“What? Like lightning bugs?” Phoebe asked. She worked carefully to trim the hair around Evie’s left ear, noticing that it was pierced in three places but that she wore no earrings.
Evie shook her head. “Not at all. It was little white lights, bright and dancing from leaf to leaf, branch to branch, chasing each other down into the old cellar holes. We chased after them, but they all disappeared.
“Lisa knew just what they were. ‘Fairies,’ she said. She was so excited. The next day, we were back in the cellar hole leaving them gifts. Lisa said that maybe then, if we left presents, they’d let us see them.”
“And did they?” Phoebe asked, pausing to step back and assess the back of her hair before she continued cutting. She decided to try to do some layers in the back—something Sam never let her do. Evie’s hair was beautiful really, now that it was combed and clean. It was thick and had a natural wave.
“No. Not Sammy and me anyway. It was Lisa they wanted. She was the one Teilo came for.” Evie’s face twitched a little. Phoebe tried to imagine what it must have been like to be the odd girl out. The one not chosen by the Fairy King. And if Evie and Lisa were as tight as Sam suggested, then it must have been horrible to have Lisa choose the Fairy King over Evie.
“So you never saw him? Never heard him?”
Evie shook her head, which Phoebe grabbed with both her hands, reminding Evie to keep still while she was cutting. “Only Lisa. She said she was the chosen one.”
“But how do you know she wasn’t making it up? Or that this Teilo wasn’t just some weird pervert hiding in the bushes pretending to be the King of the Fairies?”
Evie sighed and was quiet a moment. Phoebe worked the scissors across the back of her head.
“I don’t, I guess. I mean, we were a little doubtful—Sammy especially. But she was so . . . so caught up in it. Giddy. And she came out of that cellar hole with these little trinkets, gifts from Teilo. They were proof.”
“But they were just everyday objects, right? A coin, a Catholic medal? Nothing otherworldly about that.”
Evie brought her fingers to her lips, chewed on the nails. “I guess not,” she said at last. “We were kids, Phoebe. Lisa told us the fairies were real, that their king came, and there was no point arguing with her. I guess you had to know Lisa for that to make sense. She was so stubborn. And more than that. She was sort of enchanted. Exactly the kind of person the King of the Fairies might come for.”
Evie said this with an expression that was both wistful and slightly bitter.
Phoebe had worked her way back around to the front, facing Evie and trying to make the right side match the left.
“So what do you think happened to her then?” she asked.
“I think”—Evie hesitated, closed her eyes, then opened them—“I think she went with Teilo.”
“What? To the fairy kingdom? Come on, Evie! You can’t tell me you really believe that.”
“Maybe we’ll find out tonight.”
“Do you think it’s really possible,” Phoebe said, stepping back to admire the finished haircut, “that Lisa’s still alive? That it could really be her?”
Evie brushed the hair off her shoulders and stood up.
“The biggest lesson I learned that summer, the one I’ve carried with me my whole life, is that anything is possible.”
Phoebe smiled at her, reached out her hand to take Evie’s, which was cool and clammy.
“Do you really believe that?” Phoebe asked.
“Absolutely,” Evie said, smiling.
“Then come with me,” Phoebe said.
She led Evie to the front door.
Evie pulled away from her, her face sweaty and panicked. “I can’t,” she said.
Phoebe took her hand again. “Just one step out the door. I’ll be right there with you. One step, Evie. Remember, anything’s possible.”
Evie bit her lower lip, closed her eyes, and held her hand out to Phoebe. Phoebe opened the door and they stepped through together. They stood on the top step leading down to the driveway, the rising moon lighting up their faces.
“Open your eyes,” she said in her calmest voice.
Evie did.
“See,” Phoebe said. “You did it.” Evie locked eyes with her. At first, Evie looked frightened, then for just the briefest second it was as if a shade lifted and Phoebe could see someone else in there. Someone brave, sure of herself. More confident than Phoebe herself, even.
And just then, Sam came wheeling into the driveway in his pickup. The shade slammed shut and Evie clawed at Phoebe’s hand, sucking in air with a wheezing fish-out-of-water gulp. Sam jumped out of the cab, face flushed.
“I’m on my way to Reliance,” he said. “You coming?”
CHAPTER 22
Lisa
JUNE 12, FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
In all the stories, it’s the same. The girl is ordinary. The girl is dull. But she is kind, has a good heart. Maybe she’s got a wicked stepmother. Maybe her stepsisters are fat and ugly and have dresses much fancier than hers. Maybe her father’s taken her deep into the heart of the forest and left her there.
Lisa knew her own story started just like theirs: Once upon a time.
Once upon a time there was a girl who could talk to the animals. A girl who lived next to a village where all of the people had disappeared. All but her great-grandfather, a tiny squalling baby left behind, tears and snot running rivers down his pink piggy face. His blood was in her veins. The salt inside it lucky somehow.
And she was a lucky girl. She knew that now, more than ever. Because she’d been given a magical gift, something straight out of a fairy tale: a book written by the King of the Fairies himself.
“You put the book there yourself,” Sammy said.
“How can you say that?” Lisa demanded. “Just look at it! Look how old it is.”
“You told us you wouldn’t go back there on your own,” Evie said. “You promised!” Her voice crackled, and for the first time ever, Lisa thought Evie might swing out and hit her. She waited for it, bracing herself, but Evie stood still, her breathing getting louder and louder.
Lisa had found the book down in the cellar hole that morning: a gift wrapped in wide green leaves, bound with thin vines, a purple foxglove with a spotted throat on top.
The note she’d left the fairies was gone.
Lisa had opened the package and found a book inside with a worn and tattered green cover. The paper looked old, the cover stitched on with heavy black thread. She ran her fingers over the letters on the cover: The Book of Fairies. Above it, a strange symbol painted in gold—an upside-down number 4 with a circle at the bottom.
She opened the book, squinted in the early morning light to make out the words. Flipping through, she found sections called “Fairy History,” “Fairy Legends,” “Fairies and Humans.” At the end of the book there was a page that began, If you wish to cross over to the land of the fairies. . .
There was a recipe for fairy tea that involved steeping the flowers and leaves of foxglove, adding honey, and letting the mixture sit for several days.
Lisa had closed the book and climbed out of the cellar hole, heart pounding because she knew that now she had it: proof that the fairies existed.
“That’s easy to fake,” Sammy said. “Stain the paper, singe the edges. You’ve taken this fairy crap too far, Lisa.”
“So I went to the trouble of writing the book myself, making up page after page, carefully putting it all down in handwriting that looks nothing like my own? Right. Come on, Mr. Logic. Be logical, would ya?”
Sam shook his head.
“Just look at the book, Sam. It’s full of all kinds of stuff. The King of the Fairies, his name is Teilo. He’s been here a long, long time. And I know what we have to do next. It says right here in the book what we have to do if we want to meet him.”
Evie’s face twisted into a pained expression. “What?”
“We just have to promise him something—you know, to prove we’re taking it seriously. And he’ll grant our wishes. And let us see him. Can you believe it? Can you believe how lucky we are?”
Sammy shook his head. “What I can’t believe is how nuts you are. No way am I promising anything to one of your invisible friends!”
“What do you think, Evie?” Lisa asked. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you? He’s offering to grant us any wish, and to let us see him.”
“Oh great. Ask her,” Sammy said. He stormed off through the tall grass, which moved like waves in the wind.
“I think we should tell people about the fairies,” Evie said, making a determined bulldog face with her lower jaw jutted out. “Show them the book.”
“No,” Lisa argued. “The book says we have to keep all this a secret. If we tell, they’ll go away and never come back. And if we don’t keep it a secret, bad things might happen.”
Evie raised her eyebrows. “Bad things?”
“I don’t know exactly, but the book warns not to cross them. The fairies can grant wishes, bring good luck, but if you get on their bad side . . .”
Evie shivered. “But Lisa, if there is this whole other race of beings living on the back of this hill, that’s like the greatest discovery of all time. And this, right here,” she said, shaking the book, “this is proof! We could be famous all over the world.”
“I don’t want to be famous,” Lisa said, snatching the book back from Evie.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Lisa thought a minute. “I want to know what it’s like there. On the other side. In Teilo’s world.”
And maybe, she thought, maybe this book is the key. Maybe the fairies have a potion that could bring Da back. There were directions at the end for crossing over to the Fairy Realm, weren’t there? Would she ever have the guts to follow them? The courage to leave behind everything she knew and loved?
“Promise me,” Lisa said. “Swear you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”
Evie nodded solemnly.
“And think about what I said. With one little promise to Teilo, we can get anything we ask for.”
Evie chewed her lip.
“If you could wish for anything,” Lisa said, “no matter how big, how impossible, what would you wish for?”
Evie didn’t answer. She kicked at the ground with her huge work boot. Lisa hugged The Book of Fairies to her chest.
The question hung in the air between them like a golden bubble, all shiny and radiant, neither of them daring to answer out loud.
CHAPTER 23
Phoebe
JUNE 11, PRESENT DAY
“I thought she couldn’t go outside,” Sam said, eyes straight ahead on the road.
“She can’t. Couldn’t. I’m trying to help her, Sam. I’ve been doing some research on agoraphobia.”
“Great, Bee. That’s just great.” He gripped the wheel tighter, rubbed it hard with his thumbs. The cab of Sam’s truck was tidy—no crumbs or food wrappers. His travel mug with the Vermont Public Radio logo was resting in the cup holder. Phoebe knew without opening it that the glove box was neat and organized—insurance and registration on top, manual and maps underneath. Hers was stuffed full of leaking ketchup packets, napkins, and receipts.
They traveled in silence a few minutes, passing the Maple Hills Credit Union and Al’s Quality Southern Used Cars. Phoebe wondered what they’d find when they got to Reliance—if it was really possible that Lisa would be there, waiting. The full moon was just up over the mountains, bright and reddish. Like blood, Phoebe thought, then stopped herself. Raspberries, she decided. Currants. Cranberries maybe. The moons all have names, she knew, but which one was this? The planter’s moon? Strawberry moon?
She touched her belly.
Tell him, she begged herself. Open your goddamn mouth and speak.
She reached over and took his hand, which rested on the shift lever. She gave it a squeeze. “I love you, you know,” she said. He grunted, kept his eyes on the road.
It was no secret that everyone had expected Sam to do better than a woman like Phoebe. And she sensed that some—Sam’s mother in particular (though Phoebe knew Phyllis would never come right out and say it)—blamed Phoebe for Sam’s apparent inability to live up to his potential. He’d gone to college after all, studied philosophy and art, and yet here he was cutting trees for a living. Phoebe herself was no great success story, having barely graduated from high school, then taken a string of low-wage service jobs, scooping ice cream, waiting tables, answering telephones. When they had dinner with his college friends and they all got to talking about French philosophers and politics, her mind went numb.
“Well, what do you think, Bee?” some well-meaning girl in natural fiber clothing would ask. Phoebe would shrug or give some totally inconclusive answer that made everyone in the room look at her with their isn’t-it-a-shame-bright-Sam-ended-up-with-a-complete-dolt looks. Then, if she’d had enough to drink, she’d play it up, act like some dumb hick—cussing up a storm, saying “ain’t” and dropping the g’s at the end of words: I ain’t foolin’. Sam would roll his eyes, amused and irritated all at once, but he never really got why she did it. She was not from their world and never would be. Sam said it didn’t matter—that he loved her for who she was, but she knew better. One day he’d wake up and realize she was ten years older and light-years behind. And telling him she was pregnant could be viewed as just a sad and desperate attempt to hold on to him, to get him to commit to a relationship that was obviously beneath him.
“Pathetic,” she mumbled out loud.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothin’,” she said, dropping the g on purpose, slouching down into the seat.
They were coming into Harmony now. Sam’s headlights illuminated the Lord’s Prayer rock.
Sam turned right onto Main Street. They passed the general store with the neon CLOSED sign lit. The letter board in front of the Methodist Church said STRAWBERRY FEST SAT 9–1. SHORTCAKE, PIES, MRS LAROUCHES WORLD-FAMOUS JAM!
“Thanks,” Phoebe said, sitting up straight again, fiddling with her trucker belt buckle for luck with all this, “for coming to pick me up. I thought maybe you’d gone alone.”
Sam didn’t respond. Just drove in silence, chewing his lower lip—a boyish gesture that reminded Phoebe of Evie. Then she remembered Evie’s description of Sam.
Excited all the time, talking nonstop about whatever came into his head. He couldn’t keep a secret if you paid him. Until the fairies came.
They turned onto Spruce Street.
“So what’s the plan?” Phoebe asked.
“Plan?”
“You’re not going to park near your mom’s place, are you?”
They were just passing it now. The lights were all out, the curtains drawn. Phoebe remembered little Sam’s face in the upper window all those years ago. The girl in pink asking, “Are you here to see the fairies?” She remembered the glove she’d been shown—the leather stained, an extra finger sewn on with heavy black thread.
“Nah. I thought I’d circle around and park along Rangley Road. We’ll have to cut through the woods, but I think we can find our way.”
And what’ll we do if we find her? she wanted to ask.
Sam had a flashlight, but it did little good. The woods were thick, dark, and impenetrable. The moon above them seemed nearly as bright as the sun, but little of the light was able to make it through the thick canopy of leaves above. Phoebe held on to the back of Sam’s T-shirt, sure that if she let go, she’d be left behind, lost.
“Are you sure this is right?” Phoebe asked, her ankle slamming against yet another rock. She hated what a girly girl she acted like sometimes when she was with him. Brave strong man, please put my simple mind a
t ease and reassure me that you’ve got it under control. It made her want to gag.
“No, Bee, I’m not sure. I think so.”
“It feels like we’re lost.”
Sam gave an exasperated sigh. “We’re headed in the right direction. The hill is in front of us, and Reliance is somewhere on this side of it. I’ve never come at it from this direction before. And Christ, I haven’t been here in fifteen years! Things have grown in a little since then. It looks totally different.”
If he’d had a map and compass, Phoebe knew he’d be checking them now.
“You never came back? After Lisa disappeared?”
He stopped walking, sighed. “Not really. I tried a couple of times, but it felt all wrong. Like trespassing.” He started walking again, the beam of the flashlight moving from tree to tree. Paper birches stood like ghosts. An owl let out a chortling cry.
“Barred owl,” Sam said, because that was the thing with Sam, wasn’t it? He was always teaching her things, filling her head with these golden nuggets.
She thought of the owl he’d carried in to the clinic, limp and full of buckshot. Sam’s arm was a mess of cuts and scratches from the owl fighting him, not understanding he was trying to save it. He still had the faintest scar by his right elbow, if you knew right where to look.
She thought of Becca’s advice: Ask Sam what he saw in the woods that night. Ask him how he got that big old scar on his chest.
Had Sam really been out here the night Lisa was taken?
What had he seen?
“It’s hard to imagine a town ever having been here,” Phoebe said, looking around at the dense forest.
What she was really thinking was, it’s hard to imagine that she’d ever been anywhere near there. Hard to imagine herself at twenty, being led through the woods by a girl in pink with scabby arms. Hard to believe any of it was real—the yellow police tape, the strange six-fingered glove inside the paper sack.
She had her secrets. Sam had his. And it seemed like it was too late to start fessing up now.
“It was a long time ago,” Sam said. “And it was hardly a town by today’s standards. More like a little village. Half a dozen houses, some barns, a blacksmith shop, and a church. There’s an old well out here, too. We have to be careful where we step.”
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