Pelly and I spend the afternoon working on the stories he owes the shopkeeper for the vervain pollen. I thought making them up wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as having them told to me, but I was surprised. And really, 90 percent of what we did was Pelly telling me the stories, anyway. I’d read him bits out of the newspaper, or show him pictures from magazines, and he’d figure out the narrative, or expand on what was already there. Whenever he got stuck, I’d offer up a suggestion, and off he’d go again.
We’re still at it when Mom comes home.
I’m so used to having Pelly around again that I think Mom’s wide eyes are because she forgot about my blue skin. But then I get it.
“Oh, my,” she says, and feels her way along the back of a chair until she can lower herself into it. “I think I need to catch my breath.”
I turn to look at Pelly, trying to see him for the first time the way she is, and yeah, I can see her point. He’s not even remotely normal, remember? Weird, skinny cross between a hedgehog and a boy, the floppy rabbit ears, the monkey’s prehensile tail. Kind of furry and spiny at the same time, dressed in a baggy pair of brown pants and a sleeveless shirt of brightly colored cotton. Fingers are too long and have that extra joint. And then there are those eyes of his. I’ve gotten used to them by now, but they’re so dark and they really look like they know too damn much, with a lot of what they know not being good.
“So this is ...?”
“Pelly,” I say. “Pell-mell, actually, but I’ve always called him Pelly.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Pelly says.
Mom gives him a weak smile. “I thought he’d ...” She looks embarrassed, then changes that to, “I mean, I thought you’d be ... jollier somehow.”
“Because he was some kid’s imaginary friend?” I ask. She nods.
“It’s the eyes,” I explain. “They’ve gotten too knowing.” Pelly gives me a puzzled look and gets up to look at himself in the hall mirror.
“I see,” he says, his voice soft. He returns to sit beside me on the couch. “It’s a look we get when we’ve ...”
He seems reluctant to go on.
“When you’ve what?” I ask.
“Been abandoned.”
“Oh.”
That makes me feel small, and an uncomfortable silence falls over us until, after a few moments, Mom clears her throat.
“So,” she says, “you’re a fairy, then?”
“I’m not sure what I am,” he tells her. “I’m just Pelly.” Mom nods the way you do when you’re not really sure you understand what you’ve just been told, but you’re pretty sure you don’t need to know more.
“So, will you be staying for dinner?” she asks.
* * *
We’re at the dining room table, getting ready to eat when Jared bursts in through the front door.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, dumping his knapsack in the hall. “But I stopped off at Henry’s to get the money he owes us for that chest of drawers we found in the Beaches the other night, and we got to talking ...”
His voice trails off when my blue skin registers. Then he sees Pelly. I understand the look he’s giving us—I mean, it is weird—but it’s also starting to get old for me now.
“So, did I miss the memo?” he asks.
I blink at him. “What memo?”
“That Halloween’s been moved up a day. Who are you going to be? Disney’s Genie of the Lamp or a Smurf?”
“Ha-ha.”
He gives Pelly a closer look.
“Man, that is a seriously good costume,” he says.
“Don’t be rude,” Mom tells him. “This is how Pelly always looks.”
She’s totally adjusted now.
“Pelly?” Jared says.
Like he doesn’t know, but then I see him make the connection, and he gets it. He remembers me back at the commune, going on and on about my invisible friend.
“Seriously?” he asks.
We all nod.
“Wow.”
He takes the empty chair across the table from Pelly “So, how come you’re not invisible anymore?” he asks.
I don’t know why, but that breaks us all up.
* * *
I fill Jared in over dinner and decide that Maxine’s right, my family is weird, because Jared just eats his stir-fry and nods as he listens, asks a question here and there, and nowhere does he get all wigged out about any of this.
“So how long will you be blue?” is all he asks me.
I shrug. “It should wear off in a day or so.”
“Are you sure?” Mom asks. “Because your skin looks darker than it did this morning.”
I lift my arm and look at it. She’s right. My blue skin’s a shade darker than it was the last time I thought to look at it. I turn to Pelly.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he says worriedly.
“Maybe we should take you to the doctor’s,” Mom starts.
“And tell her what?” I ask. “That some vervain pollen turned me blue? This type of vervain probably doesn’t even exist in our world.” I look at Pelly. “It doesn’t, does it?”
He shakes his head.
“So you can’t even look it up in some obscure medical book to find out how to treat it.”
“I know,” Mom says, “but ...”
“I can deal, Mom. Really.”
“Turning blue’s a good start,” Jared says.
I shoot him a dirty look. “Thanks for the support.”
“Sorry. But maybe Moms right. Maybe you should have someone look at it—especially if you’re getting bluer.”
I sigh. “This is magic stuff. Do we have a family magician we can go see?”
“No, but—”
“So let’s just leave it for now,” I say. “It’s all going to be dealt with in the next couple of days. Trust me.”
Pelly gives me a surprised look, which thankfully only I catch. I think “shut up” at him and I guess I’ve become telepathic, too, since he doesn’t say anything.
“We’re just worried,” Mom says.
“I know. I understand. But this is kind of like all those books you used to give to me when I was a kid—the ones you read when you were ten or so and just knew I’d love. Remember how you’d say that?”
“What books?”
“You know. Like those Swallows and Amazons ones by Arthur Ransome where the parents trust their kids to do the right thing.”
“What about them?” Mom asks.
“Trust me to do the right thing, too.”
I don’t know where this might have gone because just then the doorbell rings. Jared answers to find Maxine there, so the rest of us turn away to let them have a big smooch and hug. When they finally let each other go—which I’m sure has everything to do with Mom coughing loudly into her hand—they join us at the table. Maxine gives Pelly a surprised look, and I can see she’s still adjusting to my blue skin, but she’s cool about it all.
“Are you coming to band practice?” Jared asks Maxine. His band’s got a Halloween gig at the Crib, this great club down the street from Your Second Home in Foxville. It’s an all-ages show, so we were totally looking forward to it, but with all that’s been going on this week, I’d completely forgotten about it.
“No, I came over to see Imogene,” she says. “We’ve got some, um, research we need to make sense of.”
“So, you’d rather study than rock’n’roll?”
“It’s not so much a matter of rather ...”
“I’m kidding,” Jared tells her. “I’ll miss you at rehearsal, but I like the idea of dating a smart girl.”
That’s the cue for Maxine to blush, and she does.
Mom starts to gather plates.
“It’s okay,” she says when I get up to help. “You two—” She glances at Pelly. “Or is it three? Whatever. I can get these. You go do your studying.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Jared and Maxine take forever by the front door to say good-bye, but finally she
, Pelly, and I are in my room.
“Have you gone bluer?” Maxine asks when I close the door.
I sigh. “Yes, and I wish everybody would stop focusing on it.”
“Sorry.”
She looks a little hurt, and that makes me feel bad. “No, I am,” I say. “I shouldn’t be so snippy, but I’ve been cooped up in this apartment all day and I’m starting to go nuts. And to tell you the truth, the blue going darker’s got me a little worried, too. But there’s nothing we can do about it, right? So, I think we should concentrate on stuff we can do something about.”
“Maybe I could ask Kerry about the blueness,” Pelly says.
We both look at him.
“Who’s Kerry?” I ask.
“Kerry Wickland. She’s the owner of Kerry’s Cauldron, where I got the vervain pollen.”
“In Fairyland.”
“In Mabon, yes.”
“Is that the fairy word for Fairyland?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just the name of a city in the Otherworld.”
“They have cities over there?” Maxine asks.
“Apparently,” I say. “You can ask her later,” I tell Pelly. “Right now let’s go over what we have.”
I relate my conversations with Thomas and Adrian, then Maxine tells us how she’s got the clothes for the fairies in her locker and pulls out her transcript of the chat she had with this Esmeralda woman. As Pelly and I read through the pages, I revise my skepticism toward the woman. I can see why Maxine thought she could be trusted.
“Is this it?” I ask when I get to the last page, which I pass to Pelly. “What did she say tonight?”
“I tried using that link she gave me,” Maxine says, “but either it’s dead, or she’s not at her computer.”
“This is interesting,” Pelly says, “if unclear.”
We look at him.
“The part about the light that attracts the anamithim,” he says. “She writes that it can also be used to repel them. What does she mean by that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I do have an idea as to how we can put all this stuff together that we do understand.”
I lay it out for them. We get rid of the fairies in the school, then we set up in the gym: the circle of salt to keep us safe, the bread to get the soul-eaters to come, lights from the drama department.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Maxine asks.
“Not one hundred percent, but I’ve got nothing to lose. They can’t touch me with my blue skin. And they can’t survive in the direct light; that’s what everyone says, right?” Pelly gives an uncertain nod.
“Except I’m going to be there, too,” Maxine says.
“You can’t. You don’t have the protection of blue skin.”
“But I’ll be in the circle of salt with you.”
I shake my head. “I need someone to work the lights— someone they don’t see, so they won’t know you’re there.”
“Pelly can do that.”
“I can try ...” he says, but the doubt is plain in his voice. “Except I’ve never been very good with things that are mechanical.”
“It’s just turning a switch on,” Maxine says.
“I understand. But anything not natural has a tendency to break down around me—it’s like a curse.”
“What could be more natural than electricity?” Maxine says. “It’s what lightning’s made of.”
“Give him a break,” I say. “He can’t do it.”
“Then we’ll get Jared.”
“He’s got his gig. The band worked really hard to get it, and I won’t ask him to give it up.”
“No,” Maxine says when she realizes what that means. “We’re not doing it tomorrow night. Didn’t you read what Esmeralda wrote? Tomorrow night’s way, way too dangerous.”
“If we wait any longer,” I tell her, “I might not have the protection of the blue skin anymore.”
I can see she wants to argue that, but instead she takes another tack.
“Then we’ll ask Thomas,” she says.
I sigh and shake my head. “It’s not like that, Maxine. I don’t want to involve anyone else. Not Jared, not Thomas, not my mom. I don’t want the soul-eaters to become aware of anyone else. I already feel bad enough that I got you into this.”
“But we’re getting rid of them. They won’t be a threat anymore.”
“Unless we screw it up.”
And there’s nothing she can say to that. Because now she understands the logic of my argument and she doesn’t want the ones she loves hurt any more than I do.
“So we’re agreed?” I ask. “I’m in the circle. You work the lights, Maxine. Pelly’s with you for moral support and whatever might come up that he can handle.”
Maxine gives me a slow, reluctant nod.
“What else might come up?” she asks.
I shrug. “It’ll be Halloween. Now that we know that ghosts and goblins and witches are real, who knows?”
“Okay” She waits a beat, then adds, “Maybe Esmeralda will have more for us.”
“It’s worth checking,” I say “You can even tell her our plan, if you like. Get her opinion on it. Just don’t tell her when we’re doing it.”
She gives me another nod, then changes the subject. “What do you think it was that Adrian didn’t tell you?” she asks.
“It’s Adrian,” I say. “Who knows what he was thinking?”
At five past two on Friday afternoon, I’m standing in front of the school at the exact spot where I died. Everyone’s in class, so there’ll be no one to see me materialize unless they happen to look out the window. And even if they do, they won’t believe I just appeared here. People are like that. Nobody believes in what doesn’t make sense, or what they don’t want to. It’s like everybody knows that at some point they’re going to die, but they still just go on like they’ll live forever.
The time drags as I wait for 2:15 to come around.
I find myself worrying that maybe Bobby was just having me on. It won’t be the first time someone tried to play me for a fool. It won’t be the first time I fall for it, either.
I’ve already scoped out the home ec classrooms, and everything I need is there. Flour, sugar, milk. Boxes of salt for the circle. I don’t have a particular skill at making any kind of bread, but I don’t think it really matters. I’m sure the offering is meant to be symbolic.
What I haven’t decided on is where I’m going to do it, once I have the bread made. Anywhere in the school, and the fairies will find out and probably screw it up. But I don’t want to do it outside where the wind or whatever might mess up my protective circle of salt.
I’m just settling on the house where I last ran into John Narraway when it happens.
At first I don’t get it. It’s been so long since I physically felt anything that this weird numbing cold doesn’t make any sense at all. I get lightheaded. I smell something weird, then realize that it’s simply my olfactory senses working again. I’ve never quite figured out why ghosts can see and hear but not smell. Same reason they can’t feel physical sensations, I suppose, but sight and sound are also conveyed to the brain by physical organs, so that doesn’t really answer the question.
Right now I don’t care. I stamp my foot on the pavement and I can actually feel the impact.
I start to laugh.
No wonder Bobby looks forward to this one day a year the way he does. It’s like being alive again. I am alive again.
I’m giddy with the realization until I start to do my usual worrying. If I’m physically present, then I can be hurt again. What happens if some kids beat me up? Do I carry the pain and bruises all the way through to next Halloween? What if I have an accident? Get hit by a bus?
I laugh again. What does it matter? I’m already dead.
I look at the school. I still have hours before I can sneak into the home ec rooms. I decide to go exploring the city the way I never did when I was alive. Not skulking around in the night like the peepe
r Imogene accused me of being yesterday, but the way everybody does, in the broad daylight.
I’m going to live a little. I’m going to cram as much of the years I missed from being dead into the time I have today.
I walk away from the school, from the place of my death, and I don’t look back.
I’m uncomfortably sure that something’s going to go wrong.
I know, I know. You’re not supposed to put that kind of thing out into the universe because then you just make it happen. But I can’t stop thinking that Imogene’s plan is too simple.
“That’s the beauty of it,” she told me when I tried to talk her out of it one last time. “Things have more of a chance of messing up when you make everything complicated.”
Which is true, I suppose, but only up to a point. Sometimes a plan can be so simple that it’s just stupid, and the more I think about this one, the more I worry. I can’t talk to anyone about it, and I certainly can’t talk to Imogene, and she’s the one I talk to about everything.
Esmeralda’s no help either. There was another e-mail from her waiting for me when I got home last night:
Date: Thurs, 30 Oct 2003 22:07:38 -0800 From:
[email protected] Subject: Busy busy busy To:
[email protected] Maxine,
I saw from my server log that you tried to contact me earlier and I’m sorry I wasn’t available to chat, but this time of year is always very busy for me—a hundred small crises. The borders are so thin, so naturally things keep leaking though that need to be dealt with.
Since you didn’t send a follow-up e-mail, I’m assuming it was nothing urgent.
We’ll definitely deal with your problem once Samhain is behind us. I’ll write back on Saturday, or better still, Sunday, when I’ve had a chance to rest up a little.
Oh, but before I forget. I did mention your situation to a colleague of mine who’s better versed in shadow lore than I am. She said that if the anamithim take definitive forms when they manifest, then traditional fairy protocols can be invoked and the anamithim will respect them.