It’s almost like I can feel his emotions now, like they come off him in waves of scent and color. Right now he’s agitated about things, and that agitation smells like Brussels sprouts and its color is yellow. Weird.
“You have to believe me that I would never put you in harm’s way intentionally, Zara,” he says.
Devyn snorts. “He says this after he turned her into a pixie.”
“You must believe me,” Astley says desperately. I’ve never seen him like this. I can’t help but give in.
“They’ll believe you. Eventually.” I take him by the arm and pace away from the rest, just bringing him a few steps down the sidewalk. This causes Devyn to glower at me, and Cassidy starts clucking nervously.
“Bye, guys!” I wave super big and they get the point. Dev and Is pile into her car while Cassidy walks around the corner.
“Are you okay?” I whisper to Astley as I watch Issie buckle up.
“My mother…” He seems to struggle for the words and then starts over again. “My mother is a difficult woman to find, and I feel like such a failure because I cannot find her for you.”
I ignore that and ask, “Any attacks? Any Frank sightings? Did you tell the council of pixie people what happened in Iceland? Was Vander a rogue or working for someone else?”
He gives me the lowdown on what happened while we were gone. His people stopped several attacks from the rogue pixies that belonged to my father as well as those that follow Frank. Two died. Three pledged their allegiance to him. It’s got to be hard to deal with all that drama and responsibility. Maybe that’s why there are wrinkles of fatigue all around his eyes. And to make matters worse, a girl was attacked. It’s almost always boys. This chills me. Astley has a call in to the council and they are “pondering” what he reported about Iceland and our quest for Valhalla.
“Pondering?” I ask.
“Pondering,” he repeats with disdain. “They tend to ‘ponder.’ ”
I get into the MINI. He pats my hand, which is on the window frame.
“We shall find my mother, Zara,” he says. “And then we shall find your wolf.”
He looks so broken and sad. I pause for a second and then just say it: “You know, life fractures all of us into little pieces. It harms us, but it’s how we glue those fractures back together that makes us stronger.”
The air stills between us, his hand still resting on my hand. “Where did that piece of wisdom come from?”
“Inside of me.” I give him an eyebrow raise to push my point a little further. “Even if you’re a pixie king, it’s okay to occasionally admit to the world that there have been fractures and that there is glue.”
“Even to his queen?”
I nod. “Especially.”
Astley leaves and I just sit in the MINI for a minute, trying to process everything that’s going on. Cassidy comes running down the sidewalk, her eyes frantic big. Her braids have morphed into dreads this last week, and the effect has made her prettier, but right now she looks like some sort of frazzled animal. She yanks on the passenger door, but it’s locked.
“Let me in,” she demands.
I push up on the unlock button in the center console under the radio and grab the sword I’ve stuck in the backseat in case of attacks. She slams into the passenger seat and shuts the door.
“Are they after you?” I ask. My fingers tighten around the sword’s hilt.
She looks confused for a second. “What…? No! No, I found something.”
“You aren’t in mortal danger?” I use the phrase because it’s so corny and I’m trying to ease the tension. It works. She laughs. I push the red button to turn the heat up a little bit because she’s shivering. I can’t tell if it’s from cold or excitement.
“Look at this!” She waves the paper under my nose.
I take the paper. There’s an article on health-care reform, a couple ads. I don’t get it. “What is it?”
She taps her finger on an ad for a party at a bar. “This. Right here!”
She’s so excited all her words just rush out, but she’s not really saying anything-or I’m not really getting it. “I’m sorry… a costume party at a bar on Mount Desert Island? That’s forty minutes away and we are way too young to get into a bar.”
“Look at the entertainer,” she insists.
I scan the tiny print. “It’s a fiddler?”
She takes the paper back and folds it neatly in her lap with the ad facing up. She smooths her hand over it and pulls in a few breaths, trying to calm herself down.
“Cass?”
She smiles serenely. “Sorry. Just trying to get a way to tell you. Okay… Every year my mom brings me to the Common Ground Fair, which is this big-time organic fair in Unity, right?”
“Unity?”
“It’s a town in the middle of the state.” She waves her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. To get to the main part of the fair, you have to walk through this sweet trail that curves through these tall spruce trees. So, right in front of me was this guy. He had a weird vibe. He was wearing all corduroy-blazer, pants. And sticking out from his blazer was this long taillike appendage that was wrapped in different-colored earth-toned cloth. I guess he could tell I was checking him out, because he turned his head and looked at me. His eye was this startling silver color. How startling? So startling that I actually gasped and got creeped out.”
“Was he a pixie?” I ask.
“Yeah. His glamour wasn’t so good either, but I didn’t even know there were pixies back then.” She sighs. “I just knew that there were people who weren’t actually people, you know?”
“So what’s that got to do with the ad?” I ask.
Her eyes sparkle, she’s so psyched. She jabs the picture of the fiddler with her finger. “This is that guy-the guy I saw at the fair.”
“Cool…” I wait a second for some kind of big realization to hit. Maybe it’s because I’m so tired, but it doesn’t. “I still don’t get it. We’ve located a pixie, yeah. We’ll go get him.”
“No! That’s not it. Look at his name, Zara.”
I read the ad. “BiForst?”
“As in ‘shimmering path’?” She pokes me in the thigh with her finger.
“I still don’t get it.”
“As in the way to get to Asgard, where Valhalla is.”
“But that’s a bridge, not a person.” The world suddenly feels full of light. “But it could be a clue… He could know… Oh, man…”
She grabs my hand in hers and our fingers intertwine. “Don’t hyperventilate, Zara.”
I push my free hand against my heart.
“I am, aren’t I? Oh my gosh, Cassidy. What if he knows something?” I grab the paper from her. “This party is tomorrow night. Tomorrow night! ”
We both do this tiny squee thing and hug each other, reaching over the shift and emergency brake. We separate after several seconds of this. I swear I would happy-dance all around the MINI if there was enough room to actually stand up.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” I raise my hand for a fist bump.
“Road trip!” she sings out.
“Road trip,” I agree, my whole body screaming out happy, hopeful thoughts as I hug Cassidy again. Inside my head, I whisper to Nick, who can’t hear me, I know, but I totally don’t care. “You hold on, baby. I’m coming to find you. I am.”
Thomas Steffan Waiting
Thomas Steffan Waiting for someone else to disappear. Better not be me this time. Or any of my homies. Got that, serial killer? -STATUS UPDATE
Things don’t go quite as smoothly as I expect. First, due to the Iceland debacle, I can’t even tell Betty about the bar thing without risking a full-blown scene. But then Devyn’s parents sequester him at their house because they are working like mad on a vial of my blood, trying to make a pixie toxin, and need all the help they can get. And Issie is still grounded.