The Blue Girl

by Charles de Lint

  But last night I murmured a halfhearted agreement with Maxine about contacting him, and repeat it this morning, though first, I tell her, I want to do a little research on my own.

  “But he can probably tell us everything we need to know,” she says, “right off the top of his head.”

  “I know. I just need to figure some stuff out ... you know, with Pelly and Adrian and everything. This is pretty complicated.”

  “I guess.”

  “And if I haven’t got what I need by the end of the day, we’ll try to get in to see him.”

  “I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t go see him first.”

  “I’m not so comfortable with that,” I have to tell her.

  “But why not? He’s the expert.”

  “He’s the expert on writing this kind of thing up and then sticking it in a book. I can’t believe we already told him as much as we did.”

  “He said he’d change our names.”

  “That’s not the point,” I say. “It’s still our story, not his. Maybe we don’t want it in a book, even with the names changed. At least I don’t.”

  “We could ask him to not use it.”

  I nod, though I didn’t get the sense that Christy was the sort of person who’d let a good story go.

  “I just want to try a couple of other things first,” I say. I stand up from the bed to go downstairs, then turn to look at her from the doorway. “You know, I can’t count the weird shit on one hand anymore. Ghosts, fairies, imaginary childhood companions, these things in the shadows ... .Do you see where all of this is going?”

  Maxine shakes her head.

  “Neither do I,” I say “I just know it’s out of control.” Then I go downstairs.

  * * *

  Before Maxine and I leave for school, I ask Mom to write a note for me excusing me from classes for the morning. Were alone in the kitchen at the time. Jared’s still catching the last possible moments of sleep before he has to get up, while Maxine’s taking a shower.

  “A note,” Mom says with this odd look on her face.

  I nod. “I need to do some research in the school library and maybe at the Crowsea Public Library.”

  But then I realize what the look on her face is all about. She’s thinking, When has this wild child of hers ever asked for permission to skip school?

  “You know, Imogene,” she says, “I couldn’t be happier about last year’s grades and your new dedication to learning and school and fitting in, but I have to ask: are you doing this for yourself—because it’s what you want—or to please me or somebody else? Because you know I’ll support you in whatever you choose to do with your life.”

  I can’t imagine anyone else’s parents coming out with that kind of thing—for sure not Maxine’s mother—but Mom’s always been big on treating Jared and me as individuals. She insists that we talk stuff through—and let me tell you, we had a lot of talks back in Tyson—but the weird thing is, she really doesn’t judge. She’ll point out what’s against the law, what’s morally wrong, where she thinks we’re making mistakes with our life choices and why, but she also supports us one hundred percent, even when we’re doing things that other parents might frown at. Like when Jared and I started our junk business. Or my skipping school the way I used to—“I’m learning more on the street,” I used to tell her. Yeah, like how to be a complete loser. But it didn’t seem like that at the time.

  Still, I understand her question. I guess she thinks I’m doing this for Maxine, which maybe in part I am, but only because Maxine’s shown me that it’s not such a bad thing to do well. Truth is, my going feral in Tyson had more to do with me trying to please Frankie and his gang than it had to do with me. I don’t know that this new improved me is the real me either, but at least she’s not in trouble all the time. It’s kind of a relief to not have to deal with the constant fallout of my life. Though now I’ve got a whole new set of problems to deal with.

  I don’t get into any of that with Mom.

  “I think I’m doing it for me,” I say instead. “At least it feels like it.”

  She smiles. “Well, just remember. Do what you have to do, only—”

  “Don’t hurt anybody else while you’re doing it,” I finish for her.

  “While you’re doing what?” Maxine asks, coming into the kitchen on the tail end of our conversation.

  She has a towel wrapped around her head, which makes her look wonderfully exotic.

  “Whatever it is that you do,” I tell her.

  “Who wants breakfast?” Mom asks.

  * * *

  At school, armed with my mother’s note, I leave Maxine and head for the library. There’s really not much there, so I grab my jacket from my locker and walk over to the Crowsea Public Library, where I have the opposite problem. Here there are shelves upon shelves of books on fairy tales, myths, and folklore. I stand in front of them for a long moment, reading the titles on the spines, not knowing where to start. And of course I’m painfully aware of Christy in his office, although hopefully he’s not aware of me.

  After a while I go to the main desk and see that the nice woman is there again today. She has the look of actresses you see in movies made from books by old dead English writers—auburn hair pulled back in a loose bun, a peaches-and-cream complexion, a lightness in her body that makes her seem frail and strong at the same time. She’s my mom’s age, like in her thirties, but, also like my mom, she doesn’t seem as old as, well, you know, old people usually are. “Excuse me, Ms.,” I say.

  She looks up and smiles. “I remember you. Are you here to see Christy again?”

  I shake my head. “I’m doing some research and I’m kind of at a loss as to where to begin.”

  “What’s your project about?”

  “You know how in the old days people used to believe in fairies and stuff like that? I’m looking into how they’d protect themselves from the fairies, but I don’t really know what book to start with. There’s just so many fairy-tale books on your shelves.”

  “It’s not just in the old days,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are still people who believe in fairies.”

  Oh, great, I think. And you’re going to be one of them. Though maybe that won’t be so bad. Maybe that means she’ll know exactly where to steer me.

  “Um, right,” I say.

  “But between you and me,” she says, “though it’s sweet, it doesn’t really make much sense if you stop and think about it.”

  “Why not?” I find myself saying, even though up to a day or so ago I would have been in total agreement with her.

  “Well, think about it. If there were such things as fairies, don’t you think we’d know for sure by now? News travels instantly, from all over the world. If there was proof anywhere, wouldn’t the news services be all over it in an instant?”

  “I guess.”

  “But that doesn’t stop people from believing.”

  I nod. “And so for the people who do believe, what do they use to protect themselves. Or what did they use?”

  “I’m not sure. But you won’t find the answer in fairytale books. You have to look past the fiction into fairy folklore, and we have any number of books on the subject.”

  She does something on her computer, fingers tapping the keyboard with enviable speed.

  The printer hums from somewhere below the desk. When she bends down to get at it, head turned slightly, I catch a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of her neck. It’s a small fish, in blue and black ink. It’s funny, but I just never thought of librarians as having tattoos.

  “Here we go,” she says, straightening up. She hands me a sheet of paper filled with book titles. “This should give you a start. They re up on the second floor in the reference section.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you want me to show you?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “My name’s Hilary,” she says. “If you need a hand with anything els
e, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

  “I won’t. Thanks again.”

  So back upstairs I go, this time armed with a reference sheet. I track down the first few books on the list Hilary printed up for me and take them over to a chair and start to read.

  I spend the day haunting the halls of Redding High, trying to decide whom I’m going to offer up to the soul-eaters in place of Imogene. It ought to be easy, but there are so many people I don’t like in this place, so many who think they’re better than everybody else, or who rag on people who aren’t cool or popular. Or both. And even the ones who aren’t strong enough to be bullies ... I don’t doubt that, given the chance, they wouldn’t be any different from the jerks who are making their lives miserable right now.

  I know I would have. I wouldn’t have picked on the kids weaker than me, but the bullies ... they’re a whole other matter. I’d still like to give them a taste of what they did.

  It kind of makes me glad that I’m not alive, because I find that, in general, I don’t much like people anymore. The faces are mostly different from when I went here, but they might as well be the same kids and teachers. Truth is, except for the fact that I’m dead, nothing s really changed. Because now I’m avoiding the fairies, and with Imogene mad at me, I’m still just wandering these halls totally on my own.

  Always being the guy no one likes really sucks.

  But at least I can’t be hurt anymore. Or at least not physically hurt, since I don’t have a body But I do have a big ache in my heart because of how things are going with Imogene. Not that they were actually going anywhere before this. Let’s face it, I’m dead and she’s not, and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for a relationship. But at least she used to come talk to me. Or she’d wink at me when she passed me in the halls. Today she left school right after homeroom, and I knew it had to be because of me.

  I guess I don’t blame her. She’s obviously upset by these dreams that Tommery’s sending her. She’d totally lose it if she knew about the soul-eaters. Not that getting mad at me is going to do her any good.

  I wish I’d kept my mouth shut instead of getting Tommery to work on making her see that he and the rest of the fairies are real.

  What difference does it make if she doesn’t believe me? At least before this she was still talking to me.

  I find myself drifting into the cafeteria. A noisy table by the windows catches my attention. It’s Brent Calder and his buddies, laughing at some kid Jerry Fielder tripped. The kid’s on the floor and trying not to cry, his lunch spilled all over his pants and the tiles around him.

  I guess I knew all along whom I’d choose—I mean, it’s so obvious. Who better than the jerk who gave Imogene such a hard time when I first saw her?

  Calder’s not so different from Eric Woodrow, who’d made it his own personal crusade to ensure that my life was as miserable as it could be back when I was at Redding. Guys like that deserve to have their souls eaten.

  I leave the cafeteria so that I don’t have to watch the kid on the floor and his misery.

  All I have to do now is figure out how to divert the soul-eaters’ attention from Imogene to Calder.

  I check for fairies when I get back to the school—remembering what Pelly told me last night about how I was supposed to be able to see them now—but everything’s the same: the usual gangs of kids in the halls, the odd solitary teacher looking harried or grumpy. It’s got to be a tough and thankless gig, and I wonder, not for the first time, why they take it on.

  But no fairies. No ghost either, for that matter.

  Then I try what I’d read in one of the library’s books, about how you can see magical creatures more easily from the corner of your eye. When I give that a shot, sure enough, there they are. It’s not like I can suddenly see packs of them, running around the halls; just occasional glimpses of strange little men with Rasta hair and raggedy clothes. It’s not much, but it’s enough to let me know that they’re really here.

  I pretend not to have seen anything, and I don’t mention it to Maxine either. I simply go to my last couple of classes, then take Maxine to one of the cafes on Williamson Street. I figure we need to have our war council in a public place, somewhere busy enough that the fairies won’t be around. I check from the corners of my eyes as we place our orders, then carry our drinks to the table, but we seem to be in a fairy-free zone.

  “Okay,” I say once we’re sitting down, “the first thing is we’re not supposed to call them ‘fairies.’ Apparently it ticks them off, so we need to refer to them as ‘the Little People’ or ‘the Good Neighbors’ from now on.”

  Maxine nods. “I’ve read that.”

  “And when you do talk about them, you’re supposed to start off saying ‘Today is’—and you stick in whatever the day of the week is—‘and the fairies won’t hear us,’ which frankly I find confusing, because what does it matter what day of the week it is? And you’re using the no-no word at the same time.”

  “That’s a new one for me. Where’d you get that?”

  I look at my notes, but I didn’t mark down what books I got what from, and there’s nothing else there to clue me in.

  “I don’t remember,” I say. “Actually, a lot of this is confusing. Supposedly iron wards them off, but the ones that have taken up living in urban centers have developed an immunity to it. Which begs the question, why haven’t they developed immunity to any of the other stuff that’s been around for as long or longer?”

  “Like what?”

  I consult my notes. “Wearing your clothes inside out. Carrying bread when you go out—supposedly they’ll take it instead of a person, or it can be used to bribe them or something. And it can scare them off if the bread’s been blessed or looks like a host.”

  “You mean like the wafers they use in Mass?”

  I shrug. “I guess. I’m not a Catholic.”

  “Me, neither. It just seems that a loaf of bread would be a lot bigger than a host.”

  “Whatever. Also, if it’s got salt in it, that can also ward them off because apparently they don’t like salt.” I look back at my notes. “You can also carry coins to give them.” Maxine giggles. “What? They’re also panhandlers?”

  I smile with her. “Apparently. Oh, and to finish with the salt—when you’ve been in contact with fairies, drinking some salt water can help break their hold on you.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Well, yeah. Then there’s throwing a stone when you think there are fairies around.”

  “You mean like at them?”

  I shake my head. “No, you throw the stone and then ask the wind to drive them away.”

  “Weird.”

  “Everything about this is weird. Anyway, leaving food out for them gets you on their good side. Milk or cream and sweet stuff like honey or molasses or cakes cooked without salt in them, only don’t scrimp on the sugar. You’re supposed to avoid fairy paths—”

  “What do they look like?”

  “I don’t know. None of the books said. I guess you’re just supposed to know. You’re also not supposed to whistle or hum, because music draws them. So does wearing the color red.”

  “That knotwork tattoo on the small of your back has a lot of red in it.”

  I nod. “But if I wear a shirt and tuck it in, they won’t see it, right? I think you’re just not supposed to be obvious about the red.”

  “I suppose. Is there a color that they don’t like?”

  “Blue.”

  “Maybe you should dye your hair again, like you did this summer.”

  I smile. “But it was a little unclear, in the book where I found that anti-blue reference, if it meant fairies or some other kind of spirit. And I couldn’t find a mention of it anywhere else. A lot of the material is like that, actually—in one text, but not in another. And then there’s all this religious stuff that I don’t get, because haven’t fairies been around since forever, while Christianity’s just a couple of thousand years old?”

  “Not if yo
u believe that God created the world in the first place. He’d have always been around; it’s just the religions that would have changed.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So what’s the religious stuff?” she asks.

  “Making the sign of the cross or putting a cross in your window. Also calling on God or Jesus or the saints. Some of the books say it drives them off; some say it just annoys them.”

  “You sure you didn’t stray into vampire research?”

  “Ha-ha. There’s a bunch more. Carrying oatmeal in your pocket when you go out at night, preferably with some salt in it.”

  “Cooked or just the oat flakes?”

  “Uncooked, I assume. Twigs of rowan are also good— do we even have rowan trees growing around here?”

  “It’s another name for the mountain ash.”

  “Oh, right.” I look back at my notes again. “And there was something in one book about sprinkling stale ‘urin’ on your house’s doors and windows to ward them off.”

  “You mean pee? Like dogs marking their territory?”

  “I don’t know. It was spelled U-R-I-N, and I couldn’t find another reference to it.”

  “Gross.”

  “I know. Coals are also good, or throwing a handful of embers from a fire, though how you’re supposed to pick up a handful, it didn’t say.”

  Maxine smiles. “I’m sure they mean with a little shovel or something—like the kind people use to scoop up ashes.”

  “I knew that.” I set my notes aside and look at her. “So how does this relate to the stuff you know from the stories you read?”

  She shrugs. “A lot of what you’ve dug up is totally new to me.”

  “And complicated,” I say. “Plus there was nothing much in anything I read about actually bringing the battle to them.”

  “It’s not a war, Imogene.”

  “No? It seems like that to me. And if these creatures in the shadows can suck away our souls, I’d rather deal with them once and for all than wander around forever with my clothes inside out and my pockets full of oatmeal and bread or whatever.”