Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

often credited with having even more magic than he actually did. With that gaze on you, the truth seemed to be the only thing you could speak.

“Well…no,” she admitted. “I mean, he started with the shit-talking and harassment, and I finally had enough, so I was going to get all Green Knight on his ass and teach him a lesson.”

“But you couldn’t,” Murden said.

“Yeah. I couldn’t. What the hell? Can I only be Gawain when Rex is around to be Arthur? Is it like a Wonder Twins thing?”

Murden’s brow knit at her cartoon reference, but he shook his head. “I have no idea what a Wonder Twin is, but the explanation is much simpler. The power of the Round Table is not lightly granted, and it does not allow itself to be lightly used. Perhaps your intentions were not worthy of a knight.”

Gwen stopped cold, her hands on her hips. “Come on! I’m not allowed to defend myself? I thought knights were all about defending the innocent!”

“They—you are,” Murden said with a slight smile. “But were you actually defending an innocent in this situation? Or were you seeking retribution?”

Gwen didn’t speak for a long time. She just stood there in the middle of the trail, looking up into her teacher’s now-kind eyes.

“So what am I supposed to do?” she finally asked, tears welling in her eyes. “Am I supposed to just take it? Ignore it? Be the bigger person? I’m tired of being the bigger person, Merlin! It fucking hurts, the shit they say to me. About me. You don’t know what it’s like, trying to just live like everybody else, when the first thing people think when they meet you is ‘what’s in her pants?’ Do you know how goddamn exhausting it is, to explain who you are every single day?” Gwen turned away, dashing away a runaway tear with the back of her hand.

Murden put a hand on her shoulder, and when she turned back to him, she saw moisture rimming the old man’s eyes. “No, my dear, I do not. I cannot understand. I can only tell you that I am sorry that people are not better, and I can hope that someday they will be. But I can tell you this—” His jaw set and his voice became firm. “A Knight of the Round Table, in my time or today, does not begin fights for their own retribution. She does not seek revenge, but justice. She does not attack for herself, but defends the innocent. No matter what Scott has said to you, he did not deserve to be beaten, perhaps severely injured, by a trained warrior such as Gawain. He may well deserve a thrashing from Gwendolyn Dimont, but not with the assistance of a Knight. I believe that is why you were not allowed to transform.”

“Because I wasn’t good enough.” Gwen didn’t bother to try and keep the bitterness from her voice.

“Because your motives were not chivalrous. Had Scott and his friends attacked you with more than words, you likely could have transformed to defend yourself. Had they sought to harm another, you could have acted in that person’s defense. But to escalate a war of words into a battle of blade against flesh? That is not the way of a Knight.”

“Then the way of a Knight sucks. Because Scott definitely deserves an ass-kicking.”

Gwen stuck her chin out, everything in her posture screaming defiance. But if Murden pressed her, she might have to admit that there was a little bit of doubt in her mind.

“I have no doubt that is true,” Murden said, a smile touching his lips. “But wouldn’t it be all the sweeter coming from you than from Gawain?”

Gwen opened her mouth to respond, but a scream stopped her cold.

Her head whipped around, looking for the source of the cry. The cry for help came again, down one of the side trails to a “scenic overlook.” Gwen and Murden sprinted down the narrow graveled path, coming to a halt at a wide flat area surrounded by wooden guardrails. A frantic blond woman stood at the edge, alternately looking down and whipping her head around as if looking for help.

“Oh thank God,” she panted as they arrived. “Tommy ducked under the railing, and now he’s gone!”

Murden stepped to the panicked woman and took her by the shoulders. “What do you mean, he’s gone? Has someone fallen over the edge?”

“My baby!” the woman wailed. “He just slid right over!”

The woman collapsed, falling to her knees in the dirt and sobbing against Murden’s shoulder. Gwen didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the broken form of a child at the bottom of the fifty-foot drop, but she forced herself to slowly walk to the split-rail fence that was more a suggestion than anything else. She peered over, leaning a little farther out than she really felt safe doing, trying to see any hint that the child was still safe.

The edge of the drop-off was ragged, and she could see the rounded patch of mud where it collapsed under the child’s weight. There was a rounded section of fresh muddy dirt revealed where his little rump had hit the edge and slid down. A soft sound drifted up to Gwen’s ears, and she forced herself to lean out farther. There, on a ledge a little less than ten feet down, lay the little boy she’d talked to at the picnic tables. The one who said her hair was funny. He was conscious, but looked disoriented, like maybe the fall knocked the wind out of him.

“Don’t move, Tommy!” Gwen shouted. “We’re coming to get you! Just stay right where you are and don’t move a muscle!”

Gwen pulled back over the guard rail and turned to Murden.

“He’s alive. There’s a ledge a few feet from the edge. It looks like he slid down and got the wind knocked out of him. He might be hurt, but he’s moving.”

Murden nodded at her, helping the mother to her feet.