“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 always 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.
They were monsters
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.