Chapter 4 The Arthurian Legend

Max

September 8th, 2012

2:50 PM

Seattle, Washington

Cleveland High School

Time To Pretend - MGMT

'I want a cut,' she says. 'I want in,' she says. Ha, I'll give you in alright, Ms. Prescott. I'll give you in.

As soon as school ended, I walk out of class and go to my locker to collect my things to take with me. I put on my headphones and listen to 'Time To Pretend' by MGMT. Then I walk down the hall crowded with other students to make way for the front exit to outside the front courtyard where every other student was walking out. And then I stand outside waiting for the bus at the bus stop with other students. I get on the bus, take my seat, and ride away.

It's been four years since William died. Four years since I left Chloe secluded from her soul mate. Four years since I ever set foot back in Arcadia Bay. And for what? To start a new life with my cousin Alexis who goes by Alex? (Just how my how name full is Maxine when I go by Max) Perhaps so. In Alex taking the burden of stepping into Chloe's shoes, we set an ambition together over the years since I've been gone from the bay to one day set sail to the mythical island of Meridian Prime in search of a legend known as the Ark of Genesis. In doing so, I started to ditch Chloe's calls, text, and even some of the letters and post cards she sent. Always felt like utter shit for that. Still do up to this day.

Amusing how Chloe and I used to have the same imagination ours when we were kids. Back when she starred as Chloe Bluebeard and I starred as Long Silver Max. Playing Argh-cadia Bay pirates together dreaming of setting sail for adventure. I still remember the carving on the log by the lighthouse before William passed. I still remember the saddest moment of my life watching Chloe and her Mom, Joyce, morn their beloved William as a pastor preached his death and his coffin descending dead in the dirt. A funeral I'll never forget.

And I still remember putting my hand on the car window to see Chloe's face one last time as she rolled a tear down her cheek and one rolled down mine as I let her go for my exodus. Only for Alex to emerge into my new life, my new beginning, and my new era in Seattle to make me happy just as Chloe had in Arcadia Bay.

The drove from 15th Avenue South where my school was addressed to South Orcas Street where my home was addressed. My school was fifteen blocks away from my house. It never took long for me to go back and forth. I always admire the view leaning against the window on the bus as I pass through houses and see buildings and skyscrapers from across my neighborhood of Beacon Hill. I can even see the Space Needle from my home. It was beautiful during the nighttime when it lit up like Christmas lights on a tree with all the other surrounding buildings. It's what I admired and endured best about Seattle. Even my dad took me up to the needle once and took a picture to remember. There were also times when he'd take my cousin and I too Century Link Field for a Seahawks game. Even had our own Super Bowl party watching the Seahawks at my house as well.

Alex shot me a text on my smart phone as I pulled it out to read it.

Alex: Yo Max! What do you say Kristen, Fernando, and I meet at your place to negotiate our deal between Dad and Principal Prescott? I think Kristen might have more on the ark u'll want to see.

Max: My parents are coming home late. Drop by at 5-ish.

Alex: Sounds good. SYL

Max: U2

The bus makes its stop at my block and I get off the bus before it leaves the bus stop. Then I walk down the side to my house as it leaves my block. Another day, another wowser. Got beaten up by psychotic Peeta Mellark, bribed a school principle, and now she wants in on the deal. What have you gotten yourself into Max? It's a good thing Alex graduated last year. Otherwise, we'd both be in deep shit. In fact, we're gonna find ourselves into deep shit regardless.

I remove my ear buds off my ears and walk through the front door I unlocked with a key Dad gave me. Then I walk upstairs to my room, put my backpack down, and collapse to my bed with a bruised face with a few cuts. I sigh in remoteness. Resting and relaxing from a long and hubris day. Waiting for my cousin to come home with my friends from school.

Besides from lying down on my bed doing nothing, I take a nice long glance at my Polaroid collection on the wall behind my bed set. All the good memories of Seattle with me on display. Shots of skyscrapers and other landscapes of Seattle. Even some of the Space Needle. The main attraction.

Then a look at some pictures of my family and I that we took in Seattle throughout the years. The picture of my Dad and I on the Space Needle, the picture of me at the Thunderbirds game, and the picture of Kristen, Fernando and I on the Fremont Troll under the freeway that Alex had taken of us. Wish we could've been more sober of that memory we had.

And then I stare at some photos of Alex and I in this great city. A picture of us at art museum that I was into, a picture of us at the natural history and culture museum Alex had been into, and so much more. Such as pictures of us holding our fist in the air on Beacon Hill where we could see our entire neighbor from up there, pictures of us making time with Fernando and Kristen at Northgate Mall, Cleveland, high school shindigs, you name it. Then there was the selfie of Alex and I from when we broke into the house full of trinkets and treasures that first year I moved here. Can't forget that night of our first break in.

And finally, I come across some pictures that involve Chloe and I. There was the one of the two of us with William at the park. Then there was the photo of Chloe and I during my tenth birthday, one with us playing sandcastle in the sand at Arcadia Shores, and the one Chloe and I would historically never forget about. The picture of us in pirate cosplay. Smiling like there was no tomorrow. The photo that made us icons. Her, Captain Chloe Bluebeard and I, First Mate Long Silver Max. The scourge of Arcadia Bay. What a ride.

That's when I realize the photo of Alex, Chloe, and I during our camping trip with my Dad, William, and Uncle Bryan. Wowser, that I was the only time my cousin had visited us in town that summer. Two years before William was killed in the accident. The only memory Alex has of seeing Chloe and her father together. The right memory at the right time. We had such an adventurous time together camping out in the Tillamook Woods. One the three of us could never forget.

I even recall William taking his last photo of Chloe and I that fateful morning after breakfast. His last day on Earth that Chloe and I would never forget such a tragic memory. Our best memory turned worst. From the second Joyce called her husband on the phone to pick her up from the grocery store to the moment William succumbed his last breath from the liability of a drunken diesel driver. When could've fulfilled his excuse to grab himself a latte instead. That was the day our lives changed forever. Hopefully now, William is watching his own daughter from the skies of heaven.

To add one more thing on the to-do list, I grab my smart phone and find Chloe on my contact list and scroll up and down her text box swarmed with unanswered text. Some of them recent, others that were ancient. Four years of Chloe texting me, or two years if you count the year I stopped answering her calls, and not one response for any. Wowser, Max, you're the worst friend ever when your best friend needs you the most. Never use your cousin as an excuse.

"Max, we're home!" My cousin's voice hollers from downstairs.

She really needs to get a grip at knocking or ringing the bell before entry.

"Coming!" I holler back.

Alex

September 8th, 2012

4:59 PM

Seattle, Washington

Caulfield Residence

I enter my little cousin's domain with Fernando and Kristen. Continuing my habit of never knocking our ringing the doorbell for entering. My baby cousin, Max, walks down the steps to join us in the dining room for our chat with her face grazed from the fight with Gus.

"Are your fingers too broken from ringing the doorbell, Alex?" Max asked.

"Nice to see you too, Max," I say. "Gotta say, Gus really did a number on you? Feeling any better?"

"Jesus, Max," said Kristen. "Your face is even worse than I thought."

"Thank you, Kristen," said Max. "I feel so much better now. No offense."

"Okay, let's make this quick and clean amigos," said Fernando. "I'm not supposed to be here. Principal Prescott suspended me for three weeks and my parents grounded me for the month. So let's get to it."

"Just another day at the office," said Max. "C'mon. Let's talk this through in the dining room."

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa," I say, stopping Max in her tracks. "You're not gonna keep me in suspense are you?"

Max sighed.

"You were right," she admitted.

I chuckle.

"No, we were right," I say. "Now we just gotta get Bryan and-"

"Ah, Bryan."

"Don't, don't start. Please?"

"Oh, c'mon. Like you said. We did this. You and me. Now Principal Prescott is over our necks on the tail end."

"How long have we been trying to do this? Hmm?"

"We had some leads."

"No we didn't. Okay? Not one. So like it or not, no Bryan, no Prescott, and no getting that codex."

"I'm sorry, what are we on about here?" Fernando questioned. "I'm sensing some kind of setback occurring."

"Yeah, about that Fernando," said Max. "There is. Speaking of Ms. Prescott, we got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Kristen asked. "Did she read that letter she got from Bryan and held for herself?"

"Yeah, yeah, she did," said Max.

"Alright, so..."

"Before she read the letter, she wanted in. That's right. She wants in on this. No exceptions. Or they'll be consequences to pay."

"Que cajo," said Fernando.

"Oh...", said Kristen. "Hmm, so much does she know?"

"Enough that she wants a cut," replied Max.

"Ain't that a bitch?" I ask.

"Max, Alex, if anyone else finds out about this-" said Kristen before I cut her off.

"I'll - I'll work something out with Ms. Prescott," I said. "My dad and I will. Don't sweat it. Right now, let's get onto more important matters."

"Well then, let's talk this out in the dining room," said Max. "Shall we?"

"Yep, let's do that," said Kristen.

I walk into the dining room with Max, Kristen, and Fernando to review Kristen's research on her laptop. She pulled out her laptop from her bag and set it down on the table for us to look at.

"Here it is," said Kristen. "I stayed up late last night just to review what I've found."

"Okay, so what do we got?" I ask.

Kristen pulled up a website with an article on the Eon Codex and every other piece of history related to the Arthurian Legend and the Ark of Genesis. All on a Burke Museum of Natural History web page.

"According to Arthurian Legend," began Kristen. "The Eon Codex was the key to bringing salvation and balance to all time, space, and continuum via the Ark of Genesis and be grant anyone using it the Mantle of Possibility. This codex is at the Burke Museum here in Seattle. There's so much more information after that. It says here that during the first world war, Professor Ezra Prescott and his right hand man, Jeremiah Blackwell, went on an expedition to find the Ark of Genesis when they had their hands on the codex during the conquest between the British and Germans to help the British win the war. Something King Arthur attempted to do to help his people win the Eternity War centuries earlier."

"And this codex itself was recently brought into the museum for the new Arthurian Era exhibit," I said. "And I have big plans to get it into my own hands. Our own hands."

"What big plans?" Max asked.

I raise my eyebrow at her signifying my dirty plan to grab that codex out of the museum.

"Oh...oh, no, no, no, no," said Max. "We are not-"

"Yes we are," I say.

"No we are not! We are not stealing from museum, okay?! That's probably too important of an artifact to be stealing from!"

"Just hear me out for a secon-"

"Two people were killed trying to steal that!"

"And one made it out alive."

"Yeah, barely. Kristen, did you know about this?"

"Um, no I didn't," she said.

"Fernando, did you?"

"Hell to the no," said Fernando. "I am not going to juvie or getting myself killed over some pendejo codex. Not after what I did for Max today."

"My Dad and I managed to make a forgery of our own. Look, here it is."

I pull out the replica of the Eon Codex my dad made and show it to Max. I show it to everyone else to make sure they see it.

"See this here?" I ask my cousin. "Dad made it for me. One hundred percent accurate from the real thing."

I set down the codex shaped like a rectangle with an orb inside on the table so everyone could see. Everyone is amazed.

"Wowser, how did Uncle Bryan make that?" Max asked. "May I?"

I let Max take the replica for herself to observe it. And so she does.

"Just be careful with that," I say. "Dad spent a fortune just to make that."

"Actually, let me see that," said Kristen out of curiosity, just for being the brain of the bunch.

I let Kristen take it instead so she could analyze how accurate the small replica is.

"Resin with black and silver inlay," said Kristen. "It's well made. It's hollow."

"And why would this Ezra Prescott and his esteban Jeremiah Blackwell go through the trouble of finding a cheap codex?"

"It's not just any codex," I said. "Technically, this is Principal Prescott's ancestor we're talking about who found this as well as King Arthur before him. Kristen, read the inscription."

Kristen turned the rectangular shaped codex to read the inscription written in French.

"Pas de sacrifice, pas de victoire," she began her terrible French, until reading the translation in English. "No sacrifice, no..."

"No sacrifice, no victory," I say. "Learned a little French myself."

"Lucky you," said Kristen.

"There's the benefit of growing up with a dad in archeology," I say. "Max, do you remember that quote by King Arthur? 'Why is all around us here as if some lesser god made the world, but had not force to shape it as he would. Till the high-"

"'Till the high God behold it from beyond and enter it. And make it beautiful'," said Max, finishing my sentence. "We've repeated this qoute over and over since a thousand years ago. But what's the connection?"

"Guys, let's just pretend I never studied Arthurian myths," said Fernando. "And explain to me what this all means and what we're doing here?"

"Okay, during the dark ages of the Arthurian Era," I begin. "Legend has it that King Arthur led his army against the Saxons during the Eternity War to claim himself the Mantle of Possibility. With the help of his wizard, Merlin, who claimed himself the Eternity Gauntlet that was weapon to maintaining the mantle and help Arthur and his army win the war."

"And Arthur led them to victory, right?" Max asked.

"Not really. Some say he lost the war to a Greek celestial known as Ares the god of war. Other say, Ares himself claimed the Eternity Gauntlet from Merlin that won him the war abrubtly."

"Ares? The Greek god of war? How does a myth like Ares exist into this legend?"

"That I don't know. What I do know is that I have a plan this break into this museum to claim our prize. Here's what we're gonna do."