I race up the little hill in two quick steps and rush him, tackling him at the knees. His entire body makes an oomph sound, like all the air has just been knocked out of him, but he quickly whirls around. His hands go toward my throat. My hands go toward his and I try to pin him down. He flips me over and I smash his face with my elbow, which feels super violent and horrible. Crunching bone sound fills the night air. His hands loosen. I take the opportunity to grab his throat and apply just enough pressure to hurt his vocal cords, to cut off air but not to kill him. He tries to snarl at me, but it comes out more like a whimper.
Bringing my face just a few centimeters from his, I whisper, “Do not touch the humans. Got it? No killing. No bleeding. No torture. Or you die.”
I can’t believe I’ve just said that. I squeeze a tiny bit more and then let go, shoving his head into the snow. He growls at me, but his eyes are defeated and he scrambles to his feet, then runs off. I wipe my hands against the side of my dress, turn around, and look behind me. Callie and Paul—Mohawks covered by matching orange hats—are standing there, mouths wide open. Their eyes are large and confused, a bit panicked. Crud.
“What the hell?” Paul manages to say. His hand is clutching Callie’s arm like he’s holding her back, and she’s one step ahead of him like she is protecting him or was going to intervene or something. Tiny snowflakes swirl around them.
“Just, um— Hey, guys! He just got—he just—he just gave me an opportunity to show off my fine wrestling skills … WWF domination for me! Um, yeah … boys …” I stumble for an explanation. I am obviously not doing well, because they keep staring.
Callie’s mouth closes and opens again like she wants to say something, but no actual words come out. The silence is beyond awkward.
I keep trying. “You have a good time at the dance? Need me to show you any wrestling moves? Oh! There’s Issie. Got to go.”
I race off toward Issie’s car before they can ask any questions. I’m not sure how long I’ve officially been a pixie, but it’s less than a couple days and I’m already outing myself. Great. I rush up to the group and stop. I stand still and try to sense pixies. All I get is Astley.
Is grabs my arm. “Where were you? Do not make me go all nagging mother on you. You can’t just disappear like that. The last time you did you were gone—”
“Issie, she was out patrolling. I told you that,” Cassidy says, pulling her wrap around her shoulders. It starts to fall off. Devyn catches it and fixes it.
Issie lets go of my arm and opens the door to her Toyota. “My heart can’t take all this patrolling, disappearing, dying, morphing into new beings—”
“Callie and Paul just saw me take down a pixie,” I interrupt as we pile into the car. Cassidy and I get in the back together.
“Shut up!” Issie shouts as she gets in behind the steering wheel. She accidentally honks the horn and starts babbling like she always does when she’s nervous. “Oh my gosh! What are we going to do …? What are we going to— This is like that time on Buffy when—”
“Is …” Devyn tries to comfort her and make her stop talking, I think. His hand rubs circles on her back.
“I told them he hit on me and that I was showing him my wrestling moves. I think they maybe believed it.” I pull on my seat belt and roll down the window even though it’s cold. I need to be able to smell for pixies. “We can’t leave until everyone’s out. I want to be sure nothing happens.”
“Did they really believe you?” Devyn asks.
My breath whooshes out with the reality of it and I adjust my previous statement. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, there’s another lovely complication.” Devyn groans. “You have to try to be more careful.”
“Devyn!” I yell back. “I am not making quote-unquote complications. He was going after someone in the parking lot. I couldn’t ignore that.”
“True,” he admits.
Issie cringes. “Guys. No fighting. We are all on the same side here. Dude, it’s cold. I’m turning up the heat.”
Issie hates conflict, and out of respect for that we shut up and wait. Devyn and I sniff out our windows for threats as the stragglers head to their cars in their dress-up clothes and fancy shoes. It breaks my heart with worry to watch everyone, even the people I don’t like very much. Like Brittney, who has tormented me since I moved here. She’s always mocking my peace jeans and my love for Amnesty International, the human rights organization.
Eventually everyone, except the maintenance guy, is gone. Their trucks and cars roll out on the roads, heading to distant points in Bedford and neighboring towns.
I sigh as Issie pulls onto the access road to the high school.
“What is it, Zara?” Devyn asks. He puts up our windows with some buttons up front. Heat blasts through the little fan thingies, struggling to make the car warmer than subzero.
“I just can’t keep them all safe,” I explain. “That kills me.”
I see the kindness in Cassidy’s eyes, and my words trail off because there really is no point in continuing this discussion. How can I keep everyone in town safe? I couldn’t even keep Nick safe. My heart feels dizzy in my chest.
“You mean ‘we,’ ” Devyn says stiffly.
I push away the image of Nick bleeding on the snow and lean forward. “What?”
“You should say ‘we,’ as in ‘we can’t keep them all safe,’ ” Devyn explains. He opens up his window a crack again. Cold air rushes in.
“What he’s saying is that you are not in this alone, that we are a gang of four like in Buffy or in Scooby-Doo or in Heroes or something,” Issie says as she rounds a corner a little too sharply. The car swerves. Cassidy bangs into me. Devyn holds on to the door frame as he pulls himself out to get a better look.
“He’s following the car,” Devyn says.
“He would,” Issie snorts. “Wait. Who is ‘he’?”
“The pixie king.” Devyn pulls back inside the car, pushes up the window, and sits forward. “What an imbecile. How dare he follow—”
“Guys, he’s letting us see him,” I explain. “He could glamour himself if he didn’t want us to. He’s not being sneaky.”
Devyn twists around to look at me. Even in the darkness his eyes flash. “What? They can make themselves invisible? All pixies or just kings?”
“Just kings, I think.” I’m not sure. “They all hide pretty well in the woods, though.”
“And why didn’t you tell us this?” he demands. I feel like all the progress I’ve made with him up to now is in danger of being erased.
“I only just found out, Devyn.”
He doesn’t say anything. Nobody does. I pluck at the fraying edge of the seat belt and try to imagine that I’m in their shoes dealing with me—a newly formed pixie. How would I feel? I’d feel worried and nauseated. I’d want to trust myself, but I’d hold back a bit, right? I’d be worried and looking for any tiny sign of deception, because I would have to in order to stay safe. These aren’t simple problems with simple solutions. It’s not like I borrowed Issie’s dress and forgot to give it back, or cheated off Devyn’s test paper. I’ve turned pixie. I could kill them pretty easily if I wanted to—not that I ever would want to, I don’t think. Would I?
“I am not hiding things from you,” I say, trying to convince them. “I am still me. I am still Zara in love with Nick, friend of you guys, part of the gang. Okay?”
Cassidy sighs heavily into the car air. “They’re just nervous because—”
“Because I turned. I know.” My voice is soft. “I thought you guys trusted me.”
“We do, sweetie. We do,” Issie simpers. “We just don’t know how much influence he has on you.” She lifts one hand off the wheel and gestures back toward Astley.
“None,” I say. “He has none.”
But I don’t know if this is actually true. Who am I really? Am I still the same person if I’m not even technically a person anymore? Does being stronger make me different? Will it? I mean, I’ve alwa
ys thought tall people had a totally different perspective on the world than short people, and that culture and circumstances and choices make you who you are. So by being pixie rather than human, I have changed who I am, or at least who I will become. My head rests against the seat back and I close my eyes.
“Uh-oh, Zara’s having an existential moment,” Cassidy says.
I snap my eyes open. “How would you know that?”
“Elf blood.” She smiles and taps her temple with one of her long fingernails.
“Excuse me? What does ‘existential’ mean?” Issie asks.
“Well, according to Kierkegaard,” Devyn begins in this totally pompous teacher tone, “a person is solely accountable for creating meaning in his or her life. And she/he should live that life with passion and sincerity despite all the horrifying roadblocks that confront him or her, such as despair, boredom, angst, pixies …”
“I hate when Devyn says ‘she/he,’ ” I mutter to Cassidy. She snorts.
“So, what does that have to do with Zara?” Issie asks.
“I just mean that Zara is focused on herself and her place in the world right this second,” Cassidy explains. She puts an arm around me. “Which is absolutely understandable given the circumstances.”
“True,” Issie agrees. “Plus, you’ve missed a few days of school and you are so behind on AP Bio. And the whole track team is floundering. Now that Ian and Megan are gone and Nick is gone and you …”
We are all silent. We drive through the darkness on crazy roads, bumping from potholes and frost heaves. Roads are meant to be smooth paths, straight lanes to destinations, but they aren’t like that at all, are they? Life isn’t like that either. I rest my head on Cassidy’s shoulder and let Issie drive us the rest of the bumpy way to my grandmother’s house.
“We have to find Astley’s mother,” I announce. “She knows how to get to Valhalla.”
Cassidy pets the side of my head. “Awesome. We’ll do a Web search.”
“A name would help,” Devyn suggests.
A name. Of course. We need a name.
3
They were monsters. We were attacked by monsters. All I can remember is blue and teeth.
—STATUS UPDATE, SUMNER STUDENT
We spend most of the car ride home talking about the escalation of violence, about how FBI agents have shown up in town to help the local police, how people still don’t realize that it’s not a serial killer but a group of paranormal creatures that’s hurting everyone. And because we spend all that time talking about how we can stop them, how we have to do something, but how we feel almost powerless, I kind of repress the fact that I’m about to see Betty.
“Should I call first?” I ask as Issie pulls into my driveway. Panic edges into my voice, shrilling it. Betty is not an easy woman. She is tough and awesome and blunt, but not … easy. And she was really anti me turning pixie. “Maybe I should call first and warn her.”
“Zare, you are already here. Calling is pointless,” Issie says as she puts her car in park.
“Agreed,” Cassidy declares. She pats me on the leg. The dress fabric makes slithery noises as I stare at my grandmother’s shingled Cape with its cute porch and woods all around it. It looks so calm and happy, not like a weretiger lives there, not like a pixie king once ransacked it.
“She’s going to kill me,” I say.
Issie turns off the car while murmuring supportive things, and Devyn says, all matter-of-factly, “Absolutely. Do you want us to come in with you?”
I think about it for a second. “I do but I don’t. I don’t want you all to witness her yelling at me, but I also don’t want her to tear me apart. You know, literally tear me apart. She does that to pixies.”
“Witnessed it.” Issie shudders.
I open the car door. Cassidy grabs my wrist, stopping me before I get too far. “You sure, Zara?”
I nod. “I’m sure. You guys be safe going home, okay?”
“We will,” Issie chirps, all confident and proud. “I’m driving.”
I’m about to say something about being extra careful when I smell Astley. He lands on the snow in front of me, tall and steady. If Issie wants to learn how to be confident, she should study him. He’s a textbook case. He cocks his head as I stare and then says, “I expect this might be difficult for you, Zara. Would you like me to accompany you?”
“We already offered,” Devyn says out the window, which he’s opened again. His voice is snippy. “Why don’t you leave before you do any more harm? And what’s your mother’s name?”
Astley doesn’t even acknowledge that Devyn has spoken. He just keeps his eyes locked on my face. I shake my head.
“I’ve got to face her myself,” I say. I lower my voice so the others don’t hear. “Can you follow them? Make sure they stay safe, especially Issie after she drops off the others. Hide, though, so they don’t know, okay?”
He pulls his lips in toward his teeth and then slowly nods in agreement.
I wave to Issie. “I’m good, guys. You can go.”
She turns the car back on and Devyn yells out the window, “Do not do anything stupid, pixie.”
“His name is Astley,” I shout back, but Devyn merely raises an eyebrow as the passenger-side window goes up. Just then the front door of the house opens. Betty stands there. Her dark blue plaid flannel pajamas from L.L.Bean hang off her wide shoulders; her close-cropped gray hair is all askew. My heart whooshes into my spleen. Astley puts out a hand to steady me.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” he asks. His voice is low, husky.
“No. Take care of the others, please. I have to do this myself.” I swallow hard and take a step forward. “But thank you.”
He lifts up into the sky and disappears into the white snowflakes and darkness. The night seems to have gotten even colder somehow as I trudge through the snow toward our porch. Betty stands there under the yellow light, simply staring. She doesn’t say a word, which makes it even worse, you know? Because Betty is always saying something, imparting wisdom, cracking dirty jokes, whatever.
That’s when I realize what I’ve done to her. I’ve made her wait, helpless, while I went off and became a pixie, and then even went to a freaking dance. All that time she had to wait, knowing I could have died and that there was nothing she could do about it. I’ve done this to her because I was so dead-set on not being helpless about Nick, about being proactive, about finally being a hero.
Everything inside me seems to freeze and then break into tiny shards of ice. My breath hitches in my chest, but I manage to take one step forward and then another. My foot hits the wood of the porch. Betty swallows so loudly that I can actually hear it, although that might be because of my new, improved pixie hearing. The snowflakes are wet and sloshy as they fall.
“Gram,” I start as I step fully onto the porch, planting both feet. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”
She opens her arms and leaps toward me, crossing the porch in one long, springy step. Right now she is still human, totally human, and clutches me to her—not with weretiger anger, but with love. My face smooshes against the soft flannel. Her hand goes up to my hair and she says, “No words, Zara. Just let me be happy you’re home.”
She invites me inside without hesitating and sits me gently on the sofa before slouching next to me. Our legs touch. We talk for a long time. I tell her everything and she growls every once in a while. I know she’s disappointed in me, but she’s proud in a weird way too.
After a couple hours we head upstairs to our bedrooms. She kisses me good night and says, “You are just like your father.”
I back into the wall, hitting my head on a picture of me when I was three, dressed in a princess ballerina costume. “That’s mean.”
“Not your biological father, that pixie.” She spits out the word “pixie” and wipes her hands on her pajama legs like they have cooties on them. Her eyes flash. “You are like your real father, my son. Stubborn. Kind. Always wanting to save ever
yone. Foolish. Sweet.”
“Oh …” My stepdad, the dad who raised me, died less than a year ago from a heart attack—maybe brought on by a pixie sighting. That’s part of how I ended up here in Maine, living with his mom, my grandmother Betty, while my mom fills out the rest of her employment contract in Charleston.
Betty straightens the picture I knocked with my head and clucks. “I like it when you smile.”
“Even though I’m a pixie.” I regret saying it the moment the words are out of my mouth.
She grabs me by the shoulders, suddenly intense and strong. “You will never be a pixie. You will always be my granddaughter, Zara. That is who you are, damn it. Don’t forget it. We are not defined by our species any more than our nationality or our gender. What we do, our choices, that’s what defines us.”
I have a hard time meeting her eyes. That’s what I’ve always believed too, but somehow I keep forgetting it now that I’ve turned. It’s like I don’t get the benefit of the life rules I make for everyone else.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Her breath comes out in tiny spurts as she leans in and kisses my forehead again. I don’t think she’s ever kissed me so much. “You get a good night’s sleep,” she says, “and then in the morning we’re going to get started figuring out how to get the bad pixies out of this town of ours.”
The clock chimes the end of an hour and a shudder breaks through me.
“What if he’s dead, really dead?” I suck in the air, trying not to give in and cry. “Gone-forever dead, you know? And I changed for nothing.”
She raises an eyebrow, probably startled by my big change of topic. The clock downstairs keeps chiming midnight. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
I shake my head hard, the way a little kid does when she’s trying to convince herself of something important. Cassidy used her elf powers to show me Nick alive. He was in a bed and not moving, but he was alive. We all saw that. He was real.