“I don’t.”
“Don’t you? Doesn’t a part of you think you’re making a big deal out of not very much? That if you were somehow not so weak, you could be happy and free just like everyone else?”
“…Kind of.”
“You came to me because you wanted my help, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then here’s my help. One, your anxiety is a genuine and very painful problem, not one you’re making up. Two, you’re not morally responsible for causing it. It’s nothing you did or failed to do that makes it happen. Three, medication will help treat it, so that four, you and I can talk about ways to help make life bearable, even liveable.”
“Will I have to be on it forever?”
“Not if you don’t want to. The decisions are entirely yours.”
“…I hate myself, Dr Luther.”
“But not so much that you didn’t come asking for help.”
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH, in which Satchel doesn’t know who to trust, so she follows her police officer uncle to see if she can find the source of the blue energy on her own; she enters the basement of the high school while the prom – which Satchel is completely not interested in except in an ironic way – is going on above; while the music plays and people dance, she stops her uncle from opening a fissure that will swallow the whole gym and everyone in it; she knocks off his unattached head in the process and the blue light fades from his body; she weeps at her actions and bravery, but the Prince arrives, terrified, saying they have to run, as fast as possible.
“You look amazing,” I tell Henna at her door on the night of the prom.
“Thanks,” she says, shyly. “I kind of know I look amazing. How weird is that?”
Her dress is, I guess, custard and burgundy, but that really doesn’t begin to describe it. Most prom dresses I’ve seen are either puffy to the point of cloudiness or cut so short and sheer you keep wondering if the girl is cold.
But Henna.
There are no gimmicks with her dress, but then there never are with her. She isn’t trying to be ridiculously fashionable but she’s not ridiculously old-fashioned either. She looks like a grown-up, that’s what it is. A really beautiful, beautiful, serious and beautiful grown-up. Even the cast on her arm looks like she got it from lifting a car off a refugee child.
“You look … amazing,” I say again. “I mean it.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
I’m just in a tux.
But, okay, maybe I do look good in a tux.
“Very handsome,” her father says, coming up behind Henna with her mother.
“Hello, Mike,” her mother says. She holds up her phone. “Picture?”
“Yeah,” I say, and Henna slides up next to me while her mom snaps us. We look for all the world like we’re going to the prom as dates. Which is what her mom and dad think. They also think she’s staying over with just Mel out at the cabin as a kind of we’ve-almost-graduated treat. They have to know Henna’s not that boring, don’t they? They must know that the rest of us are going out there, too, and maybe just this once they’re overlooking it? Or maybe in Finland this is perfectly normal, even for the devout.
“Have a good time,” her mom says, kissing her on the cheek. Her dad does the same. They’ve always been this formal, like royalty. Solemn in a way that makes everyone else feel slightly ridiculous. They stand together, his arm around her shoulders, watching Henna take me by the elbow and walk down to the waiting limousine.
“Oh, my God,” Henna says, seeing it.
“I know.”
The limousine turned out to not quite be what we ordered. Those were “all out”, it seems, to other prom nights, maybe even at our own school. So despite a regular black limo being available when we made the booking and paid the non-refundable deposit, that’s not what showed up at my house to pick up me and Mel. I texted the others to warn them, but that still doesn’t prepare you for seeing it in person.
It’s a Hummer limousine. A yellow Hummer limousine.
“It’s horrible,” Henna says admiringly. “So horrible it’s kind of wonderful.”
“I told you.”
Mel leans out its open door. “At the very least,” she says, “you feel safe in it.”
And we do. This is probably how tanks feel. We pick up Jared next (Mr Shurin, horrified: “How much gas mileage does this thing get?”) then, because everyone else wants it, Nathan. (“You can’t smoke in here,” I say before he even sits down.)
Call Me Steve declined a limo pick-up (“Already feel weird going to a prom seven years after I graduated,” he told Mel. “And so you should,” Mel told him back, “but you’re coming anyway.”) He’s at the school, waiting for us, opening the door so Mel can get out first. He pins on her corsage – as the only couple officially on a date tonight, he’s the only one who thought of buying one – and says, “This vehicle is a crime.”
“Against nature?” Mel asks.
“Against judgement,” he says. “Against taste. Against good sense. Against the planet…”
They walk off towards our high school gym arm in arm, still smiling, still talking about the wonderfully horrible Hummer limo that’s already gathering a small crowd of other arriving couples.
Jared, huge in a tuxedo slightly too small, says, “Don’t we all look amazing?”
“Yes,” Henna says. “Yes, we do.”
The theme of our prom is “Forever Young”.
I know.
We can’t afford to have it in a hotel in the big city, which is what most schools do, so we’re stuck with it at our own gym. Usually you have a formal dinner beforehand with your dates, but as Grillers is the nicest restaurant in our little town, we decided to just skip that. Mr Shurin says he’s stocked up a bunch of food at the lake, so as long as that hasn’t been eaten by otters or marmots or bears, we’ll be fine.
“Dance,” Henna commands, taking me by the elbow again.
“Me first?” I say, following her out to the dance floor. It’s a slow dance, so I put my hands on her hips and she rests the non-cast hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll dance with Nathan,” she says. “I’ll dance with whoever I like.”
“But what about the desire in your stomach? That you can’t help whenever you see him?”
“If you’d have ever shut up about him, maybe you and I would have got together by now.”
“In the spirit of exploration?”
She leans in, puts her head on my chest. I feel her sigh. “I wonder if realizing you’re not sure about stuff is what makes you a grown-up?”
“Lots of adults seem really sure about things.”
“Maybe they’re not grown-up either.”
“Tell that to my mother.”
“Tell that to mine.”
We dance. It’s nice.
“Just think,” Jared says, handing me a cup of punch. Yep, punch. In a cup. “This could be our last party without alcohol ever.”
“We’re not twenty-one for three more years,” I say. I look around to Henna, now fast-dancing with Nathan in a group with Mel and Call Me Steve. “And none of us are exactly big drinkers.”
“More a metaphor for making our own choices,” Jared says. “And why don’t any of us drink?” Then he glances at me, thinking of my father and the rehab story. “Oh. Sorry.”
I shrug and drink my punch.
“How’s the medication going?” he asks me, lowering his voice.
I shrug again. “Takes a while to work. And there’s a lot of talking to Dr Luther that goes along with it. Feeling okay, though.”
“That’s good,” he says.
“Do you like yourself, Jared?”
He looks at me, surprised. I know he guesses exactly why I’m asking. “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes not.”
“Sometimes not,” I repeat. “Those things going on. Those things you can’t talk about.”
Jared turns to me. “We haven’t danced enough.”
“…Togethe
r?”
“All of us together.” He cocks his head to our friends, dancing in the crowd, smiling, working up a sweat, laughing, dancing like fools. The hall is packed now, probably for the same reason as the restaurant: people know something’s going on and just want to be together.
I have a flash of terror that this would be a great opportunity to blow a whole lot of people up again. If there are any gas mains running below the school, that is–
“What is it?” Jared asks.
“What if we’re in danger here?” I say, feeling my chest contract, feeling suddenly desperate, like I need to find a loop, quickly, one that will save us all from being blown up.
“Do you see any indie kids?” Jared asks. I look around. He’s right. There’s not one.
Which makes me sort of sad, really.
“We’ll be fine,” he says, dragging me out onto the dance floor.
“Maybe we should check outside,” I say, but my words are lost in the volume of the music and the crush of people suddenly around us. We join Henna, Mel, Steve and Nathan. And we dance.
It’s nice, too.
“We’re going to take off,” Mel says, about an hour later. We’re all standing in the rest area, where the school have put out a bunch of couches just slightly too brightly lit to encourage heavy kissing. “We’ll meet you at the cabin.”
“Now you’re sure we’re not going to be ritualistically murdered?” Call Me Steve says, actually looking a bit nervous. “Prom night. Group of diverse teens. Remote cabin…”
Mel blinks. “Are you being serious?”
“I’m a doctor. We see stuff. There’ve been strange things going down.”
We all just stare at him.
“What?”
“That’s not the story that’s happening,” Mel says to him. “We’re not the kind of people that story happens to.”
“What? I don’t…”
She kisses him. “I love that you’re worried,” she says, “but you’re worried about the wrong things.”
“I…” is all he says because she’s already dragging him away. She waves goodbye. Call Me Steve is driving her to our place. They’re going to change, then she’ll get the clothes we all packed and bring his car and hers out to the cabin, so we’ve got an extra there after the Hummer drops the rest of us off. Jared and his dad left Jared’s car out there today, too. It’s a whole plan.
“You guys ready to go?” I ask Henna and Jared.
“I think I’m done,” Henna says. “My arm is starting to hurt from all my phenomenal choreography.” She looks to the dance floor. “Nathan’s still out there, though.”
And he is, just kind of dancing on his own with a cup of punch. (Seriously, a cup of punch; it’s embarrassing.) I guess he’s making one of those memories to take with him.
“Okay,” Jared says, “one more dance for me and then we’ll go. I’ll find you guys.”
He presses back out onto the dance floor. Henna and I find a couch. We’re surrounded by people taking pictures of each other with their phones and then sending those pictures to a person ten feet away and then everyone commenting on them. This makes perfect sense to me.
“You having a good time?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she smiles. “I really am. Who knew it’d be this much fun?”
“I’m starving, though.”
“Oh, God, me, too. I hope Mr Shurin brought out some steaks–”
She stops because she’s seen Tony Kim. He’s coming over to us. I feel her immediately soften.
“Hey, Henna,” he says.
She gets a really tender smile on her face. “Hey, Tony.”
I know Tony came to the prom with Vanessa Wright, the ex of mine and the girl who I lost my (and her) virginity with, but he’s not with her right now. It’s kind of a shock to see him. He really dropped away after Henna broke up with him.
“Long time no see,” I say.
“Hey, Mike,” he says, his face tight. I know how it must look, me here with Henna on this couch. He must have known – since everybody does – how much I’ve mooned after Henna all these years. And here we are, together, at prom. Looking like dates. Part of me actually wants to explain that, no, really, I have no idea what’s going on with me and Henna, that I think she’s still after this Nathan guy, that I’m even more confused now than ever, that Henna herself probably doesn’t even know how she feels and from what she’s told me, she’s kind of okay with not knowing right now.
I don’t say any of that, though.
“You look incredible,” Tony says to her.
“Thanks,” she says, warmly. “You look great, too.”
This is true. Tony is stupidly handsome but not in an arrogant way. He was always a nice guy. Always good with Henna and to her. They were really beautiful together. Even now, because I can see how hurt he still is without her.
Well, tough, though. Right?
“So,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets, looking a little uncomfortable. “Prom, eh?”
“Yeah,” Henna says.
He looks over to me but doesn’t say anything.
“We’re not here together,” Henna says, maybe a little too firmly. “I mean, we are, but we came as a group. Mike and his sister. Jared.”
Tony nods. “Saw you guys dancing.”
“Where’s Vanessa?” I ask. Everyone frowns at me for this.
“Getting a drink,” Tony says, looking around as if he could see her. “I think. Listen, Henna–”
“Tony–”
“I just wanted to–”
“I can’t do this, Tony.”
“I just want to call you sometime,” he gets out. “Just to talk. That’s all. No pressure, nothing. I just… I miss you.”
Henna bites her lower lip. “I miss you, too, Tony.”
He smiles, really sadly.
“It’d be great if you called me,” Henna says. “Before I go to Africa. That’d be great.”
He nods. “See you,” he says, shuffling away.
Henna watches him go. “Poor guy.”
“I guess so,” I say, a little too hard.
“For someone I’ve never dated,” Henna says, rising, “you feel entitled to way too much jealousy.”
I have to rush after her to catch up.
The Hummer waits for us. Our driver is called Antonio, and he opens the doors while we’re on our way over. Henna and I get in and wait for Jared and Nathan, still dancing inside.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” Henna says, leaning against me in the giant Hummer seat. “Actually, it was pretty nice having everyone think you were my date.”
“Yeah.”
She puts her arm through mine. “So why don’t we just say that you were?”
“What about Nathan?”
She looks up at me. She smiles, then shakes her head.
“What?” I say.
But then she’s looking past me, out the open door. I assume it’s Jared and Nathan coming, but she points to the far exit of the gym where the dance is being held.
A door is open in the dark. A girl I recognize from school whose name I can’t remember comes out, crying. A boy I’ve never seen before has his arm around her, comforting her.
Blue light flickers in the doorway behind them, then vanishes.
“They’re not in prom clothes,” Henna says.
“You know what?” I say, getting out of the seat. “I’m going to go find out what the hell is going on–”
“Mike, don’t–”
“Where are you going?” Jared says, showing up with Nathan and accidentally blocking the exit.
“To talk to them,” I say, looking over his shoulder.
But when we turn to look, they’re gone.
“I think I want to get out of here, Mike,” Henna says, pulling at my arm, getting me back in my seat. “I think I really do.”
And I can’t argue with her.
I never could.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH, i
n which Satchel flees with the Prince, thinking it’s to safety, but the Prince has betrayed her; he takes her to the Court of the Immortals, which has been searching for the perfect Vessel for their Empress, a better body for her to inhabit forever; that body will be Satchel’s, made ready by the amulet left not by indie kid Kerouac, but by the Prince; the Empress says, “I sent a Messenger to make your world ready for us. It took several tries before one survived what the process required”; the Messenger reveals himself; it’s been Dylan since the night he first came to her house; he begins the ceremony that will kill Satchel and allow the Empress to live in Satchel’s body; fissures open all over town to allow the invasion of the Immortals to begin.
“There’s a smell,” Nathan says, entering the cabin.
“Otter,” Jared says. “Sorry.”
Nathan winces. “No, I didn’t mean… It’s not a bad smell–”
“Just musky,” Mel says, handing everyone a beer, which Mr Shurin stocked up for us. I know that lots of children of alcoholics become alcoholics themselves and maybe that’ll happen one day to me or Mel, but we kind of figure with her eating issues and my anxiety issues, we’re already covered. (We hope for the best with Meredith, like we do with everything else.) I wasn’t kidding before, though; none of us really like to drink all that much.
Except Nathan, it turns out. He downs his beer in one like it’s a challenge, does that end-of-drinking gasp, and reaches for another. He sees us all staring at him. “What?” he says. “Oh.” He takes the second one and sips it.
“Music?” Mel says, taking a phone out of her bag and plugging it in. Tunes start to play, quietly, not dancy, just good stuff. The cabin has a small main room with a sofa and a little kitchen. There are two tiny bedrooms, which means at least some of us are going to have to sleep on the couch. I already assume one of them’s me.
“What is there to do up here?” Nathan asks. “Not being a dick, just genuinely wondering.”
“Eat, for one thing,” Jared says, opening the fridge.
“Oh, God bless you, Mr Shurin,” Henna says, next to him, taking out some steaks.
Call Me Steve and Jared end up doing the cooking. The rest of us change out of our formal wear. Everyone but Nathan switches to soft drinks. None of us has eaten for about eight hours and the steaks smell so ridiculously good, we hover in the main room like incredibly serious hyenas. “I will start gnawing on your shoulder if this takes much longer, Jared,” Henna says. “I’m not kidding.”