Fairy Thief (2 page)

Derek was all business. It was hard sometimes, being brave for Audrey. Saffron could be really freaky, like that Carrie chick at her prom. He shivered as he mounted the stairs, and shivered again as he passed the room where granny’s body would hopefully not arise and eat them before the ambulance came. Of course, Audrey had fought with him about calling the ambulance; maybe she thought her mother would change her mind and come back.

He knocked on Saffron’s door, then, after a moment of silence, knocked a little louder. There was no sound within her room. Derek opened her door about six inches and called her name. No answer. He threw the door open, causing a breeze to ruffle his turquoise, Chinese pajama-bottoms. With quick head-moves, he looked from her bed, to her floor, to behind her door. She wasn’t in the room. Movement by the window caught his attention, but it was just the curtain — a long panel of sheer fabric caught up and blown in by the breeze. He ran down the stairs, two at a time, and reported to the others. As a group they marched up the stairs, past grandmother’s room (both Markis and Coco blanched fish-belly pale when they saw her body on the bed), and spilled into Saffron’s airy, empty bedroom — just to confirm what Derek had already told them.

They split up and searched inside the entire house. After Coco had gone through all the closets and under all the beds, she repeated her actions, as if Saffron was a naughty three-year-old playing hide-and-seek and changing her position. Coco bitched under her breath and tried to control her breathing as she slapped dust clumps from her hair.

Markis was outside. He came around the corner of the house from the backyard, crossed the gravel driveway, and looked up at Saffron’s window just above the roof of the porch. His eyebrows were drawn together and his teeth were clamped. His steps silenced as he left the gravel and stepped onto the soft, wet grass. He held to the shaft of the apple tree and heard Mrs. Keller calling sharply from further away, near the ocean cliff. He backed up a little, into the light cast from Saffron’s window.

Far to the right, at the edge of the roofline, in dark shadow, was something hanging over the roof. He focused on it. Then he walked over to the far corner of the house and looked up — two fingers. For a couple of seconds, he was unable to figure out this strange phenomenon. Then all at once, he realized, Saffron must be
out on her roof
. When they were in her room they all saw her opened window, but, in a panic, nobody had thought to look outside the window!

Markis began yelling, and quickly, Audrey, Derek, and Coco came running to his side. He pointed at the fingers, and again, as a group, they ran up to Saffron’s room. Derek stuck his head out of Saffron’s open window and looked all the way to his left. He squinted, and Coco felt his back stiffen under her hand as she leaned over him to get a look, too.

Markis pulled his hair with both of his fists. “I’ll go out there! I’ll go through the other window.” He knocked over the chair that held Saffron’s panda as he spun around and lumbered out into the hall. He looked to the right.

“
Don’t bother going that way, Markis. That’s the guest bedroom. That window is painted shut. You can use the window in my mother’s room.” Audrey’s neck was red as she kept pulling at her throat.

Markis went to the left and into the adjacent bedroom. He passed the old lady who was dead on her bed. He hopped out of the old lady’s window and onto the roof of the farmer’s porch, skittered down the length of it, and prayed that the heebie-jeebies wouldn’t cause him to lose his balance. “I can hardly see out here!” he screamed.

Derek smacked his ear on the window frame as he yanked his head back in. He ran out of Saffron’s room, raced to the two other bedrooms down the hall, and put on every light he could find. He tried to open the window in the guest bedroom, but it wouldn’t give. He took a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and worked at the paint.

Coco and Audrey looked out Saffron’s window, brought their heads in simultaneously as Markis passed, then rushed into the guest room to help Derek. Audrey pushed him aside when the panes swung free, and almost launched herself out the window. Derek grabbed her and held her still. It wasn’t safe for too many of them to be out on that roof.

There was Saffron, leaning against the house and sitting so close to the edge of the roof that her hand hung over the side. She wasn’t conscious.

Markis was huddled over her, touching her face. “I already tried to find her pulse…I couldn’t…but that doesn’t mean…”

Audrey pushed back from the window and gasped, knocking Derek off his feet. She pointed to Coco. “Go call 911.”

“
You already did, Mrs. Keller. Remember? Your mother….”

Audrey started crying. “Well, update them!”

Coco back-pedaled from the guest room, ran to Saffron’s room, found the phone and slapped it off its base when she made a grab for it. “Shit,” she hissed and grabbed at it again. She dialed as she hurried back to the guest room.

“
Let me see the phone, Ma!”

Coco halted like she hit a brick wall. She frowned and looked at Mrs. Keller who held her hand out to take the phone. Audrey shook her hand, demanding the phone be given to her. Coco shook her head, ‘no,’ and watched as, right in front of her, Saffron’s mother’s eyes rolled back into her head.

Derek caught Audrey before she hit the floor. Hands under her armpits, he dragged her to the guest bed and sat with her on the quilt. He smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “Oh, dilly-girl. I need your help here….” Then his tears finally flowed over, too.

Coco could see how terrified he really was — his skin dull and yellow as cheese, his pupils dilating. He was shock-bound himself.

Audrey opened her eyes and sat docile in Derek’s arms. She watched Coco talk with an emergency response person (when did they get there?). She decided she didn’t need to ask Coco for the phone anymore.

Coco eyed Mrs. Keller – she looked super-duper-out-of-it. She hoped Mrs. Keller didn’t call her “Ma,” again. Coco took the paramedic’s hand and pointed to Saffron’s mother. “She called me “Ma,” and passed out.”

Audrey watched Coco point at her. That Coco was so confident for such a young girl — so unlike Saffron. Audrey sighed. She sat slumped and fussed with the borders of Saffron’s quilt, feeling like she had tunnel vision and tunnel hearing and tunnel thinking. And when
had
the paramedics gotten there? What had she missed? What was Markis saying? Why was everyone’s voice garbled? How had Markis known something was wrong?
Hmmmm
, she wondered.
I’ll have to ask later
.

Derek encouraged Audrey to settle more comfortably on the pillows. He looked at her and sighed; she had grown awfully quiet. He stood up and walked to the window. “Listen, were you guys doing drugs tonight or something? Sniffing dairy products or whatever it is kids experiment with? I mean, this would be the time to tell me. We need to know.”

Markis, still outside with Saffron, looked inside and shot a dirty look at the snippy man who was accusing him and Coco. “Dude, we weren’t even with her tonight!” he spat.

“
Yeah,
dude,
and we don’t do any of that shit.” Coco crossed her arms and sidled up to Derek with murder in her eyes.

Derek huffed and walked away from her, rightly assuming she’d bite.

Drugs! Well,
that makes me mad.
T
hat’s just insulting
.
Saffron might do a lot of
wacky things — but drugs…? I need to tell Derek to get a grip.
Audrey gently folded her hands on her stomach and stared at the ceiling. Was she dreaming? The movement of the paramedics as they raced around the room seemed impossibly slow, like an underwater ballet. She saw their mouths moving but she couldn’t hear them speak.
Wow,
she thought,
I must be going deaf now
.
That sucks.
Oh, and here was Saffron. She did look pretty bad. She was on a stretcher and her eyes were closed. Her face was so, so white
. Ooooh
, thought Audrey,
I should tell them to get her a warm cloth
to place on her face and bring her color back
. “When did you get here?” And now why was he answering her like she was a toddler? She said nothing more. The EMT was in her face. He was still talking to her. He was rubbing her arm. She smiled at him. He looked over to Derek, who he rightly and wrongly assumed was the man of the house.

Derek shook his head very slowly and spoke quietly. “Her mother — in the other room — poor girl.”

The medic motioned to his partner. The partner guided Audrey down to the ambulance and onto one of the tiny beds inside the truck.

Oh, good, I’m right next to Saffron.
Audrey
felt such a rush of relief, she fainted dead away.

Chapter 2

S
affron didn’t wake up. She lay still and quiet in her hospital bed. Her pulse had been thready that first night, but was somewhat stronger now. Her other vital signs were not where the nurses would have liked, but they were holding steady.

Audrey was treated for shock and released. Days passed. She and Derek held a memorial for Saffron’s grandmother. Audrey camped out at the hospital. She ate, slept, and read by her daughter’s bedside. She sang
Jamaica Farewell
to Saffron
,
as if she was still a baby sleeping in her crib.

Audrey and Derek hounded Markis and Coco. They tortured Saffron’s friends with their never-ending questions. There was nothing Coco or Markis could say to satisfy them and make them feel better. So, Audrey and Derek asked more questions. Coco and Markis were tired, anguished. They just didn’t know.

One night, as Coco and Markis were sitting on a rub-worn wooden bench that contained benefactor’s names on tarnished plates, Coco told Markis about the first time she really thought Saffron was going whacked. It was that night she put her to bed on the cardboard boxes in the store. Saffron had told her she was having sex with a fairy, and it was making her crazy. Markis slapped his knees, beyond perturbed, got up, and walked away from her. They didn’t see each other until the next afternoon, and from that point on, they kept their vigils in silence.

Audrey interrogated the doctors. She nipped at the heels of the nurses. What the hell was going on? Why, again, exactly, were they giving Saffron a blood transfusion? Why, exactly, did they monitor Saffron’s fluid intake with such scrutiny? Was she in danger?
Was she
going to die? Audrey felt the answers she was given were vague and insufficient. She was told to please be patient — satisfactory answers were forthcoming, but more information must be gathered. If Saffron’s mother could please be a little more helpful, by being a little more tolerant, maybe the answers could be found.

“
We’re sorry – we’re doing all we can,” said the doctors.

“
Please be patient,” begged the nurses.

“
We are seeking outside advice,” admitted the doctors.

“
We know this is very difficult for you,” confided the nurses.

“
We have never seen a case quite like this,” claimed the doctors.

“
We just don’t know.”

“
We just don’t know.”

Markis wanted to be with Saffron every minute. Every day, he watched groups of important-looking men and women enter the room and ask him to leave for a short time. When he came back into the room, he stared mesmerized at the vitals monitor while it bleep, bleep, bleeped, and assumed his position – slumped and dejected in the uncomfortable, vinyl chair. He didn’t like being there in the hospital, but he sat firm and held Saffron’s hand.

He had known she was sick! He had known
something
was wrong with her! He told the doctors and nurses of her strange behavior before it all happened. But his observances seemed to do little for their theories. Their eyes clouded over as he spoke. They said, “Ah-huh, ah-huh,” but they weren’t really listening to him, and he knew it. Anger sat on his shoulders like a grotesque gargoyle. Never again would he trust doctors to know it all – or to know much, for that matter.

They asked him strange questions like, ‘Has she been exposed to the cold?’ Head tilted, he had stared at them. Huh? They made him irate — so much so that, when something miraculous happened in the middle of the night, he mentioned it to no one. He had wished Saffron goodnight, and rested his head on her arm, then fell into a light doze. He roused some time later, when he heard Saffron say, “I love you. I love you.” He sat bolt-upright and whispered, “Saffron?” But, there was no response, and he wondered if she had really said anything at all. Maybe he had dreamed it.