Page 5 of The Catacomb King
“Yeah, okay, I get it. Look, fine, don’t tell me about your project. I hope you do really well on it, whatever it is.”
“You tell me whatyou’redoing.”
I spread my hands wide and rolled my eyes. “I’m force-feeding my mom and cleaning Josie’s house.”
“Persephone.”
“What?” But despite my bravado, my stomach roiled anxiously. Because this took us back to the matter of my question. I had to ask him. It was now or never. “Actually, you know what, I have an idea I’ve been playing with.”
“What do you mean, an idea?”
“I have ideas, too, Calix.”
“I know! That’s not what I meant. Ugh. Just —”
I relented. “I’m sorry. I’m just kind of sensitive about it. It’s something I could… use your help with.”
He brightened, pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. But you aren’t going to like it.”
“Sure I will. What is it?”
Trust me, I wanted to say, darkly,you won’t.“I have to get some stuff from my mom’s house to show you. And you can’t laugh at me. Okay?”
“I would never laugh at you.”
In fairness to Calix, that was true. He had never laughed at me. I softened a little bit. “Okay. Come on.” We turned and started heading toward my mom’s house.
“By the way,” Calix said, nonchalantly, “howisyour mom?”
“Fine.”
Calix stopped walking. “That bad, huh?”
“What? What did I say?”
He took a deep breath. I stopped walking, too. I watched him gaze around the blasted landscape. I hated seeing it through his eyes. I didn’t like Limer either, but it was my home. It was his, too, but he’d just spent ten months in the capitol city, surrounded by literal cloth of gold.
“I didn’t realize how bad the drought was,” he said. “It’s not as obvious in Corcagia.”
“Must be nice.”
“I just wanted to tell you… we’re working on it. The Body is working on it.”
“Working on what? Making it rain?” We had started walking again. We reached my hut. “Forget it. Let me just check on my mom and get my stuff. I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Oh, I’ll come in and say hi.”
A spike of panic pierced my heart. “No! No. I mean, thank you, but that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about your mom. I’ve known her since I was a baby.”
“Calix,no,she won’t recognize you, she’s —”
Calix strode right past me into the house.
I almost hit him. But I didn’t have time. My mom had already spotted him and set up an enormous wail.
