“Do you believe me, Zara?” he asks again.
I try to answer, but I am spiraling down, down, down.
The fear of death is thanatophobia.
I will not be afraid of death.
I will not be…
“Zara,” he insists. “Do you believe?”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure if any words actually verbalize. Instead I grit my teeth and buck up, then fold into myself.
I am so afraid.
“What is it?” Issie screeches.
Astley’s hand lifts up something small and shiny. A bug?
“The bullet came back out,” he said. “At least the iron won’t poison her any longer. Thank you, elf.”
Cassidy just keeps chanting.
“So she’ll live?” Issie asks.
“She has lost blood, much blood,” he practically hisses. “She would already be dead if she had not just taken that pill. You are sure she took it, correct?”
“She did!” Issie answers. Her voice is drifting away. Issie…
Astley’s bloody hand rests on my forehead. “Fight, Zara. Fight for us.”
I am. I am…
When my eyes open again the next time, I’m in Astley’s arms and he’s carrying me under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital’s emergency room entrance. The world is so white and cold and the lights are so horribly bright. Sliding metal doors open and attendants race out with a gurney.
“How long?” one asks.
The gurney is hard and cold against my back. I try to reach out for Issie or Astley or anyone. It’s Astley that grabs my hand while barking at the attendant, “Twenty minutes.”
The world whites again before I have a chance to ask him not to leave me. Everyone always leaves and I really don’t want to be alone, especially if I’m going to die. I don’t want to die alone.
I wake up again, but just for a moment. Betty’s commanding scent is right near me.
“Grammy…” I struggle to say her name. I can’t quite open my eyes.
Her smell comes closer; her voice is a distant echo in my ear. “They are stabilizing you. You hang on, you hear? You hang on, because when you wake up again, I am going to murder you with my own two hands.”
When I manage to make it to a semiconsciousness that lasts more than two seconds and the massive pain isn’t rippling through me, I run through what happened: gunshot… fiddling… apple… Astley… hospital… It wasn’t in that order, though. I straighten it out, and when I open my eyes, I’m in an ICU room. It’s bigger than your average hospital room and there are all sorts of tubes and things attached to my arms, monitors that are bleeping. Someone is here with me. I move my mouth, but no words come out.
“You’re awake.” Astley’s face hovers above mine. He still has my blood on his cheek and in his blond hair. He kisses my forehead with soft, cool lips. “Do. Not. Worry. You are all stabilized. Your grandmother is arguing with the doctors. They say only two visitors allowed at one time in ICU. They want to transfer you to Bangor, because your blood pressure is so low and some of your readings are not typical.”
“I…” Trying to sit up is so hard, and Astley gently leans me back down. His arm goes behind my shoulders. His hand cradles my head.
“I thought… I…” I don’t know why I didn’t tell him where we were going. I don’t really know why I didn’t tell Betty either. I guess I thought I could do it without them. I guess I worried that they would stop me. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no need for sorries,” he says. “But let me help you. You need to let me help you, Zara. We are on the same side.”
I try to answer, but I can’t stay awake.
The next time I open my eyes, Devyn leans into view. His nose is red at the tip. His eyes are tired and the pupils are too big. “Hi,” he says.
I open my mouth again to ask about Betty. Still no words come out.
“Betty?” Devyn guesses. “She’s okay. She’s not mad. She’s not happy about things or that the pixie boy is here, but she’s not mad at you.”
“Are you?” I ask.
“Why would I be?” He shakes his head. His hands are fists. “I’m just mad that I wasn’t there.”
“Issie?”
He frowns. “Let’s just say the grounding has been extended until she is fifty. And her mother wants her to duct tape knives to her skin.”
I groan and clear my throat. My voice is whisper weak. “We can’t give up.”
The world slips sideways as a nurse comes in, but before she shoos Devyn away, he whispers in my ear, “We won’t, Zara. He’s my best friend too.”
MDI police responded
MDI police responded to a bar fight tonight. Details are sketchy, but it appears a local teen was shot and is in critical condition. The police stress that the shooting is in no way related to the rash of disappearances in the nearby town that’s been plagued… -NEWS CHANNEL 8
Days pass where I’m in and out of consciousness. Someone tells me my mother is stuck in Europe because of some airline strike. I didn’t even know she was in Europe. Slowly, my body heals. Cassidy’s been helping too somehow, using herbs and praying. Sometimes I see her in the corner of my room, her eyes closed and hands together. Betty tells me I’m lucky I’m pixie now, because if I were human, things would be really bad.
“Weeks,” she says. “Weeks in a hospital.”
I wake up again and there’s an Amnesty International poster above me. It’s thumbtacked to the ceiling. It takes me a second of staring at the image of a candle wrapped in barbed wire before I really make the connection: I’m home. The information processes a little slowly, and for a second I almost think I’m back in Charleston, where life was warm and full of flowers, where my stepdad was still alive, where I didn’t know pixies existed, where I was human.
That tiny hope is snatched away quickly when I turn my head to look out the window. It’s still snowing, lightly now, but persistent. The light of the snow fills my room with a cold brightness, but it’s nothing like the light in Charleston. There are branches of trees in each corner of my room. I think they are aspen. I don’t know how they got there. Cassidy maybe? There are camellias scattered around as well, white and pink balls of petals. And there’s some sort of incense burning. The scent is so strong it feels like the inside of my nose is being rubbed by a bristle brush.
I groan. Not from that, but because just moving my head makes it throb. I reach beneath the covers and touch my side, which is all bandaged up. That’s when I remember: I was shot. I was in the hospital. Everyone was there, coming in and out of my room one at a time, blurs of memory and action and words that I can’t really grab on to.
Now?
Now I’m alone.
I check out my arms, still pale human skin. At least I haven’t lost my glamour. I guess you have to consciously make it go away or else it just stays working, just like when I sleep. A twig hits my window, scratching against the pane. My entire body is stiff, but I force it to slowly sit up. Then I swing my legs off the edge of the bed and pull back the comforter. It’s bright yellow and sunny. My socks touch the floor. Someone changed me into pajamas and Christmas socks with little snowmen on them. I hope it was Betty and not some horrible group effort. If I had the energy to blush, I would, but just sitting up is a chore. I push my body straight. Pain throbs across my chest. Ignoring it, I shuffle across the floor, grabbing on to the bedpost for a little support. Then, once I get far enough, I lunge forward and grab the wall and the doorknob. I turn it and shuffle into the hall like I’m a hundred and four years old and have lost my walker somewhere in the nursing home.
There are voices coming from downstairs.