Queen of the Clueless #2 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 4

When I was with Quin, I always felt that I didn't need anything else.

Do you carry a giant bag every day? Because I did. Whenever someone pointed out that I would give my back a break if I just brought "the essentials," I had to say that I was bringing all my essentials. How could someone go through a day without her phone, and charger, and pen, and fresh pack of tissues, and lip balm, and emergency scrunchie, and feminine hygiene products, and toothbrush, and three-fold umbrella, and wallet, and second wallet where she kept her cards, coupons and IDs?

I know how intense that all sounds. I also know, so let me just stop you right there, that it really was a fear of being unprepared. That any day could be THE DAY when all of these would miraculously be needed, and I didn't want to let anybody—or myself—down by not having it.

But none of this mattered when I found out who (what?) Quin was.

As the God of the Sun, he had apparently been keeping the universe in order since the beginning of time. When I was with Quin, I didn't care where my phone was. I didn't care about missed messages or emergencies going unnoticed. I knew he'd make sure I was exactly where I needed to be, with exactly what I needed to have.

I couldn't help it; I wanted to believe that he felt the same way about me, even if it was just that one time during dinner at my aunt's house or something. Even before he asked me to be the temporary goddess of love, he was such a great friend. He seemed to like hanging out, and talking to me, and I knew that guys didn't just do that, even if they needed the girl to take over for a goddess who had mysteriously disappeared.

Wasn't that what love was all about? No? Damn it.

Recently, all Quin and I ever did was train.

What did goddess training look like? Nothing too exciting. The first "power" I got was the aforementioned ability to see and feel people's thoughts and memories related to love. The Original Goddess could do more than that. She could hear people from anywhere in the world and plant the solution in everyone's minds at the same time.

But because the Interim Goddess (me) did not have that power yet, I was stuck with hearing the problems near me, but with no efficient, easy way of handing out solutions. How do you prompt someone to change a mindset, without access to the mind? It wasn't easy. A few months ago I tried bringing together fellow sophomore Kathy and this guy Jake. Even though they already really liked each other, it still seemed to take forever.

Of course, when I complained about that to Quin, he just delayed my training even more. "We won't proceed until you quell that urge to be matchmaker. Love isn't just about that, and you know it."

But it felt so good, making people happy! Quin was such a downer sometimes. And who said quell anymore, or ever, in that context?

In any case, a week or two later, he agreed to start my training again. The lesson? Long-distance commands.

So that day we met after class, and he was trying to teach me how to send a command to someone who was within sight, but some distance away. We were at the open field, sitting on the makeshift bleachers that looked out onto the running track. About a dozen other students were there too, either preparing for a run, already running, or sitting on the grass just doing stuff.

Quin took a seat on the row just above me, his back against the row above him, while lazily munching on an apple. "Which one do you want to go for?" he asked.

I surveyed the field and the other students there. I recognized a few fellow sophomores, another person who was in the basketball team with Quin, some girls from my Lit class. Not that it mattered, if I knew them. I slowed my breath, and tried to tune out the scorching heat, the sounds of conversation, and my own physical reaction to hot guy sitting near me. I exhaled, and focused, and then I started hearing it. Hearing them.

Lullabies.

The sound that each heart makes, it sounds like a lullaby. Each person called to the goddess to be heard with that song, and each one sounded slightly different. I learned in the past few weeks that if I chose to listen to one, I could, and that person's heart would unfold for me.

Figuratively, of course.

The chorus started, and I zeroed in on one particular voice. It sounded sweet.

"I got one," I said under my breath. "Girl in white, doing stretches."

Crunch crunch crunch, as he chewed loudly. "What does she want?"

The song in my mind became a voice, and her most immediate memory of love was sucked into my head. "She's waiting for Franco from student council to reply to her text."

"What do you want to say to her?"

Experiencing a memory goddess-style was always overwhelming. In the beginning, it felt like sticking myself into someone's movie, taken with only one camera. But with more practice I started to see how differently people remembered things (as opposed to what actually happened, or what other people saw), and I learned to make judgments based on the assumption that people were generally delusional.

"I want her to relax, and go see a movie with her friends tonight, instead of just waiting. Because he doesn't even know she's expecting something from him," I answered.

"Focus on that, the way I told you to. And then tell her that there's a stone in her shoe and she should take it out."

I rolled my eyes. He would tack on a physical challenge like that, just so we could be sure I had done it right.

He grinned at me. "Ready?"

I gave him a salute. "Yes, sir."

This wasn't that easy for me just yet, and I knew that even before that total failure with Sol. A few weeks ago, I started with something simple: plant the thought to a person I was talking to, and was within touching distance. It took maybe three tries, and that was why Ms. Farrah, one of our Guidance Counselors, suddenly pinched her nose three times in the middle of telling me how to file the career skills exams.

I wish I could show you how it all happened. To me, it was as if I grabbed the lullaby with my hand, opened it up, and placed a fistful of thought inside. But that doesn't make any sense.

The problem with the distance was that the lullaby wasn't stable enough in my head. Like, as soon as I could pin it down, it would dissipate in my mind, in my grasp, and I didn't have enough time to plant a thought, much less a complex physical stunt, in there.

This girl, her name was Mara, and every time she dipped into a lunge, I would lose her song. She lunged a third, and fourth time, and I lost her again.

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple, and I was about to ask Quin for a break, when he reached forward and put a hand on my shoulder. Just there, so near the curve of my neck.

Mara's song became louder.

I inhaled, grabbed her song, and set my thought in the middle. Gently.

Mara paused, shrugged, and stood upright. She took off her left shoe and turned it over, shaking the imaginary stone off.

I felt Quin take his hand away, and heard another loud crunch.

"Sorry," I said automatically. "I probably needed another minute. You didn't need to rescue me."

At least I heard Mara's lullaby, instead of the silence I got with Sol. Maybe being near Quin made me so much better at this?

He smiled. "Practice, that's all. Come on, I'll buy you dinner."

We trained only after class, and he would always buy me dinner after. I could complain about training all day, but honestly? Post-training dinner with Quin made everything worth it.