The Betrothed
for National Novel Writing Month
Day 15
Late the next morning, Darrick sat out on the front steps of the house, trying to explain the entire situation to Roger on his cell phone. He and Abby had stayed up for a through the night before as she walked him around the house, explaining a little bit of its history and a lot of her own memories of the place. Only the priest and his family resided there, kept up by donations from the other Atlantean families, but the Houses would convene there multiple times a year for Presentations, weddings, funerals, and other solemn (and sometimes not so solemn) occasions, so Abby had quite a few recollections, both happy and sad. She told him of games of hide-and-seek that lasted for hours, impromptu sports contests held on the extensive grounds, feasts for both weddings and funerals (“. . . and isn’t it odd,” she had remarked, “that we celebrate both a marriage and a death in the exact same way.”), and Atlantean holidays – marking the equinoxes and solstices, ancient celebrations of sowing and harvests, and an annual day of remembrance for the sinking of Atlantis in the Cataclysm – all observed by the ten Houses in this mansion. Finally, they had watched the Sun rise over the mountaintops, a beautiful sight made even more heady by the intoxicating company. After that, they had both retired, happy but exhausted. Darrick had awakened a few hours later, while it was still late morning, and after a quick breakfast and a discovery that Abby was still in bed (not surprisingly, as Darrick had gotten some sleep the night before, but he wasn’t sure Abby had gotten any), he had called Roger to let his best friend in on the latest news.
“Man, you have really lost your mind this time,” Roger said after Darrick had given him a very brief rundown of events. “You had an out from this entire jam, and you didn’t take it? You’re actually going through with this? Darrick, you just met this girl!”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Darrick responded, “but I can’t explain it any better than that. She’s the one. I know it.”
“You’ve said that about every girl you’ve ever dated,” Roger cut in. “For the first week, anyway. Sometimes the first month. Then you get bored. It’s the same pattern over and over again. Can’t you see that this isn’t any different, just because this happens to be a girl your parents picked for you? Hell, that just makes it more likely to fail, if you ask me.”
“I wish I could explain it better,” Darrick said, frustrated that he couldn’t give his friend the whole story. “I understand why I was like that before, and it won’t happen again. This time, she’s the right one.” Roger’s explosive exhalation of breath on the other end showed what he thought of that idea.
“Okay, then,” Roger said, sounding annoyed, “tell me why you were like that before, and how you know you won’t be like that again.”
“I wish I could,” Darrick said.
“Good God, man –”
“I’m sorry,” Darrick said, his own voice rising. “I can’t tell you any more than that. I really, truly, honestly cannot.”
“You’re not making any sense. Listen to me, Darrick. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you’ve been my best friend for years and, as frustrating as you can be sometimes, I know you’re not crazy. But I want you to think long and hard on this. If you go through with this marriage and you get bored in a month, you won’t just be able to drop her and move on. And it won’t just be your life you’ll be ruining, it’ll be hers too.”
“I understand that,” Darrick said. “Really, I do. And I won’t drop her in a month. Or six. Or sixty. I know you think I’m the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em type, and I won’t deny that I’ve been impetuous with girls in the past. But I know how important relationships and marriage are; that’s why I’ve always wanted to be sure I was in the right one. So when I know something’s not going to work out, I end it, rather than dragging it out. I’ll admit that I could have done a better job with that sometimes.”
“Vivian called me the other day, y’know. She acted like it was just a friendly chat, but she was fishing for information. About you, if you can’t guess. She’s still trying to figure out what happened.”
Darrick didn’t want to think about explaining his new wife to Vivian, the next time he encountered her in class – and he was sure that he eventually would. He knew now that it was the maturation of his bond that caused him to lose interest in her so quickly, but he was still a bit angry at himself for the way he had handled the situation, and Roger’s comment stuck a few more needles of guilt into his chest.
“Oh, God,” was all Darrick could say at first. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing, of course,” Roger replied. “I’m not crazy enough to want to be the bearer of that kind of bad news, and I’m certainly not going to take that little bit of heat off of you. She’s your responsibility.”
“Yeah, I seem to be getting a lot of those lately,” Darrick said sardonically. “Still, this one is my fault. I’ll think of some way to tell her, gently, when I think of what I’m going to tell everyone else at school when I show up in the fall with a new bride.” Roger chuckled.
“Sucks to be you, man.”
“No, it actually doesn’t,” Darrick said, thinking of Abby, which gave his heart a lift. “Right now, I’m a pretty lucky guy.”
“I hope you’re right. Now, what’s this about me not being able to come to your wedding?”
“What are you doing?” Darrick heard from behind him, in a familiar and threatening voice. Instinctively, he tensed.
“I’ve gotta go, Roger. Talk to you soon.” He closed his cell phone, stood to his feet, and turned. In the door of the house, several steps above him, stood Patrick, arms outstretched with palms pressing on the doorframe. Just behind him, Darrick could see several indistinct forms.
“Talking to outsiders?” Patrick said, his voice deceptively calm. “Telling our secrets?” He walked towards Darrick, who backed up, stepping down a couple of steps to level ground; he had a feeling it might not be a good idea to have his back to the stairs at the moment. He was suddenly aware that, even without the advantage of the stairs, Patrick had a several-inch height advantage on him, and was not particularly frail. “What did you tell your little friend, half-breed?”
“That your sister and I will be married in a week or two, and we’ll have lots of fun making little half-breed babies together.” Darrick regretted the words right after they exited his mouth. Patrick’s expression grew even darker, and out of the doorway stepped a small gang of older teens, all of whom Abby had at the feast identified as being in one way or another connected to her brother, though the only one he could put a name to was Elizabeth, who trailed the rest of the group like a rear guard. Her expression was haughtily disdainful; the rest were openly hostile. What have I gotten myself into?
Patrick and his group finished their descent of the stairs and spread out; they didn’t quite surround Darrick, but they made it plain that they could if necessary.
“I will never let that happen,” Patrick said flatly. His face twisted in a grimace. “Dear little sister doesn’t know what’s good for her, and Mother and Father are blinded by your family name, as though your mongrel blood hasn’t destroyed whatever honor it had left.” Patrick stepped forward from the group, close enough for Darrick to feel towered over. He fought the urge to step back again; weakness would only encourage the threats, he felt. “You, your disgraced mother, and your outsider father will leave here and never return; go back to the exile from which you came, which is your rightful place.”
“And what about Abby?” Darrick said, anger overriding his anxiety. “How would she feel if I just abandoned her? What would that do to our bond? Don’t you care about her at all?”
“Don’t you dare question my concern for my sister!” Patrick seethed. “Abigail can be an annoying bitch at times, but she doesn’t deserve the fate you have in store for her. Better that she should spend the rest of her life in mourning than bind herself to a half-breed like you.” Elizabeth joined him, giving Darrick the same regard she might reserve for a particularly loathsome insect.
“Sacred Atlantean marriage isn’t meant for the likes of you,” she said, looking as though she had bitten into a rotten fruit. “The thought of you defiling a pure Atlantean girl . . .” Darrick thought she might actually be sick, or faint away, at the concept. Had he cared less for Abby’s reputation, he would have told them what they had already been up to the night before, just to see if she really would end up prostrate on the ground. But he couldn’t bear the thought of casting any kind of shadow on his beloved, even if just in the minds of these monsters. But the thought of Abby was enough to give him courage; she was worth the chance of a beating, if that was where this was headed.
“I’m not going anywhere, Patty,” Darrick grinned inwardly at Patrick’s sour expression. “I don’t care if you beat me to a pulp. I love your sister, and I will never abandon her.” The other boys began to close in, but Patrick stopped them with an upraised hand.
“You mistake my intention, like the barbarian you are.” He smiled, and it was like a shark. “Atlanteans are a civilized people. We are not violent, save as a last resort. This was just warning, a piece of friendly advice. Leave, before you destroy the life of the one you claim to love.”
“What is going on here?!”
Everyone turned, and Darrick looked up to see Abby standing in the doorway, arms folded, glare fixed on her brother. She strode down the stairs at a regal pace and took her place between Darrick and her brother, forcing Patrick to take a step back.
“Father warned you about this,” she told him, arms crossed. “Do you want me to tell him about your gathering here?” Patrick just smirked.
“And would you like me to tell him about your midnight assignation with your half-breed betrothed?” he said, waving a hand dismissively at Darrick. Oh, he already knows, Darrick thought, feeling a bit conspicuous. Abby shrugged, dismissively.
“Try it,” she said. “Father will see through your transparent attempt at diversion. We’ll see who he believes.” Now Patrick looked as though he had bitten into something rotten. He opened his mouth, closed it, and wrinkled his forehead in a hateful frown.
“Your Little Miss Favorite status can’t last forever,” he said. “Eventually, everyone will see what you are doing to all of us by marrying this mongrel, and you will have to answer for it. I can wait.” Turning on his heel, he stalked away, his coterie following along behind him, Elizabeth with a disdainful sniff. Once they were inside the house with the door closed, Abby turned back to Darrick with a worried expression.
“Are you alright?” she asked, looking him over as if for hidden bruises or broken bones. “Did those ruffians do anything to you?” Darrick took her hands and tried to hold them still.
“I’m fine, really,” he said, hiding a grin at her solicitous behavior. “All they did was threaten me. I don’t think he would have actually done anything physical.”
“You’re probably right,” she said with relief. “He and his little gang have been harmless so far, but I was afraid it might have just been because they lacked a target.” Satisfied that Darrick was intact, she stepped into his embrace. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hate that you had to see such an ugly side of my family. I want you to be proud to be one of us.”
“Abby, you’re all the reason to be proud that I need,” Darrick told her, winning him a smile.
“Hopefully I’ve bought us some time free from him,” she said. “Our parents have set the date for the wedding, two weeks from now. If we’re lucky, we can just steer clear of him until then.”
for National Novel Writing Month
Day 15
Late the next morning, Darrick sat out on the front steps of the house, trying to explain the entire situation to Roger on his cell phone. He and Abby had stayed up for a through the night before as she walked him around the house, explaining a little bit of its history and a lot of her own memories of the place. Only the priest and his family resided there, kept up by donations from the other Atlantean families, but the Houses would convene there multiple times a year for Presentations, weddings, funerals, and other solemn (and sometimes not so solemn) occasions, so Abby had quite a few recollections, both happy and sad. She told him of games of hide-and-seek that lasted for hours, impromptu sports contests held on the extensive grounds, feasts for both weddings and funerals (“. . . and isn’t it odd,” she had remarked, “that we celebrate both a marriage and a death in the exact same way.”), and Atlantean holidays – marking the equinoxes and solstices, ancient celebrations of sowing and harvests, and an annual day of remembrance for the sinking of Atlantis in the Cataclysm – all observed by the ten Houses in this mansion. Finally, they had watched the Sun rise over the mountaintops, a beautiful sight made even more heady by the intoxicating company. After that, they had both retired, happy but exhausted. Darrick had awakened a few hours later, while it was still late morning, and after a quick breakfast and a discovery that Abby was still in bed (not surprisingly, as Darrick had gotten some sleep the night before, but he wasn’t sure Abby had gotten any), he had called Roger to let his best friend in on the latest news.
“Man, you have really lost your mind this time,” Roger said after Darrick had given him a very brief rundown of events. “You had an out from this entire jam, and you didn’t take it? You’re actually going through with this? Darrick, you just met this girl!”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Darrick responded, “but I can’t explain it any better than that. She’s the one. I know it.”
“You’ve said that about every girl you’ve ever dated,” Roger cut in. “For the first week, anyway. Sometimes the first month. Then you get bored. It’s the same pattern over and over again. Can’t you see that this isn’t any different, just because this happens to be a girl your parents picked for you? Hell, that just makes it more likely to fail, if you ask me.”
“I wish I could explain it better,” Darrick said, frustrated that he couldn’t give his friend the whole story. “I understand why I was like that before, and it won’t happen again. This time, she’s the right one.” Roger’s explosive exhalation of breath on the other end showed what he thought of that idea.
“Okay, then,” Roger said, sounding annoyed, “tell me why you were like that before, and how you know you won’t be like that again.”
“I wish I could,” Darrick said.
“Good God, man –”
“I’m sorry,” Darrick said, his own voice rising. “I can’t tell you any more than that. I really, truly, honestly cannot.”
“You’re not making any sense. Listen to me, Darrick. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you’ve been my best friend for years and, as frustrating as you can be sometimes, I know you’re not crazy. But I want you to think long and hard on this. If you go through with this marriage and you get bored in a month, you won’t just be able to drop her and move on. And it won’t just be your life you’ll be ruining, it’ll be hers too.”
“I understand that,” Darrick said. “Really, I do. And I won’t drop her in a month. Or six. Or sixty. I know you think I’m the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em type, and I won’t deny that I’ve been impetuous with girls in the past. But I know how important relationships and marriage are; that’s why I’ve always wanted to be sure I was in the right one. So when I know something’s not going to work out, I end it, rather than dragging it out. I’ll admit that I could have done a better job with that sometimes.”
“Vivian called me the other day, y’know. She acted like it was just a friendly chat, but she was fishing for information. About you, if you can’t guess. She’s still trying to figure out what happened.”
Darrick didn’t want to think about explaining his new wife to Vivian, the next time he encountered her in class – and he was sure that he eventually would. He knew now that it was the maturation of his bond that caused him to lose interest in her so quickly, but he was still a bit angry at himself for the way he had handled the situation, and Roger’s comment stuck a few more needles of guilt into his chest.
“Oh, God,” was all Darrick could say at first. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing, of course,” Roger replied. “I’m not crazy enough to want to be the bearer of that kind of bad news, and I’m certainly not going to take that little bit of heat off of you. She’s your responsibility.”
“Yeah, I seem to be getting a lot of those lately,” Darrick said sardonically. “Still, this one is my fault. I’ll think of some way to tell her, gently, when I think of what I’m going to tell everyone else at school when I show up in the fall with a new bride.” Roger chuckled.
“Sucks to be you, man.”
“No, it actually doesn’t,” Darrick said, thinking of Abby, which gave his heart a lift. “Right now, I’m a pretty lucky guy.”
“I hope you’re right. Now, what’s this about me not being able to come to your wedding?”
“What are you doing?” Darrick heard from behind him, in a familiar and threatening voice. Instinctively, he tensed.
“I’ve gotta go, Roger. Talk to you soon.” He closed his cell phone, stood to his feet, and turned. In the door of the house, several steps above him, stood Patrick, arms outstretched with palms pressing on the doorframe. Just behind him, Darrick could see several indistinct forms.
“Talking to outsiders?” Patrick said, his voice deceptively calm. “Telling our secrets?” He walked towards Darrick, who backed up, stepping down a couple of steps to level ground; he had a feeling it might not be a good idea to have his back to the stairs at the moment. He was suddenly aware that, even without the advantage of the stairs, Patrick had a several-inch height advantage on him, and was not particularly frail. “What did you tell your little friend, half-breed?”
“That your sister and I will be married in a week or two, and we’ll have lots of fun making little half-breed babies together.” Darrick regretted the words right after they exited his mouth. Patrick’s expression grew even darker, and out of the doorway stepped a small gang of older teens, all of whom Abby had at the feast identified as being in one way or another connected to her brother, though the only one he could put a name to was Elizabeth, who trailed the rest of the group like a rear guard. Her expression was haughtily disdainful; the rest were openly hostile. What have I gotten myself into?
Patrick and his group finished their descent of the stairs and spread out; they didn’t quite surround Darrick, but they made it plain that they could if necessary.
“I will never let that happen,” Patrick said flatly. His face twisted in a grimace. “Dear little sister doesn’t know what’s good for her, and Mother and Father are blinded by your family name, as though your mongrel blood hasn’t destroyed whatever honor it had left.” Patrick stepped forward from the group, close enough for Darrick to feel towered over. He fought the urge to step back again; weakness would only encourage the threats, he felt. “You, your disgraced mother, and your outsider father will leave here and never return; go back to the exile from which you came, which is your rightful place.”
“And what about Abby?” Darrick said, anger overriding his anxiety. “How would she feel if I just abandoned her? What would that do to our bond? Don’t you care about her at all?”
“Don’t you dare question my concern for my sister!” Patrick seethed. “Abigail can be an annoying bitch at times, but she doesn’t deserve the fate you have in store for her. Better that she should spend the rest of her life in mourning than bind herself to a half-breed like you.” Elizabeth joined him, giving Darrick the same regard she might reserve for a particularly loathsome insect.
“Sacred Atlantean marriage isn’t meant for the likes of you,” she said, looking as though she had bitten into a rotten fruit. “The thought of you defiling a pure Atlantean girl . . .” Darrick thought she might actually be sick, or faint away, at the concept. Had he cared less for Abby’s reputation, he would have told them what they had already been up to the night before, just to see if she really would end up prostrate on the ground. But he couldn’t bear the thought of casting any kind of shadow on his beloved, even if just in the minds of these monsters. But the thought of Abby was enough to give him courage; she was worth the chance of a beating, if that was where this was headed.
“I’m not going anywhere, Patty,” Darrick grinned inwardly at Patrick’s sour expression. “I don’t care if you beat me to a pulp. I love your sister, and I will never abandon her.” The other boys began to close in, but Patrick stopped them with an upraised hand.
“You mistake my intention, like the barbarian you are.” He smiled, and it was like a shark. “Atlanteans are a civilized people. We are not violent, save as a last resort. This was just warning, a piece of friendly advice. Leave, before you destroy the life of the one you claim to love.”
“What is going on here?!”
Everyone turned, and Darrick looked up to see Abby standing in the doorway, arms folded, glare fixed on her brother. She strode down the stairs at a regal pace and took her place between Darrick and her brother, forcing Patrick to take a step back.
“Father warned you about this,” she told him, arms crossed. “Do you want me to tell him about your gathering here?” Patrick just smirked.
“And would you like me to tell him about your midnight assignation with your half-breed betrothed?” he said, waving a hand dismissively at Darrick. Oh, he already knows, Darrick thought, feeling a bit conspicuous. Abby shrugged, dismissively.
“Try it,” she said. “Father will see through your transparent attempt at diversion. We’ll see who he believes.” Now Patrick looked as though he had bitten into something rotten. He opened his mouth, closed it, and wrinkled his forehead in a hateful frown.
“Your Little Miss Favorite status can’t last forever,” he said. “Eventually, everyone will see what you are doing to all of us by marrying this mongrel, and you will have to answer for it. I can wait.” Turning on his heel, he stalked away, his coterie following along behind him, Elizabeth with a disdainful sniff. Once they were inside the house with the door closed, Abby turned back to Darrick with a worried expression.
“Are you alright?” she asked, looking him over as if for hidden bruises or broken bones. “Did those ruffians do anything to you?” Darrick took her hands and tried to hold them still.
“I’m fine, really,” he said, hiding a grin at her solicitous behavior. “All they did was threaten me. I don’t think he would have actually done anything physical.”
“You’re probably right,” she said with relief. “He and his little gang have been harmless so far, but I was afraid it might have just been because they lacked a target.” Satisfied that Darrick was intact, she stepped into his embrace. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hate that you had to see such an ugly side of my family. I want you to be proud to be one of us.”
“Abby, you’re all the reason to be proud that I need,” Darrick told her, winning him a smile.
“Hopefully I’ve bought us some time free from him,” she said. “Our parents have set the date for the wedding, two weeks from now. If we’re lucky, we can just steer clear of him until then.”
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