For a second tears collect at the edges of my eyes. It takes all my will not to cry, but I don’t. I won’t.
“He’s not gone,” I whisper.
“Don’t worry. We aren’t giving up,” Devyn says, booting up his laptop and looking embarrassed about all the emotion.
Issie admires her boots, stretching one leg out in front of her. “How many times do you think we’ll have to tell Zara we won’t give up?” she teases.
“According to my calculations, five hundred and thirty-eight,” Devyn answers. He eyes me. “And how are you feeling, Zara? Has the morphing into a new species bothered you, emotionally or physically? Do you have any side effects?”
I swear he actually opens up a document that has “Pixie Change Side Effects” as the subject line.
“No,” I sputter.
“Any self-loathing? My parents said that would be normal, and you could go see them for a counseling session, if you’d like,” he says, taps a line into his document, then adds, “For free, obviously.”
“No, I’m good,” I lie. “Same old Zara.”
They both look at each other like they know I’m lying. Dev closes the document and opens another. “So, I’ve been researching Valhalla, obviously.”
He then proceeds to give us the lowdown:
1. Valhalla is from the Old Norse Valhöll, for “hall of the slain.”
2. Valhalla is in Asgard, which is where the gods like Odin and Thor lived in ancient myth.
3. Nobody seems to agree about where Asgard is. Some scholars say near Troy, others in Asia, others in Iceland.
“So what we have basically is a fat lot of nothing,” Issie announces, then cringes. “Sorry, Zara. I know you want this to be easy. We all want it to be easy.”
I swallow some chai and put the yellow mug back on the coffee table, next to a copy of Utne Reader. Issie starts pulling on her tights, which have started to resemble elephant skin around her ankle.
“It’s okay,” I say, despite the growing feeling of desperation inside me. My fingers reach for my anklet, just to touch it a little bit and think of Nick.
Devyn raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look at me as I sigh. Instead he stays focused on his laptop screen. “I’ve got absolutely nothing on the name Astley gave me for his mother. I’ve run it through everything—DMV, all the search engines …”
“What we need is a psychic witch moment where we create a witch finder, the way Willow and Tara did in Buffy, or a transporter homing beacon type thing, like they have in Star Trek—” Issie stops herself because she must be noticing that we are all staring pretty blankly at her. “Does anyone know what I’m talking about?”
None of us do. I fiddle with the zipper of my hoodie and then get distracted by Callie, who is standing in between the coffee table and another couch, just sort of staring at us like she’s remembering what she saw the other night. I swallow hard and say, as brightly as I can, “Hey, Callie.”
“You guys are up to something,” Callie says, folding her arms across her body. She glares at us, but it’s not a mean glare, and she shakes her head so much that her green retro-1980s Mohawk waves in the air.
“You’re always skulking. You’re always whispering. And if Nick just went away on vacation, why do you all look so—so devastated. Plus, you danced with that hot blond guy with all the rich-boy clothes at the ball.”
“Um …” I don’t know what to say.
Issie shoots me a “don’t say anything” look. I feel suddenly, terribly self-conscious.
“Talk,” Callie demands. She taps her Converse-clad foot on the hard floor. I almost expect her to finger snap like they do in show choir. They are doing these old 1940s Cole Porter songs this year. There is a lot of finger snapping. “Not about the dance and the hot guy. I want you to talk about what you are hiding—and don’t tell us ‘nothing.’ I know it’s not nothing.”
Cassidy trots out from her scratching spree in the bathroom just in time. She makes her voice low. “Nick’s missing. The whole thing about him visiting his parents is a lie. Do not tell!”
My mouth drops open. It’s not what Callie asked, but it’s a good enough deflection that it makes her lose her train of thought.
“Oh no!” She gasps and clutches me to her chest.
All I can think is: I do not want to talk about this.
Callie finally lets me go and starts clucking and worrying and asking us why didn’t we tell the police and what’s going to happen and where did we last see him? Her questions become louder and louder, circling around as Cassidy and Devyn try to answer them. Eventually I just give up and go to the bathroom. Issie follows me. She stands behind me.
“Don’t want to talk about it, huh?” she asks.
I shake my head. She stares at me for a second, and I have no idea what’s going through her brain. Finally she clears her throat and says, “I am sorry I was freaked about you turning. It wasn’t fair of me at all. And I love you. You’re still my best friend, you know.”
“Mine too,” I say, pushing away the tears.
“It’s okay to be sad, Zare.” She pulls a brush out of her purse and hands it to me, which I guess is a hint. “You don’t have to be our fearless leader all the time, you know.”
I stare into the smudged-up mirror and start brushing. My hair is all staticky wild up here. “I’m not much of a fearless leader.”
“Even fearless leaders get sad,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
After we’ve managed to escape good-intentioned Callie, we all bundle up against the cold and walk out to our cars, where I spot Astley. He stands in the falling snow as casual as all get-out, just leaning on Nick’s car, which seems wrong somehow. I think it’s mostly because Nick would hate the thought of a pixie king being anywhere near his car. Astley is wearing a dark wool cargo jacket with a button-down shirt that’s got these crazy lapels sticking out in white points, showing a good inch of his chest. He looks more like he’s getting ready to hang out at the MTV Video Music Awards than waiting for me on a street in Bedford, Maine.
“Get off that car,” Devyn growls at him. It’s a low rumbling noise with the tiniest bit of a birdlike squawk.
Issie simultaneously sighs and then mutters, “Great. What’s he doing here?”
“Maybe he has a lead on Valhalla. I mean, a better one,” I say and rush over to him before anyone can stop me. He smiles when he sees me, an open-faced smile that makes him handsome despite his total pixie nature. I smile back, then check his eyes. They are obviously pained. I ask, “What is it?”
I swallow hard, terrified that it’s something bad about Nick.
“I was just checking on you, seeing how you were doing,” he says. He lifts his leg up, bends it at the knee, and starts fiddling with his sock. It’s argyle, a grandpa kind of sock, and looks soft, like cashmere. It doesn’t quite fit with the rest of his ensemble.
“Oh.” I cock my head, trying to figure him out. I realize I must look like a puppy and straighten my head back up again.
“I have been worrying about you after—Iceland,” he says as his gaze moves past me and toward Issie and Devyn and Cassidy, who are on their way over. He lets go of his sock and stands on two feet again.
Cassidy’s lips are turned down. Her oval face seems to be even longer than normal. Devyn comes and stands next to me, giving off a super-angry vibe.
Astley seems oblivious, still leaning against the car. He directs his gaze and his words directly at me as if nobody else is even there. “I feel responsible for what happened.”
I huff out air. It’s so cold that my breath makes a little fog cloud in the air. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I disagree,” Devyn says as a Dead River oil truck rumbles by. Its tires spit up slush.
Astley ignores him. “I am so sorry, Zara. And I have no word on my mother.”
“You’ve got to stop ignoring my friends.” I move forward and grasp his arm. My voice is calm but serious and hopef
ully will have the right impact.
“It’s not nice,” Issie adds. She pulls on her fuzzy pink mittens. “And if you want us to believe pixies are capable of being fun, happy goody-goodies, you might want to recognize our existence when we talk. Right, Zara?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead she charges on, pointing at Astley with her fuzzy hand. “And ignoring Devyn is totally uncool, because he is the smartest, coolest, brilliantest—oh, not a word!—most brilliant guy there is. He hacked into the Department of Motor Vehicle records looking for your mother! That’s how awesome he is.”
Devyn starts blushing and mutters, “Is, that’s illegal. We aren’t supposed to tell anyone that, especially a pixie.”
For a second it looks as if Astley might implode. A muscle on his cheek twitches.
“I apologize,” he finally says. “It is not the easiest thing to do when you all cling to preconceived notions of what it is to be of my kind. Plus, the were constantly glares and he enunciates the word ‘pixie’ as if it were a curse. However, you are correct. It was rude of me to ignore you.”
“Okay, good!” Issie chirps.
Then nobody says anything. Two little twin boys get out of a minivan that’s parked in front of the MINI. Their mother hustles them onto the sidewalk, bending down to hold their hands. A tall man with Clark Kent glasses fast-walks up to us, carrying a stack of Solidarity Now newspapers.
“Want one?” he asks. “They’re free.”
“Um …” Cassidy’s lip goes over to the side. She sticks out her hand. “Sure.”
The man passes one paper out to each of us and then heads toward the Maine Grind.
“Random,” Issie says under her breath. She tucks the paper under her arm.
Cassidy looks like she wants to use her copy to swat Astley. Instead, she picks up the conversation again. “Do you know why they tried to trick you? Or what that wolf means?”
Astley shakes his head. He finally stops leaning on the back of Nick’s car. There’s a bit of gold dust left behind, mixing now with the snow. It sparkles. I resist the urge to touch it. It used to scare me before I turned. It scared me when I knew it meant my father was around, but Astley’s doesn’t scare me at all.
“The wolf is a sign of the coming war. They tried to trick us because they wanted one of us or both of us dead. It is a thirst for power. It happens,” he says, his voice both tired and patient.
It’s almost like I can feel his emotions now, like they come off him in waves of scent and color. Right now he’s agitated about things, and that agitation smells like Brussels sprouts and its color is yellow. Weird.
“You have to believe me that I would never put you in harm’s way intentionally, Zara,” he says.
Devyn snorts. “He says this after he turned her into a pixie.”
“You must believe me,” Astley says desperately. I’ve never seen him like this. I can’t help but give in.
“They’ll believe you. Eventually.” I take him by the arm and pace away from the rest, just bringing him a few steps down the sidewalk. This causes Devyn to glower at me, and Cassidy starts clucking nervously.
“Bye, guys!” I wave super big and they get the point. Dev and Is pile into her car while Cassidy walks around the corner.
“Are you okay?” I whisper to Astley as I watch Issie buckle up.
“My mother …” He seems to struggle for the words and then starts over again. “My mother is a difficult woman to find, and I feel like such a failure because I cannot find her for you.”
I ignore that and ask, “Any attacks? Any Frank sightings? Did you tell the council of pixie people what happened in Iceland? Was Vander a rogue or working for someone else?”
He gives me the lowdown on what happened while we were gone. His people stopped several attacks from the rogue pixies that belonged to my father as well as those that follow Frank. Two died. Three pledged their allegiance to him. It’s got to be hard to deal with all that drama and responsibility. Maybe that’s why there are wrinkles of fatigue all around his eyes. And to make matters worse, a girl was attacked. It’s almost always boys. This chills me. Astley has a call in to the council and they are “pondering” what he reported about Iceland and our quest for Valhalla.
“Pondering?” I ask.
“Pondering,” he repeats with disdain. “They tend to ‘ponder.’ ”
I get into the MINI. He pats my hand, which is on the window frame.
“We shall find my mother, Zara,” he says. “And then we shall find your wolf.”
He looks so broken and sad. I pause for a second and then just say it: “You know, life fractures all of us into little pieces. It harms us, but it’s how we glue those fractures back together that makes us stronger.”
The air stills between us, his hand still resting on my hand. “Where did that piece of wisdom come from?”
“Inside of me.” I give him an eyebrow raise to push my point a little further. “Even if you’re a pixie king, it’s okay to occasionally admit to the world that there have been fractures and that there is glue.”
“Even to his queen?”
I nod. “Especially.”
Astley leaves and I just sit in the MINI for a minute, trying to process everything that’s going on. Cassidy comes running down the sidewalk, her eyes frantic big. Her braids have morphed into dreads this last week, and the effect has made her prettier, but right now she looks like some sort of frazzled animal. She yanks on the passenger door, but it’s locked.
“Let me in,” she demands.
I push up on the unlock button in the center console under the radio and grab the sword I’ve stuck in the backseat in case of attacks. She slams into the passenger seat and shuts the door.
“Are they after you?” I ask. My fingers tighten around the sword’s hilt.
She looks confused for a second. “What …? No! No, I found something.”
“You aren’t in mortal danger?” I use the phrase because it’s so corny and I’m trying to ease the tension. It works. She laughs. I push the red button to turn the heat up a little bit because she’s shivering. I can’t tell if it’s from cold or excitement.
“Look at this!” She waves the paper under my nose.
I take the paper. There’s an article on health-care reform, a couple ads. I don’t get it. “What is it?”
She taps her finger on an ad for a party at a bar. “This. Right here!”
She’s so excited all her words just rush out, but she’s not really saying anything—or I’m not really getting it. “I’m sorry … a costume party at a bar on Mount Desert Island? That’s forty minutes away and we are way too young to get into a bar.”
“Look at the entertainer,” she insists.
I scan the tiny print. “It’s a fiddler?”
She takes the paper back and folds it neatly in her lap with the ad facing up. She smooths her hand over it and pulls in a few breaths, trying to calm herself down.
“Cass?”
She smiles serenely. “Sorry. Just trying to get a way to tell you. Okay … Every year my mom brings me to the Common Ground Fair, which is this big-time organic fair in Unity, right?”
“Unity?”
“It’s a town in the middle of the state.” She waves her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. To get to the main part of the fair, you have to walk through this sweet trail that curves through these tall spruce trees. So, right in front of me was this guy. He had a weird vibe. He was wearing all corduroy—blazer, pants. And sticking out from his blazer was this long taillike appendage that was wrapped in different-colored earth-toned cloth. I guess he could tell I was checking him out, because he turned his head and looked at me. His eye was this startling silver color. How startling? So startling that I actually gasped and got creeped out.”
“Was he a pixie?” I ask.
“Yeah. His glamour wasn’t so good either, but I didn’t even know there were pixies back then.” She sighs. “I just knew that there were people who
weren’t actually people, you know?”
“So what’s that got to do with the ad?” I ask.
Her eyes sparkle, she’s so psyched. She jabs the picture of the fiddler with her finger. “This is that guy—the guy I saw at the fair.”
“Cool …” I wait a second for some kind of big realization to hit. Maybe it’s because I’m so tired, but it doesn’t. “I still don’t get it. We’ve located a pixie, yeah. We’ll go get him.”
“No! That’s not it. Look at his name, Zara.”
I read the ad. “BiForst?”
“As in ‘shimmering path’?” She pokes me in the thigh with her finger.
“I still don’t get it.”
“As in the way to get to Asgard, where Valhalla is.”
“But that’s a bridge, not a person.” The world suddenly feels full of light. “But it could be a clue … He could know … Oh, man …”
She grabs my hand in hers and our fingers intertwine. “Don’t hyperventilate, Zara.”
I push my free hand against my heart.
“I am, aren’t I? Oh my gosh, Cassidy. What if he knows something?” I grab the paper from her. “This party is tomorrow night. Tomorrow night!”
We both do this tiny squee thing and hug each other, reaching over the shift and emergency brake. We separate after several seconds of this. I swear I would happy-dance all around the MINI if there was enough room to actually stand up.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” I raise my hand for a fist bump.
“Road trip!” she sings out.
“Road trip,” I agree, my whole body screaming out happy, hopeful thoughts as I hug Cassidy again. Inside my head, I whisper to Nick, who can’t hear me, I know, but I totally don’t care. “You hold on, baby. I’m coming to find you. I am.”
11
Thomas Steffan Waiting for someone else to disappear. Better not be me this time. Or any of my homies. Got that, serial killer? —STATUS UPDATE
Things don’t go quite as smoothly as I expect. First, due to the Iceland debacle, I can’t even tell Betty about the bar thing without risking a full-blown scene. But then Devyn’s parents sequester him at their house because they are working like mad on a vial of my blood, trying to make a pixie toxin, and need all the help they can get. And Issie is still grounded.