Going Nowhere, Going Somewhere

Evie? Evie! Ouch!" Jack yanked his hand out of mine, shaking it and glaring at me. "I need these fingers later."

I couldn't move. My future was lying on my bed-how did it get there? Why wasn't it in the mailbox?

Grnlllll. She had been trying to get my attention when I came in from school. She must have gotten the mail, which meant she knew my letter was here. Arianna probably knew, too, since Grnlllll didn't climb stairs. Arianna would have been the one to put it on my bed.

My eyes burned with tears and shame, my stomach already twisted up in a sick knot.

Maybe it wasn't a rejection. Maybe they were jumping on the whole "green" bandwagon, and it was an acceptance with directions to access the information I needed online.

Maybe.

Please.

Please, please, please. I grabbed my necklace off the dresser, clutching it like a talisman as I walked forward, each step making my stomach hurt a little more. I picked up the envelope, trembling. Why couldn't they have waited another two weeks to send it to me?

"I can't do it," I whispered.

"Can't do what?" Jack asked, curious enough by now that he'd let the faerie door close behind himself.

"I can't open it." Squeezing my eyes shut, I held it out to him. "You do it."

For once he didn't make a stupid comeback, just took the envelope from my hand. Each sound of tearing paper ripped a piece of my soul away. Maybe it wasn't a rejection. Maybe it wasn't a rejection. Maybe it wasn't . . .

"Dear Miss Green, blah, blah, blah, like to thank you on behalf of blah, blah, blah, regret that at this time can't accept-" He stopped, and so did my heart.

I couldn't open my eyes. I wouldn't. I wasn't going to Georgetown. That was it. Everything I'd worked for, everything I'd chased since leaving the Center, gone. I'd work in the diner for the rest of my life, sneak in pointless odd jobs for IPCA, and Lend would get bored with me and marry the lusty lab assistant, and they'd be happy and beautiful forever, and I was

never

going

anywhere.

My future was a gaping void, worse even than the Faerie Paths, because at least they always had a destination. I had no destination now.

"You're scaring me," Jack's voice finally cut through, and I opened my eyes, barely able to see him. "Okay, good, yes, breathe. Breathing helps one stay alive, I've found. What on earth is so bad about a stupid school saying no?"

"My life"-I gasped-"is over. It's over. Everything."

He frowned dubiously. "Who would want to go to a place called Georgetown, anyhow? Ridiculous. Now, I could understand your devastation if it had a distinguished name like, say, Jacktown, but as it is, you're overreacting. Why do you want to go to more school? I went once for a few hours and nearly lost my mind."

"But, I-it's all I had planned, and-"

He waved his hand in the air as though swatting away all my pesky dreams. "Make new plans. You don't really want that anyway. You might think you do, but that's not your world." He smiled at me, his blue eyes the only thing coming in clearly through my tears. I cried even harder.

Sighing, he shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. "Do you want me to get Raquel? Or your jumpy boyfriend?"

"No!" I couldn't face Lend, couldn't tell him that I wasn't good enough. Raquel, either. She'd be disappointed in me. I'd tried to be normal, tried to make a home for myself in this world, and failed utterly and completely. Why could Lend be so good at both worlds but I couldn't manage in either? Why was I so bad at life?

Jack threw back his shoulders. "It would appear, as usual, that everything is up to me. Good thing I'm always ready for a challenge." He took my hand in his and opened a door, pulling me through. I was crying too hard to protest when Lend's necklace was jarred from my hand. I looked back as the door closed, the necklace gleaming in a crumpled heap on the floor of my life.

"Jack, I-" My breath came in gasps now, and I couldn't manage to get out more than a few words at a time. "I don't-want to-please-"

He stopped dead in his tracks, frowning at me. Raising one eyebrow as though considering a particularly puzzling problem, he put his free hand behind my neck and hesitated for a moment.

Then he kissed me.

Shocked out of my shock, I registered his lips on mine, but it wouldn't process. They were full and warm enough, but the strange mashing motions he was making were far from the kisses I'd so often enjoyed with Lend.

And . . . it was Jack. Jack. Of the many things I'd considered doing to him, most involved violence. None of them involved lip-on-lip action.

I jerked my head back, but it wasn't hard to get away, since he pulled back at the same moment.

He wrinkled his nose. "Well, that was . . . interesting. Always wanted to try it, but now that I have, I'm pretty sure I never want to again."

Furious, I smacked him in the shoulder with my free hand, hating that we still had to have one clasped so I wouldn't be lost forever. "You"-smack-"little"-smack-"freak!"-smack. "What was that?!" SMACK.

He dodged another volley. "And I had been under the impression that afterward was a little less"-he winced as I connected hard-"painful."

"Listen, creep, if I wanted you to kiss me, I would have asked! And I didn't. And I wouldn't! And if you ever try that again, so help me, I will find that fossegrim and throw you to a watery death!"

And then-as if his awkward, terrible kiss weren't bad enough-he started laughing.

"SHUT UP!"

He shook his head, grinning smugly. "See? Two goals accomplished. One: try out kissing. Miserable failure, no doubt your fault, but a noble effort nonetheless. I should find your friend Carlee. She's probably better at it than you are."

Why couldn't my glamour-piercing eyes have a laser function? I wouldn't kill him. I'd just burn the word "freak" into his forehead.

"Aren't you going to ask me what my second goal was?" He batted his eyelashes at me.

"No, I'm not."

He nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. "You aren't crying anymore, are you?"

I'd have to let go of his hand to throttle him. So that option was out. "Being so mad I'd like to kill you is better?"

His smile tightened. "Being angry isalways better than being sad. Another of my mottos, in fact. Now, do you want to go cry by yourself in your room, or do you want to have an adventure?"

I hesitated, wary as always of Jack's idea of an adventure but not wanting to go home, either. And he had a point-at least I wasn't sobbing anymore. I knew as soon as I walked back into my room with that letter, I'd lose it. Even thinking about thinking about it was making me tear up, and . . . forget it.

I squeezed his hand harder than necessary. "What did you have in mind?"

He narrowed his eyes and smiled, cherubic face suddenly wicked. "Let's go play." He dragged me along behind him as he sped through the Paths. He kept changing direction, altering his course to the right or left as though following a constantly shifting trail. I'd never seen anyone go anywhere but straight ahead before.

"Do you know where you're going?" I asked, increasingly nervous. I wasn't keen on the idea of being lost in the Faerie Paths with Jack or anyone else. And the longer we were stuck in the dark, the more I had to fight the panic.

"It changes. Never in the same place twice. Makes it rather difficult to find, especially when one is being nagged, but now we-" He stopped, triumphant. "Here. Put your hand out. Tell me what you feel."

Rolling my eyes, I put my hand out next to his, against the emptiness and-there was something there. Or not something, even, but the idea of something. It wasn't tangible, and I wasn't sure how I was feeling it at all, other than the slight stirring under my fingers, the recognition of place in the midst of nowhere. I imagined it was akin to amputees feeling phantom limbs, only in this case it was a phantom door. There was nothing there, but there should be.

Jack watched me intently. "You can feel it, can't you?"

I shook my head. "I think so; I don't know. It's weird."

"There's no reason I can do it and you can't. In fact, you can open a lot more than just doors. This would be easy if you'd put your busy little mind to it instead of worrying about grades and schools and kissing. Especially kissing. Nasty thing, that."

"Yeah, nasty when it's with you. But how can you do this?"

"I think the faerie food changes you a bit. Besides, if you watch long enough, and want something badly enough, you'd be amazed at what you can do. What you will do. The Faerie Paths meant freedom for me."

My heart twisted sadly in my chest, reminded of Jack's life with the faeries. Like Vivian, but Jack seemed so sure of himself, saner than she had been. Which wasn't saying much, but still. He wasn't completely unbalanced. "I'm so sorry about your childhood, Jack. That must have been hard."

He grinned, a baring of teeth. "Ah, but look at what a fine young man I've grown into. I have no one but the faeries to thank for who I am today."

"You can leave, though! Why do you still go to the Faerie Realms at all? Why not come back to Earth entirely, leave it behind?"

"Come back to what? Besides, you know that once you've tasted fey cuisine, you never go back. Can never go back."

"Couldn't you bring a lot with you or something? Store it?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid one way or another Faerie and I are linked. I'm not done with them yet."

His smile seemed to me a more thorough glamour than any I'd ever seen. Just when I thought I was learning something about him, that smile would crop up, wiping away any real emotion. How could I ever read what was underneath it?

"Moving on," he said. "The door. You can feel it."

"What am I feeling, exactly?"

He traced his fingers almost reverently along the space where the door waited for us, staring at the blackness. "You know when you're on the edge of wake and sleep, and the dream you're leaving feels more real to you than anything the world has to offer? When you open your eyes, it's as though part of you stayed, and you know you'll never feel things quite as deeply, experience them quite as truly as you had in that tiny space of awareness between darkness and light. We're going into that." I held my breath, and he snapped out of whatever state he was in. Winking, he opened a door. "Welcome to the Faerie Realms."