“Even on the weekends?” I whine. We’re talking on our phones. Is has to whisper because she’s not even supposed to use her phone.
“The quote-unquote danger is even greater on the weekends, according to my mom. You’re lucky I got out to go to the coffee house,” she says. “I had to totally lie and say I was doing a community service project with Key Club and that I’d come right home afterward. My mom is totally paranoid. She’s all, ‘A serial killer is loose out there!’ ”
“Can’t you lie again?”
There’s a silence. I plop down on my pillows, stare up at the Amnesty poster on my ceiling.
“It’s okay, Is—,” I start to say.
She interrupts me. “No. I have an idea. I’ll say I’m going to church group. We have church group tomorrow night. I just can’t be super late. And I have to moan a lot about going, because I always do, or else she’ll suspect something is up.”
I hop out of the bed. “Issie, I love you! I would hug you right now if you were here.”
“Well,” she whispers. “Just let me live with you when my mom kicks me out, or rescue me from heaven when she kills me. Okay?”
Laughing, I clutch my pillow. “Okay.”
Issie picks up Cassidy and me. We cram into her car. It’s full of steak knives, which Issie’s mom insisted she take for protection. There’s also an emergency whistle hanging from a necklace chain. I’m in Devyn’s shotgun spot, mostly because Is won’t stop worrying about Devyn not being here, and I think it’s driving Cassidy crazy.
“We will be fine without him,” Issie says for the hundred millionth time as we drive onto Route 3. “Right? So it is all girl power tonight. Girl power! Yee haw!”
She raises her hand for a fist bump, but her voice rises up at the end of the sentence the way it always does when she’s stressed. Cassidy bumps it. I’m too busy trying to deal with the pounding pain rushing through my head.
“I think you need one of those deal-with-iron pills Astley gave you,” Is says. “You have one?”
I try to nod, but the movement breaks off because my head is basically exploding.
“Look in her purse,” Is orders Cassidy.
Cassidy reaches up to my lap and yanks my purse into the backseat with her. She pulls out a little plastic bag of pills. “These look so illegal.”
“Oh my gosh, Zara,” Issie chimes in. “They totally do. What if they are illegal? What if they count as drugs? That’s an automatic suspension from school, plus I think they give you a juvie record and everything if they think you are selling them. You can’t just carry them around in your purse like that or you will totally get arrested, and you can’t get arrested because do you know what they do to cute girls like you in jail? I mean, I know you’re a pixie, but they could still do that to you and—”
“Issie,” Cassidy interrupts, opening up the baggie and giving me one of the big blue pills. “Honey, you need to breathe.”
“Okay, yeah, right, breathing …,” Issie says and hauls in a couple big, hard breaths. “I’m just so nervous.”
“Thank you,” I say, and it’s just a whisper. I swallow the pill down and wait. It takes about a minute, but it works.
“Better?” Is asks.
“Yeah. Sorry. Pixie side effect,” I explain, trying to organize the steak knives.
“It’s not all glittery dust and Peter Pan love, huh?” Is teases. Then she reverts to stressed-out Issie, worrying about going to a bar without Devyn and without telling Betty. Cassidy and I spend most of the car ride reassuring her that we will be beyond fine. My entire body hums with excitement as we drive down Route 3, the two-lane road that goes through Trenton, past a shut-down water place and touristy lobster restaurants and an IGA, and then over the bridge onto Mount Desert Island. There are no streetlights and just occasionally houses before Bar Harbor. There’s so much darkness out there, and it’s strange how it’s people who light it up, giving us glimpses into their lives via their living room windows.
“Zara, you’re shaking the entire car, you’re fidgeting so much,” Cassidy says from the backseat as we pull into the parking lot.
“I can’t help it,” I say, unclicking my seat belt.
“You can’t click until we’ve stopped. You are so impatient!” Issie pulls into a parking spot. “That’s okay, but don’t get your hopes up, sweetie. You don’t want to—”
“Be disappointed,” I finish for her. “I know! But I’m not going to be. I can feel it. We are totally going to get Nick back. We are taking the first big step right now. Right now! Girl power, babies. Girl power.”
Cassidy rolls her eyes because I am just a little bit too much PG-13 cheerleading movie for her. We get out of the car, and as Issie locks it we all stand there together, staring at the bar building, which is low, one-story, and has dark smudge marks on the white walls.
“Even the snow can’t hide the ugly,” Cassidy mutters as we hustle across the parking lot, our feet making tracks in the snow.
We pause outside. The bar is set up along one side of the public parking lot in Bar Harbor. The town is a wicked tourist place in the summer but pretty much abandoned in the winter. Almost all the stores on Cottage and Main streets are boarded up with signs that say BE BACK IN MAY.
“It’s so deserted feeling,” Cassidy whispers.
We’ve stopped our power walk and now we’re half crawling, half tiptoeing toward the building, which has two entrances. One is on Cottage and the other faces the parking lot.
“Mmm-hmm,” says Issie. “I know I’m the one who is always freaking out about getting suspended and arrested and grounded and everything, so I should probably not mention how worried I am about getting carded.”
“We aren’t even going to buy beer,” I say, trying to sound logical and reassuring even though I’m pretty worried about this too.
“Some places card at the door,” Issie retorts.
“And you know this how?” I ask. “Because last I knew, you weren’t a big barhopper.”
“I download things, that’s how I know,” she says, embarrassment raising her voice up an octave.
“Issie’s right,” Cassidy insists. “Some places do card at the door.”
“Well … um …” I don’t know what to say. I scuff my heels in the snow.
Issie perks up. “Maybe you can do one of those freaking mind-control things, now that you’re all pixie. You know, like the Jedi in Star Wars …?”
I grab her mittened hand in my own. “I don’t think I could do that, but it’s okay … We will deal with this. Together.”
I push open the steel door, and there’s no bouncer, no guy checking IDs. It’s actually so crowded nobody even notices us. I’m totally sure our costumes make us look older anyway. Still, something is wrong about the bar, and all my internal danger alarms are screaming at me to turn around and walk away, to go home. It’s not just that Issie, Cassidy, and I are totally underage and it’s illegal for us to even step inside the bar out of the cold. It’s not that the outside of the place looks like an overgrown trailer or that the inside, with all its folding metal chairs and sticky floor, isn’t much better. It’s something much worse than that. The wrong of it pushes against my skin, twists my stomach into braided knots, but I can’t figure out exactly what that wrong is.
“Eww, it totally stinks in here,” Issie says, wrinkling her nose. She hugs her arms around her coat like she’s trying to warm herself up. “We aren’t going to get arrested, are we?”
I give her a patented Zara White eyebrow raise. “We aren’t drinking, Is.”
“No, seriously. I know that’s wimpy to ask with everything else going on, but if we live through this, I want to go to college and I don’t want a record,” she whispers as people jostle us farther inside. I’m too short to see over people’s heads.
“You can leave, Issie,” Cassidy says.
“Nope. Not leaving my friends,” she says in a fake brave voice.
The fiddling guy has to be here somewhere, b
ut I can’t find him. All I can see are backs, so I ask our tall friend, “Can you see him, Cassidy?”
“Not yet.” Her eyes flit around, taking in the scene. She’s cautious even when she looks. She lifts one of her long hands up to her dreadlock braids. She snarls at a big guy dressed up like a werewolf who has elbowed Is in the back. She puts her arm protectively around Issie’s shoulder. “Nobody will be mad at you if you leave.”
Issie shakes her head so violently that her rainbow knit hat falls off. “No way. I’m not going out there without Zara to protect me. Are you nuts? It’s night and a steak knife is so not going to hold back a pixie attack.”
I scoop her hat up off the beer-stained floor and hand it to her. “It’ll be okay, Issie. I’ll keep us safe.”
Although how can I do that? I’m not so sure. There’s only one of me and there’s a ton of … of … everybody else. I try to exhale, calm down, remember my purpose for being here, and take in the entire scene.
Then I see him—a strange guy fiddling over in the corner of the bar. When I say strange, I really mean bizarre more than just plain old everyday strange. He has way too much hair and fake horns sprouting up out of the top of his head. Still, he isn’t the weirdest person in here, not by a long shot. The bar is packed with people, most of them human. Some of them are dressed up like vampires with over-the-top black capes and plastic fangs. Some of the girls are supposed to be fae. They have sparkling wings and tiny tutu dresses. They all look clueless and drunk, which makes them look absolutely nothing like the real pixies and fairies they are supposed to be resembling.
“Spotted him,” I say and point. “I think …”
“Where?” Issie asks.
Listening, I take in snippets of people’s conversations.
No. I swear. I heard someone whisper my name when I was walking into the house. It was coming from the woods.
Dude. Get your hand off my—
It’s creepy. That whole freaking town is creepy.
Why does it never stop snowing! It’s so $#%& cold.
Baby girl, I’ll keep you warm.
Eww. Look at his sideburns.
I hop up on a chair so I can get away from all those voices and see around all the tall men who don’t seem to want to sit down. My heart stops as I look at him. He’s so off, so menacing. “Is that him?”
Cassidy jumps on the chair with me. “Yep, it’s the guy from the fair.”
“Look,” Issie says, elbowing me in the thigh and pointing at one girl who has fake pixie wings and cleavage showing down to her belly button. “It’s like a sexified version of you.”
“You mean Tinker Bell,” I disagree.
“No. You. You’re the real pixie here, Zara,” she whispers. Her big eyes get even bigger. The standard black witch hat perches over her reddish hair. She’s placed her rainbow hat into the pocket of her coat, which she still hasn’t taken off to reveal the rest of her witchy ensemble.
“Don’t remind me.” I push my back up against the wall made of wooden planks. The roughness of it scratches against my skin. I’m dressed up like a fairy too. Only I don’t need to pretend to be otherworldly. I am otherworldly. I wonder if the fiddler guy is too.
Cassidy leans toward me. Her braids swing with the movement as she ducks her head a bit. She’s so much taller than I am that she always bends when she talks to me, like I couldn’t possibly hear her from her height even with my new ultra-strong hearing. Her voice is gravelly as she says, “You look pretty human for a pixie.”
“You’re one to talk, Elf Girl,” I say and tap her long swirly skirt with my finger. She’s dressed up like a demon, all leather and horns. “We’ve got to talk to him, not scare him off … We’ve got to—”
The fiddling guy abruptly stops playing and points at me with his bow. People turn to stare.
“You,” he says into his microphone.
I tap my finger on my chest. “Me?”
“Yes, you, sweet thing. Come up here,” he orders.
I hop off the chair. Issie grabs my arm as I start to move forward. “He’s so icky, Zara.”
“Stay by the door in case we have to run, okay?” I say. All my pixie senses are on full alert, telling me Danger, danger with every goose bump. Still, this is the lead I’ve been waiting for—this man could be the key.
Issie keeps her tiny fingers clutched around my bicep. I could break free pretty easily—but I don’t because it’s rude and, truthfully, because I am a bit freaked out.
BiForst points again. “I said to come here, sweet thing.”
His voice is staccato and rough and almost irresistible.
Cassidy leans forward. “I don’t like his energy. He’s hostile.”
“Duh,” Issie murmurs. “I’m human and I can tell that.”
Instead of getting annoyed, Cassidy just smiles. “That’s because you are an exceptional human.”
Issie loosens her hold with the compliment and I move forward as the music starts back up. I push through the crowd, turning sideways to get through the narrow spaces between the chairs and brown circular tables, making my way toward the fiddling man. Some people grunt while others just keep swigging down their beers and munching on their chili cheese fries. The smells are overpowering and diverse: sweat from bodies, yeast from beer, Scotch, rum mixed with Coke, perfume, breath, shampoo, lemony floor cleaner. If I were claustrophobic, I’d pass out from all the closeness.
I have no fear of closed-in spaces, though.
My only fear right now? Failure.
So I push on through and get to where the guy on the stage is perched on his rickety metal stool with his fiddle. It’s an electric fiddle. All I can think of is this old country song about how the devil went to Georgia looking to steal somebody’s soul and he got in some fiddling contest. That song always freaked me out when I was little.
The guy sneers down at me. He keeps playing. There’s some chili in his brown curly beard. I look away from it because I will vomit, and instead I force myself to stare into his eyes. One is silver. The other is the blue of Siberian huskies. I shudder. He sees and smiles. There are more chili remnants in his teeth.
Focus on his eyes, I tell myself. Do not vomit. Do. Not. Vomit.
He pushes the microphone aside. “Well, sweet thing, aren’t you a little young to be in bars?”
I cross my arms in front of my chest and stare up at him, at his brown cord pants and green corduroy shirt. He’s wearing red suspenders. It’s not the best ensemble. I sniff. He’s pixie too, I think, but his smell is off a little bit.
“No point trying to figure me out,” he says. “You don’t have the brains for that or the experience.”
I bristle. “Tell me how to get to Valhalla.”
“Not even a please?” he taunts.
“Just tell me.” I take a step forward.
He raises his bow and starts playing again. “Sorry. No can do.”
“Please.” I say the word through gritted teeth and he laughs.
“Sweet thing, I’m a dead end for you. In more ways than one. Whoever told you to come here steered you wrong.” He leans toward me. “Who did tell you to come here?”
“I refuse to say.”
“Was it maybe the Internet?” He chuckles like this is some five-star joke.
I uncross my arms and hop up on the stage with him. I hunker in close and whisper in his ear, “Don’t play games with me.”
“You don’t scare me, sweet thing. You and your boy king are harmless. True power doesn’t lie on your side.” He snarls at me but keeps playing, fiddle tucked beneath his chin, fingers moving as fast as they possibly can. “True power never lies on the side of weaklings and do-gooders, afraid of change, making sure they play by the rules. Now run along before I’m forced to kill you.”
I decide to call his bluff. “You’re so tough? Why don’t you kill me now then?”
He lifts his right foot and motions toward the crowd in front of us, dancing, drinking, eating, looking for each other’s
tonsils, all while dressed up like us, like the fae. “Not in front of the humans, dear. So much cleanup to do afterward.”
I let that sink in for a second, assess his strength. Power pretty much ripples off him in waves, but I don’t step back. I don’t step forward either. I’m smarter than that, I hope. Instead I just repeat what I want. “Tell me how to get to Valhalla.”
He smiles a slow, deliberate smile while his hands keep up the frantic playing. “Why don’t you tell me who you lost?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you know I lost someone at all?”
“Sweet thing, nobody wants Valhalla unless they’ve lost a warrior. Tell me who your warrior was.”
There are some windows along the right side wall. If I look past the heads and costumes and beer signs, I can see out and it makes me feel better. The outside always makes me feel better now that I’ve changed. It’s snowing.
Behind me I can smell Issie and Cassidy getting closer. Issie is lilac. Cassidy is that kind of incense you always find in New Age stores. I forget what that’s called. It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting the information.
Focusing on him, I try to make myself seem more powerful, tougher, to project the image of a pixie you do not want to cross. “Just tell me how to get there.”
“Are you gritting your teeth?” He laughs. “You don’t want to do that. It files them down. Pixies need sharp teeth.”
“Just tell me,” I insist, and add for good measure, “please.”
“What will you give me in return?”
“Anything,” I blurt.
He lifts an eyebrow and I swallow down regret.
“Anything,” he repeats. “Anything… I’ll have to think about that.”
I wait and he finishes his tune. People clap. Someone hoots and yells for more. He smiles, waves his bow at them, and then turns his attention to me. “How about I give you a tidbit now?”
Hope surges in me. “Okay.”
“The queen you replace has returned to the apple. Does that help?” He slaps his thigh like he’s so funny and clever and he starts playing again. The queen I replace has to mean Astley’s mother. But what does the apple mean? Before I can ask, the pixie clears his throat and says, “A word of advice, newbie. We aren’t all on your little star king’s side. Got it? Nope. Some of us are in it for ourselves, and some of us—like that one in the corner there—are just in it for evil.”