His broad face droops a little bit. His jaw clenches. “That is not how I play.”
“Play?” My hand drags across the upholstery in the back of the car, hits the old test paper, rips it a little more.
“I do not play at all, really. Not like that. We are not all like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like your father.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep not believing me.”
His face shifts again and I can glimpse the blue tint beneath his skin. I grab the test, try to smooth it into something not so crumpled and worn looking. I fold it into squares, deliberately matching the edges of paper up before I fold, just to have something to do with my hands. Finally, I say, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
His hands twitch next to my knees. He makes me think of one of those old-time boxers, all power underneath skin and words. “If I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead already.”
My head whips up and my fingers grab his wrists. The test falls out of the car and into an icy mud puddle. “You don’t hurt anyone. Got it? Not even my father. You don’t hurt him.”
“I am not who you should be worried about.”
I shake my head. “What? What do you mean? Of course you’re who I should worry about.”
He moves just a little bit and my fingers fall off of his wrists. He stands up and just walks away, shoulders straight, but different than before. There’s something humble about them almost. I don’t know. I don’t understand anything.
“Hey! Do you have a name?” I call after him. My voice is weak but it stops him.
He turns around. This time he gives a full smile, revealing perfect teeth, white and even. His whole face transforms into something beautiful, the same way Nick’s face changes. “Astley.”
I touch my feet to the ground, repeat it. “Astley?”
He lifts his shoulders and smiles. “We do not have the opportunity to choose our own names, unfortunately.”
“What does it mean? Does it mean something?”
“Star.” He turns and disappears into the woods like he was never there at all.
“Wait! Can you tell me about Valkyries?” I yell after him.
There’s no answer. I collapse onto the car upholstery and watch my skin gradually turn back to pale again, almost like nothing happened. Almost.
“I will never kiss you,” I whisper. “I will never kiss anyone except Nick.”
Of course, nobody hears.
Pixie Tip
Pixies do not just eat pollen and honey. Not by a long shot.
I have had friends back in Charleston who were totally anuptaphobic. You know, they are terrified, absolutely one hundred percent terrified, of not being part of a “couple.” They are so frightened of singledom that they will go out with anyone with a pulse or anything breathing just to make sure that they aren’t single and alone. I didn’t get it. I wanted to slap them in a nonviolent way and tell them that going out with the soccer player who sniffs glue with his mother and is also completely laying down with the band girl who picks elbow scabs is not better than being alone, especially when his breath always, always smells like blue cheese salad dressing.
I’ve never been like that. But now that I’ve met Nick, I can kind of understand the fear. The thought that you might never kiss someone again, that you might never be wrapped up in solid arms and breathe in the smell of soap and strength and trees, that you might never hear the words “I love you” and have someone really, truly mean it.
I get up out of Issie’s car. My feet find sturdy places to stand but I still wobble a tiny bit. I steady myself and dirt gets on my fingertips. Issie’s car needs a bath. I need a bath. I soldier myself up and slip back toward the station. The door flies open just as I’m about to grab for the handle.
Nick looks at me. I can’t figure out his facial expression at all and I hate that. His pupils seem to shift a little—become more oval—like a wolf’s. His voice is gruff. “You okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” I swallow hard. “I’m sorry I was a drama queen.”
“It’s okay. You—you—you’ve got a lot to deal with.”
He reaches out his hand but Issie pushes past him, sidles up to me, and says in her singsong, love-everybody voice, “She’s embarrassed. It’s okay to be embarrassed, Zara, but your emotions are normal, perfectly normal. It’s okay to be upset by this, honestly, but you have to affirm yourself for the positive traits you have, not the heebie-jeebie pixie stuff.”
I just stare at her.
“Psych 101,” she says. “You should have taken it. It’s such an easy A.”
She jostles me around, and Dev comes out too and explains, “Betty had a call.”
It’s the first time I’ve noticed that the ambulance is missing.
“Oh,” I manage. “Okay.”
Issie pivots me toward the car. “We’re going to go to your house. No fussing. We still love you. Right, Nick?”
Nick reaches out to put his arm around me again and stops. His voice is like a big piece of hurt. “Zara?”
I swallow.
His nostrils twitch. Dev gets closer. “Crap.”
“What? What is it?” Issie asks.
“She smells,” Nick says. He’s frozen, not sure whether to come closer or back away.
Issie still doesn’t get it.
“Duh. We all smell. It’s called pheromones or perfume.” She sniffs at my hair. “Zara smells exactly like the Body Shop Honey Almond Conditioner with a little mango body butter lotion mixed in. Am I right?”
I barely manage to nod.
“Issie, she smells like a pixie,” Dev explains.
“Oh!” Issie says. She clutches me even closer, though, which is why I love Issie. “Oh. Does that mean she’s turning?”
Nick doesn’t even look at her. Those brown eyes of his just stare into me. “She smells like the guy in the woods.”
“Zara! What is wrong with you?” Devyn asks. “Are you hanging out with pixies?”
His words hit me in the gut like bullets, like a torturer’s fist. But he’s not a torturer. He’s just Dev, and I am the one who is holding back information. It’s me. Not him.
“No,” I say, “and how come you never smelled Ian or Megan? They were pixies.”