“Where are your mittens?” he murmurs. His breath hits my lips.
I murmur back, “Forgot them.”
“You want me to go get them?”
I shake my head but he leaps out of the MINI anyway. “One sec.”
“Nick!”
“No frostbitten fingers for my girlfriend.”
He grins and runs to the house, jumps up the stairs, and disappears. I settle in, rest my back against the cold upholstery of the Cooper and close my eyes for a second. It’s been a hard couple of weeks. I kidnapped my dad; I accidentally saved a pixie; my car blew up; my skin changed color; not to mention that I had a Spanish test and an art project due and I have nothing to wear to the dance except T-shirts and it’s semiformal. I blow on my hands and shudder because . . . the feeling? The spider crawling feeling? I’ve got it again. It’s like hundreds of arachnids have gone creepy-crawly all over me.
Something screams. It’s not quite animal, not quite human. It is definitely not a good noise. It is a pain noise. It’s not terribly close. I grab the handle of the door, clutch the cold metal in my fingers, listen . . . Nothing.
“Astley?” I whisper into the dark.
There’s no answer. The door to the house opens and Nick barrels back to the MINI. I expect things to jump out of the dark and bite him. I expect fear and blood and fight.
Nothing happens.
He slams shut the door, smiles, and hands me my baby blue fluffy mittens, my favorites. “There. All better.”
He leans over and kisses my nose, presses the start button, and cranks up the heater. The engine’s not warmed up enough yet so it’s really just blowing out medium-cold air. It’s just recycled cold air wandering back and forth from engine to cab to us to outside, wandering . . .
“Zara? You okay?” he asks.
I push my hands into my mittens, feel the warmth, try to make myself into somebody normal, not some half-breed thing. “Yeah.”
He cocks his head a little bit, looks at me. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“No spidery feelings?”
“A little one maybe.” I grab his hand in my mittened one. “I thought I heard a scream.”
He bolts up and out of the car again. This time I scurry out after him. He cocks his head, listening.
“I don’t hear anything,” he says finally.
The woods are so dark. A fog creeps in, hiding everything in mist, hiding secrets. I tug on his arm. “I probably imagined it. Let’s get in the car.”
We climb back in and we both take a breath. Nick leans over again and whispers into my ear. “I love you.”
I say it back and it is the biggest truth I know. “I love you, too.”
He smiles super broad. “Really?”
“Really.”
Pixie Tip
Pixies do not need an invitation to show up in public places like bowling alleys or cafeterias. Being in public doesn’t make you safe.
We hold hands the entire car ride and for a tiny bit I don’t think about being blue or pixies or women flying with people into the sky. I just think of my hand touching his hand. I think about how saying that you love someone can make your heart feel like some sort of brownie sundae, warm, gooey, sweet, and good. He takes me up the hill to Eastward Lanes and parks.
“A bowling alley?” I say.
He nods.
“You’re taking me bowling?”
He nods again and a goofy smile spreads across his face. “You are such a diva sometimes.”
“I am not a diva. My wrist is sprained and I have a monster bruise all over my chest.” I let go of his hand.
“Yep. You just think you’re too good for a Downeast Maine bowling date.”
“I do not think I’m too good for a bowling date, in Maine or anywhere else, thank you very much,” I say, yanking the door open. Cold air blasts in. I jump out, shut the door, and meet him at the front of the MINI. “I just think a bowling date is a little . . . um. . .”
He presses the key fob button. “I can make it romantic.”
I snort and grab his hand. Our fingers clasp each other’s again and I feel grounded, connected, better. That’s only part of the truth. Everything still feels dangerous—like we could be attacked any moment, like some warrior woman might swoop out of the pitch-black sky and take us away.
We stride across the parking lot. I try not to step on the icy patches, sort of zigzag around them, even though I know if I start to fall Nick will catch me. There is a flashing neon bowling pin on the bowling alley sign. It is incredibly tacky in kind of a cool retro way. He hustles me toward the glass front doors and grabs the metal handle. I touch his arm. “Nick?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never actually, um, bowled before.”
“So?”
“So, well, I’m probably going to suck. Plus, you know . . . slightly sprained wrist.” I hold it up to prove my point.
He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “I’ll help. It’ll be fun.”
“I hate sucking at things.”
“It’s good for you. Keeps you humble.”
“Yeah right, says He Who Sucks at Nothing.”
He yanks open the big metal door. “Not true.”
I say as I step inside, “Totally true. Name one thing you actually suck at—”
“Being calm. Not being patronizing.”
“Well, at least you’re self-aware, right?” Laughing, I step inside the bowling alley. Issie and Devyn and a ton of people from school are already there. Issie’s renting shoes at a long counter. Cassidy is already bowling. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling. Shifting lights flash across the entire alley and they are playing retro eighties music.
“What do you think?” Nick whispers.
“I love it!”
The love doesn’t last very long because, okay, let’s face it. Bowling is evil.
“I am developing a bowling phobia,” I tell Issie before I go up for my next turn. If there is a name for the fear of a painful bowel movement (defecaloesiophobia) there should be a word for the fear of bowling. Bowling is definitely phobia worthy.
I hold the ball in my one hand. Luckily, it’s candlepin, which is some weird kind of mini bowling ball that they have in New England. It’s lighter and stuff. I try to think about form and alignment and the physics of it, which Dev went on and on about during my crash course. It doesn’t help. The annoying brown bowling ball veers totally off to the left and clanks into the gutter every time.