Extraordinary October (18 page)

“I knew you were thinking about me. That's why I'm here,” Green said. “You've been thinking about Walker too.”

I blushed. I had been thinking about Walker. Earlier I'd been wishing he could see me in my skirt and I'd been imagining being alone with him.

“Uh oh,” Green said.

The doors to the library opened and I heard the dad-thing call my name. The librarian shushed him, but he ignored her. He was coming our way.

“Transplant.” Green grabbed my hand and started running toward the back wall of the library. “Transplant!”

“Where to?” There was no time for him to answer.

19.

The warm sand. The claustrophobia. I wasn't scared until I landed with a bump and things with sharp corners hit me in the head and jabbed my shoulders and legs.

“Ow.” I opened my eyes. Books. Green's stack of books had also transplanted and fallen on me as they came through. Green himself was nowhere to be seen. And I was the last place I expected to be—in the middle of the mall behind the kiosk selling baseball caps. I had to laugh. It was perfect; my dad would never think to look for me at the mall. Strangely, no one paid any attention to my abrupt arrival. Moms with strollers. Senior citizens in sneakers doing laps. It was a school day, but I saw kids my age hanging in front of the pretzel place. This was where people went to skip school, I'd obviously been right about that. I stood up, brushed myself off, and collected Green's books so he could find them again. Didn't want him getting a hefty library fine. Ha ha ha. I put the books on a bench and sat down. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my mom. Again I saw her standing in a marsh, bent over, feeling for something in the water. But what marsh? I wondered if I could transplant there even if I wasn't sure where it was. So far I hadn't done very well at planning my transplant destinations. I opened my eyes, and my breath caught in my throat.

Walker stood in front of me. Walker. I jumped up and wanted to throw my arms around him, but then I didn't. He looked sad and remote with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He gave me an unhappy smile and then looked at the floor between us. I had never been so glad to see anyone. My chest lifted. I grinned. He wore a blue button-down shirt, very normal and very nice, and he was more handsome than ever.

“Hey. It's you,” I said. “At the mall. Cool. New shirt?” Ugh. I was so lame.

“You look…amazing.” That was really nice to hear. He gestured at my tattoo. “Your fairy mark is excellent. Perfect. Deserving of you.”

“Fairy mark.” So that's what it was. “It's getting me a lot of attention at school.”

“I bet.”

There was an awkward silence. So much to say, so hard to say it. We both started at the same time.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

We stopped, started, stopped, and finally I said, “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

He did not agree. “I should have explained it to you better, made you see how complicated this all is.”

“Things aren't working out.”

“No.”

“My dad is still under her spell.” He nodded, not surprised. “What about Luisa? Trevor? The Fairy Canopy? Are they okay?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘okay.'”

“But she promised me. I thought we had to keep our promises.”

“Fairies do,” he said. “But Madame Gold must not be a fairy. Whatever she is, lying is just fine with her. I should have made that more clear.”

“Oh, oh… I'm an idiot. An idiot. I'm so stupid.”

Walker spoke bitterly. “Stop. This is not your fault. You tried to do the right thing. Your only mistake was thinking she was an honorable being.”

He looked miserable. I agreed things were bad, but my heart was lighter just seeing him. Maybe it wasn't suitably coy and blasé, but I wanted to tell him how I really felt. “I…” I couldn't go on. I couldn't stand it if he laughed at me, or told me to get lost. So I only said, “It's great that you're here. Really great.”

It wasn't enough. I took a step toward him.

He stepped back. “I'm not supposed to see you anymore. I can't. She's forbidden me to even be in the human world.”

“But you're here.”

“Because I knew you'd be here.”

“How did you know? I didn't know I'd be at the mall.”

“Don't you get it?” He had tears in his eyes and they turned from sky blue to the color of a stormy sea. Actual tears. He reached for me, but dropped his hands before he touched me. “Princess.”

“I'm not a princess anymore.”

“No. You're the Queen.”

“I'm not. I gave that up, remember?”

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “You are the Queen. My Queen. Our Queen. No matter what.” He looked at the baseball caps, at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but at me as he said, “I'm in love with you.”

I stopped breathing. If there were other people in the mall, shoppers going past us on either side, I didn't see them anymore. The whole world—both worlds, the real and the supernatural—had become only the two of us. “Walker.” I said his name as if I had just learned it.

“Fairies aren't supposed to feel this way,” he said. “We don't do this.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“You can't.” I thought of my hairy toes. “I'm half troll, a weirdo, a half breed.”

“I don't care. I really don't.” He looked as surprised as I felt.

I took his hand. The touch was electrifying as always. My whole arm buzzed as I pulled him toward the closest doors out of the mall. “Let's get out of here.”

“Wait,” he protested.

“Come on.” I didn't want the most romantic moment of my life to happen at the Westfair Mall in front of Forever 21.

“Fairies aren't supposed to fall in love.” Walker tried to smile. “It's different for us. We make sensible choices, we regard all creatures equally, our marriages are often arranged. Not like trolls. Trolls fall in love twenty times a day.”

“I don't.” I pushed through the glass doors.

“I'm not sure how this happened,” he said. “I think about you all the time, the way you laugh, that little thing you do with your thumb when you're angry, how strong and kind you are, how you smell like toast and cinnamon. When I thought I'd never see you again it hurt. It physically hurt in my chest, as if I'd been punched. Seeing you today, even knowing you don't feel the same way about me, makes me happy. I'd do anything for you. Is that love? It's wonderful and terrible all at the same time.”

We were outside in the parking lot. The sun was shining and the tears on his cheek glistened and his eyes were a beautiful deep sapphire. I wanted to tell him I felt the same. I wanted to tell him not to be sad. I wanted to tell him so many things and I didn't know where to begin so I kissed him. He was surprised, I could feel it, but then he put his arms around me and kissed me back. This was different, bigger, fuller somehow than our first kiss. This was real and true and deep and absolutely right. We belonged kissing each other. It was like a roller coaster ride, slow at first, then more and more exciting, up and up and over the big
drop and it took my breath away.

“October,” he said when we finally broke apart.

“Walker,” I said.

We kissed again and again I felt that roller coaster rising and plummeting down to my toes.

“I think I love you too,” I said to him. “I do. But I promised. I promised.”

Walker wilted. “I know. It's fine. I'll never go back. I'll stay here with you.”

“You can't.” I knew how much he loved his fairy world.

“Your mother and father did it. Now I understand why. Nothing compares to this—to you.”

“Mom,” I said. “My mother and my father…”

“What is it?” he asked. “What else has happened?”

I pulled the necklace out from under my sweater.

He slammed the wall with his hands and started looking around, behind us, up in the sky.

“Don't worry,” I said. “This is a copy. The Shoe Fairy gave it to me.”

I could hear his relief. “She found you.”

“She told me to tell you hello.”

“Do you see?” he asked.

“See what?”

“How much we all love you. How much we need you.”

I thought about Green and Luisa and Jed and the Shoe Fairy. Luisa turned into a panther because of me. Jed worried out of his mind but telling me to stay inside and lock the doors. The fairy in the cage telling me not to drink. Green appearing just when I needed him. All of them protecting me, helping me. And I had let them down. I looked at Walker. I wanted nothing more than to be his girlfriend, his ordinary human girlfriend.
I wanted us to go to the movies together or on a hike or to Ricky's Tacos and talk and talk long into the night. But it wasn't possible.

Suddenly I was furious. Who did Madame Gold think she was? She was ruining my life. Who the hell did she think she was? “This has to stop,” I said. “I'm going to stop her.”

“You promised.”

“You forget, I'm not a fairy either—not completely. I have a mostly human mind, a good one, and I can change it any time I want.” I swear that as I spoke I grew taller, that I became stronger thanks to my determination. “I will fix this.”

I concentrated on my mother in the marsh and in a flash I knew what she was doing. Five years earlier she had been part of the team that discovered a new species of river mushroom. She was looking for that mushroom. I didn't know why, but it was important. And I knew where she was: the L.A. River. Not far from the portal. We could pick her up on the way.

“We have to go back to your world. Now.”

Walker didn't argue. “My car is this way.”

We walked quickly across the parking lot. The sky was a brilliant spring blue. The air smelled sweet. I wanted Walker to take my hand and he did.

“What's happened to Luisa?”

“She's with Jed.”

That was good.

“In jail.”

That was bad.

He continued, “Madame Gold doesn't trust them.”

“And is Trevor in jail too?”

“Ha. Trevor is her betrothed.”

“She's still going to marry him?”

“She can't be queen without him.”

“But she's so powerful.”

“She has no royal blood. He does. In our world that's the way it works. If he was out of the picture, then it would be his younger sister and Enoki doesn't want that—for lots of reasons.” He paused. “Without Trevor, Madame Gold can only rule the trolls by force.”

I thought about Trevor and got a clear picture of him. I saw him in a troll style palace bedroom—fancy but dark with unfinished dirt walls. He looked mostly healed and he was pacing angrily, wearing down a path in the moss carpet. When he felt me in his mind he stopped. He looked up, right in my direction, and nodded. Then he went over to the only window. It looked out on roots that were as twisted and thick as a jungle. There were metal bars across the window, but he was strong and with very little effort he bent the bars open. I watched him climb out and disappear.

I felt guilty for thinking of Trevor, but I was happy he had escaped even if it seemed he could have done it at any time without me. Run, I told him in my mind. Run away from Madame Gold. Walker was still talking, telling me about the fairies and all the horrors going on his world.

“And, if you are alive,” he said, “somewhere, anywhere—no matter what you promised—she cannot sit on the fairy throne. She can imprison the fairies, make them work, punish them, she can even rule them in a way, but literally, magically, she cannot enter the castle. Those doors are forever locked to her.”

Everything became clear to me. Why she was still following me. Why she still had control of my father. And why my mother had stayed away and hidden.

“Why didn't you tell me that?”

“I tried.”

“You know what?” I said wearily. “Your world is totally screwed up. This system is ridiculous. Ultimate control is always a bad idea. You need a better method—like a president that people vote for.”

“We need you.”

I opened my mouth to disagree as a lone crow soared over us. Walker's grip tightened. Another crow appeared, high in the sky circling, looking for me. We ducked under the cover of some oleander bushes beside the parking lot. We crept along the edge until we came to a beat up, faded blue Honda. Walker opened the passenger door.

“Get in,” he said.

“Where's the Porsche?”

“You are such a snob.” He laughed, but his eyes were worried, searching the sky. “I'm on my own here. Not official business.”

I got into the passenger seat. It was an old car, the dashboard was cracked and a Disney store Tinkerbelle hung from the mirror.

I pointed at it and raised my eyebrows as he started the motor, with difficulty.

“It's a loaner, okay? My friend's car.”

“I'd like to meet this friend.” It was definitely a girl. There were hair bands around the gearshift and clothes in the back and a pink hairbrush rolling around on the floor at my feet. “What's her name?”

“Okay, okay. I stole it.”

“This? You stole this?”

“You don't care that I stole a car. You're just upset it's not a Porsche.”

He drove out of the parking lot. The engine had a very unhappy knock. I wasn't sure we'd make it to the corner, much less all the way to the river. I laughed out loud.

“I wish you'd take it seriously,” he said. “Those crows could be after you.”

“I don't care.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smelled like flowers and better than that, he smelled like him. “Anyway, look. The sky is completely clear. They have no idea where I am.”

I expected him to disagree, but to my surprise, he sighed and pulled the car over on the shoulder of the road. Then I did get worried. I thought he had seen something and that we were in trouble. “Slobbers?” I asked.

He turned to me and took me in his arms and kissed me. If a thousand crows had attacked the car right then, broken through the windshield and killed me, I would have died happy.