Extraordinary October

by Diana Wagman

  15.

  A bright light was shining in my eyes.

  “That’s quite a fall you had,” a woman said.

  It was Nurse Raynor from school. She checked my eyes with a little penlight, then carefully touched a very painful spot on my forehead.

  “You have a nasty bump. I don’t think you have a concussion,” she said, “but I’ll call your dad and give him a report, just in case.”

  I watched her pick up the school phone and dial my house. It was bright daylight and I could hear kids in the hall. I started to stand, then sat down again. Every muscle in my body was sore as if I’d taken an extra hard yoga class the day before. Which I definitely had not. Gingerly I touched the enormous goose egg on my forehead and bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry. The clock said it was eleven minutes after noon. Hadn’t I just been on the path by the river? I remembered the promise I had made. But how had I gotten here and what had happened to the last twelve hours?

  Raynor was speaking into the phone, “Okay, Neal, I’ll tell her… No, I don’t think it’s serious, but you might want to watch her tonight in case of nausea or headache…” She laughed at something my dad said. “Thank you. I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow. Right… bye.” She hung up.

  I knew it! She was a fairy too and they were having a meeting about getting rid of Madame Gold. Maybe I couldn’t do it, but if the fairies all joined together…

  “What meeting?” I asked. “I want to go.”

  She went red and flustered. “Oh, October, don’t be silly. This isn’t your kind of meeting.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m involved.”

  “Of course you are, but you should go to a meeting for family members. This is a regular AA meeting.” She sighed, resigned to tell me the truth. “I’m a recovering alcoholic just like your dad and he’s my sponsor.”

  “Oh.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I won’t tell anyone. I know I’m not supposed to know. I mean, of course. I…I thought it was something else.”

  I stood up slowly, but stayed bent over like an old man. It hurt too much to straighten up completely. I was wearing my jeans and my tall, lace up boots and my favorite hoodie. Just like always. I started to shake my hair back, but it made my head pound. I staggered and I grabbed the bed frame.

  “You okay? You can lie down a little longer,” Nurse Raynor said.

  “No, no. Thanks. Guess I’ll go to class.”

  I shuffled for the door as she called out. “October?”

  “Yes?”

  “I forgot to say—happy birthday.”

  “What day is it?”

  She laughed, thinking I was kidding. So that meant me turning eighteen was that weird pain and nausea, hearing the voices of every kind of creature, and having visions of myself and other people and animals. And after all that, this feeble, twisted, painful body was me being eighteen. So much for remarkable powers. I was definitely not a queen.

  I trudged down the hall in a daze. No one paid any attention to me or to the enormous bump on my head. Back to usual, I was practically invisible. I walked into English class and Ms. Campbell didn’t say a word about me being late. She frowned a little and then nodded for me to take my seat. The desk behind me was empty. After class I asked a girl if she’d seen Trevor and she didn’t know who or what I was talking about. Had Madame Gold wiped everybody’s memory clean? Or was none of it real? I have to admit I was sad and disappointed. Everything was back the way it had been before Walker first appeared, before the itch. Nurse Raynor had talked to my dad and he seemed completely fine. I was glad my dad was okay. I’d made my decision and I knew it was the right one, but for a moment I had been someone special. Now I was nobody again.

  After class, I ducked into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face to keep the tears away. I studied my reflection. The lump on my head was huge and black and blue, but my hair was thick and shiny and curlier than it had ever been. It was also reddish rather than plain old brown and my eyes looked large and warmer than before. My eyelashes were long and thick. My jeans were still short on me under my boots and loose around my waist. My boots had gotten very snug. I had definitely grown.

  All of that could be explained as a normal, human growth spurt, but if my toes were hairy I would know what I remembered was real. I was about to unlace my boots and take them off to check when the door opened and the most popular girls in school, Rose and Belinda, sauntered in chatting a mile a minute. They ignored me, of course.

  “She just disappeared,” Rose was saying.

  “Dropped out?” Belinda was shocked.

  “Henry told Jacob who told me she ran off with Jed. He’s not answering his phone either.”

  Then they saw me at the sink and wrinkled their perfect noses.

  “Another itch?” Belinda giggled.

  So the itch had actually happened. “Are you talking about Luisa?” I asked.

  They both looked at me as if it was none of my business, but the gossip was too good for Rose not to tell. “Luisa and Jed ran off and got married. Eloped! Now they’re gone. No one knows where. Poof. Like magic!” She snapped her fingers.

  “How do you know?”

  Belinda chimed in. “Jacob talked to Henry who talked to Jed. Jed told him that he and Luisa were getting married and leaving town.”

  I smiled. I even laughed I was so happy. That meant Luisa was alive. Madame Gold had kept her word.

  “What are you smiling about?” Belinda asked.

  “You think that’s funny?” Rose confronted me, hands on her hips. “Do you?”

  A week earlier Rose would have intimidated me, but not anymore. “Relax,” I said. “I just think it’s so romantic. Don’t you? Two lovers taking off like that?”

  Belinda kind of nodded, but Rose frowned. “What’s romantic about dropping out of senior year, three months from graduating? Now she’s screwed.”

  “Luisa’s smart,” I said. “They’ll let her graduate.”

  “You think so?”

  I really had no idea, but I didn’t think fairies needed high school diplomas. “I’m sure you know.” I was making it up as I went along. “There’s that special program for graduating early.”

  “Oh, right,” Rose said. “Sure.” She didn’t want me to know anything she didn’t.

  “What happened to your head?” Belinda finally asked.

  “I tripped.” I laughed. “I am such a klutz. Always was. Always will be.”

  Belinda laughed with me. “I know, me too! It’s these heels.”

  I looked down and sure enough she was wearing four-inch spikes. As it was she barely came up to my shoulder. She was tiny. “I’d kill myself in those shoes.” I said.

  “I almost do. Every day.” Belinda giggled again.

  Rose looked me up and down. “You look good,” she said. “What are you using on your hair?”

  I stood next to them in front of the mirror. We all three gazed at our reflections. I was taller than either of them and my cheekbones more pronounced. My face had an angular quality it hadn’t had before.

  “You’ve lost weight,” Rose said.

  They both looked at me expectantly, waiting for my secrets.

  “I’ve been running,” I said. That was certainly true. “And drinking lots of water. Lots.”

  I smiled at them and for the first time in my whole high school career they smiled at me.

  “Cool,” said Rose.

  Belinda said, “Water is the best.”

  I backed out of the bathroom before I blew it and said something stupid.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, no itches, no falling, nothing. I kept watching for Walker, wondering if he would come by to check on me. But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. I was exhausted by the time the last bell rang. I got on the bus and collapsed into a seat by the window. I couldn’t wait to get home and talk to my parents about everything that had happened.

  I hoped Trevor was okay, that he had healed and returned to the troll world
with Enoki. I hoped Walker was not too angry with me. I hoped he understood I had to do it. As the bus bumped along I stared out the window at a completely normal, ordinary world. A woman walked by with an earpiece, chattering away. There was no elf on her shoulder. A homeless man was nodding and talking—to himself. There were no creatures fluttering around his head. I sighed. Maybe none of it had been real. Maybe it really was like The Wizard of Oz and I had traveled to another land in a dream. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bus window; I was prettier than I had been, but maybe I’d been getting that way all along.

  Luisa.

  I sat up straighter. I smiled. Real or a dream, Luisa was alive and she and Jed were together. I looked out the window as the bus passed the empty lot. At first I was disappointed the fireflies were gone, but I decided I didn’t need fireflies anymore. They didn’t belong in Los Angeles, just as I didn’t belong in that other world, the one I’d given up. I was a plain old high school senior. I’d been through a lot and I could be glad it was over. I had things to do, college to look forward to, a life to live. I didn’t need fairies and trolls and magical kingdoms. I continued to convince myself all the way home.

  My mom’s car was back in the driveway next to my dad’s. I hoped that meant she was home. We could talk about everything that had happened. She and my dad would understand. They wouldn’t care that I wasn’t a queen. They’d be glad.

  “Mom! I’m…” I started and stopped. Dad came out of the kitchen with his apron on. He was really, honestly, truly thinner. He had probably lost 125 pounds.

  “Birthday girl!” He hugged me. “Happy, happy birthday.”

  It felt as if my birthday, the clock striking midnight, had been long ago, eons ago, another lifetime ago. How could it possibly still be my birthday? I couldn’t stop staring at my father. “You look… great.”

  “That’s a good sized bump on your head,” he said. “Betty, the nurse, said you took quite a fall.”

  “I’m fine. But you… is this all because of Madame Gold?”

  He looked puzzled, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “I’ve been going to Overeaters Anonymous. You know that. For over two months.”

  Wait. What was he saying? “Not a hypnotist?”

  “Load of hogwash. Hypnotism is a scam.” He chuckled, not his usual belly laugh. “Dinner’s almost ready. All your favorites. Nothing too good for my birthday girl.” He headed back to the kitchen.

  I followed him, expecting to find my mom sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a scientific journal. But she wasn’t there. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Remember? The conference?”

  “She’s still there?”

  “She is so sad to miss your birthday.” He gestured to the table. “Sit down.”

  “I need to talk to you—and Mom too. About the Fairy Canopy and Trolldom and me being Queen.”

  He kept chopping vegetables.

  I tried again. “I know what you and Mom gave up to be together. I just have a few questions. I mean everything has changed because of my promise.” It didn’t seem as if he was even listening. “Listen to me! Why won’t you listen?”

  He turned around. “Calm down. You’ve had a bad accident. Betty said you could be a little disoriented.”

  “You were a zombie. The hypnotist, witch, whatever she was, Madame Gold, turned you into her slave.”

  He shook his head as if I wasn’t making sense. “It’s been a rough few days.”

  “I know what you are,” I said. “I know what I am. Or what I was. Or what I was supposed to be.”

  “Sit,” he said. “We will eat when you calm down.”

  “I don’t want to calm down!”

  “Do not shout at me.”

  My dad never talked like that, but I had never yelled at him before. “C’mon, Dad, you were supposed to be King of the fairies. King!”

  He gave another weird dry laugh. “You haven’t been yourself,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “I think turning eighteen and graduating and college ahead of you has been more stressful than your mom and I expected.”

  He looked sad and worried. My head was pounding. Maybe Luisa had really just eloped and Trevor and Walker had never existed and I had hit my head and imagined the last three days. I knew my dad would never lie to me.

  “Okay, Dad. Okay.”

  I could feel his relief. “Thank you, Pumpkin.” He smiled and straightened his shoulders. “Dinner in two minutes.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. For once, eating sounded impossible. “My head hurts and my stomach too.”

  “Maybe I should take you to the emergency room.”

  “I just want to talk to Mom.” My eyes filled with tears.

  “She said she’s too busy to talk.” He looked at the clock. “Plus it’s the middle of the night where she is.”

  “Where is that?’

  He kind of smiled. “You know? I can’t remember.”

  He’d never said that before, but she did travel a lot. “I’m gonna lie down. I’ll eat later.”

  I went upstairs and shut my bedroom door behind me. It was a relief to be back in my room. The sun was low in the sky and the last rays shone through my window and turned my white walls golden. I took off my boots and tossed them in the very back of my closet. I never wanted to wear them again. I didn’t want to be reminded of the itch and the day I dreamed I met Walker and all the things I was not and would never be.

  I heard the ice cream truck coming down the street, playing the same song as always. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.” Over and over again, some awful electronic version. I heard kids calling to each other as they ran to the truck. I wished I was nine again, or ten, eleven, even twelve—a long way from my eighteenth birthday.

  College. That’s what I had to think about now. Colorado was going to be great. Far away with mountains and cowboys and lots of snow. Snow. Cold weather. Both would be all new for me. I counted the months, April, May, June, July, and August, until I’d be gone. I could start over, a new person. Maybe I could finally change my name. Annie, I thought. I had always liked that name, kind of pretty but innocuous too. Anybody could be an Annie. I had to shower. I could smell myself, the sour tang of sweat and dirty hair. No hint of flowers like Walker or clean earth like Trevor. I was all human and I stank. As I undressed I noted how short my pants were. I’d grown an inch or two for sure. And food was beginning to sound good. I wasn’t sure when I’d eaten last. I figured the Chinese food hadn’t been real and before that I couldn’t remember. I threw my jeans in the hamper and then took off my tall socks, first the left, then the other.

  There was something on my right leg and when I tried to brush it off it wouldn’t go away. I turned to the window and the fading sunlight and gasped. A tattoo, a beautiful and intricate tattoo started with a blooming flower above my ankle and continued with vines and leaves and smaller flowers twining around and up my leg. It was absolutely gorgeous, in rich, true colors I’d never seen on a tattoo before. And it started right where I’d been scratching the most, where the itch had been the worst.

  I knew I had not gotten a tattoo. Never. No matter how crazy or out of it I’d been, I would remember the pain and the hours that took. And a tat this complicated would have cost a fortune, way more than I could spend.

  That meant it wasn’t all in my imagination. It couldn’t be.

  16.

  Mom. I had to talk to her. She’d never been under Madame Gold’s spell, she was far away at a conference. Even if I woke her up, she would have some answers. And sure enough, there was my cell phone on my desk as if I’d left it there that morning. As if Enoki had never thrown it in the river. Something was happening—had happened—and I had to find out what. I flicked it on and waited impatiently for it to warm up. I typed in “Mom” but she didn’t come up. Same with Dad, and Luisa, and Walker and the main school number. My phone had been wiped clean. There were no numbers, no old texts, even my photos were g
one. It was more proof I had not lost my mind or slipped into dreamland: I knew I had not erased everything on my phone. Someone did not want me getting in touch with any of those old contacts.

  I knew my mom’s number by heart and I called her. It rang once and went to voice mail. She had probably turned her phone off to sleep. I sent her a quick text, “I miss you. We need to talk.” I also sent a text to what I thought was Luisa’s number, but it bounced back, “Undeliverable.”

  Dad knocked on my door and almost scared me to death.

  “Dinner’s getting cold,” he said.

  “Quick shower. I’ll be right there.”

  In the shower I decided that after dinner I would sneak out, take the car, and go to Luisa’s house to talk to her mom or to the Chinese restaurant to talk to Mr. Bob. I needed some answers and I couldn’t wait for Mom to get home. As I toweled off I admired my beautiful tattoo again. Then I noticed that my toes were in fact a little hairy and my feet definitely wider. Like smallish troll feet attached to skinny fairy legs. Gross. I ran my razor over my toes and the hair was wiry and uncooperative, but I finally managed to get rid of it. Hairy toes did not work for me.

  I put on clean flannel pajama bottoms—as if I was going right to bed—and a tank top. I went downstairs and into the kitchen.

  “This looks great,” I said to Dad and it did. He’d made veggie lasagna and a bright, colorful salad filled with all my favorites, spinach and mushrooms and tomatoes and cucumbers and yellow peppers. “Thanks for cooking.”

  Whatever was going on, it was good to have this moment with Dad. He was not jovial, he didn’t make a single bad joke, but he seemed more like himself. A much thinner self. His cheekbones were emerging and his eyes were bigger in his face. They’d returned to their usual bright blue—close to Walker’s color and my heart gave a surprising wrench. I missed him and it hurt. Troll-hater, bossy, and opinionated as he was, I missed him. I thought about never seeing him again, about his life continuing without me in the Fairy Canopy, imagined him with his friends, a girlfriend who would make him laugh, and I slumped and pushed my plate away. I longed for him. Like in the old fashioned poems, I yearned. I had been a job to him and he had finished that job—or I had finished it for him—but he was much more than that to me. It was a new feeling and not a good one. Unrequited love sucks.