by Carrie Jones
23
Bedford police responded to reports of screaming at the Brown House tonight. Eyewitnesses stated there were howls and moans, shrill inhuman cries, and a giant rainbow that reached into the sky. While police do say that evidence in the area pointed to a crime, no bodies or body parts were found. They are investigating. —NEWS CHANNEL 8
Philophobia is the fear of being in love. I’ve never had this fear, not really, but right now I am scared not only of failing to get Nick out of here, but also that he might not want to leave, might not want to come home with me, not want to love me anymore because I’m no longer Human Zara. Human Zara wouldn’t even have been able to be here. I doubt Human Zara would have ever kissed Astley a second time. It’s got me wondering if I’m even the same soul that Nick used to love. I already know people can still love me. Issie does. Betty does. And I also know that some people can’t see beyond the pixie, people like my mom. Which will Nick be?
I keep blinking as I ride through the woods. It’s so different from home. The trees are lush and in full bloom. Everything feels enchanted and full of possibility. The air is sweet with the smell of growth and moisture and warmth. The horse exudes a happy heat as she gallops through the spruce and pine trees. Every one of them looks like a Christmas tree waiting to happen.
I am heading to Nick.
I am heading to Nick!
My little flame of hope has become an action. My little want might become a have. Everything inside of me shivers in a good way, grows like a bunch of secret black-capped mushrooms in a fern grove. I can feel all my darkest worries fade away and become something cool, something real, something good.
I may be a pixie now, but I can still feel love and hope. I can still worry and care. I was so afraid that I would lose those things I think of as “human” that I wouldn’t even let myself contemplate it before I changed. I just rushed in and did it. I won’t regret my decision no matter the consequences, not if I can get Nick back. I won’t regret it at all, not even if it means my own mother can’t bear to look at me.
The thought of Astley and all my friends and my pixies fighting back behind the Brown House worries my stomach, erodes my happiness. So I turn my face up toward the sunlight shafting through the green tree leaves. I focus on remembering Nick’s face, its angles and crinkles.
Something in the woods calls out a low hoot. Another hoot answers in return. It’s meant to sound like an animal, but it is not an animal. Beside us, maybe two hundred feet to our left but on a parallel course, are men running through the trees. They wear some sort of brown pants, no shirts, helmets that obscure their facial features. Their chests are broad and full of muscles. They remind me of those evil Orcs running through the Lord of the Rings movies, pounding strength and terror in each footfall.
“I hope they are on our side,” I murmur and put my heels into the horse, pushing her faster. “Can we hurry?”
The horse and I break out of the woods and into a clearing. She stops. This building is even bigger than Heimdall’s. It’s tall and the roof looks as if it’s made of shields. The metal glints in the sun. The door is this massive, heavy timber-framed monstrosity covered in hammered metal. It looks like it would take ten men to open it.
My fear is not a phobia I can name. I don’t know how to describe it even. What if I repel Nick now? If he doesn’t even want to see me?
There is a thundering noise to the right of me. I turn the horse to face whatever it is and watch as the warrior men pound out of the woods, muscles rippling with strength and power. They are heading right for me.
“Crud,” I curse out, trying to figure out how to back up a horse who doesn’t seem to be freaking out at all like I am. She just holds steady, waiting.
They run in two lines, which I didn’t realize before. Most of their hair is plaited and hangs down. They have boots on and no weapons, which is good news. I pull out my sword and hold it in front of me, but there’s no way I could possibly battle them. No way at all. So I sheath it again, just as the men in the front reach us. I press my lips together, waiting for the inevitable words of threat, the hands yanking me off the horse, the questions about what I’m doing here, but none of this happens. The men divide around the horse, rush forward and past me. They smell of sweat and wood smoke and beer. They don’t make eye contact, don’t say a single word.
I pivot the horse around once I have enough room to move her, which isn’t until the last men are past us, and that’s when I see them entering the hall. They thunder inside and the door slams shut behind them. I can’t believe it.
“I am an idiot,” I tell the horse. “We could have slipped right in there with them.”
She neighs and I swear there’s a hint of amusement in that horsey neigh.
“I guess I have to knock, huh?”
I hop off her back, keeping a hand on her side. Her fur is so warm and rough and comforting. My old wound tweaks a little bit from the movement, but not too terribly much. I’ve healed so quickly. The horse bumps her muzzle into my shoulder and huffs out her nostrils. I reach up and scratch her.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “I suppose you can’t go inside with me?”
She tosses her head back. Her eyes roll so that whites appear. Then she trots off without even saying good-bye. She breaks into a gallop, enters the woods, and is gone. It’s just me now.
I knock.
There’s the sound of rope and pulley working together as the door slowly opens. There’s no sign of the warriors at all. A relatively small hunched-over man dressed like Heimdall, only with dirtier clothes, steps to the center of the doorway and nods at me. A broach near the base of his neck features the image of a wolf, which hitches my breath.
“Hello,” I manage to say.
“Hello.” He nods again and waits.
“I’m looking for Nick Colt,” I explain.
“The warrior recovers in a room on the western corridor.” He points to the left.
The warrior recovers.
“The warrior recovers” means he is alive. He is alive and this all … this all wasn’t for nothing.
He recovers.
A clasping knife seems to be working its way through my insides, cleaning them out, taking away the dead, dried-up pieces.
“H-how—how do I get there?” I ask.
The door guard’s face is as pale as Betty’s winter feet. He shakes his head as if he’s disgusted by my lack of motion, by the look of crazy that I know must be plastered on my face. His voice is annoyed as he says, “Go through the door at the far end of the hall. His room is the last.”
I wait, expecting more, like maybe I have to pass a test or a trial or something.
He waits too. He has two large swords on either side of his belt. People just wear swords here? Does he want to cleave me in half?
“Um, I can just go?” I ask. My voice squeaks. “You don’t need to know who I am?”
“You can just go, Zara,” he says much more casually, as if he’s given up pretending to be formal. “Odin has been expecting your arrival.”
“Okay.” I hop on my toes and then enter the hall cautiously. “Thanks.”
I enter a room that’s built of giant stone blocks with tall, thick pillars that support the roof. The pillars look like they’re made of the biggest trees, the kind that do not exist anymore. Giant spears line the walls like bamboo shutters. There are different levels of stone blocks all set so that each level is offset from the next, forming a shallow shelf. These shelves are lined with white, flesh-bare human skulls.
It is shudder worthy. I race through it as quickly as I can. My shoes echo on the wooden floor. I rush by long wooden tables and toward the door. It leads to a hallway. The hallway is long and dark. There are closed wooden doors on the sides. Nick is behind one of these doors! I start full-out running. There’s a door cracked open at the end. I stop outside it.
“Breathe,” I tell myself. “Breathe.”
But it’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to think. Nick is
there, my Nick, behind the wall, in that room. Emotion threatens to explode inside me. I hiccup and then I reach out to push open the door.
24
How many people do we have to lose before this stops?” one protestor outside Bedford City Hall asked this morning. “Someone has declared war on the youth of Bedford, and it’s about time we take up arms and strike back.”
—CNNS NIGHTLY NEWS BREAK
My hand spreads across the wood of the door, small and pale. I put a little weight into the push. There’s a motion behind me. A clawed, long-fingered hand grabs my wrist and snatches it away. I whirl around, yanking my hand free.
It’s Thruth, the Valkyrie, who has shown up at the door, all stealthy and beautiful in her scary way. She motions for me to be quiet and yanks me forward.
“What are you doing?” I growl.
“You are not to see him now,” she says.
“Like hell I’m not.”
She doesn’t let go of my wrist and she’s so much stronger than anyone I’ve ever met, stronger than Nick or Betty even. “If you wish to see the wolf, you must obey the rules of this land.”
Frustration cuts a hole inside my stomach, but I follow her a few paces down the hallway. The moment she lets go of my wrist, my hand goes to the sword on my hip. I know she can outfight me, but I won’t make it easy for her.
“He’s granted you an audience,” she whispers, fast-walking down the hallway back in the direction of the big room. “He is too kind, the kindest of all the gods.”
It’s pretty obvious from her grumpy face and stick-straight body language that she is not cool with his decision. She’s no longer in her warrior garb; instead wearing this Viking-style women’s outfit, a long skirt, a cape-type thing attached with clamps that hang right above the center of her breasts. Her wings must be folded and hidden beneath the cloak. She says nothing else as we make record time down the corridor, and then she steps into the entrance hall. It’s full of warriors, men and women with crushed metal armbands and bulging muscles. They are wearing these bright-colored ornate jackets over hose. It wasn’t what I was expecting. Their buttons glint and reflect the colors of the fires in the big hearths. I stop walking and just stare for a second.
“Up there,” she says, gesturing toward the head table. A lanky-looking man flutters his gray cloak over his shoulder. A staff rests on the wall behind him. A cloth patch hides one of his eyes. He waves for me to come to him.
I cut a path through the tables. The warriors pause in their eating and are silent as I pass. I get to the table and quickly salute him the way Astley taught me.
“Odin,” I say. “Thank you for your audience. It is gracious of you.”
“How could I not grant an audience to one who has sacrificed so much?” His voice is a deep, kind rumble. He reminds me of Gandalf and Dumbledore and all the wizards in all the books my dad read to me when I was a kid. His eye sparkles.
I can feel the stares of the curious taking in my clothes, my sword, everything. A dark-skinned man smiles at me and nods just a bit. He sits at one of the many tables. Everybody begins eating again, helping themselves to the food and drink, reaching over one another like some big happy family. Manners don’t seem to be very important either. I try to ignore their stares and focus just on Odin. My knees, I am ashamed to say, shake, but I can’t back down now. Nick is just down the hall, just behind the door, just barely out of my reach. I clear my throat, meet Odin’s eye.
He does not blink and asks, “You are here to get your warrior?”
“Yes.” I look around again. Everyone is listening. Focus. I have to focus. “He is needed in Bedford.”
I almost say “on Earth,” but we’re still on Earth too, aren’t we? I don’t know.
“Make your case, Zara, new queen of the pixies,” he orders.
For a second I am more confused. Make my case? “Oh, you mean tell you why Nick should be released?”
“His role here is vital,” a large man yells. “To fight here with us for Odin is to fight for the most lofty of causes, the most vicious of battles, the most valiant of all claims, the most glorious of all—” He seems to lose his train of thought, because he abruptly cuts himself off and then starts again, glaring at me. “You would take him away from his rightful place as a warrior of Odin for a paltry thing such as love?”
“Erik, enough,” another man growls. “Let the female speak.”
Great. I’m “the female” now. Odin nods at me.
“Nick Colt belongs in Bedford because he is too young to be here,” I start.
“Ha! I am four years younger,” one warrior bellows.
Odin raises his hand for silence and I begin again, flinching. “He belongs in Bedford because Bedford is weak without him. He is our leader and we face a terrible battle with a band of rogue pixies who are attacking humans.”
“Is this true?” the man next to Odin asks. “If so, why does not the pixie council stop this?”
“They are compromised. Traitors in their midst,” Odin explains, like this is some everyday occurrence. “They have charged the young king Astley to try to hold peace for that region, first because the other king had been too weakened and compromised, but now he is no more.”
The man next to him raises an eyebrow, shakes his head, and downs some ale out of his large silver cup. “That makes no sense. One so young…”
I rub my hands against my legs and start again. “The pixie king charged with keeping peace is having difficulties. There are traitors within our own realm.”
People begin grumbling.
I continue on. “But it is more than that. Nick is the leader of the non-pixies. We look up to him and he gives everything he can to protect the humans there, and the other weres. He has sacrificed his time, even his life, but we are losing without him. There are murders. There are missing children. The entire world is starting to notice, and Nick—” I hiccup with emotion but fight through it. “We need him. I can’t lose him. The world can’t lose him … not yet.”
“Your plea is well thought out, Zara of the Birch and Stars, Zara of the White, but Nicholas Colt is not the leader,” Odin pronounces. “You are.”
I am?
Blood rushes to my head. The smell of roasted meat overwhelms me suddenly.
“But—but—,” I protest, and scramble for words that make sense and pretty much fail. “But I’m not even a good fighter.”
“Being a leader is not always about being a fighter,” Odin says. “A leader inspires and pulls together. A leader’s actions transition her people’s goals, their wants and dreams, into reality. A leader entices her people to do the right or the wrong thing. You are the leader.”
The hall is silent. Thruth leans against a far wall, arms across her chest, glowering at me. I glance over the entire crowd of men, trying to look brave and tough and queenly despite a tear that’s escaped, dripping out the corner of my eye.
I am a leader. Me.
Thruth harrumphs in the corner as a large hand wraps itself around mine. It is Odin. He pulls me a step closer to him and says, “In order to win back the wolf, you must defeat the one who sent him here.”
It takes a second for the words to sink in.
I gasp once I get it. “That pixie king?”
“Beliel.” Odin says the name and his face becomes infinitely weary. He drops my hand. “Also known as Frank.”
The crowd erupts. I think some people are placing bets. Others are saying things like how unfair it is to put such a puny thing (me) against such a monster (Frank, aka Beliel, also known as Astley’s uncle).
“I am not a good fighter,” I try to explain again, fingering the edge of my shirt. “I mean, I am really bad at fighting, not as bad as my friend Issie, who is possibly the least fightery person in the world. I mean, I’m getting better, but still … I mean— Oh, I’m sorry. I’m babbling.”
Odin smiles slightly. He closes his eye for a moment, as if my begging is too much, and then says, “He’s already here. We fe
tched him when Heimdall saw you coming.”
At least he is not at the fight in the clearing, but still…“You knew?”
“We knew that you would not want to return home without your warrior, so, yes, we knew.” He smiles softly. “We are gods after all.”
I follow his gaze to Frank, who is standing in the back of the room. He’s wearing this ridiculous red outfit. Red leather pants with matching jacket is just not cool unless you’re a 1980s pop star. Especially when it comes to the too-tight pants. A giant man with a bright auburn beard and muscles that would make any professional wrestler jealous holds Frank by the arm.
“Thor,” Odin says, “would you mind bringing our visitor a bit closer?”
They walk through the tables. Many of the warriors—pixie, were, elf, and fairy—seem to hiss and recoil as the pixie king walks by.
“They all want to attack him. We don’t fancy evil in here,” Odin explains to me. “But it’s necessary.”
Beliel or Frank or whatever walks up to us. Thor lets go of the pixie’s arm and looks at his own hand.
“I feel like I could drink four kegs of ale,” Thor says to me and then turns to Odin. “Or just have a nice beheading.” He laughs with a hearty ho-ho-ho. There is a piece of fuzz in his beard. I thought gods would have immaculate beards. His good mood seems to shift and his eyes grow softer. He adds, “Good luck, warrior queen. Heimdall sends you luck as well.”
It takes me a second to realize that when he said “warrior queen,” he meant me. I nod and say, “Thank you, Thor.”
Beliel lifts an eyebrow. Just that movement seems deadly.
“You will fight with swords,” Odin says.
Swords?
Fight?
“You can’t be serious,” I say, moving backward. This is the guy who killed Nick. This is the guy who wounded my father. I am so bad at swords. “I can’t fight with swords.”
Odin’s hands spread out flat on the table, framing his plate. His eye does not waver. “I am indeed serious. I am also sorry. Are you sure you want to do this, Zara White, queen of pixies, creator of alliances?”