Chapter 5: ch.5 [A Very Small Queen?]

She still hadn’t let go of his hand.

The hall was shaking.

Thousands of people were on their feet, shouting, clapping, filming.

Flashbulbs went off like lightning in a thunderstorm.

Somewhere in the booth, a commentator had lost his voice and was trying to scream through it anyway.

And in the middle of all that noise, the World Champion held a convenience store clerk by the hand and waited for an answer.

Were you waiting for me?

Seth’s brain did something it had never done before.

It heard eleven years.

It heard a cardboard board.

A soggy bowl of cereal.

A lemon-shaped magnet.

A boy with a crayon, talking to an empty chair.

She knows, he thought, in pure white panic.

How does she know?

Did I mutter it?

Is there a microphone in my collar?

"W-waiting?" His voice cracked down the middle. "For you? No! Pfft. Why would I..."

He laughed.

It was an awful laugh.

It sounded like a goose being startled.

"I was just in the neighborhood."

Astrid blinked.

"The... neighborhood."

"Of the hall. The big hall."

He waved vaguely at the ceiling. "I like halls."

Astrid said it slowly.

"You came in at 12:58. Soaked through."

"Cardio."

A very small crease appeared between her eyebrows.

She looked at him the way she looked at a position she had never seen before.

Then, gently, she let go of his hand first.

It was a small thing.

She didn’t make a show of it.

But Seth felt it all the way up his arm.

The warmth leaving. The soft click of a door closing.

"I’d like you to come to my apartment after the ceremony."

Seth’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

"My assistant will give you the address."

Her voice stayed low and calm, but a faint hurry ran through it, as if she were afraid she might change her mind.

"I have a proposal."

"A proposal?"

"For you."

She turned.

The arbiter was shaking hands.

The organizers were rushing the stage.

A hundred microphones swung toward her like sunflowers toward the sun.

Seth stood alone beside the board, his heart beating so hard it hurt.

A proposal.

She said proposal.

"Ladies and gentlemen..."

The commentator’s voice was barely there.

"I’ve just been handed the challenger’s name. It is... Seth Pawn."

"Who?" said the second commentator.

"Exactly. Who?"

"No FIDE rating. No club. No tournament history. Online, he’s an 820."

"An eight-twenty. And he held the World Champion level for ten moves."

"Ten moves of theory in a line almost nobody plays."

"And then..." A pause. A wheeze. "Well. And then."

The crowd was already turning.

Heads.

Phones.

A hundred whispers spreading like ink in water.

Who is that kid?

Pawn? Is that real?

Does anyone know him?

Nobody did.

Seth wanted to melt into the floor.

Then something in his pocket buzzed.

It buzzed again.

Then a third time, a fourth, a long, frantic rattle, like a trapped wasp.

Astrid paused mid-answer and turned her head.

Seth fumbled for the phone.

His fingers were slick with sweat and ink.

He yanked it out. It slipped, bounced once off his palm, and swung wildly on the end of its strap.

Everything went very still.

Because hanging from the phone, on a little metal ring, was a keychain.

A rubber one, about the size of a thumb.

A chibi girl with an enormous head, white hair, huge red eyes, and a tiny white crown.

She wore a white dress that flared at the bottom into the unmistakable shape of a queen chess piece.

One of her little rubber hands was raised in a very serious victory pose.

The crown had a chip in it.

The phone buzzed again.

Astrid Lind wins Meridian Exhibition!

Astrid Lind interview now LIVE!

New post on r/AstridLind: "Who is Seth Pawn???"

Daily Astrid Digest: Your morning in one email.

Seth stood there with the notifications pouring down the screen like a slot machine paying out.

"I can explain..."

Astrid looked at the keychain.

She looked at him.

"Is that me?"

"No."

"She has white hair and red eyes."

"It’s a... common color combination."

"In chess pieces?"

Seth said nothing.

Astrid went on with great and terrible calm.

"She is dressed as a queen. A piece. Her skirt is the base of a queen."

"It’s thematic."

"I am wearing a piece."

"A very well-made one."

Astrid made a small strangled sound that she turned, with heroic effort, into a cough.

"Everything..." Seth whispered, in the hollow voice of the condemned. "Notifications. Newsletter. The fan wiki."

"The wiki."

"It’s a very good wiki."

Astrid composed her face into marble.

"At least one of us is well informed about my schedule."

Then she walked back to the microphones without another word, and Seth realized, with the slow horror of watching a vase fall, that the World Champion of chess had just been trying very hard not to laugh in front of the whole world.

? ? ?

"Who the hell was that?"

The dressing room door shut behind Ingrid with the sound of a verdict.

Astrid sat at the vanity, her coat folded in her lap, her white hair still tied back. She looked, very faintly, flushed.

In six years, Ingrid had never seen her flushed.

"A challenger."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one I have."

"He’s an eight-twenty."

Ingrid dropped her tablet on the table.

"He’s a convenience store clerk. He works nights. He’s nineteen. He has no coach, no team, no second. I pulled his profile."

"I know."

"And you want to take him to your apartment."

"Yes."

Ingrid stared.

In six years, Astrid Lind had declined dinners with presidents, ignored three federation chairmen, and once walked out of a gala in the middle of a toast.

She had never invited anyone anywhere.

"May I ask why?"

Astrid took a while to answer.

"I thought it would be a walk in the park..." she said at last.

"It was supposed to be."

"It started as one. He sat down. He apologized three times. He opened with the Scandinavian, and I thought, fine. Twenty minutes. A polite handshake."

Her fingers touched her lips, an old habit.

"Then he played the second move. And the third. And the fourth. Perfectly. In a line almost nobody plays."

"A prepared line."

"Ten moves. Against me." She frowned at her reflection.

"But he has no second, Ingrid. Nobody came with him. So where did he learn it?"

"That’s what you want to know."

"I want to know a lot of things."

"Like?"

"Why he lost his queen in four moves after playing like a textbook." Astrid’s mouth curved, just barely.

"Why he looked at the board as if it were alive. Why he looked at me..."

She stopped.

"How did he look at you?"

Astrid took a moment.

"Not at the title."

It wasn’t an answer.

It was the truest thing she had said all day.

Ingrid sat down slowly.

"That is the single most worrying sentence I’ve ever heard you say."

"There’s more."

"Oh, good."

"He has my keychain."

Ingrid closed her eyes.

"The federation licensed it last spring."

"Little Queen Astrid. A limited run of five thousand. You approved the sketch."

"I approved a sketch. I didn’t know she would have a crown."

"You said, and I quote, ’She looks pleasant.’"

Astrid said it with enormous dignity.

"She does look pleasant."

"The chip in the crown was not in the sketch."

Ingrid opened her mouth. Shut it.

She had just realized that the World Champion had noticed the chip.

? ? ?

The address was a plain gray building on a quiet street, nothing like the glittering hotels in the posters.

Seth stood on the sidewalk for eleven minutes.

He knew, because he checked.

It’s fine, he told himself. She said come.

Her assistant handed me the card personally, with the expression of a woman handing over a live grenade.

It’s fine.

He pressed the buzzer.

The door clicked open without a voice.

The ninth-floor corridor was bare and clean.

At the end of it, one door stood slightly ajar.

A strip of lamplight lay across the carpet.

Seth knocked anyway.

"Come in..." said a quiet voice.

He did.

The apartment was almost empty.

A long pale room with big windows. A kitchen with nothing on the counters. A half-empty bookshelf. A single lamp.

And a table, with a chessboard on it, and two chairs.

One chair looked used. A faint dent in the cushion. A worn patch on the arm.

The other looked like it had never been sat in at all.

Seth’s chest tightened.

It’s quiet, he thought.

It’s quiet the way a closed room is quiet.

"I don’t usually stay here."

Astrid stood by the stove with her back to him.

Without her coat she looked smaller, softer, like a drawing with the heavy lines erased.

"I keep a suite for tournaments. This is the other place."

"It’s nice."

"It’s empty."

"That too."

She glanced back.

He winced. "Sorry. That was rude."

"No..." Astrid said, with a small, tired smile. "It was accurate."

She was making tea.

It was not going well.

There was a kettle, three canisters, and one spoon she kept picking up and putting down.

Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows.

She measured leaves, hesitated, and measured them again.

She’s... really bad at this, Seth realized.

He had imagined her in a thousand ways over more than a decade.

A queen.

A storybook.

A princess who had wandered out of the pages by mistake.

None of those versions had ever burned the tea.

"Do you need help?"

"No."

"I can..."

"I don’t make tea for guests."

"You have guests?"

Astrid stopped.

The kettle began to whistle.

"No..." she said.

She poured two cups with enormous concentration and brought them to the table.

One cup still had a price sticker on the bottom.

She set that one in front of the unused chair.

Seth sat.

The cushion was stiff. It hadn’t learned his shape yet.

He took the cup in both hands, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all.

"I owe you an explanation."

"About the proposal?"

"About the question."

Seth went rigid.

The question.

Were you waiting for me.

His grip tightened on the cup.

On the table, his phone buzzed softly against the wood, the tiny rubber queen swinging on its strap.

"You came into the hall at 12:58."

"Soaked to the bone. Hair plastered to your face. Water dripping off your sleeves. The guard said you were the last in line." She lifted her cup.

"I thought someone had made you wait outside in the cold for hours, just to meet me."

Seth stared.

"You thought..."

"That you’d been standing there since morning." She looked faintly embarrassed.

"I wanted to know whether someone had been unkind to you."

"I ran."

"From where?"

"The bus stop."

"How far?"

"Four kilometers."

"Why?"

"The bus was suspended."

Astrid set down her cup with great care.

"So you were not waiting for me."

"I mean, not in the line sense."

"What sense, then?"

"In no sense! There is no sense! I was in the neighborhood."

Her lips twitched.

"You said that on stage."

"It was true then, too."

Something in her face gave way.

She laughed, softly, helplessly, with one hand over her mouth, and the sound filled the empty room like light through a window.

She wiped her eye.

"I’m sorry."

"It’s only... the wiki."

"I knew you’d bring up the wiki."

She reached across the table and picked up the phone.

Seth flinched.

She didn’t unlock it.

She only turned the little rubber queen over in her fingers, so that the lamp caught the crown.

"The chip."

"I... dropped it."

"When?"

"Last spring. The day I bought it. I paid for it with a week of paychecks."

His ears went red.

"It’s been through a lot."

"It has your key ring through its head."

"It’s... a very sturdy queen."

"It’s adorable."

Astrid looked startled at herself, then cleared her throat.

"That is why I invited you. Partly."

"Partly."

"Mostly."

Then, rather quickly, she changed the subject.

"The tea is getting cold."

? ? ?

She set up the board.

It took less than ten seconds. Twenty moves, every one from memory, her fingers sliding over the pieces as if she were playing the piano.

Seth stared at her hands.

She remembers everything.

"One real question."

"The first ten moves."

"Right."

"You knew them."

"Yes."

"All of them. In a line almost nobody plays. On the first day of a match against me."

She folded her hands.

"Who taught you?"

Seth went pink.

"Nobody."

"Somebody did."

"It was a... video."

Astrid blinked.

"A video."

He slid the phone across the table.

She took it, leaned in, and pressed play.

Orange arrows swung across the board. A cheerful voice explained everything in a bright, unhurried tone.

"Scandinavian Defense in 10 Minutes! Never Lose Your Queen Again!!!"

She watched it all the way through.

Without blinking.

When it ended, she was quiet for a very long time.

"One video."

"And forty-one rewatches."

"You studied one line."

"One very good line."

"And I happened to play it."

Seth said it earnestly.

"The video said that White would."

"Did it say which White move?"

"There’s a Chapter called If White Plays Something Else."

"And?"

"It’s nine seconds long."

Astrid stared at him.

"Seth. At move three, I had four reasonable moves. At move six, I had five. There are maybe forty lines I might have played. You picked one opening and one line, and I walked straight into it."

"Is that good?"

"The odds are astronomical."

"Oh." Seth thought about it. "So I got lucky."

"Extraordinarily lucky."

"I’d have been dead by move four if you’d played something else."

"How dead?"

"Like... very dead."

Astrid put her hand over her mouth.

Her shoulders began to shake.

She bent forward, then sat back, then covered her face with both hands, laughing so hard she had to stop and catch her breath.

She wheezed through it.

"I spent the whole match wondering who taught you."

"The coach was very enthusiastic about free pawns."

"I saw."

"He said never to take the knight on d5."

"That’s good advice!"

"I know! I was so happy! I knew one thing!"

She was crying a little now, from laughter, wiping her cheeks with the back of her wrist, and Seth sat there watching the World Champion lose her composure over a YouTube video, feeling something warm and strange spread through his chest.

When she finally stopped, she folded her hands, breathless, and looked at the board.

Then she looked at him.

Then, slowly, the smile on her face changed.

"Wait."

"What?"

"So you know exactly one line."

"Yes."

"And outside that line..."

She picked up a piece. Moved it. Set it back.

"Seth. Look at this."

She set up a quick position, a few pieces, nothing complicated. A rook and king against a lone king.

"White to move. Mate in one."

Seth stared.

A full minute passed.

"Is it... the rook?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

Silence.

"Seth."

"I’m thinking."

"It’s one move."

"I know it’s one move! That’s what makes it so scary!"

She moved the rook.

Checkmate.

Seth’s face did something complicated.

"Oh. That’s... how it works."

Astrid said nothing.

She set up another.

"Black to move. There’s a free queen."

She slid her own queen onto a square in front of his pawn, as obvious as a cat sitting on a keyboard.

Seth looked at it for a long time.

"Is it a trap?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I’m the one who put it there."

"That’s what a trap-maker would say."

"Seth."

"It’s you! You’re the World Champion! You would never put a queen there unless it’s..."

"It isn’t."

"...a trap."

"It’s a free queen."

He took it.

She stared at the board.

She stared at him.

She spoke very slowly.

"In the game, you walked into a pin a nine-year-old could have seen. Now you refuse a free queen because you think I’m tricking you."

"They’re... different."

"They are opposites."

Another test.

Another.

By the fifth, Astrid had stopped laughing.

By the seventh, she had gone silent.

By the ninth, she was resting her chin on her fist, staring at him with such horrified fascination that Seth began to feel like a very unusual insect.

He hung a bishop.

He forgot that pawns couldn’t move backward.

He asked, with real curiosity, whether a king was allowed to take a protected piece, and then answered himself.

"Oh, no, that would be silly."

When the ninth test was over, Astrid set down the last piece with the utmost care.

"Seth..."

"Yes?"

"You are really bad at chess."

"...Yes."

"I mean extraordinarily bad."

"I know."

"I have not seen such a gap between how well someone understood a position and how badly they could play it since I was seven."

"Is that... bad?"

She leaned back.

For a moment she simply looked at him, in the lamplight, with the strangest expression he had ever seen on her face.

It was the look of someone who had just been handed

a very odd, very fragile gift.

"No."

"It’s the first time in over a decade that a game was fun."

Seth’s breath caught.

"I checked your graph."

"Four hundred and twelve, then eight hundred and twenty. Eleven days. And there’s a dip in the middle, three losses in a row. Most people never come back from that dip. You did."

"I almost deleted the app."

"But you didn’t."

"No."

"You looked at my moves as if they mattered. You were so happy when I played the knight. You were so afraid when I took the bishop. I could see it. You love this. You love it with your whole body, and you barely know anything. Do you have any idea how rare that is?"

He stared.

"People look at me and see a title. Or a tournament. Or a number."

She traced the edge of the board with one finger.

"You looked at me and saw..."

She stopped.

A girl on a screen. A look into a camera. A chair.

Her voice dropped to something quiet and unguarded.

"I’ve been looking for someone for a very long time. Someone who..."

Her fingers tightened around the cup.

"Not yet..."

she said, so softly that he almost didn’t hear it.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing."

She set the cup down.

She straightened her back, folded her hands, and when she looked at him again, her face was calm, composed, perfect ice.

Only her knuckles gave her away.

White against the porcelain.

"Seth Pawn."

"Would you like to become better at chess?"

He blinked.

"I’m sorry. What?"

"I would like to coach you."

"You... what?"

"Seriously. In earnest. Not in eleven days, and not from a video."

Her voice didn’t waver.

"I have the time. I have an empty apartment. And I have a student who has, apparently, never once lost track of what he wanted."

Seth sat very still.

In the dim light, he could see the little keychain on the table.

A tiny rubber queen with a chipped crown.

He could see the board.

And in the dark window behind her, he could see his own reflection.

A boy sitting at a table across from the World Champion, with a chair beside him that, for the first time in his life, wasn’t empty.

Eleven years.

Eleven years of telling a chair I’d eat all her pieces.

And she’s offering to teach me how to hold the fork.

His throat had gone tight.

"Yes..."

It came out as barely a breath.

"Yes. Please. Yes."

Astrid exhaled.

It was a small, quiet sound. If you hadn’t been listening, you might have mistaken it for wind.

"Good. We begin tomorrow."

"What time?"

"Six."

"In the evening?"

"In the morning."

Seth opened his mouth.

Closed it.

"I work nights."

"Then you will sleep in the afternoon."

"Is that... how sleep works?"

The World Champion said it with enormous dignity.

"Chess does not care what time it is."

She stood.

She gathered the cups.

She turned toward the kitchen.

And just before she stepped out of the lamplight, she paused, one hand resting on the edge of the table.

"Seth."

"Y-yes?"

"Thank you for coming."

Then she was gone.

Seth sat alone at the board, listening to the soft sounds of a kettle and a running tap.

He should have been happy.

He was happy.

But as he looked down at the pieces, at the position she had left on the board for him to study, a small, strange thought settled in his chest.

She was about to say something.

And she stopped.

Not yet.

He looked across the table at the empty chair.

It wasn’t empty anymore.

But he couldn’t stop wondering what, exactly, she had been about to ask him.