Ballad (6 page)

Nuala

If just for a moment to belong

To be caught in the wondrous net of family

Would it be untrue or wrong

To say ‘I live here; this is home,’ so earnestly?

—
from
Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

Watching James come out to rescue Dee behind the dorm put me in a bad mood. I got tired of watching her boohoo-ness really fast, and decided to go to the movie theater instead. If I was going to be witness to that amount of melodrama, I wanted it to be delivered by a highly paid and beautiful head on a big screen. On the walk over to the theater, I thought of the multitude of things I didn’t like about Dee. While I waited in line for a ticket—not that I really needed a ticket—I wondered if she practiced her sad faces in a mirror. Or if she was just a natural at invoking sympathy in male types. Not something I really had talent for myself.

The kid at the ticket counter looked bored. “Which movie?”

“Surprise me,” I told him, and waved money at him.

It took him a moment to figure out what I meant. “Seriously?”

“Serious as death.”

He raised his eyebrows, punched something into the computer, and then gave me an evil grin that made me think fondly on the human race in general. He handed me a ticket, face down. “Go right. Second theater. Have fun.”

I rewarded him with a smile and headed down the dim carpeted hall. It smelled of popcorn butter, carpet cleaner, and that other odor that always seemed to invade theaters—anticipation, or something. In such familiar surroundings, my brain returned to its previous preoccupation: things that I hated about Dee.

One, her eyes were too big. She looked like an alien.

I counted the doors to the second theater and resisted the temptation to look up at the sign above the door to see what movie Ticket-Boy had chosen for me.

Two, her voice was pretty at first, but it got annoying fast. If I wanted to hear singing, I’d get a CD.

Inside the theater, it was quiet and fairly empty—only two or three other couples. Maybe that wicked grin from Ticket-Boy was because he had sent me to a dud.

Three, she used James to make herself feel better. It was the sort of attribute I only liked for me to have.

I chose a seat in the dead center of the theater and put my feet up on the chair in front of me. It was the perfect seat. If anyone came in and sat in front of me, I’d kill them.

Four, she fit in James’ arms too perfectly. Like she’d been there before. Like she was claiming him.

The trailers boomed to life in front of me. Normally I would’ve basked in them, enjoyed the promise of movies to come, but I couldn’t focus on them tonight. For starters, I wouldn’t be around for any of the movies they were advertising—they were all for the Christmas season and next year—and plus, I was rehearsing dialogue in my head for next time I saw James.

“Unrequited love,” I’d say. He’d look at me sideways in that cunning way he did and say, “What about it?” and I’d reply, “It’s just not your color.” Pithy. Just to show him that I’d noticed. Or maybe I’d show myself to
her
and say, “Guess I’m not the only one who uses humans around here.” And then I’d summon some of Owain’s hounds to chew off the bottom bits of her legs. Then she wouldn’t fit just right into his arms. She’d be too short. It’d be like hugging a midget.

I grinned in the theater.

The movie began with a sweeping rock ballad from the ’70s and a helicopter shot of New York City. The guitar work was inspired—I wondered if I’d had anything to do with it. It quickly became apparent that Ticket-Boy had sent me to a romantic comedy. Not really my thing, but at least it would take my mind off James and the song he’d played for me earlier. It was unbearable to think I might never hear it played out loud again. I was getting a crush on it.

For a half hour, I tried to get into the movie but I couldn’t. It was cutesy, and they kissed, and there was lovey music. And I started thinking how I would fit into James’ arms, if my head would fit just right under his chin like Dee’s had. And then I started thinking about his car, how it had smelled like him, and I imagined that smell clinging to my skin.

Crap.

I got up and pushed my way out of the theater. I didn’t stop to talk to Ticket-Boy, although I felt his eyes on me. He probably thought I hated the movie. Maybe I had. I walked straight out into the twilight. The rain had stopped; thunder growled far away. I headed down the rain-slicked sidewalk, fast, as if I could put space between me and my thoughts.

It wasn’t like there hadn’t been tension of the sexual variety between me and my pupils before—the guys, poor little lambs, almost always wanted to get my clothing off, which just made them work harder and sound all the more beautiful.

But it wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I wasn’t human.

I was so caught up in myself that I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until the street lights flickered around me, guttering and flickering like candles before shining brightly again. Whoever—whatever—it was, it wouldn’t do to look cowed, so I kept walking along the sidewalk as if I hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was only a solitary faerie who would leave me alone.

My hopes disappeared when I heard voices, distantly, and saw two faeries approaching me on the sidewalk. My stomach flopped over in a hollow kind of way, an unfamiliar sensation. Nerves.

It was the queen.

Before she had been queen—before the previous queen had been ripped into pieces—Eleanor always wore white. The white had lent her pale gold hair more color. Now that she was queen, Eleanor wore green according to the oldest traditions, and her long hair looked nearly white under the streetlights. Tonight’s dress was of course a thing of freakin’ beauty, deep green-black with golden rings and spangles stitched into the sleeves and into the high collar that covered her long neck and framed her chin. Some sort of jewels glittered at me from her train, which dragged on the sidewalk behind her. Unlike the previous queen, Eleanor didn’t wear a crown—only a small circlet of pearls that shone dully like baby teeth.

She was so beautiful that it ached. Was this what James felt when he saw me?

Eleanor saw me and laughed, terrible and lovely. The person beside her was not a faerie, as I’d first thought, but rather her consort, the man from the dance. He smiled at me with one corner of his mouth and looked back at Eleanor. He was very human; fragile and stolen and in love.

“Ah, little whore,” Eleanor said, pleasantly. “By what name are you called this time?”

I’d heard the word too many times before to flinch. I tilted my chin up, defiant. “You’d ask me to say my name where anyone could have it?” After I said it, I regretted it. I waited for the obvious comeback, heard a thousand times before:
Anyone could have the rest of you.

But Eleanor just smiled at me, benevolent; with wonder, I thought perhaps she hadn’t meant “whore” as an insult, merely as a title. Then she spoke. “Not your true name, faerie. What does your current boy call you?”

James had said no to me, so saying “Nuala” was technically a lie. I couldn’t lie any more than Eleanor could, so I was forced into telling the truth. “I don’t have anyone at the moment.”

Eleanor’s pity burned like a slap. “Feeling quite weak, are you, poor dear?”

“I’m fine. He only died a few months ago.”

Her consort frowned, his thoughts drifting toward me, wondering if he should be politely expressing grief. Eleanor inclined her head gently toward him and explained. “She needs them to stay alive, you know. Their creativity. The poor creatures die of course, eventually, but I’m sure the sex was worth it. Don’t worry, lovely, I won’t let her have you. He’s a poet.”

I realized that the last bit was directed at me and looked at the human again; he returned my gaze steadily and without judgment. His thoughts were easier for me to read now, without the cacophony of the faerie dance around us. I probed gently in them for his name but met resolute silence—he protected it as well as a faerie. So he wasn’t a complete idiot, despite his questionable taste in women.

“So you are looking for a new
friend
?” Eleanor asked, and I realized that she had known all along that I had no one. “I would just ask you to be mindful of my court, lovely, as you’re choosing your next … pupil. There are goings-on that we don’t need meddling with. This will be a Samhain to remember.”

It took me a moment to remember that Samhain was Halloween. I jerked my chin toward her consort. “Because of him? I hear there’s king-making going on.”

I had probably said too much, but there was no taking it back now. Besides, Eleanor was just gazing at me as if I were a pile of puppies. “Truly there are no secrets amongst my people, are there?”

The consort, for just a moment, looked a little sick to his stomach—regretting, I imagined, his loose tongue.

The queen stroked his hand with her fingers as if she sensed his unease. “It’s all right, darling, no one thinks ill of you for becoming a king.” She looked to me again. “You will of course remain quiet on this subject with your pupils, won’t you, little muse? Just because all of Faerie knows of our plans doesn’t mean that the humans need to.”

“Quiet as flowers,” I said sarcastically. “What do the humans have to do with it?”

Eleanor laughed with painful delight, and her consort stumbled from the force of it. “Oh, lovely, I forget how little you know. A human—the cloverhand—is what pulls us here to this place. We follow her, as always, against our will. But after this Samhain, we will choose our own path. And we will become more fey, more powerful, for it.” She paused. “Except for you, of course. You will always be tied to them, poor creature.”

I just looked at her, resentful, hating either her or myself.

Eleanor’s lips curved up at my expression. “I forget how sulky you young ones can be. Tell me, how many summers have you seen?”

I stared at her, sure that she knew the answer to this question and was just baiting me, trying to push me to tears or anger. In my head, flames licked at my skin, hungry, both recollection and premonition. It had been years since my body had last burnt to a cinder, but the memory of the pain never went away—even though all other memories did. “Sixteen.”

The new queen stepped very, very close to me, and she ran a finger up my throat to my chin, lifting my face toward hers. “Yours is a very strange immortality, isn’t it? I am surprised you don’t plead at my feet for freedom from your fate.”

I couldn’t even see her feet underneath her sweeping green dress, and I couldn’t imagine pleading at them even if I could. I stepped back from her touch, hands fisted. “I know better. There’s no avoiding it. I am not afraid.”

Eleanor smiled, thin and mysterious. “And I thought my people couldn’t lie. Truly you are the most human of us.” She shook her head. “Remember what I said, dear. Don’t get in the way of our work here and perhaps I myself will find time to watch your burning this year.”

I sneered at her. “Your presence would be truly an honor,” I spat.

“I know,” replied Eleanor, and between one breath and the next, she and her consort were gone.

James

I scrambled up into the corner of my bed, jerking from sleep, and pulled spiderweb strings of music from my face. They clung to my features, lovely, perilous strands of melody, and I scraped at them until I realized that they were nothing and that I was ruining my boyish good looks with my fingernails. Nothing. Music from a dream. Music from Nuala. I leaned the back of my head against the wall with a brain-cell killing
thunk.

I was beginning to hate mornings.

And the phone was ringing, sending an army of militant miniature dwarves with hammers to work on the inside of my head. I hated the phone at that moment – not just the phone in my room, but all phones that had ever rung before noon.

I fell out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. Paul’s bed was empty.

I smashed my hand over my face, still caught by the music, by sleep, by sheer friggin’ exhaustion, and relented. “Hello?”

“James?” The voice was pleasant and ominously familiar. My stomach prickled with the feeling of imminent humiliation.

I shoved the phone between my ear and my shoulder and started to lace up my shoes. “As always.”

“This is Mr. Sullivan.” I heard laughter in the background. “I’m calling from English class.”

Crap shit hell etc. I looked at the alarm clock, which said it was a little after nine. It was a lying bastard, because Paul wouldn’t have gone to class without me. “Very logical,” I said, jerking on my other shoe in a hurry, “Seeing as you’re an English teacher.”

Sullivan’s voice was still very pleasant. “I thought so. So, the rest of the class and I were wondering if you were going to join us?” More laughter behind his voice.

“Am I on speaker phone?”

“Yes.”

“Paul, you’re a treacherous bastard!” I shouted. To Sullivan, I added, “I was just putting on my mascara. Time must’ve gotten away from me. I’ll be down momentarily.”

“You said to go without you!” Paul shouted in the background. I didn’t remember saying any such thing, but it sounded like me.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sullivan said. “I was planning on having the class heckle you until you agreed to come, but this is much easier.”

“I wouldn’t miss your fascinating class for all the tea in China,” I assured him. I stood up, spun, trying to find where the smell of flowers was coming from. “Your lectures and bright smile are the highlight of my days here at Thornking-Ash, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I never tire of hearing it. See you soon. Say bye to James, class.”

The class shouted bye at me and I hung up.

I turned once more, still feeling that I wasn’t alone in the room. “Nuala.” I waited. “Nuala, are you still in here?”

Silence. There was nothing as silent as the dorms when we were all supposed to be in class. I didn’t know if she was there or not, but I spoke anyway. “If you are here, I want you to listen to me. Get the hell out of my head. I don’t want your dreams. I don’t want what you have to offer. Get out of here.”

There was no answer, but the scent of summer roses lingered, out of place in our untidy room, as if maybe she knew I was lying. I grabbed a pen from the top of the dresser, found a bare spot of skin on the base of my thumb, and wrote
exorcism
and showed it to the room, so she would see it and so I wouldn’t forget. Then I grabbed my backpack and left the smell of Nuala behind me.

“James,” Sullivan said pleasantly as I slid into my desk. “I trust you slept well?”

“Like fleets of angels were singing me to slumber,” I assured him, pulling out my notebook.

“You look well for it,” he replied, his eyes already on the chalkboard. “We were just getting ready to talk about our first real writing assignment, James. Metaphor. We’ve spent the first half of the class discussing metaphor. Familiar with the concept?”

I wrote
metaphor
on my hand. “My teacher was like a god.”

“That’s a simile,” Sullivan said. He wrote
like/as
on the board. “Simile is a comparison that uses ‘like’ or ‘as.’ Metaphor would be, ‘my teacher was a god.’”

“And he is,” called out Megan from my right. She giggled and turned red.

“Thank you, Megan,” Sullivan said, without turning around. He wrote
metaphor in Hamlet
on the board. “I prefer demi-god, however, until I finish my PhD. So. Ten pages. Metaphor in
Hamlet
. That’s the assignment. Outline due in two weeks.”

There were eight groans.

“Don’t be infants,” Sullivan said. “It will be pitifully easy. Grade-schoolers could write papers on metaphor.
Pre
schoolers could write papers on metaphor.”

I underlined the word
metaphor
on my hand. Metaphor in
Hamlet
was possibly the most boring topic ever invented. Note to self: slash wrists.

“James, you look, if possible, less thrilled than your classmates. Is that merely an excess of sleep on your features, or is it really palpable disgust?” Sullivan asked me.

“It’s not my idea of a wild and crazy time, no,” I replied. “But it’s not as if an English assignment is going to be.”

Sullivan crossed his arms. “I tell you what, James. And this goes for all of you. If you can think of a wilder and crazier time that you can do for this assignment—that has something to do with
Hamlet
and/or metaphor—I’m happy to look at outlines for it. The point is for you to learn
something
in this class. And if you really hate a topic, all you’re going to do is go online and buy a paper anyway.”

“You can do that?” Paul breathed.

Sullivan gave him a look. “On that note, get out of here. Start thinking about those outlines and keep up on the reading. We’ll be discussing it next class.”

The rest of the students packed up and left with impunity, but as I figured, Sullivan called me aside as I was getting ready to go. He waited until all of the other students had exited, and then he closed the door behind them and sat on the edge of his desk. His expression was earnest, sympathetic. The morning light that came in the window behind him backlit his dusty brown hair to white-gold, making him look like a tired angel in a stained-glass window, one of those who’s not so much playing their divine trumpet as listlessly dragging it out of a sense of duty.

“Do your worst,” I said.

“I could give you a demerit for being late.” Sullivan said, and as soon as he said it I knew that he wasn’t going to. “But I think I’ll just slap your wrist this time. If it happens again … ”

“—I’ll hang,” I finished.

He nodded.

It would’ve been a good place to say “thanks,” but the word seemed unfamiliar in my mouth. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said it. I had never thought of myself as an ingrate before.

Sullivan’s eyes dropped to my hands; I saw them flicking up and down, trying to make sense of the words on my skin. They were all in English, but it was a language only I spoke.

“I know you’re not just the average kid,” Sullivan said. He frowned, as if that wasn’t really what he had meant to say. “I know there’s more to you than you let on.” He looked at the iron band on my wrist.

I tried out various sentences in my head:
I have unusual depth
or
The number of rooms in the house that is my personality is many
or
It’s about time someone noticed
. But none of them seemed right, so I said nothing.

Sullivan shrugged. “There’s more to us teachers than we let on too. If you need someone to talk to, don’t be afraid to talk to one of us.”

I looked him straight in the eye. I was reminded once again, vividly, of the image of him falling to his knees, throwing up blood and flowers. “Talk about what?”

He laughed, short and humorless. “About my favorite casserole recipes. About whatever’s freaking your roommate out. About why you look like hell right now. One of those.”

I kept looking at him, kept seeing that image of him, dying, in his own pupil, and waited for him to look away. He didn’t. “I do want a good recipe for lasagna. That is a casserole, isn’t it?”

His mouth made a rueful shape that was a cunning impersonation of a smile. “Go to your next class, James. You know where to find me if you need me.”

I looked at the broad iron ring on his finger and back up to his face. “What were you when you weren’t an English teacher, Mr. Sullivan?”

He just nodded, slow, sucking in his lower lip pensively before releasing it. “Good question, James. Good question.” But he didn’t answer, and I didn’t ask again.