The Blue Girl (19 page)

I’m starting to nod off when the closet door opens. There’s a long, squeaky creak, then the door swings silently toward me, cutting off my view of Imogene and the bed.

My first thought is that Jared hid in there while we were in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and I plan to tell him just how not funny I think this is, because my pulse doubled in tempo at that first creak and it’s not slowing down yet. But then I hear the music Imogene told me about, and everything inside me goes weirdly still, like I’m a held-in breath. The music’s just like she described it—the sound of a toy orchestra, muted and quiet, like it’s coming from another room—but it’s indescribable, too. Eerie and impossible, unless  ...

I start wondering about a little tape recorder with a cheap speaker when the fairies come into sight.

Real fairies. Diminutive creatures, half of which seem to be made of twigs and vines and bundled grasses. Wildhaired, wild-eyed. Some with animal features, some just plain ugly, some heart-stoppingly beautiful, but with something not
right.
Something not human.

I shrink back into the chair, trying to hide with nothing to hide behind, but they ignore me. I stare wide-eyed as three of them jump up onto the sill and muscle the window open, then they all stream out onto the fire escape and into the night.

I feel at that moment like I did when I first got my period—flushed and weak and sick. And scared. I mean, I knew there’d be blood, but there seemed to be way too much of it, and I just kind of freaked.

This is like that, too. I’ve wanted to believe in fairies forever. I’ve half convinced myself that I do. But when I see them actually show up in Imogene’s bedroom, it’s not the same. All of a sudden the world is bigger and stranger, and I realize I don’t know anything about it. Not really. No one does. If all these experts can claim to know so much about all the things they go on about, but fairies aren’t in their equation, then what else are they missing?

But that’s not what I’m thinking right at that moment, or at least not clearly. I feel like I’m going to faint. The chair seems all spongy. Any minute I could be swallowed by the floor.

I hear voices talking, but I can’t concentrate on what they’re saying. It’s taking all my concentration to just stay
here.
I close my eyes tight and grip either side of the chair’s seat and hold on.

I don’t know how long I’m like this, but it feels like a long time. A
really
long time.

“Maxine ... Maxine  ...”

I hear my name, but it seems to be coming from far away. Someone seems to be touching me. I open my eyes and a hundred Imogenes do a slow spin in front of me. I start to feel sick again, my eyes rolling back in my head.

“I  ...  I  ...”

Can’t speak, I want to say. Can’t hardly breathe, but the words won’t come out.

“Put your head between your legs,” those hundreds of faces tell me in one voice, and that just makes me feel dizzier. “Here, let me help you.”

Someone—Imogene?—helps me lower my head.

The next thing I know, I’m stretched out on Imogene’s bed and she’s sitting beside me, holding a cool washcloth against my brow She’s got this worried expression on her face that lightens when she realizes I’m awake and looking at her.

“Way to go, Chancy,” she says. “Give me a heart attack, why don’t you?”

I start to sit up but I don’t seem to have any strength. Imogene tries to keep me lying down, but then gives up and helps me rest against the headboard with a couple of pillows behind me.

“What ... what happened?” I ask.

“I thought you could tell me.”

And then I remember.

“There ... there were  ...”

Just remembering makes me feel all weird again, but I force myself to deal with it.

“Fairies,” I manage to say. “I think—no, I for sure saw your fairies.”

Imogene doesn’t even look surprised. Instead, she looks kind of mad.

“What did they do to you?” she asks.

“I ... they didn’t do anything. I kind of did this to myself. I saw them and I just wigged out.”

“So they didn’t hurt you.”

“I don’t think they even saw me. But I sure saw them.”

I can see her relax. It’s funny, I keep forgetting how she can slip into this Mother Bear mode. It usually only happens when someone’s being mean to me at school, and even then I think I’m the only one that sees it. She’s so determined not to make waves.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “You’re the one who’s been telling me to keep an open mind about them.”

Just talking is making me feel more like myself, even talking about all of this. I guess it’s true: people can get used to anything.

“Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it?” I say. “You’re all calm, and I’m totally freaked.” I give her a closer look. “
Why
are you all calm?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just ... Pelly, I guess. He used to be real to me, and now I guess he really is real.” She grins. “And isn’t that being articulate?”

“Which one was Pelly?”

“How could you miss him? He was the tall one that was talking to me by the bed.”

“I never saw him. I lost it when that whole gang of fairies went out the window.”

So she tells me what he had to say, and that brings my nervousness back again, only this time I’m trying to see past her into the shadows. Because I totally buy into the danger. After all, I’ve seen the fairies.

“So what do we do?” I ask, hoping she doesn’t have some mad plan to go confront the danger head-on.

But she only gives me another shrug.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I have to think about it. Do some research.”

“What kind of research?”

“Well, now that we know they’re real, it’s time to find out what can hurt them.” I guess she sees something in my face because she quickly adds, “Just to get them off our case.”

And that makes me feel weird all over again. Because she’s right. Now I’m a part of this, too. What happened to me tonight has put me with her right out here on the edge of how the world’s supposed to be.

I just wish I felt as brave as she seems to be.

Maxine’s too nervous to go to sleep until I finally convince her that we’re safe enough for now because Pelly’s drawn off whatever nasty beasties might have been lurking in the shadows. I know it’s not exactly true, but I don’t
feel
a presence in the dark corners of my room—malevolent or otherwise—and she can’t argue with me because she never really heard the conversation I had with him. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it right now, and she needs her sleep because she’s getting way too worked up.

We talk a little more, her voice getting sleepier and sleepier, until she drifts off, and then it’s only me who’s still awake, and I’m only up because my brain’s too busy, not because I’m worried about the shadows.

I sit with my back against the headboard, Maxine stretched out beside me, and try to think of where to start.

I know I have to go into serious research mode, but how do you seriously research something that everybody else thinks is make-believe?

I fall asleep like that, still sitting up, and have the worst crick in my neck when I wake up the next morning.

*    *    *

I decided that it was pointless to ask any adults for help, mostly because the few in my life aren’t exactly poster people for this kind of problem. I mean, my teachers are right out—I can just imagine the looks I’d get—and ditto with Maxine’s mother. My dad would probably have all kinds of advice, but the trouble with him is it’d be coming to me through a veil of whatever he’s smoking today, and while that can be funny, it’s not particularly useful. Mom would be better, but she has no interest in mythology or fairy tales beyond how she can co-opt them into some anti-corporate, the-patriarchy-sucks rant that has nothing to do with my problem.

There’s always Christy Riddell, of course. Maxine said he was the first person we should talk to about this, but I find myself wanting to use him as a last resort, if at all. I don’t know why. He seems smart and kind and levelheaded and  ...  well, if I’m going to be honest, more interested in the anthropological listings of strange creatures and their habits than in helping anyone get them
out
of their life. And I feel that I’m more likely to end up as a case study in a book than actually have my problem solved.

But last night I murmured a halfhearted agreement with Maxine about contacting him, and repeat it this morning, though first, I tell her, I want to do a little research on my own.

“But he can probably tell us everything we need to know,” she says, “right off the top of his head.”

“I know. I just need to figure some stuff out ... you know, with Pelly and Adrian and everything. This is pretty complicated.”

“I guess.”

“And if I haven’t got what I need by the end of the day, we’ll try to get in to see him.”

“I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t go see him first.”

“I’m not so comfortable with that,” I have to tell her.

“But why not? He’s the expert.”

“He’s the expert on writing this kind of thing up and then sticking it in a book. I can’t believe we already told him as much as we did.”

“He said he’d change our names.”

“That’s not the point,” I say. “It’s still our story, not his. Maybe we don’t want it in a book, even with the names changed. At least I don’t.”

“We could ask him to not use it.”

I nod, though I didn’t get the sense that Christy was the sort of person who’d let a good story go.

“I just want to try a couple of other things first,” I say. I stand up from the bed to go downstairs, then turn to look at her from the doorway. “You know, I can’t count the weird shit on one hand anymore. Ghosts, fairies, imaginary childhood companions, these things in the shadows ... .Do you see where all of this is going?”

Maxine shakes her head.

“Neither do I,” I say “I just know it’s out of control.” Then I go downstairs.

*    *    *

Before Maxine and I leave for school, I ask Mom to write a note for me excusing me from classes for the morning. Were alone in the kitchen at the time. Jared’s still catching the last possible moments of sleep before he has to get up, while Maxine’s taking a shower.

“A note,” Mom says with this odd look on her face.

I nod. “I need to do some research in the school library and maybe at the Crowsea Public Library.”

But then I realize what the look on her face is all about. She’s thinking, When has this wild child of hers ever asked for permission to skip school?

“You know, Imogene,” she says, “I couldn’t be happier about last year’s grades and your new dedication to learning and school and fitting in, but I have to ask: are you doing this for yourself—because it’s what
you
want—or to please me or somebody else? Because you know I’ll support you in whatever you choose to do with your life.”

I can’t imagine anyone else’s parents coming out with that kind of thing—for sure not Maxine’s mother—but Mom’s always been big on treating Jared and me as individuals. She insists that we talk stuff through—and let me tell you, we had a lot of talks back in Tyson—but the weird thing is, she really doesn’t judge. She’ll point out what’s against the law, what’s morally wrong, where she thinks we’re making mistakes with our life choices and why, but she also supports us one hundred percent, even when we’re doing things that other parents might frown at. Like when Jared and I started our junk business. Or my skipping school the way I used to—“I’m learning more on the street,” I used to tell her. Yeah, like how to be a complete loser. But it didn’t seem like that at the time.

Still, I understand her question. I guess she thinks I’m doing this for Maxine, which maybe in part I am, but only because Maxine’s shown me that it’s not such a bad thing to do well. Truth is, my going feral in Tyson had more to do with me trying to please Frankie and his gang than it had to do with me. I don’t know that this new improved me is the real me either, but at least she’s not in trouble all the time. It’s kind of a relief to not have to deal with the constant fallout of my life. Though now I’ve got a whole new set of problems to deal with.

I don’t get into any of that with Mom.

“I think I’m doing it for me,” I say instead. “At least it feels like it.”

She smiles. “Well, just remember. Do what you have to do, only—”

“Don’t hurt anybody else while you’re doing it,” I finish for her.

“While you’re doing what?” Maxine asks, coming into the kitchen on the tail end of our conversation.

She has a towel wrapped around her head, which makes her look wonderfully exotic.

“Whatever it is that you do,” I tell her.

“Who wants breakfast?” Mom asks.

*    *    *

At school, armed with my mother’s note, I leave Maxine and head for the library. There’s really not much there, so I grab my jacket from my locker and walk over to the Crowsea Public Library, where I have the opposite problem. Here there are shelves upon shelves of books on fairy tales, myths, and folklore. I stand in front of them for a long moment, reading the titles on the spines, not knowing where to start. And of course I’m painfully aware of Christy in his office, although hopefully he’s not aware of me.