Haffling (The Haffling series)

by Caleb James

  He pushed back on the ground, putting distance between us. “Shit,” he said. He shook his head and tried to stand. He stumbled back and sat with a stunned expression. His mouth was agape. “Wha….” And then he shut it fast. “Questions,” he stated.

  “They’re okay on this side.” I stared at his face, trying to decipher his expressions. Would he be crazy like Marilyn? Was this the opening of a schizophrenic monologue?

  He swallowed and nodded. “Too much.” He stared at me, and the minute our eyes connected, he looked away. He squinted at changeling Mom, who was drawing circles in the dirt with her free hand.

  This was bad. What did he mean by too much? Really bad. I didn’t cry. I did not cry.… Tears were streaming. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” changeling Mom parroted, her gaze now up on the branches overhead.

  I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to wall out this reality as well. How pathetic. I struggled for words. Truth was, May was right. She’d ripped me open and let Jerod have a good look, which didn’t really matter because he’d be too crazy to remember. “I’m sorry.” And between the wall of bricks and trying not to look at Jerod, I realized I was about to lose the only friend I had outside of Sifu and Alice. I couldn’t focus. I let go of changeling Mom’s hand and I turned away. I couldn’t look at him, like something was tearing inside of me. I stared at the ground. Maybe if I stayed still, he’d get up and leave. That would be best. But feeling Jerod sitting there.… Please go away. Just leave me alone. Don’t make this worse.

  “That wasn’t a dream,” Jerod said, not sounding crazy. His voice was deep. “As evidenced by… she’s really real.” He called to the changeling, “Marilyn.”

  Distracted by a stream of ants, she glanced at him. “Marilyn,” she repeated, her tone parroting his.

  “That’s your name,” he said. “Marilyn Nevus. Alex is your son.”

  She smiled and looked from him to me. “Alex is my son.”

  “Way out!” Jerod said. “She seems partially programmed… if that’s even the right way to think about it.”

  A carpenter ant crawled onto her leg, pulling her focus.

  He moved closer. His nearness made it impossible to think. And then he did the unthinkable… his hand found mine… again. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Look at me, Alex.”

  Great, I had snot running, and I’d been crying like a five-year-old who’d just learned there’s no Santa… and I felt that worst of all emotions… hope. Like maybe he was okay, which didn’t make sense because the fey don’t lie.

  “Alex.”

  I looked at him.

  His other hand was on my face, his fingers wiping my tears. I couldn’t breathe. This was the dream, his eyes all I could see, brown and fringed with long lashes. His face inches from mine. His skin against mine, in my hand on my face. His breath… it brushed my lips. I’ve never been kissed. And suddenly…. The first touch of his lips was like a spark of pure joy. It shot through my body. My toes curled, and it wasn’t him just kissing me, but my mouth on his. Our lips together. His hair against my cheek, my hands against the back of his head, twisting in his floppy mop… like silk. His lips parted, and the tip of his tongue tickled my mouth, and my tongue found his. His taste, his smell… like boy and spring woods and something sweet. I didn’t hear the park ranger. Neither did he.

  Everything outside of that kiss didn’t exist. If that kiss could have lasted forever, it would have been fine.

  “Boys!”

  Okay, I sort of heard that.

  “Boys, you can’t do that here.”

  I felt Jerod pull back. Our lips parted. He smiled, and something lurched in my chest.

  “Guys, you can’t be doing that here.”

  I should have been mortified as I saw the park ranger. He shook his head and smiled. He looked at us and changeling Mom, who’d transferred the ant to her finger and was following its progress. “It’s not a gay thing,” he said. “It’s just we can’t have people making out in the woods. If we do, this place will turn into the Brambles.”

  Having Googled places where guys cruise in the city, I knew what he meant. But that was… not what we were doing. Although, looking to Jerod, his lips so red and delicious…. His cheeks were flushed. He was grinning, and those dimples.… If this was him being insane, I could certainly deal. “Okay, we’ll stop.”

  “Okay then.” The ranger looked down. “I’ll give you a couple minutes to… pull it together. When I come back, you’ll be gone? Ma’am, you understand.”

  He caught her attention. She smiled—holy shit! She really looked like Mom, only… not nutso. Her eyes were clear. “I’m Marilyn,” she said. “Alex is my son. Jerod is his boyfriend.”

  “Okay.” The ranger seemed amused. “You boys are cute, you don’t want to be out here doing that stuff.”

  As he walked away, Jerod whispered, “Yeah, we do. She said I’m your boyfriend. You know what that means?”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s got to be true.”

  I was speechless. Just taking it in, the crunch of leaves and branches as he stood, the way he held out his hand. He pulled me up. A breeze off the Hudson brushed over us. I still felt his lips, the taste of him, his stubble against my cheek.

  He smiled, his upper teeth gently biting his lower lip.

  “What?” I asked. I had a moment’s panic.… No, questions were okay now. “What’s so funny?”

  “Everything…. I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, Alex.”

  “Don’t lie,” I said. “We barely spoke before a few days ago.”

  “And….” He stared at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. There’s a lot more I want to do. I didn’t know….” He looked away. “I was scared.”

  “You have a girlfriend,” I blurted. Why the hell did I have to bring her up? Alex, what is wrong with you?

  “Ashley… crap.”

  It was like a balloon popped. As Sifu said—repeatedly: “The moment is now, you can’t hold it. You can only be in it as it gives way to the next.” Our moment had passed. “You don’t have to explain,” I said. Realizing that while I had my laundry list of problems, which now included a replicate mother, Jerod had his own issues. And maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t broken him. But how was that possible?

  “I’m a coward,” he said.

  “Are you kidding? You’re not. A coward wouldn’t have walked into that world, or stood up to May.… You did see all that, right?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  I nodded and felt my breath steady. Just say it, Alex. “A coward wouldn’t have kissed me.”

  “I didn’t know… I didn’t know if you’d want me to… or if you liked boys, or…. She said you liked me.”

  Of all the crap that had just happened, May outing me to Jerod had seemed the worst. Apparently, she’d done me a huge favor. I heard the crunch of the ranger’s boots. “Come on,” I said. “Mom… Marilyn, we have to go.”

  She bounced up, letting her summery dress swish against her legs. “Okay.”

  “Stay close,” I told her. Finding myself actually believing she was Mom, and then….

  “Are you mad about that?” Jerod asked.

  “About?”

  “The kiss,” he whispered. “It does make me kind of a coward… or… an opportunist. Oh shit… and it’s not like you don’t have more important stuff to deal with. What the hell was I thinking?”

  I didn’t care that the ranger was a few yards away. His crossed-arm posture let us know that our welcome in Fort Tyron Park had come to an end. Yeah, I had lots of things to worry about. If Alice were here, it would be one hell of a game of “What’s wrong, Alex.” But in that moment, I had a single impulse, and I acted on it. I pulled Jerod close and mashed my lips against his. Not like the first kiss, but strong and delicious, and one word over and over in my head: “Mine!”

  From behind I heard changeling Mom say, “Boyfriends.”

  When we pulled apart, Je
rod was grinning. His eyes sparkled. “I got an idea,” he said.

  “I got a few myself.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not talking about that, but yeah. God, you’re beautiful.”

  “Boys.” The ranger’s voice. “Time to leave.”

  “Time to leave,” Marilyn repeated.

  “Come on.” Jerod grabbed my hand, and I grabbed… Mom’s. We walked fast and then started to run like maniacs down the dirt path. From there to a paved walk, and then to the road that ran through the park. Dodging bicyclists as they headed to The Cloisters, we sprinted toward Fort Washington Ave. The daylight was blinding, like slipping into yet another world.

  “Way out!” Make-believe Marilyn said.

  I stopped, still holding her hand in my right and Jerod’s in my left.

  “Way out,” she repeated, looking at the street, the cars and taxis, a women with a stroller, people on their cell phones, a bus shooting past. “Way out.”

  “She’s like a blank tape,” Jerod said. “Everything we say, only there’s other stuff. She knows to change things. What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Marilyn.” She smiled. “You’re Jerod.”

  “I am,” he said. “You need shoes.”

  I looked down. Her feet were bare and filthy.

  “I need shoes,” she said.

  We stood at the park entrance. My heart raced, and not just from the run. A woman wheeling a double baby carriage smiled as she passed. I couldn’t focus.

  “Your father said we need to find Katye,” Jerod said.

  “Yeah.” My mind was spinning. “You heard that too.” I’d just met my father. Turns out he was a fairy, and not in the “let’s march in the Gay Pride Parade” kind of way. And Jerod said “we”… and we were holding hands. I didn’t ever want to let go… except. Crap, people were looking at us. Maybe it was barefoot Mom, but…. I squeezed and let go.

  “I think I know who she is.” He was looking at me. “What the hell is that?” He raised a hand and pointed at my right shoulder. His eyes were wide, wonderment on his face, as he moved his forefinger through the air, closer and closer to my shoulder. “I’m losing my mind.”

  My gut lurched. “Don’t say that.”

  “You are an onion, Alex Nevus,” he whispered.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I turned and saw Nimby on my right shoulder. She was staring, mesmerized, at Jerod. Lying on her stomach with her hands under her chin, her red eyes fixed on him, her black-and-blue wings beating slowly.

  “An onion,” he repeated. “Layer upon layer of pure amazing. Please tell me she’s real and that I’m not losing my fucking mind.”

  “You can see her?” I asked, watching the space between his finger and Nimby close. Clearly he saw something.

  “Thank God! You see her too,” he stated.

  “Yeah.”

  His finger halted with less than an inch between it and my dreamy-eyed fairy. “She’s not new, is she…? I mean… I don’t know what I mean.”

  I got a crick in my neck, twisting to watch Nimby and Jerod. “No one sees her but me. She’s always been there.” It felt weird watching my imaginary hitchhiker stare at Jerod and be so quiet. “She’s usually impossible to shut up.” Nimby turned toward me and stuck out her forked black tongue.

  “What’s her name?” he asked.

  “Nimby.”

  “Hello, Nimby. I’m Jerod.”

  She giggled, and her wings fluttered. She flew off my shoulder and perched on his finger. “Hi, Jerod. You’re dreamy!” She launched from his finger, kissed him on the cheek, and then darted back to her usual perch on my right shoulder.

  “That tickles. How cool are you,” he said, staring at her in amazement. He looked at me. “You’re like the magic boy,” he said. “Or I am losing my mind.”

  “Please don’t say that. And I thought I was an onion.”

  “A magic onion. She’s always with you, isn’t she?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’d watch you in class. And there’d be like a blur around you. That was her.”

  “You’d watch me?”

  “Oh yeah….” His voice was gravelly. His gaze went back to Nimby. “You are the prettiest thing.”

  “Oh, Jerod.” The curlicue gold tattoos on her cheeks and eyebrows glowed. She flew off my shoulder and landed on his.

  Standing there watching him, it was like something I’d been carrying, something heavy, had just fallen away. If he could see Nimby, that was a convincing argument for her not being a hallucination. If she were real… maybe I wasn’t headed toward a life as a mental patient… like Mom. Who didn’t seem crazy at all in the whacked-out world under the mulberry. So how come her trips into Fey cost her sanity, and Jerod—at least for now—seemed excellent. “You said you had an idea about that Katye.”

  “Yeah. The book I was talking about, the author is Katherine Summer. That’s the same last name as your father…. And Katherine… Katye, it’s not that different.”

  “I don’t know that book… it was strange how you did.”

  “Not that strange,” he said. “I think magic onion boy lives under a rock. May, Queen of the Fey was a hit among the kindergarten set. It won awards. There were dolls and stuffed animals.” He looked at changeling Marilyn and then across at a store on the other side of the street. “They’ve got flip-flops. We should get her some.”

  Holding her hand, we crossed to the stall that sold touristy T-shirts, postcards, and cheap shoes. “Pick a pair,” I told her, and watched. She reached into the stack and looked down at her feet. She stared at her dress, which was a mix of turquoise and flashes of hot pink and purple flowers in a tangle of green leaves. She grabbed a pair of flip-flops that matched the green. I reached into my pocket.

  “I got this,” Jerod said, as if he knew I couldn’t afford the five-dollar plastic and rubber shoes.

  I broke the bit of plastic holding them together and watched changeling Mom put them on. I thought of real Mom’s artistic abilities.… This one knew something about color. “Good choice,” I told her.

  “Yes,” she said. “They match.”

  Jerod’s cell rang. He pulled it out. “It’s Clay.” His finger slid across the screen. “What’s up…? No!” He looked at me. “Two social workers are at our place. They’re looking for Alice.”

  My stomach lurched. “Tell him to get her out of there….” I knew she couldn’t go back to our apartment. I wondered how’d they’d traced her…. “It’s got to be her phone. Lorraine must have given them her number, and they’re tracking her by the GPS chip. Tell Clay to have her ditch her phone and go to Sifu’s. I’ll meet her there.”

  “Clay, did you hear that? Toss the phone, and go out back… yeah, down the fire escape. Be careful. No, do not let them take her.” He was about to hang up. “If you can do it quick, grab May, Queen of the Fey and take it with you.”

  He hung up.

  “I need to go,” I said. It was clear Lorraine had sold us out. I didn’t think she knew about Sifu, or not beyond knowing I was into martial arts. “Come on!” I grabbed changeling Mom’s hand and ran toward the 190th Street Station. I tried to remember if Sifu had ever met Lorraine. I didn’t think so. He’d met Mom a lot of times.… He knew about us. Alice would be safe with him… but for how long?

  I felt Jerod behind us, and then at my side, keeping pace as we flew down the stairs into the subway station. I swiped Mom through the turnstile with my MetroCard. I grabbed for the spare, but I must have left it at home. Problem was, mine wouldn’t work again for thirty minutes.

  “Take mine,” Jerod said.

  I glanced up, knowing there were cameras. I heard the rumble of an incoming train. “No.”

  I leapt the turnstile, grabbed Mom’s hand, and sprinted toward the downtown express. I looked back, half expecting a cop, but just Jerod a couple feet behind. The train pulled in, and we ran onto an empty car.

  “Sit,” I told her. “This is bad.” I pulled out my cell.
It was nearly four. Through all the years of dealing with Mom and the related agencies that tried to butt into our lives, I knew they shut down at four thirty. That was mostly true. But if they thought an eleven-year-old was in trouble…. “Crap!” They’d send cops after Alice.… They’d search for her.

  Jerod’s hand was on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

  I snapped. “How the hell can you say that? It’s not okay! You have no idea what’s going on? None of this is okay!” I couldn’t stop myself. He recoiled as if I’d hit him. I backed away and stared down the empty train. And then at fake Mom, who was glaring at me.

  Nimby scolded, “Bad Alex! Don’t yell at Jerod.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I started to hyperventilate. Calm down. Think, breathe. This is what you’re good at. This is what you know. You’ve gotten out of worse spots… far worse. That was the truth. Getting Alice and me out of foster care, getting Mom on disability, our Section 8 housing, even getting Lorraine to turn a blind eye to our circumstances…. I was good at this stuff. I’d memorized state statutes to where I could cite chapter and verse and find the loopholes that kept our leaky ship afloat.

  I looked at changeling Mom. She didn’t seem crazy. I sat next to her and started to talk. This has to work. I felt Jerod at my back. He was about to hear things I’d never shared. “You have two children. Alice is eleven, and I’m sixteen. We were taken from your custody because you have schizophrenia and wouldn’t take your medications. They put us in a home where bad things happened to Alice.” I hesitated. “The man who did them had an accident and died. When the state came in, they found that this man had molested many children. There was a scandal, and I used that to convince people we were better off with you… crazy or not. You are now taking all of your medications, and you do not hear voices, and you do not see things that other people can’t see.” I watched her carefully as I spoke. Her gaze never wavered as the car filled at each stop. “Who are your children?” I asked.

  “I have two,” she said without pause. “Alice is eleven, and you are my son, sixteen. I hear no voices or see things that other people can’t see.”