ef: Possibly.
fg: But Adrian told Imogene that the soul-eaters also feed on ghosts.
ef: Yes, *and* they feed on fairies, so I doubt the group troubling you would have formed an alliance with the anamithim. For one thing, it would have been difficult—not to mention foolhardy on their part—to approach the anamithim in the first place. Beings such as the anamithim tend to feed first and ask questions later.
fg: So we’re not the fairies’ tithe to them?
ef: No. For them to be able to use you as a tithe, you would have to be beholden to them in the first place. But since they can lay no legitimate claim to either you or Imogene, they couldn’t use you for such a purpose. It would seem that your friend Pelly is correct. They have simply involved you for the sake of their own amusement.
fg: It’s so not fair.
ef: I agree. But this is the sort of thing that happens when house fairies are abandoned and go bad.
fg: So what can we do?
ef: I need to do more research. But as I mentioned before, tomorrow is Halloween, when all the barriers between the worlds come down. To try to deal with the anamithim in the next day or so would be suicide. What you need to do is lay low—at least until the weekend is over.
fg: But what if they come for us?
ef: Keep your room well-lit so that there are no large shadowed areas from which they can manifest, and you should be able to keep them at bay.
fg: Will you come and help us?
ef: I’m sorry, but I can’t come to you. I’m the caretaker of a gateway into the fairy realms, and the potential for trouble is too great if I’m ever away from it for too long—especially at this time of the year. But I truly will do my best to help. I just need to do more research into this and consult with some experts I know.
fg: Thanks. I wish you could just wave your hands and solve everything, because if magic works, it’d be nice if it’d work for us, too. But we appreciate anything you can do.
At least I hope we do. I can’t answer for Imogene, but surely she’ll be okay with this.
ef: You know, I’ve been thinking as we sit here. There could be another reason for the anamithims’ interest in Imogene. I’d have to actually meet her to be sure, but it’s possible that she’s one of those people who carry myths under their skin.
fg: You’ve totally lost me.
ef:
fg: That’s sort of what Pelly said. How if you know too much about Faerie—though I think he said it’s more *believing* too much—it wakes up some kind of light in you.
ef: Yes, it’s often referred to as a “shine.” And commerce with fairy can certainly wake it. If this is the case, your friend’s shine will be like a beacon. And that becomes more of a problem because the anamithim have an old enmity with the mythical beings that first walked our world. They’re the ones who banished the anamithim into the shadows in the first place, so the soul-eaters like nothing better than to swallow up the spirits of their ancestors, no matter how faint the bloodline.
fg: So if they do attack us, what can we do?
ef: They won’t attack you—not if you keep out of the shadows. Sleep with all your lights on and don’t leave a lit room for a dark one.
fg: But if they do?
ef: Do you know the story of Tam Lin?
fg: Sure, he was the fairy knight whose girlfriend won him back from the fairy queen. What about it?
ef: If the anamithim should grab hold of your friend, you have to grab hold of her, too. And whatever they do to her, whatever they change her into, you can’t let go.
fg: That doesn’t sound too hard.
ef: Except they will change her into the shape of whatever you fear the most.
I remember more about the ballad, as I read what Esmeralda’s just written. Tam Lin got turned into all kinds of animals and things, but finally the fairies let him go because his girlfriend was so brave and tenacious. I don’t know if I could do that. Imogene could, but she’s the one being grabbed.
fg: Why does that work?
ef: They respect exaggerated resolve and bravery— you know, the stuff of heroes. The heart that maintains its capacity for love and loyalty and joy—especially in the midst of a great trial—impresses them no end. But courage most of all.
Great. That’s the last thing I have.
ef: I need to go. Please stay in and keep the lights on. I know it’s boring, but it will only be for a couple of days. We’ll figure this out.
fg: Staying alive isn’t boring.
ef: I agree. Life is a glorious gift. Good-bye, Maxine.
fg: Good-bye, and thanks.
I highlight our whole conversation and copy it into a word processing file, where I save it. Then I go back to the Web page, wondering how to sign off, but the page closes as I watch, and I’m staring at my tropical fish screensaver again.
I realize that I never asked Esmeralda anything about herself. Who she is, where she lives, what being a gatekeeper means. Maybe there’ll be the chance to do so another time, because she sounds really interesting.
Leaning back in my chair, I glance at the time and get a huge shock. It’s already midmorning. I’ve missed homeroom, my first class, and most of my second. That’s never happened. I’ve never been late before. Sick a couple of times, but I have an almost perfect attendance record.
I jump up and get washed and dressed in record time, expecting a call from the school office to come at any minute. What’ll I say to them? What if they tell Mom?
The phone rings as I’m going out the door, and my whole body jerks with guilt and surprise. Then I realize it can’t be the school calling because it’s my cell phone that’s ringing, and they’d never call me on it.
Do I wish I had caller ID now? You bet.
My phone rings again.
My heart sinks as I realize that it’s probably Mom. The school must have called her, and now she’s checking up on me.
It’s on the last ring before it’ll go to voice mail when I press the talk button.
I leave a note on the kitchen table before Mom and Jared get up, explaining how I went to school early, then go and make a rough bed in my closet. I lie there, half dozing while I wait for both of them to leave. For a while I experiment with opening doors on the back wall the way Pelly showed me when we got back from Maxine’s last night, but I just look through them at the closets they open up into. It’s not that I’m scared to step through them so much as I don’t trust that there’ll be a way back if I do manage to cross over.
It’s amazing what people shove into the back of a closet. Boxes of papers, piles of shoes, old toys, sports equipment, vinyl records—all the stuff they don’t need easy access to anymore.
I don’t know who the closets belong to because I’m not concentrating on specific ones, the way Pelly did. I’m just kind of browsing, because that doesn’t seem as nosy as checking out the closets of people I know. But it grows old, and it makes me sleepy.
I’ve dozed off again when I hear a door slam.
That’ll be Jared, I think, who can’t go quietly through a door these days. So Mom will already be gone.
But I wait a little bit longer while I listen for sounds in the apartment. When I’m sure I’m alone, I hurry to th
e bathroom to have the pee I’ve been holding for the past few hours. Still blue all over, my reflection in the mirror shows me. Which means I’m still safe from the soul-eaters.
I boil some water. I’m just pouring the last of it into the coffee filter and wondering if I should see if Pelly can show up in the daytime and if he wants to have some coffee with me, when I hear the front door open. It’s too late to hide. Mom walks into the living room, talking to herself about some paper she forgot that she needs for a morning class.
I stand frozen while she rummages around her desk in the corner of the living room. Maybe she won’t come into the kitchen. Maybe she’ll find her paper and just go. Except she doesn’t. I mean, she finds what she’s looking for, but then she walks into the kitchen—drawn by the smell of the coffee, I guess.
“I thought you’d already gone to school ...”
Her voice trails off as my blue skin registers. She stands there looking at me, not saying a word, trying to take it in.
“I kind of lied,” I say.
“Because of ...” She waves a hand helplessly in my direction. “Your new look?”
“Pretty much.”
“So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
I look at her, phony explanations taking shape inside my head, but I realize I don’t want to lie to her either. Frankie Lee wouldn’t understand, but I’d rather Mom thought I was crazy.
“I’ve been cursed by fairies,” I tell her.
“Fairies.”
“You know ... spirits of the woods and all that, except it turns out they live in the city, too.”
She shakes her head. “It’s been a long time since I heard you talk about fairies. Not since we used to live on the commune.”
I shrug.
“So ... these fairy spirits turned your skin blue.”
“No, the blue’s a protection against them, except it got out of hand.”
“And now you’re blue.” She pauses a moment, then adds, “All over?”
I lift my T-shirt.
“I see,” she says. She looks at where the coffee’s almost finished dripping through the filter. “I think you need to pour us both a cup and tell me about this from the beginning.”
I leave a lot out—like just how bad the soul-suckers are—but mostly I tell it like it happened. Mom doesn’t bat an eye, but then she’s always been like that. I can remember how back on the commune she just accepted that I had an invisible friend named Pelly and never went into this routine, the way other adults would, about how he wasn’t real and couldn’t possibly exist. For all I know, maybe she was seeing some kind of fairies, too.
“I always thought there were real spirits,” she says when I’m done.
“And it turns out you were right.”
She gives a slow nod. “So is this—” She reaches across the table to touch my blue arm. “Is it permanent?”
“It should be gone in a day or two.”
She nods again—still processing all of this, I guess.
“So what happens now?” she asks.
“I just have to get these other fairies to back off,” I tell her.
“How dangerous are they?”
I realize I have to play the “little white lie” card so that she doesn’t get too wigged out.
“So far they just stare at me from the shadows,” I say, which is still walking on the edges of the truth.
“We’re never going to have a normal life, are we?” she says.
“Would we want to?”
She gives a slow nod. “Sometimes, I think yes. Or at least that I want one for you and Jared. I worry what those years in the commune, and later in Tyson, have done to you.”
“They made us open-minded and self-reliant.”
“I suppose.”
“Really, Mom. We’re okay.”
“Says the blue-skinned girl.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“Unlike the piercings and the tattoos.”
I give her a surprised look.
“I didn’t think any of that bothered you,” I say.
“It doesn’t, really. I just have to keep reminding myself that whatever we create, whether it’s a work of art or a child, they go on to live their own lives, to make their own connections to all the things we can’t influence, or sometimes even warn them about. All we can do is stand back and watch and hope we did a good enough job with what we made.”
“You did a great job, Mom.”
She smiles. “Well, if that’s the case, it was luck more than planning, though I always wanted the best for both of you.”
“Jared’s perfect,” I assure her, “and I—well, I get along fine. Really.”
When she stands up, I do, too.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Then I think I’ll go to class. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“The funny thing is,” she says, “for all the trouble you can get into, I actually believe that.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her, and give her a hug.
“I have to worry,” she says into my blue hair. “That’s a parent’s job, and I don’t think it ever stops.”
She kisses me, gives my blueness another long look, then shakes her head and heads off to school. I get myself another coffee and have a piece of toast with it while I wait for 9:30 to arrive. As soon as it does, I call the record store. Thomas answers, and I can feel his relief when he recognizes my voice.
“I’m glad you called. I was getting worried.”
“We’re all fine,” I say. “We chased off the bad guys and bought ourselves a little time, but I ended up blue.”
“Don’t be. We’ll work this out.”
“No, I mean I’m literally blue—all over. Every inch of my skin.”
“Oh.” He waits a beat, then adds, “I’d like to see that.”
“You would.”
“Hey, I’m your boyfriend.”
He really is, isn’t he? And he doesn’t think I’m nuts. How cool is that?
“Did you learn anything from your grandmother?” I ask.
“Getting rid of house fairies like your friend Pelly said are living in the school is easy. You just have to leave them a gift of new clothes and thank them for the great job they’ve been doing.”
“That really works?”
“So Granny says.”
I think of how grubby the school is, which is no surprise, considering it’s got lazy fairies and an alcoholic custodian.
“What if they’ve been doing a lousy job?” I ask.
“You lie. It works either way.”
“And the soul-eaters?”
“She says there are stories about all sorts of demon spirits—old hags that feed on children, fearsome black dogs with blazing eyes,phoukas who will try to drown you—but nothing like the ones you describe.”
“So no help there.”
“Well, she did say that such creatures feed on your fear, so if you come into contact with them, you should show them respect, but no fear.”
I shiver, remembering how I felt from just those glimpses I had last night of what’s in the shadows.
“Easy for her to say,” I tell him.
“I suppose.”
“Did she have any advice on how to bring the battle to them?”
Thomas laughs. “Well, I didn’t quite put it like that, but apparently on Halloween—”
“Which is tomorrow.”
“Which is tomorrow,” Thomas agrees. “On Halloween the borders between the worlds are hazy. If you can find a fairy mound, or some other place known to be their haunt, and run around it nine times, you can gain entry into the fairy realms.”
“I wonder—are they stronger or weaker there?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that you’re not supposed to eat or drink anything in Fairyland. I think you’re safe unless you do.”
We talk a little more. Befo
re we hang up, I promise not to run off and do something crazy without calling him first. Then I dial Maxine’s cell phone.
“Oh, you’re picking up,” I say. “I thought you’d be in class and I’d just leave a message.”
“I’m not at school yet. I was just going out the door when you called.”
I blink in surprise. She’s just leaving now?
“Okay,” I say “Who are you, and what have you done with Maxine?”
She laughs.“I know. It’s too weird, me being late.What’s up?”
I tell her about how a gift of clothes can get rid of the fairies in the school and ask her to stop by the thrift shop and pick up some doll or toddler clothes that will do the trick. “Make sure they’re nice,” I add. Then I tell her about my mom coming back and catching the blue wonder that is her daughter, making coffee in all her blueness.
“She must have totally freaked,” Maxine says.
“Not really.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, she was really pretty good about it.”
“I don’t get your family. My mom would have gone ballistic.”
“You seem to get Jared pretty well.”
“Don’t start,” she says, but I can hear the smile in her voice, and I know she likes it.
“So you were okay last night?” I ask. “You know, after we left.”
“No spooks. But I’ve been following some leads—”
“You watch way too many cop shows,” I tell her.
“—and,” she continues, ignoring me as any sensible person would, “I’m hoping for some good news soon. One thing I have found out is that we need to lie low tomorrow because of Halloween.”
The Blue Girl Page 19