17
VALEDICTION
As I strolled down along the quay
All in the lateness of the day
I heard a lovely maiden say:
“Alack, for I can get no play.”
A minstrel boy heard what she said
And straight he rushed to her aid…
“Do we have to keep listening to this wail-ey music?” Isabelle demanded, her booted foot tapping against the dashboard of Jordan’s truck.
“I happen to like this wail-ey music, my girl, and since I’m driving, I get to choose,” Magnus said loftily. He was indeed driving. Simon had been surprised that he knew how, though he wasn’t sure why. Magnus had been alive for ages. Surely he had found time to squeeze in a few weeks of driver’s ed. Although Simon couldn’t help wondering what birth date was on his license.
Isabelle rolled her eyes, probably because there wasn’t enough room to do much else in the cab of the truck, with all four of them crammed together on the bench seat. Simon honestly hadn’t expected her to come. He hadn’t expected anyone to come to the farm with him but Magnus, though Alec had insisted on coming as well (much to Magnus’s annoyance, as he considered the whole enterprise “too dangerous”), and then, just as Magnus had revved up the engine on the truck, Isabelle had come banging down the stairs of his apartment building and thrown herself through the front door, panting and out of breath. “I’m coming too,” she’d announced.
And that was that. No one could budge or dissuade her. She wouldn’t look at Simon as she insisted, or explain why she wanted to come, but she did, and here she was. She was wearing jeans and a purple suede jacket she must have stolen out of Magnus’s closet. Her weapons belt was slung around her slim hips. She was mashed up against Simon, whose other side was crushed against the car door. A strand of her hair was flying free and tickling his face.
“What is this, anyway?” Alec said, frowning at the CD player, which was playing music, although without a CD in it. Magnus had simply tapped the sound system with a blue-flashing finger, and it had started playing. “Some faerie band?”
Magnus didn’t answer, but the music swelled louder.
To mirror went she straightaway
And did her ebon hair array
And for her gown she much did pay.
Then down she walked along the street,
A handsome lad she chanced to meet,
And sore by dawn were her dainty feet,
But all the boys were gay.
Isabelle snorted. “All the boys are gay. In this truck, anyway. Well, not you, Simon.”
“You noticed,” said Simon.
“I think of myself as a freewheeling bisexual,” added Magnus.
“Please never say those words in front of my parents,” said Alec. “Especially my father.”
“I thought your parents were okay with you, you know, coming out,” Simon said, leaning around Isabelle to look at Alec, who was—as he often was—scowling, and pushing his floppy dark hair out of his eyes. Aside from the occasional exchange, Simon had never talked to Alec much. He wasn’t an easy person to get to know. But, Simon admitted to himself, his own recent estrangement from his mother made him more curious about Alec’s answer than he would have been otherwise.
“My mother seems to have accepted it,” Alec said. “But my father—no, not really. Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay.”
Simon felt Isabelle tense next to him. “Turned you gay?” She sounded incredulous. “Alec, you didn’t tell me that.”
“I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider,” said Simon.
Magnus snorted; Isabelle looked confused. “I’ve read Magnus’s stash of comics,” said Alec, “so I actually know what you’re talking about.” A small smile played around his mouth. “So would that give me the proportional gayness of a spider?”
“Only if it was a really gay spider,” said Magnus, and he yelled as Alec punched him in the arm. “Ow, okay, never mind.”
“Well, whatever,” said Isabelle, obviously annoyed not to get the joke. “It’s not like Dad’s ever coming back from Idris, anyway.”
Alec sighed. “Sorry to wreck your vision of our happy family. I know you want to think Dad’s fine with me being gay, but he’s not.”
“But if you don’t tell me when people say things like that to you, or do things to hurt you, then how can I help you?” Simon could feel Isabelle’s agitation vibrating through her body. “How can I—”
“Iz,” Alec said tiredly. “It’s not like it’s one big bad thing. It’s a lot of little invisible things. When Magnus and I were traveling, and I’d call from the road, Dad never asked how he was. When I get up to talk in Clave meetings, no one listens, and I don’t know if that’s because I’m young or if it’s because of something else. I saw Mom talking to a friend about her grandchildren and the second I walked into the room they shut up. Irina Cartwright told me it was a pity no one would ever inherit my blue eyes now.” He shrugged and looked toward Magnus, who took a hand off the wheel for a moment to place it on Alec’s. “It’s not like a stab wound you can protect me from. It’s a million little paper cuts every day.”
“Alec,” Isabelle began, but before she could say anything more, the sign for the turnoff loomed up ahead: a wooden placard in the shape of an arrow with the words THREE ARROWS FARM painted on it in block lettering. Simon remembered Luke kneeling on the farmhouse floor, painstakingly spelling out the words in black paint, while Clary added the—now weather-faded and almost invisible—pattern of flowers along the bottom.
“Turn left,” he said, flinging his arm out and nearly hitting Alec. “Magnus, we’re here.”