Selfish Elf Wish (34 page)

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Authors: Heather Swain

BOOK: Selfish Elf Wish
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We all look at him. “Bella got doubly screwed. Mr. Padgett canceled the show, and that weird Clay dude who was her manager split. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so pissed.”
“You were right about Clay and Dawn,” Mercedes tells me. “They were creepy.”
“Creepier than you can even imagine,” I say, and Briar nods.
“They’re long gone now,” Ari says.
I wish Ari was right. I wish that dark elves were just the bogeymen lurking around the edges of my dreams like I thought when I was a kid. But it’s not a joke anymore. The dark elves are real, and Willow still has what they want. They may be gone, but they’ll be back. I can only hope that next time we’ll be ready for them.
“And Timber?” I ask, refraining from adding a hundred more questions like, oh I don’t know,
Is he still my boyfriend, or will the fact that I’m an elf and he’s a werewolf put a damper on the whole thing?
Ari shakes his head. “You haven’t talked to him?”
“Not lately,” I say.
“And why aren’t you guys going to the party with those guys?” Mercedes asks us.
Thinking quick, Briar says, “We want to surprise them.”
“Nice,” Ari says. “I wish somebody would surprise me once in a while.”
The train slides into the Carroll Gardens station. I slip my arm into Ari’s. “Somebody will someday,” I tell him as we head up the steps.
The streets are packed when we emerge from the station. “Feel good to be back to civilization?” Mercedes asks.
“I’m sorry,” Ari says, pulling out his CrackBerry and sending a text that we’re on our way. “Alverland sounds nice and all, but aren’t you guys bored out of your gourds after twenty-four hours there?”
“It’s not as boring as you might think,” I say, then Briar and I look at each other and try not to laugh.
“Kenji and Timber said that little town Ironweed was beat,” Ari says.
“What are you even talking about?” Mercedes asks Ari. “This place was dead while they were gone. The club was shut down, Kenji and Timber were off acting like nut jobs driving around the U.P. of Michigan looking for these two, the performance was canceled, and we just sat around watching
Dexter
from Netflix for two weeks. I’d rather have been in the woods with you.”
“Maybe next time,” I say, knowing full well that will never happen.
Ari points down a street. “There it is,” he says. We see Levi and Nora walking up the stoop to a lovely old brownstone covered in twinkling Christmas lights.
“Cool,” Merci says, speeding up the sidewalk. “I hope this is fun.”
 
Mercedes and Ari immediately head for the kitchen when we get in the door.
“I hope they have shrimp,” Mercedes says. “I love me some shrimp.”
“Come on, hungry hippo,” Ari says, following her. “Let’s get you some food before you die of malnourishment.”
Instead of going with Ari and Mercy, Briar and I wander around looking for Kenji and Timber, but we can’t find them.
“Maybe they’re not coming,” Briar says as we go back into the empty foyer and drop down on the bottom step of the staircase.
“We could ask Chelsea,” I offer.
“I haven’t seen her either,” Briar says.
We hear voices behind us on the stairs and both turn around at the same time. My heart climbs into my throat when I see Timber walking down behind Chelsea, who laughs over her shoulder. Briar grabs my hand. I stand up quickly and pull her around the corner.
“I can’t believe it,” I whisper while I peek by the door frame. “Has he been up there with her the whole time?”
Briar squeezes my hand and tugs. “Come on.”
I hold back, fearing what happened while I was gone. “No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she insists, and tugs harder.
We pop around the corner just as Timber and Chelsea get to the bottom landing of the steps where we’d been sitting.
I wish I had a replay of Timber’s face so I could decipher every emotion that registers when he sees me. Surprise. Bewilderment. Frustration. Is he still in love with me or is he mad at me, or does he even remember that he was? Then his face settles—eyes bright, mouth swinging upward in seeming delight, his hands reaching toward me.
“You’re here,” he says.
“And you’re there.” I point to Chelsea, who leans against the banister with what I could swear is a smirk on her face.
Briar lets go of my hand and gives me a little shove. I trip forward into Timber’s open arms. “Oops!” I say, and begin to step back, but he pulls me close. “I didn’t know when you were coming back tonight.”
When I feel his arms around me, I want to let go of all my doubts about his feelings for me, but not yet. Timber would hug a cactus, so this might only be a friendly hello. I should let go, step back, gauge the situation, but I can’t let go quite yet. I hang on, drinking in his fresh piney smell, remembering how elated I was when I found him at the bait shop in Ironweed and my surprise when he leaped out of the woods to tackle Clay, and how my family welcomed him to Alverland, but he doesn’t share any of those memories. Then I notice that he hasn’t let go of me yet either, so I stay in his arms for another second, tightening my grip against his back.
I catch sight of Chelsea, rolling her eyes from the landing. She plods down the rest of the steps and slinks by. Then Timber lets go of me. “Why didn’t you e-mail me or call me to let me know you were home?” he asks, searching my face.
“We just got back last night,” I say, but I can’t admit that I was too afraid to call him. I don’t know which is harder, battling dark elves or explaining myself to an erdler who can’t really know the truth about me. “We wanted to surprise you and Kenji,” I say, pointing to Briar.
“Well, I’m surprised,” he says, but I can’t tell if he means in a good way or bad.
“Did Kenji leave?” Briar asks.
“He wouldn’t have if he knew you were coming,” Timber tells her.
“But I couldn’t find him,” she says.
“I’ll text him.” Timber pulls out his iPhone and zips off a text. It buzzes within a few seconds. “Basement,” Timber says. “You should go find him.”
Briar looks at me. “Should I?”
“Duh,” I say. “Yes.” But she still hesitates. “You want me to come with you?”
Briar looks from me to Timber and back to me. I know she’s as afraid as I was. But then she straightens up and stands tall. “I can handle it.”
She goes, leaving Timber and me alone for the first time in what seems like eons.
“I missed you,” he says.
“You did?” I can’t hide my surprise. Was the affection he had for me before I left purely from the elf circle spell I cast or was some of it real?
“Didn’t you miss me?” he asks.
“I thought about you so much, sometimes it felt like you were right there with me.”
A grin spreads over his face until his teeth show beneath his lips. My secret wolf boy. My protector. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” I tell him.
“That’s funny,” he says, and takes a step closer to me. “Because I tried to find you.”
“I got your e-mails.”
He looks at his shoes and blushes. “Yeah, that was pretty messed up what Kenji and I did.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
Timber shakes his head and smiles. “Not too bad. My mom loves you. She understood.” Then he grabs my hand. “You want to get out of here? Go somewhere to talk?”
My heart pounds. “The last time I left without Briar, all hell broke loose.”
“She’s with friends,” he says, and tugs on my arm. I know that he’s right, that I can’t worry about her all the time and that I have to trust her to make good decisions. “All right,” I say slowly. “But can we go to my house? I have a present for you.”
“I have one for you, too!” he tells me.
 
He talks nonstop on the train ride back to my house. He tells me all about the road trip, how the performance was canceled, and how he was grounded and not allowed to go skiing with his dad for Christmas, then he stops and looks out the train window. We’re aboveground now, looking into the harbor where the lights on the bridges, boats, and the Statue of Liberty twinkle like urban stars. “I know I pissed off a lot of people by taking off, but I think driving up to Michigan was good for me.” He continues staring out the window. “Something changed in me while I was gone.”
I catch my breath and hold it, half afraid of what he might say, but then he shakes his head. “I don’t how to describe it, but I sort of feel older in a way. Smarter. Like I understand myself better.” Then he shrugs and smiles at me. “Maybe it was just doing something on my own. Getting out of the groove and away from my normal thing.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. “Sometimes changing up your life can make everything seem fresh again.”
“That’s exactly it,” he says. “No wonder I missed you. You understand me in a way nobody else does.” He studies me for a moment, and I feel like a tree unfurling new leaves in the spring under the warmth of his gray-blue eyes. “I swear, sometimes it’s like you know me better than I do.”
 
When we get to my house it’s already past eleven.
“Nobody’s staying up for New Year’s Eve?” Timber asks, as we tiptoe through the dark and quiet rooms.
“We celebrated the new year earlier,” I whisper to him with a quiet laugh. “Let’s go out to the garden so we don’t wake anyone.” I lead him into the kitchen, then I say, “Wait here, I have to get something.”
When I come back, Timber’s sitting on a stool, strumming my dad’s guitar, which was propped up in the corner. He plucks a few strings, sending the mellow bass notes into the air. I stop in my tracks. “That’s funny,” he says.
“What?” The hair on the back of my neck prickles with recognition.
“I just got this weird sort of déjà vu, like I’ve played this guitar before.” He plucks the strings again and I hear the notes of “Green Glen Ladies,” the old elfin song he and Grove played that night by the fire in Alverland.
I laugh uncomfortably. “Not possible, right?”
“No,” he says. “I guess not. Mind if I bring this outside?”
“Sure,” I tell him, and walk toward the back door.
“Hey, what’s that?” He points to the long skinny gift, nearly as tall as I am that I’ve wrapped in red linen.
“You’ll see,” I say as I lead him outside. We sit on the railing of the wooden deck. I look up into the sky, searching for stars, but like most nights in Brooklyn, it’s nearly impossible to make out any heavenly bodies because of all the city lights. “You ready for your present?” I hold out the long skinny gift.
Timber takes it from my hands. “What is it, a tennis racket?”
I laugh. “Are you joking?”
“Yes, I have no idea what it could be.”
“Open it and find out.”
I watch Timber’s face as he unwinds the fabric to reveal the intricate carvings of leaves, flowers, and totem animals on my birch walking stick. He looks perplexed at first, then pleased, then confused again, kind of like he’s trying to remember something but can’t quite pull it out of his cloudy mind. “This is amazing,” he says. “But . . .” Then he laughs. “I still have no idea what it is.”
“It’s a walking stick,” I tell him. “My grandfather makes them. I thought you might like it.”
“I love it.”
“It can come in handy when you’re hiking,” I say, wishing I could retrace the memories lost in his mind.
He hugs me. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now, I have something for you, but it’s a different kind of present,” he tells me. “You know how you’re always saying I could make a comeback if I wanted?”
I curl my knees into my chest and hug myself. “I think you’d knock everybody out if you did.”
“Well . . .” He straps my father’s guitar over his shoulder. “I’m not sure I’m ready for a band, but I decided to write a song.” He turns tuning pegs on the guitar, getting each string just right. “Remember all those e-mails I sent you while Kenji and I were driving around trying to find you?”
I nod because how could I forget.
“When I looked back at them later, I realized that they could be lyrics, so I made up a melody and I came up with this song.” The notes are light and pretty, like birds singing on a clear, crisp morning in the woods. “It’s for you.”
I’m quiet, but my heart pounds as he strums the guitar, filling the quiet night with lovely music, then he begins to sing,
Came by your house this morning
no matter how I knocked
no lights came on, no answer
baby, your doors were locked
I think you flew the coop
I think you left the nest
I don’t know where you’re heading,
but I think you’re heading west
I’ll fly after you
I’m a crane
I’ll come for you
I’m insane
I’ll dance and sing
and flap my wings
’cause baby, it’s you I’ve got to find
Crossing the GW
leaving NYC far behind
over rolling hills and fields of green
it’s you I’ve got to find
I pass the lakes as big as seas
I haven’t seen anything but trees
and miles and miles of corn and beans
but still you haunt my dreams
From New York City to Mackinaw
Across the country
I’ve seen it all
but nothing takes the place of you
It’s you I’ve got to find
I ended up in Ironweed
Eating ham and eggs without a lead
you disappeared among the pines
it’s you I’ve got to find
I’m flying after you
I’m a crane
I’m coming for you
I’m insane
I’ll dance and sing
and flap my wings
’cause baby, it’s you I’ve got to find
I went on a wild goose chase
just to see your face
and for the chance to see you dance
but I can’t find a trace
I don’t know where you’ve gone
or when you will return
but I’ll be here, waiting still
my heart will always yearn
I’ll fly after you
I’m a crane
I’ll come for you
I’m insane
I’ll dance and sing
and flap my wings
’cause baby, it’s you I’ve got to find
When he’s done, I can’t even move. I’m stuck beneath the dark night sky, my eyes welled up and my mouth half open. I shake my head. “I don’t know what to say,” I whisper.

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