by Carrie Jones
“Why don’t you just tell me now?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
He gestures around. “People might hear.”
“You have to give me a hint what it’s about.”
“You’re pouting. Pouting is not allowed. It’s too cute.”
My heart opens wide and then his face shifts. His eyes narrow. He suddenly turns serious.
“Tell me now,” I insist.
“No way.”
“Please.”
“I promised Betty.”
“So?”
“You know you can’t cross Betty.”
“True.” I give up.
Then after another little bit I get enough courage to say, “If we’re friends I should know things about you.”
He opens up his arms. “Go ahead.”
“Um.” I think for a second. “What do your parents do?”
“They’re nature photographers. They travel a lot.”
“Really? Where?”
“All over. Right now they’re making a film in Africa.”
“No way.”
“Really.”
I start with the glue. It squirts on my finger a little. “So you’re all alone?”
“Yep.”
I shudder. How awful. “Don’t you hate it when they leave you? Don’t you feel left behind?”
He shakes his head. “I’m meant to be here.”
“Very philosophical,” I say and touch my head where the bump is. It still hurts. I wonder if Betty’s told my mom about it.
His eyes seem concerned. “No, just the truth.”
It’s pretty obvious that he’s all through with that subject. But I continue on, because I hate it that we’re so different.
“It must be nice to know where you’re meant to be,” I say.
“You’ll know someday, Zara.”
I shrug.
“I doubt it.” I’ve always had friends, but I’ve never felt like I fit with the rest of the world. My mom said that it was a normal adolescent thing to feel. I hated her for saying that. I just pounded right out of the room and went running down at the Battery.
“I don’t think I’ll ever find a place,” I say slowly, turning back to stare at my collage instead of Nick. I have to stop staring at him all the time. “I’m just not a person who fits in. That’s okay.”
“I’m positive you will.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely sure.”
He motions to the glue brush. “Can I have some?”
I start to grab it so I can it pass it to him. He reaches for it at the same time. Our fingers touch, and the moment they do the fluorescent lights overhead flicker and then fizzle out.
Everyone moans, even though we can all still see. There’s enough light from outside filtering in, just not enough for us to really focus on the finer details.
Nick’s fingers stroke mine lightly, so lightly that I’m almost not sure the touch is real. My insides flicker like the art room lights. They do not, however, fizzle. I turn my head to look him in the eye.
He leans over and whispers, “It will be hard to be just your friend.”
The lights come back on.
“Just a little brownout.” The art teacher smiles and holds out her arms. “Welcome to Maine, Zara. Land of a million power failures.”
Nick’s breath touches my ear. “I heard you didn’t drive to school. I’ll bring you home after cross-country, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, trying to be all calm, but what I really want to do is leap up and do a happy dance all over the art room. Nick is driving me home.
Devyn is waiting for us outside art class.
“What?” Nick says. His face changes into worry. “Issie okay?”
“Yeah,” Devyn says, motioning us to follow him. “I found something.”
He brings us to a little cubby in the hallway, a place just off the main hall. There’s a red door to a supply closet and another to an electrical room. We all barely fit in the nook. Nick squats down to Devyn’s level. So do I.
“Okay,” Devyn says. “It’s not good.”
“Just tell us.”
“They kiss people,” Devyn says.
I laugh. “Who kisses people?”
“The pixies,” Devyn explains. He lifts the book from the library. “This is serious, Zara.”
“Sorry. Okay. They kiss people,” I repeat. I look up at Nick, who has never kissed a girl.
Devyn must notice me looking at Nick’s lips because his voice frustrates out, “This is not a good kind of kiss. This is bad. It can kill you.”
“Powerful kiss,” I say.
“Zara . . . ,” Nick warns.
I raise my hands again, leaning my back against the wall for support. “Sorry.”
Devyn points at me. “No more interrupting and no more attempting to hide your fear behind pathetic attempts at sarcasm, although I do appreciate it. Anyway, the kiss gives the pixie king some of the power over the woman’s soul. And it changes her into a pixie.”
“Which means?” Nick asks.
“I’m not sure,” Devyn continues. “But if she’s all human and has no pixie blood it can kill her.”
“Wait,” I say. “So, the pixie guy kisses some woman. She either dies or becomes the queen. Either way part of her soul becomes his?”
“Yeah.”
“That sucks,” I say. “And you said if she’s all human? What else could she be?”
Devyn shrugs. “She could already have pixie blood. According to this book there are a lot of people who are descended from the Pixies. Or . . . ,” he looks up at Nick and then says it, “she could be were.”
“Weres again? Werewolves?” I shake my head and stand up. My bracelet slides down my arm. “This is crazy.”
“Zara?” Nick stands up too. He grabs my hand. “You already believe half of it.”
“I know! But kisses that take away your soul? Pixie blood? Weres? It’s crazy.” I grab the book off Devyn’s lap and walk away. “It’s way too crazy for me.”
Malaxophobia
fear of love play
Nick and I leave practice early because my head is still spinning from clonking it and maybe, just a little, from the pow-wow with Devyn by the electrical closet.
“I can bring her home,” Ian says when he sees Nick leading me off the trail.
Nick raises his arm. “Nope. I got this one.”
Coach Walsh meets us in the parking lot where the trail ends. He leans on his old maroon pickup truck, holding his clipboard. He takes one look at me and his whole PE coach posture changes. It goes from straight to slumped.
Shaking his head at me, he says, “Don’t push yourself so hard, Zara.”
“I’m not.”
He stares hard at me. I stare back. He has crud in the corner of his eye, just a little bit. I don’t know whether or not I should tell him or pretend I don’t notice.
“Yes, you are. No practice tomorrow either,” he orders. “My fault for believing that you could run today. Betty’s going to kill me.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Pointing at Nick he says, “Take her home.”
Nick fake salutes. “Sir, yes sir.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Colt,” Coach Walsh says, but he smiles when he says it, so obviously he is only mad at me, not superboy Nick Colt, beloved of coaches everywhere. If I were a guy he would let me run tomorrow.
“I want to go to practice, Coach,” I say. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“We aren’t practicing tomorrow,” he says.
That makes no sense. “It’s on the schedule.”
Mr. Walsh exhales and rubs the top of his head. “I might as well tell you two now. We’ve just gotten word. Jay Dahlberg’s missing.”
“Missing?” The world spins. Nick grabs my hand.
“He never came home last night after practice. His parents haven’t heard from him.” The coach starts rubbing his neck. “He’s not the kind of kid to ru
n off.”
“Maybe he’ll show up.” I reach out my free hand and touch the coach’s shoulder.
“The other ones didn’t,” he says, slouching even more. He starts rubbing his eyes now. “God, I never thought this would happen again.”
I swallow and look at him, look at Nick. Beneath my feet is an old Cheetos wrapper, and the little orange cat mascot’s smile is smashed from feet and dirt and ice. He is discarded, forgotten. I drop my hands, bend, scoop up the wrapper, and stand back up, a bit woozy. I stash the wrapper in my pocket.
Nick opens the door of his MINI to let me in and Coach Walsh eyes his clipboard. Then the coach yells after me, “Don’t do anything stupid, Zara.”
I slam into Nick’s car. What does that mean? Don’t do anything stupid? I bet he wouldn’t tell Nick not to do anything stupid. But because I am a pacifist I say nothing.
I pull on my seat belt as Nick says something to the coach. God, someone else is missing.
Jay Dahlberg. He’s tall with blond hair and a goofy laugh. He seems like a good guy. He hangs out with Ian sometimes.
Swallowing, I check out the MINI. I hadn’t paid attention to it the night before. The dark maroon seats are sort of the color of blood. It smells like Nick, woodsy, manly. I shift my feet around a bunch of school books scattered on the floor. My foot tip touches a small clump of brown fur.
Nick must have a dog. It smells faintly of dog, but mostly of the Christmas tree air freshener. I pick up a book, Edward Abbey’s Good News. A little postapocalyptic ditty. Interesting.
What if Nick is a pixie? He had dust on his coat. He’s never kissed a girl, supposedly. Although he’s not the guy who points, but he could be one of his minions. Is that the right word? Minions?
I put the book back down on the floor.
Nick and Coach Walsh seem to be arguing a little. I turn the key dangling from Nick’s ignition and put down the window to hear, but I can’t get any of the words.
Cold air rushes in. The air chills against me so I zip up the window and turn on the heat. The warmth blasts out of the heaters, rolling the tuft of fur underneath my seat.
Nick jumps in. He looks human. He is so human.
“Took you long enough,” I tease, brushing all my doubts out of my head.
He glowers and puts the car in reverse to get it out of the parking spot. “Coach and I were having a little talk.”
“It looked like you were arguing.”
“It was just a talk,” he says slowly, shifting again so he can speed out of the parking lot like a tornado is chasing us or something.
“Whatever.”
“I didn’t think we should practice anymore. He, of course, disagrees because he wants to win state.” His mouth steadies into a line and then he speaks again. “I’m freaking sick over the Jay Dahlberg thing, Zara. I haven’t slept since Devyn was attacked last month. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on and I haven’t been able to piece it together. Pixies! I mean, who would have thought there were actually pixies?”
“It’s okay, Nick.” I grab his hand and squeeze it. “It’s not your job to save the world.”
“But I have to.” He lets out this man growl that sounds like a professional wrestler gone bad. All the veins in his neck bulge and pop. “I’m trying, okay. I am really trying.”
“Why? Why are you trying so hard?”
He keeps holding my hand. His eyes meet my eyes. “Why are you?”
Anger rushes out of me from somewhere inside. And I’m surprised, because I had no idea it was there. “Because I couldn’t save my dad. There. I said it. Okay? You happy?”
I try to pull my hand away but he won’t let me. He pulls over and stops the car.
“No. Not happy. I’m honored that you told me, though.” His jaw is so straight and his eyes are so deep, like a tree where the bark is all textured.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I was so mad.”
“It’s okay.” His thumb drags across the skin of my hand, the one that’s not scraped up.
He unbuckles his seat belt and turns his body so he faces me, blocking out the entire window of the driver’s side door. God, he’s huge. He rests one arm on the steering wheel. The other lays across the back of the seats. His solid fingers thrum against the upholstery. I turn to face him.
“How’s your hand?” he asks, like everything is all normal.
“Fine.”
“And your head?”
“Fine,” I say. I want answers. “You’re changing the subject.”
He smiles. “I know. Most girls around here would take the opportunity to tell me all about their injury, then they’d tell me about their clothes and shopping, and the way their parents mistreat them.”
“I’m not most girls.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m not into pity parties.”
He raises his eyebrows and I turn my hand up so I can see my scrape from last night. It isn’t too bad at all, just a bunch of lines.
Nick grabs my wrist. I shiver. Nick gentles his hold.
“Do you know what these lines look like?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“The rune for protection,” he says, not touching the lines, but tracing the air above them.
“You know about runes?” I’m ridiculously shocked. He looks like all he knows about is working out and sports. But he does have Edward Abbey in his car. Who exactly is this guy?
“Do you?”
Sorrow hits me hard. I remember my mom trying to read my fortune, tossing the bone-colored rune stones on our coffee table, teasing me about all the boyfriends I would have someday. Then my dad trying to read the future of the world.
I swallow.
“My mom liked them. And my dad, my dad was really into them. My stepdad.”
“Betty’s son?”
“Yeah.”
I take my hand away and settle it into my lap. Then I realize he’s doing it again. “You’re still trying to distract me.”
He shrugs and doesn’t look contrite or anything.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“You expect me to play fair?”
“Heroes are supposed to play fair.”
“Heroes?”
“Isn’t that what you’re trying to be? Mr. Rescue Man?”
I reach out to fidget with the dial that shifts the air into the cab of the MINI. I open and close the heating vents. I run a finger along the dust on the dashboard.
“Okay. Ask away,” Mr. Rescue Man finally says.
“Really?”
There are a million questions I could ask him. What happened to Devyn? Why is Maine so damn cold? How can we find Jay Dahlberg or the Beardsley boy? Why does he have such a hero complex?
But I don’t ask any of those. I ask the silliest question of all, the shallow question. It just comes off my tongue.
I am not proud of it.
My finger draws a line in the dashboard. It starts to curve like a heart. I stop it and then I just ask him my question.
“Do you like me? You know, like me like me?”
I cringe the moment I ask and cover my face with my hands. The smell of blood and trail dirt wafts into my nose. Something sinks inside me. What is it? Oh, I know, any dignity I could possibly have left.
“Can I take that back?” I ask softly from behind my hands.
Nick’s voice is low and warm. “No.”
I peek between my fingers. “No, I can’t take it back or no, you don’t like me?”
His fingers wrap around my fingers and he pulls my hands from my face so he can look at me, I guess, or else so I can look at him.
“No, you can’t take it back. That’s your question,” he says in a voice so deep and warm and full of things that I can’t get mad anymore. This has to be what people mean when they say they “melted.” I feel all wiggly.
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
I swallow. His eyes are deep and brown and . . . How can a man’s eyes be so ridiculou
sly beautiful and gorgeous, so full of things that I want to know?
“So, what’s your answer?” I whisper, afraid I might still screw it all up.
Those eyes of his widen a little bit.
I hold my breath.
“I like you, Zara,” he says.
I breathe out. Something like joy surges up inside me. I remember leaning against him on the couch. I remember the feel of his chest beneath my head. It had felt so good and safe. Had I really not been just hallucinating? Maybe my concussion hadn’t thrown me all out of whack? Maybe what I was hoping for was something that was actually possible?
The wind blows some old leaves across the driveway.
“You like me?” I repeat, because, well, I want to be really, really sure that I heard him right. This is not the sort of thing you want to get wrong.
He nods and says, “Very much.”
“You like me very much?”
He lets go of my hands and touches my check. “Too much.”
“Too much?” Trying to keep my voice calm, I say, “No such thing.”
“If you only knew . . .”
“Tell me then.”
He leans closer. One inch, another, oh God, oh okay. Yep. I think he’s going to kiss me. Okay. Okay. Another inch. Obviously not a pixie, right?
And then he jolts up straight, rigid, like he’s been shocked. His eyes glaze over. I swear his nostrils flare, like he’s repulsed by the smell of my hair or something, and then his words rush out, “Get in the house now. I have to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
What? What had just happened? Wasn’t he going to kiss me? Had I imagined that? My heart thuds and falls silent. I am not sure if it is beating at all. It’s a great big hole there. He doesn’t like me at all . . . does he?
I want to clutch at his arm, to make him stay, but I don’t. I won’t. I am not that pathetic. “Where are you going?”
“The woods. I’ll be right back.”
He leaps out of the MINI and rushes off toward the forest, not even shutting the door. I bound out after him, shutting my door and running to his side of the car.
“Nick? What is it?”
He tosses the words over his shoulder but doesn’t slow his pace. God, he’s fast, faster than at cross-country or in gym, almost superhuman fast. I think he’s even faster than Ian. “Go in the house. Don’t let anyone in except me and Betty. I’ll be right back.”