Selfish Elf Wish (20 page)

“Can we take the train?” I ask.

Timber shakes his head. “There’s no subway to Red Hook. I’ll call a car service.”

“It’ll take forever!” I’m starting to panic. “We should have never left.”

“It’ll be okay,” says Timber as he dials.

“I should call my parents.”

“Not yet,” he tells me.

“Look!” I see a black town car bumping down the street. I jump off the sidewalk and wave my arms.

The car pulls over and the driver rolls down his window. “Where you going?”

“Red Hook,” we both say in unison.

He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m off duty in fifteen minutes, I don’t want to go that far.”

“No!” I bark, and grab the door handle. “You have to take us. It’s an emergency. My cousin’s in trouble.” I try to open the door but it’s locked.

“Sorry.” He rolls up the window.

I zap the window and jam it, then I stick my head inside the car as the guy messes with the controls, confused by why his window won’t go up. I whisper, “Don’t mind, change mind, mind the mind to change.” I draw back and say, “Open the door now, please.”

The man shakes his head, bewildered, but he says, “Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

I grab Timber’s hand and pull him into the car behind me. “Hurry,” I tell the driver.

 

As we cruise over the bumpy side roads leading down to Red Hook, I take Timber’s phone and call Grove’s cell. “I’ll feel better if he comes,” I tell Timber.

“I’m sure everything is fine,” he tells me, and pats me on the knee.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. I can’t understand what went wrong and if something is really wrong why I haven’t already sensed it, which could mean that nothing’s wrong and Kenji is freaking out because Briar went off somewhere without him. Then again, Kenji isn’t the type to freak out and he’s even freaking out Ari and Mercedes, which has me worried. Grove’s phone goes straight to voice mail, which must mean he’s asleep. I leave him a message to call Timber, and then I think about calling my house, but I don’t want to wake my parents yet. By then we’re back at the club.

“Wait here,” I tell the driver.

Timber looks at me. “He’s going off duty, Zeph.”

“He’ll wait,” I say.

“I’ll wait,” the guy says.

“Wow,” says Timber as we pile out of the car and go running for the club door.

Inside is more jam-packed than when we left. Now the place is totally jumping, wall-to-wall kids on the dance floor grooving to the ear-blowing music. The flashing red, blue, and green lights immediately give me a headache, and I have no idea how we’ll find anyone in here. Timber’s punching in a message to Kenji as we push through the crowd looking for anyone familiar.

I spot Chelsea’s flame-red hair where she’s sitting on the couches chatting up some guy in a blue jumpsuit. “Have you seen Kenji or my cousin?” I lean down and shout in her ear.

She shoots me a nasty look but says, “No!” then ignores us.

We work our way through the crowd until we see Bella and Gunther at the bar. Bella’s sitting on a stool nursing another Diet Coke. As soon as she sees us, she opens her arms and squeals, “Oh the happy couple!” Then she slaps Gunther on the arm and snorts. From what Timber has said, I’m guessing that Diet Coke has some secret ingredients.

Timber sidles close to her and shouts into her ear. I do the same to Gunther. Bella shakes her head but Gunther nods. He points toward the back. “I saw her go with those two nut jobs who run the place about an hour ago.”

“What about Kenji?” I ask.

“You mean the little Japanese dude with the hair?” Gunther asks. I nod. He shrugs. “Dude’s whipped over that girl. He’s probably with her.”

I don’t have time to explain or to take issue with how rude Gunther is, so I yell thanks and yank Timber away from Bella, who’s taking this opportunity to talk to him way too long, way too close to his face.

I push through all the bodies to the back room, where another crowd gathers around a large flat-screen TV. Levi stands on a platform playing an electric guitar while everyone else chants and shouts at his avatar. I don’t see Briar, Clay, or Dawn, but I do see a beaded curtain leading to another door in the back of the room. I squeeze past the bodies, pulling Timber along behind me. I part the curtain and see a short, dark hallway with a door at either end. Both doors are marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I head toward one door, but Timber pulls me back and points to the sign. I don’t care. If Briar’s in there, I want to find her.

I turn the knob. The door pops open. Inside is an office. A large, green metal desk sits against one wall cluttered with a computer and three small TVs showing different parts of the club. Grainy black-and-white images rotate around the screens. First the dance floor, then the bar, the back room, outside the front of the club, an empty stairwell, a small storage room where I see lots of boxes and a small kennel cage, the back parking lot of the club where a group of people are smoking glowing cigarettes, then another room with a couch and two chairs. I see a shadow move toward the couch, but then the image changes to the dance floor. I keep watching those screens, trying to catch a glimpse of Briar or Clay or Dawn as the images rotate. I see the storage room again and look closely at the kennel. It looks like a small animal is in the cage, but I can’t make it out, then the image switches to the parking lot. I look closely for anyone we know, but all the people are strangers. The images switch. We both watch carefully.

Then the room with the couches comes back around. I see someone slumped on a sofa. I press my face close to the screen, but the pictures switch again. I scan the other screens until that couch comes back. “I think that’s Briar!” I say, pointing at the person who’s wearing a skirt and has long hair like her.

“But where is that?” Timber asks.

“We have to find out.” I leave the office and jog down the hall to the other door. At first the door sticks and I’m afraid it’s locked, but when I push, it pops open to reveal the empty stairwell that was on the screens. Timber and I run down the stairs, trying to stay quiet, but the sounds of our footsteps bounce around the blank walls as we descend into a basement hallway. Timber opens the first door and we find a storage room full of boxes marked CUPS, STRAWS, and ID BANDS. He’s about to close the door again, but I step around him and look for that kennel.

“She’s not in here,” he whispers to me. “And we shouldn’t be in here either.”

I tiptoe around the boxes and come face-to-face with two shining eyes. I jump back and gasp.

“What is it?” Timber’s at my side.

I take a closer look at the cage and see a small, reddish-brown animal curled into a ball. “It’s the fox,” I say.

“What fox?” he asks.

“Grove and Briar saw it before,” I explain. The fox looks at me, panting with pleading eyes, and I feel terrible for it. No animal, least of all a wild animal like a fox, should be in a cage in a storage room. Now I know Clay and Dawn are weird and that Dawn was lying when she said they had a cat. As much as I’d like to take that fox home to Bramble so he could care for it then release it in the woods, I know we have to leave it for now so we can find Briar. “Sorry,” I tell the fox.

We back out of the storage room and tiptoe down the hall. We can hear the muffled music from above and the ceiling shakes where people jump on the dance floor. No wonder that fox is uneasy with all the noise and shaking. We find another door. Timber steps in front of me. He grabs the handle and turns it slowly. My heart beats quickly, half afraid of what we might find. He pushes the door open and we both peer in to see the room with the couch and two chairs. There, asleep on the couch, covered with a blanket, is Briar.

“Oh, thank the stars!” I say, and rush toward my snoozing cousin. “Bri!” I shake her. “Bri, wake up! You okay?”

Slowly she opens her eyes. “Hey, Zeph,” she says, but her words come out thick and slurred, and her eyes immediately close again.

“Briar, wake up,” I insist, shaking her arm. “What’s wrong with you?” I look to Timber.

“She seems stoned,” he says.

“What do you mean, like drugs?”

“Or booze. Maybe she was drinking and she passed out.”

“No way,” I say, still trying to rouse her.

“It’s possible,” Timber says. “Maybe Clay and Dawn put her down here to let her sleep it off so she wouldn’t get in trouble going home.”

“But why wouldn’t Kenji be with her?” I ask.

Timber shrugs. “Maybe she needed a break from him.”

“None of this makes sense,” I say. “We need to get her home. This is creeping me out.”

That’s when the door opens behind us. We all jump. Timber and I, and Dawn, who stands in the doorway. “What the hell?” she yells. “How’d you get down here?” I see anger flash across her face, and her eyes seem to darken.

“Hey, Dawn,” Timber says. “Kenji got upset because he couldn’t find Briar so we came looking for her.”

Dawn pulls in a breath as if to calm down, but I see fury behind her eyes and in her fists balled at her sides.

“What happened?” I ask, pointing to my cousin.

Dawn licks her lips and looks over her shoulder into the hallway. I wonder if Clay is coming. I don’t want to find out. I want to get out of here as fast as I can. “She had too much to drink,” she says.

Timber laughs. “That’s what I said happened.”

“She doesn’t drink,” I say.

Timber goes on. “I said you probably let her crash down here to cool out so she didn’t go home messed up.”

“That’s right,” Dawn says, but I think she’s lying. Something about the way she holds her body, as if she’s on the defense of an attack, and how she licks her lips. I don’t trust her.

“We need to get her home,” I say.

Dawn’s face brightens. “Clay can take you. He’s getting his car right now. He was going to drive her home.”

“No thanks.” I pat Briar’s hand, trying to rouse her. “We have a car outside.”

Dawn blocks the door. “You can’t take her through the club like this. I could lose my license. She was drinking illegally. I don’t know where she got the stuff. Maybe her boyfriend. We were trying to do her a favor.”

I look at Timber. “Kenji didn’t give her anything,” I say. “He’s been looking for her.”

“Whatever, but you can’t take her up through the club like this,” Dawn says again.

“We’ll go out the back. Through that parking lot,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. “What parking lot?”

“Where a bunch of people are smoking,” I say, and level my gaze at her. “Where’s the door?”

Dawn shifts uncomfortably. “Look, Clay will be here in a minute. Just wait for him and he’ll help you get her out without a problem.”

There’s no way I’m waiting on creepy Clay. I turn back to my cousin. “Briar!” I bark and shake her. “Wake up. What’s going on? You have to get up now.”

She rolls her head back and forth. “Do you know the U.P.?” she asks, and holds up two limp hands to look like Michigan. “Here by the knuckle.” She points to her pinky knuckle of her left hand as if she’s showing us where Alverland is, then she slumps back down and closes her eyes.

I whip my head back toward Dawn. “What has she been telling you? I demand, remembering all the strange things Dawn knows about my dad and all the questions she asks me every time I see her. I don’t know who she is, but this doesn’t feel right to me. That’s when I see Dawn’s left hand rise up. I notice the way she’s turning her wrist, inward, and I see her lips begin to move.

Before I can think, I zap her. “Limp fish!” I call out, and point. Her arm falls to her side. “Mute newt,” I call, and zap her throat. Timber looks at me, bewildered, but I don’t have time to explain my reaction or why Dawn’s mouth is moving but no sound comes out or why her arm hangs useless by her side. It comes from years of my brothers and sisters and cousins and me casting spells against one another. I know that flick of the wrist. I know the way we move our lips as we conjure. I don’t know if that’s what Dawn was doing. It makes no sense, but her movements were too familiar for me to wait and see.

“Grab Briar’s other arm,” I command Timber. He does what I say. We hoist Briar up and sling her arms across our shoulders. She moans. “Stand up,” I tell her. “Now!”

Briar comes to a bit. “Zephy,” she coos at me.

“You’re in big trouble,” I grumble at her. “Let’s go,” I tell Timber.

He helps me almost drag Zephyr toward the door, past Dawn, who’s still trying to find her voice and the use of her arm. In the hallway, I see one more doorway. It’s silver with a panic bar in the center. “That’s got to be an exit,” I say. “Maybe it goes to the parking lot.”

We head that way, Briar heavy between us. We turn backward to push against the door just as Dawn comes into the hall. Her voice is hoarse and her arm isn’t moving correctly yet, but it looks to me like she’s trying to cast another spell.

“Go! Go! Go!” I yell as I bang against the door. An alarm shrieks as we push through. There’s a steep, dark staircase behind us, but it’s freezing, so I guess that we’re heading outside. Above us are trapdoors. We lift them over our heads and crawl up into the cold air of the parking lot. The smokers congregated by a staircase behind the club watch us with their mouths hanging open while the alarm continues to shriek. The door at the top of the steps flies open and people spill out into the night.

“Pick her up!” I shout at Timber. He scoops Briar into his arms and we run through the parking lot. I look over my shoulder to see Dawn emerging from the trapdoors. I yank Timber into the crowd and we disappear from Dawn’s sight.

We round the side of the building and cut through an alley to the front of the club. People pour out the front door, too, and now I hear sirens. The car service guy still waits by the curb, which is lucky because very soon my spell will wear off him and he’ll wonder why in the world he’s sitting here. As I run for the car with Timber carrying Briar behind me, someone grabs my arm. I turn, ready to zap Clay or Dawn or whoever it is, but my brother Grove catches my wrist. “What’s going on?”