The door shut loudly behind him, and August was once again left alone in the dark..
WHITE
He had three weeks left to spend alone in the ward. Some days passed quickly. Others stretched into years. Every movement was weighed down by a thousand pounds of lethargy.
How can you breathe with hands squeezing your lungs, or see when your sun has been struck from the sky?
Sometimes August walked the hallways. Technically, he didn’t have to stay in his room anymore, so he went around looking at everything, trying to put the whole experience to memory. They allowed him to have paper now, and he’d stolen a pen from Dr. Cho’s office, so sometimes he even wrote. He wasn’t very good at it yet, but one day he would be better.
Maybe he would skip over this part and just write the story of the adventure. Like a children’s book. Concentrate on the mystery and magic and leave out the fire, hunger, and fear. They could keep that for themselves. Whisper of it in the dark, fifty years from now, over whiskey and expensive cigars.
It would just be another one of those small hardships packaged away and sent to where history goes to die. Leaving the tale as untouched and lovely as the fall morning when they’d first found the toy factory.
Boarded up and whole.
POST
They gave him his letters at the end. They’d held them from him all this time.
One was from Roger, the other was a padded envelope from Rina. He opened Roger’s first:
Dear August,
Peter said you wouldn’t want to hear from us. He’s probably right, but I didn’t want you to think we were mad at you or forgot about you. I know we can get a little bit … I don’t know. But Peter cares, even if he acts like he’s too smart or strong to.
Anyway, after you left they boarded up the factory for good. Peter and I stopped by to see. They put up a “for lease” sign and everything. It was the only thing anyone talked about for weeks after you left. Kids had been going over there and acting like it’s haunted. I’m glad they boarded it up. I didn’t think you’d like that.
Everyone else is doing all right. Gordie got into Yale, which surprised everyone. Peter and I are going to Brown and Alex decided to stay in town and get a job in the town next to us. She told us to tell you that she’ll make you as many muffins as you like when you get back.
I don’t know if they let you send letters in there, but if they do, can you send one back?
Your friend,
Roger
August folded it back up and pulled out Rina’s.
It was a page ripped out of a notebook with a bit of lipstick smeared messily at the corner and some speckles of coffee on the sides. Crammed inside was a single tea bag of that dark spiced tea she always drank.
PLEASE, LET ME GET WHAT I WANT
“Returned to you is one backpack, which had in it one sweater, three rags, a lighter, a cell phone, a notebook, ten pencils, a wallet with two bus cards and $35.03 inside it. And here are your street clothes. You can change in the bathroom inside the ward, but must remain inside the lobby once your uniform has been removed. You can bring it to the front desk.”
August shucked off his hospital pants and put his legs back into the jeans he’d been wearing when he’d arrived. The cloth felt rough in comparison, and it still smelled of ash and fire. It was much more comfortable to finally be dressed like himself, though.
“Good-bye, August. Best of luck!”
He politely waved back at the orderly. He didn’t know her, but the well-wishes were appreciated.
August rummaged around in his backpack for his cell phone and turned it on. He quickly dialed his home number and waited for his mom to pick up. He expected the answering machine. He hung up and quickly dialed Jack, but the line was busy.
August flipped his phone closed and sat in one of the cushioned lobby chairs. He pulled his knees up to his chin and hid his face in his arms. Maybe he should just walk home. His mom was probably there, sitting in the basement watching game shows like he’d never left.
FORTENTOOK
August gasped and looked up into the light. He’d almost dozed off, but then was jolted awake by a hand in his hair. It brushed through gently once or twice, then tightened without warning and roughly pulled his head back.
The Wicker King leaned down and pressed their foreheads together.
The noise August made was violent in its relief. He surged up and clung to him like a man to a mast in the eye of a storm. Jack laughed in surprise, and then made soft hushing sounds, grounding him with the sharp pain of his grip.
“Through doom and dust,” Jack recited.
“You came back,” August whispered, like it was breaking his heart.
“I couldn’t not. Do you have all your things?”
“I think so.”
“Then come on. I’ll take you home.”
August and Jack’s legend continues in their fantasty world …
THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN RAVEN
Long ago, when the earth was still young, there were two kings: the King of the Wood and the Wicker King.
They were brothers and their kingdoms lay side by side, shuttered away behind a wall. The two kings were fair and just, mischievous and fond of sport. They were generous, brave, and well loved by their people. It was a golden age, when the fruit hung ever ripe from the trees and milk animals grew fat and plenty.
Every year in midsummer, when the second sun was highest in the sky, there was a Great Hunt. All the eligible men and women joined together to go out into the wildlands to capture a great beast for the midsummer feast.
But a black fog seethed and roiled outside the country wall. It was a wild, hungry thing made of sorcery that had been banished by the Champion and the capital council in the days of old, five hundred seasons past. It was held back from swallowing them all by the country’s greatest boon, a living stone: the Rapturous Blue …
Read more of this digital short, along with Jack’s version of the story, wherever ebooks are sold.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
When I was a bit closer to your age than I am now, something terrible happened.
Like August and Jack, I tried my best to fix it myself and learned many harsh lessons that I sincerely wish I hadn’t. While this book is entirely fiction, the situations the main characters found themselves in may be all too real for some of us. I would be doing a disservice to you—and to the me that I was—if I did not address them.
Jack and August are both victims of neglect. They are neglected by their parents and ignored by all figures of authority around them until it is entirely too late. The structure of their relationship and the journey that they take are only the symptoms of this larger and more pressing issue.
Like most teenagers, Jack and August both need certain things in order to thrive. They need to care and feel cared for; they need structure and authority; they need unconditional support; they need someone to be concerned for them; they need to be able to rely on someone; and they need to feel safe. Because those things were absent in their lives, they tried to build versions of them within each other. Then, because they had no other options, they took these things from each other until they both had nothing left to give.
August needed to care for someone to feel like he had his life in control, so Jack made himself easy to care for. When August grew exhausted from caring too much, Jack took the reins of authority in the only way August would accept. When Jack needed unconditional support, August gave it happily. When Jack needed to feel safe, August made a home for Jack in his house—and in his own mind. They were always designed to be perfectly balanced. Like an ouroboros: eating while being eaten.
There were so many opportunities for figures of authority to disrupt that pattern. Their parents, who were never there. Teachers, who preferred to reprimand them for their uncharacteristic actions instead of being concerned. The dean, who was more interested in disrupting August’s income instead of wondering why he needed it. The nurses and social
workers their high school undoubtedly had, who were missing entirely from this narrative, having never been alerted to the problem. The police who took them to jail instead of to the hospital. August’s lawyer, as well-meaning as she was. The only people who were not in some way at fault were all the young people in this story, who were doing the best they could with the situation they were given.
This is not uncommon. Many young people, perhaps like you, find themselves being forced to carry something they never imagined would be so heavy, with no one around to support them. It must be said that they are rarely ever at fault for the multitude of ways they choose to bear that load. Even if they are destructive. They are not “failing”; someone has failed them.
If you read this book and you see too much of your life in the codependence and neglect that is August’s and Jack’s lives, please know that it is not your fault.
If you are dealing with mental illness and you are exhausted, please know that it is not your fault.
If you are alone and overburdened, please know that it is not your fault.
Now, August and Jack are fictional. They wind up okay in the end. They’ll learn how to love each other with fingertips, instead of claws. They will build a home and a life together, and there they will heal and grow.
You deserve to heal and grow, too. You deserve to have someone to talk to about your problem; you deserve unconditional support; you deserve care and safety and all the things you need to thrive. Just because you may not have them doesn’t mean you don’t deserve them. If someone tells you that you don’t deserve those things, they are lying.
Keep trying your best.
Ask for help when you need it.
Do your best to be brave, but it is okay not to be.
If you drop the weight you’re carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces.
If your mind stops listening to you, it’s not your fault. There are billions of us; you are not alone.
And lastly, whoever you are:
I am so so proud of you.
Love,
Kayla
* * *
Additional Resources
http://www.crisischat.org/ http://www.crisistextline.org/ (mobile access)
National Youth Crisis Hotline: (800) 442-HOPE (4673)
Teen Help Adolescent Resources: (800) 840-5704
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank thirteen-year-old Ryan M. for reading thirteen-year-old Kayla’s self-insert, Mary Sue trash novellas while he should have been paying attention to class. Without you, I probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to write anything better than that.
Thank you, Amy, Professor Bauer-Gatsos, Professor Simpson. Thank you, Imprint Team. And thanks, Mom and Dad, for letting me be me. That’s a great and terrible thing, and I hope I’m worth it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K. Ancrum grew up in Chicago Illinois, under the illusory rigor of the Chicago Public School system. She attended Dominican University to study Fashion Merchandizing, but was lured into getting an English degree after spending too many nights experimenting with hard literary criticism and hanging out with unsavory types, like poetry students. Currently, she lives in Andersonville and writes books at work when no one is looking. She is the author of The Wicker King. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
1998
2003
August
Jack
Roosevelt High Score
Wolves
Carrie-Anne
Mrs. Bateman
The Other Woman
Rina Medina, Queen of the Desert
Rosé
Tuesday
RATM
Gridlock
Diamond
Fleece
Bite
Skillet
The Dark and the Deep
Bold
Steel
The Architect
Assembly Line
Thrush
Romulus
Group Projects
Red Velvet, with Buttercream Icing
Do You?
Ricket
Earth Space Science
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
Blue
Ball and Chain
Patina
Brutus
Spark
The River
Rug Burn
At the Library
Hatch
Then
Now
Turmeric
D’Aulnoy
Boon
Wednesday
Roger Whittaker
Dissection
Illumination
Books
The Casualties
SMS
Cut
The River
Omega
The Twins
Perspective
Mario Kart
The Sprout and the Bean
Seven
Field Trip
Rink
Riot
Blue
Free
Honestly
Step Up Your Game
The Notebook
Lunch
Glass Shoes
The Kingdom
The Wicker King
Analysis
Monkey Wrench
Friday, Under the Bleachers
French Cut Silk
Homecoming
Bang Bang
Fret
First Receiver Falcon
Sick Trick
Communion
Raw
Remus
Cultural Studies
Bestiary: Beastiary
Ordinary
Null Hypothesis
Frost
Dust
Gone
Indigo
Scarlet
Bolt
The Beginning
Keep Warm
Fond
Prospect
Hickory
Dusk
Motel
Rope
Depth
Rapturous Blue
Chrome
The Field
Poinsettia
Gift
January
Fine Fierce Fifth
Ruck and Maul
Ocimum Basilicum
Vassal
Bleed
Gülen
Burn
Don’t
Stalemate
My Kingdom for a Horse
Boy
Brut
Hot Hands
Milk
God
Nothing Left
Ten Inches
Warden
Jaan
Cicero
Gloom
Crème
Fair
Linen
Strain
Snap
Sovereign
Pillow
You’ll Never Know, Dear
One Eight-Hundred
Black-Body Radiation
Fly
Worrig
True
Water
Rosemary and Thyme
Tight
Saxon
Thread Count
Semper Fidelis
Clear
Tartarus
Blueberry
Gold
Brick
Flash
The Cloven King Rises
Love
Wick
Houston
The Fire
Well
Iron and Ash
Hole
Cell Block 3
Green
02/07/2003
Gut
Like Most Terrible Things
The Hospital
Wish
A Psychologist
Sterile
Gingham
Eight Months
Pills
Momentum
Ave Maria
Chlorpromazine
Halved and Bound
Fealty
Dormouse
Pulp
Fractal
30,000 Leagues
Home
Plans
Grifting
Chansonnier
Bind and Break and Find and Take
Cirrus
Okay
Les Cinq Doigts
Allegretto
Moderato
Glory
White
Post
Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Fortentook
The Legend of the Golden Raven
Note from the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Kayla Ancrum
A part of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
fiercereads.com
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
Book design by Ellen Duda
Photos here, here, here, here, here © Shutterstock
Photos here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here by Michael Frost
Imprint logo designed by Amanda Spielman
First hardcover edition 2017
eBook edition October 2017
eISBN 9781250101563
On disposal:
If you skip recycling and toss in the trash, something you love will burn to ash.
1 For more Random Word Generator Poetry visit: http://randomwordgeneratorinput.tumblr.com