Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (39 page)

For a split-second, Sol had no idea what to expect. Then his mother smiled and walked across the room to hug him. “We still love you, no matter what.”

“We?”

She pulled her muzzle back, eyes fixed on his. “Oh, your father loves you. We might not tell him right away. But you know, between you and me, I think he’d be more upset if you went vegetarian again.”

Sol laughed. “You don’t seem too surprised.”

“We-ell. I didn’t want to say anything, but I never thought you and Meg were a couple.”

“Really?”

“Mother’s intuition. But mostly, you were just too good friends.” His mother nodded at the framed painting. “And then you find this painting, which is real nice, but…”

“It’s from the project me and Meg did. We got an A on it.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, they painted a lot of ladies back then, too, didn’t they?”

Sol rubbed the back of his paw along his whiskers. He couldn’t meet his mom’s eyes. “This is the one I found in the attic.”

“Sweetie.” His mother hugged him again. “I’m trying to tell you, it’s okay. I’m really glad you decided to tell me.”

Sol pressed fingers to his eyes. He felt a twinge of regret for the months spent hiding, afraid, unsure. “Thanks, Mom,” he said.

She didn’t move, looking hesitant and awkward. Finally, she said, “So did I do that okay, hon?”

He flicked his ears. That seemed like the question he should be asking. “Do what okay?”

“After you almost ran away, you know, I wondered…so I read some websites. In case it was true, in case you decided to tell me.”

“You just read some websites. Just like that.” Sol tilted his head. It seemed fantastical.

“Well…” His mother looked abashed, tail flicking from side to side, not quite wagging. “I had a nightmare, if you must know. I wanted to make sure you didn’t run away again.” She lifted her paws. “It wasn’t just about being…funny, like that. There were some websites about drugs, too. And one about devil-worship.”

He wanted to hug her again, out of love and guilt, so he did. “I never ran away, Mom,” he said, which was technically true even if they both knew it was also partly a lie. “I told you about Meg and Alexei and me going to Vidalia.”

“And we support that.” She held him, then stepped back, her nose an inch from his. “You don’t have to tell me, but…is he…I mean, are you and he…”

“No!” Sol’s fur bristled. He willed it smooth. “We’re just good friends. Like me and Meg.”

Her mouth twitched, a half-smile at his attempted joke. “It would be okay.” Those words came with an effort, he could tell. Her ears were half-down, but she perked them up when she saw him looking.

“I…really, he’s not. But I might have one. One day.”

His mother nodded, and held her paws out to him. “I hope you find someone who makes you happy. That’s all we ever wanted for you.”

Privately, Sol thought that his father wanted a few other things, like for him to be a baseball star. But this wasn’t the time to mention it. “You won’t tell Dad yet, will you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

He shook his head. “Sometime, I guess. Not right now.”

“You may be surprised. He didn’t much care for how Nolan handled things, with…with Percy.”

Sol’s tail stilled at the reminder of his cousin. “He didn’t? He never said anything.”

“Well, not to you. But he yelled at him on the phone, oh, he carried on. Said family always comes first…of course, that was before…” She sniffed, and her voice cracked. “I’m glad you didn’t run away, that’s all.”

“Me too.” Sol felt a wave of unexpected respect for his father. “I love you guys.”

She kissed his nose, and now her tail wagged for real, and the smile and the love shone out of her. Her brown eyes looked into his. “Happy birthday, sweetie. You’re eighteen now. You can decide to be whatever you want to be.”

Sol grinned. “Maybe that’s all the birthday present I wanted.”

“If I’d known that, I could’ve saved us the trouble of the credit card.” He laughed with her, and she reached up to brush his whiskers. “ You know, I think I might be finally getting used to your eyes. They’re so pretty, and the doctors say there’s nothing wrong…”

“I like the change.”

“It’s hard for us to see you change, sometimes,” his mother said. “But hazel eyes or green, you’ll always be our son.”

When she’d left and closed his door, he walked to the window to feel the breeze before going to bed. Below the stately stars, fireflies danced together in the trees, darting, dipping, soaring with no choreography but passion. Sol watched them, remembering the days when he and Natty had run after them, snatching them out of the air to keep in jars until their light faded and they died. Now he just enjoyed watching their yellow-green flashes come and go. You could trace the flight of any individual one if you watched closely enough, its flash calling,
Here I am! Here I am!
out to the world. And if you stepped back and watched them all, you could see that there were multitudes of them calling out to each other, bound together in their search for company, not one of them truly alone. For if you truly believed you were alone in the world, what was the good of casting your light out into it?

He turned back to the painting, sliding a finger down the fine wood of the frame. His parents had chosen just the right wood to complement the bright colors: a dark oak with highlights that called out the fox’s lush pelt. Sol’s eyes looked back at himself from the glass, and behind them, the fox in the painting with one green eye smiled, mysteriously, still turned away.

He’d thought about Jean’s story and his dream a lot in the past weeks. Though he was still trying to understand everything that had happened, the one thing that stood out to him was that Jean had a book and Niki did not. “I’m still working on your story,” he whispered to the painting. “And Henri’s. I haven’t forgotten.”

For a moment, just a flash, the bright green reflection of Sol’s eye overlapped the fox’s. For that moment, the fox was looking back, right at him; the smile was meant for him. Sol leaned closer to look, and the illusion was broken. He stepped back, but the picture remained frozen, the fox forever caught in the act of sitting down.

Joy bubbled up in Sol. He closed his eyes, threw out his arms, and danced, hoping that someone, somewhere, was watching.

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