by Lisa Mangum
“Maybe Jugs will dance to get her book back,” Andre said.
The fourth boy, Leon, turned from watching the far intersection. “The bus will be here soon. We’d better go.” He lifted the front wheel of his bike from the ground a couple times. Nervously.
Hope flowered in me. The next bus stop was close by. If I screamed, surely someone would chase them away.
Andre flipped him off. “Dance for your book, Jugs.” He ripped a page from the journal, and the sound was like my chest being torn open.
“No!” I shrieked, stumbling up to grab at Papa’s journal.
“That’s it,” he laughed, ripping another page, crumbling it in his fist. I saw a flash of color, greens and browns and metal gray. The self-portrait of Papa in his war fatigues.
I rushed at Andre, intending to use every ounce of my body and my rage to knock him down, to shove his face into the pebbles, but Javier dropped his bike and grabbed me, followed right behind by Tyler. His stick arms were stronger than they seemed. I howled as Andre ripped another page free, making another crumpled ball of Papa Twilly’s words and pictures.
“Andre …” Leon warned. The blue city bus had stopped two streets down. Still too far away.
What if the bus didn’t stop here? What if it did and no one who got off helped me?
Why were the faeries letting this happen?
I struggled and kicked and even tried to bite, but the boys swore and laughed and pinned my arms so far back I thought my shoulders might break.
Andre ripped and ripped, page after page, tossing the crumpled balls into the street, then with one final tear and crumple, he tossed the journal onto the sidewalk. He stepped up to me, avoiding my flailing kick, and brought his nasty face within inches of mine.
“Thanks for the show, Jugs,” he said. His breath smelled of Doritos and root beer.
He took the last ball of wadded-up pages and stuffed it down my shirt. Then, with a final laugh, he gestured and the boys shoved me back onto the sidewalk. The four of them were halfway down the street on their bikes by the time the bus drove past.
It didn’t stop. I watched the pages of Papa Twilly’s journal bounce around the street in its wake.
* * *
When I got home, I had already wiped the tears from my face on my shirt. Aunt Lue would ask questions I didn’t want to answer. The remainder of Papa Twilly’s journal, along with the balled-up pages I’d gathered from the street and from my shirt, was in my backpack. I couldn’t stand to look at it, to discover which pages would always carry the marks of what Andre had done, no matter how much I re-taped and smoothed.
To my surprise, it wasn’t my aunt who greeted me when I walked in the door, but Daddy. He sat in my aunt’s ugly avocado-colored armchair.
“Hey, Lizzy.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, just kept staring out the window.
I followed his gaze. Nothing was out there, just the small brick ranch houses across the street that all looked like Aunt Lue’s.
“Hey, Daddy.”
I dropped the backpack on the entryway tile with a thunk. Aunt Lue would have been all over me about leaving my things laying around where people could trip over them, but Daddy didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
I started toward the kitchen for a snack, but paused after a few steps.
“Are you okay, Daddy?”
He turned and looked at me for the first time in days. I’d forgotten how handsome my daddy was. Even more so in person than on his book jackets. Momma used to say his smile could charm the quills from a porcupine. He hadn’t smiled in so long, I couldn’t remember if that was true.
“What happened to your knees?” he asked.
“I tripped on the sidewalk.”
He stared at me for a bit, and I couldn’t tell if his dark eyes read the lie on my face or not.
“My publisher dropped me,” he said.
I blinked. “But the book you’ve been working on—”
“They don’t want it.”
I didn’t know what to say. My knees still ached, and so did my shoulders and my right elbow, though I didn’t remember hitting that. “Maybe another publisher will.”
He turned to the window again. “It’s not done. I’ve barely got three chapters.”
My chest turned hollow. He’d already started the book when Momma died. Two years in his bedroom, two years with the door closed on me and everyone else, and he hadn’t even been working on the book, not at all.
“I’m going to check my faerie garden,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to go back outside, but I wanted to be inside with him even less.
“They’re not there, Lizzy,” he said with a sigh. “Papa Twilly was wrong. We don’t all have little friends looking out for us.”
I walked numbly to the backyard. Bees crawled over the cups of honey, and tiny red fire ants scurried around a new hill they’d opened near my ring of stones. The bluebells hung low in the afternoon heat, dead white petals dropped onto the dirt.
I knelt down on the ground and stared at the flowers, not even seeing them. I began to sob, giant, racking sobs that shook my too-big stomach and my too-big breasts.
No little friends came to comfort me. Daddy had been right all along.
* * *
School finally ended, and summer cast its muggy blanket over the world. I only went out into my faerie garden one time, when Aunt Lue asked me to pick up the little cups of cinnamon and honey after she saw a raccoon rooting around our backyard.
I threw them away and kicked the stones around until there was no trace of a ring left. Just rocks scattered in the dirt.
I kept indoors like Daddy, like Janna. Aunt Lue would come in the house and peek into our bedroom and see Janna lying in bed, sleeping as usual, and me sitting on my bed reading something that was not my faerie books. I’d picked up some manga from the library, which I liked. Manga didn’t ever pretend to be real.
Aunt Lue would sometimes ask if we wanted to go to the park or the museum, though we always said no—or I always said no and Janna kept sleeping. Sometimes, my aunt wouldn’t say anything at all. She would just smile in a way that wasn’t really smiling, but sad.
One day, after bringing Janna home from physical therapy and helping her back into bed, Aunt Lue said she hadn’t seen Papa Twilly’s journal around in awhile.
“It’s in my backpack,” I said.
“Still?” Aunt Lue glanced to where my backpack slumped under my chair like a deflated balloon.
I shrugged. I didn’t dare mention the torn and still-crumpled pages. Aunt Lue might know better than to believe in Papa Twilly’s faeries, but he was still her daddy and she’d be mad that I’d let that happen to his journal.
“She’s twelve years old, Mom,” Janna said. “She’s over the fairy thing.” She swallowed two blue pills and rolled over.
Aunt Lue watched me expectantly, and I turned another page in my manga book. She didn’t even bother fake-smiling this time. She just looked sad, though I didn’t know why.
Hadn’t they all wanted me to see the truth about the faeries? About Papa Twilly?
That night, I woke to a strange scratching noise. I peered around the dark room. Enough moonlight seeped through the one broken blind that I could see that Janna’s bed was empty, her sheets tangled. Her prosthetic leg, usually propped up against the nightstand, was gone.
“Janna?” I called quietly. Had she gone to the bathroom? And if so, why would she put on her leg? She would use just her crutches for that.
The scratching sounded again, louder, with a hint of the squeal chalk sometimes made on a chalkboard. Or like branches against glass.
Only we didn’t have any trees by our room.
My heart beating erratically in my chest, I padded over to the window and opened the blinds. At first all I saw was light, white and so bright it seemed the moon itself had fallen into our window-well. Then the light dimmed, drawing to a point, and I realized that the actual moon was a tiny crescent mostly hidden by clouds. A
ll the light in the window had come from this one narrow point, this one slim, spiral horn that had been scratching at the glass.
And that horn was attached to the head of a horse. A horse standing outside my bedroom window, with a mane and body so gray that … No. Not gray. As the horse stepped back from the window, the light from its horn gently illuminated a coat that was deep violet. Flickers of shadows with the shape of flowers and insects darted around it, just outside the light.
The purple unicorn had come. The faeries had come.
I trembled, barely able to think or breathe. I didn’t bother pinching myself. I didn’t dream much, and never like this. This was real. It had to be real.
I pressed my fingers to the window, the glass cool from the constant blast of AC. The unicorn bobbed its head twice, pawing at the earth with a glimmering hoof. Then it turned to the right and walked out of view.
“No,” I whispered, afraid to say anything louder, afraid the trailing light from that mystical horn would burst like a bubble and leave me back in my faerie-less life. “Come back. Please, come back.”
The light began to fade. I scrambled past my bed, stubbing my toe on a stack of library books as I ran to the kitchen and from there into the backyard.
The unicorn stood there, glowing serenely in the night, perfectly still against the flurry of tiny wing beats on the very edge of the light. Under the gaze of those coffee-dark eyes, my heart filled my whole chest, the warmth of light and hope and giddy joy spreading all the way from my bare feet to my bed-mussed hair.
I wished Papa Twilly could see this.
I reached my hand out slowly, carefully, hoping against hope that one of the faeries would come sit on my fingers or whisper forest-secrets in my ears, but froze partway. The unicorn pawed the ground and snorted, as if distressed. As if …
And then I saw her. Janna, lying on her side on the dying grass, the plastic chair knocked over beside her. An empty pill bottle peeked out from her curled fingers, and another sat a foot or so from her, half-hidden in a dandelion patch. The pretty side of her face was turned up to the light, her good eye closed.
“Janna!” I shrieked. The rustle of wing beats grew more frantic at my terror, and those at the outskirts of the unicorn’s light fled.
I rolled her over, shook her shoulders. “Janna! Janna, wake up!” Her skinny body felt as heavy as the giant sacks of flour Aunt Lue got from DollarCo. Her head bobbed on her neck.
“Help her!” I cried, turning to the unicorn. “Please help …”
The unicorn was gone. The faeries were gone. The only light shining on Janna’s face came from the back porch bulb.
I blinked, stupidly, then gathered Janna as close to me as I could. “Daddy! Aunt Lue! Help! Help!”
I screamed until the screen door banged open and Aunt Lue ran out in her nightgown and wailed and Daddy followed in his bathrobe and flannel pants and called 911. Then I held Janna until the ambulance came, and they pulled her from my arms and whisked her away.
* * *
I didn’t go to sleep even after Daddy and I returned from the hospital. I pulled Papa Twilly’s journal out of my backpack. I stroked the soft, worn leather of the cover and ran my fingernail over the ragged edges of ripped pages. Then I set to work with the crumpled balls of paper I’d managed to collect, smoothing out each one as gently and lovingly as if I’d been running my hand over the gleaming coat of the purple unicorn.
I didn’t hear Daddy come in at first, but I did smell the hot chocolate. He set a steaming mug on the desk in front of me.
“She’s going to be okay, they said. You found her in time.”
I nodded. I already knew this. I’d been there when the doctors told him and Aunt Lue, and he’d said it at least twice in the car. Maybe he needed to keep saying it to believe it.
He sat on my bed, staring at the mug in his own hand. He lifted it as if to drink, but then lowered it again. “Your aunt, she knew Janna wasn’t doing well. But she didn’t know … I mean, none of us knew how bad it was.”
I paused in my paper smoothing. This page talked about how when Papa Twilly’s babies died, the faeries wove a beautiful wreath of Texas prickly poppy and starlight for the gravestone.
“You’re a hero, Lizzy,” Daddy said. “She’s alive because of you.”
“She’s alive because of the purple unicorn. And the faeries. They probably told the unicorn what was happening.”
Daddy took a drink then, a long one even though it probably burned his tongue. He set the mug down on the carpet and leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. He looked me in the eye, really looked at me, and I was reminded of the unicorn’s eyes, dark and mysterious and full of a kind of love too deep to understand.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so …” His voice broke, and he looked away for a second and then back. Red rimmed the edges of his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been a terrible father. I’ve been so lost since your momma died. And I’ve shut you out. I can’t lose you, too, baby girl. I won’t.”
My throat felt thick, tight. I wanted to run away and I wanted to bury myself in his strong arms all at the same time, and so I didn’t move at all.
He took my hand and enfolded it in his own, warmed by the hot mug and soft like bluebell petals. “I know I need to earn back being your daddy. And I will. I will be there for you from now on. The thing is, I don’t know if I can believe in faeries or unicorns. But I believe in you. I believe in us.”
I didn’t forgive him, not then. Not yet. But he was my daddy. I dove into his arms and let him hold me. I breathed in the smell of him, the sweet of hot chocolate and the musky scent that was uniquely him, a scent I’d loved and forgotten. I sobbed into his chest, releasing the pain of the bullies at school, the fear of seeing Janna’s body on the ground, the ache that had never left since Momma died. It hurt and felt good, all at once.
I knew then that it didn’t matter if he didn’t believe in the little friends. It didn’t even matter if I ever saw them again. They were there.
And we’d be okay.
***
The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures
Kristin Luna
A patch of sky over the neighbor’s acreage turned a milky purple, like an old, healing bruise. Fourteen-year-old Alice watched the odd occurrence from the fence line, her legs resting between the dry, wooden beams.
Then, a peculiar-colored horse fell from the opening. Its weight met the earth with a muffled crack. The great horse whined, its eyes wide with shock. It attempted to rise, but only fell back down.
Alice scrambled to the top of the fence for a better look. She watched in horror as the horse panted and writhed on the ground. She wrestled with herself if she should help the creature. Back in Chicago, she wouldn’t hesitate to help a hurt bird or dog. But things seemed different in Nebraska, where a dark, indigo horse with a broken, splintering horn between its inky eyes fell from the sky.
She gritted her teeth and hopped over the fence. Her grandparents wouldn’t be happy to know she’d trespassed onto the neighbor’s property.
The unusual horse seemed wary of her presence, so she knelt within a few feet of its head. The horse’s eyes followed her cautiously. Its mane showed strands of silver between the deep purples and blues. The hair continued down around its neck and onto its chest.
“You sure are hairy, aren’t ya?” she muttered.
The horse’s ankle swelled rapidly. Alice moved a little closer, slowly bringing her hand to the horse’s shoulder. She hesitated briefly before laying it on the soft, indigo hair.
“It’s gonna be alright,” Alice cooed.
The sound of approaching hoofbeats drew Alice’s gaze upward. A cowboy directed his jet-black horse close to the great, indigo beast without glancing at Alice.
Under his weatherworn hat, the old man’s face was like a crude mask with small, blue marbles peeking out of the folds as eyes. A rolled cigarette rested in the corner of his mouth, a small chimney for smoke to move
in and out.
Despite the cowboy’s leathery appearance, he jumped off his horse with surprising agility. He walked toward the girl and the bluish-purple creature.
“Now ain’t this somethin’,” he mumbled. His voice was low, and his cigarette bounced with every word. “You know what you’re lookin’ at, kid?” The blue marbles looked directly at her.
“Looks like a unicorn to me,” Alice said casually, staring right back into the old man’s eyes.
“Sure is.” The old man’s eyebrows arched. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Depends.” Alice shrugged.
“Depends?” The old man repeated incredulously.
“What’s it worth to you?” Alice asked. If she’d learned anything from her poor neighborhood in Chicago, it was how much secrets were worth.
“I like your style, kid. Reminds me of a smart aleck I used to know.” The man smiled, revealing two rows of browning teeth.
“Is it broken?” Alice asked, looking at the swelling leg.
The old man considered the horse. “Nah. Just a sprain, looks like.”
Alice sighed with relief.
“Where’d you come from? You with the Wamsleys or Zimmermans?” the man asked, rolling up his flannel sleeves. He bent down to the indigo horse and put a toughened hand on its thick neck. The unicorn’s body relaxed under the man’s touch.
“Wamsleys. Betsy and Ralph are my grandparents.”
“They puttin’ you to work for the summer? Detasslin’ or some such?”
“Yeah, that’s what they want me to do.” Alice hung her head and sighed. She imagined how boring it would be to break the tips off of corn in the summer heat.
“Not what you want to do, is it?”
“No.”
“What’s your name, kid?” The old man extended his hand.
“Alice,” she said, taking his hand.
“I’m John Greggs. And I got me an idea, Alice. My knees aren’t what they used to be. How about you help me out on my farm for the summer?”
Alice smiled.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll come by later to talk to Ralph and Bea. You go on now and tell ’em you found yourself a job, and I’ll fix this old girl up.”
