Moribund

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  She’s done, and I’m so done.

  “Heyla.” Instead of pushing her away, I beckon her in.

  She puts a huge, triple-wrapped bag on the Dumpster and then comes to me shyly, that adorable blush on her face. We have an awkward moment or two navigating the bike, her height, her backpack and the small bag of leftovers in her hand…and then her slight weight settles on the back.

  She’s shier than back at the school. “Should I?” She pantomimes wrapping her arms around me, and a thrill goes through my body.

  I keep my voice steady, casual. “Sure.”

  She scooches up on the seat and puts her arms around my waist. The slight press of her body against mine feels good, natural, and I find myself relaxing, all my muscles unknotting. It’s as though I’ve been weary to the bone, tense and cramped up for years, and now, with her, I finally know what comfort is like. As though her touch is healing me.

  Healing.

  No, she’s not the sleeper-princess. She can’t be.

  I pull out of the alleyway with her clinging to me.

  My mind tells me she’s not. My heart knows differently.

  Chapter Seven

  Syl

  The downfall of the sleeper-princess:

  She is always drawn to darkness

  - Glamma’s Grimm

  I cling to Euphoria on the back of her bike, the nighttime streets passing us in a blur of asphalt and city lights. She’s given me her helmet again, and the wind lashes her raven-black hair against the faceplate, the muffled tack-tack-tack of it like fingers knocking on the doors to my soul.

  Too late. I’ve already let her in.

  She turns onto my street. With Fiann or any of the other girls, I’d be ashamed for them to see the tenements I live in, but with Euphoria… My cheeks flame hot and my heart races. What will she think? That I’m poor? I am. That I’m a loser? I lift my chin. Mom and Glamma didn’t raise a loser. After Fiann’s fake friendship, I suddenly decide that I want Euphoria to know who I am. Who I really am.

  She doesn’t bat an eyelash when she pulls up in front of the rundown tenement. Just throws the kickstand down and shifts forward to let me clamber off the seat. She pulls her gloves off while I tug the helmet from my head, bemoaning my helmet hair.

  Whatever. I smell like peanut sauce and fryolator grease. Helmet hair is probably the least of my worries. “Thanks.” My breath goes out of me when her eyes meet mine. Those blue eyes darken, almost sapphire and…glowing gold?

  Like the girl from my dream.

  Could it be her?

  I study her hard. I’ve seen partway through her disguise, but my Fae-sight blurs, freaked out by whatever personal woojy-woo she’s got going on. There’s something I’m not seeing—something beneath her Euphoria-ness.

  Something she’s hiding.

  That doesn’t mean she’s your dream girl, Syl.

  Whoever—whatever—she is, I suddenly want to reassure her. She doesn’t have to hide from me. Clearly, she’s not normal, but I like that. I have Fae-sight. She can disguise herself. Maybe she was in a deadly accident once too.

  We make a good pair. “Euphoria?”

  She turns to me, her face open and honest. “Hm?”

  I step in and touch the back of her hand. It’s a monumental effort for me to reach out like that. I’m brave enough, but I’m not bold by nature. At least not when it comes to matters of the heart.

  Matters of the heart? Get a grip, Syl. You just met her. Today.

  Ugh. Fiann would say that’s so stereotypical gay-girl, but there’s no way to explain what’s going on. I feel connected, suddenly, deeply, with Euphoria—a connection that burns like fire, like there was an ember smoldering inside me all these years, and suddenly… Suddenly, she’s fanning it into flames.

  My breath goes out as I see it reflected back in her blue eyes. She feels it too.

  In the face of that, what do I care what Fiann would think, what anyone would?

  Go for it, Syl. What do you have to lose?

  My pride, my dignity, any future chance I have of ever asking another girl out. Ever.

  “Are you all right?” Euphoria’s so tall that, even sitting, she has to bend to look me in the eye.

  I exhale shakily. “Look, I just want to say…” The rest of it catches in my throat. Say what? “You don’t have to hide from me.”

  Shock shivers through her eyes, and they darken from brilliant blue to sapphire. “What do you mean?”

  I look down at the helmet, at my reflection in it. Will she think I’m crazy? “I can see your…your aura. I know you’re hiding what you really look like, but it’s okay.” I rush on before she thinks I’m body-shaming her or whatever. “I don’t care. I—”

  “Syl Skye.”

  That voice hits me like a hammer to the bones. Mom.

  I sigh. Did she have to pick now to display her Supermom powers? I’d hoped she’d be in bed when I got home. She usually is. I look back to make sure she’s real and not some figment of my angsty teen mind…

  Oh yeah, she’s really there, and she looks mad. Mad enough to spit iron nails, Glamma would say.

  “Syl Skye, you come here this instant.”

  I freeze, caught between my mom and Euphoria and all the things I want to say to her. But the moment’s passed. And there’s no way I can say anything gushy in front of my mom. Nope. No way. I’m red to the tips of my ears as I hand the helmet back to Euphoria.

  “Sorry,” I manage, feeling like the world’s biggest dork.

  “It’s okay.” She hands me my leftovers. That super-cool-sexy smirk tilts her lips, but her posture is stiff. “I had a mom once too.” Our fingers brush, and a spark jumps between us.

  “Now, Syl.” Mom is trembling. With rage, maybe? I’ve never seen her so angry, and yet… Her aura cloaks her in a deep crimson shot through with yellow, with…fear? What is she afraid of?

  It must be something. She’s got an iron poker in her hand.

  What is happening? This is like my dad coming to the door with a shotgun on prom night. Surreal. Seriously, is my interest in Euphoria that obvious? Or is it just the shock of seeing me on the back of a Harley that’s freaking my mom out? Whatever it is, she steps in and grabs me, yanking me away from Euphoria.

  Euphoria, for her part, seems a bit freaked out too, looking at my mom like she’s something out of The Twilight Zone.

  And then the moment breaks.

  Mom waves the poker. “Leave this instant or I’ll call the police.”

  Euphoria fixes my mom with a death glare, her irises practically glowing a dangerous dark blue.

  I step between them, feeling like a teeny ref between two beefy football players. “She was just bringing me home, Mom.”

  “I know what she was doing.”

  From the look on Mom’s face, she knows I’m crushing hard on Euphoria. Warning, warning! Desperate, I try to pull back from DEFCON 1. “My bike got a flat and—”

  “Inside.” I know that tone. Mom is done talking.

  I look back at Euphoria. “Good night.”

  “Goodbye, Syl.”

  It sounds like she’s saying goodbye goodbye. I want to turn back, but my mom corrals me inside and slams the door. When I turn back, Euphoria is gone. I scrunch my face to the window, looking both ways, but only an empty street meets my searching gaze.

  “Come upstairs.” Mom’s voice is gentler now that Euphoria’s gone, but her hand is still white-knuckled on the poker. She ushers me upstairs. Every footfall is like doom and dread. Halfway up, on the landing near our neighbor’s door, I turn, but Mom only points. “Upstairs, Syl.”

  Huffing out a breath, I keep going, catching the flash of initials on the door—J.J.—painted in sprawly script with weird symbols around it. Bizarre. Still, part of me hopes the noise we’re making might draw attention. Look! A wild neighbor appears! But no. The door stays closed, and I stay firmly on the hook.

  Mom’s hook. I already know what she’s going to say.

 
She drops the bomb as we enter our apartment. “You’re grounded, Syl.”

  “What? Mom, come o—”

  “For a month.”

  “A month! But Homecoming is mid-October and—”

  “Shall we make it two months?”

  That shuts me up fast.

  “And I don’t want you going near that girl. Do you understand me?”

  No. I don’t, but Mom has that breathless rage thing going on, and underneath it, I sense her fear. It stains the air around her a bright canary yellow. “Yeah. I understand.” But I don’t. Not one bit.

  Is she upset that I’m interested in a girl? A pang of hurt stabs me, but Glamma’s sensible voice rises in my mind, Don’t flying-frog leap to conclusions, Syl.

  One thing’s for certain, I won’t be getting any answers out of Mom.

  She points to my room. “Get some sleep. You’ve got a long walk to school tomorrow.”

  Ugh. She’s right. Over a mile and no bike means I’ll have to get up at least thirty minutes early. I schlep off to bed. I’ll talk to her later when she’s more reasonable.

  She doesn’t get more reasonable. A week goes by and then two. I go to school—my bike is an easy fix, so at least there’s that—and then I come home right after. No hanging out, no afterschool anything, not even my assignments for the school paper. I have to give Suzie Chang all my editorials. Aside from work, I don’t see the outside of our tiny apartment.

  And though I pretty much throw myself on the mercy of the Court of Mom, she’s stalwart as a Spartan. The first time I try, she listens and then tells me no. The second time, she cuts me off with the threat of more grounding.

  Man, she does not like Euphoria.

  So I’m stuck. Days go by—school, work, school, work…

  I see Euphoria in bio class, and apparently everyone else does too. Whatever woojy-woo weirdness she had is no longer disguising her. Everyone sees her for who she is—Euphoria, glam-Goth star—and she’s mobbed by fangirls and fanboys wherever she goes. Social media blows up, but try as they might, no one can get a good pic of Euphoria.

  I figure it’s got something to do with the woojy-woo. Some kind of side effect that messes with machinery. I read about it in Glamma’s Grimm once—that machinery didn’t work right in the presence of certain supernatural creatures, like ghosts or vampires or faeries. Well, I know Euphoria’s not a ghost since I touched her more than once. There’s no way she’s a vampire because I’ve seen her in daylight. And, no. She didn’t burn up or sparkle or anything.

  So clearly she’s a faerie.

  And clearly I’ve been grounded for too long and I’m going stir-crazy because that is the most insane conclusion ever. You’re losing it, Syl.

  Whatever. I know she’s hiding something, but I can’t even get close to her.

  Worse, Miss Mack moves her to be Fiann’s partner. I smell a rat. A giant, principal-shaped rat. I don’t have any other classes with her since I’m in AP everything, and I only see her in passing—sometimes in the hall between classes and sometimes in the parking lot. She meets my gaze, and I meet hers.

  Every time, the longing between us ignites and scorches me, threatening to light me up. I’m a moth dancing on a flame, ever burning, burning, burning…

  She feels it too. I can tell by the way her eyes darken, both of us burning, aching, the connection a fiery thread between us, wrapped around both our hearts.

  But she doesn’t talk to me beyond a “Heyla, Syl.”

  Now I feel like I’m in The Twilight Zone. One minute I thought we had a connection; the next I get grounded, and she’s all over Fiann. Well…that last isn’t true.

  It’s Fiann that’s all over Euphoria; not in a “gay way”—or so she claims—but I see the way she looks at Euphoria. It hurts my heart to think they might get together, start dating, that Fiann might take my place on the back of Euphoria’s bike.

  But for all Euphoria’s avoiding me, she doesn’t seem interested in Fiann. Not like interested-interested. According to Lennon, who takes pity on me and keeps me informed, Euphoria’s busy playing the Nanci Raygun and tossing mics off stage to fangirls. As much as I wouldn’t mind being one of those fangirls, it’s nice that Lennon is my new lab partner. We get to spend some time awkwardly doing silly experiments. Sometimes it feels like old times, and then the bell rings and she goes trailing after Fiann again.

  Fiann.

  Every day, she smirks at me from across the room. Ugh. And as the days draw closer to Homecoming, the posters go up. Real Life Supergirl! Heroic Teen Saves Friend! And the stories come back out. Stories of the night I cannot remember.

  The night that’s nothing more than a blur of white light and heat.

  And a girl with sapphire-blue eyes ringed in gold.

  The more I dream of her, the more intense my connection with Euphoria gets. Like what I see in my dreams becomes what I crave in real life.

  Just a glance of E’s intense blue eyes, and I’m a goner all over again. Burning, burning, burning… But whenever I try to talk to her, Fiann’s there, getting in the way. I want to tell her to step off, but I don’t have any claim to Euphoria. Not really.

  I’m sure tons of girls have dream fantasies about her.

  Meanwhile, everyone at school is acting weird—possessed or something. My Fae-sight keeps showing me a deep indigo aura hanging over them like shrouds. I have no idea what it means. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Except that one guy.

  The Norwegian exchange student, Agravaine what’s-his-bucket. He’s dirty with dark indigo; it follows him like a cloud of squid ink. When I get too close, the feeling slides over my skin all sinister, slimy, like turning over a log to find squirming, black beetles beneath. Gross. He’s all up in Fiann’s new Euphoria-based crew too, her manager maybe? Rumor has it some of the juniors and seniors are buying some weird designer drug from him and ending up in the hospital, all hollow-eyed and dehydrated.

  Meanwhile, Fiann is eating up all the attention from pre-Homecoming, from being Euphoria’s supposed BFF, from everything… She’s taken to catcalling me in the hall and encouraging her princess posse to booby trap my locker.

  I take it for as long as I can.

  Two days before Homecoming, I finally snap. It’s the shaving cream incident that’s the final straw.

  I open my locker after lunch, and shaving cream pours out. Like…a ton of it. It’s all caked in my books, my notebooks, my DSL camera. I just stand there while it poops out of my locker and splats onto the floor.

  “Hey, Syl. You should shave at home, you know.”

  Fiann leans against her own locker halfway down the hall, the princess posse laughing all around her.

  “Didn’t you know, Fi?” Dani says, all exaggerated with a garbage-eating grin. “Lezzies don’t shave.”

  I see red.

  The next thing I know, I’m marching toward Fiann, and kids are getting the heck out of my way, like, fast. Like I’m a bull with steam coming out of my nose and ears.

  “What’s wrong, Syl? You—”

  I grab Fiann and slam her against the locker. “What is your problem?”

  Her face gets red, and all of a sudden, she’s shaking, pale yellow bleeding all over her aura. “Get your hands off me.” She whispers it in a how-dare-you tone, and then when I don’t, she screams it. “Get her off me!”

  Danette is the bravest. She grabs me. I shove her away, but she and Maggie haul me off. Fiann is sweaty-faced and puffing. She doesn’t look so pretty now.

  “You’ll pay for this! You’ll have detention forever!”

  “Go ahead,” I fire back, “and I’ll show the admins my locker. I’m betting they’ll recognize your handiwork.”

  Now she pales. Like a lot girls in Richmond E, Fiann’s pretty-girl deception depends on her being utterly fake. Her father really does think she’s some kind of angel. Well, this’d put a big, glaring black mark on her shiny halo.

  We’re locked in a tense standoff until sudden
ly Danette and Maggie let me go. A gentle hand on my shoulder turns me. “Syl.” I look up into Euphoria’s bright blue eyes. Concern lines her face, and her touch is soft. Her presence soothes me even as it sets me on fire.

  Burning again. Katniss Everdeen, you got nothing on me.

  “Syl…” The look on her face tells me she realizes I’ve been pushed too far.

  I want to lean in to her strength, her comfort. I volunteer as tribute! But I don’t.

  I push her away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Syl!” She chases me down the hall. I double-time it, but she’s tall and lanky and way more athletic than I am.

  Heads turn as we pass, but then again, she always makes heads turn.

  I’ll bet half of them have dreams about her, just like mine.

  “Syl, stop, please.”

  “Why do you care?” Tears burn hot on my lashes, and I dash them away, angrier than I’ve ever been at myself. I want to be by her side, even after all she’s put me through these past weeks. “Fiann’s your BFF now, so whatever.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I see the way she hangs all over you, and you don’t even”—crap, my voice is breaking—“talk to me anymore.”

  “Syl.” Euphoria takes my shoulders gently, her expression open and earnest. “I’m so sorry. I’ll explain everything after the Homecoming concert.”

  “I want to go.” I’m just blurting crap out now, my breath hitching over my sobs. “To Homecoming.” I’m losing my cool, and I don’t even care. Glamma always said if someone’s important to you, be straightforward. “I’m grounded, but I don’t care. I want to come, to see you.”

  Thunderclouds darken her face. She’s going to tell me to get lost, that she’s into Fiann. But then she softens. “Are you…asking me to Homecoming?”

  Shock hits me like a Mack truck. Am I? No…yes…no! Ugh. My heart’s gone all arseways and beyont, as Glamma would say. Not really sure what-all that means, but I take a sec to get my head on straight at least, squaring my shoulders and looking Euphoria right in the eye.

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” Should I kneel or bow or something? I’ve never asked a girl out. But darn it, I forge on ahead. “Euphoria, I’d be pleased if you’d accompany me to the Homecoming dance.”