by Caleb James
At one point she must have glanced at a monitor, as I saw myself on stage with an Irish harp in my lap, a soft light spilling across my face as I strummed and sang. At the bottom were words: “Alex Nevus, 17, New York.”
First, I’d never played the Irish harp, and really… my singing voice—not good. Also, I was sixteen, not seventeen. I strained to hear the audio, but there was nothing. It was weird… okay, beyond weird, but seeing myself on-screen, the way the camera fixed on my eyes. It was me… but it wasn’t. Even without the sound she… I… was giving a beautiful performance. I was May’s puppet… but my expressions, the way my eyebrow raised subtly and I seemed fused to the harp. I watched my lips and I heard the lyrics… bits of an old ballad. A tearjerker about a young man going off to war, about leaving behind a girl and thinking of her as he died in battle.
Information flooded in. It was too much. I’d been overambitious in trying to feel my way around, and the hissing from May’s consciousness made it hard to focus. It was like once I started to touch or feel some thought or memory, I couldn’t stop. I was being buried in data. Shut it down, I thought, feeling as if I were falling. Too much, shut it down. And like all those years of blocking out Nimby, who turns out was real after all, I threw down walls. First, blocking out May’s murderous thoughts. I knew I’d need to come back to them, but right now… I had to shut them out. Brick by brick, and then the sounds, and the images, and the ridiculous amounts of stored information about IT, the IT judges, last year’s IT champion—Tiffany Sweet—who’d catapulted to stardom. It was like shutting off TV sets that were all connected but not on the same station. Or like the hundreds of panes of glass in May’s greenhouse. I needed to think. Finally, there was darkness. It was quiet and black, and I could focus.
I reviewed the facts. May controlled my body. I had been unconscious… dead? … for a while. This raised possibilities. First, was I dead? Which, judging by my ability to tap into my brain and the fact that I was frantically trying to piece things together, seemed unlikely. I was alive, just displaced. Which brought the next big question.… Did May know I was in here?
Cautiously, I felt around the walls I’d erected and eased back the mental bricks. I could hear and feel May’s presence. Yes, she controlled my body, and her thoughts were racing through the circuits of my brain, but there was more. As though she was half in and half out of me. I could hear her, and the quieter I stayed, the more sensations came through. And unlike trying to pull the visual and the audio from my brain, I was getting a moving picture. She was gazing at the other two contestants, weighing their strengths and weaknesses. She saw their fears and insecurities, even listened to their thoughts.
“Lovely,” she mused as she stood and followed Jenna to the bathroom.
May pulled out a cell phone as she waited for the girl to go into the restroom. She pictured Jenna on the other side, and padding in on silent feet, entered the adjacent toilet stall. She climbed up on the toilet and looked over the partition. Holding the phone steady, she filmed the girl as she put her fingers down her throat and vomited.
Through May, I heard Jenna’s thoughts as she puked. Her mind almost chanting, “I didn’t eat that. And I didn’t eat that,” as she again stuck two fingers far down. “And I didn’t eat that. And I didn’t eat that.”
I expected Jenna to hear her, to turn around and confront… me. But something else was going on here. May was me… but more. What is that? I felt her hovering outside my body, as though there were two of her, half inside and half invisible. She was using magic.
That’s the whole point. It was an epiphany. This was why in the book May, Queen of the Fey, she’d failed. A human vessel would rob her of her magic in the human realm, but a being—me—who was half-and-half. Great! It was one thing to understand this intellectually, but to realize I had become a bridge between two worlds, and that this barking-mad fairy queen intended to march across and conquer the human realm, it was overwhelming… and real.
As silently as she entered, May and I left the restroom and returned to the room with the other contestant. As she entered, I realized I’d been right. I—or at least my body—had never left the room. I was sitting in the corner next to Jeremy. Whatever had gone into the bathroom was not flesh… but pure magic.
“What you doing?” blond Jeremy asked.
May made meaningful eye contact with Jeremy, and most horribly, listened to his thoughts. “Just thinking,” my mouth said.
“You’re so going to win this,” Jeremy replied.
All the while, May smiled and made too much eye contact. Her thoughts hissed as she seduced Jeremy. He was thinking about my eyes and my lips. He wondered if I liked him… in that way. He wanted to look away, embarrassed that he was revealing things about himself. But hopeful, his thoughts were so clear. “Does he like me? God, I hope he likes me.”
I wanted to warn him. He was a sweet kid, and May intended to destroy him. I saw snippets of other fallen contestants, like watching video clips. They were memories, only they weren’t mine. In one, two teenagers were smoking a joint, in another a young man was trying to sing through a painfully swollen throat. His cheeks were blown up like a chipmunk’s and the sounds… like a frog on a bad day. In another, a black girl was swearing at the judges. She caught herself in the monitor as though realizing she’d made a horrible mistake. She broke into tears and fled the stage.
Then came the awful truth, if there were only three contestants left…. I’d been unconscious for months. I calculated how long.… Obviously I would have had to audition, then they went through a process of winnowing down thousands of contestants to the top twenty, and then it was a weekly show where a girl and boy went home. That was why I wasn’t sixteen. How long had I been out?
I pulled back, frightened by May’s thoughts, feeling a crushing guilt that I wasn’t able to stop her from wreaking havoc on all of these talented young men and women. She intended to win. That was clear. But why? May wanted to be a star. Yes, and again the big question, “Why?” That’s what all those bizarre shows under the mulberry tree had been leading up to. I felt queasy as I realized I’d been the one who’d told her about IT. But why? Why this?
The answer seemed close. I thought about Katye and how she’d sucked the life from poor Lance. I replayed her story of the three sisters, and Lizbeta, who was tricked into the mist. I pictured Jerod. I’d begged him not to follow. And then Alice… who May had aged… to be on this program. Right, when Alice was eleven, she’d have been too young to qualify. May needed her older, and then decided to take me instead.
Still… what was the point? Something Barry Soulfeld said during the last critique—“Alex, you’re in IT to win IT.” What did that get her? Tremendous exposure and a starring role in a big movie… which was even more exposure. More people seeing her, even though it was my body they were watching. She wanted power. Katye lived to love, and Lizbeta’s special was peace. May wanted power, control…. She was queen of a dying world, and she wanted to jump ship and come to this one.
But I was missing something. Okay, so she wanted to rule the world, a talent show wouldn’t do that, not even being a movie star. And all the preparation… me, Alice, my new brother. Hafflings…. I got that, but something bigger was happening.
I thought back to the village and that final awful moment when I’d given her my name. Cedric and my mom had both said she was going to kill me. So either I was dead or wasn’t. And while I didn’t seem to have much control… I didn’t think I was dead. Unless I was a ghost? Which raised an interesting point… did May think I was dead? It seemed her intent was to shuck me like an oyster, or like one of those crabs that couldn’t make its own shell, so it stole one after first killing and eating the prior inhabitant. She thought I was dead. I didn’t think I was. She didn’t know I was in here.
I startled at the sound of someone banging on a door, and a familiar voice.
“Let me in! I need to see Alex!”
Jerod! I couldn’t see him, b
ut feelings flooded me, like suddenly being hooked into my brain’s mainframe.
I could feel my lips… actually feel my body, I was speaking. But it wasn’t me. “I don’t know that boy!” May was speaking. “I don’t know who he is or why he’s stalking me.”
I saw a cluster of security guards.
A woman with headphones screamed into her mouthpiece. “How did he get in here?”
“Alex!” Jerod was shouting.
And then he wasn’t. A swarm of security blocked the door. I felt May’s thoughts. She was furious. Her ability to mobilize legions to do her bidding didn’t work in this world. But then, there was that weird sensation again. And like being cut in two, I was floating out of the room and through the television studio. I saw Jerod being escorted out the front of the building by half a dozen guards. I could hear them. “Do it again, kid, and we’re calling the cops.”
And then we were outside the theater in Times Square.
May’s magical body hovered over Jerod. Her thoughts were difficult to read, rage and frustration… and malice. She wanted him dead. There was nothing I could do to stop her. She spotted a yellow cab stopped at an intersection across from Jerod.
“Knock, knock,” she said, rapping invisible fingers on the driver’s head.
He startled and turned. She dove into his open mouth and took possession. Again, there was a rush of rage as she stared at the cab’s console. The key in the ignition. She didn’t know how to drive.
“Go!” she screamed.
Through the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, I could tell she was in control of his body, but not his thoughts.
“Drive!” she shrieked. He slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The cab shot forward before the light had changed, and broadsided a bread truck. The cabbie’s head hit the steering wheel with a sharp crack.
“Drive!” May insisted, hauling him back into his seat.
The man’s foot never left the gas. The tires spun, and the cab rammed the bread truck out of the way. Horns blared as the cab shot free of the mangled truck and leapt across the intersection and crashed into the side of the TV studio.
May’s gaze raked around the intersection. “No!” She spotted Jerod, unharmed and staring at the wreckage. On his shoulder was Nimby.
“Moron!” And she flew out of the driver’s mouth, with me along for the ride.
She froze as a beautiful redhead joined Jerod—Katye. May stared at her sister and didn’t move. I felt and heard her emotions and her thoughts. She studied Katye, from the way she dressed in pink to how she handled her human form. May’s thoughts were a jumbled mix of jealousy and regret. I needed to warn Jerod. He didn’t realize how close he’d come to disaster. And from the fury bubbling inside of May, she wasn’t done.
Katye gazed at the cab. A crowd had gathered, and someone was helping the wounded driver. A police cruiser pulled up, and then a second. Katye turned away from the accident and stared at May. She shook her head and mouthed, “You missed.” Jerod was at her side and Nimby was pointing at us. Her wings fluttered, her mouth moving nonstop. I focused on the two of them. My little fairy that I’d treated so badly was telling Jerod something. She glanced back at us, her pink wings a shimmery blur.
“How dare she!” May’s anger was boiling. “How dare she!”
Just as I’d been figuring my way through the connections of my brain, May was still trying to get her bearings. The big difference—she’d had months to do this. But something was happening; she was torn. We were moving again, away from the chaos of the street and back into the studio and my body.
The woman with the headset was leading us out of the room with the couches and the buffet. Someone else strapped a microphone to our chin and clipped a small box to the back of my jeans.
Jeremy called out, “Good luck, Alex.”
“Thanks.”
And we were being led backstage, then onto a darkened set with a gleaming black piano. Behind that was a massive screen running a video montage of me. I wanted to look at it, but May moved us toward the piano. The audience was on their feet. She paused in front of the piano and scanned the crowd. By now I could read the images fast and clear. She took in the two balconies, the main auditorium, and finally her gaze landed on the three judges—Carly, Barry, and Morgan Flood.
I heard her thoughts and finally understood. She intended to have Morgan Flood make a movie about the fey. Her logic was… bizarre, and it made sense. The fey’s existence was based on people believing in them, worshiping them. It’s how I was able to block out Nimby for all those years and escape from the mulberry tree. If you didn’t believe they existed, then they didn’t. But if you did.… Her kingdom was shrinking, her subjects getting swallowed by the mist. Which, considering how she treated them, might have been the lesser of two evils. Still, she intended to star in a movie that tens of millions would see, and like all those goths running around wanting to be vampires after reading Twilight and Anne Rice, she intended to not only push back the deadly mist, but return the fey to the human realm. And not for peaceful coexistence, but domination. Not to be queen, but to be God.
She sat at the open piano. A spotlight warmed our face. I felt that, and I stared at the keys as she raised my hands. If she hadn’t just tried to kill my boyfriend, I would have found this fascinating…. I didn’t play piano, I didn’t play the Irish harp, I certainly couldn’t hold a tune, and… I started to play… really well. My hands flew up and down the keyboard, my left laying down a steady blues beat that marched in assured cords up and down the bassline. My right riffed a tune that seemed familiar, but that I couldn’t quite place. I started to sing.
Where the hell did that come from? Marveling at the soaring tenor, I focused on the lyrics and the haunting melody. The words were familiar.
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this—and all is mended—
that you have but slumber’d here
while these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme….”
I knew this…. AP English. It was Puck’s closing soliloquy from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She hadn’t picked this at random. Where most IT contestants sang current Top 40 hits, May had deliberately selected a piece about the fey. There was magic in this, and it was directed toward Morgan Flood. She’d already moved beyond winning IT; this was the movie she wanted him to make, with her… me… starring as Puck. A contemporary version of the Shakespearian classic.
Tears flowed down my face as May played and sang.
“No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles do not reprehend;
If you pardon we will mend.
And, as I’m an honest Puck….”
I had to hand it to her, this was gorgeous. I barely noticed as raised platforms lit up behind me with a trio of violinists, a pair of cellists, and a harpist.
What did snag my attention… and May’s… was the frog.
Thirty
THE frog leapt from the floor to the piano bench. From there it landed on the keys with a crash in the bass. May stared at it, and not losing time with the music, her—my—left hand went to shove it off. The frog hopped over our hand and landed near the middle of the keyboard with a discordant thud. Apparently, the show really must go on, and May ran my right hand down the keyboard. My fingers made a dizzying trill as they shot for the intrusive bullfrog with its distinctive green-and-blue swirls. It was Lance.
She never stopped singing, and I felt her thoughts gather strength, torn between murdering the frog on stage but knowing that would create a backlash among animal lovers. They must love me, she thought. They must call in and vote. My right hand grabbed for Lance, he leapt away.
She smiled for the camera. Her voice high and pure, “Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.” The tune had shifted from its bluesy beginning to a gospel finish. The strings were joined by an eight-person choir, their red-and-white robes swaying as they clapped hands in time to the beat.
Lance the frog, however, marched to a different tune, and frenetically hopped back and forth over my fingers.
As May’s fury boiled, I felt more and more of myself. The way my jaw ached as she tried to hold my expression serene. Tension around my eyes as she manipulated the muscles to hold a dreamy, lost-in-the music expression.
And what did I do with this? Use it, Alex. Feel her anger, her frustration, and use it. Use your enemy’s momentum. An easy concept in sparring and even the occasional street fight, but when your opponent resided in your body….
My fingers laid down the song’s last cords, but Lance was not finished with his tune. There was no applause, a stunned silence, and then the first nervous chuckle, and another, and the audience roared with laughter. My hands came away from the piano.
May’s thoughts were poison. How dare they? She pasted an amused half smile on my lips and scanned the crowd. Let them think this was all part of the act. The frog, now alone on the keyboard, marched up and down, thumping the notes as he went.
The audience was in hysterics. The harder they laughed, the more infuriated she became. I will not be mocked. How dare they!
I felt that strange separation as the magic part of May swelled and separated from my body. She was still in control, but she was slipping. The word she’d thrown around, the thing I was—haffling—took on meaning. Half magic and half human, and frankly I’d take the human half. I twitched. It was subtle, but I made a muscle in the side of my neck move.
The audience was on their feet, along with the judges. They howled with laughter. Lance the frog was a hit, and Queen May was not amused.
She’d left my body on autopilot. It was supposed to smile and bow and bask in the audience’s adoration, while she went off to…. I’d lost contact with her. And while the cat’s away…. I managed to swallow… on my own. Good, now move a finger. And the tip of my right thumb bent. Do it again. I did. It was weird. As I willed my thumb to move, there was an opposing force wanting to spring it back. Like she’d posed my body… but more than that. I was moving and smiling, my gaze serene, everything in place. Say something, I thought. It was too much. I swallowed and tasted the inside of my mouth… salty… and a funny acid feeling deep in my belly.
