“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m unlocking the back door. Assuming you didn’t already.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said. Sullivan was still talking when I snapped the phone shut and shoved it back in my pocket. I clumsily got my arm under Nuala’s armpit and around her knees. “C’mon, babe.” I staggered to my feet. My sweatshirt dropped to the ground. Whatever. I’d get it later. I waded through the waist-high grass until I got to the edge of the school grounds, and then I skirted around the back of the dorm.
Sullivan was waiting by the back door in sweat pants. He silently held the door open for me as I maneuvered Nuala and myself through the doorway.
All he said was, “My door’s open.”
His room was still scented with cinnamon candle and daisies, though neither was in evidence, and there were papers inexplicably scattered all over the floor. Sullivan pointed to his bed, which was neatly made and illuminated by a square of cold sunlight from the window.
I should’ve laid her down carefully on the bed, but my arms were killing me and I sort of half-laid, half-dropped her.
Sullivan hung at my shoulder. “Is she a student?”
“No.” I brushed her hair out of her face. “Fix her.”
He laughed, a little helplessly. “You have such faith in me. What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s me.” I didn’t look at him. “She’s a faerie. She’s the muse.”
“Jesus Christ, James!” Sullivan grabbed my upper arm and spun me toward him. “You told me you didn’t make a deal with her! What the hell is she doing on my bed?”
I stood there, his fingers gripped on my arm, staring at him, still shaking and hating that I was. “I didn’t make a deal. That’s why she’s here. She hasn’t taken anything from me and I think she’s dying. Sullivan, please.”
He stared back at me.
“Please.”
My voice sounded strange to me. Thin. Desperate.
Sullivan let out a breath and released me. He rubbed his hand into his face for a long moment before he joined me again at the bed. “James, you’ve got to be wrong. The leanan sidhe fades when she’s going without. She can’t stay visible. This faerie—this girl—this is a human reaction.”
“She’s not human.”
Sullivan lay a hand on Nuala’s forehead; his eyes roamed over her body. “She’s very thin,” he observed. “When was the last time she’s eaten?”
“What? I don’t know. She doesn’t eat food.” But even as I said it, I remembered the grain of rice on her lip.
“Let’s humor me. Cover her up. She’s freezing.”
He disappeared into the kitchen area and I heard the little fridge opening. I eased a blanket from under Nuala’s legs and pulled it up around her. I ran a finger over her cold cheekbones; they did seem more prominent than when we’d first met. I traced the dark hollows under her closed eyes. Some sort of weird, miserable emotion made me want to curl up next to her and close my eyes too.
A fruity aroma accompanied Sullivan as he returned. “It’s soda,” he said, apologetically. His eyes paused for the briefest second on my fingers resting on Nuala’s skin. “It was the most sugary thing I had on hand. I had honey, too, but that sounded sticky. Prop her up. I hope she’s conscious enough to swallow. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”
She fit in the crook of my arm. Together, Sullivan and I did the crappy nursemaid thing. I supported her jaw and he tipped a bit of Mountain Dew into her mouth.
“Careful she doesn’t choke.”
I tipped her head back and ran a hand along her throat. I’d seen Dee do it when she was trying to get her dog to swallow pills.
Nuala swallowed.
Rinse and repeat. We kept going until she had about a half a glass of soda down, and then she coughed.
Coughing was good, right?
“More?” Sullivan asked. I didn’t know who he was asking, because I sure didn’t know.
Nuala opened her eyes. For a second, I could tell she wasn’t really focused on anything, but then I saw her eyes slide slowly toward me, and then toward Sullivan, and then around the room.
And the words she said were just classic Nuala. “Oh, shit.”
Nuala
He does not so much bite as nibble, my friend Death
Wearing me down to the size of a child
Soon I am small enough to nestle in his hand
Gone in one swallow, behind his gentle smile.
—from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
“Feeling any better?” James asked me. For some reason he reminded me of an apple. His face was tanned from all his afternoons spent outside piping, and now that his hair was starting to grow out, it was even redder than before. Everything about him as he stood on the hill next to me, his fingers brushing the seed-tops of the golden grass, reminded me of apples. End-of-the-year fruits that waited for summer to be safely away before they showed themselves.
I crumpled and uncrumpled a granola bar wrapper in my hands. “Anything’s better than passed out, I guess, right? Why the hell does Sullivan want me on this hill? I’m not like some raccoon you found in your trash. You can’t just put me back out into the wild and expect me to go away.”
James smiled a half-smile at me, but I saw that his fingers were rubbing on the worry stone in his hand. “I don’t think he expects you to disappear into the wild, my dear viper. Hopes for it, maybe. But I don’t think he expects it. He said he wanted to talk.”
“I can talk anywhere.”
“Oh, that I know. But I see his point, don’t you? Your … somewhat less-than-standard-issue appearance might draw some attention on campus. Especially in the boys’ dorm.”
The grass snapped behind me as I lay back on it, staring up at the deep blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, and lying down, I couldn’t see any of the brilliantly colored trees at the bottom of the hill. Still, everything about the day—the crisp bite to the air, the smell of woodsmoke, the swift wind that gusted around us—screamed that Halloween was almost here.
James towered over me, casting his shadow over my body; it was cold when the sun didn’t touch me. “Are you okay?”
“Stop asking me that,” I said. “I’m great. I’m rosy. I’m freakin’ wonderful. I couldn’t be happier. How did you find me?”