by Ruth Vincent
“You didn’t think I would abandon you out here with all these loonies?” Obadiah replied, grinning, scanning the crowd. “Sorry about the wait; took me forever to get through security. Really, if it wasn’t for what we’re about to do, I’d be ringing in New Year’s at home by the fire with a stiff glass of bourbon, the way New Year’s should be rung in.”
“That sounds nice,” I replied, imaging firelight glowing off of Obadiah’s body. Don’t even go there.
“I don’t get to spend many New Years at home, though,” he added quickly. “You don’t get many opportunities for a Focus as good as this.”
I imagined that was true—it was rare that you could get over one million people focused on anything at once.
You couldn’t even see the ball from here, the building was so tall, but I knew it was up there. I still didn’t even know how this whole thing was going to work. All this talk of spells and Foci and Goblin magic troubled me. I missed my old magic, which came as naturally as breathing. But that was gone now. And if this was the only way I could have magic, the only chance I had to go home—I would take that chance.
Obadiah was staring up at the top of the skyscraper too, towards the ball, shading his eyes as the bright winter sun gleamed off the building.
“So what do we do?” I asked. “Stand here and freeze for”—I checked my watch—“about seven hours and forty-five minutes, and then what happens?”
Obadiah turned to me, surprise on his face. And then he started to laugh.
“You think we’re going to be standing out here on the sidewalk in this crowd for seven hours?”
“Well, how else . . . ?”
“Like all these crazy, frozen fools?”
I guess it was a little foolish of me—I should have put more faith in Obadiah to have a better plan.
“Then what will we be doing?”
“We can’t be in the crowd that’s watching the Focus. We have to be the Focus. They have to all be watching us.”
“And how exactly are we going to make one million screaming people pay attention to us at exactly twelve midnight?”
“Easy,” said Obadiah, smiling, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “They won’t even know they’re watching us . . . but they will be, because we’ll be inside the ball.”
I gaped at him.
“How the hell are we going to get inside the New Year’s Eve ball?”
Obadiah grinned. “I worked that out a few years back. Reuben moonlights as a stagehand. One of his jobs is setting up this New Year’s Eve ball shindig. He always makes sure to leave one of the panels on the ball loose. I know which one it is, and we can crawl inside.”
The idea of being inside the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball was so fabulously preposterous that I started to laugh.
“Don’t they have security up there?” I protested. “See how many cops are out here on the street? How many barricades? You really think we can just take the elevator up to the top of One Times Square, get out on the roof deck and then just climb up the pole and into the ball without anyone noticing? Obadiah, they’re going to think we’re terrorists, trying to blow up the New Year’s Eve ball!”
“If we did what you describe, yes, we’d be stopped at once; we wouldn’t even make it into the elevator. But actually, they don’t have any security up on the roof, now that the stagehands are done setting up. All the security is down by the door of the building.”
“Well, that’s the only way in.”
“Not if you’re me,” said Obadiah.
“I don’t understand.”
“Not to bring up a bad subject,” said Obadiah, “but how was your friend able to fly?”
“Elixir.” I gasped. “You’re saying we’re going to fly up there?”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
“But what about all these people!” I gestured to the amassing crowd. “Won’t they notice? Don’t you think they’d notice two people flying overhead?”
Obadiah shook his head. “It’s amazing how seldom people look up. Anyway, we’ll go around to the back side of the tower, away from Times Square. No one is paying any attention to that side of the building. We’ll drink our Elixir—consider it an early New Year’s Eve toast”—he winked at me—“and then up we’ll go.”
My heart was beating fast. It had been twenty-two years since I’d flown. I still sometimes had dreams about it—feeling the cushion of air under my belly, lifting me high, spreading my arms out, feeling the wind rush over them, pumping higher, watching the ground get smaller and smaller below, whirling and whooping in the fresh, bright air. I’d wake up smiling with my arms stretched out like wings. And then the disappointment would set in as I sat up in bed and remembered that I’d never fly again.
Only . . . what if I could?
It won’t be the same, I told myself. Humans weren’t meant to fly. The Elixir had made Obadiah and Eva levitate temporarily, but that wasn’t the same as a fairy’s innate power. Still, it worked—at least briefly.
“How do you know when it wears off?” I asked, thinking of Eva lying on the concrete like a broken doll. “How do you know how not to fall?”
Obadiah sighed.
“You have every right to be worried, after what you’ve seen. But we won’t stay up for very long. Unlike your roommate, I’ve had Elixir before. I have a feeling for how long it lasts and when it wears off. We’ll go straight up to the roof. We won’t linger.”
I nodded, but I was nervous.
We began to make our way in the opposite direction of the crowd. It was slow going, with everyone else rushing to get in to Times Square and us trying to get out, but eventually we made our way to the back of the tower. The sidewalks were almost empty here—everyone was either in Times Square or inside one of the rowdy bars that dotted the street.
We stood in the shadowed corner of the enormous glass tower, the cold wind biting at us through the chasms between the skyscrapers.
Obadiah reached into his coat pocket and produced a small vial.
I didn’t even have to ask what it was. I could tell by the way it shimmered in the sunlight. Elixir.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded, but inside I wasn’t sure. In my mind’s eye all I could see was Eva’s body, limp upon the ground.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He held up the vial.
“I’ll go first. That way, if you get in trouble, I can fly down to you and help.”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to control myself,” I said quickly. But what was I thinking? Eva hadn’t been able to control her fall.
“Don’t worry,” said Obadiah, “I’ve had a lot of practice at this.”
But I could see the uncertainty in his eyes, even as he tried to reassure me.
He removed the cork stopper to the vial of Elixir. It came off with a resounding pop, like a cork of champagne.
Instantly I could smell it. Even with all the odors of Times Square assaulting my nostrils, the scent was unmistakable—like storm-cleansed air. I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter how many times I smelled Elixir—every time it was like my soul was thirsty.
I watched Obadiah drink the vial, his eyes closed. He made a deep, guttural noise in the back of his throat as he drank, almost sexual. I felt like I shouldn’t be there, it was too intimate, watching the Elixir fill him, and then he passed the vial to me.
I closed my eyes. Holding the intention clearly in my mind—fly to the top of the tower—I raised it to my lips. The drop fell on my tongue. I could taste my memories in the sweet nectar—memories of flying, memories of magic coursing through my body. I could almost feel the old Feydust tingling.
I opened my eyes.
Obadiah was hovering in front of me, slowly ascending.
But
I remained firmly on the ground.
“Obadiah, it’s not working!” I cried out in frustration.
I turned around to see if anyone was watching us. But the crowd was flowing into Times Square. No one stopped to notice two people huddled in an alley behind a building.
He was now a foot or two off the ground. But I hadn’t moved.
“Just wait,” he said. “Be patient.”
“I’m not a patient person, Obadiah,” I grumbled.
Then I let out a sharp gasp. I felt the hard pavement drop out from under me. My feet had left the ground too.
My body began to rise. There was a cushion of air between the soles of my shoes and the sidewalk, and it was growing, like an air mattress being inflated. The normal heaviness of my body felt light. I felt the wind rush around my ankles.
It was working! I was passing windows in the tower. I lifted my arms and soared higher.
I couldn’t help myself—a laugh of pure joy bubbled out of me. I was flying. I felt like uncontrollably giggling and crying at the same time—I had missed this so much!
Obadiah silently put his finger to his lips as he heard me cry out, warning me not to attract the attention of passersby. But he smiled at me. Everyone was hurrying into Times Square. No one had noticed us. Obadiah was right; people seldom looked up.
We were speeding along now, zooming past the building stories, making our way towards the top of the tower. Obadiah was a yard or so above me. If anyone glanced up now, they’d see us as no more than bird-like specks.
I looked down and instantly regretted it. It made me dizzy—everything was like toy miniatures below, and I felt terribly afraid at the idea of falling. I’d never felt that fear when I flew as a fairy. But doing it as a human was different—it felt precarious, scary, wrong to be up so high. My body lurched. You can’t think about falling, I told myself. I turned my gaze to the roof of the building, willing myself to fly higher.
We were almost at the top.
At last I saw the edge of the roof and I grasped on to it with my hands, giddy to hold on to something solid. But Obadiah silently pointed upwards, and I raised my eyes to the pole that rose from the roof, with the ball balanced on top. We had to get all the way up there. It took all my courage to let go of the roof railing and keep flying. I brushed against the pole with my hand as we soared higher—frigid in the winter air. The metal pinged and groaned in the wind.
And then I saw the ball. It was huge this close up, an enormous geodesic sphere, the panels made of crystal with rows and rows of tiny LED bulbs. All the lights were turned off now in the daylight, but the crystal panels themselves glimmered in the cold afternoon sun.
I grasped with my hands, trying to find something on the sphere I could cling to. My fingers wrapped around two LED bulbs, but I felt like the wind was going to lift me off and blow me away into the air above Times Square at any moment. Obadiah had landed on top of the ball and was busying himself with a screwdriver on one of the panels. It came loose with a pop, and he hoisted himself into the triangular hole in its wake, then waved for me to follow him.
I carefully made my way across the ball, lightbulb by lightbulb, towards the opening. Flying had felt so natural as a fairy, but now it was weirdly disorienting—if I didn’t keep my grip on the ball, I thought I’d go sailing away like a piece of confetti into the crowd. What if the magic wore off now? The lightbulb would crunch under my grasping fingers, and I’d go falling, falling . . . I couldn’t think about that right now. Just a few more inches. Obadiah’s head stuck out of the opening, waving encouragement.
At last I made it. I pushed myself in as Obadiah pulled me gently from inside, then screwed in the panel behind me.
I blinked, adjusting to the dim light.
Obadiah was seated inside the hollow core of the ball, making himself at home amidst the colorful electrical wires. I crawled over to him and he grinned at me. A segment of the metal pole bisected the interior of the ball, but there was still enough room for the two of us, as long as we stayed sitting down. It wasn’t exactly comfortable seating—but at least it was warmer in here than out there, sheltered from the wind.
We sat quietly for a moment. I couldn’t believe we were inside the ball. The afternoon light filtered through the thick panes of crystal, making it seem like twilight inside. With the panel now closed, our body heat was quickly filling the small space. Obadiah put out more heat than me. I could feel it—his warmth radiating outwards.
He must have felt my eyes on him, because he turned to me.
“Get cozy,” he said, “because we’re going to be in here awhile.”
“Better in here than out there.” I smiled.
I pressed my face to the round wall, trying to see down to Times Square below. I could just barely make things out—the thick crystal made everything slightly blurry.
The crowd was huge now. From up here they looked like no more than a swarm of colorful ants. We could hear them, the dull roar of thousands of human voices blended together as one.
I reached out to stretch, my legs having gone to sleep, trying to find a comfortable position. As I did so, my hand accidentally brushed against Obadiah’s. I hadn’t meant to. It was just the shape of the ball. His body stiffened slightly and then slowly his arm wrapped round my shoulder.
We were very close to each other, sandwiched between the backsides of lightbulbs and the steel pole. It wasn’t a bad feeling, being so close to him. I just didn’t know what do with my hands.
“So,” I said, trying to make conversation as we huddled together inside the geodesic sphere, “how many times have you done this?”
“Since they launched the second ball, in 1920,” said Obadiah nonchalantly, trying to stretch out his legs.
I gaped at him.
“You’ve been around that long?”
I remembered his story about coming back to New York and finding out so much time had passed. But I didn’t know he’d returned such a long time ago.
“Why haven’t you aged?” I gasped.
Obadiah was silent for a moment.
“I told you I’m part Fey,” he said. “It’s made me a little bit immortal.”
“I didn’t think you could be ‘a little bit immortal,’ ” I said, shaking my head. “I thought that was like being ‘a little bit pregnant.’ ”
Obadiah shrugged. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
I slowly shook my head as the band below us struck up a pop song, the base booming over the roar of the crowd. I realized I didn’t understand him at all.
“But what about your parents, were they normal humans?”
Obadiah chuckled. “Normal? Not exactly. My father was a pirate.”
“Really?”
“Well, it was a bit more common of a profession back in the late eighteenth century,” he added.
“What about your mom? Was she a pirate too?”
A dark cloud seemed to pass over Obadiah’s face.
“She was what you’d now call Native American. I don’t know much about her. She didn’t exactly stick around long enough for us to become close.” There was a hard edge in his voice. “She left us when I was seven. Never even said goodbye. Only took an old sealskin cloak, and disappeared one stormy night.”
He said these last words lightly, as if telling an anecdote at a cocktail party instead of sharing a deep wound. But I knew better—I could see the rage behind his casual expression, and I knew this memory devastated him, even after all these years.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
A silence engulfed us, and he stared out the translucent panes of the ball at the crowd below.
Slowly I stretched out my hand, careful of the wires, and leaned closer to him.
“So your mother was a Selkie,” I said quietly.
Obadiah rolled his eyes. �
��Yes. Fat lot of good it’s ever done me.”
“But you’ve got magic in your blood . . .”
He shook his head. “Nah. I can do a few tricks when I’ve guzzled enough Elixir, that’s all. I can’t do real magic, not like a fairy.”
“But . . .”
“If I could really do magic, I’d have been able to find her, wouldn’t I?”
The anger in his voice made me quiet. I reached my hand out awkwardly and took his. He was silent, but he gave my hand a little squeeze.
At last he spoke.
“I tried to do a spell once as a boy, before I even knew what Elixir was. I was trying to bring her back. Let’s just say it didn’t end well.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I failed, obviously. And I nearly blew myself up. I don’t even remember what happened. All I remember is coming to, and there was a big hole burned through the wall of our cabin. My father gave me a beating I won’t soon forget. Oh, don’t look at me like that—it was the way things were done back then. Truth was, I think it scared him—he was afraid to lose me too. He told me if he ever caught me trying to do ‘magic’ again . . .”
His voice trailed off, and he shook his head, shaking away the memory.
“I guess I didn’t inherit my mother’s fairy genes, only my father’s penchant for piracy.” He laughed, but only with his mouth, not his eyes. “It’s probably for the best.
“How about you?” he asked, changing the subject. “Do you think your human parents suspect? That you’re a changeling?”
I sighed, staring out through the window of the ball.
“I don’t think they have any idea,” I said sadly. “I wish they knew. I tried to tell them once.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I was four. I hadn’t been around the human world long enough to learn that no one believes in fairies. I came downstairs one morning for breakfast and told them I wasn’t their real daughter, that their real daughter had been kidnapped by the Fairy Queen, and that I was so, so sorry.”