The City: New York (Manhattan, to be more exact).
The Magic: Think you know about fairies? A teenager discovers a lot of the stuff you read is helpful, but when you encounter fairies in the heart of the city—you learn a great deal more.
When I was little, I used to wonder why the sidewalk trees had iron fences around them. Even a city kid could see they were pretty weedy looking trees. I wondered what they’d done to be caged up like that, and whether it might be dangerous to get too close to them.
So I was pretty little, okay? Second grade, maybe. It was one of the things my best friend and I used to talk about, like why it’s so hard to find a particular city on a map when you don’t already know where it is, and why the fourth graders thought Mrs. Lustenburger’s name was so hysterically funny.
My best friend’s name was (is) Galadriel, which isn’t even remotely her fault, and only her mother calls her that anyway. Everyone else calls her Elf.
Anyway. Trees. New York. Have I said I live in New York? I do. In Manhattan, on the West Side, a couple blocks from Central Park.
I’ve always loved Central Park. I mean, it’s the closest to nature I’m likely to get, growing up in Manhattan. It’s the closest to nature I want to get, if you must know. There’s wild things in it—squirrels and pigeons and like that, and trees and rocks and plants. But they’re city wild things, used to living around people. I don’t mean they’re tame. I mean they’re streetwise. Look. How many squished squirrels do you see on the park transverses? How many do you see on any suburban road? I rest my case.
Central Park is magic. This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s the truth. When I was just old enough for Mom to let me out of her sight, I had this place I used to play, down by the boat pond, in a little inlet at the foot of a huge cliff. When I was in there, all I could see was the water all shiny and sparkly like a silk dress with sequins and the great gray hulk of the rock behind me and the willow tree bending down over me to trail its green-gold hair in the water. I could hear people splashing and laughing and talking, but I couldn’t see them, and there was this fairy who used to come and play with me.
Mom said my fairy friend came from me being an only child and reading too many books, but all I can say is that if I’d made her up, she would have been less bratty. She had long Saran-Wrap wings like a dragonfly, she was teensy, and she couldn’t keep still for a second. She’d play princesses or Peter Pan for about two minutes, and then she’d get bored and pull my hair or start teasing me about being a big, galumphy, deaf, blind human being or talking to the willow or the rocks. She couldn’t even finish a conversation with a butterfly.
Anyway, I stopped believing in her when I was about eight, or stopped seeing her, anyway. By that time I didn’t care because I’d gotten friendly with Elf, who didn’t tease me quite as much. She wasn’t into fairies, although she did like to read. As we got older, mostly I was grateful she was willing to be my friend. Like, I wasn’t exactly Ms. Popularity at school. I sucked at gym and liked English and like that, so the cool kids decided I was a super-geek. Also, I wear glasses and I’m no Kate Moss, if you know what I mean. I could stand to lose a few pounds—none of your business how many. It wasn’t safe to be seen having lunch with me, so Elf didn’t. As long as she hung with me after school, I didn’t really care all that much.
The inlet was our safe place, where we could talk about whether the French teacher hated me personally or was just incredibly mean in general and whether Patty Gregg was really cool, or just thought she was. In the summer, we’d take our shoes off and swing our feet in the water that sighed around the roots of the golden willow.
So one day we were down there, gabbing as usual. This was last year, the fall of eleventh grade, and we were talking about boyfriends. Or at least Elf was talking about her boyfriend and I was nodding sympathetically. I guess my attention wandered, and for some reason I started wondering about my fairy friend. What was her name again? Bubble? Burble? Something like that.
Something tugged really hard on about two hairs at the top of my head, where it really hurts, and I yelped and scrubbed at the sore place. “Mosquito,” I explained. “So what did he say?”
Oddly enough, Elf had lost interest in what her boyfriend had said. She had this look of intense concentration on her face, like she was listening for her little brother’s breathing on the other side of the bedroom door. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“What? Hear what?”
“Ssh.”
I sshed and listened. Water lapping; the distant creak of oarlocks and New Yorkers laughing and talking and splashing. The wind in the willow leaves whispering, ssh, ssh. “I don’t hear anything,” I said.
“Shut up,” Elf snapped. “You missed it. A snapping sound. Over there.” Her blue eyes were very big and round.
“You’re trying to scare me,” I accused her. “You read about that woman getting mugged in the park, and now you’re trying to jerk my chain. Thanks, friend.”
Elf looked indignant. “As if!” She froze like a dog sighting a pigeon. “There.”
I strained my ears. It seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden.
There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the willow. Elf breathed, “Omigod. Don’t look now, but I think there’s a guy over there, watching us.”
My face got all prickly and cold, like my body believed her even though my brain didn’t. “I swear to God, Elf, if you’re lying, I’ll totally kill you.” I turned around to follow her gaze. “Where? I don’t see anything.”
“I said, don’t look,” Elf hissed. “He’ll know.”
“He already knows, unless he’s a moron. If he’s even there. Omigod!”
Suddenly I saw, or thought I saw, a guy with a stocking cap on and a dirty, unshaven face peering around a big rock.
It was strange. One second, it looked like a guy, the next, it was more like someone’s windbreaker draped over a bush. But my heart started to beat really fast anyway. There weren’t that many ways to get out of that particular little cove if you didn’t have a boat.
“See him?” she hissed triumphantly.
“I guess.”
“What are we going to do?”
Thinking about it later, I couldn’t quite decide whether Elf was really afraid, or whether she was pretending because it was exciting to be afraid, but she sure convinced me. If the guy was on the path, the only way out was up the cliff. I’m not in the best shape and I’m scared of heights, but I was even more scared of the man, so up we went.
I remember that climb, but I don’t want to talk about it. I thought I was going to die, okay? And I was really, really mad at Elf for putting me though this, like if she hadn’t noticed the guy, he wouldn’t have been there. I was sweating, and my glasses kept slipping down my nose and . . .
No. I won’t talk about it. All you need to know is that Elf got to the top first and squirmed around on her belly to reach down and help me up.
“Hurry up,” she panted. “He’s behind you. No, don’t look”—as if I could even bear to look all that way down—“just hurry.”
I was totally winded by the time I got to the top and scrambled to my feet, but Elf didn’t give me time to catch my breath. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the path, both of us stumbling as much as we were running.
It was about this time I realized that something really weird was going on. Like, the path was empty, and it was two o’clock in the afternoon of a beautiful fall Saturday, when Central Park is so full of people it’s like Times Square with trees. And I couldn’t run just like you can’t run in dreams.
Suddenly, Elf tripped and let go of me. The path shook itself, and she was gone. Poof. Nowhere in sight.
By this time, I’m freaked totally out of my mind. I look around, and there’s this guy, hauling himself over the edge of the cliff, stocking cap jammed down over his head, face gray-skinned with dirt, half his teeth missing. I don’t know why I didn’t scream—usually, it’s pitiful how easy it is to make me scream—I just turned around and ran.
Now, remember that there’s about fifty million people in the park that day. You’d think I would run into one or two, which would mean safety because muggers don’t like witnesses. But no.
So I’m running and he’s running, and I can hear him breathing but I can’t hear his footsteps, and we’ve been running, like, forever, and I don’t know where the hell I am, which means I must be in the Ramble, which isn’t that near the Boat Pond, but hey, I’m running for my life. And I think he’s getting closer and I really want to look, just stop and let him catch me and get it all over with, but I keep running anyway, and suddenly I remember what my fairy’s name was (is) and I shriek out, “Bugle! Help me!”
I bet you thought something would happen.
So did I, and when it didn’t, I started to cry. Gulping for breath, my glasses all runny with tears, I staggered up a little rise, and I’m in a clear spot with a bench in it and trees all around and a low stone wall in front of another granite cliff, this one going straight down, like, a mile or two.
The guy laughs, low and deep in his throat, and I don’t know why because I don’t really want to, but I turn around and face him.
So this is when it gets really weird. Because he’s got a snout and really sharp teeth hanging out, and his stocking cap’s fallen off, and he has ears—gray, leathery ones—and his skin isn’t dirty, it’s gray, like concrete, and he’s impossible, but he’s real—a real, like, rat-guy. I give this little urk and he opens his jaws, and things get sparkly around the edges.
“Gnaw-bone!” someone says. “Chill!”
I jump and look around everywhere, and there’s this amazing girl standing right beside the rat-guy, who has folded up like a Slinky and is making pitiful noises over her boots. The boots are green, and so is her velvet mini and her Lycra top and her fitted leather jacket—all different shades of green, mostly olive and evergreen and moss and like that: dark greens. Browny, earthy greens. So’s her hair—browny-green, in long, wild dreads around her shoulders and down her back. And her skin, but that’s more brown than green.
She’s beautiful, but not like a celebrity or a model or anything. She’s way more gorgeous than that. Next to her, Taylor Swift is a complete dog.
“What’s up?” she asks the rat-guy. Her voice is incredible, too. I mean, she talks like some wise-ass street kid, but there’s leaves under it somehow. Sounds dumb, but that’s what it was like.
“Games is up,” he says, sounding just as ratty as he looks.
“Fun-fun. She saw me. She’s mine.”
“I hear you,” the green girl says thoughtfully. “The thing is, she knows Bugle’s name.”
I manage to make a noise. It’s not like I haven’t wanted to contribute to the conversation. But I’m kind of out of breath from all that running, not to mention being totally hysterical.
I’m not sure what old Gnaw-bone’s idea of fun and games is, but I’m dead sure I don’t want to play. If knowing Bugle’s name can get me out of this, I better make the most of it. So, “Yeah,” I croak. “Bugle and me go way back.”
The green girl turns to look at me, and I kind of wish I’d kept quiet. She’s way scary. It’s not the green hair or the punk clothes or the fact that I’ve just noticed there’s this humongous squirrel sitting on her shoulder and an English sparrow perched in her dreads. It’s the way she looks at me, like I’m a Saint Bernard that just recited the Pledge of Allegiance or something.
“I think we better hear Bugle’s take on this beautiful friendship,” she says. “Bugle says you’re buds, fine. She doesn’t, Gnaw-bone gets his fun and games. Fair?”
No, it’s not fair, but I don’t say so. There’s a long silence, in which I can hear the noise of traffic, very faint and far away, and the panicked beating of my heart, right in my throat.
Gnaw-bone licks his lips, what there is of them, and the squirrel slithers down the green girl’s shoulder and gets comfortable in her arms. If it’s even a squirrel. I’ve seen smaller dogs.
Have I mentioned I’m really scared? I’ve never been this scared before in my entire life. And it’s not even that I’m afraid of what Gnaw-bone might do to me, although I am.
I’m afraid of the green girl. It’s one thing to think fairies are wicked cool, to own all of Brian Froud’s Faerie books and see Fairy Tale three times and secretly wish you hadn’t outgrown your fairy friend. But this girl doesn’t look like any fairy I ever imagined. Green leather and dreads—get real! And I’m not really prepared for eyes like living moss and the squirrel curled like a cat in her arms and the sparrow in her hair like a bizzarroid hair clip. It’s way too weird. I want to run away. I want to cry. But neither of these things seems like the right I thing to do, so I stand there with my legs all rubbery and wait for Bugle to show up.
After a while, I feel something tugging at my hair. I start to slap it away, and then I realize. Duh. It’s Bugle, saying hi. I scratch my ear instead. There’s a little tootling sound, like a trumpet: Bugle, laughing. I laugh too, kind of hysterically.
“See?” I tell the green girl and the humongous squirrel and Gnaw-bone. “She knows me.”
The green girl holds out her hand—the squirrel scrambles up to her shoulder again—and Bugle flies over and stands on her palm. It seems to me that Bugle used to look more like a little girl and less like a teenager. But then, so did I.
The green girl ignores me. “Do you know this mortal?” she asks Bugle. Her voice is different, somehow: less street kid, more like Mom asking whether I’ve done my math homework. Bugle gives a little hop. “Yep. Sure do. When she was little, anyways. Now, she doesn’t want to know me.”
I’ve been starting to feel better, but now the green girl is glaring at me, and my stomach knots up tight. I give this sick kind of grin grin. It’s true. I hadn’t wanted to know her, not with Peggy and those guys on my case. Even Elf, who puts up with a lot, doesn’t want to hear about how I saw fairies when I was little. I say, “Yeah, well. I’m sorry. I really did know you were real, but I was embarrassed.”
The green girl smiles. I can’t help noticing she has a beautiful smile, like sun on the boat pond. “Fatso is just saying that,” she points out, “because she’s afraid I’ll throw her to Gnaw-bone.”
I freeze solid. Bugle, who’s been getting fidgety, takes off and flies around the clearing a couple of times. Then she buzzes me and pulls my hair again, lands on my shoulder and says, “She’s not so bad. I like teasing her.”
“Not fair!” Gnaw-bone squeaks.
The green girl shrugs. “You know the rules,” she tells him. “Bugle speaks for her. She’s off-limits. Them’s the breaks. Now, scram. You bother me.”
Exit Gnaw-bone, muttering and glaring at me over his shoulder, and am I ever glad to see him go. He’s like every nightmare Mom has ever had about letting me go places by myself and having me turn up murdered. Mine, too.
Anyway, I’m so relieved I start to babble. “Thanks, Bugle. Thanks a billion. I owe you big time.”
“Yeah,” says Bugle. “I know.”
“You owe me, too,” the green girl puts in.
Now, I can’t quite see where she’s coming from on this, seeing as how she was all gung-ho to let Gnaw-bone have his fun and games before Bugle showed up. Not to mention calling me names. On the other hand, she’s obviously Very Important, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading all those fairy tales, it’s that it’s a very bad idea to be rude to people who wear live birds and squirrels like jewelry. So I shrug. Politely.
“Seven months’ service should cover it,” she says. “Can you sing? I’m mostly into salsa these days, but reggae or jazz is cool too.”
My mouth drops open. Seven months? She’s gotta be out of her mind. My parents will kill me if I don’t come home for seven months.
“No?” Her voice is even more beautiful than it was before, like a fountain or wind in the trees. Her eyes sparkle like sun through leaves. She so absolutely gorgeous so not like anyone I can imagine having a conversation with, it’s hard to follow what she’s saying.
“I don’t sing,” I tell her.
“Dance, then?” I shake my head. “So, what can you do?”
Well, I know the answer to that one. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m totally useless. Just ask my French teacher. Or my mom.”
The beautiful face goes all blank and hard, like granite. “I said Gnaw-bone couldn’t have you. That leaves all his brothers and sisters. You don’t need much talent to entertain them.”
You know how your brain goes totally spla when you’re really scared? Well, my brain did that. And then I heard myself saying, “You said I was under Bugle’s protection. Just because you’re Queen of the Fairies doesn’t mean you can do anything you want.”
I was sure she’d be mad, but—get this—she starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs. And I get madder and madder, the way you do when you don’t know what you’ve said that’s so funny. Then I notice that she’s getting broader and darker and shorter, and there’s this scarf over her head, and she’s wearing this dorky green housedress and her stockings are drooping around her ankles and she’s got a cigarette in one hand. Finally she wheezes out, “The Queen of the Fairies! Geddouddaheah! You’re killin’ me!” She sounds totally different, too, like somebody’s Aunt Ida from the Bronx.
“The Queen of the . . . Listen, kid. We ain’t in the Old Country no more. We’re in New York”—Noo Yawk is what she said—“New York, U. S. of A. We ain’t got Queens, except across the bridge.”
So now I’m really torqued. I mean, who knows what she’s going to do next, right? She could turn me into a pigeon, for all I know. This is no time to lose it. I’ve got to focus. After all, I’ve been reading about fairies for years, right? New Age stuff, folklore, fantasy novels—everything I could get my hands on. I’ve done my homework. There’s a chance I can b.s. my way out of this if I keep my cool.
“Oh, ha ha,” I say. “Not. Like that rat-guy didn’t say ‘how high’ when you said ‘jump.’ You can call yourself the Mayor of Central Park if you want, but you’re still the Queen of the goddam Fairies.”
She morphs back to dreads and leather on fast forward.
“So, Fatso. You think you’re hot stuff.” I shrug. “Listen. We’re in this thing where I think you owe me, and you think you don’t. I could make you pay up, but I won’t.” She plops down on the bench and gets comfortable. The squirrel jumps off her shoulder and disappears into a tree.
“Siddown, take a load off—have a drink. Here.” Swear to God, she hands me a can of Diet Coke. I don’t know where it came from, but the pop-top is popped, and I can hear the Coke fizzing and I realize I’m wicked thirsty. My hand goes, like all by itself, to take it, and then my brain kicks in. “No,” I say. “Thank you.”
She looks hurt. “Really? It’s cold and everything.” She shoves it towards me. My mouth is as dry as the Sahara Desert, but if there’s one thing I’m sure I know about fairies, it’s don’t eat or drink anything a fairy gives you if you ever want to go home.
“Really,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Well, dag,” she says, disgusted. “You read fairy tales. Aren’t you special. I suppose now you’re going to ask for three wishes and a pot of gold. Go ahead. Three wishes. Have a ball.”
This is more like it. I’m all prepared, too. In sixth grade, I worked out what my wishes would be, if I ever met a wish-granting fairy. And they were still perfectly good wishes, based on extensive research. Never, ever wish for more wishes. Never ask for money—it’ll turn into dog doo in the morning. The safest thing to do was to ask for something that would make you a better citizen, and then you could ask for two things for yourself. I settled on a good heart, a really ace memory, and 20/20 vision. I didn’t know about laser surgery in sixth grade.
So I’m all ready (except maybe asking to be a size 6 instead of the vision thing), and then it occurs to me that this is all way too easy, and Queenie is looking way too cheerful for someone who’s been outsmarted by an overweight bookworm. Face it, I haven’t done anything to earn those wishes.
All I’ve done is turn down a lousy Diet Coke. “Thanks all the same, but I’ll pass,” I say. “Can I go home now?”
Then she loses her temper. She’s not foaming at the mouth or anything, but there are sparks coming out of her eyes like a Fourth of July sparkler, and her dreads are lifting and twining around her head like snakes. The sparrow gives a startled chirp and takes off for the nearest bush.
“Well, isn’t this just my lucky day,” Greenie snarls. “You’re not as dumb as you look. On the bright side, though,”—her dreads settle slowly—“winning’s boring when it’s too easy, you know?”
I wouldn’t know—I don’t usually win. But then, I don’t usually care that much. This is different. This time, there’s a lot more at stake than my nonexistent self-esteem. I’m glad she thinks I’m a moron. It evens things up a little. “I tell you what,” I tell her. “I’ll play you for my freedom.”
“You’re on,” she says. “Dealer’s choice. That’s me. What shall we play?” She leans back on the bench and looks up at the sky. “Riddles are trad, but everybody knows all the good ones. What’s black and white and red all over? A blushing nun? A newspaper? Penguin roadkill? Puleeze. Anyway, riddles are boring. What do you say to Truth or Dare?”
“I hate it.” I do, too. The only time I played it, I ended up feeling icky and raw, like I’d been sunbathing topless.
“Really? It’s my favorite game. We’ll play Truth or Dare. These are the rules. We ask each other personal questions, and the first one who won’t answer loses everything. Deal?”
It doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me. How can I know what question a Queen of Fairies would be too embarrassed to answer? On the other hand, what can a being who hangs out with squirrels and fairies and rat-guys know about human beings? And what choice do I have?
I shrug. “I guess.”
“Okay. I go first.”
Well, sure she does. She’s the Queen of Central Park. And I see the question coming—she doesn’t even pause to think about it. “So, how much do you weigh, anyway?”
Now you have to understand that nobody knows how much I weigh. Not Elf, not even my mom. Only the school nurse and the doctor and me. I’ve always said I’d rather die than tell anyone else. But the choice between telling and living in Central Park for seven months is a no-brainer. So I tell her. I even add a pound for the hotdog and the Mr. Softee I ate the boathouse.
“Geddouddaheah!” she says. “You really pork it down, huh?”
I don’t like her comment, but it’s not like I haven’t heard it before. It makes me mad, but not so mad I can’t think, which is obviously what she’s trying for. Questions go through my mind, but I don’t have a lot to go on, you know what I’m saying? And she’s tapping her green boot and looking impatient. I have to say something, and what I end up asking is, “Why are you in Central Park, anyway? I mean, there’s lots of other places that are more fairy-friendly. Why aren’t you in White Plains or something?”
It sounds like a question to me, but she doesn’t seem to think so. “I win. That’s not personal,” she says.
“It is too personal. Where a person lives is personal. Come on. Why do you live here, or let me go home.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she says. “Okay, here goes. This is the heart of the city. You guys pass through all the time—like Grand Central Station, right? Only here, you stop or a while. You rest, you play, you kiss in the grass, you whisper your secrets, you weep, you fight. This ground, these rocks, are soaked through with love, hate, joy, sorrow, passion. And I love that stuff, you understand? It keeps me interested.”
Wow. I stare at her, and all my ideas about fairies start to get rearranged. But they don’t get very far because she’s still talking.
“You think I don’t know anything about you,” she says. “Boy, are you wrong. I know everything I want to know. I know what’s on your bio quiz next week. I know Patty Gregg’s worst secret. I know who your real mother is, the one who gave you away when you were born.” She gives me this look, like Elf’s brother the time he stole a dirty magazine. “Wanna know?”
It’s not what I’m expecting, but it’s a question, all right, and it’s personal. And it’s really easy. Sure, I want to know all those things, a whole lot—especially about my biological mother.
Like more than anything else in the world. My parents are okay—I mean, they say they love me and everything. But they really don’t understand me big time. I’ve always felt adopted, if you know what I mean—a changeling in a family of ordinary humans. I’d give anything to know who my real mother is, what she looks like and why she couldn’t keep me. So I should say yes, right? I mean, it’s the true answer to the green girl’s question, and that’s what the game is about, isn’t it? There’s a movement on my shoulder, a sharp little pinch right behind my ear. I’ve totally forgotten Bugle—I mean, she’s been sitting there for ages, perfectly still, which is not her usual.
Maybe I’ve missed something. It’s that too easy thing again. Sure, I want to know who my birth mom is. But it’s more complicated than that. Because now that I think about it, I realize I don’t want Greenie to be the one to tell me. I mean, it feels wrong, to learn something like that from someone who is obviously trying to hurt you.
“Answer the question,” says the green girl. “Or give in. I’m getting bored.”
I take a deep breath. “Keep your socks on. I was thinking how to put it. Okay, my answer is both yes and no. I do want to find out about my birth mom, but I don’t want you to tell me. Even if you know, it’s none of your business. I want to find out for myself. Does that answer your question?”
She nods briskly. “It does. Your turn.”
She’s not going to give me much time to come up with one, I can tell that. She wants to win. She wants to get me all torqued so I can’t think, so I won’t ask her the one question she won’t answer, so I won’t even see it staring me right in the face, the one thing she really, really can’t answer, if the books I’ve read aren’t all totally bogus.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Like, how dumb does she think I am? Pretty dumb, I guess, from the look on her face.
“Guess,” she says, making a quick recovery.
“Wrong fairy tale,” I say, pushing it. “Come on. Tell me, or you lose.”
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
“Yes.”
There’s a long silence—a long silence, like no bird is ever going sing again, or squirrel chatter or wind blow. The green girl puts her fingers in her mouth and starts to bite her nails. I’m feeling pretty good. I know and she knows that I’ve won no matter what she says. If she tells me her name, I have total power over her, and if she doesn’t, she loses the game. I know what I’d choose if I was in her place, but I guess she must really, really hate losing.
Watching her sweat, I think of several things to say, most of them kind of mean. She’d say them, if she was me. I don’t.
It’s not like I’m Mother Teresa or anything—I’ve been mean plenty of times, and sometimes I wasn’t even sorry later. But she might lose her temper and turn me into a pigeon after all.
Besides, she looks so human all of a sudden, chewing her nails and all stressed out like she’s the one facing seven months of picking up fairy laundry. Before, when she was winning, she looked maybe twenty, right? Gorgeous, tough, scary, in total control. Now she looks a lot younger and not tough at all.
So maybe if she loses, she’s threatened with seven months of doing what I tell her. Maybe I don’t realize what I’m asking. Maybe there’s more at stake here than I know. A tiny whimpering behind my right ear tells me that Bugle is pretty upset. Suddenly, I don’t feel so great. I don’t care any more about beating the Queen of the Fairies at some stupid game.
I just want this to be over.
“Listen,” I say, and the green girl looks up at me. Her wide, mossy eyes are all blurred with tears. I take a deep breath.
“Let’s stop playing,” I say.
“We can’t stop,” she says miserably. “It has begun, it must be finished. Those are the rules.”
“Okay. We’ll finish it. It’s a draw. You don’t have to answer my question. Nobody wins. Nobody loses. We just go back to the beginning.”
“What beginning? When Gnaw-bone was chasing you? If I help you, you have to pay.”
I think about this for a little while. She lets me. “Okay,” I say. “How about this. You’re in a tough spot, right? I take back the question, you’re off the hook, like you got me off the hook with Gnaw-bone. We’re even.”
She takes her fingers out of her mouth. She gnaws on her lip. She looks up into the sky, and around at the trees. She tugs on her dreads. She smiles. She starts to laugh. It’s not teasing laugh or a mean laugh, but pure happiness, like a little kid in the snow.
“Wow,” she says, and her voice is warm and soft as fleece. “You’re right. Awesome.”
“Cool,” I say. Can I go home now?”
“In a minute.” She puts her head to one side, and grins at me. I’m grinning back—I can’t help it. Suddenly, I feel all mellow and safe and comfortable, like I’m lying on a rock in the sun and telling stories to Elf.
“Yeah,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. “I’ve heard you. You tell good stories. You should write them down. Now, about those wishes. They’re human stuff—not really my business. As you pointed out. Besides, you’ve already got all those things. You remember what you need to know; you see clearly; you’re majorly kind-hearted. But you deserve a present.” She tapped her browny-green cheek with one slender finger. “I know. Ready?”
“Okay,” I say. “Um. What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” she says. “But you’ll like it. You’ll see.”
She stands up and I stand up. Bugle takes off from my shoulder and goes and sits in the greeny-brown dreads like a butterfly clip. Then the Queen of the New York Fairies leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. It doesn’t feel like a kiss—more like a very light breeze has just hit me between the eyes. Then she lays her finger across my lips, and then she’s gone.
“So there you are!” It was Elf, red in the face, out of breath, with her hair coming out of the clip, and a tear in her jacket. “I’ve been looking all over. I was scared out of my mind! It was like you just disappeared into thin air!”
“I got lost,” I said. “Anyway, it’s okay now. Sit down. You look like hell.”
“Thanks, friend.” She sat on the bench. “So, what happened?”
I wanted to tell her, I really did. I mean, she’s my best friend and everything, and I always tell her everything. But the Queen of the Fairies. I ask you. And I could feel the kiss nestling below my bangs like a little, warm sun and the Queen’s finger cool across my lips. So all I did was look at my hands. They were all dirty and scratched from climbing up the cliff. I’d broken a fingernail.
“Are you okay?” Elf asked anxiously. “That guy didn’t catch you or anything, did he? Jeez, I wish we’d never gone down there.”
She was getting really upset. I said, “I’m fine, Elf. He didn’t catch me, and everything’s okay.”
“You sure?”
I looked right at her, you know how you do when you want to be sure someone hears you? And I said, “I’m sure.” And I was.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Good. I was worried.” She looked at her watch. “It’s not like it was that long, but it seemed like Forever.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, with feeling. “I’m really thirsty.”
So that’s about it, really. We went to a coffee shop on Columbus Avenue and had blueberry pie and coffee and talked. For the first time, I told her about being adopted, and wanting to look for my birth mother, and she was really great about it after being mad because I hadn’t told her before. I said she was a good friend and she got teary. And then I went home.
So what’s the moral of this story? My life didn’t get better overnight, if that’s what you’re wondering. I still need to lose a few pounds, I still need glasses, and the cool kids still hate me. But Elf sits with me at lunch now, and a couple other kids turned out to be into fantasy and like that, so I’m not a total outcast any more. And I’m writing down my stories. Elf thinks they’re good, but she’s my best friend. Maybe some day I’ll get up the nerve to show them to my English teacher. Oh, and I’ve talked to my mom about finding my birth mother, and she says maybe I should wait until I’m out of high school. Which is okay with me, because, to tell you the truth, I don’t need to find her right now—I just want to know I can.
And the Green Queen’s gift? It’s really weird. Suddenly, I see fairies everywhere.
There was this girl the other day—blonde, skinny, wearing a white leotard and her jeans unzipped and folded back, so he looked kind of like a flower in a calyx of blue leaves.
Freak, right? Nope. Fairy. So was an old black guy all dressed in royal blue, with butterflies sewn on his blue beret and painted on his blue suede shoes. And this Asian guy with black hair down to his butt and a big fur coat. And this Upper East Side lady with big blond hair and green bug-eyes. She had a fuzzy little dog on a rhinestone leash, and you won’t believe this, but the dog was a fairy, too.
And remember the trees—the sidewalk ones? I know all about them now. No, I won’t tell you, stupid. It’s a secret. If you really want to know, you’ll have to go find the Queen of Grand Central Park and make her an offer. Or play a game with her.
Don’t forget to say hi to Gnaw-bone for me.
Delia Sherman’s most recent short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Naked City, Steampunk!, Teeth, Under My Hat, and Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells. Her adult novels are Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, and The Fall of Kings (with Ellen Kushner). Novels for younger readers include New York Between Novels Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. Her most recent novel, The Freedom Maze—a time-travel historical about antebellum Louisiana—received the Andre Norton Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and the Prometheus Award. When not writing, she teaches, edits, knits, and travels. Sherman lives in New York City with Ellen Kushner.