Welcome to Bordertown (40 page)

“Do you think it’s still the same?”

I flinched and turned on the speaker with bared teeth.

A mousy girl with a backpack and duffel bag stood beside me, lost in the paintings. “I’m going there,” she said.

“You can’t,” I snapped.

Her laugher tinkled like Elfland bells. “Yes, you can. My stepmother’s brother came back, and he’s younger than me now.”

I didn’t believe her, but I had to take the chance. “I’m going, too,” I said.

She smiled. “Well, come on.”

The girl had two twigs stuck in the straps of her backpack—she said they were from oak and ash trees. I had no clue which was which or why they were important. She said one of the rules was to be kind to strangers, so she let me come along and shared her food with anyone on our way. That annoyed me because it slowed us down, but she agreed to travel at night, and I did enjoy some of the strangers. They were tasty. I left her alone, though; she was my guide.

“What’s in the duffel bag?” I asked one night when I offered to carry it for a while.

“Trading stuff,” she said. “Mostly T-shirts. My dad used to work for a Web store—I took them from the garage. I heard they don’t like World money in Soho, but I bet they like clothes.”

She told me a lot about Bordertown and elves as we traveled north. Time ran differently there, she said. She loved to talk about elves. Magic is in their blood, she said. People say they live a lot longer than we do because the essence of life runs in their veins. That idea fascinated me. Maybe elves were my ticket back to normal.

The journey went on and on. I thought it was pointless because we never arrived anywhere, but after a time, the roads we took became narrower and we didn’t see cars anymore. We didn’t notice any people soon after that, and we both ran out of food. The land turned barren and hot, which was odd considering the direction we went. “I can feel this is the right way,” the girl insisted over and over, her eyes bright. But she became weaker and weaker,
and we couldn’t find water anymore. Exposure and starvation placed their claim on her.

One of us has to get there
, I thought,
and it had better be me.
So I was right, and the girl did me one last favor. She fed me.

She was sweet. I mean honestly, she was sweet. Sometimes I feel bad about her.

Several days later, a rickety camel-drawn omnibus rumbled up a dry gulch and pulled up beside me. There was a board nailed to the front with “Bordertown” spray-painted on it, and other kids were inside. On the back clung a sticker that said “My Mirage Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student.” The driver, who didn’t seem old enough to be driving anything, including a team of camels, asked for a fare. “A trade is fine,” he said, and eyed the duffel bag I carried. I gave him a lolcat T-shirt, size extra-large. He looked puzzled but well pleased.

That girl was smart. You can use T-shirts for money in Bordertown. The elves like band T-shirts, even if they have never heard of the band, and the human kids like to wear weird slogans, even if they have no idea what they mean. T-shirts clothed me, got me into clubs, and helped pay my rent in a boarding house for a month, until I found a place of my own. Those out-of-date T-shirts kept me going for a while in many ways. There’s something hilarious about a Highborn elf in a Jonas Brothers shirt.

If that girl was right about the T-shirts, I thought, maybe she was right about elf blood, too. The essence of life was exactly what I needed. So I made a plan: I would lay low for a while, then jump an elf, drink the magic in his blood, be cured, and go back to the World before anyone caught me; and maybe it would be like years later, and no one would be looking for me there either.

That was before I knew that (a) I liked it here, (b) elves are people, too, and (c) elfin magic can be scary.

So far, I hadn’t had the nerve to mug an elf for his blood. Elves looked strong, and they didn’t respond to my faltering powers of mesmerism like some humans did if caught off guard; elves would fight. Also, it was too hard to tell which ones had magic and how well they could use it. What if I ended up with a curse on me even worse than the one I already had? Anyway, I liked them, even though they were often snobs. I loved the way they looked, and the way they moved, and the way they spoke. I didn’t know how much elf blood I would need to cure myself. It would be awful if I had to take it all.
I’ll wait
, I thought.
I’ll wait, and if I am very lucky, an elf will fall in love with me. I’ll tell him my sad story, and he will sacrifice his blood to me—or get all his friends to pitch in.
Okay, that last bit was dumb, but it was more appealing than a hit-or-miss scuffle in a back alley and would do until I thought of another plan. Meanwhile, I would try very, very hard not to kill anyone.

*   *   *

The bouncer at the door to The Dancing Ferret surprised me. I’d seen her around—her black Mohawk was hard to miss. Laura, I think her name was. She waved away my hand when I offered to pay the cover. “You’re that street artist, aren’t you?” she said. “Locals get in free.”

Wow!
I thought.
Someone recognized me. I’m a local. Cool!

The owner, Farrel Din, gave me a weird look and shook his head as I passed the booth where he sat, and a surge of anger sank my high. What did that fat elf know about me? Nothing! Who was he to judge?
I’m not a poseur!
I wanted to yell at him.
I’m not trying to look part elf—I’m undead, you asshole!
But perhaps he was only annoyed because he knew I didn’t buy drinks. Maybe I should buy one since they had let me in free. I stashed my backpack under a corner table on the outskirts of the room, then maneuvered through the motley patrons to buy a Hobby Horse home brew at
the bar. In Bordertown, there is no drinking age. As long as you look like you’re past puberty and you don’t act crazy, you’re okay. I hurried back to my table to protect my goods, but the only person nearby was an elf kid a few tables over, reading a book by the light of a Puck’s Brown Ale sign that someone had defaced to say the obvious. He was reading an actual book, not a Stick Wizard comic or anything like that. Why would you come to a club to read?

“Lambton Wyrm” proclaimed the name on the drum kit. Elves played bass, drums, and guitar, and a skinny human played everything from bagpipes to the bodhran, judging by what lay around him. Either they were new or they sucked, because the room was barely half full.

Sky was even more beautiful than I had first thought, if that was possible. His silver hair shimmered against an icy blue shirt, and his silver and blue guitar matched.
Could I make him fall in love with me?
I wondered.
Could I make my fantasy come true?

The singer, a muscular, bearded human with a fierce grin, took the mic. “Haway, we’re gonna start with this canny song we stole our name from,” he said in a dialect I didn’t know. “It’s an ald song from where I grew up.”

You find out a lot about old music in Bordertown.

He sang with only a pipe as accompaniment at first.

As the story unfolded, I discovered that “warm” meant “worm,” in the sense of a whacking great dragon, and more and more instruments joined in until the thrashing crescendo of a thundering
fight and a tragic mistake. I was convinced that it would be my favorite of their songs—until they rollicked into “Cushie Butterfield”:

I wished I were loud and jolly and likable like Cushie, who was obviously not a skinny, ethereal elfin maiden but who had songs written about her nevertheless. I raised my brew proudly, then caught the reader elf looking at me and put my glass down again with a thump, feeling foolish.

I wanted to go up and talk to Sky between sets, but every time I tried to stand up, my heart lodged in my throat and I could only watch as he talked with other girls, accepted drinks from admirers, and traded elegant insults with his bandmates. I took far too long to work up the nerve, but at last he stood by himself next to the stage, examining a crumpled playlist, and I left my seat to approach him. He half smiled as I walked up, as if he had already forgotten me and was too polite to turn away. I was about to remind him, despite the knot in my gut, but the bass player emerged from a back room to whisper urgently in his ear. Sky turned from me abruptly, climbed onto the stage, and slung his guitar strap over his head. He began to tune his guitar as if I had ceased to exist. I hurried back to my seat, head down, mortified, hoping no one had seen the snub.

I wasn’t ready to give up yet, though. Sky was too beautiful, too tempting. He was full of the magical Faerie blood that could restore what I had lost, all wrapped up in the nicest package I
had ever seen. I’d heard the phrase “cold as elf blood,” but in my imagination, his blood was warm and comforting.

If I stay until after closing, maybe they’ll let me help them pack up
, I thought. If I was helpful, they might like me and I’d have a chance to get to know Sky better. So when the harsh overhead lights came on and changed the smoky exotic club into a dirty drippy room, I leaned into the corner and made myself seem invisible—I can do that. After the last drunk stumbled into the street, I relaxed, but as soon as I did, a diminutive server with a frown larger than she was marched up to me. “What part of ‘last call’ do you not understand?” she demanded, tossing her fuchsia ponytail.

“It’s okay. She’s with me,” said a scratchy voice. Both the girl and I swiveled our heads in surprise to find Reader Elf had joined us.

The girl snorted in disbelief, but she left.

“How do you rate?” I asked.

He laughed. “Not ‘thank you’?” He sat in the empty chair next to me.

“Yeah, sure. Thank you,” I answered, abashed, but not too much so.

He laid his book on the table:
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins. I think my mother had watched that on Masterpiece Mysteries. It was all Victorian or something. Weird.

“I’m with the band,” he said.

“Oh?” I found myself warming to him. “In what way?”

“I help recharge the amps and things like that,” he answered, and made a face. “The guitarist is my brother.”

“Sky?” I’m afraid my voice squeaked.

He nodded.

No way
, I thought as I looked him up and down.

I didn’t think elves could appear ordinary, but he was the drabbest elf I had ever seen. He looked to be about my age, but
he could have been much older, of course. He wore stiff new jeans and a white short-sleeved dress shirt. All he needed was a pocket protector. I noticed that his dandelion fluff of flaxen hair had a pale green tint.
Pond scum
, I thought, and giggled. I couldn’t tell if that was his real color or a subtle dye. One of his pointy ears had a weird little kink.

“What’s so funny?” he said, but he didn’t look annoyed.

I shrugged. Maybe he’d introduce me to his brother if I was nice to him.

“My name’s Moss. What’s yours?” he asked.

I had no clue what to say. I had had many names out in the World, but here in Bordertown, no one called me anything. Once upon a time, I had been Elizabeth Mary Washington. In the city, Dr. Vee had called me Little Bit, but after I ran away from him, people called me Bloody Mary. That never felt like me, though. That was someone in a story.

“Lizzie,” I told him. It sounded friendly, like “Cushie.”

He chuckled. “What, no fancy Bordertown nickname?”

“Nicknames are given by other people,” I said.

“Not around here.”

“Well, they are in the World,” I said, “and they’re usually not nice.” I didn’t tell him my sister called me Beastie and the kids at school called me Lizard. Yeah, they weren’t friendly nicknames. I glanced over at where the band was packing up their equipment. Wasn’t Moss going to help them? Wasn’t he going to invite me to join in?

“Where do you live?” he asked.

I hesitated. “Down by the South Wall,” I answered vaguely. “You?”

“What does that mean?” Moss asked. He pointed at my shirt and ignored my question—the nerve.

I wore a T that said “YR PWND, DUDE.”

“That means ‘I’m better than you,’ ” I snapped, then heard how arrogant I sounded.

He looked at me blankly. “In what language?”

“Mistyped English.” I spent time trying to explain computer gaming to make up for my rudeness. He loved the whole idea, although I wasn’t sure he understood clearly.

“You’re new in Bordertown, aren’t you?” I said, because even the people who grew up here have some knowledge of the World, if only along the lines of a bad Wikipedia entry.

Moss blushed a tender shell pink.

“Why did you come?” I asked. “I mean, you lived in a magical place, so why come here?”

“Adventure,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows and pointedly examined the dingy bar.

“Well, Bordertown is different anyway,” he said, “and there are no endless lessons.”

“School?” I asked, ready to be sympathetic.

“Sort of.” That’s as much as I got from him on that subject.

“But you had to give up magic that worked all the time.”

“And you had to give up computers.”

I scowled. “There were reasons.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “There were reasons.”

We both fell silent.

“Why did you help me?” I asked after a while.

“You’re interesting,” he said. “You might be my adventure.”

I burst out laughing—the best laugh I’d had in a long time. The boy might be plain but he sure had the elfin tongue.

That’s when I noticed the band had left, and Moss noticed, too.

He cried out an unintelligible word and jumped to his feet.
“The band’s at Sluggo’s tomorrow night,” he told me. “Ginger and Green Lady Lane. See you there?”