I think the main thing I learned from these interviews is that Mr. Solomon is actually a pretty cool guy. For a teacher anyway. I guess he reminds me of my Dad a little. Maybe I should introduce them. Medicine and science are closely related so they might hit it off. And my Dad could use a few more friends.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
JANUARY
I’m lying on a park bench, facing the sky. It’s a sunny day – high 70s, I think – with a perfect blue sky painted with the most wonderful cotton candy-like white clouds. After I stare at it long enough to get lost in it, I turn my head slightly and see fully blooming pink, red and yellow roses behind the bench. I inhale deeply, allowing their sweet scent to fill my nasal cavity, and it gives me something of a natural high. Most people’s sinuses would go berserk from the histamines, but I just find it stimulating, not unlike half a line of cocaine.
When I finally look the other way I discover the most delightful thing. The path this bench sits along is made out of gold bricks. Not yellow but gold. At least it looks like real gold. I’m surprised people don’t show up here at night armed with chisels to try to steal the bricks. Just one of them is probably worth ten grand, maybe even more. In any case, I’m equally impressed by the well-groomed palm trees that appear every 15 feet along the path. No dead leaves hanging from any of them.
I’m about to get up when I feel something on my shoulder. I look over and see that it’s Hannashurie’s hand, which startles me because, well, people get spooked when someone suddenly appears beside them and they didn’t see them coming. Especially when they materialize from out of nowhere. “Hannashurie, are you trying to steal my soul right out from under me?”
“Oh. About that. You forfeited your soul when you agreed to become a fairy.”
She can’t be serious. “What?”
She nods. “It was in the fine print.”
“What fine print? I didn’t sign anything.” I feel the blood draining from my worried face.
“Well, you should’ve asked to see the contract.”
This is absurd! “I couldn’t ask to see something that I didn’t even know existed.”
Hannashurie smirks at me. “All the same, when someone makes a deal there’s usually a contract involved. So, it’s something you should’ve thought about.”
I can’t believe this is happening. “Will I ever get my soul back?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
A lump forms in my throat. I try to swallow it away but I’m wicked dry all of a sudden and can’t. “No?”
“No. Because you still have your soul. I’m just fucking with you.”
“Seriously?” How do I know she isn’t fucking with me now? Please, Lord and Lady, let her just be fucking with me.
“Seriously.” She nudges me with her elbow and starts laughing.
I want to laugh, but I don’t until several seconds pass and she’s still laughing. She has a loud laugh and snorts when she’s laughing hard like right now. Unfortunately, when I do laugh my side suddenly stings like crazy and I see that I still have the wound from when that bitch cut me before I set her and her boy toy ablaze. You can still tell that I healed it some, but not entirely and it still looks like it might need stitches. It’s bleeding, too, getting blood all over my shirt.
“Did you see that bitch cut me?” I ask, putting my hands over the cut, trying to heal myself better.
“I did.” She looks like she’s deep in thought for a moment before she continues. “And I’m glad that’s all she did, January. You’re lucky she didn’t stab you.”
I take my hands off the cut and lift up my shirt so she can get a good look at it. “Well, this kind of looks like a stab wound now, doesn’t it?”
“It looks like a surface wound. And I’m sure you remember how much more actually being stabbed hurts.”
She’s right. That did hurt much more. “You have a point. But why haven’t I been able to heal myself completely? My proverbial batteries feel like they’re fully charged.”
“I think you need to feel a little pain as a reminder of how careless you were.”
“Oh.” Great. I’m being punished by a Goddess. “Did you see me torch the two of them?”
“Yes. Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten revenge?”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that. “Why do I feel like that’s a trick question?”
“It’s not. Just answer honestly.”
“Yeah, I guess I do feel good. Is that wrong?”
“Considering that they killed you, no. But I’d like to think you won’t go to such lengths the next time someone does something that makes you thirst for vengeance.”
That’s fair. “I won’t. Unless they hurt me or my friends then all bets are off.”
“Don’t you think you should’ve waited to get revenge when you were with one of your friends so someone would have your back?”
“That’s not fair. You sent me to protect them. I went back to get my revenge alone because I didn’t want to endanger anyone else. Wasn’t that the honorable thing to do?”
“It wasn’t dishonorable. However, while I appreciate the fact that you’ve been so helpful to the girls, you have to put yourself first otherwise if something happens to you then you won’t be able to help them anymore.”
“We need each other. I get it. Guess I should’ve thought about it more before I went and did what I did. But aren’t fairies immortal?”
Hannshurie smiles and nods a few times.
She’s already told me fairies were immortal unless we get our heads cut off so I’m satisfied with that. “They still need me, right?” I couldn’t lose my friends. Especially not Emma and Pete.
“Well, the reason you needed to help them before was to ensure that they survived to be able to defeat the evil witch Jenna and help them with that. So, technically, your mission has been accomplished.”
I finally manage to swallow hard. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Oh, don’t worry your pretty head. Sometimes orders get passed down and I need to assign a fairy or fairies to help with something. But most of the time I’m allowed to give assignments at my discretion.”
“So, I can stay with my friends?”
She nods. “Yes, January, you can stay with your friends.” She sounds like a parent reluctantly allowing their kid to go sleep over a friend’s house. “But, I do have another mission for you. Consider it a side job.”
I wait for her to continue, unsure if I’m supposed to sound excited or disappointed about that.
“It’s a relatively simple one,” she says. “You see, there’s a man who’s haunting a house, really terrorizing its current owners. It was his house in his lifetime, but now his time has passed yet he continues to linger there, refusing to cross over through the light. So, your mission is to persuade him to do so.”
My jaw drops. “How am I supposed to do that? I have no experience with spirits.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to persuade him. My advice? Listen to him. Hear him out. And reason with him. But do not leave the house until he’s crossed over.”
“OK.” I don’t know what else to say. This is bumming me out.
“Not to cause you further distress, but there are a couple of rules for this one. The first rule is that he must cross into the light willingly. You can’t just push him in. The second rule is that you have to do this alone.”
“Alone? But weren’t you just saying I should’ve waited until I had a friend with me to get revenge?”
“That situation was a lot more dangerous than this haunting, believe me.”
“Then why is it that I wasn’t afraid of my murderers but I’m afraid of this?”
“Relax, January. You can do this. On your own. Don’t even mention this to your friends so they can’t insist on helping you. That’s an order.”
“Can I tell them about it after?”
She messes up my hair with her hand. “Sure.”
“Thanks.” I fee
l like crying. It’s not that I’m afraid of a spirit so much as I’m afraid that I’ll fail her. That I’ll fail her and then she’ll send me away and I’ll never see Emma or Pete or any of my friends ever again.
“Unfortunately, I do have to ask you to take care of this today.”
“Today? I’m going over Lia’s after school to get ready for Kat’s memorial.” How can she be forcing this on me today?
“As it turns out, the house is just around the block from Lia’s. 345 Laura Street. Just tell the gang you’re going to run a quick errand.”
I’m starting to sweat. “They won’t buy that. Not for a second.”
“Then you’ll just have to come up with something more convincing.”
“Are you suggesting I lie to them?”
Hannashurie smirks. “Sometimes a fairy has to do what a fairy has to do.”
“Right,” I say with a sigh. I don’t know what I’m going to tell them.
“Just one other thing before I send you back. You friend Emma – her Great Grandmother Ruth would like her to know that she’s been trying to contact her but she’s having trouble. She’ll keep trying, but in the meantime she wants you to tell Emma to be mindful of herself.”
“That’s it? Just be mindful of herself? She didn’t say anything else?”
“I’m afraid she did not.”
“Do you know why she hasn’t been able to reach Emma?”
“No.” An expression I can’t decipher flickers across her face. Now her bottom lip is trembling. Why do I get the feeling she does know something and just doesn’t want to tell me? Or isn’t allowed to tell me?
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
JANUARY
My eyes open and I find myself on the couch at Lia’s. I feel wicked tired. Wicked. It’s probably because I used a lot of my fairy juice torching my murderers. And when I halfway healed myself. Speaking of which, I’m feeling some burning pain and a pulling sensation where I was cut. But I see I’ve been bandaged up. I’m tempted to peel it back a little and look, but that could potentially harm me. Looking would just satisfy a curiosity. So, I don’t. I’m sure the bandage will have to be changed soon anyway. Besides, I’m more concerned with how I’m going to sneak off to 345 Laura Street this afternoon. Fuck my fairy life.
Lia appears in front of me before I can even sit up. But instead of saying hi to me, she yells, “Mom, she’s awake!”
As I notice icing on Lia’s bottom lip from one of the pastries I brought over, I shift into a seated position. “Hi to you, too, Lia.”
“Sorry, we were so worried. Welcome back.” She actually smiles at me.
“Thanks,” I say. “You have something on your lip. Goo from a cinnamon roll, I believe. Also, did I disappear? Like when I teleport away?” That’s what happened the night Hannashurie offered to make me a fairy after I was stabbed to death. Then when I came back I was lying on the ground where they’d left me for dead. But I got up and I was fine.
Lia bites her bottom lip, scraping the icing off of it with her teeth. “No, you just collapsed. My mother grabbed you in the nick of time. Otherwise, you would’ve hit your head pretty hard. Anyway, yeah, you gave us quite the scare.”
Lia was worried about me? I don’t know why I’m surprised by that, but I am. I mean, obviously, we’re friends. But I’m much closer to Emma and Shar. At least that’s how it feels. Maybe I’m just paranoid because I read Lia’s mind when I first started hanging out with them and she thought I was “fucking annoying.” I only read her mind because I was trying to find ways to work my way into the group so I could help them, per Hannashurie’s orders. Not that I knew how to help them. Not until the horrible shooting. Lia also thought that I was “Emma’s charity case.” Of course, we’ve since been through hell together, and that was a few months ago, so I’m sure her feelings have changed. Still, I open my big mouth. “Lia, do you still find me annoying?”
Juliana comes rushing over before she can answer, but Lia looks surprised by my question. Maybe she thinks we’re closer than I thought.
Juliana puts her hand on my forehead. “January, you collapsed and it was like you were comatose for twenty five minutes.”
I laugh and she withdraws her hand. “It mos def wasn’t a coma. I had a rendez-vous with Hannashurie.”
Juliana sits to my left, Lia to my right. “Oh, was that a good thing?”
It sucks that I can’t tell them about my side-mission. “Yeah, mostly she was just checking in. But she told me to tell Emma that her Great Grandmother Ruth has been trying to reach her but she’s having trouble. She said Ruth wants me to tell Emma to be mindful of herself.”
“Why do you think Ruth can’t reach her?” Juliana asks Lia and I.
I answer first. “Probably some inter-dimensional hiccup.”
Lia sucks her lips into her mouth before answering. “Yeah, Emma and Ruth visit all the time. But I think Emma might be taking something stronger for sleep now. Maybe it puts her in such a deep sleep that she doesn’t dream. Or visit anyone.”
Juliana’s brows dip and she scratches her leg. “I thought Ruth could make Emma black out when she wants to visit with her?”
“No, Mom, where the hell did you get that idea?” Lia looks irate.
“I thought you told me that. Didn’t it happen when you were at a museum? In Salem?”
“Not exactly. Emma had a seizure and Ruth visited her while she was unconscious. It’s not like Ruth gave her the seizure.”
“I see.” Juliana looks me in the eye. “Was that the second time you’ve met Hannashurie or have there been other visits?”
I swallow hard. I hope she doesn’t think I’m hiding something. “No, that was the second.” I look at Lia. “You didn’t answer my question before.”
She looks surprised. “What? Do I find you annoying? No, of course not. Why would you even ask that?”
I shrug. “Guess I just had to be sure you liked me.” My cheeks feel flushed now. I feel the tips of my ears reddening, too. So not cool, January.
Lia rests her head on my shoulder for a second. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. But I could tell you didn’t want me around when Em started including me in your group activities.” It’s the truth.
Shock registers on Lia’s face. “Dude, that was ages ago. You’re not only a great friend, you’re family now.”
I turn and give her a big hug.
Juliana laughs. “Aren’t you two cute?”
“Aaah!” I suddenly scream, cutting the hug short, clenching my jaw, as my cut feels like it’s about to be ripped wide open, burning like a motherfucker.
Juliana places her hand on my shoulder. “I stitched you up while you were out. You were still losing a lot of blood and we thought you might’ve blacked out from losing so much.”
“Yeah, thanks. Hannshurie wouldn’t let me heal myself completely. She wanted to remind me that I could’ve been killed going after those murderers alone.” I’m still tempted to take the bandage off and look at it. I just feel compelled to see. I know I won’t like it, but I want to look anyway.
Lia stops twirling her hair around her index finger and looks me in the eye for two seconds. “That’s right, Mom said you found your murderers on the way here then went back for the attack.”
I roll my shoulders until my upper back cracks. It feels so good. “I don’t know what to say. I’m kind of proud of what I did. I stopped them from hurting anyone ever again.”
“You should’ve woke me up,” Lia says, nudging me with her shoulder.
“You weren’t feeling well. It seemed like you had a lot of shit on your mind. I didn’t think you would’ve been interested in killing two more people.”
“Your murderers? I would’ve stuck forks in their eyes then used them to send thousands of joules into their brains.”
Juliana looks shocked by what she just heard, her forehead creasing. “Lia, don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”
Lia grins then laughs.
&
nbsp; I laugh, too, and I finally nudge Lia back. “I admire your creativity. Now I’d better get the fuck back to school before I’m missed.”
“Wait. Before you go, can you do whatever you do to Emma to make her tranquil? I’m not as depressed right now, but I want to be sure it stays that way.”
“Sure thing,” I say.
I place a hand on Lia’s head and my hand gets warm and I feel the warmth radiate from my hand into her head. It only takes about thirty seconds. I know it’s done when my hand returns to its normal temperature. By the time I remove my hand from her head, she’s already smiling and has that Lia twinkle back in her beautiful, sapphire eyes.
We hug and she thanks me then I need to teleport and vanish.
I teleport to the parking lot behind Lia’s building. I need to think. I’m tempted to go deal with the stupid ghost right now, but I need to get back to school. I don’t want my parents to make me go home right after because they get a call about me skipping. But where should I teleport first? I don’t want to teleport back to Happy Accidents on the way because the police, medics and fire department are probably down there, trying to figure out how the drunks became victims of spontaneous human combustion. Of course, they can’t call it that. They’ll probably say they spilled alcohol all over themselves then one of them flicked a lighter and, bingo, up in flames.
So, if I’m not going to stop at Happy Accidents to catch my breath before I teleport the rest of the way to school, where can I teleport to? I know people in the area, but they all have stay at home mothers or retired grandfathers or the like. And they’d probably be home right now. And I don’t want to be seen. Of course, I can turn invisible, but I’m in a weakened state now from losing so much blood. I’m also teleporting further than I ever did before and it’d be too hard to focus on that and staying invisible.
In Memoriam Page 30