May 2022 Short Story Picture Prompt Contest Winner

     The chandelier blazes like a summer sun. The clink of a hundred glasses shatters the room and a hundred different voices trample over the shards. A song weaves through the background, every so often slicing through the conversation.

It’s too much. My mind can’t sift through it. Can’t do anything with it.

I clap my hands over my ears.

     Across the room, Father shakes his head ever so slightly, touches the side of his temple. I remember what we talked about. I promised I wouldn’t do it this time.

But it’s too bright. It’s too loud. It’s too much.

I need out.

I wait until his back is turned and dart out the back door of the guest hall.

     The streets aren’t even quiet anymore. Soldiers wait on every corner. Father has tried to explain why, but I don’t understand.

Not understanding scares me.

But I don’t need the streets anymore. I have my own quiet place.

     I take a deep breath, settle my shoulders, and step through the overgrown garden out back, slowly, carefully. The fountain burbles into the pond, overflowing its cracked basin. Weeds poke at my legs and I slap them away.

     I enter the well house. But it’s not a well house anymore. The walls are covered in equations and formulas.

     In the center of the wall in front of me is the first formula. I’d copied it from the letter I found in Father’s study. If I can solve this, maybe I can go to that boys’ school in France they offered me. I overheard Mother and Father talking about it. Mother thinks I should go.

     A slight twinge of guilt ripples in my stomach. I promised Father I’d stay with the guests. That I wouldn’t come back to the well house again.

     But I pick up the piece of chalk and any guilt I feel melts away. I light a single lantern—just enough light to write by, but not too much.

     I press my chalk to the stone, scratching out numbers and symbols. These make sense. They always follow the same patterns. Two plus two always equals four.

     The walls are covered in these equations. I’ve been working for a while. Anytime the world just feels like too much, I come out here. Maybe for five minutes, maybe for five hours.

“Stop scribbling on my walls!”

     Oh, this voice again. I push my chalk a little harder. It comes sometimes, especially when things were really loud, but I’ve never seen where it comes from. “Do you mind? I’m working here.”

“You’re just writing the same thing over and over again.”

     I scoff. He says that a lot. I’m not just writing the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I have to repeat equations to get them perfect.

“You told me last time that you promised your father you wouldn’t come back here. That you’d stop scribbling on the walls and talking to yourself.”

“I’m not talking to myself.” I frown at the equation I’ve started. What number goes there?

Equations never confuse me.

A long sigh. “Maybe if you look at the bigger picture, it’ll help you figure out what to do next.

     The idea seems logical. I step back and turn in a slow circle, reading the equations around me, the letters, numbers, and shapes.

Xyz squared is a2.

A2 minus b4 equals the base.

Area plus b4 is c.

Xyz squared is a2.

I narrow my eyes. I just read that equation didn’t I?

A2 minus b4 equals the base.

     I keep turning. There it is again. Xyz squared is a2. And again. And again. The same group of twenty or so equations over and over again.

“Look, I tried to tell you, kid.”

“Wait. This doesn’t make sense.” I’ve been out here countless times before. And every time I have to figure out the equations new. How is that happening if I’m just writing the same thing over and over again?

“Look, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody copes somehow. Just most people don’t scribble on walls and talk to themselves in the dark.”

     Have I made no progress on the puzzle at all? Am I right back where I started, no closer to the school than I was before?

“Why do you want to go to this school anyway? Seems you’ve got a good life right here.”

     Maybe people at that school would listen to me. Understand why I do the things I do, what I hear inside my head.

Or maybe no one would.

“You think there everyone will understand you and let you play with numbers to your heart’s content. I’ve been there. Trust me, they’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“You’re lying.”

“We talked about this! You promised you wouldn’t do it. Now all of town will think you’re insane.”

“I’m not insane.” I scan the equations, numbers flooding my mind. “I’m not insane.”

Now the voice scoffs. “What an embarrassment you must be.”

     My gaze freezes on one equation. I whip around towards where I heard the voice last. “If I’m insane and just writing the same things over and over again, then why is this equation different than the others?”

     The unfinished one. Somehow, if I finished that one, everything would make sense. And even if it didn’t, it would be enough. I’d have answers, at least.

     I set to work on the space next to the equation, working out every number that could possibly fit. The voice jabbers on in the background, the shadows in the well house get longer as the sun sets outside, but I keep writing.

Fifty-two.

Of course. It’s so clear now. Why didn’t I come up with that the first time?

I chalk it in at the end of the equation. “See? There. I solved it.”

But the voice doesn’t answer. I’m glad for it.

Until I turn and see why.

Father leans against the wall. The voice never comes around when he’s here.

He runs a hand over his face. “Are you done now?”

     Not exactly. I mean, I’ve solved this one, but I still have to figure out what all these equations as a whole were pointing towards. “No.”

     Father looks closer at the equations papering the walls. His face pales. “Where did you get these?”

“From the letter. From the school in France.” I lift my chin a little higher. “I . . . I want to go there.”

     Father grabs my shoulders. “This . . . this is nothing. This is just an imaginary space you go to when you’re overwhelmed.”

I frown. He’s never talked like this before. “No, it’s not.”

“The puzzle, the school, whoever you talk to when you’re out here, none of it’s real. And you have to stop it.”

I step back, shaking my head. “It’s real. Don’t you see it?”

“Everyone in town already thinks you’re a lunatic.”

“I’m not a lunatic!” My whole body is shaking now. The lantern clatters to the ground because I can’t hold it anymore. The light goes out.

“Ilya, you have to stop.”

     I curl into a ball and pull my arms over my head, over my ears. And I scream until I can’t hear him anymore, until I don’t even realize I’m screaming, that all that painful noise is coming from me.

After an eternity, the sound dies away.

When I dare peek open my eyes, Father’s not there.

     But someone else is. A boy, a few years older than me, wearing a uniform with the same crest the school’s letter had on it. He holds out the lantern, lit once more.

And when he opens his mouth, the voice I heard before comes out. “You know why he’s so upset, right?”

“I never know why he’s upset.” I nudge the lantern away with my toe.

“There’s a revolution on.” He smudges his sleeve across a couple numbers, erasing them. “He wants to get you and your mother out before it happens, but he’s not sure he can. That’s why these dinners with rich businessmen are so important. And that letter . . .”

“What about it?” My throat hurts.

“Sure, it was an invitation to the school. But it was also coded. That code could be the secret to your family making it out of the country. And it could also change the direction of the revolution.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Same way I know a lot of things.”

     I bury my face in my knees, shutting out the light. “You’re not real. He’s right. I just made this all up to give myself someplace to go.”

“If you had, that’d be alright.” The boy gently lifts my chin. “But you didn’t make it up. And this makes all the difference in the world.”

I sniffle and pull away. “What are you exactly?”

“A good deal many things.” He pulls me to my feet. “Go on. Put in that number. See what you find.”

The chalk feels small in my hand, but I write in fifty-two. “There’s nothing.”

He sighs. “Maybe if you look at the bigger picture, it’ll help you figure out what to do next.”

I step back again, not really sure what I’m looking for.

And it’s in the not-sure, not-looking, that I see it.

A pattern of letters and numbers. “What are those?”

“What do you think?”

     I make out a few words. “It’s a message.” It really had been a code. And if it was, then this, this could make all the soldiers leave.

“Tell your father.”

“He won’t believe me.”

“It’s my job to be overbearingly negative, not yours. So what if he doesn’t believe you? You’ll find someone who will. Besides, I think your father might surprise you.”

     I hold out a hand. “Wait here.” I dash out of the well house into the garden. I glance back once when I reach the back door.

The well house is empty.

Artist: Andrea Koroveshi

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