“You never know. And we’re all on a road to somewhere.”
“I suppose that’s a certainty,” I muttered.
I pinned the button to my shirt, making sure it was directly over my heart. Then I reached out and brushed my fingertips against his. “Thanks, Knobbe Three,” I said, and I went back out onto the street.
Nicholas was sitting on the thick, concrete steps when I got back, framed by the porch railings and the front door lintel. Casual as a Saturday afternoon, at least at first glance. At second glance he was a lot more like rush hour on a Monday morning. When he saw me coming down the street he sat up straight and looked anxiously hopeful. I tried to look the same way, but I think he carried it off much better than I.
I got close enough that he could read my button. “Outlaws?” he asked.
“It’s a present. From Knobbe.”
“Depending on interpretation, that could be nice.”
“Yeah, depending. He says it’s for the road.” I sat down next to him.
Nicholas dropped his head. If I’d been behind him, it would have looked like he’d been cut off at the neck. “That bad, huh?” He breathed out hard and looked at me sideways. “Crap, Persia. What are we going to do?”
I bounced a little on my step, agitated. “You’re asking me? Why don’t you ask someone who might know? Floss. Or Max. You’d probably get a better answer out of Lucia, even.”
He looked at me then, looked for what seemed like a long time, and then said, “No, I wouldn’t. It’s pretty much you and me right now. Floss is upset about that message she got from Faerie. Lucia’s trying to be strong, but you know how she can flip to fragile. Max is all wrapped up in Tonio, and Tonio’s either just fine or having a nice, quiet nervous breakdown. I never know which. We’ve got a subpoena saying we’re passing out drugs in public places and using magic on top of that.
“As long as we’re at the theater, we’re fine. There we can take anything in stride. Take us out of that environment and we fall apart.” He sighed and, trying to sound movie-star tough, repeated, “It’s you and me, kid.” And he grinned a sad, weak little grin.
“Nicholas, I’m not good at stuff like this.”
He stood up. He stared down. Way down. Why hadn’t I realized how tall he was? After all, I’d known him a long time. He said, “You’d better get good at it, then. Fast. I need help. You and I are what we’ve got.”
I stood up too, right next to him, on the same step. Not so tall after all. “I think it needs to be a group effort. Right now that’s my best contribution. We need to plan, and the hell with all the problems. And the hell with them expecting you to save us. That’s not fair, not any more fair than you expecting me to know the answer.”
I took his hand and pulled. “Let’s go inside and get this thing started.”
Nicholas huffed out a little laugh. “See? I knew I picked the right person.” And he squeezed my hand.
I just tugged a little harder. We walked into the apartment, our hands still pressed tight together. In spite of everything, that warmth of his palm against mine felt very good.
I could see right away that Nicholas had given me a good synopsis of the situation. We didn’t even look like a group at this point. More like random people you’d run across in a park or, worse, in a bus station waiting room. Everyone was scattered, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts, each staked out in different areas of different rooms.
“Oh,” I said.
Nicholas breathed out a little puff of air and said, “Yeah.”
Someone had to do something or we’d drift apart like Floss’s paper flowers. I glanced at Nicholas, who shook his head and shrugged.
I squared my shoulders and took one deep breath. “All right,” I said, loud enough that they could hear me no matter where they were. “I’ve made a decision.”
No one even looked our way.
“I knew you’d be excited,” I said. “And here it is. No more negative thoughts.”
Heads came up and eyes looked at me—flat, dull eyes. Then they turned back to the fascinating floors or tables in front of them. It didn’t look like peppy talk was the right approach.
I picked the least sad-looking person in the apartment. “Lucia,” I said, “what do you think we need to do?”
Her eyes went straight to mine, almost as if she’d been waiting for a chance to tell us her plan. “Go to work. Do a great show. Then leave.”
From the other side of the room Floss coughed. “And go where?”
“Faerie,” Lucia said. There was no room for discussion in her calm, one-word statement.
“You know—,” Floss began, but Lucia cut her off. Surprises every day.
“So they said no. So you’re sad. You probably feel betrayed. But this is more important than that. We need to help Tonio. And going is all I can think of. We’ll find a way to make things work when we get there. It’s not easy when you’ve been hurt,” Lucia finished in a new, quiet voice, “but you can do it.”
“Scary corner-of-the-eye creatures,” Floss said. “Remember? And Reginald?”
Lucia breathed deep and said, “If we’re together, things will be fine.” She nodded, then added, “It’s being together that’s important.”
I looked at Lucia with respect. She was right, and she’d been so clear. Not my “no negative thoughts,” not Nicholas’s precedents, not Floss’s flower messages. Lucia had just made a plain, straight decision. And then Max stood up, tall and strong, and he said, “Yes. Absolutely right. It’s being together.” He smiled—a small smile but a better smile than I’d seen since this mess started. “Let’s go to work, let’s knock them out of their seats, let’s disappear.” He looked at Tonio. “Very Outlawish. I like this plan.”
Tonio sighed, long and low, then said, “Oh, what the hell. We haven’t got anything better.” He looked around the apartment. “Although I hate to leave everything…” His voice trailed off.
“It’s not forever,” Max said.
“We’ll come back,” Lucia promised.
“It might be good, just for a while,” I added. “Knobbe Three says things are just going to get worse. And you really don’t want to keep that court date.”
“I’ll go,” Nicholas said, on a rush of air. “I’ve always wanted to go, I just never knew how. But if Floss can take us…”
“I’m not a tour guide,” Floss snapped. “There’s not a Lonely Planet for Faerie.”
“But you could take us, right? You know how.”
“It’s not a question of how,” Floss said to him. “I obviously know how. Lucia and I go, remember? And you could get there on your own as long as your need was strong enough.”
“I’ve tried,” Nicholas mumbled. “I’ve thought, and I’ve wished, and all I’ve ever gotten is me, standing under an oak, looking like a fool.”
“Really?” I asked. “I never knew…”
“Enough want but not enough need,” Floss snapped again, interrupting me. Even though she sounded dismissive, I was sure that was only because she was upset. She proved that when she said, “You’re all acting like this is a lark, a little trip to the circus. I know it, and it’s not what you think. The possibility for danger is always there.”
“Right now that’s a good, strong possibility for here,” Nicholas pointed out, apparently taking no offense at Floss’s statement about want and need. Then he nodded at Tonio and said, “At least for him it is. Jail’s no picnic.”
Max said, flat and true, “No shit.”
“Floss,” I said, “you said it yourself, before, and you were right. Tonio can’t go to prison. We all agree on that. I know I couldn’t do it once, let alone twice. We have to do something.”
“Major,” Floss said, and it was easy to see how bad the word tasted in her mouth. “Major or Faerie? That’s it?”
“They may not convict him,” Nicholas said, almost as if he was changing the subject. “We may be worrying for nothing. We can take the chance.” He shrugged. “I’m not f
eeling too confident about that, but maybe everyone else is and I don’t know it.”
“Not me,” I said.
Lucia shook her head. Max and Tonio just looked at Floss, and I think it was that look that did it, that Floss–Tonio connection. She dropped her head, she dropped her attitude, and she said, soft as spring rain, “All right. All right. I’ll come up with something to make this work.”
XII
“Tiny street theater!”
We took Lucia’s advice. We trooped off to the chocolate factory, and I tried not to think about anything but The Bastard and the Beauty. I was doing so well, too, until just before curtain time. That was when Tonio came backstage and said, “There are a lot of empty seats out there.”
Max jerked up his head. “We sold a full house.”
“Looks like the street talk finally caught up with us. Knobbe Three was right after all,” Tonio said, looking at me.
I sighed. “He so often is. It’s really tiresome.”
Tonio managed a smile. The rest of us stood in a huddle until Max said, “Okay, boys and girls, time to play.”
We seemed to inhale once, in sync, and the show began.
It was a good show, one of our best. The connection between the Outlaws and the audience was like a fine, bright wire that stretched between us, a tight-rope that words and magic walked on all night long.
“Swan song,” Nicholas muttered between acts, but he didn’t seem unhappy. In fact, none of us did. We were buoyant, like nothing could touch us, high as the proverbial kite.
But of course the kite comes down sometime. It’s the laws of physics, and of gravity. After the curtain call Floss said, “He’s out there. Major. Standing by the entrance looking pleased. Looking proud.” She frowned. “There’s a travel look about him too.”
“What’s a ‘travel look’?” I asked.
Floss shook her head. She seemed frustrated. “I can’t explain it better than that. There’s just an aura about him that says he’s been someplace recently. Someplace far from here.”
“Alabama?” I suggested.
“Greece?” Lucia asked.
“I don’t know,” Floss said. “It’s almost like he’s masked it, but I doubt he’d know how.” She stopped talking and glanced at Lucia and me. “Alabama or Greece?” she asked, and she sounded incredulous.
“Bastard,” Nicholas said, before we could answer. There was no emotion at all in his voice. I knew “bastard” wasn’t a place, or any kind of a reference to Lucia or to me. I was sure this lack of emotion was because, if he’d let himself feel, he would have turned physical. At least, that was the way my mind was working. I wanted to punch something. Hard. Rabbit punches like I’d seen Max use in training.
Max poked his head around the curtain and pulled it back fast. He shook his head and said, “It’s that supercilious smile he wears that irritates me more than anything.”
There was silence. There were eyes moving back and forth. Then, suddenly, there was Floss. “This is no fun,” she enunciated carefully. “I believe we have a plan that needs to be executed. I suggest we start it now.”
She turned and walked toward the back door, the one that led to the alley. Lucia watched her, then said, “We should follow her.” She nodded. “Everybody, we should follow Floss.”
And like a mandate had been issued, that’s just what we did. As we got close to the door, Floss made some complicated movements with her left wrist and, as if it had been there all along, hidden by a thin glamour, a door opened in the door. A scent of rainbows and blood wafted in. We stepped through, and that was how the Outlaws, in a chicken suit, tuxedo, and dinner dress, among other articles of clothing, ended up in Faerie.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF FAERIE
Bright, bright colors.
Smells of flowers and sunshine, rain and death.
Excellent grass, soft winds.
Feelings of lightness, as if all my burdens were gone.
The smacking sound of the door of the chocolate factory closing us in, closing our world out.
Very large creature approaching from the right.
“Floss.” I wanted to sound calm, but my voice came out more like a baby-doll squeak as I pointed to the mass of feathers and fur that was moving toward us. Whatever the creature was, with its hawklike face, its wings, and its huge lion paws, I was sure I should be standing behind someone who knew what was what, not facing it on my own. Floss turned. She smiled the first real smile I’d seen from her in days. “Ohhh,” she whispered, and then she ran and flung herself into the thing’s furry arms.
I moved very carefully and stopped near Lucia. In a low voice I said, “Is this one of those corner-of-the-eye things? One of those scary things that sneaks up on you?”
Lucia was smiling too, just like Floss. Not cringing, not hiding, not acting at all like this was a scary thing. She yanked off her chicken feet and her chicken hat and said, “Persia! Of course not. It’s El Jeffery,” as if that explained everything. And she hurried toward the creature and Floss. The next thing I knew, she was wrapped in a group hug that obviously had nothing to do with trolls, blood, or holes in bridges.
I’d already learned something, or at least I thought I had. It seemed obvious that El Jeffery, one of the names Lucia had mentioned in our old life, couldn’t be Floss’s brother, unless family relationships in Faerie were amazingly strange.
I fidgeted, not sure where to turn or what to do next. I glanced at the other Outlaws. Nicholas was looking around with a smile on his face that said Christmas. Tonio looked more relaxed than I’d seen him since Major, and Max looked wary.
It seemed to take forever for Floss and Lucia to break away. When they did Floss said, “This is El Jeffery,” to us, and to El Jeffery she said, “And these are my friends.” She sounded proud of us, Outlaws and creature alike. Lucia stood to one side, her hands wrapped around one of El Jeffery’s thick lion-like paws.
“El Jeffery and I grew up together,” Floss continued. “We’ve been like this forever.” She held up two fingers, crossed.
El Jeffery laughed, a warm, thick sound. Blackberry wine or blueberry syrup. That laugh poured over me and I sighed happily. I felt the same way that Tonio seemed to feel, like I was back on smooth ground after miles of walking through fields of land mines. Then he or she started coming toward us.
I couldn’t help it. I started backing up. So big, and so…
“There’s nothing to fear. I could never harm a friend of Floss’s.”
Floss smacked El Jeffery on the forearm, still smiling. “You couldn’t harm anyone. Don’t pretend to be fierce for effect.”
“Band name,” El Jeffery said immediately, and if a feathered face could grin, that’s what happened.
“Fierce for Effect.” Lucia squinted her eyes as if she were looking at the name in lights and then nodded. “It’s not bad.”
Floss raised her eyebrows. “Flailing Nails was better.”
“More punk, though,” El Jeffery said. “Doesn’t match your guitar style.”
“Wait! Floss plays guitar?” I asked.
El Jeffery looked surprised. “She never told you?”
“He exaggerates,” Floss said. “He always makes it sound like I know what I’m doing.”
“It’s way better than my tambourines and jangles,” said Lucia.
“You play tambourine?” I asked. And what was a jangle? How could I know so little about the people I thought I knew?
Nicholas spun in place, still looking dazed and pleased. “I feel like I’m five years old.” Then he stopped spinning, looked straight at Floss, and said, “Why did you keep this a secret for so long?”
“I didn’t. It was always here. It’s not my fault you couldn’t find it.”
“Right,” he agreed. “Want and need.” His grin stretched wide and he spun again. “This is just so great!”
“Don’t forget,” Lucia cautioned, “it’s not always quite as great as it seems.”
“Nothing ever is,” To
nio said. “That’s why so much of what we do is doomed to fail.” His expression didn’t match his words. He still looked calm and peaceful.
“Cheery,” said Max, but I noticed that he and Tonio were holding hands like they meant it, something I hadn’t seen for a very long time. That in itself seemed to make this a worthwhile venture.
So there we all were in Faerie. There were little hills rolling away to my right. The grass underfoot was soft and springy and looked nothing like the grass I would have seen at home. Even the sun seemed brighter and, at the same time, more benevolent. There wasn’t a drop of blood in sight. Major was trapped on the other side of a magic door. Everything seemed practically perfect.
Maybe we could make a play out of all this badness we’d been dealing with. “The Outlaws’ Escape,” I said, giving the words shiny, capital letters.
“Huh?” said Nicholas elegantly.
“A new play,” I said. “We—”
“We all play ourselves,” Lucia cried.
“What,” Floss said, “is the fun in that?”
“Right.” That was Tonio. “The whole point of us is puppets.”
“And magic,” said Floss.
“And commentary,” said Max.
I said, “But it’s the story line. We do play us; we just sex it up with the puppets and Floss’s wonders.”
“Sex it up?” Nicholas asked.
I blushed, but I still said yes to Nicholas and pretended to ignore Tonio’s laughter, which he tried to cover up by coughing and saying, “It might be a little ambitious. After all, we don’t really know how it ends.”
“Ah, but does anything ever really end?”
Floss snorted. “Max, you sound like Derrida or Nietzsche.”
“Or Shakespeare.” Tonio punched him on the arm. “But seriously, I think we need time to adjust. If we’re going to play here—in both senses of the word—I think we need to start small.”
“I know,” Lucia cried. “I know just what we need to do!”
El Jeffery patted her head with one of his lion paws and looked at the rest of us with round, green eyes. “Lucia has good ideas. You should listen to her.”
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