Captivate

by Carrie Jones

  I sit up and text Issie. You Must Call. Pixies Escaped.

  I can’t tell her about Nick. Not in a text. I just can’t. I send an identical text to Betty. My cell phone somehow falls out of my fingers and lands on the couch. I leave it there.

  I wait.

  Nothing happens.

  I have no idea how much time passes. There is nothing to look forward to. Pixies killed Nick. There will be no flower beds and white picket fences for us. I will never kiss him again. I will never hug him again. I will never smell him again. It’s the pixies’ fault. It’s my fault too.

  Somehow, my body lifts up off of the couch where we slept. Somehow, my feet walk toward the kitchen and to the basement door. Fingers wrap around the knob and turn. I open it, go down the stairs. My feet make hollow noises as they hit the wood. We have a weapons locker down here. It is filled with things forged with iron. I’ve never been the best fighter. Nick says it’s because I lack the urge to kill. My hands haul open the cover of the metal locker. My fingers grab a sword. I sheathe it and fix it to my belt with the big peace sign buckle. It is heavy against my leg.

  I move through the house, silent as the dead. There is power in my choice. My story has lost its male protagonist, its romantic lead. I am just a shell. So my death won’t be much of a loss and I will take down as many of those bastards as I possibly can, so there will be less to hurt Gram, and Issie, and my mom, and Devyn. That is my plan. I will avenge him and die doing it.

  I step outside and head to the woods.

  Pixie Tip

  Pretending that they don’t exist doesn’t work.

  The storm clouds have gone. Bright blue sky mocks down at me as I cross our lawn. I’ve still got my boots on somehow. I hadn’t even noticed. There’s blood crusted on one. I hadn’t noticed that either. It doesn’t matter. I pull my feet through the snow and ignore the blood, ignore the sky, and enter the trees. The snow is a little less deep here because of the canopy of pine needles above me. They catch some of the heaviness in their branches. It weighs them down. We are all weighed down.

  I walk through the woods, listen to the winter sounds of crows cawing out the news to each other, harsh verbalizations of bird truths. Chipmunks squeal nervously when I pass. Theirs are the only tracks. There aren’t any footprints except my own. Pixies don’t always leave a trail. I don’t know exactly how that happens. I don’t care. The hows don’t matter anymore, do they?

  It takes ten minutes of walking before one calls my name.

  “Zara . . .”

  It’s a woman’s voice, low and raspy, like one of the jazz singers that Betty listens to on her iPod at night. I stop walking but don’t grab my sword. Fear makes a tiny prickle along the back of my neck. This is what I wanted, though—what I want. I want a fight.

  “Zara, come to me . . .” This time it’s a male voice, high and clear, coming from the left, I think. They are trying to get me lost. Idiots.

  “Zara . . .”

  I shake my head. Haven’t they noticed the sword hanging from my belt? Are they so cocky that they don’t care? Am I that little of a threat? I follow the voices. They come from all around me now, above me, behind me, in front.

  “Zara . . .”

  “Princess . . .”

  “Zara . . .”

  The crows, the squirrels, the chipmunks have gone silent. My breath floats out of me, forms a cloud in the air. It’s gotten colder. I don’t feel it, though. I don’t feel anything. I take another step forward and there she is—a pixie. I recognize her as one of my father’s. Her hair is wild, red, out of control. Her mouth is a snarling trap. She’s wearing a bathrobe over kitty pajamas, which is ridiculous but true.

  “Princess.” She smiles.

  To my right, two more pixies appear, tall men, skinny with need. To my left, a branch snaps. Three more pixies appear: a woman, two men. More breathe behind me. One is in the limbs of a pine tree waiting to pounce. I say nothing, merely pull out my sword.

  The red-haired pixie laughs. Someone behind me says, “Should we kill her now or make her watch us kill her friends?”

  They seem to think about this for a moment. My sword waits heavy in my hand. For a moment nobody moves and then one of the guys on my right says, “I vote we almost kill her and then make her watch.”

  “A reasonable decision,” she says.

  I shake my head. “All you pixies ever do is talk. Blah. Blah. Blah. It’s sooo boring.”

  Before they can do anything I lunge to my left, slashing the sword through the air. It’s awkward but it works. The iron slices across one of the pixies’ stomachs almost like soft butter. He falls forward. I twirl around, ready to strike again. They lunge all at once. I bring my sword up but I’m nowhere near fast enough and the red-haired one yanks it out of my hands, screaming in pain as she touches the blade. It burns her skin, giving off an awful acid smell. She yells a curse and one of them yanks my head back by the hair.

  “Tie her up,” she orders. “We’ll do this slowly.”

  They have blue nylon rope. Something topples through the tree branches and lands in front of me, a pile of leather and denim and blond hair.

  “Damn,” Astley mumbles and he’s on his feet before I can figure out what’s happening. He pivots and rips me out of the arms of the two pixie guys who are holding me and yells, “Hold on!”

  I do. He launches into the air. Pine needles scrape at our clothes. I duck my face into his chest. Pixies curse below us. I clutch on to him, trying to get a secure hold. He’s got one arm wrapped around my waist. The other is trying to protect our heads from the branches. An arrow zips past us, missing us by inches, and then we are clear, above the tree line and into the sky.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he says the moment we’re clear of the trees. His arm joins the other around my waist. “What is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  My hands pummel his chest. “I don’t need to be rescued! Just give me a weapon and put me down, or fight with me! Let me go!”

  “Zara. We all need to rescue and we all need to be rescued.”

  The world below us is distant and cold. We soar in the nothing space above the trees, below the true sky.

  “I can’t live without Nick,” I say.

  He groans. “Of course you can. We all live with our losses. We don’t want to, but we can.”

  I blow off his little bit of moralizing and force myself to remember the events of the morning: the pixie house, the fight, the woman lifting Nick away. I need to get to Valhalla somehow, then maybe I can bring him back.

  “Tell me about the Valkyrie,” I insist.

  He refuses to talk any more while we’re flying and eventually we land awkwardly in the alley behind Martha’s Café and the Riverside Dance Studio. A thin layer of snow covers the asphalt. The bricks that form the back wall of the building are crumbling. I touch them anyway, try to ground myself.

  “Why are we here?” I ask.

  He tucks in his shirt in quick immaculate gestures and explains, “I’m hungry. A restaurant should be safe.”

  He starts walking around the building. “It’s too public. Although, they are so hungry they might be bold enough. I don’t know. The hunger—the need—it can distort your judgment.”

  I run after him and grab him by the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t you have needs?”

  “I do.”

  “How do you control them?”

  “I’m a king, but I’m still young, Zara.” Emotion clouds his face. “My father died recently and I’m new at this and the needs that overtake most kings won’t take hold for another couple of years at least.” He gazes at me and squints. “Let me fix your hair. You have branches in it. And blood crusted on your face.”

  “My dad—my stepdad—he died recently too,” I tell him.

  “I know. I am so sorry.” Two of his fingers softly touch my face.

  I swallow. “I’m sorry too.”

  His hands move quickly, gently gathe
ring my hair into a ponytail. He picks some branches and leaves off of my hair and clothes and drops them onto the ground. He rubs at some blood on my cheek with snow and scratches the blood that’s hardened onto my hands. He gives me his jacket to wear to hide some of the dirt and blood on my shirt. We start walking again and then I remember.

  “I’m blue,” I say.

  “So?”

  I wipe my hands on my jeans, fix my peace buckle. Reason sets in. “I can’t go into a restaurant like this.”

  He takes me by the elbow. “Sure you can.”

  “No, people—people will—I’m wet from snow and scratched up and—”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll make up a story.” He hustles me into the restaurant before I can object too much.

  The big brown sign in the front says for us to seat ourselves. We walk over the black and white tiled floors, past the deep red booths and picture posters of old movie stars who were big-time a half century ago. He slides into a booth in the back wall beneath a picture of John Wayne in cowboy garb.

  “I like this place,” he says.

  I put my elbow on the table and duck my head down, trying to shield my skin from the rest of the world.

  “I love the pancakes.” He hands me a paper napkin. “Try to talk, Zara. You really aren’t communicating. It’s worrying.”

  I take the napkin, place it on my lap, stare at it for far too long, and give it a try. “It’s hard to imagine pixies coming here and eating just like everyone else.”

  He smiles and hands me a menu. “Well, we do.”

  It seems like a silly concern but I say it. “I don’t have any money.”

  “It will be my treat. It is the least I can do on a day like today.”

  I stare at him. “How come you aren’t hunting down the bad pixies right now? That’s what Nick would do.”

  “I am not Nick,” he says so harshly that I startle.

  “Obviously.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “I was busy looking for you, Zara. You are the priority here for me.”

  I wait. Across the room a little girl finishes her pancake and climbs onto her dad’s big lap. She whispers something in his ear. He wraps his arm around her waist and tucks her in close, safe. In another booth a twenty something couple have hooked their legs together beneath the tabletop. Their fingers are entwined. It’s all so fragile. I want to scream at them to enjoy it, to keep each other close, to love each other while they still can. I adjust the napkin in my lap. “Why am I your priority?”

  “Because you are not safe.” He grabs the sugar shaker and moves the crystals around, swirling them in a circular pattern. “And because I think you are meant to be my queen.”

  Pixies and their ridiculous queen obsession. I’m so tired of it. I grab a sugar packet, try to ignore the people staring at us, and whisper, “I am never safe. What’s so different now?”

  He stops swirling the sugar. “What’s so different now? Your father and his pixies are loose. Frank is here. That’s what’s different. Do you know what that means for you?”

  “Unspeakable horror and evil?”

  He sighs and before he can answer, and before I can ask him who Frank is, the waitress comes over with water. It’s actually Martha, the owner. She has a sweet little gap between her two front teeth. I can see it now because her mouth is hanging open.

  “Zara, you’re blue, honey,” she gasps.

  I nod.

  “Face paint,” Astley explains. “It’s not coming off. We’ve tried everything.”

  “Oh my!” Martha laughs and pulls out her pencil and order pad. “So now you’re stuck looking like Cookie Monster?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Astley says. “Much lighter hue.”

  “You poor honey.” Martha giggles. “Let me go get you some paper towels and maybe some paint thinner.”

  She winks at Astley. He smiles back. I can’t even speak. Everything inside of me is hollow. Wow. I miss Nick.

  After she’s gone for a moment he clears his throat and says, “Let me start off by telling you about the war, okay? The bigger war that’s written about.”

  “I want to talk about the Valkyrie,” I insist.

  “The war is part of why she’s here. The war is called Ragnarok or Gotterdammerung. It is legend but real, if you understand? During this time brother fights brother, son slays father. People start acting without morals.” He starts swirling the big sugar container again. It reminds me of a snow globe. He puts the sugar container down. “I’m sorry. You are still in shock. Do you think you can focus?”

  People are muttering at other tables, talking and whispering. I sip some water. “I’m trying.”

  “I know. Okay. I truly am sorry we don’t have more time, but I think this is information you need to have.”

  “I don’t mind. I’d rather know. I hate not knowing things.”

  “Me too. We are alike that way.” He tips the end of his finger into his ice water. “The legend has it that Ragnarok, the war, happens after the worst of all winters, Fimbulvetr. The winter is three years long with no summer. And then the war—well, it will be the ultimate, most horrible war.”

  His voice trails off and then he takes a breath and continues, “It means that this place—Bedford, Maine—is like a homing beacon for fae, at least for pixies and weres. Think of how many there are here. They are here because this is the place of the final battle.”

  “No, it’s not,” I insist. “I won’t let that happen.”

  “I am not sure if we can stop it.”

  My water glass is cold and smooth, slippery. I adjust my hold and say, “We’ll stop it.”

  He brushes his fingertips against my hand, which is still wrapped around the glass.

  I feel an electric warmth and lurch back. “What did you do that for?”

  He blushes and looks away. “I couldn’t help it. I apologize.”

  We are silent. The rest of the restaurant chatters on about a bus wreck somewhere. I keep catching words like “horrifying” and “band” and “Sumner,” which is another regional high school up the coast about forty-five minutes away.

  Clearing his throat he continues, “So, all the people, they will never survive. They are not strong enough, and there are sides. Even without knowing it, the fae are already aligning themselves. Odin’s sons—the forces of good, I guess you would call us—the heroes—” “That’s not egotistical at all.”

  “It is true. You don’t think of your wolf as a hero?”

  I close my eyes. Sorrow wraps its arms around my chest, squeezing it in tight. “Please don’t talk about him.”

  “I apologize again, Zara, but I have to. He is part of the reason you are here.”

  I open my eyes and I know my gaze is fierce but I don’t care. “He’s the only reason I’m here.”

  He lets that sink in. He leans back in the booth, stretches his arms out in front of him, clasps his hands together, and cracks his knuckles. I’ve seen Nick do the same thing a million times. “The heroes are called to the battle. They come from all over the world to this place called Vigrid. It is prophesized that this is where the last battle will be fought. This is that place.”

  Bedford is that place.

  I take in the booths, the chattering people, the smell of bacon, the way the lights hum and send down a soft yellow glow. This place seems so safe, so normal, so anything but a battlefield. It’s hard to believe. I shift the topic back to what’s immediately important and say, “The Valkyrie said she was taking Nick because he was a warrior.”

  “For Odin and Thor, yes. There needs to be eight hundred warriors.”

  “And they want Nick to be one of those warriors?”

  “They will make him well and then yes, he will be kept at Valhalla until the battle.”

  I stand up and forget to whisper. “Then we have to go there! We have to go there and get him. He’ll help us stop it before it starts.”

  “People are looking.” He grabs my arm. “Sit down.”

&n
bsp; I don’t want to, but I do.

  “It is not easy,” he says.

  “She said humans can’t go to Valhalla.” He waits. He wants me to say it. So I do. I just blurt it out. “You’ll kiss me, won’t you? You’ll turn me?”

  “I would rather not do it because of this.”

  “Because I’m doing it for Nick?”

  He nods. “I would rather do it because you want to be my queen.”

  “Saving Nick is the only reason I would ever do it,” I say as his foot touches mine under the table. It happens again—the warm tingly feeling. I tuck my feet beneath the bench.

  He appraises me. “I have not known you very long, Zara, but from what I know of you that is a lie.”

  “You’re calling me a liar?”

  “No. I’m saying that is a lie. You would do it for any of your friends, I think. You would turn to save your mother, your grandmother, maybe even a stranger, wouldn’t you?” When I don’t answer he continues. “You would turn because it is your destiny to turn,” he says softly. “It is your destiny to be my queen.”

  “Destiny doesn’t matter.” I rip apart a fake-sugar packet and pour it in my water. The little grains swirl and spin, all caught up in the movement of the water. They bump into cubes and eventually settle to the bottom. “Let me talk to Issie and Devyn, tell them what happened, talk to Gram. Then we’ll do it.”

  “We don’t have much time.” He almost smiles as I start stirring my water, trying to dissolve the fake sugar.

  “I’ll be quick.” My mind races. “I have to call my mom, tell her that my dad is out again. She’s in danger.”

  “She’s not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”