AnnaGrey and the Constellation, page 2
The deer-horse-double-horned-creature is looming above me. Oh, good. You’re alive.
Dazed, I struggle to an upright position and touch my head. How hard did I hit it? I blink rapidly, allowing lights to dance behind my lids, hoping the winking will act like a windshield wiper and clear this fairy-tale creature from my vision.
Did it actually speak to me?
“I think that’s the least of my worries,” I say.
And did I actually answer it?
She—the voice is high and girlish—snorts and peers at me. If an animal can scowl, I think that’s what she’s doing. Something like disappointment fills her eyes.
I thought you’d be a human.
“I… am.”
She rights her head again. Oh. Well, good.
I thought she’d be something real—like a wild animal or another person. But she’s a… what is she? I shake my head, trying to expel the many questions that don’t matter and ask the only one that does. “Are you a result of a concussion?”
Sorry?
“Maybe a figment of my imagination?”
She shakes her head.
My night vision must be playing tricks on me. It’s like when you rub your eyes hard, and you see honeycomb-patterned rainbows. Or maybe this is a result of being my father’s daughter. His solution to any question is to tell me fairy tales to try and explain things, something Mom absolutely loathes. She hates that Dad loves them. Not just loves them—he claims he believes them. She bites his head off whenever he brings them up. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the real reason they aren’t together—they never have been. Never married, never together. Always apart. The only thing they have in common is me.
And the fact they’re both unreliable narrators of the story of my past.
Maybe Mom has been right all along to get mad at him when he brings up fairy tales. She’s worried his ideas will warp my perception of reality.
Case in point. The creature—I’m going with horse now—nickers. I’ve never seen anything like her, not even in the fairy tales I’d read at Dad’s or at school. She’s watching me, and I look into her eyes. Most of the horses I’ve seen have brown eyes, but hers are teal, though that’s not what shocks me. The pupils are shaped like stars. The more I stare at her, though, the more she seems somewhat familiar. Maybe I’ve read about her. Now I sound like Dad, thinking this is a magical creature come to life. I rub the back of my head.
I can’t believe I actually found you. I need your belief.
Maybe I’m still knocked out and dreaming. But this horse looks real enough, orbiting above me and eyeing me like I’m the last bit of grain in a feeding trough. I stand and brush myself off, feeling her wide-eyed gaze upon me.
“My belief in what?”
In me, of course.
Of… course. Because having weird eyes isn’t enough, a talking magical creature is asking me to believe in her. I shake my head, the thoughts rolling around like marbles. I manage to ask, “Why?”
She whinnies and tosses her head. Her real voice shocks me—one, because it’s loud, and two, because I heard it. It wasn’t in my head.
So I can change. But to sound more heroic, it’s so I can help restore the true Constellation to the throne. I obviously can’t do that in this body.
“Obviously,” I repeat. “So what body are you trying to, uh, change into?”
She tilts her head to the side. My human one.
“You can become human?”
Something about her dulls, like the light inside her that made her coat so bright has been doused.
I should be able to, but I can’t. That’s why I need your help.
“Mine? Why?”
Because I’m… different than the other aeobanach.
“The what? A-oh-ban-uck? Is that what you are?”
She swishes her tail back and forth and bobs her head, her antlers catching the patches of purple evening light streaming through the leaves. I’m Iris, by the way.
“What? Oh. I’m AnnaGrey.”
That’s pretty.
“I—thank you. So is Iris.”
You know, there are eyes like yours where I come from. I didn’t know humans had them, too.
That must have been why she thought I wasn’t human. My eyes. So, this is how the universe is finally giving me an explanation for my oddity. It only exists in an imaginary world. But eyes from “her world” don’t resemble mine at all. Where mine are sea-foam green with a black crescent, hers are paradise teal with that black star in the center.
An annoying little thought pushes its way to the front of my mind. My eyes are more like Iris’s than anyone else’s—except Mom’s. I shove the thought away. Mine are crescents, and hers are stars.
“Your eyes don’t look like mine,” I say, sounding more argumentative than I mean to. I soften my tone. “Anyway, I have to go.”
Iris’s ears droop a bit. Oh. Right. So, does that mean you don’t believe in me?
“No, I—I’m not sure what to think. Or believe. The only rational explanations are that you are a figment of my imagination or a hallucination. Maybe I’ve had a concussion, and this is a side effect.”
Her tail stops swishing, and the antlers stop glowing.
“So, um. Goodbye,” I say awkwardly. I scoop up my phone, then turn away and run. As I fumble through the woods, using my night vision to find a path that leads out of the trees, all of Dad’s stories and all of Mom’s secrets reshape themselves in my mind. Maybe there’s a lot more they’re not telling me about the forbidden woods, and maybe it’s somehow connected to Dad’s beliefs. But there is one thing I’m sure of.
Whether Iris is real or conjured by the forest itself, I know why Mom doesn’t allow me to go into the Wildwood.
There are fairy tales in the woods.
CHAPTER THREE
A SMALL ACHE in my chest gnaws at me as I jog home. I slide into the house through the patio door, hoping Mom hasn’t noticed I haven’t been in my room. It’s not like I habitually come home late from school. After work, Mom usually goes straight to the basement, where her greenhouse is, until dinnertime. But it’s way past dinnertime. The house is quiet, so I assume she’s downstairs and has forgotten all about food. I slip into my room and stretch out on my bed, blinking at the dark ceiling, focusing on the paint-constellations that are as clear to me as if the room was lit up.
Did I really meet a creature who claims to be from another realm and who says there are people there with eyes like mine?
There are a few explanations.
1. Iris is real.
2. I’ve had a concussion. I’ll have to tell Mom, won’t I? She’s certain to have a remedy in her herb garden.
3. I fell asleep in the tree, and it was all a dream like those cliché endings to otherwise good stories. The dream is a good theory because Iris could have cantered out of my subconscious, where I’ve stored Dad’s fairy tales.
The front door opens and closes.
“Grey?” Mom’s semi-panicky voice floats up the stairs.
“In my room,” I call.
“Where have you been?” Her tone is now relieved.
I roll off the bed and go downstairs to the kitchen. Mom’s there, hands on her hips, looking less than happy. Even though it’s dark because she has yet to flip on the lights, her eyes aren’t glowing. She says she was able to correct the glow with another surgery, one where the doctor placed lenses inside her eyeballs, altering the way the light reflected in her eyes. It’s something my eyes won’t be mature enough for until I’m an adult.
“I went outside for a bit.” My gut cramps with the lie.
“AnnaGrey England.” She goes into the kitchen and begins reheating meatloaf and potatoes from the night before. “I was so worried. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Disobeying her isn’t my normal routine, and I don’t like disappointing her, no matter how mad I sometimes am at her about the secrecy. “I—sorry, Mom. Lost track of time.”
She sighs. “I did, too. Sorry about dinner.”
“Late and leftover—just how I like it.”
Mom laughs and slides my plate across the counter. I plop onto a barstool.
“Next time, make sure you tell me. I should ground you.” She frowns.
“Okay.” I wait for her to pronounce a sentence, but she just frowns deeper, her eyebrows knit together. “I know you’re fourteen and responsible, but it’s getting darker in the evenings. So, don’t do it again.”
“I won’t, Mom.”
She settles next to me on the other barstool. “How was your day?”
I was snored and drooled at. I met a magical horse in the forbidden Wildwood.
“It was fine.”
“Good. What did you learn?”
This is routine, Mom making sure I’m listening and learning in school. Sometimes, though, she’s totally interested in the subjects as if she’s hearing some of the information for the first time.
“I don’t know, Mom.” I sigh.
“One thing, Grey. One thing.” She grins at me, showing her teeth. Mom’s beautiful, but her teeth are… well, she could dress like a vampire for Halloween and not need glue-on fangs. I’m glad I didn’t inherit her eyes and teeth.
“Only one?” I ask, tapping my chin and casting about for something to tell her. Snoring, drooling, Cross Silverstone. Connelly and I researching. One thought snags in my brain and races out of my mouth before I can catch it. “Horses don’t have antlers, do they?”
The hand that holds the glass Mom is lifting to her lips halts in midair. The scar she has on her arm, deep and silver that mars her otherwise beautiful skin, glimmers like a pearl. The house goes still. The quiet whirr of the fridge is the only noise for several seconds.
“Of course not.” She puts down the glass without taking a drink. “Why would you ask that?”
I could tell her right now what happened in the Wildwood, but I don’t feel like ratting myself out. So, I laugh. “I was joking.”
“Oh.” She still eyes me suspiciously. “In other news, your dad wants to see you tomorrow, so I told him he can pick you up from school. He said he’d take you to dinner.”
I’m not sure I can deal with Dad right now. I don’t mean to, but a part of me is blaming him—his far-fetched fables—for that magical, talking horse. “I—do I have to?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Why don’t you want to?”
“Never mind. It’s fine. I’ll text him.” My phone screen now sports one big spider web of broken glass, but thankfully it works.
Me: Mom says ur picking me up 2morrow & we’re going 2 dinner.
Dad: Hey, Moonbeam! Sure am!
Me: K. CU.
Dad: Yup! What are you doing? Anything new?
But maybe… maybe I could talk to Dad, find out a few details about when he started hallucinating.
Me: I had this weird dream that I met a horse who could talk to me.
The three little dots that indicate he’s texting me show up, disappear, then show up again. Then disappear. I go back to my dinner and wait a few more minutes before my phone buzzes.
Dad: I used to know talking horses.
I close my eyes and sigh. Not the answer I was hoping for. Dad seems to think I’m still a little girl who will hang on to his tall tales the way I used to cling to his long legs and go for a ride. He’s always said stuff like that as if he’s lived in a world where magic existed. I wanted him to flat-out tell me it doesn’t exist, that it’s a dream.
Me: Gotta finish dinner with Mom.
Dad: Okay. Good night. Love you, Moonbeam.
Me: Love you too.
I slip my phone back into my pocket, wondering if Dad is working or eating takeout alone. He’s never been a career kind of guy. He never seems to want something more, just something else. He lives in a small rundown house and runs a handyman business. In his spare time, he writes songs about his lost love and only sings them when there’s a full moon.
Mom, on the other hand, loves her work at the local florist and extends her talent to our home and yard. After a few moments of silent eating, she pushes her plate away. “I cooked. You clean.”
“You microwaved.” I laugh.
She smiles and kisses the top of my head. “It was tough.”
I finish my meal alone and take my plate to the sink. I glance out the window toward the Wildwood. Something is shimmering in the distance.
I’m going to regret asking Mom, but I need to find out why she forbids me to enter it. Has she seen Iris, too? Does she think Iris is dangerous? I cross my arms over my chest, tapping my right fingers against my left forearm, trying to make a decision. As a redhead, I’ve been cursed with freckles, but I like the ones my fingers are currently galloping across. They remind me of stars. In fact, they look like a constellation in the midst of the other freckles strewn across my pale-as-dawn skin.
When I was little, I thought the star-freckles resembled a horse. As I study them now, I think the set of freckles at the top could be two antlers.
That’s the only reason I need to forget the dishes and head to the basement. I need to talk to her. I need to ask her, even if she’s going to lose it again. She’s sitting on a stool in her workroom, bent over some buds that are blooming. I come up behind her, wrap my arms around her shoulders, and lean my cheek against her back.
“Hi,” she says, patting my hands.
“Mom?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“I was wondering something.”
She begins pruning. “Kitchen clean?”
“Um—”
“Homework done?”
“Yeah. Mom?”
She stops trimming whatever plant is in the pot. “What is it, Grey?”
“Mom, do you think—” I stop, noticing how Mom’s pursing her lips. “I mean, about Dad—” She sighs and turns back to her plants, indicating, like always, she’d rather not talk about him. “Okay, I just mean, why—why can’t I go to the Wildwood?”
She slowly sets down the pruning shears. “I’ve already told you about those woods.”
“I know, but really, why can’t I? Why do we live by it if you’re so afraid of it?”
She takes my hands in hers, the grip soft yet firm. “I will tell you one thing.”
My heart jumps.
“We are better closer to them than away from them.”
My shoulders drop, and I wrench my hands out of her grasp. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“But, Mom, please! I’m so tired of this.”
“What’s ‘this,’ AnnaGrey?”
“This! The secrets, the lies, the—my being different and weird! My stupid eyes!”
“Go upstairs, please.” Her voice is quiet and calm. “Dishes. Then bed.”
I study her pale-green eyes that are ringed with gold and centered with half-moons. If I thought she’d been ticked before when I’d last brought up my eyes, I was wrong. This is controlled anger, and I’ve pushed way past the limit.
I rush back up the stairs and slam the door to the basement. I march into the kitchen, throw the faucet on, and toss the plug into the drain in the sink. Right outside the kitchen window, a glow still rides on the edge of the Wildwood.
CHAPTER FOUR
I DIDN’T SLEEP well last night, which makes being at school that much more awful. There were no horned horses in my dreams, but human-sized birds kept flying above me in the Wildwood. I squeeze my eyes shut as I spin the combination on my locker, trying to summon the bird’s image. She had red feathers and even redder eyes. Dreams are weird—but what is stranger is the feeling that it was a memory rather than a dream.
“Why are you always so gray, Grey?” a voice says from behind me.
I cringe, and my stomach rolls as I open my eyes. I yank on the locker door, keeping my back turned to Cross.
He leans against the locker next to mine and reaches over, shutting the door I just opened. He laughs and folds his arms over his chest as if challenging me. The expression on his golden-skinned face is as dark as his hair, and his mood is as stormy as his black-thundercloud eyes, so deep I can’t tell where the pupils end and the irises begin. Hot embarrassment and cold anger war over my skin. I swallow hard and clench my fists. The silver tattoo that circles his wrist is visible because his sleeve is pulled up by the way he crosses his arms. He has one like it on the other. He tells everyone who’ll listen about how he lied and passed for eighteen at the tattoo shop. Everyone thinks he’s so cool.
Except me.
“What do you want, Cross?” My voice is quiet. I wish it was like the calm before a storm, but it’s not. It’s just me trying to get through this without causing a scene.
“I need the health assignment due today,” he says. “I didn’t get mine done.”
He’s supposed to be a year ahead of me in school, but I’m not sure if he was held back or started late. Either way, I don’t think it’s because he’s brainless. I think he’s just lazy. But I would never tell him that. I hate confrontations, scenes, being put on the spot. I am not a fighter.
I wipe my clammy hands on my jeans. “I… don’t know, I mean—”
“Begging Freakenstein for help again, Cross?”
A group of his friends is walking by. The one who shouted laughs as if he’s come up with an original insult.
Cross laughs, shaking his head and waving them off while my blood burns the skin on my face. He looks at me with a flat expression. “If you give me your homework, I’ll tell them to stop.”
I reopen my locker, get my books from it, and shut it again. Why can’t he leave me alone? But now he’s saying he’ll stop the other kids if I let him cheat off me, and it makes me pause.
“Look,” he says, his voice cool and detached, “I just need your assignment. Come on. I’ll tell them to stop.”
If there’s even the slightest chance he’ll tell his friends to stop, I’ll take it, so I fork over the assignment.
“You’ll really tell them to leave me alone?”
His face flushes a touch. “Yeah, duh. I said I would.”
