Page 10 of The Wicker King

“I just don’t know why I couldn’t have worked with one of you on the project instead of one of those average cretins,” Alex said, waving her knife with a flourish.

Peter mock-shot Roger in the face with his index finger, and Roger slumped onto the table.

“I’m not that hard to work with.” Alex sniffed.

“YES YOU ARE,” the entire table, and several people nearby, said loudly in unison.

RED VELVET, WITH BUTTERCREAM ICING

August came home one night and Jack was in his kitchen wearing only his boxers and an apron, stirring something vigorously in a mixing bowl. After a lot of screaming and apologizing, Jack admitted that he was borrowing August’s kitchen and supplies to make the cupcakes he’d promised Rina on their last ill-fated visit, in preparation for making yet another ill-fated visit sometime later that week.

A visit that he would be making whether August came along or not. Now that Jack had mostly recovered from their romp in the woods, he was super adamant about going back to bother Rina.

There was some tense staring and indignant arm crossing, but eventually August caved. He wasn’t completely comfortable letting his best friend get savaged and left to bleed in an alley just to prove a point.

At least not this time.

DO YOU?

“Do you remember that game we used to play when we were kids? The Two Kings?” Jack asked suddenly.

“Of course,” August said, looking up from his book. “Why?”

Jack picked at the library’s carpet and looked away.

He did things like this often.

Checked to see if his memories were real.

August had asked him about it once, and he’d said it was kind of like going through a box of photographs. Jack couldn’t describe it very well for him, so August never truly understood. All he knew was that when Jack asked him to confirm a memory, he should do so as quickly as possible so the tension could fall from Jack’s shoulders and the knot between his brows could come free.

Sometimes, if he really wanted to please him, August would elaborate on what he remembered. Illustrate it so Jack could be completely certain that it did, in fact, happen.

“I remember the attic of your house. The way the sun shone gold through the slats in the windows. The dust on the floor and the crowns we wore. I remember your throne, the Wicker Throne, and mine, the Wooden Throne. I remember sitting on them, hands clasped between us. You were always the better king.”

Jack snorted. “I was hyperactive and annoying.”

August just grinned. “You spent a week building me a crown of sticks and wire, even though yours was bits of wicker hot-glued to a stretchy headband. Do you still have them?”

Jack shook his head. “The neighbor’s cat got mine and chewed it up ages ago. But I still have yours.”

“Can I have it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m saving it for something.”

RICKET

August hadn’t thought about that in years. He turned over in bed and looked out the window at the night sky. The last time they’d played that game, it was dusk. The red sun had made the trees of the wild wood look black with shadows.

They’d been ten or eleven. He remembered running and the sound of Jack’s sneakers hitting the ground. If they’d gone fast enough, it would have felt like they were riding horses. Galloping through the underbrush with crows at their backs. Jack tilted his head back and screamed at the sky, and August screamed with him.

When August closed his eyes he could practically hear the beasts snarling behind them. Three-tusked and woolly, with piggy snouts and cloven feet. They’d learned about wild pigs in class a couple of days before, but Jack couldn’t get them out of his mind. He’d been drawing them over and over in his notebook, each one bigger and fiercer than the last. Finally they’d crashed through the thicket and stumbled down the bank, sliding in the leaves and mud.

“They can’t cross the water!” Jack had shouted.