Carrie Jones - Entice

I tuck it carefully into the inside pocket of my jacket and smile up into the rain. I forget to put up the umbrella. I forget about wars and torture and pixies. For a moment I forget about everything except my Nick.

And this moment feels so incredibly good.

U .S. federal agents confirm that they have taken over the investigation into the missing Bedford juveniles.

– N EWS C HANNEL 8

I know that I should be thinking about Astley. I know that I should be worrying about how he allegedly killed some other queen, and how he just left me alone with his psycho mother, and how he seems to be in a pretty emotionally fragile state, to say the least. Okay, yeah, that’s an understatement.

I know all this and yet as I step off the curb and lift up my arm to hail one of those cute yellow cabs that are all over this city, it isn’t Astley that I am thinking about. It’s Nick. I am really one step closer to finding him, thanks to Astley.

A cab pulls up. The driver doesn’t even turn. “Where are you going, miss?”

His accent is so lovely. It isn’t Southern like mine. It isn’t old-school Maine, where all the r ’s turn into yah ’s. It’s from an Arabic-speaking country maybe. Closing my eyes for a second, I let homesickness take over. I miss Charleston and how simple life was there. It was warm. I didn’t know about pixies or weres. My stepdad was alive. There was actual ethnic diversity there. However, there was no Nick, no big good-smelling man with the most beautiful lips and hands in the entire universe.

“Miss?”

The taxi driver’s voice nudges me back into real time.

“Central Park. As close to Great Hill as you can get me,” I say.

My phone vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket as the cab driver zips down the street, turning fast and hard around a corner. I should probably put my seat belt on, but it’s got something slimy on it. I slide across the seat, check the other one, and click it on. Then I read my text message.

Betty has responded: I can’t believe you just left. Get back here soon and no hero crap. Stay safe.

Yep.

A heavy sigh escapes me before I can stop it. It’s so loud that even the taxicab driver notices it.

“You okay back there, miss?” he asks.

“Yep.”

I start to check out the book. It’s heavy for something so small. The old-fashioned font lies heavy against thick paper that feels more like parchment than book paper. All the ink is dark, except for the first page, where it seems to be made out of gold. The light in the cab is not the greatest. I open up my cell phone so the light from the screen illuminates the book’s title page a little bit better.

The letters aren’t just gold; they glitter like pixie dust. The words read: Pixies: The History and Magic Thereof. It looks like calligraphy, only not so full of loops.

I flip to chapter twelve. My phone vibrates again. I ignore it.

Chapter 12

Valhalla

All the air inside me whooshes out as I stare at the word: Valhalla . There’s all this ornate drawing around the border of the page: vines and ivy and trees. My hands shake, I’m so excited. I turn the page and start to read.

It has of late come upon our notice, not without vast hurt to us, that, in a quantity of parts of upper Britain, as well as in the provinces, cities, territories, and regions of Erin, Scot’s Land, Iceland, Normandy, and the New Lands, many pictsies of both sexes, unmindful of their own origins and forsaking the courts to which they owe their allegiance, are unaware of the existence of Valhalla, and even if aware are unsure of the process by which, alive and breathing, they may venture to its lofty lands.

It’s like reading Latin, only worse.

Sigh.

The phone vibrates again. My mother is calling.

I read on.

We therefore, aspiring, as is our obligation, to eliminate all hindrances in which in any way questors are mired in the exercise of their pursuit of the mythical land, and to avert the failure to even begin such a quest, do herein explicate the procedures by which a hero may enter Valhalla prior to his time.

She wasn’t lying. This is really it. I squee, all happy, and punch the ceiling, which makes the taxi guy cranky. I apologize but don’t really pay attention, because Astley’s face forms itself before me, in my imagination, I guess. His eyes glisten, sad and angry at the same time. His lips move: “Zara.”

“What?” I whisper back.

The taxi driver is basically shouting at me. “Miss! We are here. That will be eight fifty.”

“Oh! Right!” I was imagining Astley, just imagining him, which basically means I’m losing it. I tuck the book into my coat pocket, where it’s safe, and yank out my wallet. I give him eleven dollars. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a city that I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to tip.

“Thanks.”

I open up the door and step out onto the wet street. Just standing up hurts me and I hate being so weak-and vulnerable, I realize… I am also vulnerable. The taxi zips away and I am alone. There aren’t even any cars here. There is just me. The cabbie has let me out on West Ninety-Sixth Street, I think, and I head north, crossing over into the park at West One Hundredth Street. Sniffing the air for threats, I head up the hill. There are signs, which is nice. My breath hitches like I’m really out of shape. The rain turns completely to wet snow as I walk. Giant flakes stick to my hair and jacket.

Scurrying noises lurk off to my right, in some bushes just before the crest of the hill. My skin crawls. Rats. The fear of rats is murophobia. The fear of night is noctiphobia. The fear of snow? Chinophobia. I am a pixie. I shouldn’t be afraid of any of these things, but I’ve got to tell you, rats make me squirmy.

“I am a pixie,” I mutter under my breath. “I am a pixie who is going to save her boyfriend and there is nothing to be scared of. I am the thing to be scared of.”

I wish I could believe this more. Reaching inside my jacket, I touch the book. It makes me feel safer. It is hope.

It’s like suddenly being in a nighttime fairy tale. There’s this calm, tiny lake surrounded by lawns and trees. At one end are the shadows of a gentle little waterfall. At the other end is another waterfall that sloshes into a loch. I follow the path on the west side and then head up a staircase. There’s a garden with winding trails. I basically get lost for a while before I finally stand on the top of Great Hill and I see… not much. It’s pretty dark. A meadow rests against the earth and there’s a dirt running track. It’s about one-fifth of a mile and it loops around. It looks like a really nice track, actually, the kind that wouldn’t make your knees scream and ache even after you’ve gone ten miles. There’s a restroom with a CLOSED sign. I don’t see Astley anywhere. What had Bentley said? Look toward the Ravine? There was a glamour? I don’t even know where the Ravine is.

I try to focus, will myself to see the truth beyond the illusion, which is the trick in seeing a glamour. You look for a shadow that doesn’t seem like it quite belongs. Sometimes it’s not a shadow. Sometimes it is more of a gleam. I search the grass and get nothing. Then I look up at the trees, and that’s where I see it, just the faintest kind of shimmer, like the tree is not perfectly in focus.

“Astley?” I call.

There’s no answer. I focus hard to make the glamour fade away as I walk closer. The shimmer vanishes and in its place is a house supported in the branches of one of the largest trees. I gasp. The house is made of wood and has a giant window facing outward. Tiny white lights drape all around it and entwine into the branches of the trees. A staircase winds up the trunk of the tree and leads to a porch deck that seems to have roots for railings. It all looks incredibly magical, and I guess it really is, in a pixie way.