Free Queens of All the Earth by Hannah Sternberg Page A

a nice night,” Olivia said.
    Hugo nodded, then disappeared into the other end of the entrance hall, where Olivia could only assume he lived, though it would be just as natural to assume the kitchen was his home, and the corner of the couch he had just occupied his bed—or that he never slept at all, but continually haunted the places where someone needed a friend. Except Olivia knew that wasn’t true. There was more to his existence than hostel guests. Olivia winced, inside and out—not at accidentally walking in on Hugo’s date, but at her own surprise that he would have one.
    Olivia slid her book between her hands. She liked the feel of its matte cover, ridged where the writing was. Flipping the book’s pages, she inhaled the old smell of dusty paper and dusty bookshelves. Sometimes, at home, she would sit for hours without reading at all, just touching her book and dreaming about what was inside it.
    Her eyes wandered the room and alighted on the window. Its view was identical to the view from the dorm room on their first night in Barcelona, only twenty-four hours ago, and Olivia observed that, in the moonlight, the garden seemed deeper, while the laundry hanging from rails had disappeared and lights behind curtains shivered and blinked.
    On the windowsill, Mr. Brown’s book of selected Cummings poems was perched under his folded glasses. With the same thrill she felt opening drawers in her grandparents’ house, Olivia picked the book up.
    It was an old hardback in faded cloth. It smelled like a library and the typeset was wide and round. Olivia felt the roughness of the pages’ edges—cut but not trimmed and smoothed to a uniform width. Cradling it between the moonlight and the red glow of a reading lamp, she looked for and read “my father moved through dooms of love.”
    The lines were short, but she struggled, picking at each word to find its meaning. Together, they must have been used as a code for other words that formed a logical and complete thought. It was senseless, though. The meaning was coded more thoroughly than she could decipher.
    Halfway through, her concentration was interrupted by the appearance of Marc in plaid pajamas.
    “Hoo! Hoo!” he hooted, like an owl, pouring himself a glass of water from a bottle in the fridge. He shuffled over to Olivia and peered down at her.
    “Feeling all right?” he asked.
    “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep,” she said, tilting her head up.
    “Exciting day tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t wear yourself out now.”
    “I’ll go to bed soon,” she said.
    Marc tipped the book in her hands up slightly.
    “Cummings? Mr. Brown’s?” he asked. Olivia nodded. “I heard him and Greg come in with Ana and Chas tonight,” Marc said.
    “Oh?” said Olivia, suppressing a yawn, though her heart beat faster.
    “They were talking about going to Girona tomorrow. They’re leaving very early in the morning, or at least Mr. Brown and Ana and Chas are. I was afraid I’d wake them getting up like this, but it’s like a greenhouse in there—the room is nearly full, you know.”
    “Greg’s not going?” The words tumbled out of Olivia before she could stop them.
    “I’m not sure. He made noises about lingering behind. Knowing him, he’ll just slouch off somewhere on his own.” Marc lifted an eyebrow but didn’t press Olivia on her question. She had the sense she was being cheerfully tolerated, like a little kid who doesn’t make much sense but still sounds cute.
    Olivia, biting her lip, searched for something else to say.
    “It’s cool out here,” she said.
    “Yes, but not really as nice as being in bed,” Marc said, laughing. “Goodnight, and I hope you sleep well.”
    Olivia wished him the same. By now it was clear that Miranda couldn’t stand Greg and his father, and that she and Olivia had formed their ownlittle clique with Lenny and Marc. Olivia was used to following her sister, but often suspected that every group but hers was more playful, relaxed,