His voice stops me. “It’s okay to cry. It’s frustrating getting stuck, and you’re probably not used to ice.”
“I wasn’t crying.”
He shakes his head, obviously not believing me, and then walks around to the back of the car and yells, “Now. Put it in forward.”
“Okay, just don’t hurt Yoko.”
“Yoko?”
“My car.”
“You named your car Yoko? As in Ono?”
“You have a better name?”
“How about Subaru?”
“I’m shifting!” I shift the gear and the entire car lurches up and onto the road. I press the brake, amazed. The car is not tilted anymore. I’m not stuck. Yay!
Nick trots up to the car, wiping his hands on his jeans. He bends down and smiles all cocky. “Told you I could do it.”
His eyes aren’t so hard.
“Thank you,” I say. I bite my lip and look away and then look back. The center of my palms tingle. Why does he have to be so handsome? “You didn’t get hurt or anything, right?”
“Do I look hurt?”
He looks good but I’m not about to say that.
I keep my foot pressed down on the brake and put the car in park.
I manage to pull myself together. I pivot as best I can, putting my hands on the windowsill, and face him. He’s so cute. He helped me. I have to try to be nice.
“Thank you,” I say. “I wouldn’t have wanted to abandon Yoko and walk home.”
His eyes shift again.
“Zara,” he says. “You ever need a ride you can call me, or Issie. Okay?”
His hands move so they are on top of mine, completely covering them. They’re really huge and warm but they make me shiver somehow. I don’t move away, though. I don’t want to.
“I don’t have your number.” My words come out slow, stunned.
“I’ll give it to you. It’s my cell.”
He writes it out on an old gas receipt and hands it to me with a flourish. I take it.
“What are you? Mr. Protector of New Students?” I laugh when I say it so it doesn’t come out sounding mean.
“Not all new students.”
I try not to melt inside. “Just me?”
He cocks his head.
“Maybe?” His voice trails off. He’s searching up the road. “You really saw someone go into the woods up there?”
I nod. “Didn’t you?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he wipes his hand through his hair.
I suddenly remember how to be polite, like the semi-Southern lady I am. He did move my car, after all.
“Thank you,” I say, “for moving my car and everything.”
He smiles at me again and out of the corner of my eye I think I see something up the road. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand not knowing. I smash open the door and dash up the side of the road, toward where I saw the man.
“What are you doing?” Nick yells after me. “Zara!”
“I saw him again.” I keep running, looking along the ground. Nick flies after me.
“What are you doing?” he says again.
“Looking for evidence,” I say and stop. I point at the ground. There, on top of dried-up mud and ice and twigs, are tiny specks of gold powder, like glitter, but even smaller. I stagger backward into Nick. “Oh my God.”
He squeezes my shoulders and then lets go to bend down and touch the powder. “It’s like dust, but gold.”
“Pixie dust,” I say. “How can it be pixie dust?”
“Pixie dust? What do you mean?”
“Devyn and Issie, they have a theory about some stuff that’s been happening to me. There’s this guy who keeps showing up. They think he’s a pixie. I know it sounds stupid. Pixie kings are supposed to leave dust like this.”
He brings his glittering finger closer to our faces. My face warms from his breath. It’s minty. His finger trembles, just the tiniest tremble. “Like this.”
“Yeah.” I step back and search his face to see if he thinks I’m ridiculous. “The whole pixie aspect of it is kind of whacked, but it could be a serial killer or someone who is completely mental. It could be his calling card or something. I don’t know. I don’t like it.”
“Me either.” He tugs on my sleeve. “Let’s go back to the car.”
“You don’t want to go see if he’s in there?” I gesture toward the woods.
“You don’t have boots on.”
“Oh. Right.” We walk back to the car and that’s when I see it on the back of his jacket, little gold flakes . . . like dust.
He follows me home to make sure I’m safe. In the driveway, I park Yoko and tell it, “John would be proud.”
I turn off the ignition and check out the scene. I did not make it in to register the car, but I think under the circumstances this is totally acceptable. It’s not every day you start believing in pixies or psych yourself out about opening the door and walking twenty feet to your grandmother’s house.
“Paranoid, Zara. You are being paranoid.” Telling myself this does not make it feel any better.
The sun has almost completely set. I open the door and start across the ice toward the front door. Grandma Betty has left on the porch light and has spread some grains of blue chemical stuff across the ground so the ice dissolves in little clumps, which was very nice of her. I should do that tomorrow, help out, you know?
Something cracks a twig in the woods just beyond the driveway.
I squeal and fast-walk to the porch, lunging up the steps in a totally ungraceful and wimpy way.
I slam the door open and lock it behind me.
I check the lock.
Okay, let’s face it, Maine is creepy. That’s all there is to it. Creepy, creepy, creepy and too damn cold.
For a second I wish that Nick Colt had followed me all the way up the driveway. He’s cute and he has that whole I’m-going-to- keep-you-safe thing going on. Not like there’s anything to be scared of. What do pixies do? They frolic in flower gardens, right?
Only this guy points.
I walk over to the window that looks out at the driveway, the woods, the lawn. “I’m being ridiculous.”
I stare out into the dusky lawn. The woods at the edge of it seem full of secrets, full of unexplained things.
I never should have read all those scary books when I was little. What was my dad thinking keeping them in the house? Pain wells up in my heart and then the ache comes.