Mina heard Zizi’s disgruntled huff. Mina squeezed her eyes tighter, grit teeth to keep in the demand for an explanation. I need to talk to Lucas. Flipping typical Mom. Why didn’t she counter the doctor with Mina’s placement in the family? What did it matter anyway?
What was happening?
Mina wanted to yank out her IV and throw something at them. How about some concrete terms? Something to google? Some name so Mina could show up on the doorstep with dramatic tears in her eyes. She’d break her own finger to make those tears come through. But Mina knew it wouldn’t do any good. Her mom might be soft-spoken and mild, but Mom was intractable whenever she and Dad had a pact.
“Feel free to quote me.” The man’s voice cut into Mina’s surge of frustration. There was a slam at the end of her bed, and Mina cracked her eyes just enough to see that a doctor had slapped a clipboard into its slot on her bed.
Mom hiccupped, and with a glance towards Mina, slipped into the bathroom where the sound of her sobs leaked into Mina’s room.
Mina and Zizi stared at each other, shot a scoff at the bathroom door, and Mina sat up.
“Seventh of a seventh?” Mina whispered.
Zizi cocked her head, licked her lips, and stared, unblinkingly, at Mina.
“How is it my parent’s fault I’m dehydrated?”
Zizi shrugged.
“Why are there laws that keep that dude from saying anything? Do they keep you?”
“Pfft,” Zizi snapped her wings open to dagger points.
“No?” Mina asked, and then she grinned at the sneer on Zizi’s face.
“Why are you smiling?” Zizi asked, butterfly wings relaxing. Her bright blue eyes sparkled.
“Because I have someplace better to start than an out of print book.”
“They did not say much.” Zizi words were contradictory; her face challenging. She flicked her wings open.
“They didn’t have to.” Mina’s mouth spread into a wicked smile.
Zizi rubbed her palms together with an evil chuckle.
“Exactly. I only need to know that there is something to know.” Mina lay back as she heard water splashing in the bathroom. Her eyes snapped closed as the bathroom door opened, but she felt Zizi return to her spot on the pillow next to Mina’s face.
Through their lashes mischievous eye met mischievous eye, and they both fell asleep with a curve to their lips.
* * *
When she woke again, it was dark. Her room was empty except for Zizi. But Mina’s jerky yawn woke the sprite who stretched next to Mina.
Mina grinned; Zizi echoed it.
“Is Poppy ok?” But Mina knew Poppy must be. Otherwise Zizi wouldn’t be here.
Zizi nodded, placing a gentle hand on Mina’s cheek. “She will be.”
“What happened?”
“I do not know. That girl was,” Zizi’s voice faded.
Mina waited, but it was her who finished.
“She wasn’t right. She wasn’t…”
“She had to be a kid from your school. She smelled…familiar. But I couldn’t find her.” Zeez scrunched her nose.
“Since when do you have a super powered nose?” Mina sat up, pulling her legs to her chest, and resting her chin on them.
“I’m not talking about that.” Zizi shrugged before saying, “Her magic smelled familiar. But, sprites aren’t the same as the fae.”
“What?” Mina said.
“Whoops.” Zizi said dryly.
“There were fae in some of those books.” Mina said.
Zizi shrugged.
“You’re starting to bug me.” Mina slid off the bed to pull the blinds open. The sunlight flooded the room, bathing Mina and Zizi in its warmth.
Mina sat down on the window ledge. The two of them looked out, watching cars come and go, seeing people with smiles and balloons and those with tense, pale faces. They untangled their hair with their fingers and let their thoughts run free.
“You know what’s happening,” Mina finally stated.
“Yes.” The word was calm, even.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Another long silence followed before Zizi finally said, “You need to own it.”
Mina frowned for a moment before she said, “The answer?”
“Yes.” Zizi said.
Mina considered as she turned off the hospital machines. Once they wouldn’t alarm, she pulled out her IV and made her way, unencumbered, to the bathroom.
It was a surprise to Mina that she wasn’t upset by Zizi’s answer, but she wasn’t. Zizi was right; Mina wanted the answer to be hers. There was a part of her who wanted to berate herself for what she’d suffered. If only she’d accepted the many times the sprites had been willing to volunteer the answer. But, after all this time, she couldn’t.
Mina wasn’t in the same situation now as she had been when she researched imaginary friends. To her surprise, she found she knew herself better now, trusted herself more.
“The nurses will be swarming you in minutes.” Zizi said as Mina turned on the shower.
“I find that I care less now that I know people have been holding out on me.”
Zizi snorted a laugh, but she was right.
Before Mina’s hair was fully wet someone was jiggling the handle and knocking at the door. Mina ignored them and the pounding in her head to rush through her wash.
Just as she left the bathroom, the doctor from the night before came into her room. He was just in time to stop a tirade from the nurse. Even still, the woman in teddy bear scrubs stared disapprovingly while the doctor shone a light in Mina’s eyes, checked her reflexes, and prodded the back of her head. His hair was graying, his eyes surrounded by the beginning of laugh lines, and his shoulders were broad even though he was chubby. He reminded her of a teddy bear, but she could still hear his voice yelling at her mom in her head.
She liked him. She grinned until his fingers found the bruise on the back of her head.
“Ow!” Mina yelped.
“You got quite a knock there.” He said. He stepped back, but breathed deeply. If he’d been any closer to her, she’d have been sure he was smelling her. His nose crinkled, and then he pulled from his pocket a pair of small square glasses.
Once he put them on, he just looked at her.
“Nurse, I think our patient is ready for some breakfast.”
He waited until the woman left and then turned back to Mina staring at her until she fidgeted.
“How are you feeling?” He asked finally.
Mina looked down, stretching her neck to gain a little time. What to say? What to admit? When she glanced back at him through the corner of her eyes, she paused. His glasses were covered in transparent colored emblems that she hadn’t seen the whole time she’d stared up at him.
Mina paused, wondering what his glasses would tell him. She found herself telling him, “My head hurts. I’m tired. I’m scared about what’s going to happen to me, and I want to go home.”
The words were so quiet, Mina was surprised they’d come from her. But once she started, she’d been unable to contain herself.
Did the glasses have some power over her? But no, Mina thought, it was more that he’d asked her with a faded smile on his lips and a friendly look. It was that she knew he’d spoken for her even though she hadn’t really understood what he’d said.
“Well,” he said with that slow friendly movement of his lips.
And suddenly, with that simple movement of his lips, she thought she could trust him.
“I don’t think you need to worry. I suspect that your…” He paused delicately. “Episode.”
“You mean when I was super crazy at school?”
His brows rose, but he said, “I think it may have been the result of some vitamin deficiencies.”
He glanced away as he lied.
But it was a kind lie. It was an out. And it made her smile.
“So, there’s no
need to hospitalize you. We’ve given you what you need through your IV.” He tapped her hand, “Your Mom is just doing some paperwork, and she’ll take you home.”
The doctor had nearly left her hospital room when he paused in the doorway and turned back. Gone was the friendly voice from a moment ago.
“Wilhelmina,” he said clearly, but earnestly.
She looked up at him. His eyes were so solemn, tense around the corners; his lips were pressed together, and the corner of his jaw ticked.
“Sometimes the people who want to help you need you to ask. Maybe they’re even waiting for you to.”
His gaze held hers.
“Ok.” Mina said after several moments.
Her wicked smile flashed. She thought about what he’d said before, what he’d just said. He’d just, she thought, broken some sort of rule—or almost had.
His own smile returned; this time filled with mischief. His eyes paused on Zizi for a long moment, and Mina shifted watching him see Zizi before he nodded at Mina, at Zizi, and left the room
“He saw you.” Mina said.
“That was good advice,” Zizi replied, ignoring Mina’s statement.
“This close-lipped version of you is irritating.”
“I know.” Zizi laughed, skipping from Mina’s shoulder, to the railing of the bed, to the light fixture. There was a spring in her step and the tilt of her wings that sent its own message—hope.
* * *
While they waited, Mina found her mom’s tablet. She was just going to play a round of scramble, but it was open to a youTube video.
A video of Mina.
Mina shook her head. Surely her mom knew better than to leave the video up, but her mom didn’t really do crafty.
And of course there was a video. Sick at the idea, but unsurprised, Mina hit the replay. Someone had been filming before the psycho attacked Poppy, so the camera swung over moments after everything had begun.
Her mom had watched Mina’s body curl over an empty piece of hallway. She’d watched the part where Mina peeled the girl’s fingers away from the unseen body of Poppy. She’d watched her own arrival, and she’d seen how as Mina was taken away, the person filming panned the camera around the crowd. So they both got to see the shocked laughter of the other kids. The filmer paused on the few faces of the other kids. Annie, from middle school, with her sleek brown hair. Sun, a girl in Mina’s chemistry class. And finally, the stark, wide-eyed, and nearly sick face of Max.
Mina and Zizi took it all in. And then, while Mina stared at Max’s expression, Zizi hit replay on the tablet, so they could watch it again. As they did, Mina was amazed she wasn’t in that group home.
In fact, there was only one reason she could imagine that would lead parents to not hospitalize a kid after what she’d just seen.
They understood.
They knew what was happening to her.
Any final doubts faded. She hadn’t thought she was crazy; now she was sure she wasn’t. Her fingers and toes tingled with sudden rage. She was sure they had some reason why they weren’t helping her. Some justification. But it didn’t matter.
Her hands shook with her rage.
“What are you thinking?” Zizi asked as she landed on Mina’s wrist, riding the shivers that were racking her friend.
Mina stared at Zeez blankly before she said, “They know what’s wrong with me.”
“I am going to make a suggestion to you. Will you consider it?” Zizi’s voice was so formal, it snapped Mina out of her anger. She waited a long minute before she answered.
“Yes.”
“Your parents will be watching you closely over the next days, even weeks.”
Mina nodded woodenly.
“You could pursue answers immediately.”
“I’m going to.” Mina exclaimed.
“Or,” Zeez paused until Mina focused again.
“Or,” Zizi repeated, “You can wait until they are inevitably distracted, and you can use your recovered freedom to your advantage. If you do not go back to normal soon, they will watch you closely.”
“But if I act like all is well…” Mina said, tapping her heels against the bed in her agitation.
“And that you believe in whatever story they give you…” Zizi placed a hand on Mina’s thumb.
“And then I wait until Erik gets in trouble or the triplets get sick.”
“Unobserved freedom.” Zizi finished.
But Mina thought about what the doctor had said the night before. She was too thin. Her lips were dry. She finally stood and walked into the bathroom staring at her face, surprised by it. Her skin was pale. Her lips were as cracked as the doctor had said. Her dual-colored hair, with some locks golden and some red, was dry and split. But Mina actually tried to take care of herself. She used good products; she applied thick healing lip balm, she used the repair conditioner for damage she never inflicted.
What were her parents so afraid of? How was this better?
Chapter 7
When Mina was sent home, it was with a mom who carefully, gently led Mina to the car. With a mom who wiped tears from her eyes as she drove home. With a mom who apologized again and again, but never elaborated.
Mina stared out the window and promised herself that as soon as the pending over-attention from her parents passed, she’d figure out what was going on. Even now, she wanted to shake her mom’s slender shoulders. She wanted to plead that they just tell her the big secret.
But the weirdest thing of all was how Dad was all nice. He had been so…angry with her for so long she almost forgot this version of Dad. The one who came to the car, wrapped her in his arms, and then lead her inside as if she were unable to walk. The one who seemed happy to see her, who talked softly to her, and kissed her brow.
Mina slumped onto a chair next to Dad and let the triplets cover her in hugs, thrust crayon drawings into her face, and babble incoherently over the top of each other. But it wasn’t just the little ones, Sarah had a gift bag filled with chocolate and apple chips, and she had too-big, sympathetic eyes.
Erik, at least, examined her, stone-faced and silent.
“Mina, you really worried me.” Dad’s eyes were shiny. Under his thick red beard, he was almost as pale as her. He squeezed her shoulder, saying, “I’m sorry we scared you; I’m sorry we made you feel that you had to run.”
He swallowed, and his fingers dug into her shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t like her Dad. Then he said in a choked voice, “Please don’t ever do that again.”
Mina pet Ams’ hair, hugged Annie close, and didn’t reply to the half plea, half order.
“I’m sorry.” Mina finally whispered, pressing her face into Ams’ little blonde head.
Covered in triplets as she was, Dad had to hug her again from the side. Mina looked over the three small blonde heads and found Sarah and Erik watching. With the weight of their eyes, Mina didn’t need to ask if they’d also seen the video. She could almost see the youTube symbol in the glint of their eyes.
Erik left the room as soon as Dad was distracted. Without his usual verbal jab and half-punch. She’d never enjoyed Erik’s teasing. She barely even missed her other brother, Jase, though he’d left right after school ended last year—he never let up on the teasing, but she found that she missed the old Erik. The one trained up by Jase to never let her be fully comfortable, the one for whom using grade-school insults was almost affectionate. This silent Erik with the heavy gaze and cold face was a stranger she wasn’t prepared to deal with.
And then, her parents let her escape to her room with barely a word. It was eerie. It was as if they were acting like she’d just been slightly hurt. As if her crazy episode had never happened.
* * *
“This is the time to ask for something expensive,” Sarah said without preamble as she peeked her head into Mina’s room. “Something huge.
“Right.” Mina breathed deeply, luxuriating in her own space. She crossed the room to crack the french doors onto her pati
o, letting the crisp wilderness air clear the room.
What would she do first? Go through her parent’s things? Ask a relative? Aunt Charlotte or Uncle Rob? But no… Neither of them were intimidated by her mother, neither of them were blind to the people around them, and neither of them of them would leave her to suffer if they knew what was wrong.
There was the whole Seventh child thing. If she timed that right, she should be able to search for information while her parents were still overly-attentive.
“No really, you’re totally set up perfectly.” Sarah’s face was earnest, but Mina noticed the dark circles under her sister’s eyes.
Mina shook her head, dropped onto her bed, and curled into the pillow letting the wind wrap around her and brush her clean with unseen fingers.
“Mina, you could get anything,” Sarah insisted.
Mina shot Sarah a sarcastic look, and Sarah dropped her light demeanor to ask with a serious voice, “Are you ok?”
Mina nodded.
Sarah waited for a few moments, but when Mina said nothing, Sarah picked up a random book and read aloud.
It was like they always had when one was sad or had had a nightmare. But Mina hadn’t. What happened to her was real. The past few days had really happened, and she wasn’t sure the old methods would clear her mind.
Sarah was reading Creatures of the Haven. Mina listened as Sarah described creature after creature. It was yet another book Grace had given her, but Mina hadn’t used it for her essay since it didn’t focus on sprites specifically. But now, as Sarah read descriptions, Mina recognized what she was talking about. She was reading about things Mina had been seeing for most of her life. The dragons of various sizes; the horned, fanged bunnies, the Small Ones who often kept flocks of deer, flying cats. On and on, Sarah showed her a picture and read the entry.
From a book that Grace gave her.
Grace.
That book was from Grace. Just like the adventure series. The ones that made her write her essay about sprites in fiction.
As was Esther and the Small Ones.
As was The Tale of the Wind, the Boy and the Mouse.
Mina swallowed dryly and another memory struck her. The nice doctor with the kind eyes saying, Sometimes the people who want to help you need you to ask. Maybe they’re even waiting for you to.
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