Rachel Elizabeth Dare. That's my name, please wear it out. Just kidding. But really. These days it seems as if I have no one.
I attend Clarion Ladies Academy. It's not so bad, I have a few nice friends and a couple of good guy friends.
And then there's Connor.
Connor Stoll, tall, charming, handsome, witty, goofy, clever, funny, impatient, active, happy, sly, sneaky, untrustworthy son of Hermes, is the most amazing, wonderful, perfect guy I've ever met. He can slip a cheesy pickup line and make it sound totally smooth. He can laugh like a total dork and have me wanting to kiss him to death. He can steal my stuff and end up taking me on the most amazing date ever. He has so many different personalities, untrustworthy but loyal, goofy but committed, clever but naive, funny but dorky, kind but sarcastic, impatient but unselfish.
Of course, he had to decide on the most dangerous mortal job out there. And I had to be the Oracle. Of course, the Oracle just means I have to stay a virgin. It doesn't forbid me from loving people.
I remember the last Iris message I got from Connor:
"Hey Rach," he says, grinning his toothy, crooked grin at me. I smile.
"How ya doing?" I ask. He sighs.
"I'm nearly done my training, babe. They want me to go into the line of duty. I'm off tomorrow." He looks sad, but excited too, as though he can't wait to get there.
"Good for you," I say, smiling a fake smile. Inside, I'm screaming. This can't be happening to me. It can't. "Just don't... you know. End up like that boy in the song." Danny Boy has always been my least favourite song, as pretty as it is. It makes me cry every time I hear it.
"I won't." He blows me a kiss. "I love you, but I gotta go. I promise I'll talk to you as soon as I can, ok?"
I nod, trying not to cry.
Now it's only a few weeks later, but already I am going nearly crazy with worry. Connor is a few years older than me, nearly twenty one, but he is still so young to be in the Army.
I am so distracted over the next months that my grades drop drastically. I get C's and D's instead of A's and B's. I slack off on community work, using my free time to draw Connor over and over, every type of art. I sketch him with pencils and charcoal, I paint him with watercolours and with oil paints, I even sculpt him once. I carve his face into a vase. I get a bit obsessive, I admit, but I can't help it. It's my way of dealing with the stress.
For weeks on end, one terrible, terrible song plays through my mind, haunting me in my dreams, in my daydreams, and in my thoughts.
Danny boy, the pipes the pipes are calling
From glen to glen and down the mountain side
The summer's gone and all the flow'rs are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so.
I loved him so. It was so insensitive of him to leave. But it was his passion to defend. His passion to protect. What kind of lover would I be if I insisted on taking that away from him?
The day is dark and lifeless. November, the grass is cracked and dead, the pavement slick with dark rain, the sky thick with clouds, and the trees covered with hoarfrost. There is a knock at my the door of my room. I wipe off my charcoal-stained hands on my white apron and go to answer it.
At the door stands a man in an American military uniform. He has a sympathetic, even empathetic look on his face. He holds a thin white envelope in his left hand. I get a cold, empty feeling in my chest, where my heart should be.
"Hello ma'am," he says with a thick West Virginian accent. "Telegram for Ms. Rachel Dare?"
"That's me," I say. My voice sounds like someone else's, dry and rough, coated with fear. My voice was usually smooth and confident. Not today.
My hands tremble as I slit open the envelope. There is a single sheet of white paper inside. I see the words and the world becomes a blur.
Killed in action.
I fall back against the wall. "He... he... but... no!" Are the only words my numb mouth can form.
"I'm very sorry, ma'am. He was... one of my best friends." The man bows his head. "Everyone feels your loss."
Somehow, I doubt anyone can feel it more than I.
Travis' funeral is the saddest experience of my life. He is buried in a cedar coffin, like he always wanted, and even Hermes shows up. They wanted me to say a few words, but I was sure I wouldn't make it through without crying.
After the funeral, I stand underneath a huge apple tree in the graveyard. I pound with my fist on the trunk furiously. It's not fair. It should have been someone else, or I should have been able to convince him to stay...
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so.