Captivate (14 page)

“There’s an anagram server on the Net,” Issie says, opening up Betty’s laptop. “Let’s see what we get.”

She gets to the site and types in: “Leave Risk Sixty.” There are 14,683 results. We all crowd around the laptop as she starts reading them aloud. “Relatives XI Sky. Relative Xis Sky. Relative Six Sky. Relaxes Skit Ivy. Relaxes Kits Ivy. Leaver Ski Sixty.

Reveal Ski Sixty….”

“This isn’t working,” Nick growls. He starts to back away, but I touch him on the arm and he breathes out slowly. It’s almost like gentling a horse.

Devyn agrees. “There are too many results. And it doesn’t show them all, only the first hundred. There’s no way to access the others.”

“We’re not giving up. It might not have anything to do with anything, but it could be important.” I say. “Leave Risk Sixty. That has all the letters of Valkyrie in it, doesn’t it?

Issie, open up a blank document.”

She does. I make her write it:

Leave Risk Sixty

Then we cross off the letter in “Valkyrie.”

Leave Risk Sixty

“So that leaves—oh, exist,” Devyn says. His lips do this weird sort of half raspberry noise. “Valkyries exist.” That’s not that helpful.”

“Crud.” My hopes seems to fizzle out.

Nick squeezes my hand. “No. There’s still the other one. Don’t give up.”

We don’t give up, but we don’t get anywhere either. Eventually Devyn goes home to research and give his parents my blood. Nick goes out patrolling with Is for backup.

Instead of curling up with a mirror and turning all fetal, I write letters to Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole, e-mail the information forward, wish I could do more for human rights. In the back of my head are these worries thundering about, static, insistent: what the blood test will mean, why the pixie guy in the woods was nice to me, what Nick will do if I am pixie now because, let’s face it, were are pretty bigoted against pixies, and seeing what I’ve seen, I can’t really blame them.

“Do not think,” I order myself. “You have thought this
over
and
over
again. It is self-indulgent. Just research.”

So this is what I’m doing, scrunched up with Gram’s laptop googling “how not to turn pixie,” when my grandmother struts through the door, all in uniform, all tall and brave and fearless—all unlike me.

“Hey,” she says, kicking the door shut behind her. “You still moody, still….what’s the word? Emo?”

“Emo is a derogatory word.” I close the laptop, running my hand across the cold, blank surface.

She laughs. “Why? Because it’s short for emotional? There’s nothing wrong with being emotional. There’s a lot of good emotions out there, you know.”

The phone rings. Gram grabs it. “Hello?”

I wait. Images of Astley flash into my head. I force them out by thinking of Charleston, dolphins breaking the surface of the water, warm air, flowers.

“No. I just got home, Josie. What’s up?” Gram asks.

I plug in the power cord to recharge the laptop and then find my grandmother, who has wandered into the kitchen, still talking on the phone.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I whisper. “I’ve got a date tonight with a pixie-hating werewolf. I have to smell human.”

She makes a fake, exaggerated sniff and then an overacting mimic of grossness.

“Nice,” I bounce back. “You’re such a
nice
grandmother.”

She waves me upstairs. Dismissed.

My cell phone rings when I’m in the shower and since I’m a total slave to technology, I answer it.

“Zare?”

“Hey, Nick.”

“What are you doing?”

My good arm drips water onto the little ping rug that’s right in front of the toilet. It deepens the color. “Um…..”

“Are you taking a shower?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. His breath is so loud that I can hear it over the water. I’m naked. He knows I’m naked. This is freaking me out. I eye the towels and finally say, “I’m not blue anymore.”

“Is that because you’re red?”

“Huh? How do you know I’m red?”

“Because you’re blushing.” He laughs.

The water splashes hot against my ankle, which is still under the stream of it. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. I am wasting water. I don’t care. Bad Zara. Bad pseudo-environmentalist, pseudo-human Zara.

“You aren’t actually standing in the shower with the cell phone, are you, because that’s dangerous.” He coughs.

I press my lips together for a second and ruin the mood. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

“I do,” he answers too quickly.

“Yep. Uh-huh. Right.”

Even though the shower’s making so much noise I can still hear his breath rush out, exasperated.

The drain sucks the water down.

“You know,” he says. “I really, awesomely, amazingly love you.”

“You say the perfect boyfriend things.” I step out of the shower, grab a towel.

He laughs. “I say the perfect boyfriend things, but what about what I do? I mean, you are always complaining about the whole macho alpha dog thing.”

“Well, yeah, there is that and you whole secret love of snausages.”

“You promised to never mention that!” he says all mock upset.

“No, I promised to never mention the whole fire hydrant thing.”

“Zara!” He cracks up. “Or the barking at the vacuum cleaner.”

“Do not go there,” he warns, but he’s still laughing hard.

“Despite your vile nature we still have a date tonight. And you are still going to that dance with me.

I imagine him clutching his warm stomach as he laughs. I close my eyes. “You think you can get Dev to ask Issie, too?”

“I’ll try.”

“Cool.”

Nick picks me up later. He doesn’t even knock on the door, just comes right in like he lives here or something, which he practically does.

“I’m kidnapping your granddaughter,” he shouts to Betty. She’s in the kitchen cleaning up dinner dishes. I am off dishwashing duties because of the whole injured arm thing.

Score!

“Good. Keep her awhile. She’s on my computer so damn much her fingers are curling into perpetual typing shape.” She steps into the living room, smiles, wipes her hands on a bright yellow dish towel. “You two have fun. Don’t be back too late.”

I rush across the room and kiss her cheek. She pats mine and says, “You are a sweetie.”

Nick runs across the living room and does the same thing, giving her an overly exaggerated smack. The he grabs her up in this big wolf hug and twirls her around.

“And you are just fresh,” she laughs, swatting him with the dish towel. “Now scoot.”

We hop in Nick’s
MINI
Cooper, which smells faintly like dog. I try to pull on my buckle and my hand is so cold that I can’t quite get it locked. Plus, the whole hurt wrist thing makes it awkward. Nick reaches over and does it for me. His fingers touch my fingers.

All of my internal organs swirl and melt and tingle. His lips are beautiful. I am staring…I am staring at his lips. I should kiss him. I lean up and in. His lips open a little bit. The whole world is gone. It’s just his mouth and my mouth. His hand goes to the small of my back. It’s strong there, solid. I move my body toward him.

“Where are you 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 favourites.

“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.”

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 brings me up the hill to Eastward Lanes and parks.

“A bowling alley?” I say.

He nods.

“You’re bringing 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 any 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 (defecaloesiophia) 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.

“Why is it not doing what it’s supposed to?” I yell as I turn around. Nick cracks up, all doubled over. Dev’s hand covers his mouth and his shoulders shake because he’s trying not to become hysterical.

Issie straight-arm points at them. “No laughing.”

“It’s not staying in the lane,” I say. I check to make sure the latch on my anklet is secure.

It’s so delicate. I’m terrified of losing it.

“You have to roll it straight,” Nick says. He stands up and grabs a ball out of the ball return bin thingy that’s between all the lanes.

Bowling balls crash into pins in other lanes. Cassidy squeals, “I rock!”