I’d turned to see him scooting between lavender bushes, his gold curls strewn with leaves, his princely vest torn. He was so small then, perpetually flushed and in motion, like a rambunctious fox.
“Merlin, it only took me five tries to get in! I did everything you taught me! I closed my eyes and thought about finding the portal and then I focused on relaxing my brain and let my feet take me and then I opened my eyes and there it was! But I tried to jump in too fast, so I took deep breaths and that didn’t work but then I calmed down and—poof!—the forest opened and that’s the first time I did it on my own without you feeling sorry for me and letting me in. Only five times! Aren’t you proud of me? Merlin?” He suddenly screwed his eyes on me and cocked his head. “You look very strange without a beard. Can you put it back?”
In that moment, any plans to tell him this was our last lesson evaporated.
He’d just turned nine and having been nine years old myself a week ago, I know firsthand how sensitive one is at that age, how live-wired with energy and ambition, especially Tedros, who used to stand so upright, almost on his tiptoes, as if he couldn’t wait to grow taller. He’d lost his mother only weeks before and now I’d lost the strength to admit that I, too, was about to desert him. Instead, I vowed to make our last lesson one he would remember.
“Tell me, future king,” I’d said, picking leaves out of his hair. “What would you like me to teach you more than anything else in the world? This is your chance. No limits. Anything you desire.”
“How to die and come back to life,” the prince said instantly, as if he’d already given it a good thought.
I kneeled in front of him. “Well, that’s impossible, unless you’re a wizard with a Wizard Wish—”
“No, it isn’t,” Tedros contended. “That Green Knight who came got his head cut off by Dad and then he put his head right back on his neck. Everyone at the castle is saying it. He did it right there, in front of Dad! Slash! Plunk! Peekaboo! I want to be able to do that! I want to be strong and never die! I want to be a Green Knight!”
“The Green Knight is dead,” I pointed out.
“Fine, then give me your Wizard Wish, because you just said it’ll let me die and come back to life.”
“I don’t have it.”
Tedros balled up his fists, his cheeks hot. “You asked what I wanted you to teach me, no rules, and now you’re going back on it.” He looked like he was about to cry.
Then and in the years to come, Tedros clung to a profound sense of justice. I looked into his quivering blue eyes and saw there’d be no reasoning with him. Of course, there wasn’t any way to teach him to die and come back to life—Kay’s immortality had been a unique curse—but perhaps if I could give the boy the feeling of death, so he’d no longer see it as an enemy, he might let go of his wish altogether.
“Come,” I said, striding into my forest, the lilac spruces, purple pines, and plum-colored dragon trees bowing their limbs to me, sensing my tendency to reimagine the foliage of Ender’s Forest at any moment and hoping to stay in my good graces. I could hear Tedros bopping along behind, singing coded songs about his mother and Lancelot (“When I’m a headless knight, I’ll go hunting other knights! Knights that I don’t like!”), eagerly scrambling over rocks and logs I conjured into his path (“Merlin, make them harder!”), and spooking every bird and squirrel he could: “Peekaboo! Peekaboo!”
In time, the forest opened up and we arrived at a mirrored pool, surrounded by neat purple grass, an oasis in a field. Overhead the sky was clear, nothing beyond the pool except more amethyst lawns, none of Tedros’ favorite squirrels or flowers or insects, the scene conjured to induce zero distractions in the boy, so he would focus keenly on what we were about to do.
“Never been to this part of the forest!” he pipped, dropping to his knees at the pool’s edge and plunging his fist into the water.
“What did I tell you about looking before doing, Tedros. For all you know, this pool is filled with piranhas.”
“Is it?” Tedros said, wide-eyed. Now he put both hands in and his whole face to it, hunting its depths. “I heard they have sharp teeth and eat people!”
I shook my head. He was stubborn, rash, prideful, overemotional, and had poor instincts . . . and oh, how I’d miss the boy. “Let’s get on with it,” I said.
Sparkling nuggets rushed to the surface, spitting him with water.
“Wish Fish!” the prince chimed, ogling the silvery creatures swirling through the pool. “Dad says the School for Good has a lake full of them! That’s where I’ll go when I’m thirteen, as long as I keep eating vegetables and cleaning up after myself. That’s what Dad told me. But don’t know how much I believe him these days . . .” He looked up at me. “These are real Wish Fish?”
“Put your finger in and see,” I said. “If dying and coming back to life is your greatest wish, that’s what the fish will show you.”
Tedros stuffed his tiny finger in the water.
The fish darted away from each other, like a firework dispersing, before shuttling back together, painting a picture of . . . Guinevere. Instantly, the prince withdrew his finger, his face pale. “Stupid fish!”
He closed his eyes, as if wishing the vision of his mother away, and shoved his finger in again.
This time, the fish painted Lancelot, cuddling him with love.
Tedros sprung to his feet, kicking the water, sending the fish diving deep for cover. “I hate this game,” he said, sprawling onto his stomach in the grass. Not realizing, of course, that he’d just seen the wishes he truly wanted most.
So I sat down beside him. “Tell me. Why do you want to die and come back to life?”
He didn’t look at me. “It just seems amazing.”
“But why, Tedros?”
He thought about this awhile, before craning his head up. “Because if I can die and come back to life, then no one can hurt me.”
“Oh, my boy,” I said. “I’m afraid being able to come back from death can’t stop you from getting hurt. If anything, living longer means you’ll get hurt more. Because life is also about opening yourself to all emotions, even the bad ones.”
Tedros turned away. “I don’t like being hurt.”
“Who is hurting you?”
“No one.” He swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“You’re lucky, then, because I feel quite hurt myself.”
He looked back at me. “You do? Where are you hurt?”
“Here,” I said, my hand on my heart.
“Oh.” He nodded. “Who hurt you?”
“Someone I loved very much,” I said.
Tedros nodded. “Me too.” He sniffled and curled into a bean shape, his back against my knee. “When does the hurt go away?”
“Once you make friends with it. Once you come to see the hurt not as something to fear or run away from, but as an important part of you. As important as love and hope and happiness. All of them are pieces of your heart, each as important as the other. But ignoring the hurt or pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it go away. It just means you’re not using all of your heart. Soon that piece might even dry up and break away. We don’t want that. A strong king needs all of his heart. And the funny thing is, once you’re bold enough to welcome the hurt, to give it a hug and face it unafraid . . . then suddenly, it’s gone.”