk, yanked off my ripped pants, and quickly pulled on a pair of sweats I’d left on the floor. That was another agreement Cass and I had made. I could keep my side of the room as messy as I wanted.

Feeling more comfortable, I began pacing. “Okay, let’s think about this. The intervals are irregular. Always have been. We know that.”

“Yeah, but the older we get, the closer they should be,” Cass said.

I couldn’t argue that. Professor Bhegad had warned us exactly that would happen as we neared the Day of Doom.

Closer. Not farther away.

“I think it’s the shards,” Cass said. “Remember, it was the Loculus of Healing. It was supposed to restore life to the dead.”

“You mean shard,” I said.

“Shards.” Cass shrugged. “I took one, too.”

I looked at him. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was important,” Cass replied. “I just took it as a souvenir. It’s not as nice as yours. No designs or anything. I thought it was just a busted, useless piece of junk. But now …”

He went to his desk and pulled open a drawer. From the bottom he took out a hunk of material maybe three inches long, wrapped in tissue. “It’s kind of ugly.”

I heard a rustling noise from my pile of junk on my desk and jumped away.

Cass dropped the shard. “Whoa. Did you bring in a mouse?”

The rustling stopped. I darted my hand out and pushed aside some candy wrappers. No critters there.

Just my shard.

“Pick it up, Cass,” I said softly. “Your shard.”

Cass swallowed. He lifted the little disklike thing from the floor. On the desk, my shard began to twitch like a jumping bean. “Whoa …” Cass said.

I leaned over, peering closely at my shard, then Cass’s. “They’re not two random pieces,” I said. “It looks like they may have broken apart from each other.”

“It feels warm,” Cass said.

“Hold the long side toward me,” I said.

As Cass angled his arm, I reached out to my shard and turned it so its longest side faced Cass’s.

“Ow—it’s like a hundred degrees!” Cass said.

“Hold tight!” I said.

I felt a jolt like an electric current. As I pulled my fingers away from the shard, it shot across the room toward Cass.

With a scream, he dropped his relic and jumped away.