"If you only knew…"
"Tell me then."
He leans closer. One inch, another, oh God, oh okay. Yep. I think he's going to kiss me. Okay. Okay.
Another inch. Obviously not a pixie, right?
And then he jolts up straight, rigid, like he's been shocked. His eyes glaze over. I swear his nostrils flare, like he's repulsed by the smell of my hair or something, and then his words rush out, "Get in the house now. I have to go."
"Go? Go where?"
What? What had just happened? Wasn't he going to kiss me? Had I imagined that? My heart thuds and falls silent. I am not sure if it is beating at all. It's a great big hole there. He doesn't like me at all… does he?
I want to clutch at his arm, to make him stay, but I don't. I won't. I am not that pathetic. "Where are you going?"
"The woods. I'll be right back."
He leaps out of the MINI and rushes off toward the forest, not even shutting the door. I bound out after him, shutting my door and running to his side of the car.
"Nick? What is it?"
He tosses the words over his shoulder but doesn't slow his pace. God, he's fast, faster than at crosscountry or in gym, almost superhuman fast. I think he's even faster than Ian. "Go in the house. Don't let anyone in except me and Betty. I'll be right back."
Everything inside of me just crashes, all my internal organs fall, but it's not the hollowed-out pain that I'm used to these last few months. No. It's the same kind of pain that I felt right when my dad died: sharp, piercing, all over.
"I'll be back," he yells and then he is gone, rushing into the trees, swallowed up by the density of the forest, by the darkness.
I shut his door and shiver. The sun has started to set.
"Go in the house, Zara!" he yells one more time. I can't see him, but his voice comes to me, faint and far away. "Go in the house."
So I do.
I know I should try to spend the next hour inside Betty's house doing chores and not worring about things, but it doesn't work out. Dread makes its home in my sternum. Just kind of nestles there. What if Nick goes missing, like Jay Dahlberg or the Beardsley boy?
Why hadn't I asked about this?
It is all too horrible to think about.
I put some mashed potatoes in the oven to warm and start on a letter about Vadivel and Valarmathi Jasikaran in Sri Lanka. They have been in jail a long time and not been charged. Valar-mathi had surgery before she was arrested. She could be dying. They are trapped there, uncharged, in jail, probably tortured and alone.
I simmer and start to write. My fingers clutch the pen so tightly that the wound on my hand throbs, but I don't care. It's nothing compared to what the Jasikarans are going through, what Jay Dahlberg might be going through. What Nick might be…No. He's fine.
I still don't know how people could do this to each other. How can we survive knowing that we do these things? How can we not help?
Nick is out there in the woods alone.
And I am in here doing what? Writing a letter.
I need a plan.
Okay. If these things are really pixies there's got to be a way to fight them, right?
I log on. It takes forever because Betty has dial-up. I swear to God. But finally I get on and I type in "fight pixies" in the search engine. All the gaming sites come up. It's not until page eight that I find something that looks legit.
I scroll past the explanation that pixies are not Tinker Bell, but dangerous, very dangerous, and do not attempt to contact them on your own. I snort. Then I find what I'm looking for: The only thing that can defeat pixies is iron. Iron can be found in steel. It is essential for the composition of railroad ties, skyscrapers, and cars. Pixies will avoid iron at all costs.
So that's probably why they're here. Most of the houses are made of wood, framed with two-by-fours, not steel. There are no skyscrapers anywhere, just trees. There aren't even that many cars because there are hardly any people.
I can't wait to tell Nick, but first I have to find him.
Okay. Iron is the basic component of steel.
My eyes scan the room and latch on to the woodstove, made of cast iron. It's not like I can haul that around. But I can take the fireplace poker thing that we use to turn the logs.
Trying to be quick, I call the ambulance house and ask for Betty, but she is out on a run in Trenton, where a logging truck has smashed into a minivan.
"She'll be tied up some good for a long time," Josie tells me.
"Okay. Just ask her to call me. It's Zara."
" 'Course it is, dear. I'll give her the message."
So that leaves me home, alone, with all my million questions and absolutely zero answers.
I walk outside again and stand on the porch, listening. No birds sing or even twitter. The wind howls and rustles through the tree branches. A pine cone drops onto our roof and rolls down by my feet, making me jump. My hand clutches the poker.
"Wimp," I mutter.
I march over to Nick's MINI and put my injured hand on his door handle, pulling it open. It smells so much like him. I touch the steering wheel with my fingers. Something inside me shudders again, and not in a good way. I don't want him to be in danger. I pull my hand away from the steering wheel. It stings. The lines do make the rune for protection. How weird. I turn around in a circle so I can see all around me. A prickly feeling creeps through my hand and up my arm, marching toward my heart.
"Nick?" I whisper.
I push the hair out of my face. The wind whips it back. I grab an elastic band off my wrist and yank my hair back into a ponytail. The sun has almost set behind the trees. It casts an orange glow, a last stand against the night.
"Nick?" I say louder.
No answer.
I try it even louder.
"Mick? You out there?"
That's when I hear it, the angry howl of some kind of dog. I freeze.
And then I hear something even worse. From the edge of the forest comes a hoarse whisper that is not Nick's voice, but I recognize it. I heard it last night when I went running.