Extraordinary October (10 page)

I wanted to sniff my own armpit. I had noticed Walker's sweet, floral scent. It was nothing like mine. Maybe I was more troll than fairy. I'd learned about genetics in biology. I knew some traits were recessive, some dominant. I had brown hair and brown eyes like the trolls—mine was a little lighter, but it was nowhere near blond, or blue, or silver. My ears were definitely human ears and my feet were big for my height.

“When will I know?” I asked. “I mean, about my powers, what I can do?”

“When you turn eighteen. At least that's the way it usually works.”

If my birthday officially started at midnight, then I had twenty-six hours to go. I was a little taller, a little thinner, I could sort of understand Oberon, but inside I was still the same old insecure me. Walker went on and on, giving me a crash course in the fairy and troll worlds. I wasn't really listening. It was too much to get my head around at once. Transplanting was running into hard things and ending up somewhere else. Fairies lived above ground, high in the treetops in a special forest. It was only when they came to the human world that they took human size. Trolls lived below ground or in caves or sometimes dense, dark woods where the lower foliage was so thick it kept out the light. Appropriately, many trolls had mushroom names, like Enoki. Like my mom, Russula. Slobbers were those humanoid, blobby creatures that had come after us in the park. They were the pets of the trolls, made from trash and litter found in the forest.

“What about the crows?” I asked. “Why weren't they your friend? And if I'm half-troll, why did those slobbers come after me? Why did Trevor want me to take a drink?”

“That's what I'm trying to find out.”

“Is that why you're here?”

“I was sent to watch over you, to keep you safe through the transition. And to see how much fairy is in you. I didn't think you'd be… Look, October, I'm just a regular fairy. You are way, way out of my league.”

That was the funniest thing he'd said yet. “This has to be a joke. Where's the hidden camera? Me? I'm just an ordinary, run of the mill, human girl.”

“How can you say that?” Walker protested. “Look at you. You're brave, you're smart, you're intuitive and it's not even your birthday yet. Plus, you are beautiful. Truly beautiful. Unusually beautiful. But you're out of my league for another reason.”

“Isn't that enough?” I joked.

He gave a sad smile. “The reason I call you Princess is because that's what you are. Your mother was Princess Russula, only child of the Royal Lownesses, the King and Queen of Trolldom. Your father was a prince, Prince Neomarica, only child of his Royal Highness, King of the Fairy Canopy. When your parents decided to run off together they had to give up being a fairy and a troll and any claim to their royal titles. Now your grandparents are dead and you are the only heir. When you turn eighteen you will be Queen.”

“Of which kingdom?”

“Officially you'll be the queen of both. But I hope you'll choose mine.” His eyes shone remembering. “It's beautiful. The Fairy Canopy is amazing. Flowers everywhere and colors and birds and squirrels and deer and the air is soft with this perfect smell of pine and jasmine.”

“Nice.” It was a lame thing to say, but I was too overwhelmed with everything to be clever.

“But I'm worried.” Walker went on. “Things have changed since I was there. I hear that after our King died, someone else took over.”

“Who?”

“Could be the trolls. Ugly, awful trolls. I hate to think of them in my forest.”

“Wait a minute.” I thought of my parents, the way they still held hands when they sat on the couch to watch TV, the way they looked at each other when they thought I wouldn't notice, the little things they did for each other. They were still crazy in love. “My mother is a troll. My dad is a fairy. So my parents gave up their homes, their status, their friends and families to be together?”

“They had to. We're not allowed to intermarry.”

“Who says? Why not? My parents love each other. What's wrong with that?”

Walker's open face closed down. “Trolls have no business interacting with us. They should stay on their side of the forest. The dark and ugly bottom side.”

“But—”

“Think of the trolls in that club, the way they smelled, that black hair, those enormous feet. Disgusting.”

“I'm half troll.”

“Hardly. I'm not sure you have any troll attributes at all.”

I thought of Trevor. He was handsome, even appealing when he wasn't being creepy. I liked the nervous, excited feeling he gave me. I liked all his energy and strength. I even liked the way he smelled. I was sorry he was mean to those fairies, but Walker made me wonder what the fairies did to trolls.

“Do you keep trolls in cages?”

“No. We use more moderate methods to make them work for us. They do the low stuff, take out our garbage, clean up any mess.”

“Do they want to do that?”

He shrugged. He didn't care. I was terribly, horribly, sadly disappointed. Walker was not who I had imagined him to be at all. He wasn't open or accepting or as sweet as he appeared. I looked across the table at him and at that moment he wasn't even very attractive.

“Now I know why fairies are so small,” I said. “Because they have such very, very small minds.”

I stood up, forgetting about Oberon. He tumbled to the floor with a little complaining bark.

“Sorry,” I said to him. Then I turned politely to Walker. “Thank you for dinner. I'm sorry I don't have any money to put in for my share.” I looked at the empty dishes and Walker's clean plate. My share was all of it.

“You don't understand.” Walker stood up too.

“I understand plenty. We've worked hard in my world to make it okay for people to love whomever they choose and get married if they want to. Fairyland sounds like the dark ages.”

Walker jumped to his feet. “It's not us. It's the trolls. This is their fault. Why would anyone want to be with a troll?”

“My mother is wonderful. And Trevor doesn't stink. And he's nice to me.”

“Trevor wants to be King.”

“Fine with me.”

“Only you can be the head of Trolldom. He can't be King unless he marries you.”

“Fat chance. Why don't you all have elections? Like normal people? Leaders should be trained. They should have some knowledge about politics and the world and the way things work so they can actually do some good.”

In my ear, low, so low I almost couldn't hear it, the voice—my conscience, my alter ego, whatever—whispered, “Luisa needs you.”

I waved at my ear, like at a mosquito. Walker frowned. “What is it?”

The voice continued, “Half-breed. You don't have any powers. Come to Luisa, that's the best you can do. She told you where to look for her.”

“October, what is it?”

“Nothing.” And just like that I had a flash, a spark that went off in my brain. I knew where Luisa was. I knew it. I should have known it all along. “I'm leaving now. I am an ordinary teenager. When I turn eighteen I will still be an ordinary human. And I like it that way. So too bad. All you fairies and trolls will just have to govern your petty, backwards, prejudiced selves by yourself. Good luck with that.”

“But I—”

“I forbid you to follow me.” I decided to use the princess thing one time. “I never want to hear about any of this again. I'm going back to my completely normal life as a plain old high school senior.”

The surprise was he obeyed me. He stayed right where he was as I—regally I hoped—strode out of the restaurant.

Outside, I took a deep breath. The sky was a dark ultramarine. Stars were visible, not a usual occurrence in Los Angeles. Were they out for me? Like the fireflies? Every little girl dreams of discovering she is a princess. I was no exception when I was five or six, but that was a long time ago. At that moment thinking about it made my head hurt. And my heart. I was not who I seemed, but neither was Walker.

Then Oberon came running out of the restaurant barking like crazy.

11.

“Watch out! Danger! Danger! Danger!” Oberon barked and growled and his hair stood up in a line down his back. “Slobber over there!”

I saw it slinking behind the parked cars across the street. I heard a crow caw and another crow answer.

“What do I do?” I asked the dog.

Oberon took off after the slobber. A bus was heading my way. I started running to the bus stop.

“Princess!” Walker ran out of the restaurant. A crow swooped over my head.

I looked over my shoulder. A slobber leapt down from the roof onto Walker. It pulled him to the ground and sat on him, pummeling his head and face. I hesitated. The bus had almost arrived. Mr. Bob rushed out with his tray and wacked at the slobber. The tray was not a very effective weapon. Walker was getting his ass kicked. The creature was twice his size and a hundred times nastier.

“Use your powers!” I yelled at him. “Fly away.”

“I won't leave you.”

“I'm getting on the bus.”

A crow swooped down to me and landed on my shoulder. I writhed and jumped, trying to shake it off, but it held on and pecked at my head and neck. Out of nowhere, Oberon leapt up and grabbed the crow in his jaws. Blood squirted all over me as the crow exploded under his teeth. It was gross, but the other crows fell back.

“Go help Walker!”

Oberon ran to his master and leapt at the slobber. And then a slobber grabbed me from behind. I wriggled around and tried to push its face—or where a face should be—away. It was slimy like one of those sticky, stretchy wall-walker toys. Gross, but I tried to find its eyes with my fingers just as I'd been taught in self-defense class. The whole time I was thinking, “stop it” and “let me go” and “I hate you,” not on purpose, but because naturally that's what I was thinking. What I didn't realize was that each time I thought, “let me go” I was growing stronger and larger. “Go away!” I finally shouted and to my shock the creature whimpered and disintegrated into a lot of unconnected trash.

I couldn't believe I had done that.

I wanted to try again. I ran to the slobber on top of Walker, put my hands around its throat and demanded it leave too. “Go away!” It crumbled into junk.

Walker lay on his back staring up at me. “Your eyes just turned this wicked shade of green. You got bigger.”

“I couldn't.”

“You did,” he assured me, wheezing and struggling to get up.

Oberon barked. More slobbers were coming down the street. I had to lead them away from Walker and Mr. Bob and Oberon. “Hey!” I shouted to the slobbers. “Here I am! Over here!”

Walker cried out, but the slobbers turned away from him and Mr. Bob and galumphed after me. They were fast. They were catching up. Walker ran after them. I heard him yell, “Transplant! Think of home. Transplant!”

He was crazy. I couldn't do that. Not by myself. I was too scared. But the bus was stopped blocks behind me at a red light. The slobbers were getting closer. I looked for a blank wall and saw the side of a Chinese market with a painted picture of a smiling child holding a bowl of ramen. He looked a lot like Green and he seemed to beckon me. He wasn't moving exactly, but his eyes were telling me “this way.”

I hesitated.

“Do it!” Walker shouted.

A hipster couple in skinny jeans, flannel shirts, and matching fedoras, were walking into Chinatown under the beautiful dragon arches.

“Now!” I heard Walker's desperation.

I ran right across the hipsters' path, the slobbers on my trail, as fast as I could toward the painting. “You can do it,” the kid in the painting seemed to be saying. “Right here.” The hipsters stopped to stare. I was sorry to upset them but I shut my eyes and ran as fast as I could and smack into the wall. And through it. And into the thick, warm sand again. The third time really is the charm—I knew to keep my mouth shut and my arms still and just go with it.

Something was dead. I smelled the sweet, pungent odor of decomposing flesh. I gagged and tasted regurgitated tofu. I rolled over, opened my eyes and stared right into the half-eaten eyeballs of the dead cat in my side yard.

I squealed and sat up, scrambling away from it. I was home, but I had landed in the worst possible spot. That cat was swollen with maggots. I wondered why Dad hadn't buried it or thrown it away or something. It was right under his favorite birdhouse. I looked up at my bedroom window. The screen was lying on the porch roof. I really had climbed out that window, but I didn't think I could climb back in.

Or maybe I could. I was a princess after all. I stood. I bent my knees and jumped up and to my complete surprise, easily grabbed the tree branch. Just a few hours earlier it had seemed so high. Like a gymnast I swung myself up to standing on the branch and with perfect balance walked to the end and gracefully leapt to the roof. I was stronger. I was more agile and as I looked down I realized being high up didn't bother me at all. I climbed in my window and peeled off my blood soaked clothes as quickly as I could. I found my jeans and a clean black T-shirt in my drawer. Halfway through getting dressed, I realized I'd forgotten to turn on my light. I could see perfectly well in the dark. Maybe my troll side was finally surfacing. Strength, agility, able to see in the dark. I wondered if I would be more troll than fairy, if anything else about me would change, how I would end up, but I pushed the thoughts away. I had to go. I had a plan. I would sneak out again and take the car to where I was sure Luisa was hiding. She was obviously part of this. Maybe Walker could have told me who or what Luisa was, but it didn't matter. She was a friend. She'd been in school with me for the past four years. She wasn't like Walker or Trevor—she didn't like me just because I was about to be a queen. She was really, truly a friend. And if she were my friend, then the slobbers and the crows would be after her too.

“Exactly,” the voice in my head said. “Now you're getting it.”

I was finally making my conscience happy. I put my hair—it felt longer and thicker—into a quick ponytail. So much to think about and so much I didn't know. I have to admit it was not an unusual feeling for me. Too often I learned only what I needed to learn—like for a test—but no more than the required information, so the peripheral edges were always fuzzy. I could recite the facts, but I had no context. For example, I knew WW I had begun in Austria with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and I knew he was in line for the throne of both Austria and Hungary. I didn't know who killed him and why. Which suddenly sounded very familiar: I was heir to two kingdoms and somebody was after me but I didn't know who or why. I only knew I didn't want to end up dead like the Archduke and I didn't want to start World War III.

I opened the closet to get my hoodie and caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. What was going on? My jeans were like capris, my T-shirt showed an inch of stomach. I stopped and looked, really looked. I was a lot taller and slimmer and my hair was thick with loose curls I had never had before. It was just after midnight. In twenty-four hours—less!—I would be eighteen. I was changing, I could feel it all over—not an itch, but a tightening as if I'd been swimming in the ocean and the salt water was drying on my skin.

There was no sound from downstairs. My dad was probably in his birdhouse room. I could skip climbing out the window. I carried my Converse and tiptoed down the stairs. The living room, the whole house, was dark. I switched on the lamp by the couch and practically peed in my pants. My dad sat there.

“Dad?”

His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at anything.

“Dad!”

His eyes shifted up toward me vaguely and went back to staring at nothing.

“Are you all right?” I turned on another light. He was thinner. Much thinner. Thinner by 100 pounds than he had been that morning when I left for school. Thinner than when I got home from school. But he looked terrible. He sagged all over as if he was a balloon that had collapsed, as if he'd had all the air sucked out of him. His face was a deathly shade of gray and his blue eyes were like dark holes in his head.

“What happened?” I knew it was Madame Gold. “What did she do to you?”

I shook him. He barely responded. I hugged him. He didn't hug me back. I ran to the kitchen, retrieved the cookies from their hiding place and brought him the entire bag. He was uninterested. Then a single tear rolled out of his left eye and down his cheek. He looked up at me again and I saw that he was trying, trying hard to tell me something. She'd given him a stroke or a brain aneurism or something.

“Dad. Say something,” I got right in his face. “I'm calling Mom.”

I took out my phone and called her cellphone. Straight to voice mail. I texted her, “Dad Emergency.”

“I'm calling an ambulance.” Dad didn't look like a fairy prince, he looked like a zombie and I was not ready to add zombies to the crazy day I'd already had. I thought of calling Walker until I remembered how dismissive he was of my parents and their choice to get married. I dialed 9-1-1.

“I need an ambulance,” I said into the phone. “My father's had a stroke or something.” I gave the dispatcher my address. I explained my father's condition. Her voice was calm and normal as she said the ambulance was on its way.

I sat down beside him and held his hand. My phone chimed, a text had come in. “Must be Mom,” I said to him. “Don't worry.”

But when I looked at my screen it was from Luisa.

“L.A. River, under the Los Feliz Bridge.”

And immediately she sent another text. “Plz. I need you.”

She was exactly where I thought she would be: the LA River. Her favorite place. Now I had to help her and for some dumb reason I was sure I could. I texted, “Coming.”

She texted right back, “Hurry.”

I knelt down in front of my dad. “I have to go. Luisa is in trouble.”

Dad groaned.

“The ambulance is on its way,” I told him. “I'll leave the front door open.” I ran around the living room turning on every light.

“I have to go.”

As frozen as he was, he seemed agitated; I could see him panting, his chest moving up and down.

“It's okay. I know about the trolls and the fairies and you and mom. I know who I am.”

His eyes widened and then he slumped and sagged even more than he already was. His head fell forward.

“Don't worry, Dad. I'm strong. A lot stronger than I used to be. And I'm quick and I know how to transplant. I'll be fine.”

I could tell he didn't want me to go but I had to. As I drove away, I heard sirens getting closer. The doctors would take care of him. I sent another text to my mom, illegal as it was to text and drive, telling her Dad was at the hospital.

I got a chill down my spine as I zipped through my quiet neighborhood so I hit the door lock button. I kept my eyes peeled for slobbers or crows. Nothing was what it seemed and bad things were happening and I couldn't help but wonder how Madame Gold fit in. She wasn't a troll and she wasn't a fairy. What was she?

The Los Feliz Bridge wasn't far. Luisa had said the LA River was where she went to get away. That was the flash of insight I'd had. That's how I'd known that's where she was—even before I got her text. I was different and it wasn't only my appearance. Yes, my hair was thicker and my eyes looked enormous. I hadn't moved the seat up in my dad's car because I didn't need to. But I was different inside too. I knew things and I trusted what I knew. That was what was really different—I trusted myself. I knew I could help Luisa and I knew Walker was wrong about trolls and fairies intermingling. I was the living proof that it could work out just fine.

And I was starving. Had I really eaten plates of tofu, spinach, noodles plus two egg rolls? It had barely been an hour and I was ravenous. It wasn't just because of the old saying about Chinese food; it had to be because I was growing so fast. Had to be. I hoped I wasn't going to be the second obese fairy.

I didn't take the freeway because I wanted to stay around normal people. At least I thought they were normal. I stopped at a red light and looked over in the car next to me. The driver was hunched over the wheel. He had an enormous hooked nose and ridiculously long fingers. And he was a lime green color. Across the street, a girl was laughing high and musically as she came out of a restaurant. She was stunning, black with silver hair and graceful, tall and thin. Her friends came out after her and they all looked like the loveliest Disney kind of fairies: shiny, slim, and fluttery for lack of a better word wearing skin tight clothing and gauzy scarves. They were only missing their wings. The homeless guy on the corner looked like he was talking and gesturing to himself, but that night I could see little creatures buzzing and dive-bombing around his head. There was a woman with an earpiece who seemed to be talking on her cell phone but she was really talking to an elf sitting on her shoulder. I no longer thought I was losing my mind. For the first time I was seeing the world as it really was.

My phone pinged. I hoped it was my mother. And it was. “Go home,” she texted. “I'll meet you there. I'm on my way.”

It was tempting. Maybe I could go home and she would tell me what to do or come with me or recommend I call the police. But I didn't really want her to do any of those things. I wanted to help Luisa all by myself. I wanted to test my new self. Stronger, taller, smarter, and more confident. For once I wanted to be special, more than average or ordinary. For once I wanted to be extraordinary.

“Yes,” the voice said. “Ignore your mother.”

I turned my phone to silent. The really stupid thing is, I was only thinking about myself, about what I might be able to do. I never thought about what kind of trouble Luisa could be in. Slobbers and crows had definitely tried to hurt me, but I didn't think about something dangerous or deadly being with her. It wasn't very smart to just go running to the L.A. River, a big cement trough that was home to gangs and taggers and people hiding from the world. I could have called the cops to meet me there. I could have asked Walker, or at least Oberon, to come with me. But that is all stuff I'm thinking now. Then I wasn't thinking about anything but getting there and saving the day.