Thresholds (2 page)

She felt guilty being in a new place, too. Stephanie was nowhere in this new/old house, except in the photographs Maya had put on her dresser, in a few sketches Maya had tacked to the wall, and in the celadon pottery bowl on the desk, full of rough garnets Maya and Stephanie had found in a creek in northern Idaho on a camping trip.

Maya felt herself letting go of Stephanie sometimes. Mom said that was a good thing, but it felt like a betrayal.

“If no one remembers her, it’ll be like she was never here,” Maya told her mother.

“You’re not going to forget, and neither are we. Neither is her family. She won’t be erased, honey.” Mom had hugged Maya.

Sometimes Maya believed her.

The curtains fluttered. A winged shadow flickered across the orange patch, the largest moth Maya had ever seen.

Or was it a moth? Maya heard a hummingbird hum of wings, and tiny, distant jingling noises, like glass wind chimes. She smelled a spicy cinnamon/carnation scent.

Not a moth.

A fairy.

It hovered, gilded in orange light, its wings a blur of motion. It came to rest on the dresser next to the picture of Maya and Stephanie at five, riding ponies at the county fair. It was about eight inches tall, dark skinned, slender, and smooth, an elongated human shape with bunches of wings fanning out from its back. The wings didn’t look like angels’ or dragon-flies’ or bats’—more like feather dusters.

Maya closed her eyes, wondering if she was dreaming the strange small shadowy shape, its face and form half lit by the streetlamp, iridescence blurring its wings. She opened her eyes quickly, afraid the vision would be gone. Who cared if it was a dream? She could study it. She could draw it. Her hand edged toward the sketchpad she kept on her bedside table.

If only Stephanie were here to see. All their lives they had longed for magic, and finally, when it was too late, here it was. Maya’s throat tightened.

She could draw it, the way she had been drawing everything—keeping a record for someone who would never see it. But what if she startled the fairy, and it left? She stilled.

The fairy turned its face toward her, sliding into shadow. Its eyes had a faint orange-yellow glow. It blinked. Maya held her breath.

It made a small purring sound that ended in a question mark.

Its wings beat faster. It lifted from the dresser and came toward the bed.

Maya froze. The spicy scent grew stronger, and the windchimey sounds. She heard the fluttering beat of its wings.

It landed on her bed with a less-than-graceful thump, then stalked across the bumpy chenille bedspread toward her, its head turning, its large glowing eyes scanning Maya’s sideways form under the blanket, a mountain range to something the size of a fairy, or at least a chain of hills.

Maya couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She let it out slowly and opened her mouth to suck in more spicy-tasting air, even though she was afraid she’d scare the fairy away.

It paused. She heard a sniffing sound. Its wings rustled.

Then it stepped closer and leaned against her stomach. It groomed its wings, settled them so they were folded tight like collapsed fans against its back, knelt, turned around three times with muffled jingling, and curled into a ball. It sighed a tiny sigh and went to sleep.

It made a small warm weight against her stomach. Maya stared and stared, telling her hands to remember the sights her eyes collected. Nothing else happened.

Trapped by her desire to keep the fairy near her, afraid to move, Maya lay tense, but eventually she couldn’t keep her body locked up any longer. She relaxed. The fairy stayed still.

Maya fell asleep.

Maya woke with
a start. Sunlight spotted the floor, and her alarm was about to go off.

She sat up, switched off the alarm, and searched for the fairy. It was gone. A glittering imprint on the fuzzy chenille bedspread was all that was left.

Maya grabbed her pad and pencil and went to work, outlining as many views of the fairy as she could remember: It hovered in the air, its wings quick scattered strokes. It stood in half-light by the photos on the dresser. It curled like a kitten against her stomach.

After she had four pages of fairy sketches, she pressed her hand against the golden dust on her bedspread. Her palm tingled. She lifted it and looked at the pale glow. Proof that she hadn’t dreamed it? Or just dust?

She rubbed her palms against each other and stared down at her gleaming, tingling hands. Nobody would believe this. Her seventeen-year-old sister Candra was too logical. Ten-year-old Peter . . . he might believe, but what would he do about it? He loved catching things—tadpoles, frogs, lizards, snakes, grasshoppers—anything he could put in a jar with airholes punched through the top. He might haunt her room, hoping for another fairy visit. No. She wasn’t ready to share such an awesome secret with Peter the Pest.

Her practical parents? Forget it. They’d been telling her and Stephanie “There’s no such thing as . . .” since she was three.

Stephanie would have understood. Maya went to her dresser and looked at the most recent photo of Stephanie she had, Steph’s last school picture before she got sick. That freckled smile, so wide. “Guess what,” Maya whispered. Stephanie’s smile didn’t change.

A flash of anger shot through Maya. She turned away. This was a secret she could hug to herself, a charm to carry through the day ahead.

She went back to the bed and sat beside the gold-dusted spot on the bedspread. She touched one hand to the hollow of her throat, transferring the skin-buzzing sensation there. Then she wiped both hands through the remaining dust on the bedspread and brushed one hand across the best page she’d drawn. The dust tinted her images of the fairy with gold. She lifted the book to her nose and sniffed. That spicy cinnamon/carnation scent. Was fairy dust the fairy equivalent of human sweat? Much more fun to play with, anyway, and definitely better smelling.

Knocks sounded on her door. “Maya!” cried Peter. “Mom sent me to wake you up! Why can’t you use an alarm clock like everybody else? We’re almost done with breakfast!” He opened the door and came in. “Oh, good. You’re awake. Get up!”

“You
know
I hate it when you open the door before I say come in!” She glanced toward the clock. It was seven thirty, and she was due at school by eight fifteen. “Gah,” she cried, erupting from her bed and scattering sketchbook and pencils on the floor. “Get out of here!”

Peter left, slamming the door behind him.

Maya went to the chair where she had laid out her clothes for the first day of school: underwear, socks, jeans, an orange T-shirt that darkened to red at the hem, and a gray hoodie with purple lining. She slithered out of her nightgown and into the clothes, then stuffed her sketchpad and pencils into the prepacked backpack with all her other school supplies. She dashed downstairs.

The new kitchen was big enough for Mom and Dad to both stand in front of the stove at once. Their old kitchen had been tiny and dark and couldn’t hold more than three people at the same time. There was a table in the new kitchen that three kids and two parents could sit at without jamming elbows.

Sully, their golden retriever, lay on the floor by the freezer. He thumped his tail twice when Maya arrived.

Maya’s brother and sister sat at the table, eating. She and her siblings had the same coloring: silver-blond hair and seawater gray-green eyes. In that, they resembled their father. Candra was tall and thin like their father, but Peter and Maya were shorter and denser, like their mom, who looked solid and strong. Mom’s hair was light brown, and she had maple syrup-colored eyes and a strong, square face.

“Oatmeal or scrambled eggs?” Mom asked Maya as Maya sat at the table.

“Oatmeal, please.”

Mom scooped up a bowlful and set it in front of Maya. “Eat fast,” she said. “You’re later than usual today.”

“I had this dream—”

“Eat,” said Candra. “Don’t talk. You want to make Mom and Dad late on their first day?”

Maya dumped brown sugar, raisins, and milk on her oatmeal, then shoveled it in her mouth.

Dad set a brown bag, its top folded over, next to her bowl. “Lunch,” he said. “From now on, you’re responsible for making your own lunch, all right?”

“Thanks, Dad.” She stuffed the lunch into her backpack. “Hey, squirt,” she said to Peter, “thanks for getting me up.”

“Yeah. Okay for today, but you gotta take care of yourself now, Maya.”

“I know,” she said.

“Have a great first day, everyone,” Dad said. “You ready, Candra?”

Candra rose and put on her black leather jacket and her pack. She followed Dad out.

Peter stood up in a rush, gave Sully a big hug, and grabbed his pack. “Do you think my teacher will have animals, Mom?”

“I know he will. I’ve already seen your classroom.” Maya’s mother turned to her. “Lock the door when you go out. This isn’t small-town Idaho. Take care of yourself, sweetie. See you after school.” She herded Peter out the back door toward the car.

Maya was heading to school by herself for the first time. Hoover Middle School was close enough to walk to. She felt strange and forlorn, alone in the new house, abandoned by everybody except Sully, who was scarfing up something someone had dropped on the floor—with any luck, food. Sully had a history of inappropriate eating, with subsequent throwing up in inconvenient and newly slippery places.

Last year, B.C.—Before Cancer—Stephanie had spent the night at Maya’s before the first day of school. They had headed to sixth grade together the next morning, wearing matching black headbands with crystal stars on them, and when they got to their classroom, they knew all the other kids already. “It’s the witch twins,” one of the kids said, and other kids laughed. So did Stephanie. “Watch it,” Stephanie had said, “or I’ll put spells on you all!”

Maya let Sully slurp up the dregs of her oatmeal before she put him in the backyard with a big bowl of water for the day. She left the house by the front door, letting it lock behind her before she checked her pockets and discovered she hadn’t remembered her key.

By the time she got home, someone else would be there, probably Mom and Peter, and they could let her in.

Sully barked from the backyard as Maya headed down the street past the Janus House Apartments. She barked back. Just then, three kids slammed out of the Janus’s big front door.

A tall girl
and boy led the way across the front porch, followed by a shorter boy. Maya hoped they hadn’t heard her barking at her dog.

Stephanie would have laughed at Maya if she were here. She never cared what other people thought.

“You are such a
scrunt
,” the tall, dark boy said to the girl as they came closer, “such a
smitch
! When will you ever learn?”

“Shut up,” the girl said. She had long, curly, dark brown hair and an oval face with dark brows, blue eyes, and a generous mouth. Her skin was pale. She wore a black spiderweb shawl over an embroidered blouse, a ruffly maroon calf-length skirt, and tall red boots. She had a tapestry bag slung over one shoulder. A charm bracelet dangled from her right wrist. She looked more like somebody off on a quest in a fairy tale than a middle school student.

She was frowning. Maya wondered what her smile would look like.

Maya’s fingers itched to draw her.

“How could you screw up at a time like this?” asked the tall boy in a mean voice. “Haven’t you been watching the message traffic? Something big and bad is going on. We have to be extra careful right now.”

The tall boy wore black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt. His straight, ragged, black hair hung down to his shoulders and covered half his face. The part of his face Maya could see looked caramel brown and handsome, but frowny. The eye she could see was honey brown.

Maya wanted to draw him too, for different reasons.

“How could you leave the door open with a traveler in the tea room?” he asked.

“I went to get her some nectar,” said the gypsy girl. “I didn’t know she’d leave.”

The shorter boy’s skin was the gold of onion skins. He was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt and a big black and red backpack. He looked way too normal to live at Janus House. He saw Maya and nudged the other boy. “Hey,” he said.

“Never leave the door to the tea room open!” the tall boy repeated. “Don’t you know your basic wards? What’s the matter with you?”

“Leave me alone.” The girl shifted her shoulders, turning her face away from him. “I made a mistake. I get it. We found her again. Give me a break!”

The shorter boy tugged the taller one’s sleeve. “Hey,” he said, a little louder.

“At a time like this, when things are missing and nobody knows where, when everybody’s already worried, you can’t make stupid mistakes,” the taller boy went on. “She was gone for hours!”

“Hey, Rowan,
shut up
,” said the shorter boy.

Rowan brushed the hair out of his face and gave the shorter boy a glare. The shorter boy jerked his head toward Maya.

Rowan looked up. Saw Maya. Glared some more, this time at her. She could almost feel the heat in his gaze.

“Hi, there,” Maya said. She finger-waved.

The girl smiled at her as the three of them came closer. Nice smile. Maya felt a sudden rush of hope. Maybe she’d found a new friend. Just as quickly, she felt a rush of shame. She already had a best friend . . . well, no, not anymore.

“Hello,” said the gypsy girl. “We were just talking about pet mice.”

Mice? Nectar for mice? A tea room for mice?

Maya’s heart beat faster. She realized they had been discussing a missing person, and they wanted to keep it quiet.

What if their missing person was . . . her fairy? The nectar would fit, but she wasn’t sure about the tea room. Or the big and bad thing, or things missing. If they
were
talking about her fairy, what else might they believe in or know about?