Carrie Jones: Entice

Callie and Paul, who have matching Mohawks and have been going out forever, tango past us even though this song is totally not a tango. They both smile and Callie waves, just lifts her hand up a tiny bit.

Jay Dahlberg scoots closer to us and fake bows. When he stands up straight again, his thick blond hair ruffles into his eyes. He reaches out his hand like some sort of eighteenth-century duke. “Miss Cassidy, may I please have this dance?”

She scratches at her neck while simultaneously saying in this super-fake pretentious voice, “I would be honored, Mr. Dahlberg.”

He pulls her into his arms and she looks at me over her shoulder as if to ask if it’s okay. I give her the thumbs-up sign and start toward the wall.

Nick and I slow-danced once, late at night after we’d gone to a really awful movie about a girl ghost kid who didn’t actually say anything, just looked pale and walked around while people screamed when they saw her. After that had happened for the twenty-seventh time in the movie, Nick remarked, “No wonder she wants to kill people. They’re giving that girl a complex.”

After the movie Nick pulled me out of his red MINI Cooper and stood me under the stars. Our feet crunched on the snow.

“What are you doing?” I laughed as he put his arms around me.

“Salvaging our date.” He cuddled me close to him so that I could breathe his pine scent and the leather of his jacket. He was warm. He was always so warm.

The music on his iPod in the MINI changed to a slow U2 song. He was not into U2. I am, but only old U2 from the eighties and nineties. This was one of those-a haunting heartbeat of a song all about love and war.

“You hate this song,” I murmured into his sweater. He is so much taller than I am. I went up on tiptoes to get closer.

He bent his head toward me and smiled. “But you love it.”

He must have downloaded it for me, which was so sweet. I snuggled in closer, as close as I could. “You know it’s about the Polish Solidarity movement?”

“Really?” He acted mock surprised. And then we kissed. His lips fit perfectly.

“Zara,” a male voice by my ear makes me jump. The clean smell of Dove soap mixed with mushrooms seems to overwhelm my nose. It is how I smell now too. It is the specific smell of pixie kings and queens.

Astley stands in front of me, dark blond and tall and much more rugged looking than when he was half dead and bound to a tree just a few weeks ago. My skin bristles. So much has happened so quickly. I lost Nick. I lost my humanity. And what did I gain? I became a pixie.

I grab Astley by the impeccably dressed elbow and fast-walk him to the side of the room by the vending machines, scanning the crowd. People have noticed he’s here. Devyn makes to come over, as does Cassidy, but I shoo them away with my hand and loud-whisper to Astley, “What are you doing here? I already had to deal with enough pixies tonight, thank you. No offense.”

He doesn’t answer my question. Instead he appraises my outfit. “You look lovely. I am used to you in those jeans with the holes and peace signs inked onto them. They have that homeless look, but-”

He pauses for a second, awkwardly, and I can tell that he’s remembering me when I turned pixie, after he’d kissed me when I was a bloody, awful mess, feral and barely conscious. I can feel my face flush with heat that comes from embarrassment. I don’t know how I know he’s thinking about this, but I do.

“Yeah… well… Issie and Cassidy dressed me, so no homeless look tonight,” I explain, feeling pretty self-conscious. Letting go of his elbow, I yank on the bodice of my dress so I don’t show too much skin; then I realize how silly this is since he pretty much saw me naked when he turned me. I lean my shoulders against the wall. Do not think about it. Do NOT think about it…

He shifts closer to me, puts an arm up on the wall, hand next to my head, and asks, “How did they take the news that you had changed?”

“They were suspicious at first,” I say, putting it pretty mildly. I don’t explain how they didn’t want to let me in Issie’s house at all or how Devyn basically threatened me. “But they’ve accepted it-I think.”

For a second I contemplate telling him that they only trusted me because Cassidy checked me out for evil intentions, which she could do because, unlike me, she has an elf ancestor a long way back. But I don’t quite trust him a hundred percent yet even though I trusted him enough to dehumanize me and turn me into a pixie. Strange but true, like pretty much everything in my life.

“Did you hear what I said before about pixies? Devyn and I had to bounce two pixie girls who were munching on a drunk guy,” I tell him.

“Bounce?” He lifts an eyebrow. His voice gets lower when he’s confused. I never noticed that before.

I tell him the story. He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then he touches my arm lightly, just brushing it with his fingers almost like he’s afraid to startle me. It’s the quickest of movements, and then he uses that same hand to gesture toward the dancers. “They are all so innocent, are they not?”

“Innocent?” It’s hard to think of Cierra and her current boy toy, Jake, as all that innocent since they are basically dry-humping in the corner. One of the teachers, Mr. Burns, heads straight over there. He’s power-walking like a pro.

“They are so unaware of all the magic in their midst. Here we are, pixies. Your friend Devyn is a were. Outside, in the woods, scores of pixies lurk, regrouping, hungry, filled with needs.”

I whirl on him. “We have to protect them.”

He cocks his head just the tiniest of bits. His hair shakes out over his eyes and then falls back into place. He is standing so close to me. I step backward as he says, in his super-calm voice, “Of course. And you have to meet our people, Zara. They need to meet their queen. They will fight beside you.”

“And we have to find Nick,” I insist. “We have to get started.”

He doesn’t answer, just puts out his hands. The music switches to another ballad about love and loss. “Dance with me, Zara?”

“Oh…” I stumble for words. “I don’t-ah Nick-”

He swoops me into his arms before I finish my sentence. He dances formally, gracefully, not like a high school guy at all, but I guess that’s the pixie king in him. He’s more like a professional dancer on one of those dance competition reality shows. His posture is straight and his movements are fluid. He is nothing like Nick, who dances like a big goofy dog, really. Dancing with Astley is easy. It feels like I’ve been doing it forever.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” Astley whispers near my ear.

I pull away, a little jarred. “Yes. Yes. No- I mean-”

He smiles at my confusion but doesn’t let go. His hand moves slightly against my back. It’s like I’m hyperattuned to every move he makes. I don’t know if it’s just normal pixie senses or because he’s my king.

Their clothes are different too. Nick dresses like a guy from Maine, massive boots or running shoes, jeans, clothes from one of the nicer stores at the mall, while Astley’s clothes are textured and expensive, richly made. The fabrics are deeper and more rugged somehow. They make me think of Scotland.

I decide to use the moment to ask him some of the questions that circle round and round inside my mind. “Did you find out anything? Did you talk to your mother?”

His mother is supposed to know how to get to Valhalla, this ungettable place of myth that supposedly has Nick. Astley frowns and then pulls me all the way into his chest. It moves with each of his breaths. “She is missing at the moment.”

“Missing!” This time I pull all the way away. “How convenient.”