by Carrie Jones
She leans over and peers into my eyes. Her strong hands rest on my shoulders. “Nobody is going to panic about this. You will get some good cover-up. You said it’s already fading?”
“It’s faded a lot,” Nick answers.
“When did it start?” she asks, letting go of my shoulders.
I settle back against Nick’s chest. It is solid good.
“Can you tell her?” I ask.
He wraps an arm around me and tells her about the weird feeling I had. He tells her how Issie and I broke my dad out of the house (and put him back) and what he said about the other pixie.
She listens to it all before she says anything and when she does, she shakes her head.
“This is bad.” She whirls on me and Issie. “I can’t believe you two did that. You cannot trust pixies.”
“So you can’t trust me?” I ask.
“You’re not a pixie. You’re human.” She snaps her medical kit shut.
“Right. So that’s why my skin is blue.” My stomach threatens to knock a hole through my skin and leave my body in protest.
“Zara . . .” Nick’s voice is a warning.
“She’s just sad,” Is says. “That’s why she’s being all snippy. Or else it’s the pain meds.”
“They are mood altering,” Devyn agrees.
“I am not snippy. I’m mad because nobody is listening to me.” My hands ball into fists. “What? Just because you don’t want to believe it, Nick, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I remember how you acted when you found out who my father is. I remember you running away, okay? I know how you totally hate pixies and if I’m a pixie that obviously means that you—”
His arms reach out to me, but his hands are fists. “Zara—”
“Just. Don’t. Say. Anything.” I stare at all of them, take a step back. “Nobody say anything. This is not your problem. This is my problem. Mine. I’m the freak here. Me.”
Betty starts laughing. “Zara, think about who you’re saying this to.”
“You’re weres. Except Is. Weres are not pixies. They aren’t all evil, okay?” I yell. I grab the doorknob on the emergency exit door and turn it. It’s locked. I turn the little lock mechanism in the middle of the knob. My fingers fumble and shake, but I finally manage to do it.
“Where are you going, honey?” Issie asks. She moves a step closer to me.
“Don’t.” I yank open the door. Cold rushes in. “I’m just going, okay? I’m just going.”
I rush out the door, slam it shut behind me, and race across the parking lot into the muddy edge where it meets the woods. Before the door closes I hear my grandmother say, “Just let her go. She needs to be alone. She’s always been that way ever since she—”
I run away, stumble through the mud, slosh it up into the cuffs of my jeans, and head out to the woods. I run away, but the truth is, I don’t have anywhere to go.
Pixie Tip
Pixies will whisper your name and try to get you lost—usually in the woods. Do not listen. You will not come back. In general, it’s always best to avoid contact with disembodied voices.
I have the emotional maturity of a two-year-old. I know this! I know, but it doesn’t make me stop trying to escape my grandmother and friends and the pity in their eyes and in Nick’s eyes . . . the eyes I suddenly can’t read.
So I run as best as I can through the sloshy snow and mud. My feet take me far enough into the woods that I don’t hear cars anymore. I don’t hear anything. No wind blows through the high branches of the spruce and pine trees. Their thin, pale brown trunks don’t creak with the weight of snow and ice. No birds sing. No squirrels chitter and squeak and make all those noises that squirrels make.
Nothing.
No noise.
Nothing.
That is not normal. I sniff in and smell. It’s just wet wood and old pine needles. Olfactophobia is the fear of odors. Odor fears get more specific, though. Bromidrosiphobia is the fear of personal odor. You know, body odor. Luckily, I don’t have that. There is no name that I know of for the fear of a lack of odor. There is no name that I know of for the fear of lack of sound. The fear of sound itself is acousticophobia.
Why are there no names for the fear of the absence of things? Why is there no name for the absence of humanity? Because that is my fear, right here, right now. I am worried that I am losing my humanity.
I’ve seen what happens then. Jay Dahlberg was tortured and bled and bitten when I found him in an upstairs bedroom at my father’s pixie mansion home. Jay doesn’t remember any of it. I do. I remember his body shaking as I tried to help him down the long flight of marble stairs. I remember the smell of his fear permeating everything.
Pixies did that.
I can’t be one of them.
I can’t.
I force the images out of my head and stand here, leaning against a tree for about a half an hour, just trying to understand why I ran away, but the truth is there’s not much to understand: I don’t want to face that I’m turning blue.
My footprints show the way back to the parking lot, to the ambulance, to reality. I walk, staring at those dark footprints indented in the snow. Then it happens: spiders creeping on my skin where no spiders are. And something else: an ache. I fold over in half. My hand presses into my stomach.
“Even your moans are lovely,” says a voice. It is male, deep, husky but with melody, like a country singer. I recognize it. “I should not be surprised.”
The feelings intensify. The snow impressions blur. I use a tree trunk to help me stand up straight. My throat closes, almost trapping my words. “Oh wow, not you again.”
“You sound panicked.”
Trees surround me. Half-gone snow. Everything dull and white and gray brown, gray green. No place for a voice. I say as toughly as I can, “I wouldn’t be panicked if you weren’t hiding.”
“What form would you prefer?”
What form? It takes me a second. Pixie or human? That’s what he means. I sway toward the tree. My hand slips down the rough edges of the trunk. “Human.”
“Human it is.” Hands grab me, steady me. I jerk back, but they are surprisingly gentle. He doesn’t smile as I turn to see his face. He just stands there, letting me inspect him. He’s tall with a wide forehead and dark blond hair that’s cut short. His green eyes are deeply set beneath that forehead. His lips are wide and rugged like the rest of him. His hands have huge knuckles like he’s a boxer or arthritic or hits walls. He looks like he did when he pulled me out of the car, but stronger, taller somehow. He must be completely healed. He looks my age and he looks good, like the guy in high school that everyone, even the teachers, fall in love with.
I shake him off, step back, press into the tree. “You’re the other king, aren’t you?”
“The king, really, since your father is not doing so well currently.”
“You figured that out?” I manage to say. I look for weapons. A tree branch? Could I break off a tree branch? But do I need a weapon? He saved me before. I stall for time, try to think. “You figured out who I am?”
He sighs, rubs his hands over his hair, and changes the topic. “It is so cold here in Maine. Your poor father is stuck with this territory. He must have annoyed someone.”
He makes a face like the entire state is distasteful.
“You could always leave,” I suggest.
I look both ways. It would take me about three minutes to run back to the parking lot, but what then? He’d catch me.
“I would catch you,” he says.
“Reading thoughts?”
“Guessing.”
My teeth chatter.
“See?” he says. “You despise it here as well. I have done my research. You are a southern girl, correct? Charleston. Mint juleps. Lazy, hot days on the veranda. Now you are stuck here eating bagels with all those people.”
“I choose to be here.”
He lifts an eyebrow. It’s a slow, calculated lift. His voice matches it. “I do not believe that. You are h
ere because you have to be. Just as I am.”
I meet his eyes. They are deep and almost mesmerizing. Did I say deep before? Yeah, right. That’s not it. They have a pull to them, like currents, like Velcro or something, totally captivating, like when you see a convertible flipped over on the highway and there are body bags and you don’t want to look but you look because you can’t look, because you can’t not look, because you are just riveted and . . .
Stop. Just stop.
“Are you going to let me go back?” I ask and nod my head toward the ambulances and the station.
“Of course. I am not the kind of pixie who makes people lose their way or traps them.”
“Mm-hmm. Right. No calling people’s names out in the woods?”
“That is archaic. Did they really do that?” His voice loses its mesmerizing quality and creeps into curiosity. He seems so young compared to my dad, too young to be a king.
I start walking. The snow invades my sneakers. My feet are already soaked, frozen, cold. He walks just behind me. His breath hits my hair because he is so close. If I stopped fast he’d slam into me.
“No kidnapping either, right?” I say. “Because I am not into being kidnapped.”
“No kidnapping.” He lifts his hand. He still looks amused. “Pixie honor.”
I snort. “Pixie honor. Right. I’ve been kidnapped before, you know. I know all about pixie honor.”
He grabs me by the shoulder and whirls me around, suddenly, alarmingly fierce. I flinch. His mouth moves hard and fast with his words. “I know you have not had good experiences with us, princess, but your father was weak. His people were barely controlled. That is not how we are meant to rule.”
“Really?” I yank myself away. “Sorry. I’ve found you all aren’t the most trustworthy.”
He eyes me. His voice deepens and almost sounds concerned. “You are turning blue. It was faint when I first saw you and I was not sure, but it is much deeper now.”
The wind suddenly blows. I sway again, almost crumple. “I’m so dizzy.”
His arms are around me. “I shall carry you back.”
“No,” I protest, but he doesn’t listen. He lifts me up into his arms. “I said no.”
“You are not going to make it.” He pulls me against him as if I weigh nothing.
The world rocks back and forth, uncontrolled, unplanned. “What’s—”
“Happening to you?” he finishes. “I am not positive. But I think you’re reacting to me. My presence sets off your pixie blood, calls it up. There are not that many halves like you, Zara. It is just not allowed, and there are none who are descended from a king. There is not a lot of precedence for what is occurring.”
“I didn’t turn blue when I was near my father.” I flinch.
“That is because he is your father. It would be like—um—being attracted to him, that way.” He says this awkwardly with none of his earlier assurance. “I think something in my blood calls out to yours. We attract each other.”
I shake my head. “I’m not attracted to you. I love Nick.”
“Nick,” he mutters. “The wolf’s name is Nick.”
“Do not hurt him.” I groan from the movement. “I will kill you if you hurt him.”
He stops walking for a moment. “I shall only do what I have to do, Zara.” He’s silent for a moment. I let him think. Then he says, “What is important right now is you, your skin. Your eyes are unfocused.”
“Am I turning?” I whisper. “Am I turning into one of you?”
He strides through the woods, turning sideways when the trees are too close. He is graceful and strong. “No. I do not believe so. You have to be kissed. And you still smell very human and nice. I am not certain, though. I shall try to find out.”
My mind flashes to when Ian tried to kiss me. He’d kidnapped me, tried to turn me, so he could defeat my father, take his power.
“You won’t kiss me,” I say, pounding on his chest for emphasis. “You promise. Promise you won’t kiss me.”
His mouth goes up to that same smile, half mischief, no teeth, crinkling his face into something almost happy, something not so sad. “I cannot promise that, but I promise that I will not kiss you unless you want me to.”
“That will never happen,” I say, pointing at him. “And no hurting Nick.”
“Right.” He laughs and I turn my head away, looking at my hands. My hands are almost totally blue. They spread across the dark wool material of his jacket. They clench into balls and shake.
That’s the last thing I see: my blue skin, shaking.
I wake up in Issie’s car. He’s opened the back door, laid me down on the rear seat. My hand touches one of Issie’s old French tests, folded over, muddy, like it’s been stepped on and discarded.
The pixie guy shudders. He’s standing just outside the door. He puts his hand gently on my arm. “Do not attempt to get up yet. You fainted. I believe I am a little much for you to handle in your present human state.” He winks like a total jerk, like some kind of pixie player. “I was not about to bring you inside, because I am not in the mood for a bloodbath. You should go in a minute when you are not quite so azure.”
He reaches out and touches my face, just one fingertip against my cheek. I shiver.
“I hate cars too. We all do,” he says.
“That’s not why I shivered,” I insist, sitting up, swinging my legs out and trying not to shake. “I suppose I should thank you for bringing me here and not turning me or eating me or anything.”
His broad face droops a little bit. His jaw clenches. “That is not how I play.”
“Play?” My hand drags across the upholstery in the back of the car, hits the old test paper, rips it a little more.
“I do not play at all, really. Not like that. We are not all like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like your father.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep not believing me.”
His face shifts again and I can glimpse the blue tint beneath his skin. I grab the test, try to smooth it into something not so crumpled and worn looking. I fold it into squares, deliberately matching the edges of paper up before I fold, just to have something to do with my hands. Finally, I say, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
His hands twitch next to my knees. He makes me think of one of those old-time boxers, all power underneath skin and words. “If I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead already.”
My head whips up and my fingers grab his wrists. The test falls out of the car and into an icy mud puddle. “You don’t hurt anyone. Got it? Not even my father. You don’t hurt him.”
“I am not who you should be worried about.”
I shake my head. “What? What do you mean? Of course you’re who I should worry about.”
He moves just a little bit and my fingers fall off of his wrists. He stands up and just walks away, shoulders straight, but different than before. There’s something humble about them almost. I don’t know. I don’t understand anything.
“Hey! Do you have a name?” I call after him. My voice is weak but it stops him.
He turns around. This time he gives a full smile, revealing perfect teeth, white and even. His whole face transforms into something beautiful, the same way Nick’s face changes. “Astley.”
I touch my feet to the ground, repeat it. “Astley?”
He lifts his shoulders and smiles. “We do not have the opportunity to choose our own names, unfortunately.”
“What does it mean? Does it mean something?”
“Star.” He turns and disappears into the woods like he was never there at all.
“Wait! Can you tell me about Valkyries?” I yell after him.
There’s no answer. I collapse onto the car upholstery and watch my skin gradually turn back to pale again, almost like nothing happened. Almost.
“I will never kiss you,” I whisper. “I will never kiss anyone except Nick.”
Of co
urse, nobody hears.
Pixie Tip
Pixies do not just eat pollen and honey. Not by a long shot.
I have had friends back in Charleston who were totally anuptaphobic. You know, they are terrified, absolutely one hundred percent terrified, of not being part of a “couple.” They are so frightened of singledom that they will go out with anyone with a pulse or anything breathing just to make sure that they aren’t single and alone. I didn’t get it. I wanted to slap them in a nonviolent way and tell them that going out with the soccer player who sniffs glue with his mother and is also completely laying down with the band girl who picks elbow scabs is not better than being alone, especially when his breath always, always smells like blue cheese salad dressing.
I’ve never been like that. But now that I’ve met Nick, I can kind of understand the fear. The thought that you might never kiss someone again, that you might never be wrapped up in solid arms and breathe in the smell of soap and strength and trees, that you might never hear the words “I love you” and have someone really, truly mean it.
I get up out of Issie’s car. My feet find sturdy places to stand but I still wobble a tiny bit. I steady myself and dirt gets on my fingertips. Issie’s car needs a bath. I need a bath. I soldier myself up and slip back toward the station. The door flies open just as I’m about to grab for the handle.
Nick looks at me. I can’t figure out his facial expression at all and I hate that. His pupils seem to shift a little—become more oval—like a wolf’s. His voice is gruff. “You okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” I swallow hard. “I’m sorry I was a drama queen.”
“It’s okay. You—you—you’ve got a lot to deal with.”
He reaches out his hand but Issie pushes past him, sidles up to me, and says in her singsong, love-everybody voice, “She’s embarrassed. It’s okay to be embarrassed, Zara, but your emotions are normal, perfectly normal. It’s okay to be upset by this, honestly, but you have to affirm yourself for the positive traits you have, not the heebie-jeebie pixie stuff.”
