Entice (29 page)

The bridge ends just by Betty’s house. The snow chugs down all around us and it’s freezing cold again. The horse stops at the edge, neighing.

I gently shake Nick’s shoulders. “Nick. Can you wake up?”

He groans, and his eyes flutter open a tiny bit. I slide off the horse, keeping my arms up so he doesn’t fall off, and then I help him swing his leg over and get down. He sags against me as I pat the horse good-bye.

“Thank you,” I tell her, and then I wrap my arm around Nick’s waist and jump the eight feet down to the driveway, bringing him with me.

There are lights on in the house. My mom’s car is in the driveway. Casting a glance behind us, I see the bridge is already gone. There is just darkness. We are back in the land of cold and war. I head us toward the light, because really that is the only direction you should ever go.

One missing Bedford boy wandered out of the woods this morning. He has no memory of any events that occurred while he was missing. Police report he is wounded but recovering.

—
NEWS
CHANNEL
8

My mother throws open the door. Her cheeks are tearstained and her nose is red.

“Where have you been?” she demands. “Where have—?”

“Help me get Nick to the couch,” I tell her.

Her mouth drops open, stunned, but she wraps her arm around Nick’s waist and takes some of the weight. We hustle him to the couch. Once he’s sitting, I yank off his shoes, lift up his feet, and make it so that he lies down. The entire time I’m working my mother is questioning me, demanding to know where I’ve been, how I got Nick, if I’ve seen Betty, and so on and so on. I beg off the questions until I get Nick settled. It’s only after I’ve wrapped a blanket around him that I explain, “I saved Nick.”

But that’s not exactly true, because he didn’t really need saving. He wasn’t harmed there. He was just … in the afterworld?

She falls into the chair by the woodstove, her hand over her mouth. Horror overwhelms her. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“How long was I gone?”

“A day.”

“Just a day.”

She closes her eyes. “It felt like forever. It’s the solstice today, the shortest day in the year. It’s almost Christmas.”

I go to her then because she looks so fragile and scared, as if she can’t take any more. I go to her because I love her and I say, “I am so sorry, Mom.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” She brushes my words away with her hand. “I do. I was wrong to be so—to be so— I don’t have the word for it, Zara, but I should have been better when you changed. I missed you. I missed my Zara.”

“I’m right here,” I say.

“I know,” she says, and opens her arms for a hug.

Nick starts snoring on the couch, long, loud breaths. It makes us laugh.

My mom breaks off the hug first and says, “And I miss Betty. I don’t suppose you could find her too?”

“I saw her before I left, taking down some pixies. She’s next on the list,” I say. “Right along with saving the world from imminent destruction, catching up with homework, and getting into college.”

She thinks I’m kidding, but I’m not. While Nick sleeps I call Issie, Devyn, and Cassidy. Issie sneaks out of the house, and despite the curfew they all rush over and crowd into our living room. They stare down at Nick. For a little while it’s weird but amazing, like the whole room vibrates with the enormity of what we’ve done. We brought him back from the dead.

“He still snores,” Devyn says after I’ve briefed them on Valhalla and Nick’s memory loss.

“And his feet twitch like a dog’s,” Issie remarks, leaning into Devyn, who wraps his arms around her. She looks at Nick again and adds, “That is so sweet! You’re positive he’s not zombified or anything? Because he did just come back from the dead.”

“Positive.”

“I feel like we should give him a bone or something,” Cassidy says.

“Cassidy!” I punch her in the arm and she giggles.

Issie and my mom start making hot chocolate. Devyn pulls some cheese out of the fridge and puts it on a board. There’s eggnog and cookies too. It’s a celebration and the guest of honor sleeps right through it. Even with all the happy goings-on, something makes me shiver. For a second I can’t figure out what it is, and then I know—the spider feeling that I always used to get when I was human and evil pixies were around.

The doorbell rings.

“They’re going to wake up Nick!” Issie shouts as if this would be the end of the world. It’s funny because if all our commotion and her shouting don’t wake up Nick, I don’t think anything will.

I rush to the door, yanking it open. Snow and cold fly in. Astley smiles weakly.

“May I come in?” he asks.

My mom hates him. Nick hates him. I imagine Nick waking up and the first thing he sees being Astley hanging out in the kitchen, so I shake my head sadly. “Let me come out. Hold on.”

I slam on my coat and some shoes, taking a second to touch the anklet Nick gave me. It is so fragile, just like all of us, yet it’s unbroken, despite all the fights and journeys and deaths. It’s unbroken and it is still here. I tuck it safely inside my sock and join Astley on the porch. We don’t say anything for a minute. The snow falls down around us.

“Thank you,” I say, choking up a little. “I mean, I know I’ve already thanked you, but … you know, you did a lot for me. So much, I can never repay you for keeping everyone safe and helping me get to—”

His finger comes up to my lips. “You don’t have to thank me, Zara.”

“But it was a big deal.”

“That’s what kings do. That’s what friends do.” His voice becomes infinitely sad. He swallows so hard that I can see it. “How is he doing?”

I tell him as quickly as I can about Nick, about Valhalla, about us trying to prevent a war.

“There has been similar talk at the council,” he says.

“Odin or Thor said there was a traitor there,” I tell him.

He exhales like it’s news he expected but didn’t want. We are quiet for a moment. The snow trucks down. I can see the inside of my house. Everyone gathered in the kitchen, Nick still sleeping on the couch. Devyn puts his arm around Issie’s shoulders. She lifts up and kisses his cheek. Cassidy uses the cheese knife to scratch at her neck. Issie grabs it away from her. My mother stands leaning against the counter, sipping eggnog from a bright yellow mug. It looks so peaceful and warm and good, yet here I am standing outside in the cold night.

“They look so happy,” I whisper.

He stands a little closer to me. “What do you think will happen when Nick wakes up?”

He’s actually said Nick’s name, but I don’t comment on that fact. Instead, I tuck my hair into the collar of my coat. “He’ll be upset. He won’t remember Valhalla, so he won’t immediately realize the gravity of what I’ve done or why I’ve done it, you know? And I think I have to be okay with that—with the possibility that things might never be the same between us again—and just be grateful that he is here, alive.”

Astley, wisely, doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes my hand. I let him. There’s comfort there. He is, after all, my king. But more importantly, he is my friend.

“Someday, when we have time and life isn’t so dangerous-crazy, let’s just hang out, okay?” I stare up into his sad face. “Please … Maybe go sledding. I still haven’t done that.”

He clears his throat. “Anytime.”

I start to tug my hand away and then think better of it. My mother smiles at Issie in the kitchen. Nick stirs on the couch, beginning to wake up. I will have to go to him, tell him everything all over again, protect him as he has always protected everyone else.

“Odin said that I am the leader here, not Nick?” I ask. My stomach hardens. “Do you think he’s wrong?”

Astley’s fingers tighten around mine. “No, but we can pretend that Nick is the leader if it makes it easier on you.”

“If he’s not the leader, what is he?”

“A man. A warrior. Someone you and your friends love.”

Now they are all laughing inside, clanking their mugs and glasses together, toasting something … I don’t know what. My mother looks out the window again, and behind that smile is the look she has always had, the look I never recognized before—fear.

“We have to figure this out,” I say, turning away from the warmth in the house, turning away from the people I have left, and turning toward him, the pixie king with snow in his hair and sorrow in his eyes. “We have to figure out how to keep everyone safe, to stop the war.”

His grip tightens. “We will.”

Pixie kisses (the good kind) to Bruce Barnard, Lew Barnard, Betty Morse, Rena Morse, and Debbie Gelinas for being the best family and the goofiest family ever. Thank you for being made of awesome, Mom.

Thanks to Emily for making it a hard choice between Team Nick and Team Astley. You are amazing. Remember Heppy! I love you. You’re the best kid ever. And yes, I know how lucky I am.

Thanks to my own John Wayne. You are the only cowboy I could ever want and the best man in the universe. Thank you for giving me faith in how good men can be.

Thanks to Shaun Farrar for teaching me all about the beauty of chili cheese fries.

The magnificent Jennifer Osborn, Lori Bartlett, Melodye Shore, Kelly Fineman, Steven Wedel, Tami Lewis Brown, Devyn Burton, and Carrie Randall all earn a warrior’s place in Valhalla for giving me the confidence to keep writing. Special props go to Steve because he made me fall in love with writing all over again. And then again!

Thanks to Perry Moore for giving me the magical cowboy hat that allowed me to continue to write the series. Honestly, sometimes a writer just needs a magical cowboy hat to keep going.

Thanks to Marie Overlock for giving me the best surprise retro-kitty gift ever and for making me laugh when I’m being a big perfectionist goody-goody tool, and to Shaun Farrar, Amelie Bacon, Jim Willis, Ken Mitchell, Travis Frost, Lorraine Bracey, Leigh Guildford, Kevin Edgecomb, Lori Bartlett, Ryan Lawson, Jack Raymond, Debbie Hogan, Perry Moore, Alice Dow, Callie Cox, Matt Heel, Chad Campbell, Lori Bartlett, Dotty Vachon, Evelyn Foster, Bethany Reynolds, Stephanie Preble Vickburg, Bubba Duncan, Caroline Peters, Belinda Albee, Lea Feldman, Megan Kelley Hall, Rod O’Connor, Will Rice, Dale Jackson, and Karen Heaney. All of you have said something or done something that made this book into what it is and made me into what I am. You probably don’t know that though. Shh … Don’t tell.

To the women of the tollbooth and to Vermont College of Fine Arts: you all are the best, the best ever. Thank you for helping me to be a better writer. Special shout-outs to Tami Brown and Chris Maselli and The Awesome Emily Wing Smith, the Whirligigs, the PWs, and Tamra Wright and Robin MacCready.

There is no person I need to thank more than Edward Necarsulmer. This time it’s for being tireless, for letting me almost kill him on a road trip to the Outback, for wearing flannel, for being the best knight/agent a writer could ever want, and for actually being proud enough of me that he bragged to the waitress. You are golden. “Think of me as a place.” And to his awesome and amazing coworker/sidekick/human Christa Heschke, who is beyond wonderful.

Strong woman thanks to Michelle Nagler, who is an editor of awesome, for making this a book, a real book with a real structure, and for being delightful in real life. I am insanely jealous of your voice and yet I still adore you.

To the rest of the amazing, stunning, exceptional, and incredibly caring Bloomsbury U.S. crew—Deb Shapiro, Melanie Cecka, Caroline Abbey, Beth Eller, Kate Lied, Katie Fee, and the people I don’t actually get names for. You are all so incredible. Thank you for taking such good care of me and my books. I’m sorry if I sometimes make it hard. And thanks to the exceptionally awesome Bloomsbury UK staff as well. But most especially thanks to Deb for guarding my heart.

Special thanks to Nicole Gastonguay who makes covers that are so stunning that people pick up the books. You are an artist. I am in awe.

And thank you to all the people who read the books and love them enough to send me e-mails and message me on Facebook. You all make it worth it every single day.