by DM Fike
The waiter came then, and they ordered Avalon’s favorite appetizer, spanakopita, little phyllo pockets stuffed with spinach and feta cheese. After the waiter left, James slid a sheet with numbers toward her.
“All your tests are normal.”
“Great.” She barely glanced at the pink paper before sliding it back, wondering instead how to bring up her housing situation. She decided to ease James into it. “So, how did that meeting with the investors go?”
He paused. “Investors?”
“You know, the people who called during my appointment?”
“Ah, yes, Lonmore. It’s going well. I’ll be flying to Scotland tomorrow morning to discuss a capital expenditure. It’s going to be a long business trip.”
The waiter interrupted when the appetizers arrived. Avalon’s mouth watered, but she waited while James ordered his entrée. In true form, he asked many questions before making a decision. She relayed her order in one breath, then dug into the pastries once the waiter slipped away.
“You don’t have to attack it,” James said.
“This is so…” She paused when she realized she was talking with her mouth full and swallowed. “This is so good.”
He let her devour a second spanakopita before observing, “Leaving school has been hard on you.”
Avalon slowed the pace of her food consumption. “Staying was harder.”
James leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What will you do now?”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet.” She realized this was not a good pitch to ask for rent money, so she appealed to the positive aspect of her situation. “But I do know I’ll finish the summer at Fantasma. That will keep me employed while I work things out.”
“The amusement park?” James raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“It’s better than a fast food job.”
James pushed his appetizer plate back, finished after only a few bites. “I can’t help but feel I could do more.”
This was her moment. Avalon mimicked him by pushing her plate away too, then meticulously folded her napkin into quarters.
“Actually, I-”
James’s phone lit up and buzzed on the table. James glanced at the caller’s name. “Excuse me. It’s Boxer.”
Avalon nodded as James put the phone to his ear. She knew she should spit out her request, but it felt so much like begging. She hated begging.
James’s tone changed abruptly, a scowl on his face. “What do you mean?” he snapped. With Avalon peering at him curiously, he turned around to face the wall behind him. He barked out questions. “Which ones? On my desk? From yesterday? Fine, I’ll be right there.”
“Is everything okay?” Avalon asked as James waved his credit card at a passing waiter.
“I’m so sorry, Avalon.” James retrieved his briefcase from against the table leg. “Something’s come up. I must return to the office.” A vein pulsed on one side of his face.
“Sure, I understand,” Avalon whispered.
James flashed his soothing doctor smile. “It’s just an unexpected problem. It goes with the territory of what I’m trying to accomplish.” The waiter approached, and James signed the bottom of the receipt. “You finish the meal here. And promise me you’ll give me a call if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay,” Avalon told his retreating back.
Avalon sighed at the now vacant seat across from her. That’s the way it always was with James. He juggled fifteen thousand things, his mind always focused on his work.
She was on her own.
CHAPTER 5
AVALON LOST HER appetite after James departed. She tried eating for a while but ended up swirling her entrée around the plate. Nearly half an hour later, she clutched the leftover box of solomos, a salmon lentil pilaf, as she left Stelio’s. Storm clouds had darkened the summer sky. Orange streetlamps lit her path. A drop of rain hit the top of her forehead, sliding down like a teardrop.
Avalon’s eyes welled up, a sharp memory accompanying it.
“There’s a time to cry,” her pale mother whispered on the hospital bed, voice cracking. She had nearly died the night before, clinging to life by the barest of threads.
“Mom.” Avalon folded her mother’s veiny hand in her own.
“There’s a time to cry,” her mother repeated, each word taking a toll, each word carrying deep weight. “And a time to fight. I’m fighting for my life.”
“Mom, please don’t talk.”
Her mother lifted her scrawny arm, barely able to gather the strength to sandwich her hand between her child’s.
“Choose to fight,” her mother said.
It would be the last words her mother ever uttered. She would die within hours.
Back on the sidewalk, the evening rain increased into a steady drizzle. The concrete changed from pale white to a deep wet brown.
“It’s a time to fight.” Avalon brushed the tears away. “I didn’t want James’s help anyway, and I’m not locked out of Fantasma yet. I’ll stay there tonight and figure everything else out tomorrow.”
She stepped into the street to unlock the driver’s side door. She sat behind the wheel and almost shut the door before she noticed the beggar’s turtle bowl on the passenger seat.
Avalon screamed. She hit her head on the doorframe as she jumped back outside.
How had that creep gotten in? She checked the passenger door and trunk just to be sure, but they were still locked. She glanced around for the beggar. The dinner rush had long passed, the street deserted with no other cars parked for blocks.
Taking a deep breath, she got back in the car and examined the turtle. He had faint yellow and red lines running across his neck and bobbed his neck as if listening to an invisible set of headphones. Avalon found a bright purple sheet of paper underneath the bowl and opened it. Someone had scrawled a message in glitter pen.
“He may not be a ninja, a mutant, or a teenager, but Rubix likes you. Take care of him for me, will you?”
Avalon did not want this turtle. She tried to think of a place to drop him off but doubted an animal shelter would take him. She had no idea if he could survive in the wild. And she refused to abandon him to die.
“This is only temporary, Rubix.” She wagged a finger at the turtle. “I’m ditching you the minute I figure out how. If you don’t like it, blame your owner.”
Rubix stopped splashing his feet to crane his neck up at her. She swore she saw him smile.
* * *
Avalon browsed around at a bookstore, waiting for a safe time to return to Fantasma. She absentmindedly flipped through the graphic novels, but the rolling in her stomach wouldn’t dissolve. It’s a time to fight, she repeated to herself over and over, but her heart refused to agree.
The rain poured as she drove back to the park. It drenched Avalon as she exited Babe in the employee parking lot. She nabbed her backpack from the trunk, stuffed it with her quilt and clothes, and retrieved Rubix’s bowl from the passenger seat. When she finally stomped away from the car, she was soaked to the core.
Maneuvering the fishbowl through the fence did not speed up matters. Her stringy wet hair made it difficult to see. She tilted the bowl this way and that, its height slightly too tall for the hole. Rubix skittered frantically, trying to get a toehold on the unforgiving smooth glass. She finally shoved it through, bending frayed ends of the chain link fence. Then she crawled belly first through the mud.
By the time her sneakers squelched on the floorboards of the Hall of Mirrors, she felt like a bloated sea monster. A mirror confirmed she looked like one too. She pushed her clumped hair behind her ears and found the fairy knight statue staring at her.
“It’s bad, Kay,” she said in passing, sloshing her way back to the storage closet to change.
Her drenched clothes fought her as she peeled them off. She threw them in an empty bucket before dabbing her skin with the last roll of scratchy brown paper towels. The rain had soaked her backpack, but the articles inside had only gotten a little
damp. She threw on a faded sweatshirt and pajama pants, then spread her quilt on the floor.
Avalon scanned for a place to house Rubix. She chose a corner of the storage closet that offered a sliver of light. He tapped the glass with his foot when she walked away from him.
She rounded on him. “Don’t you start with me. You’re lucky I even brought you here.” A pang of pity zipped through her nonetheless. She had no idea if he was hungry or needed anything else. She knew zilch about turtle care.
Avalon meant to lie down, pull her quilt over her head, and sleep. Instead, her feet carried her over to Kay. She plopped down on her knees, her fingers kneading the tops of her thighs.
The rolling in her stomach lurched, rising to the surface. Her vision blurred.
“I… I don’t know what to do,” she whispered to the fairy.
The wind whistled sharply, causing the flags on all the booths to flap dangerously on their thin strings. The gust slammed into Avalon like a wave crashing into the beach, enveloping her, numbing her with its coolness.
When the wind died down, Avalon let her upper body slide to Kay’s side. Her weight sunk into his, finding the perfect spot to snuggle underneath his sword arm. He kept her propped up, shielding her from the outside world.
But no matter how much she leaned against him, he was a statue. He didn’t even feel warm anymore.
“I wish you were real,” she whispered.
There was nothing else to be done. No amount of fighting could change this moment. Avalon decided it was a time to cry.
CHAPTER 6
A LOUD THUNDERCLAP broke Avalon out of a dreamless sleep. She smacked her head against Kay’s sword. It took her a few seconds to orient herself. She had fallen asleep against Kay at the entrance of the Hall of Mirrors.
Another lightning flash cast blue light everywhere, reflecting so brightly that she had to turn away. The floorboards quaked in the aftermath.
“Whoa,” she whispered to Kay. “That was close.”
The lightning intensified, slashing into her eyesight. Sitting among the mirrors was like being a bug in a jar. In her haste to regain her sight, Avalon slid off the entrance platform, accidentally stumbling onto her knees in the mud. The moisture seeped into her socks, her pajama pants, even her sweatshirt.
Avalon groaned. She’d have to go all the way back to Babe if she wanted more dry clothes. Instead, she trudged off toward the nearest bathroom. Once inside, Avalon rubbed the mud off her knees and legs with paper towels. As she washed her hands, she realized she hadn’t heard any thunder for several minutes. Perhaps the storm had finally abated. She shut off the overhead light and walked back toward the Hall of Mirrors.
A shadowy figure emerged from between the booths.
Avalon ducked behind a soda cart. Who would be at the park this late and in this weather? She wondered if she could dash around the figure and reach Kay, then mentally kicked herself for believing an inanimate object could offer any sort of protection.
A minute passed. She could hear nothing over the wind and drizzle. Avalon was about to poke her head around the corner to see if she could spot the stranger, when the soda cart suddenly lurched in place as something jumped on top of it.
A face loomed above her. Poufy green hair arranged in a mullet framed green eyes. Crooked teeth broke out into a menacing grin.
“Well, hiya,” he said cheerfully. “How do you…?”
Avalon thrust one palm up, targeting his chin. It connected with a yelp of pain. She ran past the stranger as he doubled over.
“Ouchie!” he yelled behind her.
Avalon sprinted blindly through the park, thinking only to get away. She glanced backward at the intruder, which caused her hip to slam into the Serpent’s turnstile. The painful throbbing forced her to think more clearly. She needed to hide. The hulking, twisted metal of the roller coaster loomed overhead. Maybe she could double back through the winding line and escape out the exit on the other side.
The intruder ran toward her, purple cape flying behind his similarly colored leggings and tunic. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Purple doesn’t go with the green hair. It’s so horrible, it’s scary, you know?”
Avalon hopped the turnstile into the roller coaster queue line.
“Everyone’s a critic!” he screamed.
The curvy blue rails gleamed under the night lights as she sped past. She headed for the exit when she heard footsteps to her left. Her pursuer had read her intentions and blocked her pathway out. The only way out now was up toward the ride itself. She spun up the stairs toward the barn-like enclosure where the cars embarked onto the roller coaster tracks.
“Wait! Stop! Desist!” the intruder yelled.
Avalon thought there might be an emergency exit in the barn that would lead away from the ride, but she was wrong. The exit off the ride led right back down the way she came.
Wet footsteps slapped inside the barn. She whirled around. The intruder stood in the doorway, the shape of his body outlined in the dim light.
“I like a good cardio workout as much as the next gremlin.” He hunched over, taking exaggerated breaths. “But Avalon, honey, gimme a break.”
Avalon took a step back. “How do you know my name? Who are you?” Pointed ears jutted out from his head, and his sharp fangs clattered as he caught his breath. “What are you?”
“I can explain everything,” he said, panting. Then he broke out in a laugh. “We sound like movie clichés!”
“Don’t come any closer!” she warned as he continued forward.
“Now that I’ve pointed out our terrible dialogue, isn’t it funny how… ah c’mon!” he yelled as she headed for her last avenue of escape, the maintenance stairs that ran parallel to the ascending coaster tracks.
Avalon stomped upward on the slick metal grates. She slipped in the drizzle, her knee hitting an edge and tearing a hole in her pants. Frantic, she zipped to her feet, summiting the last dozen steps before the coaster took its initial plunge. She almost slipped off the apex platform, clutching a pole to regain her balance.
She realized in horror that the stairs simply stopped. The rails curved downward at a sharp angle, sweeping down into the wild ride of the coaster, but the stairs did not. A few hundred feet separated her from the ground below in the swirling rain.
There was nowhere else to run.
A clicking noise and the whirring of gears sounded as the roller coaster lit up. Below her, she could see the top of her pursuer’s green hair walking away from the control booth. When the car lumbered out of the barn, she hugged the pole with both arms to keep from sliding off. She watched, trapped, as the intruder stood in the third row of the cars with his arms folded over his chest.
“Stay back!” she screamed.
“I always wanted to ride one of these things.” The intruder threw his arms out wide to indicate the roller coaster. “And with this weather, what an entrance!”
Beyond her frenzied breathing and shaky body, the rolling in her gut sizzled to life. It jolted her insides, the energy stringing upward into the storm clouds.
Reach, a voice whispered in her head.
Avalon stiffened in shock. She raised her right hand, an electric pulse tingling just below the surface, yearning to fly into the atmosphere.
The intruder laughed, the car inching forward. “You can’t hail a taxi from up here.”
Every inch of Avalon buzzed and hummed. She brought her hand down, pointing first at the approaching roller coaster car, but that didn’t feel right. Her insides lurched. She spied the Hall of Mirrors rooftop off in the distance.
She flung her hand in that direction.
Lightning arced across the sky, soaring through her hand, zipping past the hapless green-haired man and crashing into the Hall of Mirrors with a blinding strike. Smoke rose from a new hole blasted through the rooftop. Avalon wobbled. She felt dizzy.
The intruder squealed as he faced a stunned Avalon. “Did you do that?” he asked as the car
approached. She had nowhere to go. His knobby fingers latched onto her sweatshirt sleeve.
Avalon scrambled backward, freeing herself from his grasp. Unfortunately, she also lost her footing. There was nothing but air behind her. She heard the intruder ask, “Where are you going?” at the same time as she slipped off the platform.
Rain poured over her face as she dove backward. The whoosh of the coaster’s wild descent roared in her ears as she plummeted downward. She flailed, knowing she could not stop herself from slamming into the ground below. She closed her eyes, waiting for death.
Then something smacked into her back. For a dizzying moment, she thought she had hit bottom with a yank, but then she floated. She cracked open her eyes and discovered the ground moving farther and farther away from her. Another person’s arms wrapped around her waist. She glanced up into the face of this new entity.
The fairy knight statue still had that same intense gaze, the same devotion to fight and protect. Only his gaze was no longer fixed. He blinked water out of his eyes as they scoured the scene. His fine hair was flattened with rain beating down on it. His wings beat a furious rhythm to keep them both midair, creating a noise like a tarp twisting in the wind. His grip around her waist tightened as he held her close to him.
The statue was alive.
“Kay,” she whispered.
His gray eyes pierced hers. A blush spread over Avalon’s cheeks.
Then something screeched above Kay, striking him in the back. He lost his grip on Avalon and she fell again. Avalon screamed for a few seconds before someone quickly grabbed her by the armpits.
“Thanks, Kay,” she breathed in relief.
“Don’t mention it,” a raspy voice cawed above her.
Avalon glanced upwards and saw not Kay, but a raven the size of a German Shepherd, soaring in the air. A necklace with a gemstone glittered about its neck. When the bird winked its glowing green eyes, she recognized them as the intruder’s and fought against him.
“You are just full of surprises,” the bird laughed as he took her higher into the night sky, the amusement park shrinking to the size of toys.
