by JL Bryan
Chapter Fourteen
Erin woke up before dawn on Tuesday morning, when everyone else was still asleep. She had an hour before Dave got up to do his morning Pilates video. He normally did less than half of it before turning it off and eating a bowl of Sugar Wheat Lumps instead.
She slid her packed suitcase out from under her bed, and then slung her messenger bag over her shoulder.
“Mrow?” asked her big, shaggy yellow cat, who was still curled in his usual place at the foot of her bed. He’d opened one green eye to look at her.
“It’s okay, Banana,” Erin whispered. “Don’t make any meow-y noises.” She rubbed the back of his head, and he purred and closed his eyes. “Good...I won’t be gone long. Okay?”
Something hitched in her throat as she rubbed the drowsy cat. She’d never spent so much time away from home. She was going to miss her cat. And her mom. Her friends, especially Kennedy and Parker. She’d been so focused on getting out that it hadn’t really occurred to her what it would be like to be away. Now she was scared of traveling so far, into a future filled with uncertainty. She couldn’t even talk to her mom about how scared she was, since she was sneaking away without permission.
“I hope I’m not making a stupid mistake, Banana,” Erin whispered. “I guess it’s too late to back out now. I signed the contract. The die is cast. Do you know what that means, Banana? The die is cast? Ever study Latin?”
Banana was asleep, indifferent to her quoting of Julius Caesar.
Erin took her harmonica from beneath her pillow, where she kept it at night ever since the night of the Spoon and Cherry festival, when she’d learned that fairies and other magical creatures were trying to take back the instruments Jason had stolen from Faerie. She thought about the little unicorn that had turned into a huge dragon and attacked them...and that made her think of Jason, and how he’d blocked its big claw with his body. Protecting her. And she’d kissed him for it. This stirred her mixed-up feelings about Jason, and she pushed the thought away.
Erin crept down the hall, carrying her shoes in her hand so she wouldn’t make a sound. She left a note on the kitchen table explaining where she’d gone. She didn’t want them freaking out and thinking she’d been kidnapped or something. The note was addressed to her mom and didn’t mention Dave at all.
She slowly turned the deadbolt and eased open the front door.
“Mrow?” Banana yowled, his fat feet thumping down the hall, loud as gunshots in the silent house.
“Sh!” Erin whispered, as Banana bumped his head against her ankle and meowed again. She opened the door. “There you go.”
Banana paused halfway out the door.
“Mrow!” he shouted.
“Out!” Erin whispered. She nudged him outside onto the porch, then followed him out and closed the door behind her.
A strange, unseasonable fog shrouded everything past her front porch, as if she were walking into a thick cloud. Fog and mist always thrilled her a little, as if the edges of the world had gone fuzzy, and you could make a wrong turn and find yourself in another world entirely.
A million years ago, she’d lived in a bigger house with both her parents in Ann Arbor. On days when the fog rolled in thick off the Huron River, she and the neighborhood kids would pretend her sprawling back porch was the deck of a pirate ship. They would be sailing deep in the ocean, or navigating among haunted islands.
These games sometimes became epic battles of boys against girls. Erin led the girls as “the pirate queen Anastasia” while they made war on her nemesis, the boy-king “Captain Blackshoe,” also known as Cory Tenenbaum from down the street.
Erin smiled at the old memory, something she hadn't thought about in years.
She descended through the thick mist, down the three porch steps. She stepped into her shoes, then lugged the suitcase along the driveway to the street. It had wheels, but she didn't want to risk making any noise by rolling it along.
She dropped the suitcase next to the mailbox, then checked the time on her phone. Zach was due any minute to pick her up.
Her street looked hazy, with driveways leading off into mist, like a crossroads between dreams. She looked back toward her own house, but she couldn't see it at all. She felt a cold, sinking feeling, like she was already a thousand miles from home. She wondered how long it would be before she came back.
Twin blades of light slashed through the mist. Zach's car. He stopped in front of her, with his window already down.
“Wow, you look ready to go,” he said. “Already say good-bye to your parents?”
“Yep.”
Zach popped the trunk and loaded her suitcase into it while Erin took the passenger seat.
“I got you a coffee,” Zach said when he joined her. He pointed to a lidded paper cup with the log cabin logo of Local Coffee Shop.
“Oh, you really are the best.” Erin picked up the hot cup and blew through the hole in the lid to cool it. “Is it the Shamrock Mint?”
“Sorry, I forgot. I got it with soy cream, soy sugar, and soy honey.” That was how Zach took his own coffee.
“It's fine this way, too.” Erin said, though she didn't like anything soy, unless it was soy sauce with Chinese food. “Thanks for getting it.”
“Not a problem, lamb-head.” He drove out of her neighborhood. “So, are you excited or what? I bet your head's about to explode.”
“It's pretty scary,” Erin said.
“I know I'd be excited. Heck, I am excited. Heath Blank is a major, major producer. I Wikipedia'd him. He's twenty-nine and he's already produced a dozen platinum albums for different groups. They say he's from the rough side of Liverpool.”
“That's neat.” Erin watched the mist slowly dissolving in the sunlight outside the window.
“So you're going to make some huge hits,” Zach continued. “And I'm going to be right there beside you. On the cover of every magazine. I want everyone to know how proud I am of my girl.”
“Thanks, Zach.”
“The model, the rock star, together—think about it.”
“Yeah.” Erin's insides felt colder and more tangled the farther they drove from home, toward the Eau Claire airport.
“I mean, flying in the Malarkay Records jet? That's a huge deal. I bet it's totally sweet inside. I just wish I could come with you today.”
“I wish that, too. A lot.”
Zach cranked up the Nickelback song blasting over his stereo. Erin just watched the road, feeling weirdly alone.