None of us do. I fiddle with the zipper of my hoodie and then get distracted by Callie, who is standing in between the coffee table and another couch, just sort of staring at us like she’s remembering what she saw the other night. I swallow hard and say, as brightly as I can, “Hey, Callie.”
“You guys are up to something,” Callie says, folding her arms across her body. She glares at us, but it’s not a mean glare, and she shakes her head so much that her green retro-1980s Mohawk waves in the air.
“You’re always skulking. You’re always whispering. And if Nick just went away on vacation, why do you all look so-so devastated. Plus, you danced with that hot blond guy with all the rich-boy clothes at the ball.”
“Um…” I don’t know what to say.
Issie shoots me a “don’t say anything” look. I feel suddenly, terribly self-conscious.
“Talk,” Callie demands. She taps her Converse-clad foot on the hard floor. I almost expect her to finger snap like they do in show choir. They are doing these old 1940s Cole Porter songs this year. There is a lot of finger snapping. “Not about the dance and the hot guy. I want you to talk about what you are hiding-and don’t tell us ‘nothing.’ I know it’s not nothing.”
Cassidy trots out from her scratching spree in the bathroom just in time. She makes her voice low. “Nick’s missing. The whole thing about him visiting his parents is a lie. Do not tell!”
My mouth drops open. It’s not what Callie asked, but it’s a good enough deflection that it makes her lose her train of thought.
“Oh no!” She gasps and clutches me to her chest.
All I can think is: I do not want to talk about this.
Callie finally lets me go and starts clucking and worrying and asking us why didn’t we tell the police and what’s going to happen and where did we last see him? Her questions become louder and louder, circling around as Cassidy and Devyn try to answer them. Eventually I just give up and go to the bathroom. Issie follows me. She stands behind me.
“Don’t want to talk about it, huh?” she asks.
I shake my head. She stares at me for a second, and I have no idea what’s going through her brain. Finally she clears her throat and says, “I am sorry I was freaked about you turning. It wasn’t fair of me at all. And I love you. You’re still my best friend, you know.”
“Mine too,” I say, pushing away the tears.
“It’s okay to be sad, Zare.” She pulls a brush out of her purse and hands it to me, which I guess is a hint. “You don’t have to be our fearless leader all the time, you know.”
I stare into the smudged-up mirror and start brushing. My hair is all staticky wild up here. “I’m not much of a fearless leader.”
“Even fearless leaders get sad,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
After we’ve managed to escape good-intentioned Callie, we all bundle up against the cold and walk out to our cars, where I spot Astley. He stands in the falling snow as casual as all get-out, just leaning on Nick’s car, which seems wrong somehow. I think it’s mostly because Nick would hate the thought of a pixie king being anywhere near his car. Astley is wearing a dark wool cargo jacket with a button-down shirt that’s got these crazy lapels sticking out in white points, showing a good inch of his chest. He looks more like he’s getting ready to hang out at the MTV Video Music Awards than waiting for me on a street in Bedford, Maine.
“Get off that car,” Devyn growls at him. It’s a low rumbling noise with the tiniest bit of a birdlike squawk.
Issie simultaneously sighs and then mutters, “Great. What’s he doing here?”
“Maybe he has a lead on Valhalla. I mean, a better one,” I say and rush over to him before anyone can stop me. He smiles when he sees me, an open-faced smile that makes him handsome despite his total pixie nature. I smile back, then check his eyes. They are obviously pained. I ask, “What is it?”
I swallow hard, terrified that it’s something bad about Nick.
“I was just checking on you, seeing how you were doing,” he says. He lifts his leg up, bends it at the knee, and starts fiddling with his sock. It’s argyle, a grandpa kind of sock, and looks soft, like cashmere. It doesn’t quite fit with the rest of his ensemble.
“Oh.” I cock my head, trying to figure him out. I realize I must look like a puppy and straighten my head back up again.
“I have been worrying about you after-Iceland,” he says as his gaze moves past me and toward Issie and Devyn and Cassidy, who are on their way over. He lets go of his sock and stands on two feet again.
Cassidy’s lips are turned down. Her oval face seems to be even longer than normal. Devyn comes and stands next to me, giving off a super-angry vibe.
Astley seems oblivious, still leaning against the car. He directs his gaze and his words directly at me as if nobody else is even there. “I feel responsible for what happened.”
I huff out air. It’s so cold that my breath makes a little fog cloud in the air. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I disagree,” Devyn says as a Dead River oil truck rumbles by. Its tires spit up slush.
Astley ignores him. “I am so sorry, Zara. And I have no word on my mother.”
“You’ve got to stop ignoring my friends.” I move forward and grasp his arm. My voice is calm but serious and hopefully will have the right impact.
“It’s not nice,” Issie adds. She pulls on her fuzzy pink mittens. “And if you want us to believe pixies are capable of being fun, happy goody-goodies, you might want to recognize our existence when we talk. Right, Zara?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead she charges on, pointing at Astley with her fuzzy hand. “And ignoring Devyn is totally uncool, because he is the smartest, coolest, brilliantest-oh, not a word!-most brilliant guy there is. He hacked into the Department of Motor Vehicle records looking for your mother! That’s how awesome he is.”
Devyn starts blushing and mutters, “Is, that’s illegal. We aren’t supposed to tell anyone that, especially a pixie.”
For a second it looks as if Astley might implode. A muscle on his cheek twitches.
“I apologize,” he finally says. “It is not the easiest thing to do when you all cling to preconceived notions of what it is to be of my kind. Plus, the were constantly glares and he enunciates the word ‘pixie’ as if it were a curse. However, you are correct. It was rude of me to ignore you.”
“Okay, good!” Issie chirps.
Then nobody says anything. Two little twin boys get out of a minivan that’s parked in front of the MINI. Their mother hustles them onto the sidewalk, bending down to hold their hands. A tall man with Clark Kent glasses fast-walks up to us, carrying a stack of Solidarity Now newspapers.
“Want one?” he asks. “They’re free.”
“Um…” Cassidy’s lip goes over to the side. She sticks out her hand. “Sure.”
The man passes one paper out to each of us and then heads toward the Maine Grind.
“Random,” Issie says under her breath. She tucks the paper under her arm.
Cassidy looks like she wants to use her copy to swat Astley. Instead, she picks up the conversation again. “Do you know why they tried to trick you? Or what that wolf means?”
Astley shakes his head. He finally stops leaning on the back of Nick’s car. There’s a bit of gold dust left behind, mixing now with the snow. It sparkles. I resist the urge to touch it. It used to scare me before I turned. It scared me when I knew it meant my father was around, but Astley’s doesn’t scare me at all.
“The wolf is a sign of the coming war. They tried to trick us because they wanted one of us or both of us dead. It is a thirst for power. It happens,” he says, his voice both tired and patient.