Children of the Knight, Michael J. Bowler [classic book list txt] 📗

>How Can I Face Him?

Arthur stood in The Hub and observed his young charges. They had eaten dinner and cleaned up their trash. Now many practiced their swordplay or sat playing board games or texting on their phones or just chatting with one another. Jenny had returned to her home, and Arthur already felt her absence.

But it was Lance on his mind, and Mark. Anxiety crept into his heart, and that dark shadow of doom that looked so much like Lance kept clawing at his soul, at his conscience, at his memories. He pulled out his cell phone and glanced at the screen—no message from Lance. Or Jack. He’d texted Lance every fifteen minutes for the past hour, with no result. What could be wrong? Where could his… the boy have gone? And what of Jack? He, also, had not responded to his texts.

Damn!

This amazing invention that made it so easy to talk to anyone in the world at a moment’s notice sat in his hand, useless as a mute messenger boy from his own time. At least back then one was accustomed to not receiving an answer to a summons right away. He sighed, realizing that he was acclimating to this era faster than he could ever have imagined—he already wanted everything to happen immediately, if not sooner.

“Oh Lord, watch over me and these children ye hast given me,” he intoned softly, head bent as he paced.

He heard laughter and glanced up to see Chris playing tag with Lavern and some of the other boys, laughing and jostling and running from each other as though the rest of the world mattered not. That much at least, he mused, had not changed since his own boyhood.

So lost was he in his thoughts that when Arthur turned to pace back the way he’d come he nearly collided with a bedraggled and haggard-looking Jack, whose tunic was dirty and stained, his curly black hair disheveled, his face tear- streaked, his wide brown eyes orphaned of hope.

“Sir Jack!” Arthur exclaimed in surprise, causing the other boys within The Hub to stop what they were doing and turn to look.

Jack threw his arms about Arthur and hugged him, his whole body shaking with despair.

Arthur’s fears engulfed him. “Sir Jack, when did you return? Hast thou found Mark? Where is Lance?”

Jack could not speak, continued trembling, struggled to find his voice, but could not seem to regain control.

Arthur led him to some chairs and sat him down gently, while Chris, Lavern, and the other kids gathered round in silence. This was the second time Chris had seen Jack cry. To him, Jack was practically a man and he had never seen men cry. He knew that whatever happened had to be really bad.

Arthur sat cautiously beside him, gently placing one hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezing slightly. “Sir Jack? Tell me.”

“Mark’s dead!” Jack blurted out, his gaze locked on the floor.

Chris gasped.

“What?” Arthur felt like he’d been pierced straight through the heart.

Jack nodded through his tears, and Arthur lovingly cradled the boy’s head against his shoulder.

“Canst thou tell me what happened?”

“He OD’d, man,” Jack mumbled. “He died in a dirty old alley, all alone.”

“OD’d?”

Now Jack whipped his head up in fury. “Drugs, dammit, he went back to the stinkin’ drugs!”

The surrounding boys gasped again, and Chris began to cry.

Arthur was stunned, his stomach knotting. “Dear God in heaven!” He paused, Mark’s letter replaying itself in his mind. “Because of me…. Oh, Sir Jack, did I truly give that impression, that I would hate one of mine own?”

Jack shook his head, tears overflowing onto his pants and turning the light brown dark. “No, and I told him that, but he was so ashamed for the way he felt. I told him it was okay….” He looked up at Arthur through tear-blurred eyes. “Oh God, Arthur, he never even knew how much I loved him. He was all I had!”

Arthur’s eyes welled up and blurred his vision. “Nay, Jack, thou hast me.”

Jack continued to cry, and Arthur pulled him in, rocking him gently in his arms.

Suddenly, Jack’s words hit Arthur like a slap to the face—He never knew how much I loved him.

He pulled Jack’s head away to look straight into the boy’s eyes, doom choking his soul. “Lance, Sir Jack! Where is Lance?”

Jack shook his head in confusion, swiping snot away from his nose with his sleeve. “I don’t know, Arthur. He was mad at you for saying something about carrying the banner.” Arthur flinched. “And now he blames himself, said it was his job to save Mark, and he failed you. He took off, Arthur. He just got crazy and took off!”

He pulled away from the king and stood. “Oh God, Arthur, he was crazy upset. He might do something stupid. We gotta find him before….” He choked back a sob. “I can’t lose him, too!”

Arthur’s face reeked of guilt and shame, but determination pounded through him. “Nor can I.”

He stood and addressed the onlooking boys, all of whom stood frozen with shock. “As ye have heard, my noble knights, one of our own hath fallen, and we shall pay him the honor that is his due. For now, we must needs find Sir Lance! That be of the utmost import. Take thy phones and spread out around the city. Find him, and assure him of our love and protection.” He’d almost said “my love,” but foolishly chose not to.

There were mumbled, “yes, sires,” and accompanying bows, and the boys scattered to gather their knives and phones. Within seconds, only Chris remained, still in tears and gazing silently at Jack.

Chris ran to him and threw his small arms around Jack in a tight hug of comfort. Jack gratefully hugged him back and just held him tenderly.

Arthur pulled out his phone and typed in Jenny’s number. The kids had attempted to train him on features such as speed dial, but he could never get the hang of it. Her phone rang once, twice, and on the third ring she picked up. A frantic Arthur quickly informed her about Mark, and heard her soft crying over the line.

Oh, how he hated and loved this invention all at once. He wished to be with her face to face, holding her in their mutual grief, but alas, time was of the essence. Briefly he told her about hurting Lance’s feelings and how the boy blamed himself for Mark’s death. He needed her to go to the skate park, and he would meet her. If Lance ended up anywhere tonight, it would be there. She agreed at once and hung up.

Arthur turned back to Jack and Chris. “I go to seek Sir Lance. Sir Christopher, please take care of Sir Jack for me.”

Chris nodded.

Jack looked over Chris’s shoulder, a look of desperation in his eyes. “Find him, Arthur, and tell him how much I… need him.”

Arthur nodded and hurried to saddle Llamrei.

Eucalyptus Park looked calm and peaceful in the moonlight, just the way Lance had always loved it. But tonight was different. The outside exuded peace, but inside of him turmoil raged. Even that new mural of him and Arthur mocked him. Already sweaty and tired from his hard ride to the park, he slipped into the skate park and attacked those ramps with a vengeance. He spun and rolled and flipped, daring himself to stunts more crazy and dangerous than he’d ever attempted. What did it matter? His friend was dead. It was his fault. Did it matter if he killed his own stupid ass? Hell no!

Despite his best efforts to squelch the memories, Mark’s soft, gentle features kept intruding, flitting before his mind’s eye like a lawyer waving evidence of guilt before a defendant: Mark’s gentle laughter; Mark giving him the thumbs up sign; Mark’s huge blue eyes brimming with tears; Mark’s comforting arm around his shoulders; Mark giving him the fist bump; Mark silent and sad and brooding; Mark flashing that shy little smile; Mark’s angry eyes and pouty mouth when Lance had called him a fag; Mark offering him friendship and acceptance; Mark keeping his secret when he didn’t have to; Mark lying open- eyed in death, pain and unworthiness permanently etched onto his milky white face….

Try as he might to hurt himself, Lance landed every jump clean, retrieved his board perfectly after every flip, after every crazy-ass trick, and within an hour of nonstop skating had pounded his mountain of anger and guilt into a smaller, more manageable size.

Drained and dripping with sweat, the knot of Mark’s death sitting in his stomach like an ulcer, Lance swatted his soaked and scattered Samson-like hair off his face as he despondently lurched across the park and stopped in front of the mural.

He spotted a Sharpie on the ground beside a trash can, scooped it up, and looked long and hard at the mural.

At himself.

And hated what he saw.

The pen was almost dry, but it still worked.

He tossed it into the can when he finished, and wandered over to plop down onto one of the swings.

His swing.

And that was where Jenny found him.

Lance didn’t even glance up at her as she gingerly sat in the swing beside him, acknowledging her presence with only a slight shift in body posture. His eyes remained fixed on the retaining wall mural of him and Arthur. Now scrawled above it were the words “Youth Sucks.”

Jenny followed his gaze and frowned at the graffiti. “I heard about Mark,” she began, uncertainly. “I’m sorry.”

He said nothing. Just stared at those words.

“Everyone’s out looking for you, Lance. We were all worried.”

“That’s me, you know. Holding the banner.”

“I know. It’s a good likeness. Did you add the words above it?”

Lance shrugged, but said nothing.

“Arthur’s frantic with worry over you.”

That got his eyes off the words and onto her face. “He is?”

“You know he is. He told me how he hurt your feelings. Oh, honey, he didn’t mean it. He was just distracted, like we all get sometimes.”

Lance’s gaze returned to the mural. “I know. Jack told me. But….” He wasn’t sure he could admit it.

“But what?”

He turned to her again, tears brimming. “Oh, milady, it would’ve been better if I just was the banner carrier, you know?”

“I don’t understand.”

“He counted on me, milady. He gave me a quest, the most important one ever, and I failed him!”

“You mean Mark?”

He nodded, tears dribbling down his face and pooling onto the board across his lap. “How can I face him, Lady Jenny? I lost one of his that I was s’posed to save. And I lost the first friend I ever had. And I…. I never even told Mark I loved him, you know? I mean, he kept my secret, and I loved him for that, for not telling anyone, but I never said it. I never told him. And now he’s gone! He’s gone….”

She reached out and pulled him in, stroked his damp hair, and let him cry.

“Oh, honey, you didn’t fail Arthur, or Mark. Mark made a choice. It was a poor choice, but he made it. He could have stayed with you, but his pain was too great. You didn’t fail him. You loved him. And he knew you loved him, just by the way you were there for him when he needed you.”

“But that’s just it, milady, I wasn’t there,” Lance confessed. “I was too busy thinking how much I was hurting to see how much Mark was, too, and I should’ve told him….” His tear-streaked face looked