“Wish I had my camera.” Kenzie sighed as a black-faced ewe watched us from the side of the road, blinking sleepily. It snorted and trotted off, and Kenzie gazed after it, smiling. “Then again, maybe not. It might be weird, explaining how I could take pictures of the Maryland countryside when I never left Louisiana.” She shivered, rubbing her arms as a cold breeze blew across the pasture, smelling of sheep and wet grass. I wished I had my jacket so I could offer it to her.
“What do you do?” Kenzie went on, her gaze still roaming the woods beyond the hills. “When you get home, I mean? We’ve been to Faeryland—we’ve seen things no one else has. What happens when you finally get home, knowing what you do, that no one else will ever understand?”
“You go back to what you were doing before,” I replied. “You try to get on with your life and pretend it didn’t happen. It’ll be easier for you,” I continued as she turned to me, frowning. “You have friends. Your life is fairly normal. You’re not a freak who can see Them everywhere you go. Just try to forget about it. Forget the fey, forget the Nevernever, forget everything weird or strange or unnatural. Eventually, the nightmares will stop, and you might even convince yourself that everything you saw was a bad dream. That’s the easiest way.”
“Hey, tough guy, your bitterness is showing.” Kenzie gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t want to forget. Just burying my head in the sand isn’t going to change anything. They’ll still be out there, whether I believe in them or not. I can’t pretend it never happened.”
“But you won’t ever see them,” I said. “And that will either make you paranoid or drive you completely crazy.”
“I’ll still be able to talk to you, though, right?”
I sighed, not wanting to say it, but knowing I had to. “No. You won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because my life is too screwed up to drag you into it.”
“Why don’t you let me decide what’s best for my life,” Kenzie said softly, not quite able to mask her anger, the first I’d ever heard from her, “and who I want to be friends with?”
“What do you think is going to happen once we go home?” I asked, not meeting her stare. “You think I can be normal and hang out with you and your friends, just like that? You think your parents and your teachers will want you hanging around someone like me?”
“No,” Kenzie said in that same low, quiet voice. “They won’t. And you know what? I don’t care. Because they haven’t seen you like I have. They haven’t seen the Nevernever, or the fey, or the Iron Queen, and they won’t ever understand. I didn’t understand.” She paused, seeming to struggle with her next words. “The first time I saw you,” she said, pushing her bangs from her eyes, “when we first talked, I thought you were this brooding, unfriendly, hostile, um…” She paused.
“Jerk,” I finished for her.
“Well, yeah,” Kenzie admitted slowly. “A pretty handsome jerk, I might add, but a huge, colossal megajerk nonetheless.” She gave me a quick glance to see how I was taking this. I shrugged.
Not going to argue with that.
And then, a second later:
She thought I was handsome?
“At first, I just wanted to know what you were thinking.” Kenzie pushed back her hair, the blue-and-black strands fluttering around her face. “It was more of a challenge, I guess, to get you to see me, to talk to me. You’re the only one, in a very long time anyway, who talked to me like a real person, who treated me the same as everyone else. My friends, my family, even my teachers, they all tiptoe around me like I’m made of glass. They never say what they’re really thinking if they feel it might upset me.” She sighed, looking out over the fields. “No one is ever real with me anymore, and I’m sick and tired of it.”
I held my breath, suddenly aware that I was very close to that dark thing Kenzie was hiding from me. Tread softly, Ethan. Don’t sound too eager or she might change her mind. “Why is that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, like I didn’t care. Wrong move.
“Um, because of my dad,” Kenzie said quickly, and I swore under my breath, knowing I had screwed up. “He’s this big-shot lawyer and everyone is terrified of him, so they p**syfoot around me, too. Whatever.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about my dad. We were talking about you.”
“The huge, colossal megajerk,” I reminded her.
“Exactly. I don’t know if you realize this, Ethan, but you’re a good-looking guy. People are going to notice you, bad-boy reputation or not.” I gave her a dubious look, and she nodded. “I’m serious. You didn’t see the way Regan and the others were staring the first time you came into the classroom. Chelsea even dared me to go up and ask if you had a girlfriend.” One corner of her mouth curled in a wry grin. “I’m sure you remember how that turned out.”
I grimaced and looked away. Yeah, I was a total jackass, wasn’t I? Believe me, if I could take back everything I said, I would. But it wouldn’t stop the fey.
“But then, we came to the Nevernever,” Kenzie went on, gazing a few yards up the road, where Keirran’s bright form glided down the pavement. “And things started making a lot more sense. It must be hard, seeing all these things, knowing they’re out there, and not being able to talk about it to anyone. It must be lonely.”
Very lightly, she took my hand, sending electric tingles up my arm, and my breath caught. “But you have me now,” she said in a near whisper. “You can talk to me…about Them. And I won’t tease or make fun or call you crazy, and you don’t have to worry about it frightening me. I want to know everything I can. I want to know about faeries and Mag Tuiredh and the Nevernever, and you’re my only connection to them now.” Her voice grew defiant. “So, if you think you can shut me out of your life, tough guy, and keep me in the dark, then you don’t know me at all. I can be just as stubborn as you.”
“Don’t.” I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face the quiet sincerity in her voice. Fear stirred, the knowledge that she was only putting herself in danger the longer she stayed with me. “There is no connection, Kenzie,” I said, pulling my hand from hers. “And I won’t be telling you anything about the fey. Not now, not ever. Just forget that you ever saw them, and leave me alone.”
Her stunned, hurt silence ate into me, and I sighed, stabbing my fingers through my hair. “You think I want to keep pushing people away?” I asked softly. “I don’t enjoy being the freak, the one everyone avoids. I really, truly do not take pleasure in being a complete a**hole.” My voice dropped even lower. “Especially to people like you.”
“Gone,” he whispered, bowing his head, as the gremlin buzzed worriedly and patted his neck. “Where is she? Where is everyone? Are they all with her?”
“What’s going on?” I leaned against the counter, brushing away drifts of petals and leaves. They had a rotten, sickly sweet smell, and I tried not to breathe in. “Who’s with her? Who is Annwyl? Why—?”
I trailed off, my blood turning cold. Was it my imagination, or had I just seen a white shimmer float between the booths farther down the aisle? Carefully, I straightened, gripping my weapons, my skin starting to prickle with goose bumps. “Keirran, we have to get out of here now.”
He looked up warily, reaching back for his weapon. And then, something slipped from the booths onto the dusty path, and we both froze.
At first, it looked like a giant cat. It had a sleek, muscular body, short fur and a long, thin tail that lashed its hindquarters. But when it turned its head, its face wasn’t a cat’s but an old, wrinkled woman’s, her hair hanging limply around her neck, her eyes beady and cruel. She turned toward us, and I ducked behind the stall, pulling Kenzie down with me, as Keirran vanished behind the counter. I saw that the cat-thing’s front paws were actually bony hands with long, crooked nails, but worst of all, her body flickered and shimmered in the air like heat waves. Like the creepy fey that had chased me and Kenzie into the Nevernever. Except this one seemed a bit more solid than the others. Not nearly so transparent.