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The worst part of summer school is that the buses don’t run.
As Lucy readjusts her hair off the back of her neck for the fifth time since she started her trek to school, she really misses the bus.
Her mom offered to drive her to school like she does every morning, but something in her head is convinced that saying yes means giving something up. Admitting she’s a little less independent than she used to be.
She’s always taken the bus, her house is just across the river from Aguefort. She’d hoped by senior year she would have her own car, drive to school all on her own, pick up her friends—
Plans change. Friends change. Spending your junior year dead isn’t super conducive with getting your drivers license.
So, she pulls her hair off her neck for the sixth time and walks a little faster over the bridge, dreaming about the bus.
There aren’t many people around when Lucy enters the merciful cool of Aguefort’s heavily airconditioned halls. She’s come to prefer it. Less people looking at her.
Aguefort doesn’t have an organized summer school, the kids she sees around the halls either catch-up kids like her, or parties skulking around the school on summer quest. Lucy’s party—old party—is somewhere in Hell on their makeup quest. They invited her along, but it felt closer to pity than anything else. Lucy doesn’t know if she wants to go back. If she doesn’t, what does she have?
She shakes her head, pushes her hair back off of her neck. She has her family, has her God. She has cleric class with Professor Badgood and—
Kristen Applebees, sitting on top of a desk in the cleric classroom.
“I’m just saying, not every religion needs a book, right?”
“Right,” Professor Badgood says evenly, “but your fixation with a guiding text leads me to believe that you might benefit from one.”
Kristen Applebees is not part of the fake program that Lucy calls summer school. Honestly, Lucy thought Kristen Applebees would be on a summer quest with her party. But no, she is sitting on a desk in the cleric classroom looking immensely pained.
Standing in the doorway, Lucy doesn’t think they know that she’s there, so she lets herself watch. Apparently the answer Kristen got wasn’t what she had wanted, leading to her flop backwards. While sitting on a desk.
Her head hits the floor first, then her shoulders, then as her legs fling out to catch the desk and bring it toppling down on top of her. She yelps, a sound that is no match for the sigh that Professor Badgood lets out.
Lucy rushes in to help her, but Badgood puts up her hand. “Cracking your head open will not get you out of writing a guiding text, Ms. Applebees.” A pulse of healing magic ebbs through the room, overflow spilling off of Kristen and lapping against Lucy’s skin.
“Yeah,” Kristen says, still on the floor and making no room to amend that fact, “but it might kill me so I don’t have to.”
“You and I both know that death does not want you, Ms. Applebees.”
“Sure it does. Third times the charm.” Kristen frowns. “Or, like… fourth. I should know that, shouldn't I?”
Lucy clears her throat.
“Good morning, Ms. Frostblade,” Professor Badgood greets her.
“Good morning, Professor.”
Kristen’s head whips around to look at her, still sprawled out on the ground. “You agree, right?”
She says it like she talks to Lucy all the time, like they’re friends. Which… Lucy wouldn’t be opposed to that. It’s just that she’s spent her entire highschool career sitting in this very classroom and Kristen didn’t know she existed till she was dead.
Except now Kristen is looking at her like she exists and she has to pretend like the heat crawling up her neck is nothing more than the annoying warmth of her hair that’s been bothering her all day.
“What am I agreeing with?” she asks, sitting at a desk. Kristen is still on the floor, looking very much like she’s never planning on moving from the spot.
“That faith doesn’t need a text.”
“Well, sure. Ruvinian faith doesn’t follow a book of worship.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Lucy repeats. “Our worship is passed down through oral tradition. It’s more,” she searches for the right word, “elastic than say, Helioc faith, where if I understand correctly they follow the same practices here as they do in Highcourt. The book does not lead us, our people and their connection to Ruvina do.”
She says it with careful conviction, even if her connection with Ruvina has been growing more and more tenuous these days.
“Cool,” Kristen nods, hair fanning out behind her on the linoleum. She looks ridiculous, bare arms sprawled out around her in a cut off t-shirt with words Lucy can’t quite make out.
“Are you planning on making your way off of my floor anytime soon, Ms. Applebees?” Professor Badgood asks. “I do have a class to teach, you know.”
“Shit, yeah, my bad.”
It’s with a bemused smile that Lucy watches her extricate herself out from under her desk, trying and failing to not make a ludicrous amount of noise as she manages to trip over herself in the process.
Except Kristen doesn’t just leave, instead standing over Lucy’s desk. Up close she can make out the words on Kristen’s shirt, worn pale from being worn over and over. I bit the dust at the RED WASTE AQUATIC ZOO is written out in fading red cursive. This girl is so fucking weird and Lucy hates how charmed she is.
“If you’re free after class you could come over,” Kristen says, and Lucy can’t get over the casualness of it. Like their friends. She spent a few months in Kristen’s afterlife but it’s not like she’s ever been to her house. She guesses that will change today. “I would love to know more about Ruvina, I mean like, we are kinda in the same pantheon now.”
Right. They aren’t friends, this is just a cleric thing. Lucy nods, not trusting her voice to not betray her.
“Great.” Kristen grins, crooked teeth in a smile that fills her whole face. “I’ll be in Jawbone’s office when you’re done so come find me. Good talking, prof.” She tips an imaginary cowboy hat at Professor Badgood and disappears through the door.
Strange girl.
“Alright then, let’s get started.”
-
If Lucy is distracted through class, Professor Badgood is kind enough not to mention it. Focused prayer is difficult when all she can think of is red hair and wide grins and stupid, terrible cut off t-shirts that show more than a little midriff.
It’s stupid. There are more important things than crushes on girls who saved you despite barely knowing you.
Still, as she waves goodbye to Professor Badgood, she feels her heart picking up speed.
The halls are relatively empty, save for a halfling whose legs are dangling from a ceiling tile yelling at her party to wait up. Lucy smiles to herself, readjusts her hair off her neck and yearns for a hair tie. Or maybe scissors. Ever since she’s come back she hasn’t had the same energy to do her hair like she used to. The heat hasn’t been helping either.
She’s never actually been in the guidance counselors office, only stood outside while waiting for Kiperlilly. She tries not to think about that as she steps inside the open door. It’s different than she would have imagined, the floor a mess of rugs and bean bags and a slouchy couch.
Kristen Applebees is upside down on said couch, staring at her phone.
“Mr. O’Shaughnessey isn’t around?” Lucy asks, the werewolf in question nowhere to be seen.
Kristen snorts. “Jawbone? Nah, he’s doing some party remediation thing with a freshman party cuz a bunch of them cheated on each other.”
“Yikes.”
“At that point it’s like… get a new party, right?”
“Harder than you’d think,” Lucy snorts. “The system really favors four year parties, believe it or not.”
Upside down, it’s hard to make out Kristen’s face, but Lucy knows it’s not good. Furrowed brows and a pinched mouth that looks too much like pity. She’s getting really tired of pity.
“Not that I’m worried about it. I’m— I’m great. Professor Badgood has been great and I’m totally on track to go into senior year just fine, so like,” Lucy swallows, pulling her hair off her neck too harshly. “I’m great.”
Kristne doesn’t say anything, which is almost worse than the stupid pity look, because instead she is just looking at her with a face Lucy can’t read. Heat is crawling up her cheeks. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should just call her mom to pick her up and deal with the fall out after.
“Do you know how to ride a bike?” Kristen asks.
“What?”
“Can you ride a bike? Or, like, balance on the back?”
Lucy nods, completely confused. “Yeah? I guess?”
“It’s not really a guessing situation,” Kristen says, cheshire grin odd as she finally flips rightside up on the couch. Her face is red. “C’mon, your chariot awaits.”
Wobbly on her feet, Lucy follows behind an unsteady Kristen with a heal on the tips of her fingers in case she goes down. Her own head pounds just thinking of the headrush, but Kristen seems to take it in stride.
The ‘chariot’ Kristen mentioned is a bike, a large blue cruiser with a questionable rear rack. It’s leaning unceremoniously against the side of the school, Kristen pulling it upright next to her.
“I can stick your bag in the basket,” Kristen offers.
“And where am I supposed to go?” Lucy snorts, handing her her bag all the same.
“Bike rack.” Kristen nods at it like it’s obvious.
“Kristen.”
“Hmmm?”
“In what world is that going to hold me?”
Kristen stares at the rack, stares at Lucy, back at the rack. “You can sit on the seat and I’ll pedal?”
And that’s how the two of them make their way to Kristen’s house, Lucy sitting on the seat with her arms wrapped around Kristen’s waist. She desperately tries not to think about it, the skin of her arms pressed against exposed midriff, but Kristen is wobbly and too fast, leaving Lucy to cling on or else go flying. She spends most of the ride with her face tucked against Kristen’s back, praying they won’t crash.
They have to walk up the steep drive, Kristen letting her dismount as they turn onto a gravel road. That is when Lucy learns that Kristen does not, in fact, live in a house, but instead a manor. A haunted manor.
“What in the world,” she mumbles under her breath as a wizard tower appears over the trees.
“Oh, yeah sorry, should have mentioned I guess,” Kristen huffs, slightly out of breath as she pushes her bike up the hill. “It’s a little weird, but you know, it’s home.”
“No,” Lucy shakes her head, “it’s great.”
The bike gets dumped on the side of the house next to a clearly loved though not particularly thriving garden patch. All of the plants are growing, but in the summer heat they seem wilted and frail. Lucy knows the feeling.
“Do you know how to cut hair?” she asks on a whim, realizing her hand has once again found its way to the back of her neck to try and pull her heavy hair away.
“I mean, a little bit,” Kristen nods. “I cut Fig’s hair sometimes and I used to cut me and my brother's hair back— well, before.”
Before what, Lucy doesn’t know. Maybe she wants to learn.
“Let’s make a deal,” Lucy says, needing to say it all aloud before she loses her nerve. “I tell you about my god, you tell me about your whole,” she waves a hand, “thing.”
“Thing?” Kristen raises an eyebrow.
“Your,” she waves a hand, “deal. I don’t know. I don’t know you.”
Kristen snorts. “Sure you do.”
“I don’t. But, if you cut my hair I could.”
“And I get what out of this again?” Kristen challenges even with a wide grin on her face.
“I’ll help you with cleric stuff,” Lucy says, trying to sound confident.
The girl in front of her tilts her head from side to side as if weighing it out. A bit of the grease from the bike’s chains has rubbed off on her calf, Lucy letting herself focus on the black mark on freckled shins instead of having to face her when she says no.
“Sounds like we have a deal.”
-
That is how she finds herself on the back porch of Kristen Applebee's house, facing the back yard in a rocking chair as Kristen braids her hair behind her.
Her plan had just been to have her chop it off, but Kristen insisted on braiding it. Something about cleaner lines. Looking out on the yard she has to keep herself from rocking and messing up Kristen’s work. Instead she lets her eyes move across the overgrown lawn, grass high in the summer heat and moving in waves with the breeze.
Warm hands card through her soon to be gone hair, parting it into another section at the nape of her neck.
“—I cut it every time I die. Feels good to have a clean slate, you know? But the first time I got kinda depressed cuz I didn’t keep any of it. Or, like, Fig had a lock that she kept in her phone case, but that was her’s, you know?”
“You couldn’t ask for it back?” Lucy lets herself ask.
“Well, sure, but it felt wrong. She asked for it. I couldn’t just take it because I forgot to keep my own.”
“Did you keep your hair when you cut it the next time?” Lucy tries. “You know, since you died again?”
The hands working her hair into a braid pause as if in thought. Lucy’s glad Kristen can’t see her face as her cheeks flush. It’s probably a touchy subject, it’s not like Kristen knew she was there when she spoke about it in class.
Kristen lets out a breath. “No, because the second time wasn’t really a death? I met my God, er, old God, but it wasn’t like I died. I just wasn’t here.”
Right.
“What about after that?”
Kristen resumes braiding, but Lucy feels a slight tug as she laughs under her breath. “See, you do know things about me. Time after that I cut most of my hair off but it was too short to keep. Plus, it was different, more a clean slate than just cutting off like, hair trauma.”
Hair trauma, maybe that's what Lucy has. Maybe that’s why braiding makes her fingers ache and her shoulders pulse and the pressure of hair on her neck makes her burn against the frigid cold of faith she’s always known.
“Ok, my turn,” Kristen says as she ties the braid off and starts on the last one. “You said Ruvina is worshipped through like, words not text, right?”
“Mmhm.”
“So, different places worship her differently?”
“Yeah,” Lucy nods, “like, my community worships her as merciful, but in the mountains her sorrow makes her severe.”
“But everyone thinks she’s sorrowful?”
“Everyone I’ve met at least.”
“Sick. You ok if I start cutting?”
Lucy takes a deep breath. “Yeah, just, keep talking?”
“Gotcha. Ok, so like if I did word of mouth for Cassandra, I guess that would mean that people might eventually worship her differently?”
Warm hands lift the hair off the base of her neck, the snip of scissors ringing in her ear over her left shoulder. She never realized Kristen’s left handed. Her head feels lighter.
“Which is good, because, you know, doubt and all, but then it means giving up power, which I want, but it’s still terrifying, you know?”
Lucy doesn’t, she’s never had so much power over her god, so much influence. Even if she did she wouldn't want it, the hazy idea of a corrupted giant god filling her mind as her hair falls away.
The last braid drops to the porch floor with a quiet thump, the back of her neck buzzy and light as Kristen combs through her hair with her fingers. A few more snips, small and methodical, ring in her ears as Kristen cleans it up.
“All done.”
Her hands shake as the brush through short locks, her head feeling too light on her shoulders after years of length. Her face aches with a smile even as tears well up in her eyes.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, did I fuck it up?” Kristen asks, coming around the front of her as Lucy stands.
Lucy shakes her head even as tears fall down her cheeks. She wants to say thank you, but the words are too small, too plain. Instead she does what she’s wanted to do since she spotted her this morning.
Instead, Lucy kisses her.
It’s ridiculous to kiss a girl she barely knows, but as Lucy’s thumb finds the skin of her jaw, she thinks that might not be the case. She knows Kristen is a clutz, that she’s terrible at riding a bike and not half bad at cutting hair, she knows she’s left handed and constantly, unstoppably curious. She knows that Kristen is kind, kind enough to search for a girl she’d never spoken to before and give her refuge in her domain when her soul was lost. Kind enough to invite her to her house unprompted. Kind enough to kiss her back.
That’s something she knows now: Kristen Applebees is a great kisser.
Lucy may not know everything about Kristen, but held like something precious in her palms in the summer heat, she knows she wants to know more.