The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman
Brynna followed Diana and sat next to her. Water lapped the backs of her knees, green-black leaves felt like seaweed on their feet. “Are you still hot?” Diana’s voice was so soft, Brynna wasn’t sure whether Diana was asking her, or talking to herself.
Diana took off her sweat-soaked shirt, balled it up, and tossed it onto the bank. Brynna hesitated a moment and then took off hers. They faced each other in shorts and jogging bras. Fair Diana, and darker Brynna with her hair tied back. The air was heavy, the summer weighed upon them, humming with mosquitoes. They could hear the frogs and the cicadas, the scrabbling claws of unseen animals, the rustling trees.
A branch snapped.
Brynna started. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” With her thumb, Diana smudged out a mosquito on Brynna’s neck.
“We’ll get eaten alive,” Brynna said.
“Come swimming then.”
Brynna glanced at the dark trees. “We’re not supposed to.”
“So what? I swim here.”
“When?”
“I run up here and swim at night.”
As they sat side by side, their bare arms were almost touching. Brynna said, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“When you were younger—” Diana began.
“You’re always saying, ‘When you were younger,’ ” Brynna said.
“Okay, before you had the baby, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I’m not so different.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Because of Angela?”
“Because of Anton, obviously.”
Brynna said, “I never even see him anymore.”
“Good.”
Brynna sighed. Her breath brushed against Diana’s ear. “Do you swim in your clothes?”
“No,” Diana whispered. “I take them off.”
“Would you now?” Brynna asked.
“If you come with me.”
Brynna held still, absorbing the suggestion.
“Do you want to?” Diana asked, as she unhooked the back of Brynna’s bra.
“Yes.”
Brynna’s breasts were full, her nipples dark. Brynna’s heart was racing underneath Diana’s hand. “I just want to touch you,” Diana whispered, and Brynna didn’t pull away. Her skin was soft under Diana’s tongue.
They slipped into the water, and Diana had no twin; she had no mother. She had Brynna alone. They were standing waist-deep, and Brynna glanced back at the water’s edge. “What if someone sees us?”
For a moment Diana thought of Anton and his dogs—but no one had followed them. “No one sees us,” Diana murmured, as she stroked Brynna. “No one’s here.” The darkness and the water concealed them.
She touched Brynna’s face. She kissed Brynna’s lips and she forgot everything but Brynna’s soft mouth. She forgot Aidan and she forgot herself. It was happening. She was becoming someone else.
Aidan would not forgive his sister. He wouldn’t even look at her. Exiled in the hospital, he had been too weak to care. Now he was strong and restless, and resentful. He had endured days and weeks of summer school, and this was his reward. He had trusted Diana, or so he told himself. He had counted on her to keep his black BoX safe, and then just when he needed it—just when he’d earned it—she turned on him and gave it to their mother.
His mother had taken back her desktop, and so he had rehabilitated Liam’s old laptop to play while she was at work. The laptop was easy to hide but almost useless, because it was so flat and slow. His BoX had spoiled him. As color eclipsed black and white, as computers supplanted typewriters, so OVID overshadowed all the gaming platforms that had come before. Onscreen graphics seemed old as picture books to Aidan. All he wanted now was gaming in the round.
He tortured himself, inhaling articles on UnderWorld’s paradigm-shifting technology. He read about the millions waiting for BoXes in December, and it killed him to think he’d held his own BoX in his hands. i’ve been inside, he typed on UnderWorld’s fan forum. no way, the other Everheads shot back. whats it like? your full of shit. prove it. pix! But he had no proof.
Those last days of summer he swallowed his pride and texted Daphne, he messaged her on fan forums, he emailed her at her official Arkadia address, but she did not reply. At last he did what he should have done first. He logged in to EverWhen and searched for Riyah. He wandered the Trackless Wood and hunted by the shore, he journeyed past the tree line on the slopes of EverRest. The night before school started, he sat in bed wearing his old headset and fell asleep trying to find her.
The crunch of autumn leaves, the rush of water.
“What’s up, Tildor?”
He opened his eyes and heard Daphne speaking to him, although at first all he could see was his screen saver.
He touched his trackpad, and there she stood on a rough boulder before a thundering waterfall. She was wearing her thigh-high boots and scant bodice of black leather. Her eyes were huge, her blue hair flowed down her back, but her avatar was just that to him, because he’d seen her for real.
“Sleeping?” She touched his Elf lightly on the shoulder.
He shook himself awake. “I need another BoX.”
“Sorry. One per person!” Riyah folded her arms across her chest.
“Wait. Listen. My mom took a hammer and destroyed mine.”
She threw back her head and laughed.
“Go to hell,” breathed Aidan.
“Excuse me?” said Daphne. “Which of us can’t get there?”
She repulsed him. Much as he’d admired her when they’d met, honored as he had been, qwesting in her company, he hated her now. He knew Daphne was a schemer and a marketer, neither Elf nor ordinary gamer, and he didn’t want her anymore. He had one desire. “I have to play.”
“Oh, well.” Riyah jumped down from her rock and began searching for jewels in the crystalline pool beneath the waterfall.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Aidan said.
“I can’t.” Riyah waded deeper into the water. She looked like a tiny dominatrix, but she sounded like an irritated teacher. “You have to wait like everybody else.”
Tildor splashed after her. “I won’t wait.”
“You have to.”
“I’ll tell everybody you’re breaking the law.”
“Vandalizing property?” Riyah said. “That would be you.”
“You made me.”
“Hey. Stop right there.” She drew her sword.
He drew his shining weapon and advanced. Steel on steel, the two of them were fighting, waist-deep in the water. “You tricked me!”
She struck and slashed his arm. “I never tricked you. Think about it.”
In a fury, he forced her back toward the roaring waterfall. White water reddened with his blood, but he would not let up. “You said I could play.”
“You did play.”
“You promised.”
“I kept my promises.”
“I need to play now.”
“Grow up.”
“You owe me!” He knocked her down into the water and with one massive stroke sliced off her head. The pool was black now with her blood, the water churning with her headless body.
“Okay, game over.” Still bleeding, Riyah picked up her head and leapt onto a rock.
He panicked. “Please. Just give me a new BoX and I promise you’ll never see me again.”
She stood there holding her head as casually as a fencer holds her helmet after a bout. “You won’t see me either.” Riyah replaced her head and turned her back on him.
“Come back,” Aidan called out.
Already she was out of reach, leaping from rock to rock.
“I did everything you wanted.”
“You did what you wanted.” Those were the last words Daphne ever said to him.
—
He was in a killing mood that night. He rampaged through the Trackless Wood, murdering animals, one by one. He slew a wild boar, hacking the beast until he was knee-deep in blood. He trac
In the starlight his Elf shot down a phoenix with a gold arrow. The bird flamed like a falling star, but all Aidan could think was how much better the fire would have been in UnderWorld, with sparks showering down upon him.
In the distance he could hear Diana rustling across the hall. Far away he heard her knocking at the door. “You know what day it is, right?”
He took off his headphones but he didn’t answer. He waited until she left the house to log off and walk to Emerson. Let her wonder whether he’d show up the first day. Let her think he had forgotten. Angry as he was at Daphne, he was angrier at his sister.
—
School smelled like paint. A few days before, a troop of City Corps kids had descended on the building to spruce it up. Scuffed floors were lemon-fresh, walls bright with new bulletin boards. A purple banner hung in the lobby blazoned POETRY IN ACTION.
People were embracing. Girls were calling to one another like long-lost sisters. Everyone was supercharged with energy. The shoes alone were blinding. Aidan wanted to turn around and leave.
“Good morning, Aidan.” Miss Lazare pursued him up the stairs. “Welcome back!”
What was that about? Aidan ducked into his math class and out of range. Lazare was such a lethal mix of concern and hopefulness.
—
If I were Mrs. West, thought Nina, I would have demanded a response. “Excuse me, young man. You look me in the eye and say, ‘Good morning,’ when I greet you.” Next time, Nina thought, even as she added a new resolution to her mental list: Don’t compare yourself to Mrs. West.
Her list was long. Start off strict and set expectations high. Mean ’til Halloween, as Mr. Allan said. Insist on homework. No lost books, no missing papers, no unexcused absences. Keep track of time. Finish lessons before the bell. She was wearing Collin’s old-fashioned watch.
This year will be different, she thought, as she stepped into her classroom. I’ll get it right. I won’t fail you, she promised her kids silently, as she shut the door.
“Good morning,” she said.
A few kids answered, “Good morning.”
“I’m Miss Lazare, and this is American Literature,” she announced, just in case someone had wandered into the wrong room. “I’ll take attendance before we get started, and I’ll just say,” she added as a couple of boys walked in, “I need everybody here on time. Colleen. Matisse. Jared. Australia…” She tagged each student in her mind with a mnemonic. Colleen, with the eyebrow piercing. Rachelle, with hennaed hair. Candace was chewing gum. “Take out the gum, Candace. Take these poems. Pass them down.”
She watched her photocopied handout ripple from hand to hand. “As a class we’ll study American poets and writers. As a school, we have a new initiative this year. You may have seen the banner.” She paused and felt a little dumb. The banner was a good twelve feet long and hard to miss. “Our school will be participating in the national recitation competition.”
Groans and laughter. Confusion about what recitation might entail. Scuffling in the back.
“Miss?” Candace held up the extra photocopies.
Keep it moving, Nina thought. “So we’ll start the year with two American poems. Do I have a volunteer to read the first?”
Silence.
“Anyone?” Nina volunteered a girl named Zena, who had been whispering. “Right here.” Nina interposed herself between Zena and Colleen.
“I hear America singing,” Zena began, “the varied carols I hear, / Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong…”
As Zena read aloud: “The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam…” Nina opened a fresh box of chalk. Was there anything more perfect than new chalk? “The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work…”
“How would you describe the mood here?”
“Ummm,” Zena said.
Nina waited. Unconsciously, she played with Collin’s watch. It was so big, it kept flipping over, buckle up, facedown, rubbing the inside of her wrist.
“Mmmm.” Zena considered the words before her.
“Happy,” called out a boy named Trey.
“Okay!” Nina wrote “happy” on the board.
“Cheerful.”
“Yes.” Nina wrote that too.
“Full of it,” Australia suggested, and Nina heard the class cackling behind her.
“No, that’s good. Why do you say that?”
Australia did not explain.
“Does anybody else think Whitman’s full of it?”
Natalie and Mikayla raised their hands.
“He’s too happy about everything,” said Mikayla, but Natalie forgot what she was going to say.
“It will come back to you,” said Nina. “Let’s see how Langston Hughes responds to Whitman. Trey, read the second poem aloud for us.”
Trey began reading, “I, too, sing America…” but a snickering undercurrent accompanied him.
“Hold on,” Nina interrupted, and she waited for silence. “Okay, go ahead.”
“I am the darker brother,” he read, and the other kids burst out laughing, because Trey’s skin was darkest in the class.
In second period Nina repeated the two views of America, Walt Whitman’s and Langston Hughes’s. Once again she mentioned the recitation contest, which kids were already calling Poetry Inaction. Every student had to choose and memorize a poem from the contest website to recite in class. Then the class would vote for a winner to compete in front of the whole school.
Students shifted in their seats.
“What if I have no memory?”
“Is it graded?”
“Whose idea was that?”
Nina almost said, “You can thank Mrs. West.”
Instead she held still, as she’d seen Collin do when he visited as Shakespeare, cool and distant.
Kids paused in their conversations when they realized she was no longer talking. They looked up, curious.
Lazare had a reputation now. She had a mad-hot, cross-dressing boyfriend, but she was so strict she corrected grammar when you were only talking. Total mind reader, she could tell whether you’d plagiarized just by looking at you. She was confusing. One minute she was all intimidating, and then when people didn’t listen, she got emotional, so you couldn’t hate her without feeling bad. That was the worst! On the other hand, she was fun to watch. She had a photographic memory, and if you were lucky she’d stop teaching and show what she could do.
At the end of each class, Nina closed her attendance book and left it on the desk. Then she looked each student in the eye and came up with the right name. “Darsy, Lalitha, Jean-Albert, Theresa, Cameo, Susannah, Tyrell, Joanna, Sebastian, Yasmin, Aria…” Without a single mistake, she had identified each kid in her first class, but she faltered now in second period. “Becca, Jameson, Nico,” she began. “Shana, Rafael, Siddhartha, Miles.” She named each kid correctly until she got to the back of the room. “Aidan.”
The boy shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I mean Ethan!” Aidan was missing, although she’d just seen him on the stairs.
All this happened in a moment, but when Nina turned to the next student, her memory failed her. She looked at the girl’s round face. Black eyes, smooth hair, gold hoop earrings, tight shirt. Nina looked into the girl’s dark eyes.
Anxious—was she unmemorable?—the girl stared back.
Siddhartha called out, “It starts with an S…”
“Sofia,” Lazare said at last. Gold hoops quivering, Sofia sank back with relief.
Nina texted Collin after the bell. I did it! Then, a little later, when he hadn’t answered, Are you there??
Blood in his eye, the Ghost Horse raced through caverns, wheeling, screaming, rising up on his hind legs, then crashing down, a beast possessed.
&n
They were sitting in the sound booth. When Nicholas stopped the demo, Peter rose to leave.
“What about the rest?” Collin asked.
Peter glanced at the second monitor, where Collin’s wild horses streaked across the screen. The Ghost Horse belonged to Peter now, but the herd was Collin’s joy. The gray, the chestnut, the palomino, shining pale gold. They stretched their necks and ran together. You could see them close, coming down upon you. On a third monitor you could see them from above, and their tails streamed behind them so they looked like shooting stars. All the time you heard the hoofbeats and the hot breath of those horses.
“No,” Peter said.
Nicholas clicked once and the room was silent. The horses froze.
Peter said, “We won’t use these.”
At first Collin couldn’t even hear. He could not absorb the words. He had worked for months. He had spent the entire summer on these horses.
Peter turned back to the horses caught in midair. “They’re pretty.” Peter bent and clicked on the palomino, highlighting the horse in blue, isolating the creature’s body, its slender neck, its little ears and feet. Suddenly the horse was pretty. Peter clicked again and vaporized the animal. Now he touched the chestnut, with its soft eyes and flowing tail. Clicked once, clicked twice. It disappeared.
Shocking how cold he was as he killed each of Collin’s steeds: the velvet black, the gray.
Collin said, “You wanted them before.”
“No, they aren’t right.”
“What isn’t right about them?”
Peter looked at Collin, and in that moment he smothered Collin’s protest. “They’re like illustrations in a children’s book.”
He spoke with experience and authority. He spoke with his uncanny insight. The chestnut, the palomino, and the gray were nothing more than wild ponies, lovely, gentle, sweet. They had no edge, none of the Ghost Horse’s snarling cruelty. How had Collin been such a fool? He had been too in love with his own work to understand. These horses did not belong in UnderWorld.
“They’re just not interesting.”
Collin nodded; he could not argue.
“You’ll be okay,” Nicholas counseled after Peter left. “It happens all the time. Not everything gets used.”