14 Humble Pie Basically Tastes Like Chicken

I drive to Noah’s but can’t make myself actually stop the car, so I end up driving around aimlessly for an hour. There is so much raw emotion swirling inside me that I feel like a human blender of angst. I still have a guilt hangover from the Vindhya debacle. I just found out I might be evil. And there’s the whole “asking for help instead of giving it” role reversal that is obviously way out of my comfort zone.

On top of all that, I’m about to try to get a friend back (or, more accurately, a frenemy). That’s not something I’ve ever done before. Goodbyes are always on my terms, and they’re for keeps. Trying to figure out how to reverse that scenario is terrifying. Maybe it’s not even possible.

And how did I even get to the place where Noah is the one person I think can help me out of this tailspin?

I think about this a lot as I circle his block ten or fifteen times. The thing is, he’s the only person outside of my family who knows two things about me: that I’m magical and that I’m screwed up. Actually, I may be giving my family too much credit. Noah saw way before I did that I was in trouble, and if I’d listened to him earlier, maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess.

Eventually I swallow my dread and my pride (easier than expected, as there is so little of it left) long enough to park the car and march myself to the front door. Because if it’s between baring my soul to my nemesis or spiraling into a legit evil fairy, I’ve just got to be brave.

I trudge along the walkway and up the front-porch steps, glancing around to make sure there are no potential eavesdroppers. What I have to say is scary enough without extra ears listening in. The street is empty.

As soon as I ring the doorbell, I can hear muffled activity inside. Noah’s mom’s voice calling from deep within. Scuffling and arguing. The doorknob jiggles from the inside, goes still, jiggles again. Right inside the door, Noah’s little sister sings part of the “k-i-s-s-i-n-g” song, some of the words muted like her mouth is being covered. Noah yells, “OUCH! Mom, Nat bit me!”

Lisa shouts, “You two, STOP IT! Natalie, come here.” And Natalie’s voice recedes in a whine about life not being fair, she’s bored, and what is there to eat. Nat the Brat indeed.

Noah opens the door a second later, his face a mask of disdain. It’s so incongruous with what I just heard through the door that a surprised laugh catches in my misery-clogged throat and chokes me. As soon as I get the coughing under control, though, I shove a dry-cleaning bag at him. “Here are the costumes. I had them cleaned.”

Noah takes them without a word or a look of acknowledgment and moves to close the door.

Before he can totally shut me out, I stop the door with my hand and blurt, “The glimpses can’t be trusted like I thought. I should have listened to you. You were right about everything. I really screwed up, and I shouldn’t have borrowed the costume for Vindhya without telling you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry about everything with Vindhya and Holly and… everyone. I want to make it right, but I don’t know how.”

He crosses his arms. “Maybe my idea, where you just stop. Let’s start there.”

As if I haven’t humiliated myself enough, now I have to admit how little I actually know about my own magic. I stumble over it. “The problem is, I can’t control the glimpses. They just sort of… happen. But maybe I can ignore them? Memom says we can’t. But I’ll try.”

For an instant Noah looks puzzled. Then he gives me the look who turned out to be human face from Tuesday. I’m ridiculously relieved. He drops his defensive pose. “You’ve had this thing your whole life?”

“Since I was twelve.”

“So five, six years. And you have no idea how it works?”

I shake my head. It seems so pathetic when he says it like that. “And, um.” Out with it, Charity. You’ve come this far. “There’s something else I can do.”

“Okay?”

“Remember at Arctic Marble when you were making me that… thing. And you kept feeling like maybe you should stop?”

“Stinking conscience,” he mutters. Then his eyes go wide. “How did you know I— Wait, that was you? You were messing with my head?”

I press my lips together and look at the ground.

“That’s so evil!”

My head pops up. “It was self-defense!”

He drags his hand down his face, back up again, and through his curls. “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

I hug myself but force my eyes to meet his. “You were right all along. Homecoming proved that. I don’t want to be the bad guy, and I don’t know who else could help me.”

“You want my help?” He’s still holding the dry-cleaning bag. It rustles in his arm. “The last time you asked for my help—”

“I know! I said I’m sorry!”

He narrows his eyes at me for an uncomfortable beat. Then, without a word, he turns around and goes into the house. I let my head fall back against the porch pillar in defeat. I wonder how much a ticket to Baghdad costs.

But a minute later he returns, free of the dry-cleaning bag. He doesn’t look upset anymore. Actually, the mixture of curiosity and concentration on his face makes him look like a very young college professor or maybe a mad scientist. He clears his throat. “Okay. I’ll help you figure out how to control your psychic abilities.”

I’ve never thought of my magic like that. It sounds completely off. I shift uncomfortably.

“But no more lying, and definitely no—” He pokes at his forehead.

“Nudges,” I offer.

“Seriously. No nudges.” His eyebrows pop up behind his glasses. “Unless you think we could send telepathic messages back and forth? Because that would be awesome.”

“It really doesn’t work like that.”

“Yeah. Forget it.” His eyes roam the yard for three or four seconds. Then he focuses back on me. “I would say the first step is to try to glimpse something.”

“Wait, what?” I seem to have stumbled into Opposite Land.

He pushes his glasses up his nose. “Yeah. If you want to teach a dog not to bark, first you teach it to bark on command. So it—”

“I’m not a dog!”

He looks appropriately flustered. “No. Yeah. I just mean, doing a thing is easier than not doing a thing. If you can choose to do it, then you’ve found the switch, as it were, and you should be able to turn it off, too. See?”

It scares me so freaking much that what he just said makes sense. I realize my eyebrows are pinched together and press my finger to the spot between them. I lick my dry lips. Then I nod. “Okay. I’ll, um. I’ll do that.”

“Okay, go for it.”

“What?”

“Try it on me.”

“I don’t know—”

“Come on. No time like the present.” He shakes his arms out, like he’s prepping for a dead lift.

I wasn’t prepared for this. I thought the next step would be to stare at my ceiling and contemplate the cosmos or something. Besides, I already tried it on him a few days ago and got nothing. I shake my head in protest.

He’s not paying attention. He closes his eyes and touches his middle fingers to his temples, around the frame of his glasses. I roll my eyes. “What are you doing?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. “I’m concentrating on my wish.”

“So… Holly?”

“You won’t know for sure until you glimpse it.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“We don’t know. Maybe this is how it works. Come on. Just do the thing.”

What thing? I sigh and, not knowing what else to do, stare at him hard. I think, Go!… Glimpse!… Activate mind powers.… I wish I could see the wish.… Noah’s brain, I command thee to open to me.…

“This isn’t working.”

Noah finally opens his eyes. He makes a face like, This Rubik’s Cube is tricky. “What are you trying?”

I don’t want to tell him how silly it was. I mutter, “I just… tried to… concentrate on your brain.”

“Hhhmm.” He nods. “Okay. Wishes are more of a gut thing though, right?”

“You want me to concentrate on your guts?”

“Well, I mean, no.”

“Technically it all happens in your brain.”

“Yeah, but maybe you need to focus more on emotion. The heart. The eyes. Yeah. The eyes are the window to the soul. Who said that?”

“How would I know?”

“Okay, let’s do it.” He opens his eyes wide and points his face at me. This is getting more and more awkward. And what if someone I know drives past? I glance at the empty street. He huffs, “Come on. Look into my eyes.”

Reluctantly I focus on his eyes. But I’m not sure which one to look at, and it’s pretty much impossible to stare into both eyes at once. I lick my lips again. “Take your glasses off.”

He takes them off with a little flourish. “Should I tear my shirt open too? Like Clark Kent?”

“Eew. No. Plus you’re wearing a T-shirt, weirdo.”

I roll the tension out of my neck, take a deep breath, and look into his eyes again. And the truth is, they aren’t muddy at all. They’re viridian, with gingerbread near the pupil and cobalt around the rim of the iris. Striking eyes, really, when you look.

I inch a little closer. But all I see are his eyes, no glimpse at all. I think, Noah, tell me your deepest desire.… I command you to make a wish.… Abracadabra.… Bibbidi bobbidi boo.

I shake my head. “Still nothing. Are you focusing on your wish?”

He looks flustered. “Yeah. Uh. Yeah.”

“Maybe…” I can’t believe I’m doing this. “Maybe if I…” I reach out and gingerly place my hand over his heart. He flinches a little when I touch him. Come on! Am I really that repellant?

I give him a (hopefully) reassuring nod before I close my eyes. I focus all my remaining senses on the spot where my hand makes contact with his chest. He’s warm through the soft cotton of his T-shirt. I suddenly realize I haven’t read it. I don’t know what it says. It feels like a secret of the Universe. Should I open my eyes and read the shirt?

No. I’ve got to concentrate. I force them to stay closed as I focus on our point of physical connection. His heart seems like it’s beating kind of fast, but I’m not a nurse or anything. Maybe that’s how fast hearts always beat. Maybe he’s scared that I’ll do black magic on him.

My hands feel a little buzzy—like they get when I’m nudging—and I realize that my own heart seems to be matching pace with his. Maybe this is it! Maybe this is what conjuring a glimpse feels like! I reach out with my mind, through my fingers, into Noah’s soul.

It’s like diving into a pool of blackstrap molasses. I feel around in the dark, not sure what I’m looking for, every inch of progress a struggle.

I place my other hand on his chest. Feel his heartbeat. Breathe. Reach.

I close the distance between us and touch my forehead to his collarbone. Now I can smell him. Me thinkest I detect a hint of Old Spice. But it’s not offensive. It’s kind of nice, actually. I inhale. Reach. Exhale. Get lost. Try to remember what reaching feels like.

And then his arms come tentatively around me. I’m inside a Noah cocoon. I can feel his breath, a warm rhythm along my temple. And I’m only kind of trying to find the glimpse switch. My brain feels like melting chocolate. Slow and thick and sweet and gooey.

“Get a room! Gross!”

I jump away from Noah like he’s high voltage. The world feels blindingly bright and chafing. Nat the Brat’s voice screeches in my ear. “You guys are, like, totally making out in front of God and everybody.”

Noah’s cheeks are hot pink. His eyes flit from me to his sister. He grabs Natalie by the arm and drags her through the door, while she screams, “Ow! This is child abuse! MOM!”

I stand blinking in the sunlight for a few seconds, trying to reboot. What. Was. That?

Noah reappears, scrubbing a hand through his hair. His eyes are trained on my knees. I fixate on the doorknob. He mutters, “Um. So. Did you get anything?”

I clear my throat. “No. I thought maybe. But… no.”

He puts his glasses back on, still looking anywhere but at my face. “Okay. Maybe we’ll figure it out another time. Another day, I mean. Whenever.”

“Yeah,” I say to the doorknob. “ ’Cuz I should probably. Go.” Ugh. There has got to be a way to turn this thing around. I’m the fairy godmother. When did I get this awkward? I set my jaw and look at Noah’s face—his completely nonstriking, not-melting-my-brain face.

He has freckles. That should be noted. I want to study their constellation. What? No, I don’t. I want to punch myself in the head.

I say crisply, “I’m going to get to work on the Holly thing.”

“What?” His green-blue-brown eyes flicker to mine. For a second he looks confused, like, Holly who? And my heart beats faster again. Then he snaps out of it. “Oh. Right. Good.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “See ya.”

“Yeah. See ya.”

I remember to check his shirt for the secrets of the Universe before I turn to walk away. It says SET PHASERS TO STUN.