ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE: Kind Effort

175

******

 

The call came late in the morning, and if it had been almost anyone else, Alden would have ignored it.

The auriad flashlight spell was an astounding work of art. The way the author had drawn the first joints of the fourth fingers in the second to last instructional diagram showed so much attention to precision and…

And Evul-art’h’s name was in front of his eyes, blocking that diagram.

He dropped the indigo loop, shook the tangles out, and shoved it all the way up his arm.

“System, the books need to go back to stor—”

He gave it credit for not even making him finish the sentence. He stared at the place where his spellbook had been, then knelt a little straighter on his cushion before he answered the call.

Stuart was in his bedroom at the Rapport. Once again, his sister wasn’t present even though she must have made the call happen. Alden wondered if Evul-art’h was busy, or if during the family negotiations Stuart had somehow arranged their communication situation more to his own liking.

I may never again see him squashed under the lounger pillows.

“Hi,” said Alden, pulling the earring out of his lobe. “It’s good to talk to you again so soon.”

“You were wearing Olorn Mom’s earring!” Stuart’s face and tone were thrilled.

“I would wear it all the time if I could,” Alden said seriously. “All the time. You have to thank her for me. My brain loves this thing. I want to give it all my blood.”

Stuart beamed. “I have welcome news. Healer Yenu-pezth has agreed to a meeting with you.”

Alden swallowed. “That is welcome news.”

“It will be Monday,” said Stuart. “You’ll walk with her in a place that eases the mind and discuss what you want to better about yourself with her help. She will tell you her methods, your options, ask about worries you might have—the same things we talked about before you left here but in more detail.”

“Monday.” That was a whole weekend away, so it was ridiculous that his thoughts were whirling like Stuart had just told him he’d be teleported to the mind healer in the next two seconds.

“Are you kneeling by a toilet?”

Alden looked to his left. “Yes.”

“On your cushion? Wearing the earring?” Stuart was regarding him curiously. “Are you studying the toilet?”

It was true that Alden had no obvious learning materials since he’d hidden them away. Still, dude…

“I’m not wasting your mom’s gift on the plumbing,” he said. “I was watching a science lecture.”

Before I started practicing my new light spell.

“But why are you learning beside a toilet? Is it a human custom?”

Alden smiled. “Yes. It symbolizes the removal of shitty ideas from our brains.”

“…I understand.” Stuart nodded graciously. “The custom is a little unusual, from an Artonan perspective, but if it is—”

The sound of Alden’s laughter echoing through the bathroom cut him off.

Stuart gasped. “You liar!”

“It was a joke!”

“It’s too strange to be a joke!”

Alden finished cackling, then leaned over to grab a wad of toilet paper and dab at his eyes. “I’m studying in here because it’s peaceful and private. There’s nothing that strange about it.”

Stuart’s face said he disagreed.

Better change the subject before he decides he’s made a mistake with his friend choice.

“You’re home at an unusual time.” He could hear the clatter of ryeh-b’t claw blunts on the floor, even though Other Alden wasn’t in view. Stuart was at his desk, wearing the sleeveless black shirt that seemed to be a standard underlayer for his LeafSong uniform.

“Emban,” he explained. “I agreed to serve as her votary for a while. I’m still attending classes, but I’m coming back here at every opportunity to make it obvious I’m available if she needs something.”

“That’s a lot of teleporting.”

“It is. After I understand how she’s feeling, I might change the arrangement. Right now, she doesn’t seem to want company.” There was a shadow of something that might have been worry in his voice.

Emban-art’h. Definer of Grooves.

Has she affixed again? Alden thought he’d caught a couple of hints during his stay that she was about to do it.

“Did she just…is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“To help me with Emban?” Stuart’s brows quirked.

Alden scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know what I think I could do. But if you want something preserved or if she wants to call a friendly alien and talk in the middle of the night….”

Sometimes you really need a friendly alien to call and talk to you in the middle of the night.

“Or something like that,” he concluded. “I’m available.”

“I will tell her you offered,” Stuart said. “Maybe <<kind effort>> will turn the <<corners of the mouth>>.”

Alden wasn’t familiar with that saying, but he was impressed they had a specific word just for the corners of the mouth. “I hope she—”

“It should also make her feel an adequate amount of guilt for talking about how you didn’t seem interesting enough for the amount of <<turbulence>> in the house.”

Alden blinked. “Emban-art’h thinks I’m not interesting?”

“Not interesting enough to be the cause of turbulence,” Stuart said.

“Did she expect me to be more interesting in a good way or a bad way?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” said Stuart. “Please don’t worry over it or feel offended. I think Emban was more focused on our family’s reaction to you than on your behavior.”

“I’m not offended,” said Alden, tossing the toilet paper at the trashcan in the corner. “Sometimes I think I could happily live my whole life without being interesting.”

There was a crashing sound, and Stuart dove for a cup just before it fell off the edge of his desk.

“Other Alden doesn’t feel the same way,” he grumbled while his fingers dripped what looked like grain tea.

 

******

******

 

“Hey, guys,” said Alden. “Are either of you free for the next three hours?”

He’d just finished with Stuart, and after barely resisting the urge to stick his earring back in and forget the world, he’d called Boe and Jeremy.

“I’m free for two and a half,” said Jeremy. He was playing a video game in his room. Badly, since he had a turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce sandwich in one hand. “Kimberly’s family is buying her a car this afternoon, and I’m going along for the final test drive.”

“Car shopping?” asked Alden. “What’s she getting?”

“Black Friday deal on a lightly used Volkswagen Beetle.”

“And I’m doing nothing,” said Boe. He was in the kitchen at home, and he was eating, too. But his lunch was spoonfuls of peanut butter straight out of the jar. “Unless catching up on all the anime episodes I’ve missed counts as something.”

“It doesn’t,” Jeremy and Alden said together.

Boe flipped them off. “What are we doing for three hours? And why does it involve you sitting on the floor by the toilet?”

“Nobody appreciates my study nook.” Alden stood up. “I’m going to pay back a wordchain—one that has the potential to make me an anxious, miserable wreck.”

The double Peace of Mind debt was weighing on him.

“You want us to watch you be a miserable wreck for three hours?” Boe asked. “Are you sure that’s—”

“No. I want you to distract me so that I don’t become a miserable wreck. Please ignore me if I seem tense while we spend all of the apology money the Artonan ambassador, who is a creep, gave me last night.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy, perking up. “Finally. You’re going to take my advice and buy—!”

“Not a luxury penthouse,” said Alden. “I don’t know what one costs, but I know I’m not spending that much.”

“Then maybe—”

“I don’t think a motorcycle is ideal right now either.”

“How much money will we be spending?” Boe asked.

“Three hundred thousand argold.”

Jeremy started choking on his sandwich.

Boe shoved up his glasses. He was smiling, but in a way that said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want us to help you blow almost a million dollars in three hours? Don’t you think that’s slightly too expensive for an anti-anxiety measure?”

“Bash-nor told me I should spend it to ‘warm my mood’, and he called me a poor little ryeh-b’t surrounded by monsters before showing off a very lethal looking spell. My first idea for spending his money was to buy several hundred thousand cheap toy rabbits so that I could have a helicopter drop them on his head.”

“No,” said Boe.

“During a press conference.”

“Fine, you self-destructive dumbass. Let’s spend a million dollars.”

Alden paced the room, enjoying Jeremy’s guffaws and Boe’s snarking at every new money blowing idea that was suggested. The bad half of Peace of Mind hit hard, but the company and the entertainment kept it from accelerating as much as it would have.

When he fretted over his Opposite stone not blinking back, he was distracted by a picture Jeremy sent him of a terrifying Easter bunny suit that cost fifteen thousand dollars. He couldn’t express half of his fears aloud, but if he got too quiet for too long one of them always came through. With the bunny suit, an Irish castle he would never be able to visit, or a cat tower so large he’d have to take all the furniture and the bromeliad out of the living room in his dorm apartment to fit it in.

The absurd suggestions were interspersed with more serious ones, and finally Alden decided to be serious.

“Let’s give it to charity. Most of it can go to ones we like, and maybe a little can go to one Bash-nor would hate if he ever knew.”

“Okay. What charities do you like?” Boe asked.

“Not that one Jeremy found earlier.”

“What have you got against Giant Wolves for Illinois?” Jeremy asked.

“If it was giant wombats…oh! Boe, does the zoo take donations?”

“I’ll check.”

It was so much money, and it was so exciting to make a list of recipients. They were playing that “what if I had a million bucks” game you never really thought you’d get to play. And the three of them were still having fun researching organizations while Jeremy rode shotgun in Kimberly Martinez’s future car.

“You’re supposed to be paying attention to the car,” Alden said, laughing as Jeremy completely ignored his girlfriend’s questions about whether or not he heard a rattle coming from the backseat.

“Alden!” Kimberly called. “If it was me, I’d get a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Stick it in twenty envelopes and pass them out to people who I saw being good people. Like a random act of kindness for the randomly kind.”

“That sounds like so much fun. But you really need to be paying attention to your car, too. We’re going to cut you guys off.”

“No!” the two of them said at the same time.

“You could donate to One Hundred Percent Swim,” said Jeremy. “Join Skiff in making sure Chicagoans are water-ready.”

“You could buy enough pizzas for…” Kimberly checked the rearview mirror. “Was that a red light?”

“I think it was yellow,” said Jeremy.

“Bye, you two,” Alden said firmly. “Text me more ideas when the car is stopped, and it’s impossible for you to cause an accident.”

He hung up on Jeremy.

“The random cash for random kindness really does sound cool,” he said. “Do you guys want to do that?”

“Us? You’re the one making the donations.” Boe’s hand was propped on his chin while he scrolled websites.

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be my good deed minions. I like the idea of all of us doing it together.”

“I wouldn’t mind that. How do you feel about an organization that hires wizards to remove invasive species?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’m sure that’s useful, but it’s not really my thing.”

He heard his friend’s fingers clicking a few more times.

“Your Peace of Mind is over,” Boe noted.

“You can tell?”

“Yes.”

“Empath confirmed.”

“More like overly familiar with you confirmed,” Boe said. “Are you sure you want to do this with your windfall? Just because it comes from someone you don’t like doesn’t mean you have to rush to get it out of your account.”

“I’m completely sure. If you wanted to change my mind, you should have brought it up before you told me I could pay to have all of our names engraved on that bench that always smells disgusting.”

“Technically, your donation pays for public park improvements. Your reward is the plaque on the bench.”

“Me, you, and Jeremy—on the stench bench forever.”

Boe looked at him. “Yeah, it seems worthwhile to me, too.”

Alden sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m going back to Artona I on Monday.”

There was a pause.

“Why?” Boe’s voice held a note Alden recognized.

Prepped to argue.

Arguing about the trip to the mind healer would be risky right now. Alden had decided to do it, but his nerves didn’t need a dose of Boe’s cleverly verbalized doubt dumped on them.

“I’ll be seeing Stuart,” he said.