The Blue Girl (30 page)

It’s bad enough that Maxine’s so insistent on seeing it through to the end, right by my side.

But I couldn’t tell Thomas any of that. In the end I told him I’d see him at the Crib where Jared’s band is playing. It’s not a complete lie. If I survive the early part of the evening, dealing with the
anamithim,
I am
definitely
going to want to party.

That seemed to appease him, and when he calls me this morning we have a normal conversation—well, normal except for the big hole of trust that I’m digging in our relationship by
not
telling him what I have planned for tonight. But he doesn’t come straight out and ask me, so I don’t have to lie in response. I just don’t volunteer the information.

*    *    *

“Do you believe in God?” I ask Pelly later in the day.

We’re hanging in the living room again, working up more stories for him, while the bread we made is baking. It’s made the apartment smell really good.

“I don’t have a soul,” he says, “so it’s not really relevant to me, is it?”

I wonder if that’s the difference between humans and fairies and whatever Pelly is. We grow up being told we have a soul, so we believe it. Or at least we consider the idea as possible, perhaps even plausible, instead of outright dismissing it. Souls and God and heaven and hell. And even if we do end up abandoning the concept of God, we often come back to it in our old age. Or at least Mom says so. It happened to her parents. They were complete atheists for years, then suddenly became fervent churchgoers around the same time that they got a senior citizen’s discount.

“But I believe in fate,” Pelly adds.

“You mean like where the future’s laid out before us, everything planned?”

He shakes his head. “That we make our own fate.”

“I think that’s called free will.”

“I suppose.”

We fall quiet again. I wish it was warm enough that we could go up on the roof, but Indian summer’s been and gone, and it’s so cold outside that you can see your breath. And while the roof is fine—I’ve hung out up there lots— when it’s the only place you can go, it feels just as close as the apartment does.

I turn to look at Pelly, and when his gaze meets mine, I’m reminded of something he said last night.

“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” I say. “I don’t even know how or why it happened. It ... you just didn’t seem real anymore. Like you couldn’t be.”

“You grew up.”

“No,” I say. I’ve been thinking about this. “I grew
down
. I let my mind get smaller instead of open and big the way it was when we were always together.”

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” he says.

I give a slow nod. He’s right about that much. I can’t remember there ever being a time when I just decided I wasn’t going to believe in him anymore. It just happened so gradually that I never saw it coming. Didn’t know I’d changed until I was already standing on the other side of belief.

“It’s going to happen again,” I say.

“What is?”

“I’m going to abandon you again. I’m going to abandon everyone. I don’t want to, but I messed up, Pelly.”

He gets this look that tells me he understands, but “What do you mean?” is all he says.

“This plan isn’t going to work. The
anamithim
are big and strong and old and smart. The most I can hope for is that they’ll take me, but leave everyone else alone.”

“You don’t know that,” he says. I feel he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. “It seems like a good plan to me.”

“Promise me you’ll get Maxine away and safe.”

“I can’t promise that. She’s as stubborn as you are.”

“Promise you’ll try.”

He looks away and doesn’t answer.

“Pelly, please.”

“I’ll try. But if they get wind of her  ...”

“I know.”

I think about Maxine, my wonderful best friend, who’s always been so honest and open with me.

“Does she shine?” I ask Pelly. “I mean, she shines to me, but does she shine to fairies?”

“Not like you do,” he says. “You’re like a beacon—it’s why you can draw a ghost like Adrian to yourself so easily and why you could draw me to you when you were a child. Maxine has a luminescence, but it’s not the shine of the Otherworld—the knowing and
seeing
that you have.”

“Even though she’s met you and believes you exist?” He nods. “I don’t know the whys and wherefores of what attracts the
anamithim.
But not every soul that sees into the Otherworld becomes their prey.”

“And my mom and Jared?”

“No shine,” he says. “They just give off the light that everybody does.”

That’s good, I think.

“But if you want my advice,” he adds, “you shouldn’t go into tonight’s endeavor already thinking that you’ve lost.”

“I’ll work on that,” I tell him.

*    *    *

It’s five o’clock when I leave the house. Normally I hate how it gets dark so early at this time of year—especially since we put the clocks back an hour last weekend—but I’m grateful for it today. It means I can go out, because my skin’s not so noticeably weird in the dark, and it being Halloween, anyone who does notice is just going to think I’m on my way to a costume party.

It doesn’t take two hours to get to school, but I want to walk around a bit. I’ve been cooped up for two days now and I am so not an indoors kind of person. I loved tramping around in the woods when I was a kid, and since we moved to Tyson, and later here, I get as much pleasure from the concrete forest. There’s sure more wildlife—if you count all the weird people.

Pelly s gone back into wherever and is going to hook up with us at the school. He was worried about me being on my own, but I couldn’t very well have him tagging along— the way he looks is
really
pushing the idea of a Halloween costume. Anybody who got too close a look would totally wig out.

And when he brought up the argument about the
anamithim
being out there in the dark, I just held up my arm.

“Blue skin,” I told him. “Protected and all that, remember?”

We packed up a bunch of stuff in a knapsack: the bread we’d made this afternoon, boxes of salt, a bag of oatmeal, and a whole bunch of other stuff from my research yesterday: blue clothes, coins and a jar of honey as additional bribery in case the bread doesn’t cut it, bottles of salted water to drink in case they try to enspell us, stones to throw, even a Bible and a crucifix. The last two I found on my curb-crawling rounds. I’m not a believer, but it didn’t seem right to leave them on the curb, waiting for the garbage truck.

We didn’t know what would work best, so I was going to try it all. First thing I’d do when I got to the school would be to turn my jacket inside out.

I’d also put in a lighter and some candles, a flashlight, and a bunch of firecrackers, then got my old switchblade out of the bottom of my sock drawer. That went in the pocket of my blue jeans.

I hefted the knapsack, and it weighed a ton.

“I’ll take it to the school for you,” Pelly said, lifting it like it had nothing much in it. “Be careful,” he added before going into the closet.

“It’s my new middle name,” I assured him.

And I
am
careful as I walk through the streets, breathing in the crisp air. It’s
so
good to finally be outside again. The streetlights are on now, and the shadows have stopped lengthening; now they’re just pools of darkness in the mouths of alleyways and outside the reach of the streetlights. With my blue skin and all, I’m not so nervous about the shadows, but it turns out they’re the least of my worries.

I wander around, but find myself at the school earlier than I expected. The lights are turned off on the football field, and not many people seem to be around, although there are a few cars in both the students’ and teachers’ parking lots, and small clusters of kids hanging at the front of the school. Talking. Waiting for rides, I guess.

Maybe we can use the gym after all. I’ve also been thinking of the auditorium, which might even be better because it’s already got all kinds of lights in there, so we won’t have to haul as many stage lights to it.

I stay in the shadows near the cedar hedge, then cross over to the side of the school once I’m out of sight of anybody who might happen to look over. I start for the side door, keeping my gaze on the hallway on the other side of the glass, ready to keep walking on past if I see anyone. But the hall’s empty. The door, when I try it, is locked, but that’s no problem. I get out my tools to start to work on the lock.

“What’d I say about getting in my space, bug?”

The doorway’s wide, and I was so focused on who might be inside looking out that I didn’t realize Brent Calder was nearby until he steps from the shadows at the side of the door and opens his big stupid mouth. I didn’t realize, and I still don’t care. I’ve got real worries on my mind.

I look him straight in the eye.

“Blow it out your ass,” I tell him.

I turn back to the lock—I know, I know, what am I thinking? But for all his bullying and threats, I’ve just never taken him seriously. I’ve known dangerous people, and he’s not one of them. Except, he
is
bigger than me and he
does
have a chip on his shoulder, and he
for sure
can’t stand me.

Before I realize how stupid it is for me to ignore him, he gives me a shove that sends me sprawling.

“I don’t like that mouth on you,” he says as I bang into the wall on the far side of the doorway.

Now, here are the things I don’t know right then:

Redding lost the game against Mawson. They should have won, they would have won, except the pass Brent threw to Kyle Hanley was too long. Kyle made a grab for the ball anyway, tipped it with his fingers, and bounced it right into the hands of Mawson’s Andy Phipps, who took it back down the field for a first down that their team then parlayed into the winning touchdown.

Brent, of course, didn’t take responsibility for the loss. Never mind that he overthrew—Kyle should still have caught it.

In the crowd, apparently, were a couple of college talent scouts.

I don’t say this to excuse Brent’s actions. It just explains why he was in a fouler mood than usual tonight.

The upshot was, he caught Kyle in the locker room and put him in the hospital with a broken nose, two cracked ribs, a possible concussion, and an eye so swollen he can’t see out of it.

But like I said, I don’t know any of this yet.

What I do know is that he’s knocked me to the ground. It’s when I’m picking myself up I see that Valerie’s here, too. She’s crouched against the wall in the other corner of the doorway, crying, holding her stomach. Her bottom lip is cut and bleeding. Her left eye’s swelling up.

How did I so totally miss the two of them being here?

Brent says something else, but I don’t hear it. Adrenaline kicks in, and my brain just explodes with all the months I’ve had to put up with him and his crap; all the fear I have about these soul-eaters in the shadows; how I’ve tried to just be a normal kid, but nothing will let me.

I lift my gaze to see him coming right for me, so I bunch my legs up against my chest. Then just as he’s reaching down, I straighten one leg, hard, fast, and the solid heel of my boot gets him in the shin with all my strength behind it. He’s big and I’m small, but it makes him cry out and lose his balance all the same.

I get up as he’s going down. I’m not even thinking of what I’m doing. My switchblade’s in my hand. I flick the button and the blade springs out. He starts to rise, but I’m already moving, the knife arcing toward him.

I kept that blade sharp as a razor, and it hasn’t had any use since I stuffed it away in the bottom of my sock drawer when we moved here.

It slices through the material of his jeans, through skin and flesh, through sinew and muscle. Right below the knee.

He falls again and this time he goes down hard. His eyes widen with shock. He grabs his leg and his hands go bloody. His gaze comes back to me, and I kick him in the side of the head. I don’t think I broke his jaw, but I definitely loosened a few teeth.

He drops yet one more time, this time banging his head on the cement.

I step forward, ready, but he’s just whimpering now.

I wipe my blade on the sleeve of his jacket. He tries to grab at me with a bloody hand, but I kick the hand away.

I go over to where Valerie is huddled, staring at me as wide-eyed as Brent did when I cut him.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” I tell her as I help her to her feet. “Can you walk?”

She gives me a slow, numbed nod.

“I  ...  I need help, too  ...” Brent says.

I give him a cold look. “Yeah, I guess you do. Good luck with that.”

“You ... goddamn bitch. I’ll—”

I lean Valerie up against the wall and take a step toward him. I don’t get any real satisfaction in seeing him flinch. Truth is, I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach at what I just did. It’s Frankie Lee all over again. There had to have been a better way to handle this, but I hadn’t bothered to try to think of it.

And now I’m not caring again because Brent won’t let it go. He’s cursing at me, and I guess anger makes the nausea go away.

“You’re not going to do a damn thing,” I tell him. “Think anybody’s going to believe a little bitty thing like me could have hurt a big strapping thug like you?”

“You can—”

I give the bottom of his foot a little tap with my boot— the foot at the end of the leg that’s bleeding all over his hands. He actually squeals from the pain.

“Here’s the thing,” I tell him. “You’re going to be laid up and not moving fast. If I can take you when you’re not hurt, just think how easy it’ll be for me later.”

“Just ... just wait  ...”

“Until what? Your problem is you thought you were dangerous, but you don’t know the first thing about what’s dangerous. Back in Tyson, the kids I ran with would chew you up and spit you out without even breaking a sweat.” He’s shaking his head. “I ... I’ll get you.”

“Sure you will. Except you’ve got to sleep sometime. What happens when I sneak into your house with my knife? Just think about all the ways I can hurt you, you sorry-assed loser, and let me assure you, I know at least a dozen more. And here’s the kicker. I’m not afraid to do it. You think I’ve been scared of you? Sure. But that’s not why I let you push me around. I just didn’t want any trouble. But you know what? I don’t give a crap anymore. So just give me an excuse—any excuse—to finish what I started here, and I guarantee you’re going to really learn the meaning of pain.”