I look at all their faces. My voice cracks before I even start to talk. “I changed so I could—we could … save him. I changed. I am not human, but I’m not—I’m not … bad.”
If I were bad, I’d want to attack.
If I were bad, I’d want to kill.
“I’m bringing you upstairs.” Betty announces this and swoops me into her arms. I don’t resist. “You are overwrought.”
She puts me on my bed and pulls the covers up to my chin. She smoothes the hair away from my face and smiles softly at me. Her eyes crinkle in the corners. She starts obsessively tucking the blankets around me again.
“She doesn’t love me anymore,” I whisper.
Betty stills. She knows who I am talking about.
The candles flicker, cast shadows against the walls.
“Of course she—,” Betty starts.
“Don’t lie to me,” I interrupt. “You aren’t supposed to lie. That’s not you.”
She swallows hard, looks away, but then must think better of it and meets my eyes.
“I am so sorry that you’re hurt,” she says.
And we both know that she’s not talking about the gunshot wound.
I wake up to a knocking noise. Groaning, I shift my weight on the bed and try to figure out what happened. I must have fallen asleep. Cassidy’s obviously been back in my room, because there are new candles.
The knocking sounds again. It’s coming from my window. I stretch and swing my legs to the side of my bed. My muscles creak and moan. Pain ripples through my chest, but it isn’t as horrible as it was before. I stagger toward the window and peek around the shade, pulling it out just enough.
“Let me in, Zara.”
It’s Astley. He’s hovering there, which is super creepy.
“I can’t.”
“You still do not trust me?” His face is a broken branch.
“Of course I trust you, but I— Betty wouldn’t like it,” I say honestly as I struggle to open the window.
He smiles a little sheepishly and lifts it for me, saying, “She would not like it that you are even talking to me, would she?”
That’s true. My mother would like it even less. Still, I let him perch on the windowsill. His feet dangle into the open air. The cold rushes in and we talk in whispers. He tells me everyone is still downstairs trying to figure out exactly how to convince BiForst to tell them how to get to Valhalla, but he thinks it’s pointless.
“There is no need to interrogate him. My mother knows. Now that we know where she is, I shall go talk to her. I can go alone,” he says.
But that’s not going to happen. I pick at the edge of my comforter. It’s frayed a little bit, but the yellow looks so happy and hopeful.
“I’m coming with you,” I say.
He knows me well enough to know he can’t talk me out of it, but I also think he doesn’t want to talk me out of it. Something calm passes between us. For a second I contemplate telling everyone downstairs about what’s going on, especially after Iceland, but this is Astley’s mother and New York is where he grew up. It will be totally safe. And anyway, I know without a doubt that nobody would let me go.
All he says is, “You will tell me if your injuries become too much.”
I agree and then make him turn around while I change into regular clothes and shoes. When I’m done, he motions for me to join him on the windowsill. He wraps his arms around me.
“My car is parked out on the road,” he explains. “I am going to jump off the window and fly you to it. Trust me?”
“I do.” I lean my head against his shoulder because it is too hard to hold it up anymore. He breathes in and jumps, bringing both of us into the dark, snow-filled night.
We travel in silence for a while. Astley gives me another iron pill even though his car is so high end and pricey special that it doesn’t have much iron in it. He’s cleaned out the blood—or had someone clean it for him, would be a better way to phrase it, actually. We travel down the dark Maine highway, adding mile after mile of solitude and dark night. We get to Augusta and the traffic picks up a tiny bit. We see an occasional Hannaford grocery truck or an oil truck. It isn’t until we get to Portland that there is any real traffic. We drive farther and farther away from Betty and Issie and my mom and home. Each mile makes me a little more worried about the choice I made to just leave them.
“They treat me like a child,” I say into the darkness.
Astley doesn’t answer.
“They try to take all my decisions away from me,” I add.
“Are you cold?” he asks after a ridiculously awkward silence. “I can turn up the heat. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” I wait another mile. It passes quickly. “Do you know what I mean?”
“I do.” He breathes into the air, shifts the car into a faster gear. “Are you certain about this, Zara? I would like for this to be your choice.”
I am sure. Every mile brings me closer to Nick.
16
At an emergency community meeting, the Bedford police chief threw up his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you all,” he said. “Short of closing down the entire town, I don’t know how to keep people safe.… I just don’t know.”
—THE BEDFORD AMERICAN
Normally, it takes eight and a half hours to drive straight from Bedford to New York City, but Astley does not drive like a normal person, and even though we leave at about seven thirty p.m., we get there just a little after midnight. I sleep for most of the trip, and before I know it we’re heading into the city and I’m jonesing for a piece of gum to get rid of my stale sleep breath. The light of Manhattan is hazy and orange from the streetlamps and the signs on shops, which are mostly closed because of the time. Astley maneuvers the car through taxis and late-night delivery trucks like a pro. There are menorahs in some windows, wreaths on some doors. Even through the windshield wipers the city looks magical—like anything could happen here.
“It’s so different from Maine,” I murmur.
His hands loosen on the steering wheel. “I thought you were still asleep.”
We park on a residential street, and Astley shuts off the engine. All my muscles ache from being stuck in the car for so long, but we’re here now, and how awesome is that?
“Did you magically conjure that parking space?” I tease as Astley pulls an umbrella out from where it had been hiding near his feet.
He looks at me full on. His face is nervous but kind, shadowed from the night and weary from the driving. “Sometimes if you wish hard enough, things truly do happen for you.”
“Is that Disney magic or pixie magic?” I kid as I prepare to get out. My wound stretches and I wince.
His hand touches my shoulder. “It is life magic.”
He helps me out of the car, opening my door and half lifting me out. We stand there for a second, close but not touching, and then we start walking. Light shafts around a row of town houses that line the street, illuminating the hazy orange-gray sky above. A cold rain plummets down onto the umbrella that Astley holds above both of our heads, but it still slants under and wets the bottom of my jeans and his dark cords. “Rain” is maybe the wrong word for this kind of precipitation. It is more like icy pellet balls. They ping onto us. Some bounce off the cement sidewalks before creating a slippery glaze. I skid on it a little bit. Astley grabs me before I slip. His fingers press into my side as if it is the most natural thing in the universe for him to touch me.
“I do apologize about the weather,” he says, keeping his arm firmly around my waist.
I snap my head up and stare at him, openmouthed. “Astley, why are you apologizing? Can you control the weather too?”
“No,” he says forlornly. “I wish we could.”
“That would almost make the pixie thing worth it.” I sigh before I can stop myself. My breath is irregular and sends rippling pain through my chest. The bandage pricks at my skin like some constant reminder of how horribly wrong things can go.
?
??I thought getting your wolf back would make it worth it,” Astley half asks and half says. It’s a probing question.
“It does make it worth it. I mean, it will if we can get him back, you know?” I hate the way my voice sounds so doubtful.
“We will.” He shifts his weight a bit and his fingers seem to lose some of their chill. “If I could control the weather,” he adds, “then I would make it warm for you. You miss the warmth, do you not?”
“I do.” I pull my coat around me a little tighter. “But at least it’s not blizzarding. That’s the bright side, right? I am consciously attempting to look on the bright side.”
His hand drifts up and pets the back of my hair. It’s almost like something a dad would do. His tone is affectionate. “I would say you are always looking on the bright side. If you were not, you would have given up a long time ago.”
I shrug. The motion pulls at the stitches. “Maybe.”
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
I almost smile. He just said “doesn’t” instead of “does not.” Maybe I’m rubbing off on him. I say, “A little.”
“I despise that you are injured.” His sentence comes out like a snarl.
“ ‘Despise’?” Now I do manage to smile a little bit. “Most people would say ‘hate.’ ”
“I am not ‘most,’ and I am not ‘people.’ ” He hardens up. I can feel his muscles fill with tension, and that tension is reflected in his voice.
We stand there for a second in front of a particularly imposing town house made of white granite. It’s five stories high, and the second and third stories bulge out in a sort of half circle. It is embellished with fancy sculpted engravings of ivy and hearts. Three giant windows dominate each level, except for the ground floor, where there are just two barred windows on either side of a dark wooden door. The door looks so heavy I think how Issie (or me in my pre-pixie mode) would never be able to pull it open by herself. The four stairs leading up to the door have black wrought-iron-style railings, only they aren’t iron. They are made of wood that has been painted and carved into intricate patterns. It does not fit in with the rest of the brownstones at all. I wonder if Astley feels like that sometimes as a pixie king, like he doesn’t fit in.
“Do you ever wish you were human?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just stares up at the building.
We are at his mother’s home. Underneath the regular smell of city sewer and car exhaust is the smell of Dove soap. Even without that smell, which tickles at my nose like an allergy, I can feel that we’re here. Still Astley doesn’t make a move up the stairs. He is hesitating. It is so obvious, and that hesitation makes me nervous, because he normally seems pretty darn confident, pretty darn unafraid. He is not the type of pixie who hesitates. Actually, none of them are. They are all like Nick, full of action and decision and confidence.
Not now.
“Is she so bad?” I ask as gently as I can, thinking a lot about his reaction to my mom.
He nods and in that nod is all the pain of fractured histories and despair. I know how it feels to nod like that, but I never imagined that he would be like this. There are so many layers inside of people, so much soul pain and angsty depth and heart hurt, and some, like Astley, hide all this so well that when it comes out in an action as simple as a nod, your entire world shifts a little bit on its axis.
No words leave Astley’s mouth. A taxi driver lays on his horn. The cab is about a block away and the angry sound ripples through the streets. The cold suddenly sinks into my bones and roots around in there.
“She is not a good mother. She is—” Astley breaks off midsentence and instead stares up at the solid wall of granite and window, the intricate details etched against it. Somehow, despite the elaborateness and even despite the way the second and third floors bulge out, the building seems flat. He draws in a large breath. Cars splash by on the street behind us, making their way through the night. Thunder rumbles above us.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I straighten up so that my ribs hurt a little bit less.
He shakes himself almost the way a cat does when she feels contaminated. He gives me a half smile—literally. Only the left side of his lips rises up.
“I exaggerate. All men have problems with their mothers. I am no different.” He steps toward the stairs. “I apologize again. It is unfair of me to burden you with my own familial issues.”
I move with him, thinking that what he said about all men having problems with their moms is totally not true, but whatever … now is not the time to debate. Although I do have to say, “You aren’t burdening me. Friends tell each other things.”
“Oh, are we friends now?” An eyebrow arches up, a classic bad-boy move, and I’m thinking it’s a cover, a mask of braveness, he’s putting on for both of us.
I don’t answer. I don’t know how to answer. I tug on Astley’s arm as if I need to get his attention, even though he is always giving me all his attention. “Was that why you were so mean to my mother when she showed up? Was it because you were mad at yours? Was she not there for you when you needed her?”
He turns slowly, very slowly. “I forgot how human you are still, how very young.”
“That’s not answering the question, Astley.”
“I was wrong to do that. I know that you consider it not to be my place, but in my world”—he makes a sweeping motion with his hands to indicate all around us—“in this pixie world, it is very much my place to protect my queen. It is instinctive. I know when you are hurt even in the subtlest of ways, even when you yourself may not realize it, when you may be repressing it.”
“My mother is a good mother,” I insist.
“I believe you, but to me … sending you back to Maine and not accompanying you—”
“Her job keeps her from being there all the time. She still has ten months on her contract.”
He eyes me and doesn’t answer. I can tell just from how he’s looking at me that he thinks it is a pretty bad excuse, but it isn’t. There are huge financial penalties if hospital CEOs just up and leave their jobs. It is unfortunate but true. Now that I’m pixie and my father is dead, I don’t know if she’ll want to come to Maine to stay at all. She might want me to move back to Charleston.
I decide to change the subject. “We’ve been standing here forever. Are you sure it’s okay for us to be here? It’s late. Should we wait until morning?”
“Do not worry. I called and she agreed to meet us. She is quite capable of being nice. It will be fine,” he says. Even though he says this in Mr. Reassuring voice, it’s pretty flat and fake. I mean, seriously? “Quite capable of being nice” is not very reassuring.
I give him my own fake cheery smile. “I know. Don’t worry. It will be just fine.”
And it’s right then that I decide I will make it fine for him. It’s the least I can do for someone who has done so much for me, for someone who is helping me get to Nick.
We stand there another moment. I am so antsy and impatient that I just give up waiting and offer, “Do you want me to ring the bell?”
He half gasps, as if realizing he hasn’t even rung it, and then he shakes his head, smiling softly. For a moment he looks truly human, regular, like any other guy around seventeen or eighteen years old.
“I shall do it,” he says quietly. “I think I am capable of at least that.”
He reaches out but hesitates. His face is one big plea for help, and so I just do it, pressing the gold bell button embedded in the exterior wall. A short older man opens the door. He wears a suit coat and a pressed white shirt, and he carries himself with this absolute rigid confidence. He reminds me of someone from an old black-and-white movie about aristocracy, the kind that Betty watches every Saturday night when she’s not on shift. Behind the man is an expensively furnished foyer with off-white walls and elaborate gold-frame mirrors that look like they weigh a ton, a dark green velvet sitting couch, and a staircase that winds up to the next floor. Doors lead to other rooms on both sides. The ma
n watches us both. No expression crosses his face. I can’t even feel any emotion coming from him at all, which is a first since I’ve turned pixie.
“Master Astley, we’ve been expecting you.” His accent is British and formal. “This way.”
I raise an eyebrow and hope it makes me look all bad girl.
“My mother’s butler, Bentley,” Astley whispers.
I lower my eyebrow. The house is warm and somewhat stuffy. Dove soap smells fill the air along with roses and lilacs. There’s the distant sound of someone walking on the floor above us. Water drips from Astley’s umbrella and softly plops on a plush white area carpet, which is partially covering the deep-colored wood floor.
The butler’s right ear twitches and he says suddenly, “Oh, sir. I am terribly sorry. Let me take your umbrella.”
Before Astley can respond, the Bentley man grabs the umbrella and looks at it as if it is a rat carrying the plague. He thrusts it out and away from him and deposits it in an umbrella stand near the front door. Once he’s done with the offending umbrella, he gestures toward a doorway. “After you.”
I follow Astley and it is instantly pretty obvious that this is the kind of home where nothing is allowed to be out of place. There will be no dirty spaghetti pots or colanders left in the sink. There will be no crumpled-up tissues hiding beneath the sofa. I wonder if they even have a television or a computer. Somehow it doesn’t seem they would.
“Did you live here when you were growing up?” I ask Astley.
“Here and other similar places,” he answers.
“It’s lovely,” I say, trying to be polite as I imagine other similar town houses in other cities. Maybe a condo in a ski resort, a home in the hills, an estate in England. There are so many things I don’t know about Astley or about how pixies work and live. I mean, are all pixies wealthy? Or is it just the kings? Do I automatically get some sort of queenly allowance now? Not that it matters.
Astley leads us into a big parlor with one large window. The walls are the same off-white and the fireplace mantel has been painted to match. Afghan rugs rich with color cover the hardwood floor. Couches and chairs face each other. I stand there as primly as possible with my injury. I feel bad for getting the floor wet and hope that Astley’s mother won’t hold it against me and not help us find Nick.