Extraordinary October

by Diana Wagman

  I got out in the same parking lot by the restaurant, now closed, and hurried through the gate to the trail by the river. I had my dad’s cell in my pocket, thank goodness, but I’d never filled my backpack with those things I thought I might need. No flashlight, no sweatshirt, no knife. But it was fine—I didn’t need any of them. I was perfectly warm. I could see fine. And if I actually had a knife, I knew I’d only end up cutting myself.

  I came out from under the bridge and I stopped. The river was amazing. A full moon had risen. In the distance the buildings of the Los Angeles skyline were glittering against the night sky. The river reflected the moonlight in a thousand shining ripples. Reeds and cattails swayed in the soft breeze. This way, they seemed to call to me, come down and be with us. Madame Gold frightened me, but not this place. Not at all. I felt at peace with all the plants and the animals, birds, and fish, even with the scuzzy water on its journey to the Pacific Ocean. I knew what Luisa must have felt when she came here. It made my chest hurt to think she would never have that again.

  A dog barked. I knew that bark. Oberon. “Over here,” he was saying. “She’s here.”

  Walker ran up to me out of breath, his face more pale than usual. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  I felt safer having him with me, but I stepped back out of his reach. I didn’t need his touch messing with my mind. “Took you long enough,” I said.

  “I have six different sandwiches in my car.”

  I laughed.

  “We should have waited at your house.” Walker chastised me.

  I looked at my dad’s phone. “I’ll be Queen in thirty-seven minutes.”

  Oberon began to growl—and then bark his danger bark. Walker and I turned.

  “Not soon enough,” Walker said.

  Out of the shadows from under the bridge strode Madame Gold in her long flowing dress. Her hair was long and wild and a lustrous red even in the dim light. She looked angry. A black panther slunk out of the dark to her side. It hissed at Oberon, then looked at me and growled. A panther. Where did that come from?

  I could understand Oberon’s barking, “Get out of here, Cat!” but I couldn’t understand the panther, couldn’t hear the words in its growling. I saw some images, but they didn’t make sense. The freeway rushing by. A blanket in a cold, dark room. I got an odd feeling from it too, as if it weren’t an animal at all, not even a dumb one like a crow. I could understand the crows—they just didn’t say anything worth listening to.

  Walker gave Madame Gold the smallest of bows. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Why are you bowing to her?” I said to him. “She’s a monster.”

  “So are you,” she said. “Half-breed. Neither nor.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to kill me?” She nodded at the phone in my hand. “Too bad I have your father. And your mother has gone AWOL.”

  I was dizzy all of a sudden and stumbled a little. Blotches and big red welts covered my hands and arms.

  “Not feeling well?”

  Her smirk turned my fear into anger. “I’m glad I have an allergic reaction to you. It just proves how disgusting you are.”

  I held up my hands, willed the welts to be gone, and they were. I didn’t know how long I could keep them that way, but it had the desired effect. Madame Gold frowned and took a step back.

  “She’s powerful,” Walker said. “She’s going to be very powerful.”

  “October?” Madame Gold recovered and gave her terrible laugh. “Oh Walker. You’re so cute when you’re funny.”

  How did she know him? It seemed she knew everything. Or Walker did. Or they both did.

  “Come on, Miss Fetterhoff.” When Madame Gold turned to me it was with all her previous confidence. “I said I want us to be friends.”

  Yeah, right.

  “I’m impressed at how hard you’re fighting this. We really are two peas in a pod, aren’t we? We fight for what we want.”

  “I’m not a thing like you.”

  “More than you know. We really could be very good friends.” She took a step closer. “I could learn to like you. Enoki on the other hand…”

  That’s when I saw Enoki standing behind her. She was seething. Her face was flushed red and her hands were balled into fists. Her lips curled back from her teeth. She wanted to rip me open and I wasn’t sure why.

  Then two slobbers came after her half carrying, half dragging Trevor. He was bound in thick rusty chains and one eye was swollen shut. His nose looked broken. Dried blood caked his shirt and pants.

  “Not so pretty now,” Madame Gold said. “Is he?”

  “What did you do?”

  “We had a deal. He disobeyed. He knew the consequences.” She gave her frightening laugh. “You’ve done it again, October, you’ve done it again.” Her voice was low and breathy, the voice I recognized too well. I heard her speaking out loud and at the same time I heard her inside my mind. My head throbbed. “Your dad. Luisa. Now Trevor. All because of you. All dead or dying because of you. Think you’re worth it? Worth their lives?”

  “Not me. You did this.”

  “For you. It was all for you. Marvelous you.”

  “Stop it.” I directed my thoughts at the slobbers. I had stopped them in the Fairy Glen and outside of Big Wok. I had made them disintegrate. Go away, I thought as hard as I could. Dissolve! But she had made them stronger somehow. I shouted at them, demanded they disappear, but the slobbers held Trevor so tightly I could see his skin bruising under their fingers.

  Madame Gold laughed. The welts returned on my hands. More burned my neck, popped out on my face.

  “This is your doing,” she said. “October, this is all your fault.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Walker said.

  She smiled a strangely beautiful, welcoming smile. I took a step toward her. I was nauseated. The path beneath my feet undulated as if I stood on the back of a snake.

  “Don’t,” Walker said again.

  I took another stumbling step toward her. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t think anything but about the mess I’d made, about what a mess I was.

  “Let me.” Enoki came forward. “She did this to my brother. Let me at her.”

  Instantly Walker was at my side. “Don’t even think about it, troll.”

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed. Calm filled me, starting at my hand and flowing up my arm and through my entire body. The despair subsided, my strength returned. I looked at the creatures facing me. First, the panther. As I studied it, I could actually begin to see a person inside the animal, a girl, and I could feel that she was less sure of herself than I expected. A black panther is a terrifying image and that’s why she was in that form, but in reality the girl didn’t want to fight. She especially didn’t want to fight Oberon. His sharp, white canines looked deadly.

  Enoki worried me. I could feel her anger emanating from her in hot waves along with her hatred. But then I saw she was sad too and very concerned about her brother—more than anything else. If she could get him away from harm, she wouldn’t bother with me. Walker could help her save her brother. I would demand that he did.

  Then I would stop Madame Gold.

  When I looked at her, she wavered as if I was looking down at her through a swimming pool. She was so lovely, so perfect. She had amazing strength. If she wasn’t a troll or a fairy, then what was she? Why did she want to marry Trevor? Why not just take the throne for herself? She certainly had the power. But there was something wrong with her, some little dark worm I could sense deep in her center that she had to hide and somehow overcome. It couldn’t stay hidden forever. As I let my power—or whatever it was—dig down in her soul, I saw her secret swelling, expanding, and demanding to be let out.

  She felt me. “Stop it!” she said.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. It wasn’t very nice, but it just came out. “What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing!”

  �
�There’s something about you. Something nobody knows.”

  The others turned to face her, wondering what I was talking about. Enoki looked Madame Gold up and down.

  Madame Gold waved her arms as if shooing me away. “You’re pathetic. That’s all you’ve got? Telling me I have a secret? Everybody has secrets.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Not a surprise. You’re nothing, practically human.”

  In that crowd, human didn’t seem like such a bad thing to be. “At least I’m not hiding who I am.”

  Walker said, “She’ll be eighteen very soon. Less than twenty minutes.” He walked toward Madame Gold. “And then she will be Queen no matter what you do.”

  Madame Gold squinted her eyes at me. If looks could kill, I would have been eviscerated, my guts lying on the ground. Instead, she turned toward Trevor, leaned over and whispered in his ear. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but Trevor began to writhe and groan.

  Enoki wailed. “Stop!”

  I grabbed Madame Gold and tried to pull her away from Trevor. The panther leapt at me, sinking its teeth into my arm. I screamed. Oberon charged and tackled the panther forcing it to let go of my arm. Walker caught me as I fell back. Blood bubbled from my arm and slobbers surrounded us. Walker stood over me, slowly circling to watch each slobber. I pushed to my feet and we stood back to back. The panther and Oberon rolled across the path and through the weeds. They knocked into the fence, growling, squealing, making the most horrible noises. The panther fought hard but ultimately was no match for Oberon. He grabbed the panther’s neck and shook. The panther cried out—a very unpanther-like sound—and went limp. Oberon panted and licked his wounds. My arm hurt, but I couldn’t complain when I saw what Oberon had suffered for me.

  “Stupid dog!” Madame Gold said.

  “Stupid lady!” Oberon returned. “Dogs beat cats every time!”

  The panther lay in the weeds without moving, breathing with difficulty. It was dying. Its form shimmered. Something was underneath, some other creature. But I had to focus. I made a slobber disappear. And another. Madame Gold hissed at me and bent to whisper again in Trevor’s ear. He began to scream in pain.

  Enoki hollered. “Madame, please!”

  “It’s all October’s fault.” Madame Gold turned to me. “What’s the matter, Princess?” She said it like it was a curse. “Can’t you save him?”

  I could. I had to. I left the slobbers—there were too many of them anyway—and concentrated on Madame Gold, on that dark spot inside her. I saw her arms lowering, imagined her powerless and Trevor strong and whole. It almost worked. Then I heard her voice whispering in my ear. “He’s going to die and you can’t stop it. He will die because of you. Just like Luisa.”

  I fought against her. None of it was my fault. I hadn’t asked for this. I tried to block her voice, but it filled my head. I heard her everywhere.

  “You killed Luisa. Trevor will be dead because of you. And your father.”

  I couldn’t concentrate anymore. I sat down on the path and hid my face.

  She continued. “Look what you’ve done. And why? You’re nothing. Absolutely ordinary in every way.”

  She was right. And as I thought that I lost all the power I had. I couldn’t make her stop and Trevor was getting weaker. His head flopped strangely, his hands shook and his legs twitched. He stopped screaming, the slobbers let go of him, and he fell to the ground, shuddering, gasping for breath.

  “Let’s transplant.” Walker whispered in my ear. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Yes, there is. There must be.” I ran to Trevor. I got down on my knees and pulled him into my lap.

  Enoki tried to pull me up. “Leave him alone.”

  “Look!” I said. “Look what she’s done!”

  We both watched as the color faded in Trevor’s face leaving him the awful gray of an old bruise. He opened his mouth, desperate for air, trying to speak but unable to. He was almost gone. I looked up at Madame Gold. There was only one thing to do. “You can be Queen,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. I had interested her. Trevor trembled in my arms.

  “I’ll go away,” I said. “I’ll go back to the human world. Forever.”

  She gave an ugly, twisted smile. “You promise?”

  Walker tried to pull me to my feet. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do it. Promises must be kept.”

  “I mean it.” I ignored Walker. “I will not be Queen. But I have a couple of conditions. First, stop hurting Trevor.”

  Madame Gold shrugged. Trevor went still and the chains fell off him. He took a deep breath and another.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “I’m so sorry.”

  His eyes were solid black and shiny as wet tar, without pupils, not even a little bit human. He clutched my arm. “Marry me.” That was not what I expected to hear. “Right now,” he said. “We can stop her.”

  It was tempting. It was very tempting.

  I saw Walker hang his head. I saw Oberon bleeding from multiple wounds. I saw the look on Madame Gold’s face, interested in what I would do, but not very concerned. I was only minutes from being Queen, but she knew I was powerless and I would probably continue to be, Queen or not.

  I looked at the panther struggling to breathe. The black fur wavered and shimmered and changed form until it became lovely, shiny, dark hair. The body curled on its side became a girl’s body in jeans and a black T-shirt. The panther was Luisa. Luisa! She was still alive. Barely, but alive.

  “Luisa!”

  “I thought she’d last longer than that.” Madame Gold dismissed her.

  She was breathing, not dead yet. I looked at Madame Gold. “Save her,” I said.

  “Marry me.” Trevor said again.

  But I couldn’t see how that would fix anything. All this hate. Madame Gold’s desperation. She would find a way to kill my mother, marry my father, and then kill me. “I can’t,” I said to him. “I can’t.”

  Madame Gold laughed as he passed out. A trickle of blood spilled from his mouth. Bruises were appearing on his face and torso, on every bare patch of skin.

  Enoki pushed me away. She lifted her brother in her very strong arms and glowered at me, her eyes bright darts of hate. “Promise her. Just promise and go away forever.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  “What do you care?” Enoki ran across the river and through the portal carrying her brother.

  I staggered to my feet. Walker put his hands on my shoulders. I felt the calm, the warmth, and for the first time, it didn’t matter.

  “You can’t do this,” he said. “You are Queen.”

  I pulled away and walked over to Madame Gold. I was not a queen or even a princess. Still, I could do something good for other people.

  “Here are my terms.” My voice was small and Madame Gold had to bend down to hear me. “One: you will make my father better and return him to me. Two: you will leave my mother alone. Three: you will leave Trevor alone. Four: You will free the fairies and all those slaves. And…” I could barely speak. My throat was so dry and my tongue felt like a piece of sandpaper in my mouth.

  “And?” she asked with a sneer. “Speak up when you talk to a future Queen.”

  Queen Witch! My anger gave me strength and I practically shouted, “Five: I promise to go if you will save Luisa’s life.”

  “October!” Walker cried. “Her promises are no good.”

  “I always keep my promises,” Madame Gold said.

  Walker took my arm. He tried to turn me around to face him. “Six minutes until you’re eighteen. Wait. Wait and see what happens.”

  “I don’t think Luisa can last that long.” Madame Gold closed her eyes and Luisa wailed and began to shake.

  “You promise me first.” I could insist on that much.

  She took a deep breath, waved her arms and said, “I promise.”

  I looked around at Oberon and Luisa and across the beautiful river to the open portal. I looked back at the wide, human
world. I did not look at Walker.

  “I promise I will return to the human world forever and when I turn eighteen, I will not be Queen.”

  “NO!” Walker shouted. “No.”

  Before I could even say goodbye, a clock somewhere, a big fairy, troll, magical clock with a deep bell struck the hour. Bong. It was midnight and I was finally eighteen.

  Bong. The world went black and the chime reverberated and I was nowhere and Madame Gold and Walker and Oberon and Luisa had all disappeared. I was floating in the dark. Bong. I counted one—two—three. With every toll of the bell, a new part of my body throbbed. I was stretching and growing too fast and it hurt. I heard voices, a million voices, not just people and fairies and trolls, but the voices of animals and birds and even trees and plants. A symphony of life, but too loud, too demanding. My senses were expanding, becoming more acute. The entire life cycle of a flower and a bird and a mouse, from seed or egg or birth through baby and seedling and learning to fly and youth and bud and flowering and mating to old age and death and decay, maggots cleaning the mouse and bird bones, passed before me in seconds. I saw my mother and my father young, meeting each other for the first time. The smiles, the joy. My own birth. Moments of real happiness in my childhood. Moments of fear. I saw the three trolls at the rest stop when we went on vacation and I knew how sad they made my mother. On and on. Middle school. The people I knew, strangers on the bus, the fairies and trolls I had thought were human, I felt their sadness, their worry, their excitement and anticipation. Whatever anyone was feeling, I felt too. I saw Luisa laughing with Jed and knew how happy they were together. I knew Trevor’s desperate desire to be king and his fear when he crossed Madame Gold. I felt the pain she had caused him. Then there was Walker smiling at me. Walker’s admiration. Walker’s warmth reaching out to me. I felt how hard he had tried to protect me and I felt his despair that he had failed. I saw his fear of what I had promised and what it would bring. I saw his disappointment. I felt it all. Every emotion that anyone anywhere had ever felt poured through me and puddled in my chest, in my heart. My limbs ached. My brain too. It was too much. I give up, I thought, I don’t want this. If that was what it meant to be a queen, to feel everything and still be powerless to help, I was glad I turned it down. As the clock struck its final clang, I let it all go black.