Wings (14 page)

“I had dance practice and—,” said Tamisin, but then the girl interrupted her.

“I can’t imagine why you’re wasting your time talking to her, Jak. You’re new here, so I guess you haven’t heard about Tamisin. She’s a freak—everybody knows it. I bet you’ve never seen ears like hers. Here,” the girl said as she handed her books to her friend. “Look at this!”

Jak was surprised when the girl reached out and pushed Tamisin’s hair behind her ear. “Have you ever seen anything like that?” the girl said, looking pleased with herself.

Jak didn’t know what to say. Tamisin’s ears were narrow and pointed, just like those of certain fey back home. From the way the other girl was talking, ears like that couldn’t be normal in the human world. Instead of thinking Tamisin looked freakish, however, Jak thought her ears were beautiful.

“Give it a rest, Kendra,” Jeremy told the girl. “Nobody cares what her ears look like.”

A second cat had joined the first, and now both animals were rubbing against Jak’s ankles. He was trying to shoo them off when another girl joined them.

“That’s Heather,” Jeremy told Jak.

“Hey,” said Jak.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, her voice sounding odd. Jak wondered if she was sick.

Tamisin must have thought so, too, because she took a close look at the girl and asked her if she was all right.

Heather rubbed her eyes and mentioned something about a cat. When she noticed the two cats rubbing against Jak’s legs, she backed away as if he had the goblin plague or something. Self-conscious now, Jak tried to get away from the cats, but they followed him, still purring. “I told you to stop that!” he said.

Heather sneezed and a moment later Tamisin was hustling her away, talking about taking her home.

The next few weeks were confusing for Jak. He suspected that Tamisin was the girl he was meant to take back with him, but that was based solely on her ears; she never did
or said anything unusual, and the weather seemed to be normal when she was around. If she was the girl, being able to control lightning meant that she was a creature of power, human or not, and as such he couldn’t treat her like a normal person.

On the weekends Jak explored the end of town where the school was located. He found the lightning-blasted tree the goblins had told him about and the street where they had first seen the girl. Then, one day he came across a forest. It was tiny compared with anything in the land of the fey, but it was pretty and there was a stream leading to a small waterfall.

As time passed, Gammi became more insistent that Jak do something and do it soon. “Time’s a-wasting and Targin won’t take kindly to a delay. The Gate has already opened once since we’ve been here. Who knows when it’ll open again? If you’re sure Tamisin is the one we’re looking for, invite her over the next time the Gate opens. We’ll find a way to get her through.”

“That’s just it,” said Jak. “I’m not sure Tamisin is the one. I don’t want to rush things and scare her. If she really can control lightning, she’d be harder to get through if she was frightened.”

“Frightened … Ha!” Gammi said, pulling a live mouse out of a cage by its tail. “I’ll frighten her myself if it means we can get her through the Gate.”

Jak looked away as his grandmother popped the squirming mouse in her mouth and bit down. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Although Jak saw Tamisin in the halls at school, it was
always from a distance and she usually had a group of friends around her. He listened for any news of her, however, and asked Jeremy about her while trying not to seem too anxious. According to Jeremy, her brother said that all she did lately was dance and that he was sick of hearing the same music over and over again. Then Jak heard that the dance group she was in was going to perform, and he was the first one in line at the school box office.

The night of the performance Jak told Gammi and Bert where he was going.

“Good,” said Gammi. “I have my jewelry-making group coming over tonight. Bert’s going to get me more teeth for necklaces, aren’t you, Bert?”

Gammi had met some old ladies in the park and offered to teach them her favorite crafts. Most of them were too nearsighted to see that she looked a little different, and the others didn’t seem to care.

When the first of Gammi’s friends came to the door, Jak slipped out the back and walked the eleven blocks to school. Since he’d gotten his ticket early, he’d been able to get a good seat up front and center. At first he watched the dances without much interest, disappointed each time Tamisin failed to appear. But when she finally stepped onto the stage, he didn’t recognize her right away. She looked like something from another world—his.

Her beginning steps were tentative, but when the music quickened, her movements became stronger and bolder. As she leaped and twirled, Jak held his breath.
She seemed to float across the stage like the dandelion puffs he had chased when he was young.

Jak wasn’t the only one caught up in her dancing. All around him people gasped when a leap carried her farther than they’d expected or when she twirled longer than they thought possible. Her dancing made Jak think of a breeze cooling his face after a good run, or rustling the leaves in the forest around his uncle’s den. It was a calming dance, it was a ferocious dance, and through it all Jak felt closer to home than he had since the day he’d left.

The only sound in the auditorium was Tamisin’s music. No one spoke, or coughed or shuffled their feet or got up to get a drink of water, and when it was over and the last note faded away, the room remained silent until it seemed everyone was frozen in place. Then the cheering began as one person after another broke free of the reverie Tamisin’s dancing had created. She looked up from her last position, smiling, then rose to her feet and bowed as gracefully as if she were still performing.

As soon as Tamisin left the stage, Jak got up from his seat. He thought about waiting inside for her, but decided not to when he saw the people milling around, so he went to the parking lot in the back, hoping she would come out that door. He was surprised to see lights twinkling around the school, knowing exactly what they were. “What are fairies doing here?” he wondered. “There must be a Gate open nearby.” Most fey wouldn’t travel to the human side without good cause; those who did never went far from an open Gate since the magic
that escaped diminished the farther they traveled from it. Those who went too far were unable to do even the most basic magic, like disguising themselves from curious eyes. To have so many fairies come through at once meant either that multiple Gates had opened, or something truly extraordinary had happened to summon them.

The crowd that had filled the auditorium began streaming into the parking lot. People began pointing at the fairies, calling them “fireflies” and “amazing,” and then something rustled in the branches of the tree behind him, saying, “
Psst
! Hey, Jak, is that you?”

“Who is that?” Jak asked, peering into the shadows.

There was the scrape of claws on bark and a masked face emerged right above him. “It’s me, Tobi! How ya doin’, Jak? Yer friends were all worried about ya.”

“I was sent home. Didn’t you hear?”

“Yeah, but we thought ya were comin’ back. Then Nihlo told everybody that ya were in big trouble and that his father was real mad at ya and was sendin’ ya away. We knew it couldn’t be over breakin’ Nihlo’s leg. He deserved it. Anyway, when ya didn’t come back, I thought Nihlo might be tellin’ the truth for once, until I talked to yer uncle, that is.”

“
You
talked to my uncle?” said Jak.

“He sent for me,” said Tobi. “Somebody told him I’d seen the girl who threw the lightnin’. She didn’t throw it at me, of course, but I seen her face when she saw me.”

“What did Targin want from you?” asked Jak.

“To help ya find the girl. Yer uncle said that he gave ya a picture, but it was lousy, so he sent me ’cause I’d
gotten a good look at her. I’ve been livin’ in the trees near here fer weeks now. I saw her once, but she got away. I think she lives in a big building with stone statues out front and a lot of other humans goin’ in and out, ’cause that’s where she goes every day after school.”

“A big building? Maybe she lives in an apartment.”

“All I know is lots of people come out of it with books, but she’s the only one I seen goin’ into it every day.”

“It sounds more like the library than an apartment. Why would she go there every day, unless … Are you sure she didn’t see you?”

“What, me? I’m so good at sneakin’ around that nobody could see me! Even my own mother wouldn’t … Wait … There she is, over there by that other girl.”

“Your mother?”

“No, the girl who saw me! There she is right there!”

“Do you mean the girl with the blond hair that looks like sunshine and—”

“Yeah, that’s her. The one with yella hair. She’s the one who looked right at me with her eyes all big and scary.”

Jak smiled to himself. He’d been right all along. “Thanks, Tobi. I guess you did what you came for, so you can go back now.” Jak didn’t want him around when he was about to talk to Tamisin.

“Actually,” said Tobi, “I’m supposed to stay here. Yer uncle thought ya’d need some help bringin’ her back.”

“So now he thinks I can’t handle it? I already have two goblins here to help me. How many more does he
think he has to send? You go back and tell my uncle that I can take care of this myself, and I don’t need any more help!”

“He ain’t gonna like that and I don’t want to be the one to tell him anythin’ he ain’t gonna like. He’s already irked that ya haven’t brought her back yet.”

“Just blame it all on me. Tell him that I made you go back.”

“But ya wouldn’t! Yer too nice to … Okay, okay, I’m going!”

Jak had bared his teeth and growled the way he’d seen Nihlo do, making the little goblin scoot backward up the branch. Since his own teeth were just teeth and not fangs, Jak doubted that he looked very frightening, but it appeared to be enough to convince Tobi that he was serious. “Tell him that I said I can handle it!” Jak shouted after the fleeing goblin. “Tell him that I don’t know why he sent you!”

Jak was so angry when he turned away from the tree that he forgot why he was there until he saw Tamisin coming toward him across the parking lot.

“Jak, is that you?”

“Tamisin! I was hoping to catch you here. Your dance was great! It made me think of things I miss from my old home. It was very … eloquent.” Jak felt stupid after he said it. There were a thousand things he should have said instead, but the only thing that came to mind sounded flat.

Even so, Tamisin smiled at him as if he’d said the most wonderful thing. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

Jak didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. He hadn’t said it just to be nice. “Oh, I’m not being kind. I mean it. For the first time I think I know what it means to be homesick.”

Tamisin’s smile faded. “I’m sorry! I never intended to make anyone feel bad.”

Jak could have kicked himself, certain that he’d finally said the worst thing he could have. “Don’t be sorry,” he said in a rush. “I enjoyed your dance. You don’t have any plans now, do you? I mean, if you’d like to get something to eat, we could …”

And then her father was calling to her, telling her that they had to go.

“I know, Dad. I’m coming,” she shouted, then turned back to Jak saying, “Thanks for the invitation. Maybe some other time.”

This was all wrong. Jak had to talk to her and it had to be soon. “Yeah. About that…”

But Tamisin was already moving toward her parents’ car, saying, “I’ve got to go.”

“Sure,” he said, so disappointed that he felt like kicking something. He watched as the car drove away, taking with it the girl he’d come so far to find.

Jak hung around Tamisin’s locker on Monday morning, but she got to school late and didn’t have time to talk. He didn’t see her that afternoon. When the same thing happened on Tuesday, he began to think that she was avoiding him. Even so, he was watching for her on Wednesday
morning. He could see right away that Tamisin wasn’t feeling well. Her cheeks were flushed and she didn’t seem to notice him when he called to her in the hall. That afternoon he was hanging out while Jeremy talked to Heather when Tamisin ran past them to her locker. Jak was already walking over when she pulled out her backpack, letting a flood of books and papers cascade onto the floor. Her hands were shaking when he bent down to help her.