The Realms [Watty 2017 Shortlist]

Cheering - Part 18

            "What am I missing here, Maiz?" I ask. 

I turn down the music on the car radio and shift to watch her face. I waited a few hours before tackling the obvious elephant in the car. She was incredibly tense when we left the office, and I decided that waiting for a little while might either increase her guilt or lull her into believing that I might not demand answers. I was done with waiting, though. If there's something going on that might put Ryan at risk, I needed to know.

She doesn't answer me, just continues to drive. She even tries to reach over to turn up the music. I swat her hand away and straighten my back even further. I'm ready for a fight if that's what needs to happen. 

"Why were you expelled from the Third Realm?" I ask.

"It wasn't for what you've assumed." She looks at me quickly and then looks away. "I didn't plot or plan anything, but I could have. I could've completely ruined the ruler, but I didn't. I wouldn't have either. He didn't believe me though; he thought for sure I'd be the death of him. Now, maybe I will be." Her tone is grim, foreboding, but I still have no idea what she's hiding.

Frustration swells and I pour it into her. This cryptic nonsense is not making me feel any better about what I don't know. "Can you just be straight with me? So, you didn't plot or plan but you could have ruined the ruler? What'd you have an affair with him? You were pretty young for him, but I hardly see that as being the end of his rule."

She looks like she is ready to vomit. "No, God, no. I didn't ...Eww." She pauses, gazes out the driver's window and shifts in her seat. Her eyes meet mine when she says, "But, my mother did."

The realization slams into me like shrapnel from a detonated bomb. 

"You're his daughter? How is that even possible? I thought rulers could only have one child?" I sit very still for a moment to let my brain sort through all the implications of this revelation. Underneath it all is betrayal. "That's...that's what the Life Line Keeper meant about him breaking the rules." So many things start to click in and out of place in my head that I'm a little nauseous myself. "How long have you known this?" I ask.

She looks a little sheepish, but her eyes don't waver from mine. "When you asked me ages ago what I did, I didn't actually remember what happened. I knew my mother and Ryan's father fought, that the result was my expulsion, but it wasn't until I started doing research on the mansion that little snippets of their conversation came back to me. I wasn't sure until the Life Line Keeper said that I was proof that the Center Square had been out of control for a long time."

There is a small sense of relief that she wasn't keeping it from me for a long time, but also a little hurt that she didn't mention that something wasn't quite right with her memories. I watch the countryside fly past my window. A bird on a post dives for its prey, the clouds in the sky are grey and overcast like it might rain. 

"So, I guess Ryan doesn't know that he has a sister? Assuming we can make it back there," I say.

"No. No, I didn't even tell him that I suspected. He didn't ask why I was expelled, and I didn't give any of those details either. We've been so focused on getting back that how we got here in the first place has just been..."

"Yeah." I nod and a pounding starts in my forehead. 

What they're going to ask of us in exchange for getting back to the Third Realm might be more than either of us is willing to give. I wonder again whether I can be content to live out my existence in this realm with Ryan, knowing that we may never get to fulfill our potential.

"It's going to be hard to get back, isn't it?" Maizie asks, leaning forward on the steering wheel. Her brown hair shifts to partially cover her face.