“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask.
“Set me free.”
“I can’t do that.” My eyes meet his eyes.
His eyes are fierce and sad and tired. “I have to feed. That is the only way I can be strong enough to battle. I shall feed and then I shall protect you and your wolf and my right to rule.”
“I can’t let you just go torture some poor boy, even if it is to protect us.”
“Then I need a queen.” His body stiffens almost as if he is going to strike.
My hands become fists. “Nope. No. I mean if you could find some weird woman who actually wants to be a pixie queen, fine. But you are so not taking Mom. She’s not even here, you know.”
“Zara . . . there aren’t many possibilities.” The skin by his eye twitches.
“Those are not options. Torturing boys and turning my mom are not options.”
“I’m the only one powerful enough to stop another king. I’m the—”
Issie slams the trunk shut, cutting off his words. “We need to take him back, don’t you think? We need to just let this settle and think it over.”
I make myself nod and just stare at the back of the car and my father’s face. He slowly closes his eyes, giving up maybe.
Is studies me. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s cold out,” I say.
“That’s not why you’re shaking.” Issie wraps her arm around my shoulders, hugs me to her. “I can’t believe I get to be the tough one.”
The wind bumps us against the car. Dirt gets on our jeans, our jackets.
“Eww . . . ,” Issie says. “Dirt.”
“Very tough, Issie.”
She laughs and pulls open the passenger door. “Thanks.”
But I am not done with him yet. Once I’ve started the car I yell back, “What do you know about Valhalla?”
“It is the mythological hall of Odin,” he answers.
“Odin?” Issie asks, turning up the heat.
“Norse god.” I pull the car out of the parking lot. “So it isn’t real?”
“Of course not,” he scoffs. “I wish you would rethink your assumptions about me, Zara and release me. I assure—”
“What about Valkyries?” I interrupt, stopping at one of our town’s two stoplights. Mr. Burns, one of my teachers, pulls up next to me and waves. Issie and I plaster grins on our faces and wave back.
“Valkyries?” This time my father laughs. “Myths.”
Issie starts to speak, but I put a finger over my lips to keep her from saying anything. The light turns green.
“I don’t know why we bothered with him,” I tell Issie.
She turns up the radio. “Me either.”
When we drop him off, he tries to run. I’m forced to tackle him and drag him back within the steel perimeter of the house. This earns massive respect from Issie, who said I was Super Bowl–worthy. After tromping back to the car we drive away fast. We’re both shaking but neither of us talks. Back at Issie’s house I shift Yoko into reverse but keep my foot on the brake, ready to leave. Waiting for direction, I guess.
“It’s not like I totally believe him, but I am super worried about Nick,” I say. “I’m worried that I won’t be able to keep him safe.”
Is cocks her head. “Zara, honey, it isn’t all up to you. We’re all part of it, okay? You’re not alone.”
“Right.” I grab the steering wheel a little tighter. The roads are getting slippery. “I know that, but even though I know I can count on you guys, I still feel like it’s up to me somehow, like everything is my fault or my credit.”
“You are just as bad as Nick.” She smiles to take the edge off her words. “The fate of the world does not depend on you, Zara White.”
“Promise?” I ask as cold air rushes in through the passenger door.
Issie gets out and grabs the top of the door so she can slam it shut. “Promise.”
I back out of there and wonder if promises ever mean anything at all.
Once I leave Is, I check for reception and call my mom while I drive. She’s still in Charleston but she’s moving up here. She’s already quit her job and everything, but when you are a CEO-type person you have it in your contract that you have to give a certain amount of notice between the day you resign and the day you actually get to leave. If you mess with that, the company you work for can impose “financial penalties” or sue you. Right now, thinking about what my father just said, I’m glad that she’s still down there. But I miss her hugs and her power suits and her mom smell.
The phone rings and goes to voice mail. She’s probably at a meeting about physician recruitment or something heinously boring like that. I babble out a message and click the phone off. I tell myself it’s okay. Driving isn’t easy, so I shouldn’t be messing with the phone. Poor Yoko; her tires try to grip the icy road. I try to steer and not vault into one of the towering snowbanks that hunker at the side of the road, waiting. It’s all about trying, right? That’s all we can do in life: try to do the right thing, try to survive high school, try to navigate treacherous icy roads, just try.
Devyn’s always quoting Yoda from one of the original Star Wars movies. Yoda talks in a total stoner voice and is supposed to be all philosophically centered with the good force stuff. I think of him as a kind of Tibetan monk crossed with the dude who hangs out at 7-Eleven even though he’s thirty. To finish the picture add in a green cat. So anyway, Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.” I hate that. Sometimes you can’t just do. Sometimes all you can handle is trying.
I crank up the radio. Listen to Bono sing about loss and need and hope. It’s vintage U2, not their newer stuff.
On the side of the road shadows form in the woods. They look like people. But I’m imagining things, right?
Right.
The winter fog creeps around the tree trunks, shrouding them and whatever else might be hiding at the side of the road. It’s gray. It’s dangerous.
“I’m not looking at you, fog,” I announce, and I turn up the radio volume to twenty-two, which basically ensures that my eardrums will stop working by the time I’m twenty-three.
My skin starts to feel like thousands of spiders are crawling on it, doing an Irish step dance. Maybe it’s residual from being with my father for so long, or maybe we didn’t secure him well enough in the house. Maybe he got out.