Chapter Two: Alcyone – June, 1992
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The Boy was oddly persistent. Spencer didn't trust persistent. Persistent meant that he'd wait extra-long for Spencer to come out of the library after school or that they'd chase him twice as far without giving up…
Persistent ended up being a race between their determination and Spencer's stamina, and he was confident enough he could win this one.
But this boy…
He didn't do anything that boys usually did. He didn't shout or kick or punch or taunt. Spencer finishing knotting together what would be the north wall of Rhosgobel, if he ever got it finished, and eyed the corner of the clearing where The Boy sat reading a book. Just… reading. He'd paused once, his finger stuck on the page as he stared off dreamily into the distance with a lost kind of expression on his face, and Spencer had snuck a look at the cover. It was the same as yesterday.
Goosebumps the book declared, a thin paperback grubby from countless hands. He'd gone back to the camp the night before and asked Alex about it.
"They're a horror series of books, Spencer," Alex said, smiling. "You should read them."
"I don't think they look like something I'd be into," Spencer said uncertainly, because the ridged cover with the red-tint and the camera splashed across it wasn't anything like the leather-bound books at home. "They look like they're for kids."
And Alex had looked at him oddly. "You are a kid," he said, and that night Spencer had found five of them piled on his pillow. They'd taken him less than an hour to read. Another two hours to analyse. Just why did the boy seem so engrossed in them? They were no Lord of the Rings, that was for sure…
But they were fun. Spencer wiggled on the spot, eyeing an ant as it tracked across his shoe. Two segmented waist, he noted. Carpenter ant. That done, he looked back at The Boy. He could do it. He could stand up brush the dust from his trousers and say, "I like that book. I've never really read horror before," —a lie, if Poe and Shelley counted as horror in this odd boy's eyes— "but I think I'd like to read more like that. Can you recommend any more?"
But even in his head, it felt stilted and awkward.
He could say, "Hot today," like his dad did when he was talking to someone at the supermarket. Or maybe he could tell the boy that Crematogaster Ants have a two segment waist and a heart shaped abdomen.
"I met a boy today," Spencer lied to Alex that night. Really, he'd met The Boy—he just seemed like the kind of boy that needed capitalization, like his dark eyes and piercing gaze screamed I require a proper noun—the week before, when the teenagers had tried to hurt him. But there was a still healing cut on his chin that would have caused questions if he'd told Alex he'd met The Boy that day.
"Oh?" Alex asked, going over the four essays Spencer had already written this holiday. Aide to the four of them in Spencer's dorm, he seemed to favour Spencer himself… the others didn't seem to mind. It was a little overbearing though, having the sudden attention of the twenty-two-year-old PhD student. He was impressively smart, and Spencer never felt quite like he could live up to expectations.
Besides, Dad said Alex was arrogant. Spencer didn't really see that, but Dad was usually right. Right?
"I don't know his name," Spencer added, knowing this was weird. "He reads."
"Most people read," Alex said with a snort, handing the essays back. "Write your next one about Star Trek. Something fun. We're supposed to be having fun, and ants aren't fun, kid. Did you talk to him?"
Spencer shook his head and picked at his pyjamas. How was he supposed to explain the weird sort of agreement they seemed to have wordlessly come to? Spencer built Rhosgobel, silently, and The Boy… did whatever he was doing. Reading, mostly. Sometimes staring. Maybe watching, but Spencer always made sure their gazes didn't meet.
"Well," Alex said slowly. "Have you tried saying 'Hi, my name's Spencer'?"
Another head shake. Was it really that simple?
"Try it," Alex said, leaving him in the dorm. The other boys were asleep.
Spencer laid awake and planned. Hi, my name is Spencer. Hi, I read books too. Hi, I didn't mean we couldn't be friends when I said we weren't friends. I've never had a friend. Have you?
He wasn't very good at this.
"Hi," he said softly. "My name is Spencer. Want to build Rhosgobel?"
"Shut up, Spencer," mumbled one of his roommates. "M'sleeping."
Maybe that would work. If Rhosgobel was as magic as he suspected, it had to.
Now, if only he was brave enough to actually say it…