Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Am I good enough now?” Beth asks quietly. Her eyes are pinned to the board. 

She goes through the game again, again, again in her head, but she knows it will be cleared at nighttime, when the board materialises on the roof.

“How old are you?” Mr Shaibel questions, rather than answers. He’s looking at her like he's trying to guess. Her fingers run over the book he’d just given her.

Books - books are familiar. Unlike the other girls in her class, Beth already knows the letters as well as she knows the pieces on the board. A vowel makes that sound and the queen makes that move. 

Stacks upon stacks of books had formed labyrinthine walls in her and Mama’s trailer, and when they’d caught alight, she’d stared at the burning letters and the words had sounded in her mind. Just like how, now, the pieces move in her head at night, gliding over the ceiling rises.

She already had one. A thick tome she’d saved from Mama’s flames, brought into the car, and pried out of the smoky wreckage. She hadn’t mastered all of the letters to that one yet, but Jolene had helped her to read the trickiest words of the title. Mama’s book. 

And now she had another, one with diagrams, one that was much simpler yet so much more complex. Modern Chess Openings.

“Five,” Beth whispers truthfully.

“Five years old,” Mr Shaibel echoes.

 He’s a gruff, quiet, very old man, but he’s starting to like her. It hadn’t been instant, which had surprised her. She’s used to people liking her. She’s used to people seeing her and smiling, cooing, because there goes that strange Harmon girl with the words too big for the trailer lot. 

“But I’ll be six in November,” she adds.

Mr Shaibel smiles. That’s rare. “To tell you the truth of it, child...you’re astounding.”

She nods, slightly.

In her mind, she pockets the word. Adds it to the filing system Mama had called her vocabulary. It’s another one of those long, stretchy words that she has to sound out, but she’ll dissemble the syllables a thousand times and figure out the spelling faster than anyone else.

Astounding.

Beth’s never been called that before.

-

That night, after hours upon hours of reading, Jolene hovering around to help with the longer words with feigned reluctance, she slides the book into the metal basket beneath her bed. She stacks it upon Mama’s book delicately, with all the careful precision a little girl can muster, the way she gently glides a piece along a rank. Like the squares beneath will fade to trails of smoke if she’s too rough.

She opens the toothbrush cup and peers into the contents. Five green capsules lay at the bottom, her own toy soldiers. She’s been saving up, and now the frontlines are packed and ready for thinning out.

Today’s game was a good one. She doesn’t want to forget. 

She’s careful.

She shakes two pills out and shifts them into the palm of her hand.

That night, the chessboard was as clear as ever.

-

Mr Ganz is an easy win. Her second win ever, but still - an easy win.

As easy as it is, she’s very insistent on memorizing each move. Reti, f5. Later, a knight to c6, and then he moves his queen to rook four, and it’s all over for him. By then, it’s mate in three. 

She wants to hold each winning piece close to her skin. They feel like warmth, and when that glow of success absorbs into her skin, Beth becomes silently indestructible.

He gifts her a doll. She stares at it, with its fried hair and cracking paint and ugly yellow pinafore. 

Mr Shaibel gives her a pointed look. Beth understands the messaging.

“Thank you very much,” she replies. Like planned-ahead chess moves, there’s a list of appropriate responses to everything that’s ever said to her and Beth knows the right selections to pick for every occasion. Otherwise, as Jolene had warned, she won’t get adopted. Yes ma’am, yes sir makes up most of the script, according to Jolene. 

She’s not sure if she even wants to be adopted, yet, but Jolene says it’s better than being a lifer. 

Mr Ganz tells her to shuffle up to Mr Shaibel to take a photograph. She feels herself stiffen when he brings his camera up and snaps the picture.

-

She ends up keeping the doll. It goes far beneath her bed, where she can’t see and can barely reach. 

Beth sees it for what it is. Cheaply produced. It’s nothing like the little bear. It’s nothing like the fog embroidery on her dress.

But the dress had gone up in flames, so Beth had to settle for the doll. She doesn’t even want to. 

-

Mr Fergusson calls for her, and she sees that calculating look that crosses over Jolene’s face.  The two girls scan over his hands for the obligatory headband but find none.

“Mr Ganz tells me you are a gifted child,” says Miss Deardorff when she arrives in her office. Like Mr Shaibel, Miss Deardorff is old, though nowhere near his age. She walks with a cane. 

“He has an unusual request to make,” she continued, “He would like you to be taken to the high school on…?”

“On Thursday,” Mr Ganz replied.

“On Thursday,” Mrs Deardorff repeated, “In the afternoon. He maintains that you are a phenomenal chess player. He would like you to perform for the chess club.”

“We have a dozen members, and I was suggesting to Mrs Deardorff that you come along and play all of them in a simultaneous,” he said.

She gives him a confused look. Beth knows many words, but simultaneous is not one of them.

“At the same time,”Mr Ganz explains.

“We like to give our girls a chance for experience outside whenever we can,” Miss Deardorff sighed, “But I’m a bit weary of letting Elizabeth go off to the local high school.”

Me Ganz fixed an adaptable smile to his face. “Oh, well, I would chaperone. I’d pick her up, take her to the school, then bring her straight back here.”

“I was thinking a young lady might also accompany her,” the headmistress suggested.

Beth jumps on the opportunity. “Can Jolene take me?” 

An awkward, nervous look overtakes Miss Deardorff’s face. Gently, she laughs. “Oh, well...Jolene is our oldest girl here, but I dare say she may not be the most responsible…”

“Please?” Beth presses, “She says she’s about to ‘age out.’”

Not for the first time today, Miss Deardorff sighs. “I don’t see why not.”

-

“Where are the green ones?” Beth asks. The paper cup in her hand holds only one pill, the brown vitamin for strength. But she doesn’t want strength. She wants to even her disposition.

“You don’t get them anymore.” 

She stares at Mr Fergusson, incredulous. She can barely see him, with her height, her chin only just an inch above the slot he stands out of to dispense medicine. Behind him, the massive jar of green vitamins loomed above.

“There they are, right behind you,” she points. It would be so easy for him to pop the lid and give her a few.

“I know where they are, Harmon, but I’m not gonna give them to you,” says Mr Fergusson. “We found out about some old state law from a few years ago. No tranquilizers for kids. Go figure.”

A girl behind her keeps on insisting Beth moves along. The line of orphans behind her is getting bored of standing. 

“‘Go thou further off,’” he orders, “‘Bid me farewell, and let me here thee going.’”

She stares at him “...What?”

“Beat it,” he says bluntly.

There’s only one pill left in her cup that night.

-

It’s obvious that Jolene’s out of her element as they enter the Duncan High science lab. She eyes the building with anxiety, but excitement, the same way she had stared beyond the windowsill of the car as they’d driven through the town. Beth wonders how long it’s been since Jolene has been able to leave Methuen. Too long.

A bell rang, startling Beth. 

“Good luck, cracker,” says Jolene. She has a debating look on her face, like she’s considering something, but she shakes her head and steps off to the corner of the room to spectate.

The room immediately fills with teenage boys. Most, if not all, stare at her with scoffing, proud-of-themselves looks. Like she’s not even worth sizing up.

Mr Ganz tells them to line up at the square of desks and explains the rules of a simultaneous. She plays all of them, one move at a time, and none of them can make their move until she’s opened at every board. She can hardly reach the board, standing on the tips of her toes.

She starts with e4 for each of them, the King's Pawn opening.

It isn’t long before the friends of the boy’s show up, stragglers of the chess club that didn’t want to play, for reasons Beth cannot fathom. They murmur amongst themselves, watching over her. Jolene’s confidence finally appears and she starts to converse with them. She absorbs into a group of teenage girls that snicker, amused when Beth easily beats Charles Levy, supposedly the school’s best player and Jolene’s age. He doesn’t take it well as she devours his backwards pawns before demolishing the game with a knight-rook combo.

By the time they leave, it’s with a box of chocolates for Beth’s win, a boy’s information for Jolene, and a long line of teenagers who will never look at a chessboard the same way again. A dozen checkmates and something inside Beth swells. 

“He wants to become a lawyer,” said Jolene as they filed back into the sole Methuen dorm. They’d just returned to the familiar depths of the basement for Beth to cover the simultaneous with Mr Shaibel. “Have his own firm and all.”

“What’s a lawyer?” She asks.

“Someone with power,” Jolene explains ambiguously, “Influence. And a lot of money.”

Beth nods in understanding, clamouring up onto her bed. It’s a little bit difficult, but soon, it’ll be November and she’ll get taller. “Do you want to be a lawyer?”

Jolene pauses. “Maybe I do. Anyway - if only you could’ve seen yourself, honey. Knocking the pride right off their faces. It wasn’t even two hours.”

Beth  chances a smile. “They all tried the dumbest attacks.” 

“Did it feel good?” Jolene asks.

She ran her fingers along the cardboard of the chocolate box. “It did. I’ve never won anything before.”

-

Jolene calls them withdrawals.

According to her, just about the collective entirety of Methuen was suffering through them. The paranoia. The sweat. The constant shivers. The cravings for more, more, more.

Beth asks incessantly. Jolene always looks away.

-

It still wasn’t even November. She’d yet to hit six years old.

And yet, here she was in Miss Deardorff’s office’s waiting room. Again.

She taps against the crackly plastic of the seat beneath her. Her ears are pricked in an attempt to pick up on any conversation inside.

Mr Shaibel had proposed it to her the other day over a game.

There was an upcoming tournament, conveniently hosted right here in Lexington. The Kentucky State Open. Mr Shaibel, along with a pair of identical strangers involved with the event, thought she had a chance.

Immediately, she was on board. More chess. Harder components. A more satisfying win. 

But here came the difficult part - convincing Mrs Deardorff.

Her hand grips the seat tighter. Her name gets called.

-

She likes Matt and Mike. They’re funny, though she can see they’re underestimating her. So, right there in the office, they break out the chess sets from the games closet and she does a simultaneous against the twins and Mr Shaibel. Good times. 

Matt and Mike are more advanced than the boys from the chess club. They see most of their backwards pawns, hold together decent structures, and once they see her attacks coming they wisen up and stop their early mating attacks. They hadn’t expected any challenge from her. 

A grin crosses on her face as she slides a bishop that pins Matt’s knight. He stares at the board and pushes his face into his hands. “So that’s the feeling of my pride dwindling.”

She moves onto Mike, crossing a rook along an open file. She lets her smile tilt a little wider. The twins and Shaibel look over the board and, by then, they see the forced mate that’s a move away. He kicks his king down and it’s not long, really only two moves later, that Matt’s king follows. 

There’d been difficulties, here and there. They’d blocked some of her attacks that others wouldn’t see coming, and Matt had a pretty good defense setup around his king, but they’d quickly succumbed to her pieces. Scarcely an hour had passed.

Mr Shaibel’s game was not dissimilar, though his mistakes are far more infrequent. But the start of a mate in four when he’s too occupied with pinning a bishop to catch and it’s all over for him.

Miss Deardorff smiles at the twins many times before finally cementing her agreement. The twins are to pick her up and take her to the event every morning and take her back to Methuen when the day’s over. She’s to pay back the entry fee if she wins any money at all, which the twins and Shaibel (and Beth) are certain she will. Five days lay ahead of nothing but chess.

-

They step out of the car, pulled right up to the front of the Henry Clay High School building.  Rather than teenage students, men of mostly middle age or slightly younger spill around the campus. They enter the double-door entrance and Matt and Mike immediately head to a table beneath a large banner, declaring Welcome to the Kentucky State Championship, 1963.

“So,” says Mike, clapping his hands together. “Should we put her in the beginners, or the open?” 

“Open. You’ve seen her play,” says Matt. 

Mike shakes his head in disagreement. “Still. She’s five, and I hear Beltik’s showing up. As good as she is, she’ll get eaten alive.” 

“Put me in the open,” says Beth. 

Mike grins, but shakes his head. “You’re very good, but you’ve never played a grandmaster.” 

“The open is for the better players, right?” She asks. 

Matt nods. “Yes, but-”

“Put me in the open.”

The twins exchange unsure looks.

“She’s unrated as well,” Mike points out. “Rule of thumb is that unrated players go with the section under 1600. And some players might kick up a fuss having to play a child.” 

“I just wanna’ play chess,” says Beth, huffing in frustration.

Somehow, she ends up in the unrated section of the open. 

-

Annette Packer is kind, yet certainly confused. Matt and Mike have to accompany her to the table and explain Beth’s presence. They decide that Matt will spectate Beth for the duration of the tournament, keeping an eye on her as Miss Deardorff had asked them too, while Mike stayed at the desk. 

Other players notice as well. Beth can feel their eyes, picking up on the scarce mutter that picks up among the room. But playing has to begin and people’s focus drifts from the girl in the open whose feet don't even touch the floor.

“You must have started playing when you were a baby,” Annette assumes.

They watch as a man walks right  up to their desk, but just to refill his coffee. A clunky machine to produce it takes up most of their table. Notably, they’re the only females competing, and they’ve been put together instantly. 

Beth shakes her head. “No. ‘Few months ago.”

“Really?” Annette’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s very impressive-”

They’re interrupted. The man who had gotten coffee projects his voice across the room, announcing that the pairings may start their clocks, the functions of which Annette had just described to her.

Annette, predictably, plays e4 and then quickly tells Beth about a rule called ‘touch-move.’ 

They get a few moves in. For the entire opening, a gentle smile has been pasted to her face, supportive words leaving her lips. She’s very patient, but keeps on expecting for Beth to forget how to move the pieces. 

No other teams have finished their match by the time Matt’s escorting her to the table, grinning widely. “That was fast. I knew you’d fit in well with the Open.” 

Mike does a double-take when she shows up, glancing at his watch in disbelief. “Already?” 

As she’s instructed, she circles her name on the slip she’d been given, which indicates that she had won, and drops it in the basket. As she and Matt head back to the auditorium, a man Beth had spotted earlier walks past briskly. He stares at her for a short moment. 

Beth looks back at him, fixating at his brown eyes. The man looks up to Matt, then simply shrugs and walks down the stairs. 

-

They aimlessly walk  around the room, waiting for the next few games to finish and for Mike to figure out the next alignment of players. Her eyes trace over chessboard after chessboard, analysing the players’ games. That’s blunder, she thinks errantly, watching a smoking man move a piece. 

Some of the player’s eyes raise, watching the girl walk past. They look up to Mike for an explanation but only receive a smile. 

“Top boards?” She reads aloud, staring at a sign posted to the walls that section of an area of the room. 

“It’s where the highest rated games happen,” says Mike. 

“Can we go to see?” She asks hopefully. Maybe she’ll see some better games there. 

Mike considers it. “Alright, but we’ll have to be quiet.”

They enter. Two boards are laid out, each, of course, seating a pair of players. One table amasses a large crowd, which seems to consist entirely of men. Mike grabs her hand and  leads her to an opening in the group.

“They’re Beltik and Cullen,” says a voice, whispering. Beth looks up and sees the man from earlier, watching the game with crossed arms. “Beltik’s the younger one.”

She nods but doesn’t dare to speak. Not when she barely reaches the hip’s of everyone in the crowd. Not when she’s getting so many odd looks. Not when the quiet of the crowd is so palpable that the man beside her and Mike might as well be the most daring human being in existence. 

Cullen takes Beltik’s knight with a queen but Beltik looks unbothered. Beth looks over the board and sees it very quickly - Beltik’s got a very easy path to mate.

“Draw?” Cullen asks.

“Hell no,” remarks Beltik.  A simple move of his castle and Cullen’s fate is clear. Once the black queen takes the rook, Beltik simply takes with his own queen, and then he gets a backrank mate. 

Cullen pushes down his queen - resignation. They shake hands and the crowd bursts into applause. 

A smile lilts Beth’s lips as she follows the crowd, clapping as well. 

She watches Beltik leave, even as Mike starts to lead her away. 

He looks like the only real competition in this room. 

She wants to play Beltik. 

-

Cooke scoffs, chuckles, and folds his arms throughout the entire game. She recognises the look in his spectacle-covered eyes very clearly - sizing her up as no real threat. An easy win. Just like the boy’s in Ganz’ simultaneous. 

But he’s wrong. He’s so very, very wrong. 

She boredly takes his bishop with her queen, swinging her legs in some attempt to entertain herself. Beth watches Cooke scrawl on a notepad, recording the latest move. She taps the clock and he takes her queen with his rook, looking very proud of himself. 

She moves her bishop and watches him pause, blinkling. 

“That’s check,” she points out. Maybe he can’t tell. 

“I know what it is, little girl.”  

He blocks with his queen, wearing a challenging ‘how are you gonna beat that’ look. His ego hasn’t fallen, not yet, but it’s about to. She takes with her bishop, watching as the light in Cooke’s eyes fades. 

He clears his throat and pretends to have dignity. “Draw?” 

Beth’s debating whether or not to take it when her eyes drift up, spotting the man. The one with the briefcase, dark hair, and brown eyes. He puts a cigarette between his lips and shakes his head. 

She looks back to Cooke and mimic’s the man’s head shake. Not a chance, cocksucker. 

The man nods slowly, swallowing back his pride. “You got me. I resign.”

Beth translates it to you win as she watches the man from earlier smile at her, walking away.

Later, Mike pastes her name to the list of undefeated players. Undefeated. Another word Beth memorises, clings to, stores in the atriums of her heart.

“Harmon?” A vaguely-familiar voice calls. 

She turns around - it’s the man from earlier. His smile is lined with what she thinks  must be pride, but not the kind that Cooke had. Rather, it’s the sort of pride she could see in her Mama every time she broke out the chalkboard and Beth understood the chalk equations written there in seconds. Pride for another person. 

“Keep it up, kid,” he says.

She nods. 

Undefeated.

-

Jolene laughs, her body shaking with the force of it as she lays back on the mattress. Beth sits at the end of Jolene’s bed and explains the entire tournament in detail. She’d told Shaibel, too, showing him the moves on his chessboard. To both Shaibel and Jolene, she relays every move obsessively. Sure, Cooke was an incredibly easy match, but it didn’t change how that golden cloud she identified as happiness unfolded within her. Something hummed inside her, bursting at the seams. She’d won. Elizabeth Harmon loves to win, just the feeling of watching an opposing king go down means more than any ugly doll ever will. 

And Cooke was only one game. She’d won four in total, and had climbed right up the ladder. Players had taken notice. Word had gotten out about her. People are impressed. 

People are impressed by her.

That night, without the pills, she never sees the chessboard. 

She closes her eyes.

-

 Matt says she has to play a whopping thirty games at USCF tournaments and wait four months to be given a rating, and Beth needs a rating to go against the actually good players, like Beltik. But she doesn’t have that kind of time, or patience, and she knows that asking Miss Deardorff for another thirty chess tournaments is a losing game. 

“I want to play Beltik,” she insists. Beth has to play Beltik. She has to be at the very top, she has to kick Beltik from his throne and feel that prideful sensation of success burn inside her. 

Winning is an inexplicably amazing feeling. Like everything is right in the world. Like everything is in place, aligned. She needs it, craving it, just like she needs those pills. Winning makes her being sing, flutter, shine. She has to be at the top. Failure is not an option.

“If you win your next three games, and Beltik does the same,” says Matt.

“I will win them.” 

Of course she will. There’s no other choice. 

Mike sighs and tries to break it to her gently. “No, Harmon, you won’t. You have to play Sizemore or Goldman first. You can’t beat either of them. You have to lower your expectations.”

“Sizemore and Goldman?” Repeats Matt, “Sh-”

Mike swats at him for reasons inexplicable to Beth. “She’s five!”

“Uh, sugar ,” says Matt hurriedly, “That’s what I was going to say. Anyway, Townes, the guy you’re playing now, is underrated. That means his rating is lower than it should be. Last month he came in fifth at Las Vegas.”

Mike snickers. “You’re good for your age, Harmon, but come on. You have to lower your expectations.” 

She breathes deeply through her nose in frustration. Her fists clench. Mama had always praised her for never being one to throw a ‘temper tantrum’ like other children do, but she’s tempted. She’ll show them. 

“What’s in Las Vegas?”

“The US Open,” says Matt. “That’s the most important chess tournament in America. It’s where all the best players compete to be the US Champion.”

-

Mike takes her to play Townes, and as it turns out, he’s the man who told her not to take the draw at her match with Cooke. He grins when they approach. 

“If it isn’t Elizabeth Harmon,” he recognises as she takes a seat. 

She starts his clock - he plays as white.

E4, otherwise known as P-K4. The King’s Pawn Opening and the most common move.

He presses her clock.

She replies, pretty standardly, with her queen’s pawn. Taps the clock.

The game proceeds, and it’s the first time in a while that Beth’s been able to feel that the player she’s against is worth their salt. It’s like playing with Shaibel. The knowledge, the experience, the pure talent radiates off of Townes. She imagines it rubbing off like golden dust onto the pieces and she takes pleasure in capturing them, feeling her hands grip that same stuff and absorb it into her skin. 

The game moves along. It isn’t too long before there’s an entirely new game happening beside them. That familiar, welcome feeling of pride seeps back into her as she watches Townes’ ninety minutes dwindle away while she’s used up scarcely any of her allotted hour and a half. 

The game starts to stretch out, the clocks starting to approach the red flag that tops them. A small, curious cluster of players become drawn to the match. The duo playing beside them lose focus on their own match in favour of watching Harmon VS Townes. 

The game gets much more tense when Beth starts to chase Townes’ rook with her king. One square at a time.  

Their little audience starts to mutter amongst themselves as they watch the board, discussing the moves. More  people have noticed, and almost everybody who isn’t consumed in their own match is watching. 

Townes tries to relocate his rook somewhere it can escape its fate, gliding it right across the rank. A simple knight move shows that there’s nowhere for it to go. 

Along with his king, confined to the square. Mate. 

She watches, smiling, as he circles her surname on the paper sheet. 

“Damn,” he grins, reaching his hand out to shake. She takes it. “How old are you?” 

She goes to reply but he cuts her off. “Don’t answer that. Nevermind, it’ll just depress me.”

Beth just smirks. If this had happened a few years later, when she was a decade older, she’d have an arsenal of witty replies at her disposal. 

“You really are something, you know that?”

Something. 

-

She wins her three games and so does Beltik, and yet, her King’s Pawn Opening has gone unresponded to for a frankly disrespectful amount of time. For minutes on end, she’d sat there irritated. Nobody of her age wants to sit still for that long. But moving might mean disqualification. 

Matt and Mike stand opposite to her, right behind where Beltik should be. They get a perfect view of the board and by extension, her. They’re as expectant as anybody else.

Despite the absence of Beltik, the massive crowd, consisting of literally all attendees of the tournament, haven’t moved a muscle. They chatter amongst themselves about all things chess but they’re voices are quiet, muffled by their anticipation. Everybody, beneath their breath, is talking about the little girl who is meant to play against their state’s top player. Harry Beltik. Notorious Kentucky champion. 

It’s an abysmal amount of time before the man himself pushes through the crowd, which quickly part for him. He shows up at least, standing above the table and holding up his steaming cup in explanation. He’s casual and clearly unbothered. “Sorry. Extra cup of coffee.” 

His chess clock ticks away as he takes a long sip of his drink. The noise of him slurping it down is disgustingly loud in the near-silent room.

 “Harry Beltik,” he says, outstretching his hand. “What’s your name?”

Yet another offense. It took zero effort to check the list. 

“Elizabeth Harmon.”

He nods, finally sitting down. “Did they not have a children’s section?”

“No.”

“That’s unfortunate. How difficult that must be for you,” he says. 

He plays c6 and finally taps the clock. 

c6. She hadn’t seen that coming. 

She pulls out her knight to Nf3 and he moves his Queen’s pawn to d5, creating a diagonal line across the board. She hurries to record her moves in scratchy handwriting. Unlike Beltik, she cares about being quick. She responds with her other knight, hits the clock. 

He stares at her, fixating at her with that same challenging look he’d been giving Cullen their entire match. 

Then it’s an early bishop attack, threatening her knight. As he records it, he takes a long, stretching yawn, revealing his set off molars yellowed by his choice of drink, the smell of which hits her. It’s revolting. 

She stares at him. Makes a move. He takes the bishop, sacrificing it for whatever reason, and she takes back with her pawn. According to Modern Chess Openings, knights and bishops are the same in value, three points each, but he’s not considered her queen, which she uses to take his bishop. Now, she’s ahead in value.

But things start to go wrong. He keeps on pulling out threats that force her to retreat her pieces, losing her control of the centre. Things are falling apart. 

They keep playing. It’s a few moves later, and Beth’s castling when he dares to yawn again. As if this is all beneath him.

A move or two later, and Beth puts her hands at her temples, her elbows on the table. If Miss Deardorff were her, she’d lecture her for her manners. But Beltik wasn’t giving her any respect, so why should she?

They both move their kings by one square and do a  pawn trading sequence. 

And it leaves her staring at the sixty four squares at a complete loss.

Practically never, at least not since her very first match with Shaibel, has she been losing like this. Her throat tightens and so does her chest. 

“B-be right back,” she stammers, ripping herself out of her chair. 

She shoves through the crowd and can hear the moment of panic between Matt and Mike, who aren’t allowed to let her out of their sight. They quickly materialise behind her as she ducks into some hallway.

“You okay, Harmon?” Mike worries. 

“I’m fine,”  she seethes, “Fine.”

She shoves into the women’s bathroom and hopes they take it as an excuse. 

She’s losing. Beth’s losing. 

She takes a deep breath, staring at the mirror. She barely reaches the sink, only seeing the top of her hair in the mirror. She knows what she needs. 

Beth had gotten lucky - very lucky. Jolene had been all out, but she asked around. Somebody had given a few to the newcomer, Samantha, who simply didn’t want them. 

She shifts her total amount, three of the green vitamins, out of her pocket and right into her palm and swallows them back.

She waits a long moment before raising her eyes. 

It had been far too long, but at last, she saw the ceiling chessboard.

-

Unlike Beltik’s lack of punctuality, Beth doesn’t waste time. She only allows herself a few precious minutes before she’s back at the board, Mike and Matt reinstating themselves at the front of the crowd to watch. 

She takes his knight with her own and hits the clock. She stares at him the entire time, her gaze piercing into his blue eyes.

After a moment of hesitation, he takes back with his rook, and she pushes a pawn. He could take, but she knows he won’t. He moves his pawn forward instead and she takes with her bishop.

A long moment passes. She watches obsessively as Beltik draws in a deep breath. The crowd is eerily silent as he moves his queen to d5. 

She bites back her smile. Moves her bishop. The mating sequence is so, so obvious. 

“Son of a bitch,” he cusses. Beth  visualises Miss Deardorff washing his mouth out with soup, then imagines using the soap to wipe any smugness he’s ever had right off his face.

“That’s it.”

“No, I can get out of this.”

“I don’t think so,” she disagrees. “Maybe, if you’d gotten here on time…”

He stares at her, layers in his expression that Beth’s yet to decrypt. She estimates that it’s a mix of shame, anger, and disappointment swirling in his face.

He makes a move just to be stubborn, moving his rook to check her.

“It doesn’t work. I don’t have to use the queen-”

“Move.”

“I’ll just cover it with the bishop, and-”

“Move,” he insists, frustrated.

Beth covers with the bishop. He takes a pawn of her’s with his knight. She checks with a rook.and he’s only got one square to go. Wth her queen, she takes his knight, and with that square…it’s checkmate.

She stays silent. Lets him stew in it. 

Beltik smiles at her. “Son of a bitch.”

His queen goes down and the applause is instantaneous. 

-

After several days of hearing the Methuen girls gossip about her entrance into a local magazine column, running over her games with Mr Shaibel dozens of times, and trying to teach a reluctant Jolene the rules of chess, she gets called to Miss Deardorff’s office. 

But this time, when Mr Fergusson calls her down, he holds a thin, flowery headband in his grip. 

She had thought it would be something about another tournament, or maybe Mr Ganz again, but no. She knows what it is when she sees the headband. It’s a rite of passage for every Methuen girl. 

“He seems like a nice sort of person,” says Mr Fergusson. “If not odd.”

She enters into the small, doorway-like area that separates the office from the hallway. Biting down on her lip, she dons the accessory, patting down her hair. 

Of course, Miss Deardorff is there, her neat, painted lips smiling at Beth. 

But Beth looks away, down to one of the two chairs at Deardorff’s desk. 

All she sees is a wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

“Elizabeth, dear,” beckons the headmistress. “You’re a devoted chess player. Tell me, have you heard of somebody called Benny Watts?”

Chapter Text

Call it a right time, right place kind of thing. Like spontaneously finding a hidden checkmate.

Benny had been driving through Lexington after an easy tournament he’d distracted himself with. Nothing big, with no real competition in the lineup, but there had been a decent cash prize, and Benny had been in the area.

But after demolishing the easy matches with hardly a blink of an eye - the guy he’d gone against vying for first place clearly hadn’t done his homework and tried the Caro-Kann - he had heard through the grapevine of chess nerds that there was a bigger competition around. Just a state down in Lexington. The Kentucky State Championship.

It wasn’t worth the gas, but the names there were bigger than what he last faced. Beltik, who Benny had beaten every time they were against each other in Vegas, and Townes, who’s a lesser-known player and journalist. He’s heard Beltik’s getting close to a grandmaster title, and Townes is like Benny in the way that he's always on the move, so he figured he’d come and scope them out. Maybe Beltik’s finally Vegas material. Maybe Towne’s chess habit is getting to be more than a hobby. 

And then the second he arrives, he finds out that there’s a kid playing, somebody called Harmon, and his plan collapses. 

Benny’s played kids before in his adulthood, but he prefers not to. There’s nothing but shame, seeing a ten-year-old’s life leave their eyes when put against somebody with a frankly unfair amount of experience. And Benny’s been that kid before. It was rare that he didn’t win, but when he’d been young enough to be considered a prodigy, it wasn’t just a loss. It was the silent disappointment that shrouded a dysfunctional family like a cloak. It was sympathetic but unsurprised looks from whoever it was against. It was quivering as you shook a much larger hand. 

So, as a rule of thumb, he avoids tournaments featuring the latest prodigies, at least the younger ones. The sixteen-year-olds missing their high school exams are better, since they’ve already got a few losses under their belt. They’re the type who sigh and straighten up as soon as he offers any advice. Maybe they'll kick themselves later, but they’re used to it. The small adolescents who roam between boards are harder to let down easily. 

With the kids that are eight, nine, ten, it’s nothing but shame and a brisk hand shake, making himself scarce, because he knows what it’s like to stare at a board full of toppled pieces and not even understand how you fucked up. Everybody gets the world swept out from underneath their feet eventually, but nobody wants to be the guy who's pulling the checkerboard carpet out. Chances are the kid wouldn't even get far enough to go against him, but it's not worth the risk.

So, Benny shrugs it off and plans to stay for just the first day of the tournament to spectate, then leave the town in his rearview mirror and head back to New York for the time being. 

He’s against the wall, grimacing at what has to be the worst coffee in his life. There’s a girl walking around, maybe seventeen, who’s presumably Harmon, and he kicks himself. She’s old enough to understand. Seventeen was when he hit the top, but god knows he suffered a few losses throughout his prodigy era. Then he’d hit eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and he wasn’t special anymore. Not when there was always a handful of Soviet teens running about, ascending higher and higher and completely blind to what happens once you were too old for your grandmaster title to be worth anything at the big leagues.

And then he sees one of the twins - well-known around the States for being active in organising and hosting events - tailing a girl who's so young she literally doesn’t reach the tables. A genuine ankle biter. Seven? No, younger, she looks like she hasn’t even started school yet. Six, he guessed. Impressive - he had exclusively gone to children’s tournaments that young. It wasn’t until he was seven that he played against the adults, and by the time he was eight, he was against players like Najdorf and earning himself a renowned reputation in chess.

There’s a smile on the girl’s face, that little grin that says I’m the king of the world and all will fall to my reign. That fleeting shine, an orb expanding from her body, dappling in the sun that fell in dusty rays from the high windows. He’s learnt that the gold metal of a trophy can manifest in a person, coating over their body and seeping into their skin where they can cling it to their flesh and convince themselves that it never leaves. The visible glow of winning, which for anybody - but especially a prodigy - means the world has finally clicked into place. 

Harmon, unrated.

Good for her, then. She was going places, places he's been before. For a while, that shimmering veil of victory will stay, but at some point, it will be ripped clean off. And she’ll kick her feet and cry, and her parents will give her hell, but then she’ll learn. There will be wins, and there will be losses, and there will be supposed ‘guardians’ whose eyes go blinded by the glint of a prize and the green of paper notes. And then, maybe, she’ll claw her way out of whatever plateau she inevitably hits. 

Benny Watts sure did, the dust of all the players he left behind embedded beneath his fingernails.

This is a game he’s played before, something he knows well. He can see the future career the girl will have, watch it in the palm of his hand.

He gives up on the coffee break and returns to his prior domain, the top boards section, disappearing behind the wall partitions. There are two boards, but everybody's at Beltik vs Cullen, where the real heats at. 

He takes one look at the board. It’s predictable from here. Cullen would have to resign or offer a draw, but even Beltik wouldn’t accept that. It's clear that the game is in his favour.

One of the twins enters the crowd, leading the kid, Harmon. She has a head of red hair that is so bright that she has no hope of using her miniature height to blend in, and she seems to be the only female in the group. Women were rare at chess tournaments and little girls were even scarcer, but in his experience, Benny hasn’t found any difference playing competitors of different genders. 

Cullen takes Beltik's knight, but it doesn’t matter; they both know it’s over. As a last pathetic failsafe that means he’s grasping at straws, Cullen offers a draw.

“Hell no,” says Beltik. Eloquent. He moves the rook, queen takes, queen takes back and mate. Applause.

He watches the little girl’s eyes attach to Beltik, and he knows what she's thinking - she wants to play against him.

Unlikely. Beltik’s underrated, and while he's insignificant among US grandmasters at the big events, he’s guaranteed to win this Open. 

Poor kid’s just canon fodder. 

Or so he thinks.

-

Then he watches Harmon beat Cooke, who wears a smug, looking-down-upon expression that slowly erodes in disbelief and embarrassment as he violently loses, his ego unsalvageable. 

Benny knows the type. They see a kid across from them and think cute, but good luck. The type that think that the children they play against are just that, children, and surely they can beat them. 

The girl is so visibly bored by Cooke’s lacklustre playing that he can see her legs swinging beneath the desk, her eyes sliding elsewhere. Harmon barely even looks at the pieces she moves. Cooke had just taken her queen, and it was clear he thought she wouldn't have noticed, but the check that she immediately follows with had been so obvious from the start that it’s comical.

Throughout the match, Cooke has so little sportsmanship that it’s actually disgraceful. He scoffs repeatedly, smirking and folding his arms, all while staying totally blind to the fact that he was losing. 

Cooke finally realises and offers a draw that the kid definitely shouldn’t take, but chances are she doesn’t know any better, which is unfortunate, and a petty move on Cooke’s part. He knows she’s too inexperienced to reject the draw, too unsure of herself. She hasn’t found her footing and Cooke wants to take advantage of that.

Benny notices Townes’ presence, watching the game as well. When the kid just so happens to look up, Townes shakes his head, and Benny agrees. The girl can win. She shouldn’t take the draw.

Unsurprisingly, she wins. Harmon ends up on the undefeated players list.

-

It’s Benny’s time to take off. 

But he doesn’t. It’s stupid to stick around for a tournament he’s not even participating in, but curiosity has him buying a cheap room to stay the night. 

There hasn’t been a U.S prodigy worth their salt in years, and there certainly haven't been any little girls that play like Elizabeth Harmon…ever.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have anywhere to be. Some place in Indiana was one of the last tournaments he could justify travelling to that he hadn’t already competed in, and boredom had Benny drifting. He’d mostly just been on the road for a few months, knocking out tournaments and visiting friends. The various cities, cheap motels, and old faces had meshed into each other through the spanning weeks. He’s trying to lose himself in it, to set himself back into that old ryththm. 

Eh. It’s entertainment to fill the void until the US Open in a few months. That’s all Benny ever really does nowadays - waiting for Vegas. He’s too good for the States, not good enough for the Soviets, so he’s left at a weird impasse, not exactly improving, and left to wait until somebody else gets good enough to knock him off his ass. How unfathomable this all would have been to Benny when he was seventeen.

Prodigies have their reigns, and then they go obscure. Good for Harmon. Maybe he’ll see her again in a few years, even get to play against her. 

But that will probably be it.

-

With the masses, Benny joins the group of people who abandon the top boards in favour of watching Harmon vs Townes. 

For the first time, the girl actually has competition.

It's a long match, with their clocks ticking away, but for the first time, Benny sees an intriguing game. It's compelling, riveting - and this is chess they’re talking about - and it’s no surprise that the game causes almost all spectators to flood around the table to watch. 

One square at a time, little fingers traversing the board, Harmon starts to chase Townes’ rook. Townes has nowhere to go but to slide it all the way across the rank where there's a knight waiting, and the predicament leaves his king confined to its square, mate.

When Benny joins the applause, it’s actually genuine, rather than just social norms. 

The kid’s good. 

A prodigy in her own right.

-

Day five.

Benny, like many others, think Harmon’s undefeated streak has finally come to an end against Beltik. He's being an ass, coming late and drinking coffee between moves without so much of a glance at his dwindling time, and it's clear he sees this as just another win. 

It's morbid stuff, watching the girl freeze up, and Benny’s glad he didn't compete. Nobody wants to be Beltik in this situation, wondering if the kid across from you is going to cry.

She’s left with a slightly trembling lip and her elbows propped on the table, with nothing but the sound of precious seconds ticking away. 

Take the knight , Benny thinks. From there, the game is still salvageable.

Harmon mutters something and pries herself out of her chair, which isn't easy considering her feet don’t even touch the floor. She disappears into the direction of the bathroom, and quiet murmurs spread through the crowd.

But the kid comes back in minutes, and he can tell that she's figured it out.

She takes the knife and hits his clock. He’s nearly out of time.

He takes back with his rook, they both push pawns, she takes with her bishop and the ensuing mating sequence is beautiful. There's an elegance to it, a poise, sharp moves that absolutely turn the tables. Beltik loses control of what had previously been a game in his favour.

And the kid isnt perfect. She shouldn’t have castled. If it were somebody higher up than Beltik, she would have lost her advantage right then and there. Anybody at Vegas would have seen it.

But for her age, she is something astounding - words that he’d grown used to being told growing up. His draw with Najdorf at eight-years-old had been what really kicked off the era of similar compliments everywhere he went within the chess world.

Remarkable. Brilliant. A genius. Benny Watts was undefeated. 

Later, a journalist is interviewing Beltik, who waves him over. Turns out the kid is a five year old orphan. Five, and she wiped the floor with every opponent she faced, and was even getting an article written about her. He’d almost been a pre-teen before his career got a start like this.

He and Beltik give their interviews and Beltik’s disbelieving grin is so wide that he’s forgotten he lost his reigning title. The journalist draws a lot of parallels between Benny’s prodigy years and Harmon’s playing and it’s clear the story they’re painting.

Benny and Beltik set up a board and play a few matches, even go over the Harmon game for fun. Beltik’s blown away when Benny describes how he could have won, how he could have gotten the upper hand when Harmon castled, and the look of realization that crosses Beltik’s face is comedic gold. He and Beltik aren’t necessarily friends, at least not before this. They’d only really interacted at Vegas. But professional chess players are a rare breed, and there’s always something they can teach each other. He knows Beltik learnt a thing or two from their discussions. Maybe he’ll contend better at the next Open.

He’d been checking out of his lodgings when there was a knock on his door, one of the motel's workers waiting on the other side. 

From one Helen Deardorff, calling from Methuen Orphanage. 

Directed his way by somebody called Harry. 

Fucking Beltik.

-

If you told Benny Watts that he was going to seriously consider adopting a five-year-old, him, Benny Watts, he’d laugh in your face.

And yet, here he was.

“It was a mistake giving you my motel number,” he mutters to Beltik over the phone. 

He can practically feel Beltik smirking. “The orphanage folks work quick, then.”

“What were you thinking?” He nearly seethes. But he isn't angry. Disbelieving, maybe. 

“I was thinking that the kid’s too good to stay in some orphanage and never have a real grandmaster to hone her talent,” says Beltik. “There’s no one in Kentucky, at least that I know of, who's at her speed. And you've seen her play.” 

“I'm qualified exclusively in chess,” he argues. “I can't even remember the last time I saw a child, let alone adopted one.”

Defensively, Beltik says, “Well, that headmistress called asking me about it first, but I’ve got other priorities right now. I thought somebody else might be up for the job.”

“So you gave her my number instead?” Benny mutters incredulously.

“She asked if I had any recommendations! The kid’s leagues ahead of me, but you…”

The call continues, with Beltik not giving up with his attempts to convince Benny. He talks about how the nerdy world of Chess will love it, how he’ll get to see the kid’s potential, how nobody else currently in Kentucky is qualified to mentor her. 

“Regardless of the chess thing, I’d still have to adopt her. Maybe I could teach her a thing or two, but I’m not qualified for childcare,” says Benny, not for the first time. “I don’t even have siblings, and I think I babysat a cousin once in my teenage years.”

“Not qualified, huh?” He says slowly. As if having a lightbulb moment, Beltik asks, “How about we make a bet?”

He’d scoff, but admittedly, his interest is already piqued just at the prospect of a bet.  His hands have known the touch of too many card decks, he supposes.

Maybe Benny has a problem when it comes to gambling, but that’s an issue for another time.

“A bet?” He echoes. 

He can feel the smugness palpitating off Beltik on the other side of the line. “Well, if you think you’re not qualified to make Harmon the next U.S Champion in five years, then…”

Benny straightened up. 

Prick. 

It’s irrational, unrealistic, and stupid-

And exactly the kind of choice he’d make when he'd been a seventeen-year-old riding off the high of being undefeated, shining with the knowledge of being a prodigy, glowing with that swelling feeling that meant winning.

No. Benny’s in no place to do this. It’s a laughable thought, ridiculous, because in what world could he adopt a kid?  

He bickers about it with Beltik more, and-

“There’s another tournament in Cincinatti, right?” Beltik says abruptly. 

Benny furrows his brows. “So I hear. Do you think she’ll be there?” 

He can practically feel the cogs that must be turning in Beltik’s mind. “Call the orphanage, Benny. So you don’t want to adopt her. Fair enough-”

Benny sighs. “What are you getting at?” 

“You don’t have to adopt her, per se,” Beltik says. “But you could try your hand at chess coaching her while you’re still in town. Give the headmistress a call.” 

“Beltik-”

“Just do it,” Beltik insists, “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?” 

Benny, at first, scowls - but then it softens. 

He rolls his fingers over the perpetual, phantom dice. 

Benny hangs up the phone. 

-

He extends his stay at the motel and calls the headmistress back. 

They figure out an arrangement. He’ll come by the orphanage, talk things out in person, and meet the kid. Then, if all seems all right, he’s taking her to Cincinnati, supervising her for the tournament - giving her advice, making sure she’s fed, so on - after, he’ll take her back to Kentucky. The orphanage will pass the hat around Lexington and dip into the girls’ prize winnings from the state championship to fund it all. 

He’s shaking his head to himself the whole drive, rolling over the most desolate gravel roads he's ever seen with even barer, duller trees dotting the sides.

Benny can’t believe he’s doing this. The idea still doesn’t sit right with him.

There are, surely, better options than him. Townes. Beltik. A fucking Soviet, even. He’ll wager that Townes would say yes, and he’s sure there are plenty of actual chess coaches, the people who actually make a living teaching kids the game, who’d be willing to do it.

But Beltik and Deardorff wanted him for the job, and he’ll admit, it would be nice to see the kid play again. To guide her through the eventual fuck-ups that always come in a prodigy's career and show her how to come out on top of it. And besides, it was just for a few weeks. Benny’s got time to waste.

He had the sense to leave the knife back in the motel. The rest of his typical look he left on - if Deardorff wanted him for the job so bad, she could cope with how he looked.

She’d also have to cope with him having absolutely no experience when it came to childcare, but she knew what she was getting into.

Which didn’t speak well of an establishment that claimed to be an exemplary girls’ orphanage. 

Benny pulls into the long driveway of the building, travelling right up to the front. When he climbs out of the Beetle, there's already a man waiting for him. 

The man narrows his eyes at him, looking him up and down. “You're not exactly the type to come here. Do you know if you've got the right place?”

He shifts on his feet, unsure of himself. “This is Methuen?”

“Yeah. Who are you here for?”

The question is blunt, to-the-point, but clearly laced with curiosity.

“Elizabeth Harmon,” Benny answers. “I’m-”

“You’re here for Harmon?”  The man echoes, “Yeah, I know who you are. Come with me.”

As the man leads him through the building, Benny can’t help but notice how generally miserable the place is. There was a sort of suffocating layout to the place, prompting a feeling that he wanted to be anywhere but here. 

He felt the looks of several cautious orphans, peering at him from doorways or atop stairwells. They were everywhere and of varying ages, most having similar, cropped haircuts and wearing nearly identical variants of bland uniforms.

As they headed down a hallway, his eyes landed on a sort of medicine-dispensing area, a little glass structure in a large hall. He could see a distinct, tall jar filled to the brim with ominous green pills. It was locked up tight.

As he glanced at the kids who walked about, Benny found himself unnerved as he noticed that they were all… jittery. The girls were all shaking, with wide eyes and skin that was sickly pale, their feeble bodies sheened with sweat. A majority of them looked like a sharp gust of wind would push them over for the last time. 

Many of the children seemed to be in the hall, staring at the jar of pills.

Withdrawals.

A chill travelled up his spine, and his posture straightened out.

Benny looks away. Keeps walking forward. Hopefully, he won’t have to be here for long. 

He’s taken to an office, given a short wait, then directed inside. It’s a small room, with the only dingy source of light filtering from lace curtains drawn across a windowsill. With dreary, faded wallpapers and the lingering scent of old paper, it’s as miserable as the rest of the building. Smiling up at him from a desk in the centre of the room was, if the desk’s nameplate was correct, Helen Deardorff. She’d been the one he’d spoken with on the phone. 

The woman, with as much subtlety as she can spare, looks him up and down. Undoubtedly, she’s regretting this - in the flesh, it’s clear he isn’t the sort of person who would take care of a child, even if it’s just for a few weeks. Unmarried. A gambler. Technically unemployed. Not even from Kentucky. By all means, they should not want his business here.

“You’re Benny Watts, yes?” She asked, grabbing a file from a stack. Stamped across it was the name Elizabeth Harmon. 

They go to shake hands, doing the typical introductory pleasantries, before he sits down and she flips open the folder. He spies a small picture at the top - the kid. Small and staring directly at the camera with widened eyes - even through the picture, he could feel the palpable fear radiating off of the image. It must have been taken right after something… tragic. A bad feeling twists in his gut. The girl is peering into the camera lens like a deer in headlights, frozen in what must be the worst day of her life. If he looks carefully, he’s pretty sure her feeble, five-year-old body was splotched with what he’d guess was blood. The bad feeling worsens. 

It was an orphanage, after all. He knows he should have expected this. The thick, choking feeling of sadness has permeated from the very walls of the orphanage, from the dullened gazes of the little girls that darted around, twitching like junkies on the street.

“So I’m given to understand there’s a chess tournament being held in Cincinnati,” says the headmistress, “Which you’ll be forgoing competing at, but rather, allowing Elizabeth to compete and…mentoring her, we’ll say.”

“Just as a temporary chess coach,” he clarifies, because like hell he’s actually going through with adoption. That’s laughable . There’s not a single person in the world who would entrust an orphaned, traumatised kid to him just because she’s good at chess. Him, of all people.

Miss Deardorffs smile tightens. He gets the feeling she’s going to bargain for more than he’s signing up for. But no matter what she says, Benny, for once, is not going all in. 

This is a one-time deal, aside from maybe some letters. He’s not the first guy to do something like this before. A lot of major players have a tendency to take up protégés - not that he’s calling this kid his ‘protégé’, but he’s saying he wouldn’t mind helping her out this one time. She’s got potential, sure, but Benny can’t stop thinking about how with any other player, Harmon would have lost her advantage. If somebody doesn’t show her how to actually make herself a contender at major league championships, the kid won’t go anywhere. And he’s bored, and a little curious, and then there’s that bet with Beltik…

It’ll be fun, he tells himself. Not that he thinks he’ll find joy in babysitting, but there was something interesting there.

“Right, of course,” Miss Deardorff says, but it’s insincere, “And, if God wills it and things develop, well, I’m sure Elizabeth wouldn’t make herself a hassle. She’s a very obedient child.” 

Benny grimaces. The lady’s set on her plans, but lucky for him, he’s not going to fall for what she’s trying to trap him into. He knows he’s not adopting Harmon. The kid needs a real home. The domestics, and all.

Before he can say another word, the headmistress is suddenly calling out for somebody, and there’s a click of the door opening.

“Elizabeth, dear,” says the headmistress, and Benny thinks he might actually detect warmth in her tone, “You’re a devoted chess player. Tell me, have you heard of somebody called Benny Watts?” 

At the cue of Miss Deardorff saying the kid’s name, Benny turns around.

Being gently pushed forward by the man from earlier, Ferugusson, is the kid. She barely clears four feet. Shaking, pale, with flighty brown eyes that stared him down. Her tiny hands fixed in her hair, patting down a headband, and the image becomes clear in his mind. He can see they’ve dressed her up. Still trying to sell him on going for the full stretch, for actually adopting her. 

“No,” the girl admits. 

Her voice has an odd sort of blankness in it. Despite the fact that she must be trembling in nervousness, her face is totally dull too, devoid of any discernible emotion. He can immediately recognise that she’s pale. A bit too pale. He focuses on the shaking again, and this time, he knows it’s not anxiety. Benny knows withdrawals when he sees them, and this kid might as well be the posterchild they use in informative videos for high schoolers, telling them not to use reefer. 

Tentatively, Benny waves, carefully schooling his face to not show how completely disgusted he is by everything to do with Methuen. It’s not the girls fault, at first - Christ, she’s five - but whatever they’re doing to her at the orphanage, he doesn’t like it. She must be doped up on something. Of course, drugged-up little girls are typically more common at children’s beauty pageants, rather than chess tournaments, but the lengths of child exploitation know no bounds. What’s another prodigy on opiates?

The headmistress clears her throat distinctly, giving Benny a pointed look, and he straightens out. It’s painfully obvious that he’s out of his element here. Maybe even the kid can tell. But he clears his throat and looks directly at the girl, and tries to shape his facial features into some sort of smile that might be reassuring.

“I’m Benny,” he says, “And for a really long time, I’ve been the United States Champion.” 

He sees the girl’s eyes widen, mirroring saucers of swirling, golden hues. Hesitantly, she says, “You play at the Open?”

He nods. “And I win. Every time. But from what I hear, you’re pretty good at winning yourself.”

“I beat Harry Beltik,” she says abruptly, and he can hear just from her voice that the kid’s got pride, which is well deserved, cause despite the advantage loss, that game was impressive for a kid. “I’m the Kentucky Champion.”

“I was there,” says Benny, nodding appreciatively. He’ll have to find some way to explain that Beltik match to her without causing an ego death that would absolutely devastate her, but that’s a problem for later. “I thought you really shined against Townes, though.”

“Yes, she is a very smart girl,” Miss Deardorff interrupts, “Elizabeth, you do enjoy chess, don’t you?” 

“Yes, Miss Deardorff,” she says robotically, in a strange, practised manner. “I like it very much.”

“And you’d like to play again?” Miss Deardorff continues.

The girl nods profusely, desperately. It’s obvious she’ll jump at any opportunity to play.

Miss Deardorff’s gaze slides back to Benny. The same pointed look. He turns back to the kid.

“Hey, Harmon,” he says, “Have you ever been out of state?”