The Blue Girl (20 page)

After a while I go to the main desk and see that the nice woman is there again today. She has the look of actresses you see in movies made from books by old dead English writers—auburn hair pulled back in a loose bun, a peaches-and-cream complexion, a lightness in her body that makes her seem frail and strong at the same time. She’s my mom’s age, like in her thirties, but, also like my mom, she doesn’t seem as old as, well, you know, old people usually are. “Excuse me, Ms.,” I say.

She looks up and smiles. “I remember you. Are you here to see Christy again?”

I shake my head. “I’m doing some research and I’m kind of at a loss as to where to begin.”

“What’s your project about?”

“You know how in the old days people used to believe in fairies and stuff like that? I’m looking into how they’d protect themselves from the fairies, but I don’t really know what book to start with. There’s just so many fairy-tale books on your shelves.”

“It’s not just in the old days,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“There are still people who believe in fairies.”

Oh, great, I think. And you’re going to be one of them. Though maybe that won’t be so bad. Maybe that means she’ll know exactly where to steer me.

“Um, right,” I say.

“But between you and me,” she says, “though it’s sweet, it doesn’t really make much sense if you stop and think about it.”

“Why not?” I find myself saying, even though up to a day or so ago I would have been in total agreement with her.

“Well, think about it. If there were such things as fairies, don’t you think we’d
know
for sure by now? News travels instantly, from all over the world. If there was proof anywhere, wouldn’t the news services be all over it in an instant?”

“I guess.”

“But that doesn’t stop people from believing.”

I nod. “And so for the people who do believe, what do they use to protect themselves. Or what did they use?”

“I’m not sure. But you won’t find the answer in fairytale books. You have to look past the fiction into fairy folklore, and we have any number of books on the subject.”

She does something on her computer, fingers tapping the keyboard with enviable speed.

The printer hums from somewhere below the desk. When she bends down to get at it, head turned slightly, I catch a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of her neck. It’s a small fish, in blue and black ink. It’s funny, but I just never thought of librarians as having tattoos.

“Here we go,” she says, straightening up. She hands me a sheet of paper filled with book titles. “This should give you a start. They re up on the second floor in the reference section.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want me to show you?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“My name’s Hilary,” she says. “If you need a hand with anything else, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

“I won’t. Thanks again.”

So back upstairs I go, this time armed with a reference sheet. I track down the first few books on the list Hilary printed up for me and take them over to a chair and start to read.

I spend the day haunting the halls of Redding High, trying to decide whom I’m going to offer up to the soul-eaters in place of Imogene. It ought to be easy, but there are so many people I don’t like in this place, so many who think they’re better than everybody else, or who rag on people who aren’t cool or popular. Or both. And even the ones who aren’t strong enough to be bullies  ...  I don’t doubt that, given the chance, they wouldn’t be any different from the jerks who are making their lives miserable right now.

I know I would have. I wouldn’t have picked on the kids weaker than me, but the bullies ... they’re a whole other matter. I’d still like to give them a taste of what they did.

It kind of makes me glad that I’m not alive, because I find that, in general, I don’t much like people anymore. The faces are mostly different from when I went here, but they might as well be the same kids and teachers. Truth is, except for the fact that I’m dead, nothing s really changed. Because now I’m avoiding the fairies, and with Imogene mad at me, I’m still just wandering these halls totally on my own.

Always being the guy no one likes really sucks.

But at least I can’t be hurt anymore. Or at least not physically hurt, since I don’t have a body But I do have a big ache in my heart because of how things are going with Imogene. Not that they were actually going anywhere before this. Let’s face it, I’m dead and she’s not, and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for a relationship. But at least she used to come talk to me. Or she’d wink at me when she passed me in the halls. Today she left school right after homeroom, and I knew it had to be because of me.

I guess I don’t blame her. She’s obviously upset by these dreams that Tommery’s sending her. She’d totally lose it if she knew about the soul-eaters. Not that getting mad at me is going to do her any good.

I wish I’d kept my mouth shut instead of getting Tommery to work on making her see that he and the rest of the fairies are real.

What difference does it make if she doesn’t believe me? At least before this she was still talking to me.

I find myself drifting into the cafeteria. A noisy table by the windows catches my attention. It’s Brent Calder and his buddies, laughing at some kid Jerry Fielder tripped. The kid’s on the floor and trying not to cry, his lunch spilled all over his pants and the tiles around him.

I guess I knew all along whom I’d choose—I mean, it’s so obvious. Who better than the jerk who gave Imogene such a hard time when I first saw her?

Calder’s not so different from Eric Woodrow, who’d made it his own personal crusade to ensure that my life was as miserable as it could be back when I was at Redding. Guys like that deserve to have their souls eaten.

I leave the cafeteria so that I don’t have to watch the kid on the floor and his misery.

All I have to do now is figure out how to divert the soul-eaters’ attention from Imogene to Calder.

I check for fairies when I get back to the school—remembering what Pelly told me last night about how I was supposed to be able to see them now—but everything’s the same: the usual gangs of kids in the halls, the odd solitary teacher looking harried or grumpy. It’s got to be a tough and thankless gig, and I wonder, not for the first time, why they take it on.

But no fairies. No ghost either, for that matter.

Then I try what I’d read in one of the library’s books, about how you can see magical creatures more easily from the corner of your eye. When I give that a shot, sure enough, there they are. It’s not like I can suddenly see packs of them, running around the halls; just occasional glimpses of strange little men with Rasta hair and raggedy clothes. It’s not much, but it’s enough to let me know that they’re really here.

I pretend not to have seen anything, and I don’t mention it to Maxine either. I simply go to my last couple of classes, then take Maxine to one of the cafes on Williamson Street. I figure we need to have our war council in a public place, somewhere busy enough that the fairies won’t be around. I check from the corners of my eyes as we place our orders, then carry our drinks to the table, but we seem to be in a fairy-free zone.

“Okay,” I say once we’re sitting down, “the first thing is we’re not supposed to call them ‘fairies.’ Apparently it ticks them off, so we need to refer to them as ‘the Little People’ or ‘the Good Neighbors’ from now on.”

Maxine nods. “I’ve read that.”

“And when you do talk about them, you’re supposed to start off saying ‘Today is’—and you stick in whatever the day of the week is—‘and the fairies won’t hear us,’ which frankly I find confusing, because what does it matter what day of the week it is? And you’re using the no-no word at the same time.”

“That’s a new one for me. Where’d you get that?”

I look at my notes, but I didn’t mark down what books I got what from, and there’s nothing else there to clue me in.

“I don’t remember,” I say. “Actually, a lot of this is confusing. Supposedly iron wards them off, but the ones that have taken up living in urban centers have developed an immunity to it. Which begs the question, why haven’t they developed immunity to any of the other stuff that’s been around for as long or longer?”

“Like what?”

I consult my notes. “Wearing your clothes inside out. Carrying bread when you go out—supposedly they’ll take it instead of a person, or it can be used to bribe them or something. And it can scare them off if the bread’s been blessed or looks like a host.”

“You mean like the wafers they use in Mass?”

I shrug. “I guess. I’m not a Catholic.”

“Me, neither. It just seems that a loaf of bread would be a lot bigger than a host.”

“Whatever. Also, if it’s got salt in it, that can also ward them off because apparently they don’t like salt.” I look back at my notes. “You can also carry coins to give them.” Maxine giggles. “What? They’re also panhandlers?”

I smile with her. “Apparently. Oh, and to finish with the salt—when you’ve been in contact with fairies, drinking some salt water can help break their hold on you.”

“Yuck.”

“Well, yeah. Then there’s throwing a stone when you think there are fairies around.”

“You mean like at them?”

I shake my head. “No, you throw the stone and then ask the wind to drive them away.”

“Weird.”

“Everything about this is weird. Anyway, leaving food out for them gets you on their good side. Milk or cream and sweet stuff like honey or molasses or cakes cooked without salt in them, only don’t scrimp on the sugar. You’re supposed to avoid fairy paths—”

“What do they look like?”

“I don’t know. None of the books said. I guess you’re just supposed to know. You’re also not supposed to whistle or hum, because music draws them. So does wearing the color red.”

“That knotwork tattoo on the small of your back has a lot of red in it.”

I nod. “But if I wear a shirt and tuck it in, they won’t see it, right? I think you’re just not supposed to be obvious about the red.”

“I suppose. Is there a color that they don’t like?”

“Blue.”

“Maybe you should dye your hair again, like you did this summer.”

I smile. “But it was a little unclear, in the book where I found that anti-blue reference, if it meant fairies or some other kind of spirit. And I couldn’t find a mention of it anywhere else. A lot of the material is like that, actually—in one text, but not in another. And then there’s all this religious stuff that I don’t get, because haven’t fairies been around since forever, while Christianity’s just a couple of thousand years old?”

“Not if you believe that God created the world in the first place. He’d have always been around; it’s just the religions that would have changed.”

“I suppose.”

“So what’s the religious stuff?” she asks.

“Making the sign of the cross or putting a cross in your window. Also calling on God or Jesus or the saints. Some of the books say it drives them off; some say it just annoys them.”

“You sure you didn’t stray into vampire research?”

“Ha-ha. There’s a bunch more. Carrying oatmeal in your pocket when you go out at night, preferably with some salt in it.”

“Cooked or just the oat flakes?”

“Uncooked, I assume. Twigs of rowan are also good— do we even
have
rowan trees growing around here?”

“It’s another name for the mountain ash.”

“Oh, right.” I look back at my notes again. “And there was something in one book about sprinkling stale ‘urin’ on your house’s doors and windows to ward them off.”

“You mean pee? Like dogs marking their territory?”

“I don’t know. It was spelled U-R-I-N, and I couldn’t find another reference to it.”

“Gross.”

“I know. Coals are also good, or throwing a handful of embers from a fire, though how you’re supposed to pick up a handful, it didn’t say.”

Maxine smiles. “I’m sure they mean with a little shovel or something—like the kind people use to scoop up ashes.”

“I knew that.” I set my notes aside and look at her. “So how does this relate to the stuff you know from the stories you read?”