by Carrie Jones
Astley whispers no, then looks upward. Pain and worry stud his face. The ball of light breaks through the force field. It is the first time I have ever heard him swear.
The world shakes a little more. Astley yells to be heard above the roar. “We gather, all of the Shining, to beg of you to open the path to your realm. Let one of us go and seek what she desires. So be it.”
The glitter falls to the ground. The light flashes so that it’s completely blinding and then dims. I blink hard, and then all of a sudden there’s a freaking rainbow above my head. It’s brilliant. There are only three colors, though, and it’s about wide enough for an army tank to cross. The red leaps with heat, but the blue and yellow seem fine to touch, if I could get up there. The snow starts melting beneath my feet.
Sweat drops cover Astley’s forehead. “This isn’t quite good. It’s outside the shield.”
“Everyone is outside it!” I yell. “We have to help them!”
Astley grabs my arm. “No! You must go! We cannot do this again.”
“But Issie, Cassidy, Dev, your people— I can’t even get to the rainbow.” My insides tear apart. I can’t leave them. I can’t just run away when they’re being attacked.
“It’s the shield,” he says, rushing to the edge. He places his hands against the energy. He pushes. It gives a little but doesn’t hold. “They are keeping it up by chanting.”
“Make them not chant!”
“They must think they are protecting us.” He shakes his head and then punches the wall. He races along the perimeter in a sort of Captain Kirk command mode. “They have sworn to protect us because I am their king and you are the queen.”
“What are you doing?” I ask, chasing after him.
Issie has let go of the hands next to hers. She’s grabbed some sort of dagger and is holding it in front of her. Her back is against the force field. A bad pixie is moving toward her. More pixies are scrambling out of the woods.
“Astley!” I yell. “There are more coming! They’re all going to die unless they fight!”
“I know,” he growls back. He stops and puts his hand on the dome, staring at Amelie.
“Let it down,” he commands her. She shakes her head no, and he points above his own head. “The bridge is outside. It is outside the dome. We cannot get to it.”
Amelie’s eyes narrow. She stops chanting and lets go of the hands she was holding, whisking out a sword from beneath her robe. She strides toward the evil pixies. A tiger emerges from the woods, silent, stalking from behind. My heart leaps to see her—Betty.
As our people drop hands and fight, the protective bubble around us shudders and the world rushes in. Issie stumbles backward and falls. I rush over to her, gather her into my arms.
“Oh man, Zara,” she says, trying to get her footing as a pixie heads toward us. “Oh my freaking—”
“It’s okay, Is,” I lie, grabbing her and pulling her away from the fight. “We’ll be okay. Betty’s here. Where’s Cassidy? And Devyn?”
An arrow flies toward us through the air. Astley appears out of nowhere, snatches it in his free hand, breaks it with his fingers. His voice is a growl. “I will take care of them.”
He yanks his sword out of his belt. His face becomes a mask of determination and strength. “Do not falter now, Zara. Many have already died so you can get your wolf back.”
He gestures at the crumpled, unmoving bodies of two of his pixies. Fighting heightens all around us. The world seems so much darker than before. It’s like my brain is beginning to focus and dread crawls over my skin, because this is when I get it. Darkness exists. Things in the dark exist. I am one of those things. Me. And it isn’t always easy to know what is bad or good, or who to trust and believe, but it is always, always easy for me to want to protect my friends.
“I can’t leave them,” I say. “Not even to save Nick. I just can’t. They’ll die here.”
“Zara,” Is protests. She trembles because she’s so afraid, but she still wants me to go.
“I will keep them safe.” Astley’s eyes meet mine.
“Evil pixie approaching. Three o’clock!” Issie interrupts.
Astley spins and flash-flies to our right. He doesn’t make any noise as his sword detaches the pixie’s head from its body.
“Holy— H-h-holy—,” Is stutters as I pull her away, tucking her head into my shoulder.
“Don’t look,” I tell her. “Just don’t look.”
Astley resheathes his sword; the soldier strides back over to us. He orders, “You are going, Queen.”
His hands grab me around the waist, jerking me from Issie, and he throws me up the twenty feet to the beginning of the bridge. He threw me—just like his father threw him. I land on the yellow. The impact makes yellow dust fly up.
“You have to take care of Issie and Cassidy,” I yell again as Devyn swoops over Issie, feigning right and left, talons outstretched as the dark pixies approach. “Astley! Keep them safe! Please … please…”
Astley nods. I see his claws sharpen beneath the glamour. He glows and stands taller, shoulders back, and in that moment I realize that he is remarkably beautiful. He is the king. My king?
The light pulls at me. There is the sound of brass horns in the distance, coming from the other end of the rainbow.
“Go, Zara!” he yells. His hands readjust on his sword, sheaths it, pulls out his bow. “I will keep them safe. I promise.”
I start to go, then stop. “You better! And you have to stay safe too, Astley. You have to be here. No dying. No dying! Okay?”
He lets an arrow fly. Something shrieks. “Just come back to us, Queen. Just come back.”
“I will!” I say, because, you know, everyone wants to come back to fighting, carnage, fear of death, right?
But I do.
I want to come back and keep them safe.
I nod fiercely. “I’ll bring him back. We’ll fight with you, I swear. No more tying you to a tree or anything.”
He starts to laugh, bends, and gets me my sword. His voice resonates inside my head, but his mouth doesn’t move as he says, You will be a great queen when you come back, you know. And someday you’ll love me the way you love your wolf.
22
Local churches in Bedford, Maine, are holding a candlelight vigil for the lost teens, despite the advice of local law enforcement, who say that the vigil would be much safer if performed during the daytime hours. —NEWS CHANNEL 8
I run up the bridge fueled by hope, ignoring the worry and the pain in my chest as the sound of fighting echoes beneath me, growing fainter and fainter the farther I go. The muscles in my quads tense and flex and release as I sprint as fast as I can. I’ve always been a good runner, but this—this is insane. It’s like running on a steeply sloping sand beach. Colored dust flies behind me with every footfall.
Yes, I am running on a rainbow and, yes, I am no longer human, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is getting to Nick. A white bird circles in the sky over my head, leading my way as I leave behind the world of humans, leave behind the world of questions and wiggly lines between good and evil, leave behind all the mistakes I’ve made.
To my left are mounds of earth that look like fairy tombs; to my right is a meadow on a hill where suddenly it is spring. The air is warm and amazing, smelling of lilacs and thawing ground. On top of the hill wait large standing stones like at Stonehenge. They are in a circle reaching toward the sun.
It is so beautiful here. It is nothing like Maine. No naked tree limbs scratch at the sky. No ice beneath my feet. No snow.
I almost want to slow down, stop, try to figure out how the heck any of this could be real, but I can’t because the bridge disappears behind me as I run forward. I’m not sure what would happen if I stopped. Maybe I’d just vanish, caught between the world of fae and the world of human. Would I no longer exist? I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything except that running forward gets me closer to Nick and farther away from the fighting—and from Issie and A
stley and everyone. Worry shatters my happy. How can it be spring here, so peaceful and quiet, when they are in the middle of cold, of death, without me?
My calves burn. It feels like I’ve been running for freaking ever when finally, I can see the end of the rainbow. There’s a building. It’s golden and glows in the warm sunlight. There are five different layers of thatched roof and three doors and no windows that I can see. There are two higher rooms that seem to grow out of the roof like mini towers.
“This can’t be real,” I pant. “How can this be real?”
A giant white man explodes out the center door. He carries a horn. He has a Viking-style hat on his head and more horns stick out of the sides above his ears. I think they are ram horns, but honestly, I have no freaking clue.
“Hold!” he bellows. “Who are you that cross to the realm of the gods?”
Oh my gosh. Did he just say “hold”? Who says “hold”? Who wears Viking hats? And his teeth? His teeth are gold, like he’s gone all rap star and had them capped with precious metal. I stop in front of him, panting, hands on my hips.
“Zara.”
I try to say it as bravely as I can. I try to act like all of this is perfectly normal, because if I don’t? I will start totally freaking out.
He eyes me and lowers his voice. “I am Heimdall, protector of the gods, guarder of Asgard and Valhalla.”
I reach out my hand, hoping my instinct to shake is right and won’t make him cut it off with the giant sword sheathed to his hip. “Hello.”
His lips edge up a bit. His giant eyebrows rise up toward his hairline. He grabs my hand in his fingers and squeezes. “Pixie?”
I nod. I notice a bunch of sheep grazing by the hall just to my left. They form a perfect circle and are perfectly clean. They are all too ideal, really. My heart skips a beat.
“Queen?” he asks.
“Only just recently,” I explain, hoping I don’t look as bewildered as I feel.
This time he does smile for real. “I can hear that in your heartbeat and smell it on your breath. Your newness is obvious, Zara White, Pixie Queen.”
He lets go of my hand. Resisting the urge to rub my fingers back to life, I take in the scenery. Beyond his hall, woods wait on gently sloping planes. The trees are enormous Christmas trees. Pinecones as big as my head dangle from the limbs. Birds twitter in the air. The lawn I stand on rolls along like a picture-perfect golf course. Giant hydrangea bushes blossom around the foundation of the hall, huge flowers bursting into the air. It’s beautiful and magical.
“How do you know my last name?” I ask, eyeing him. He is enormous and just exudes power, way more power than Astley and Nick have ever emanated. His muscles are almost comic book in size, or like a professional wrestler.
“I am Heimdall. I heard your name on the wind. I can hear for a hundred miles.” He says this all matter-of-factly, not sounding boastful at all. He shifts his weight on his far-apart feet. He unsheathes his giant sword. It glints in the air. It’s nothing like any sword I have ever seen before. It curves and the blade is almost triple, with two arched edges echoing the original blade. “This is my sword. Its name means ‘man’s head.’ ”
I don’t say anything. I realize I’m shaking. I step back and bump into a peacock. It squawks angrily at me.
“Tell me, Zara White, new pixie queen, former human, why have you come to our realm?” His voice echoes, and even my skin can feel the power beneath each syllable.
“I have an urgent mission,” I say, and hit myself in the head with my hand. Urgent mission? I sound like a character on a girl-power spy show on a TV channel for little kids.
“Urgent mission?” he asks without any trace of mocking or sarcasm. His expression becomes even more Viking-like, wary and full of pride. He raises his sword.
I lace my hands together, trying to look as meek and unthreatening as possible, and tell him. I don’t know why. I just tell him. “Sort of. My boyfriend was taken by this Valkyrie thing named Thruth, and I need him back. And I just left my friends fighting a battle and I want to hurry. No offense. I mean, it’s nice talking to you and everything…”
“True love’s quest?” He turns his head to his side and smiles up at the sun.
“I guess. Yeah. I mean … It sounds corny when you say it like that, but we all love him more than anything and we need him back home. He’s our warrior, really. He keeps us safe.”
Something rustles from under a bush. A bunny hops along the edge of the lawn right by the hall. Its gray tail bobs up and down.
Heimdall scrutinizes my face and then leans against the building. His muscles ripple like waves with even the smallest movements. He lowers his sword arm and leans the sword against the tree bark. “There are other warriors, yes?”
“Yes, but—” Something in my chest hitches. “He’s Nick.”
“And there’s only one Nick?” he asks kindly.
I nod hard my agreement because I can’t trust my voice.
“Do you vow that you are not a minion of the Frost Giants or their like, that you do not enter Asgard in an attempt to do harm to Odin or the rest of us old gods?” His voice booms. He towers above me, with shoulders that are easily three times as big as mine. He leans forward so that his nose is an inch away from mine.
“I promise,” I say.
He cocks his head. His lips part. His teeth? They gleam. “Are your promises good, Zara White, new queen of pixies?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I hope they are. I promised Nick I would take care of him. He didn’t actually hear me because he was unconscious at the time, but—”
His voice stops my sentence as he stands up straight, hands on his hips. “You will have to convince Odin, young queen, but they keep the pixie warriors at Freya’s, and that is to the—”
“Oh, he’s not a pixie. He’s a wolf,” I interrupt.
Those massive hairy eyebrows rise up again. “Oh. A pixie and a were in love.” Something shifts again in his eyes and his whole body changes. He suddenly seems to respect me more. A peacock struts across the lawn, followed by three little gray peahens.
“Is that—” I stop myself midquestion. Maybe I don’t want to know.
“Impossible? It is unusual.” He reaches out a hand and ruffles up my hair. I resist the urge to woof like a puppy. “But love makes all possible.”
My stomach settles a little. It’s still possible.
“Still, it seems your heart is divided, Zara. Is there another?”
My mouth opens, but no words come out.
“No matter … No matter … Would you like to come inside? Are you hungry? You must be—I have been watching you run.” He smiles at me. His smile is dazzling and congenial. The air here is warm, so I pull off my jacket and tie it around my waist. Sweat has wet the back of my neck. My throat is parched and longs for water.
“I’m starving, but I really have to go. I’m sorry. I mean, if I am allowed to go.” I look up the hill. There are other amber-colored halls beyond us. The sunlight makes rainbows that gleam off the windows, off his sword, off everything. Birds sing in the distance. Trees in full bloom are scattered along the landscape. Everything looks so inviting. I rub my hands along my hair and fix my ponytail.
“I believe your quest is worthy, Zara White, new queen of pixies.” He opens his arms. “It is love which made all this. War which protects it. With love comes responsibility and possibility, fear and hope, quests and suffering. I am not talking merely of romantic love, but the love of warriors and friends and family. You understand this?”
“I think so.” I swallow hard. “And me getting him back? And bringing him home? Do you think that is possible?”
“You will have to convince Odin,” he says. His hand stops rustling and rests simply on my head. “Odin can be a hard man to convince, but only sometimes, and your wolf must want to return. Many come here and have no desire to go back to the realm of man.”
“It’s so beautiful and peaceful it’s easy to see why,” I say.
“I’m a little afraid,” I admit.
“All warriors are afraid.”
The peacock twitters and spreads his tail feathers, which is what they do when they want to mate. The peahen activity gets a little frantic. They start pacing back and forth in little movements, changing directions every few seconds.
Heimdall laughs, amused at the birds, I think, and says, “You are not like the peahen.”
“I’m not?”
“No. You know where you need to go.” He points to the left at a large hall that peeks out above the canopy of lush green trees. “You have a direction. Odin’s hall, Valhalla. It is a quick ride. I shall get a horse. Have you ridden before?”
“A little. At camp.”
“An easy mare then.” He whistles and a golden horse trots from around the edge of the building.
“She’s so beautiful.” I sigh the words out, press my hand against the horse’s soft, strong flank.
“Yes, she is.” He laughs again and puts his hands out for me to step up. I could probably just jump, now that I’m all super pixie, but I take the hand up. The horse doesn’t even stir as I fix my sword and make myself comfortable. He rubs his hand across her side and says appreciatively, “Good girl.”
I bite my lip.
“You are very nice,” I say, because he is. Now that I’m on the horse, I’m more at his level. I have to resist the urge to look away. Who am I to be talking to him? Who am I to be in this crazy, weird place? I clear my throat. “Thank you. Do you think…?”
His hand slides across the horse’s flank and he simply smiles.
“I owe you,” I say quietly, but he hears me.
He taps the horse with his hand. There are scars crisscrossing the skin. “Then fight on our side when I blow my horn and the war comes.”
War.
“I promise.”
“Good!” Heimdall laughs. “And go get your wolf, Queen. Bring him home.”
