The Blue Girl (14 page)

And I had no idea.

But I learned. I learned to the point where, if Imogene didn’t think I should get something I liked, I was brave enough to get it anyway. So maybe I can learn to stand up about fairies, too, except this seems far different from whether or not I should buy a certain top. It feels like it goes deeper, that it taps into the things that really make us who we are, and I don’t know that I want to be different from Imogene in that way. Or maybe what I mean is that I don’t want for her to know we’re that different. But here we are, regardless: me believing, and Imogene with her mind still firmly closed on the issue, even when she’s friends with an honest-to-god ghost.

Mind you, I didn’t grow up believing in fairies—or at least I got huge mixed signals about how I was supposed to feel about them. My dad read me fairy tales and would earnestly explain how they lived in hollow trees and sometimes even behind the wainscoting and under the floorboards, but that didn’t make Mom very happy. She’s always been against any kind of frivolity. Even when I was just a little kid, she argued that I should only experience things I would find useful later on in my academic career.

I know. It sounds horrible. But nothing she’s ever done has been out of meanness or spite. She really, truly wants the best for me. The problem is, she doesn’t think I should get any say in it. She has my whole life mapped out. What she doesn’t see—what she doesn’t
want
to see—are the uncharted territories that lie inside my head.

I do understand why she is the way she is. She grew up poor, and her parents made her drop out of high school and go to work. Then she met my dad. He was the one who convinced her to finish her schooling and go on to university. She forgets this, how he supported her for all those years. He was so proud of her when she got her degree. Prouder still when she got a job in human resources at Turner Industries, rising rapidly up the corporate chain until she was a vice president. That’s a long haul from the girl who used to work as a waitress in a diner.

Because of how hard her life had been, she was determined to make sure that things were better for me. That I’d be prepared for anything that life had to offer. I was going to learn my manners and dress well and do well in school. Fairy tales weren’t going to be part of my life. Neither were boys, dressing like anything but a geek, having a mind of my own  ... Well, you get the picture.

So the pieces of my life that I could live for myself went underground.

The first book I hid from my mom was a copy of
Touch and Go: The Collected Stories of Katharine Mully,
with those wonderful illustrations by Isabelle Copley. I was shattered when I found out Mully’d killed herself and there were never going to be any more new stories. But I had these and I reread that book until the pages came loose and started to fall out.

They were fairy tales, but set in the here and now, in this city, in Newford, one of them just a few blocks over from where we lived. When I read these stories—like “Junkyard Angel” where the wild girl Cosette disappears in the junkyard, or “The Goatgirl’s Mercedes” with the old crotchety wizard Hempley who’s always trying to steal the goatgirl’s car keys—for days I’d carry around the belief that those kinds of things really could exist. When kids made fun of me at school for the way I was dressed, I’d just go my own way and imagine I had someone like the butterfly girl Enodia waiting for me at home.

From the biographical material in the introduction, I found out about Mully’s artist friend Jilly Coppercorn and totally fell in love with her fairy paintings. I even snuck into one of her gallery shows once when I was supposed to be going to the library, and got to see a whole roomful of originals. I was drunk on those paintings for days and stashed the postcard advertising the show with my growing treasure hoard under the floorboards of my room.

And then I started reading Christy Riddell, because he was supposed to be a friend of both Mully and Coppercorn.

I liked his stories, but I especially liked his true-account books of encounters that people have had with things that can’t be explained. They didn’t really have much in the way of beginnings or endings. They were just these mysterious anecdotal vignettes that seemed all the more real because of their lack of traditional story structure.

By the third book of his, he’d bumped Katharine Mully as my favorite writer, and best of all, he was still alive and I could get a new book by him every year or so.

I guess the high point of my life up until I met Imogene was the day he came and gave a talk at the school. It was held in the library and was supposed to be a writers’ workshop as much as a talk about writing, but most of the kids who signed up were just looking for a way to get out of class and weren’t very cooperative. After the second exercise, Christy gave up and just talked to us instead. For most of the scheduled two hours, the other students sat there and rolled their eyes. The rest of the time they stared bored out the window, or whispered and giggled with each other.

The only people actually paying attention to him were me; Ms. Giles, the librarian; and Andrea Joseph, another student, who obviously totally hated the subject matter of his books, but tried to ingratiate herself with him anyway because he was a real published author.

I don’t know where I got the nerve to go up to him with my dog-eared copy of
How to Make the Wind Blow,
but I did. I guess it helped that he was so friendly and unassuming during his talk. He didn’t seem to be so much this big-shot writer, full of himself and the importance of his work, as this sort of older guy with kind eyes who was obviously passionate about his writing, and generous in how he was willing to share his craft with others.

I waited until all the other students were gone and there was just me and Ms. Giles left in the library. She was all hovering at his elbow, like being near him would cause something to rub off on her: talent, fame, I don’t know. It was just weird, and I wished she’d go away. As though reading my mind, Christy looked up to see me hesitate in my approach, then he turned to Ms. Giles.

“Could you give us a couple of moments, please,” he said to her.

“What? Oh, yes. Of course.”

She retreated. Reluctantly, but she went.

“I want to apologize for the other students,” I began, stopping when he shook his head.

“Don’t ever apologize for anyone else,” he said. “You’re only responsible for what you yourself put out into the world.”

“But—”

He smiled. “Don’t worry. My ego’s not so fragile that something like this will leave some great debilitating scar. I do these kinds of talks quite often, and half the time, this is pretty much the way it goes.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“To meet students like you, who do seem interested. On the chance that what I’ve got to share will make a difference to one person.”

That seemed too far beyond the call of duty.

“So do you plan to be a writer?” he asked as he took my copy of
How to Make the Wind Blow
from me.

“I don’t know. I’ve always liked stories, but I feel like I should learn a little bit more about the world before I actually try to write anything.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with a youthful perspective. Don’t forget—no else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.”

“I guess.”

“But remember what I said earlier about listening to advice.”

I nodded. “‘Consider it, but question everything,’” I quoted.

“Exactly,” he said. Then he leaned a little closer to add, “Though the one thing that’s an absolute truth is that writing requires practice, just like any other art or craft. So the sooner you start, the better you’ll be when you do feel you have stories to tell. Write in a journal, if nothing else. Try to do a little bit every day instead of just when you feel like it.”

I nodded again. At that moment, having an actual conversation with this man I’d idolized for ages, I’d agree to anything he said. So much for questioning everything.

And then I did the one thing I’d promised myself I would
definitely
not do if I got the chance to talk to him.

“Mr. Riddell,” I asked, “do you really believe the stories in your books?”

I could have sunk into the floor as those words came out of my mouth. But he only smiled.

“I could give you the pat answer that I normally offer when I’m interviewed,” he said. “It goes something like, ‘It depends on the source. I know for certain that the world’s a strange and mysterious place with more in it than most of us will ever see or experience, so I can’t immediately dismiss elements that are out of the ordinary simply because I haven’t experienced them. But by the same token, I also don’t immediately accept every odd and unusual occurrence when it’s presented to me because the world’s also filled with a lot of weird people with very active imaginations. The trouble is, unless I experience what they have, and for all my predilection toward the whimsical and surreal, the lack of empirical evidence makes a strong argument against belief.”

“But the true answer is yes. I’ve experienced things that can’t be explained, and more than once. And the other important thing to remember is that just because something isn’t necessarily true for you or me, it doesn’t mean it isn’t true for someone else.”

I guess I had a dumb look on my face, because he gave me another smile.

“The thing to remember when you’re writing,” he said, “is, it’s not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It’s whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don’t care what literary devices you might use, or belief systems you tap into—if you can make a story true for a reader, if you can give them a glimpse into another way of seeing the world, or another way that they can cope with their problems, then that story is a success. Does that make sense?”

I nodded. “I don’t really believe in fairies and stuff, but when I read your books, I do, but in a funny way. It’s like, it doesn’t matter if I can see them or not. Just the idea of them being out there is  ...  I don’t know. I want to say comforting, but some of the things you write about make me really uneasy. I guess I just appreciate how when I finish one of your stories I find myself looking at the world in a different way. Everything seems to hold possibilities.”

“A writer couldn’t ask for more,” he told me. “Or at least this writer couldn’t.”

And then he inscribed my book. He wrote,
For Maxine, who appreciates the stories for all the right reasons. May the words flow from your pen when you decide to set them loose, and may your dreams always flourish.

“I do some one-on-one mentoring through the Crowsea Public Library,” he said as he handed me back my book. “And also at the Arts Court run by the Newford Childrens Foundation. If you ever decide to get serious about your writing and want to talk about it some more, come see me.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”

Only I never did. Or at least I haven’t yet. Though maybe I could write about this whole fairies business. Then I could take it to him at the library or the Arts Court and use it as a pretext to pick his brain about them, and dreams like Imogene is having, and dead boys who died because they couldn’t fly the way that fairies do.

I fall asleep wondering about that: where I’d begin, how I’d put it all together, and if I’d even have the nerve to take it to Christy—-just saying I managed to actually write something that wasn’t completely stupid.

It’s long past midnight, but I’m still sitting up, not so much scared to sleep as unwilling to give myself over to the dreams that are coming every night now. You might think, “They’re only dreams; big deal.” But it’s that whole control thing again. I don’t like it that something—my mind, some outside influence, I don’t know what—is deciding how my dreams will go.

It’s not even that I mind seeing Pelly again, though I could do without the creepy gang of fairies and creatures that accompany him. I don’t remember them being like that in my old storybooks. And that weird, off-key toy orchestra can go, too.

But it doesn’t. Nothing does. They keep marching through my dreams, banging their tin and plastic drums, without so much as a hey, do you mind if we?  ...  and I don’t get to say yes or no.

Of course, if I
don’t
fall asleep, then they can’t come, which is why I’m still up.

I sit in a straight-backed wooden chair—the lack of comfort important because it won’t let me nod off too easily—and stare out the window at the narrow view of the alley below. There’s nothing moving down there, just like there’s nothing moving in my room. At least not yet.

I keep coming back to how Pelly’s changed. He’s gone all cryptic on me where he used to be straightforward. But the weird thing is, I get the feeling that there’s something he wants—maybe even
needs
—to tell me, only he can’t seem to come right out and say it.

I hate when conversation becomes a game instead of communication. It’s like that in school. It’s like that everywhere you turn. TV, movies, books. I first ran across it in the fantasy books I used to read as a kid on the commune. It was already old for me by the tenth time I ran across some riddling wizard and his vague warnings. Now it’s ho-hum ancient. If you’ve got something to say, just come out and
say
it. Though in those old stories, that’d kill half the plot, I guess, because instead of the characters having to try to figure out what they’re supposed to do, they could just go and do it.