He half growls. “It means he’s coming. He will try to trick you into opening the door. Don’t let him.”
I start to argue but Nick holds up his finger. His eyes are so focused, so intent, so like a wolf’s. How had I not noticed that before?
“I mean it, Zara. You cannot let anyone in. Promise me.”
“Can’t they just break in?” I demand. I stomp down on the floor like I’m two, but I don’t care, I am so ridiculously frustrated. I want him to stop scaring me.
He doesn’t answer, just starts rushing around, pulling drapes closed.
“You should grab that knife you left in the kitchen,” he says, glancing up the stairs. “All the windows are locked up there, right?”
“I don’t know!” I yell, waving the poker around. Fear tingles on my skin. Or is it that spider feeling? I have no idea. Nick is already racing up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
“What if they break down the door?”
“They can’t!”
“How do you know they can’t? That guy looked pretty strong.”
He shouts down to me, “Pixies have to be invited in, like vampires. I read it on the Internet.”
“Well, there you go,” I mutter. “Then it must be true.”
Pixiophobia
a fear of pixies
I made this up, but believe me it should be a word because it sure is a legitimate fear
I thunder up the stairs after him.
He ignores me, rushing from one room to the other, checking on the windows, pulling the shades down in each one before whisking off to the next. He moves so fast he is almost a blur. No wonder he’s such a good runner. He isn’t human.
I shudder, but I mean, he’s still Nick.
My room is the last one he goes to. I block the door so he can’t race off again, but he looks a little calmer now. His hair isn’t standing on end or anything.
“The windows are all locked,” he says, sitting down on my bed.
I dial Betty’s cell.
Her voice snaps to attention. “Zara?”
“I think the pixie guy is coming.”
“What? It’s daylight.”
“I know! But I found a note dad left for you. He says if the need gets too great then they can come in the daytime.”
“Jesus.” She waits, pausing, like she’s struggling with big stuff. “He left a note?”
“Uh-huh.” I let her have a second because I just know she must be trying to process that. Then I go on. “And I feel squigg-ley, like I do whenever he shows up.”
“Okay. Nick’s there, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You put him on. I will be there as soon as I can, okay? I’m coming now.”
“Okay.”
I give the phone to Nick. He says, “Yep. I know. I know.”
Then he holds it out from his body. “It disconnected.”
“Great.”
He scrunches up his face and flops down on my bed. “I like your Amnesty International poster.”
I’d hung it above my bed, just like at home.
“These are your words of wisdom in our time of crisis? You like my poster? You crack me up.” I schlump across the room and sit down next to him. “Move over.”
I wiggle my hips so he’ll edge over on the bed. It’s too scary to be romantic. He puts his arm out and I rest my head against it, staring up at the poster.
I say, like the brilliant conversationalist I am, “I like Amnesty International.”
“Sort of a save-the-world complex, huh?” he asks. His fingers wrap around my shoulder.
“I guess.”
“I’ve got one too.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Sarcasm does not become you.” He turns on his side to look at me.
Everything inside me goes all jittery. I am on my bed with a cute boy. Sorry . . . a cute werewolf. The wind rattles the window. Once again, happy good feeling? Gone.
“Should we be scared?” I ask.
“Honestly?”
I nod.
“Yeah.”
I reach out and touch his face, just smooth my hand along the side of it. His jaw tenses beneath my fingers. “Explain what it means to be weres.”
He shakes his head. My hand moves with him. I am not about to let go, not this time.
“Weres have souls. We are part people. Pixies, not so much. They aren’t human at all; that’s what Betty told me. One theory is that they were a race that didn’t have what it took to go to heaven, but weren’t evil enough for hell. So they were left here, to flounder and torment for eternity.”
I raise my eyebrows. He reaches out and smoothes them down. Then he lowers his head and sniffs my hair. His words blow against me. “You don’t believe that theory?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I think so too,” he says, flopping back down and nestling me into his side. “Pixies are definitely evil enough for hell.”
“If hell even exists,” I say.
“Right.” He doesn’t seem convinced. “There’s another theory that there are five ancient races that came to the earth.”
“What?”
“They were pixie, fairy, were, elf, and one other. I can’t remember. They have a council. They are called the Shining Ones.”
“Like in my dad’s note.”
We lie there for a second and then I swallow and snuggle a little closer to Nick’s side. I don’t care what he says about pixies or werewolves or whatever. I feel safe with him.
I say, “You said that pixies can’t come inside unless they’re invited, like the vampires in all those Stephen King books.”
“I don’t know how vampires work. I’m not sure they’re even real.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s a positive, I guess.”
His fingers tighten around my shoulder.
I take a big breath of his wolf/man/pine smell and steel myself. “My mom sent me up here to the land of cold and pixies. Great mom.”
“From what Betty said, she was really worried about you. They thought you were dead inside.”
“I was. I was empty. I’m not now,” I say, but I don’t want to talk about me. I think for a second, inhale the warmth of him. “Why would she send me here when we never came back here?”