He stomps one step closer, finally making eye contact with me, and in those eyes is such pain and such anger that my heart breaks all the way down inside as he declares, “I want the pixie out of here.”
Astley answers before I can. “You do not get to make that decision, friend.”
“Don’t call me ‘friend.’ You aren’t my friend,” Nick spits back.
Dropping her hand, Betty arches up and you can see the tiger in the way she shifts her eyes into something serious and wild and deadly calm. “Nick Colt. You are acting like a brat.”
The clock on the wall chimes eleven. Cassidy breaks it with her singsong voice. Her braids sway, casting spells in the air. Her words soften the air just a bit. “You know, Nick, we are all working toward the same goal here. We all want the same thing.”
“I know what he wants. He wants her.” Nick points at me.
“This is ridiculous,” Devyn says, finally acknowledging the situation. He looks so bird thin standing in between them. Either could knock him over with a punch. “We are all on the same team.”
“Are we?” Nick huffs out as I close my eyes for a second, overwhelmed by the clichés and the tough-guy talk.
“I could ask the same,” Astley says. His hands go to his hips in such a man pose as he talks. “Since you have returned you have spent more time glowering and undermining Zara’s new power than you have supporting us in our efforts to eradicate Frank and determine what exactly the Ragnarok threat is.”
“Nick just died,” I start to explain. “He’s had a lot to adjust to.”
“Don’t make excuses for him,” Betty says.
Devyn gasps. On the computer screen Issie moans, “I can’t see anything! Someone turn me around.”
I reach over and pivot the laptop, although I don’t know why Issie would even want to see this. The refrigerator makes a creaking noise that is so loud it echoes in here. It doesn’t make them even pause.
“It’s your mother and her brother who are the threat,” Nick says, talking right over everyone else. “It’s you who is the threat. I can’t believe you’re even in this house!”
“This is my house, Nick. He is allowed here. You need to calm yourself down.” Betty stands up to her full height and looks at the door.
“Nick …” I start to walk over to him, to touch his shoulder and calm him down like I used to, but he jumps away. How can this be real? How can he act like this? “Nick.”
But saying his name doesn’t help. He brushes past me, slams outside. A second later the MINI starts up and headlights sweep down the driveway.
“Wolves have such tempers,” Astley says, crossing his arms over his chest. It’s not a kind thing to say at all.
“Don’t,” Devyn warns. “He’s been through a lot.”
Astley turns and looks at me. “We all have been through a lot. We all need to maintain our dignity and work together.”
I tune them all out, go to the window and press my nose against the cold glass. My breath fogs it up, so I can’t make out any shapes, any movement in the darkness, which is okay I guess because Nick is already gone. There is nothing to see.
Everyone leaves before midnight because it is a school night and their parents have rules. I trudge up the stairs, feeling physically better thanks to Cassidy but still kind of woozy. Even though it’s not very green of me, I leave the porch light on and the one in the stairs. I don’t want it to be dark when Nick comes back—if he comes back—and honestly, I don’t want it to be completely dark either. It’s just for tonight, I rationalize. Just one night I want to spend in the light. Betty says nothing about this. At the top of the stairs she hugs me and says, “You should take a bath. It’ll help with the aches.”
The house is quiet except for the humming of kitchen appliances and hot water pushing its way through pipes. The fire in the wood stove only makes occasional popping noises. Outside, the snow falls down and the wind eases into something sleepy.
Betty leans against the wall, and in her pajamas it’s so obvious that she’s lost weight in the time she was gone. The cotton fabric dangles from her bony shoulders. Deep, tired circles rest beneath her eyes.
“I’m not happy about this Iceland idea,” she says.
I nod, holding up my towel. “I know, Gram.”
“And I’m not happy about you being so important to whatever the hell is going on around here.”
“The end of the world? The invasion of crazed-out pixies?”
“Yeah.”
We stand there for a second and then I prod her, “But?”
“How’d you know there was a ‘but’?” She almost cracks a smile.
“There’s always a but or a butt.” I make a movement with my free hand to mimic a big one.
She really smiles. “Damn, I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I say as the lightbulb in the overhead fixture flickers. “Are you going to tell me about your but?”
She wiggles her finger. “You watch it, young lady. Yes. But I don’t want her death to be for nothing. I don’t want the world, however messed up it is, to end. I don’t want this town to be destroyed like this, and I don’t want the poison of that Frank thing to spread beyond here. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I say quietly.
She moves toward me, kisses the top of my head. “Good. Now good night. And do not die in Iceland or I will kill you.”
Laughing at her own silly logic, she sends me off to bed and I’m barely beneath the covers when a car rumbles into the driveway. The headlights flash through my window, illuminating the poster-strewn walls of my room, and flash out just as quickly, turning everything dark again. I can tell from the engine that it’s Nick’s MINI. A car door opens and shuts. I strain to hear his footsteps on the snow, then on the porch. The front door knob turns. A door opens. A door shuts. He sighs. And then he climbs the stairs, one, two, three. I want him to stop outside my room, open my door, and tell me he’s sorry. I want him to come and … four, five, six … say my name and tell me how brave I was to save him, to thank me … seven, eight … He is at the top of the stairs, and for a second he actually hesitates, but it is just a second and then his feet move swiftly past my door. He goes into his bedroom, and another opportunity for real reconciliation—another hope for it all to go back to how it was—is gone.