I leaned into Orin's ear. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" I was debating going back to Sam, but I wanted to on my terms, not handcuffed in the back of a cop car with a felony charge.
Orin grinned. "It sure beats walking."
Or accidentally summoning darkness to fly. I frowned. I should run away right now. Call Sam from a pay phone and end it all here.
Orin squeezed me to his side. "Everyone, this is Miriam." I stiffened to the sound of my name. My photo was flying across the country faster than I was, riding on articles full of betrayal and lies. It's stupid not using aliases, I thought. For all I knew, Sam might have offered a reward by now, changing my rescue mission into a manhunt.
No one seemed to notice who I was though. They merely smiled, said some hellos, and wished us a happy New Year.
"That's Clayton," Orin said, pointing to the dreadlocked man in the fedora. "Hannah and her sister, Kayla, and Sean behind the wheel."
"Nice to meet ya," Sean said, and cranked the ignition. He was in his early twenties with the red mutton chops of an eighteenth-century politician. "Better get comfortable. This moose is about to roll."
Clayton buckled himself into the passenger seat. Kayla, the chubby girl from outside, passed everyone a can of generic root beer from the fridge before locking the door and joining Hannah at the table behind him. Hannah was the youngest of the group; I guessed she was about sixteen. The beads in her dirty blond cornrows swayed and clicked as we rolled out of the gas station. Orin and I curled up on the couch across the way, our backpacks clenched between our feet.
"Hope you don't mind a rocky ride," Sean said. He set his root beer in the cup holder and slipped a hand-rolled cigarette between his lips. Clayton flipped open his Zippo—clink—and lit its tip. The walls rattled as the RV accelerated onto the freeway at about the speed of a tortoise drunk on gin. Glassware tinkled in the kitchen cabinets, and tie-dye curtains swayed against the back of my head. Orin cracked open his root beer and lifted an eyebrow as he sniffed the can's outpouring mist. He sipped. His eyes sparkled and he chugged the rest. I handed him mine when he finished.
Sean rolled his window down an inch as skunk smoke coiled through the RV. Oh my God, I thought. Is he smoking a freakin' joint? I pinched my sinuses. Dammit, Orin! What the hell did you get us into? I nudged his side. Orin smiled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Sean passed the joint to Clayton, who sucked on it so hard I thought he'd turn inside out. My head started to pound. I pressed my hands against my temples. Please let me get out of this safely and with dignity. Please, oh please, oh please.
Police sirens screamed behind us. I jerked up as straight as a groundhog to peer out the window. "Suuuuuu-eeeeeeet!" Sean hollered as the flashing red and blues zoomed past. "Go get your sweet fried slop!"
I collapsed back against the couch cushions, heart and head hammering. Orin pulled a box of candy canes with a clearance sticker from his backpack and passed them around. "Sweet!" Sean said, and hung one off his ear. "Literally," Clayton said, and cackled. Hannah's hair beads swayed and clicked.
"So why are ya heading to North Dakota?" Kayla asked, peeling off a candy cane wrapper. She had brown braided hair and a freckled pug nose. Each of her fingernails were painted a different color of the rainbow, just like the bag of Skittles.
Orin coughed into his elbow, then cracked my root beer open. "We're gonna hitch a ride to the Realm on the ley line."
My eyebrows jumped. Is Orin seriously talking about faerie stuff? I didn't know if he was allowed to or not; I hadn't seen him interact with humans outside of a few clerks and a self-absorbed trucker. Is he suffering a contact-high?
"What's the Realm?" Kayla asked.
"It's where I am from," Orin said.
"Where's that?"
"Fiji," I said, without thinking. Orin eyed me curiously, but only smiled.
"You're from Fiji?" Hannah said. A candy cane crunched between her teeth. "That is so cool!"
Clayton sniggered. "Gonna be hard to drive to Fiji."
"Why? Is it far?" Sean asked.
Clayton inhaled another hit, then passed the joint to Hannah. "It's in the fucking ocean, brainiac."
Orin opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. "Orin has a pilot friend named Ley in North Dakota who is taking us." I was impressed how smoothly I lied. Of course, they probably would have believed me if I said we were heading to the desert to wait for the mothership.
Hannah puffed a ring of smoke, then stretched the joint to us. "Wanna hit offa this?"
I smacked Orin's hand away. "No, thank you," I said.
Orin looked puzzled. "What is it?"
"Mary Jane," Hannah said, and passed it to Kayla.
"Huh?"
"Drugs," I whispered in Orin's ear, making his eyes widen.
"Oh. Oh, no. I can't," Orin said. He coughed into his elbow. "The Realm will know."
"Why does Fiji care about what you do in America?" Kayla asked, and blew smoke behind her shoulder.
"He works for their government," I said.
Clayton leaned around the passenger seat. "There's some clean piss in the fridge if you need it, man."
Orin shook his head, tousling his beach sand hair. "The Realm will know."
"Fuckin' governments!" Sean bellowed, and blared the RV's horn with indignation. An Accord cruising beside us swayed in surprise, then floored it to pass. "They're all the same! Restricting our universal given right to what Mother Nature gifted us and—" A metallic clang-tink-tink rang outside as a smiley face wheeled across three lanes of traffic. "Shit! Lost another one."
"It doesn't bother me," Orin said. "I'd gladly trade in any high for the Realm."
"Why? What's so great about it?" Hannah asked.
"Well, it's warm all the time and sunny," Orin said. "Once upon a time, it was war-torn. But the Realm cleaned it up and now it is the safest place to live. There's never any darkness and no unemployment and everyone is cared for and supported."
I groaned inside my head as Orin inadvertently filled the next generation with lies about what they believed was Fiji. They listened, starry-eyed (although that might have been the pot), enthralled with the parts about nonviolence and caring for each other, despite the lack of drug usage. After twenty minutes I started to worry they would try to tag along.
I stood up to toss Orin's empty pop cans into the kitchen garbage. The RV bumped and swayed. I lurched to the right, then step step step, braced myself on the wall to keep from falling. Kayla joined me as I tossed the cans into a plastic bag hanging off the oven door.
"You're her, aren't you? The Christmas-abduction woman," Kayla whispered behind my shoulder. I froze. I knew this ride was a bad idea. I knew I should have ran. She took my silence as acknowledgement. "Thought so. Don't worry, I won't say anything." She paused. "Unless, of course, you want me to. But you don't look like you are in any danger. Are you?"
Danger? My eyebrows pinched together. I felt split between two magic-wielding beings, clueless about which of them to trust or what plight awaited if I chose wrong. I had started developing my own magic, which the man of sunshine told me was evil and wrong and would consume my soul, while the man of shadow insisted following the light would lead me to my doom. I was lost on this world and about to be lost on another world where I had no idea how to behave or what to expect. A foreign world I couldn't call up on the internet to learn about customs or climates or anything before devoting my abnormally long life. That was, if my enraged husband didn't hunt me down first. So, yes. I was in danger. I was in a boatload of danger and uncertain about what to do or where to go or who to trust. I wanted out of this mess. I wanted to go home. But I didn't even know where home was anymore.
I watched Orin smiling on the couch, blathering about the Realm he loved. "No," I sighed. "I'm not in danger."
"I didn't think so," Kayla said. "You and Orin click too well. And your husband seems a bit off."
I snorted, partly from amusement, but mostly because s
omeone else, a stoned stranger no less, saw what I did about my husband. It made me feel less crazy.
Kayla motioned to Orin with her chin, her voice low. "Did you two run off together?"
"Huh? Oh! No! Orin ... Well, we met along the way. My husband assumes he kidnapped me since he can't own up to the reality that I left him. Sam doesn't care about the truth, especially if that truth can damage his political campaign."
"Why did you leave, then? Did he abuse you?"
Abuse me? I bit my lip. Another simple question I was unsure how to answer. Did Sam leave me wounded and scared and hopeless and alone? Yes, all the time. But he never left bruises and believed any man who struck a woman was a coward. You are too damn sensitive, Miriam, my mother sneered inside my head. Suck it up and be grateful he never struck you. For that was all that really mattered, right? Society deemed a woman cowering beneath a fist a victim, but if she cowered beneath harsh words she was a doormat.
Cheater, cheater, confidence eater. Hurts his wife, but prove he beats her.
"Not physically," I said. "I found out ... on Christmas ... I found out ..." I swallowed hard. "I found out he cheated on me. With a younger guy." There. I said it. The words left my throat like a spiked ball, loath to admit what had happened, afraid to make it true. I didn't realize how scared I had been to say it aloud. He cheated on me. I rubbed my forearm, feeling very small. Feeling very exposed. As if my confession encapsulated me like a gigantic snow globe, magnifying my failure at keeping my husband happy. I winced, expecting disgust or horror in Kayla's eyes, as if all men were loyal except to vile women. She would realize I was ugly and insignificant and unlovable, just as my mother had always insisted. Then, once the initial shock had settled, she would laugh thinly at herself and realize of course my husband cheated on me, for anyone who glimpsed me would recognize my worthlessness.
Instead, Kayla raised her eyebrows and said: "What a fucker! I hope his dick rots off."
Him. She placed it all on him. And why not? It was Sam's choices, Sam's actions, Sam's betrayal. I was the victim.
Yet that realization didn't make it hurt any less.
Cheater, cheater, confidence eater. Hurts his wife, but prove he beats her.
Tears clouded my vision. Kayla pulled me into her arms and squeezed, smelling of smoke and potato chips and stale patchouli oil. The boys gabbed with Hannah near the windshield, their attention focused on the road and each other. Marijuana thickened the air, making my head throb. Kayla patted my shoulder, then led me into the bedroom and locked the accordion door behind us.
"I'm sorry," I said, rubbing my eyes as we sat on the edge of the bare mattress. The closet's mirrored doors rattled in their track. "I guess all the stress is getting to me."
"Do not apologize." Kayla handed me a Subway napkin from her jacket pocket. "You're supposed to cry when you've been hurt."
I snuffled and dabbed my eyes with the napkin. "Everything feels out of control. This morning I actually debated going back to my husband."
Kayla scooted closer to me. "I'm glad you came with us instead," she said, and patted my knee. "But why were you considering that?"
"Because I know Sam won't stop chasing me unless I do. And he's not that bad. I mean, he always remembers my birthday and he sometimes brings me flowers for no reason at all."
"Do you want to go back?"
"No," I admitted. "I can't remember the last time we were happy together. But if I break my marriage vows by just leaving, then I am no better than him."
Kayla skewed her lips. "Your husband breaking his vows frees you from yours."
I stared at her, startled by the simplistic truth in her words.
"Why did you marry him?" she asked. Her tone of voice was curious, not cruel.
I shrugged and stared out the window, watching the heads of telephone poles streak past. The RV swayed and clattered. Kayla sat in silence, squeezing my knee reassuringly, waiting patiently until my thoughts collected. "I guess I married him because he paid attention to me and promised a home not propped up on cinder blocks." I laughed a sad little laugh. "Pathetic, huh?"
Kayla shook her head. "No. Human."
My brow furrowed. Then what's my excuse? I'm not even that.
"If you're miserable with Sam, then why not stick this out with Orin a bit longer? If your husband catches you, well, you debated going back anyway. But if you make it to Fiji, then he can't easily chase you across international borders, right?"
"No," I said, realizing chasing me across magical borders was impossible. And wasn't magic why I chose this adventure? Am I willing to turncoat on my beliefs and dreams because Sam is easy?
"Plus you're almost there," Kayla added.
"Yes, but, I don't even know Orin that well. I mean, I can't deny we have a connection, but he acts weird sometimes."
"Weird how?"
"Well, he hates being questioned."
Kayla chuckled. "Every man hates being questioned."
"And his mannerisms are sometimes odd."
"Cultural differences?" she asked. I blinked, confused. "I mean, I don't know Fijian customs or anything. Maybe he is acting normal where he's from."
"I never considered that." I scratched the bridge of my nose. "But how do I even know he's telling the truth about ... Fiji?"
"He lives there, doesn't he? Besides, if you hate it, leave like you left your husband."
"I guess so. But there's also..." I bit my lip. "There's another."
Kayla's face brightened. "A love triangle after all!"
"No!" I said. "We're not lovers. We just have another connection. But there are odd things about him too." I groaned and flopped back onto the bed. "I don't know what to do."
"Sounds like you are afraid of being betrayed again," Kayla said. I turned my face to her. She shrugged. "Your asshole husband shook you up and now you're super terrified of abandonment since you're in new territory. So the question becomes, out of the three men, who is always there for you?"
I thought about the forest, the hitchhiking, the coldness and the fights, and realized both Orin and Delano had risked themselves for me. Why would either betray me now? "Orin," I said, after a moment. "But that is because I am with him. Delano would do the same if I let him."
"Well, whatever you decide, you need to decide," Kayla said. "Your life is too complicated, and things get worse the longer you wait."
I gnawed my lip, staring at the yellow water stains on the ceiling, unknowing who to trust. Magic, magic everywhere and not a crystal ball to tell me. I did know, however, that Kayla was right. It wasn't the adventure I wanted to flee from; it was the risk of betrayal. And what had been my solution? To crawl back to the betrayer who had started the fear, all because his abuse was familiar, even though the familiarity would undoubtedly leave me desolate and deserted, brokenhearted and alone. I needed to simplify my life, but not with Sam. That narrowed my choices down to two: Follow my head or follow my heart. Orin or Delano.
I sat up and took a deep breath. "You are right," I said. "I need to pick one. And I know who I'm going to choose."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Crank the heat," Clayton said. "It's cold."
"It is cranked," Kayla said from the driver's seat. "Welcome to the frozen north."
Me, Orin, Hannah, and Sean had been squished together on the couch for the last three hours, watching comedies on the flat screen TV. Clayton sat cross-legged beside us on the floor. Fuzzy blankets. Popcorn. Leftover pizza. It was like a traveling sleepover, but without curfews or chaperones or truths and dares. My eyes watched the television with the others, but my thoughts circled around Orin and Delano, the possibilities each promised, their potential lies and hidden secrets. Orin sat at the end of the couch with an ingenuous grin, gripping a can of root beer and a half-eaten candy cane. I was squished against him, head on his shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his faerie fever like I had in the truck bed when we first met. He still smelled of dew drenched ferns and hollow logs, only now it was familiar. He
was familiar. And my heart ached as I realized how scared I was to lose any familiarity, no matter how small or new.
Orin sipped his soda, eyes never blinking. On the television Lars Lindstrom introduced his family to his new girlfriend. Beyond the windshield the sun set in a splash of orange and gray, and a faint thud sounded from the bathroom. I lifted my head from Orin's shoulder. It was most likely something tumbling off a counter from the RV's continuous bumps and trundle. But maybe...
I excused myself and tottered to the bathroom, bracing myself on the hallway walls for support. I paused outside the door, fingers on the latch. To my right, everyone laughed. Orin sounded above them all, like wind chimes over rain.
I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door. A man's silhouette stood behind the shower's opaque curtain.
"Delano?" I whispered.
"A little help, please," Delano whispered back.
I peeked behind the curtain. "What—? Oh!"
Delano stood naked in the stall, his back to the wall, hands splayed to hide his genitals. "I normally have clothing waiting for me when I leave the darkshine," he said, grimacing, "but I am a bit restricted tonight."
I found a pink and white striped beach towel beneath the sink and passed it to him, shielding my eyes with a hand. Delano tied the towel around his waist, then slid open the curtain.
"This moment feels oppositely familiar," he said.
I smirked. "Consider it payback, with interest."
Delano glanced at his bare torso, then waggled his eyebrows at me. "You're interested?"
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