by Beth Vrabel
The transplant list. As in a surgery to take out my crap lungs and put healthier lungs inside of me. And then I’d spend the rest of my life turning those healthy lungs into crap lungs. Lung transplants aren’t a cure for CF. There isn’t a cure for CF. Yet, I heard Dad’s voice say in my head. He once held out hope like a ray of sunshine I was supposed to stretch toward that doctors would figure out a cure before I needed a double lung transplant—or worse.
“But he’s almost thirteen,” Mom said, and I didn’t know if that meant she thought I was old or I was young.
No one said anything for a long moment. Dr. Edwards cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to discuss this.”
I peeked again. Dad was still in the doorway. His face looked white, but maybe that was just the hospital lights. “I-I should—” And then his big hands were covering his face, his shoulders rocked back and forth, and my dad—
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, sure I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. My dad was crying. That wasn’t even right. He wasn’t crying. He was sobbing. My dad was sobbing in the doorway.
Mom’s birdlike hands darted toward him and back, toward him and back. They landed on his shoulders, and just like that, Dad fell against her. “I know,” she cooed, just as she did when I was a kid crying over getting a shot. “I know.”
“I don’t want him to go through this,” Dad said in heaving gulps. “I don’t want this for him.”
“I know,” Mom whispered.
“I can’t fix him, Steph. Why can’t I fix him? I tried. But I failed again and again.”
“You tried.”
“But I can’t fix him.”
“Then just love him.”
Two weeks later, I sat in a wheelchair.
Only it wasn’t a wheelchair. I mean it was, but it didn’t look like one. It looked like a race car, painted with a face in the front like the talking car from that Pixar movie. Like having a wheelchair painted with a character will totally make up for the whole being in a wheelchair part. Only I was almost thirteen, and I would have much preferred a real no-thrills gray wheelchair to make my exit after two weeks in the hospital. Instead, Mom was taking endless pictures of me being pushed down the hall by Dad in a red race car wheelchair with a half dozen balloons tied to the handles and the teddy bear my grandma had sent. When I was totally out of it I had apparently cuddled with it in my sleep. Mom had pictures of that, too, which, in totally awesome news, she had posted to social media, kick-starting a prayer chain for me.
Once in the middle of those two weeks, I woke up and thought I saw angels dancing at the tips of Derek’s fingers as he knelt beside my bed. I didn’t say anything, though. Even in my delirium, I realized talking about seeing angels would only serve to freak Mom out to brand-new levels of freak-out-dom.
My thoughts ran a million miles per hour, and I didn’t think any of that had to do with my race car wheelchair. It was like I just woke up after hibernation or something. My mind was suddenly super alert, thinking through and piecing together everything I missed, even though my body worked slowly and deliberately. I had lost weight in the hospital, something that really worried Mom, who kept talking about taking me home and “fattening me up.”
Things that I slept through or around during the previous two weeks kept popping into my mind like someone cut up comic book squares and I had to put them back in order, panel by panel, until I made an entire strip.
First strip, panel one: Perfect Patrick. Mom downloaded a bunch of old home movies to her iPad and brought them in for me to watch. She crawled into the bed with me, watching over my shoulder. The one that kept running in my mind now was me, about a year old, sitting in a high chair. I had a toy—a truck, I think—and kept throwing it on the ground. Every time I did, Patrick, who was about six, picked it up and put it back on my tray. Again and again, I threw it, laughing with a two-toothed grin right into the camera. Again and again, Patrick picked it up and put it back, until he was crying as loud as I laughed. Off camera, Dad said, “Why don’t you just leave it on the ground?” to Patrick. Mom, who had been filming laughed, “Patrick, it’s okay! Just leave it.” But Patrick didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Panel two: Patrick pushing his chair all the way in the far corner of the room, never looking up once but never leaving, either, when Mom or Dad couldn’t be there.
Panel three: Patrick coming by in his tuxedo after the fund-raiser. He grinned at Mom as he walked in and started to tell her about the event I made her miss, but then I started to cough and my oxygen levels dipped and alarms started buzzing, and soon all I could see were doctors and Mom’s worried face.
Second strip: Friends I didn’t deserve. Panel one: Brad standing next to the bed, arms crossed and face set. “I hope you feel better soon,” he said, and left before I could answer.
Panel two: Shelly Markel, storming in with armloads of comic books. She dumped them all on my bed and loaded the Avengers DVD into the hospital room player. Without saying hello or asking me how I was doing or anything else, she pulled up the chair beside my bed, crossed her ankles on the edge of it, and hit play on the remote. “Hulk is the absolute worst Avenger,” she said, which of course led to us fighting for the best half hour of the entire hospital stay.
“You know I used to wish I was in the hospital. Isn’t that stupid?” Shelly shuddered.
“They’re not so bad,” I said. “Aside from the bad food, stiff beds, weird smells, and, you know, the needles and stuff.” Shelly stared out the window at the parking lot. “And the terrible views.”
“I know it’s stupid,” she whispered, “but I used to be so jealous of you.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “Living it up over here.”
Her eyes slid toward mine and I couldn’t smile anymore. “Everyone tries so hard to be good to you, to be your friend, even when you’re not… not…”
“Not worth it?” I finished.
“No!” Shelly stood, shaking her head, then sank back in her seat. “No, you’re worth it. I just don’t get why I’m—”
Silence can be louder than a thousand crows.
My voice was too loud when I spoke because of that. “Maybe we could both try being a little more—”
“You know,” Shelly interrupted, plucking the comic book back off the edge of my bed, “why do you like Captain America so much?”
“Because he was born sick and weak, but became strong.”
Shelly replied without a second’s hesitation, “No, he was born strong. His body was weak.” Cue doctor coming in and taking me for another chest X-ray.
Panel three would be a completely black square. That one was for Kit, who had no way of knowing where I was or why I had left.
Panel four: People I didn’t deserve. And it would show my family, surrounding me now around my stupid baby race car wheelchair.
Derek put his hand under my elbow when we got to the parking lot. “Thanks,” I said as he helped me into the backseat. “I can actually walk, though.”
“Your mom says you’re supposed to take it easy, so you’ll be taking it easy,” he said back with a smile. “But I’m glad to see you out of that place.”
“You and me both,” I replied, and pushed the race car wheelchair back with my foot.
Derek’s windows were down so I heard Mom and Dad as they stood in front of the car. Dad said, “I’ll follow you home.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mom said. “Derek’s here. He’ll help me get Caleb into the house.”
“I can walk!” I shouted from the backseat. They both ignored me.
“I can—” Dad started.
“No,” Mom said, her voice firm. “We have it from here. You can go to your home.”
Mom stayed home with me the next two days, but finally she relaxed as she realized I really was getting stronger.
And I was. I coughed up a ton of phlegm and started to feel like myself. I was home for four days before I had a chance to go see Kit.
Mom fell asleep on t
he couch—she had been sleeping so lightly that every time I rolled over at night, she shouted, “Are you okay?” And Patrick was back in his room playing his violin. Lately he’d been doing that for hour-long or more stretches. It got so I had a hard time falling asleep without the music.
I knew it was wrong to sneak out when I had just made a billion promises to get my act together, but I had to see Kit.
I couldn’t leave that square empty. I had to tell her what happened. I was going to tell her the truth, all of it. I was going to tell her I had CF and everything that meant. Mostly, I was going to tell her that it meant I couldn’t be like her—I couldn’t listen to what the lines in my palm meant or see meaning in a bird left alone or take something just because the person who had it didn’t appreciate it. I couldn’t do whatever I wanted.
And there was more. I was going to tell her she needed help, too, and she should talk to a grown-up. I was going to tell her she was too old for fairy tales.
I had it all planned out, what I was going to say.
I was going to be back before Mom ever woke up or Patrick stopped playing his violin.
I was going to be right back. That’s even what I wrote on the note I propped up on the table next to the couch, just in case.
I’ll be right back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The crows were silent as I plowed down the path toward Mermaid Rock. I figured that meant I’d have to find Kit at her house and was so surprised to see her sitting there on the rock, sun falling across her shoulders and making another halo over her dark hair, that I gasped.
If she was as surprised to see me as I was her, Kit didn’t show it. She merely glanced over at me and quickly looked back at her book.
I plunged ahead, kicking off my shoes and crossing the stream. It must’ve rained a lot while I was gone; the water lapped at my calves. I told myself that was why it was so hard to cross the water, not that I already was tired from the short walk. I pulled myself onto the rock and didn’t speak, just waited for my breathing to go back to normal.
“The crows stopped,” I said.
Kit didn’t look up from her book. “They moved away. Once the baby started to fly, they took off.”
I settled beside her, wondering where to begin.
“Where’ve you been?” Kit didn’t look up from the book. She had lost weight, too. Her arms looked like pale twigs. Sitting next to her, I noticed something else. She smelled odd, like clothes left in the washing machine too long before drying. There were dark circles under her eyes. How many days had her mom traded for tomorrows while I was gone?
“I’ve been sick,” I told her. “Kit, there’s something I haven’t told you. Something you need to know about me.”
Kit looked up then and her crystal eyes never left mine the whole time I told her about cystic fibrosis—that it meant my lungs functioned differently. That it was why I had to go to the bathroom so often and eat so much. That it was why I had to go to the hospital and take a lot of medicine. That it meant unless they could find a cure, I’d probably never be an old man. That it was why I couldn’t always do what I wanted but also why I had to make every day mine.
“It’s something I was born with,” I finished. “They didn’t know right away—no one in our family has had it for generations—but when I started to get sick, they figured it out.”
At this, Kit’s mouth popped open. “How old were you when you started to get sick?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I was diagnosed when I was two, though.”
“Cystic fibrosis,” Kit whispered. She chewed her lip. “But what if it’s not?”
I tilted my head. “What if what’s not?”
“What if”—Kit’s eyes grew story-size—“that’s not what happened at all.” She pointed to the book in her hand, the book I had stolen from Mom to give to her. “This book is full of stories about totally healthy babies becoming sick. About parents doing everything they can to make them well and never being able to do it. The reason: They’re not babies at all! They’re changelings.”
“What?”
“Changelings,” Kit said. She flipped open the book to a drawing of a screaming, skinny, pale baby and read aloud: “Occasionally a fairy child is swapped for a human one, particularly if the human child is as beautiful as a fairy child and lives near an enchanted forest.” Kit looked around at the stream and trees, then back to the book. “The fairies typically just wish to play with the human child for a bit of fun and intend to swap back the children in due course. However, fairy time is different than human time. Sometimes so much human time passes that the fairy child forgets its fay nature and begins to believe he is human.”
“Kit,” I interrupted, my heart pounding, “I really have to get back. I don’t think—”
“Just wait!” Kit cried. She continued, “Fairies cannot live with humans without feeling ill effects. Often changeling children will be misdiagnosed as having genetic diseases from birth, although symptoms don’t arise until they’ve lived amongst humans for years. Until then, the child, almost always pale with huge eyes,—Caleb!—will be the picture of health.”
“Kit, it’s just a story—”
But Kit raised her voice: “To be healthy again, even if he wishes to remain amongst his human family, he must track down his true fay parents. A kiss from them every two decades will fortify his nature so he can continue his parallel life.” She slammed shut the book. “That’s it, Caleb!”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not it. That’s not me. It’s just a story!”
“Open your eyes! It all fits.” Kit jumped down into the stream and threw her arms wide. “All of it! Think. You didn’t intend to find me that day you were going for a walk. And I had never been here before that very day. Yet we found each other. In this whole forest, we found each other! I know a lot about the fay, and you have this book.” She jabbed her thumb to where the book perched on the rock beside me.
“That’s a coincidence,” I whispered.
Kit shook her head. “You know it’s not! Destiny brought us together. We were supposed to find each other. You needed me to lead you to the fay, to cure you before you get too sick! And I needed you to—”
“To what?” I whispered.
“To be my friend!” she shouted. “To be my friend even if you saw Mama. To be my friend and to believe me, to believe the stories as much as me.” She grabbed my arm and yanked so I slid down into the water, too. She turned toward the woods. “Let’s go!”
I pulled back my hand. “It’s just a story, Kit. They’re all just stories.”
“No!” she yelled in my face. “No!”
“I’m sick. It’s all right. Maybe they’ll find a cure. I mean, I’m better than I was.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and glanced toward the trail leading back home. Was Mom still asleep? “I’m tired and maybe my words aren’t coming out right, but Kit…” I closed my eyes, thought of angels dancing on fingertips just to keep a child sitting still. “Maybe your grandmom wasn’t a seer. Maybe she just needed to tell you a story because it was easier than telling you your mom was sick. Maybe whoever came up with changeling myths did it because it’s easier than dealing with the fact that some kids get handed a raw deal.”
“No.” Kit grit her teeth. She grabbed my arm again. “The book says fay leave trails near hollow trees or grassy knolls. We just need to find the right one.” Kit yanked on my arm harder, making me stumble forward so my knees slammed down into the water. Man, it was cold.
“You’re not sick. You’re not,” she said, and I heard the tears in her voice.
“Kit.” I pushed myself back up on wobbling legs. I couldn’t say more than her name, though, without pausing to take another breath. The water was so chilly, yet a cold sweat broke out across my face. I tried to slow down my breathing, but my shoulders tightened, and I could hardly move my neck. I coughed, not even bothering to bend my neck and cough into my elbow. My neck was so stiff I could barely move it. “K
it—no—”
“You’re not sick!” she yelled, but she already was a yard away, stomping to the side of the stream and scanning the woods. She dried her face angrily with her palms. “We just need to find the right place. They owe us, Caleb. They owe me!”
I turned back to the rock, leaning against it while trying to find space to breathe between hacking coughs. I was coughing so much, so fast, that black dots bloomed behind my eyes. “Kit—”
“I’ll find it myself if I have to,” Kit cried without turning around. “I’ll fix this!”
“Kit…” Everything went black as I fell into the water.
“Kit?”
“Caleb?” I opened my eyes, expecting to see Kit shining in the sunlight. Instead, Mom’s red-rimmed eyes stared back. She brushed back my hair from my face. “You’re back with us.” She kissed my forehead and I smelled the coffee she must’ve been drinking.
“You look awful,” I croaked. My throat was dry and cold, probably from the oxygen being pumped through the tubes in my nostrils.
Mom laughed. “You should see yourself.” I closed my eyes when she started to cry.
The next time I woke up, music was playing.
Patrick stood facing the window and its view of the hospital parking lot, sawing at his violin. The song was one I hadn’t heard before. It was beautiful but hideous. A newly hatched–bird song. I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Like I was hearing my worst thoughts woven together and laid out for everyone to see. “Do you like it?” Patrick asked. I hadn’t realized he was watching me.
I shook my head, but said, “Yes.”
Patrick laughed. “Me too. I wrote it for the fund-raiser.”
I pulled myself up on my elbows. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They’re meeting with the doctor. It doesn’t look like your pneumonia is any worse. I mean, it’s still a problem, but they think you had a massive panic attack when you started coughing.”
