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Val stared at hiht? Except faeries don’t fucking exist!"
He started to laugh She dropped his ar paperbacks into the road
He looked down at the bitch," he said and spat on the ground
All the rage and bewilderment of the last day boiled up in her Her hands balled into fists She wanted to hit so
Dave bent down to pick up the cardboard box and replaced the fallen books "You’re lucky you’re a girl," he oblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?
--Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market"
On the train ride back, Val sat in a plastic seat far frolas-covered map of the subway, and wondered how a person could have hooves She’d seen shadowsto do with ossip about murdered tree people from weird, Upper West Side ladies What she did knoas that she didn’t want to be blind and duirl that didn’t notice that hersex until she saith her own eyes She wanted to know the truth
When Val got close to the concrete park on Leonard Street she saw Luis sitting on a ledge, drinking soirl with mis fingers holding a cigarette As Val got closer, she could see sores on the new girl’s ankles, leaking pus The streets were nearly deserted, the only person close by a security guard across the street alked out to the curb every now and then before she disappeared into the building
"Why are you still around?" Luis asked, glancing up at her She was unnerved by the stare from his cloudy eye
"Just tell estured with his chin to the grate in the ground as Dave walked up to thearette and then reached for it, her fingers grazing the hot end without her see to notice as she fumbled to put it back in her htening "What happened?"
Dave looked at the parked cars that lined the street "It wasn’tidiot"
Dave said so toward the service entrance, the grate that she and Dave had slid out of that afternoon She got down on her hands and knees, pulled up the unhinged end of the metal bars, and lowered herself onto the steps
"Lolli?" she called into the darkness
"Over here," came the drowsy reply
Val waded across the ht before Her backpack wasn’t where she’d left it She kicked aside so "Where’s uess you get what you get" Lolli laughed and held up the knapsack "It’s here Chill"
Val unzipped her pack All her stuff was inside, the razor still choked with her hair, the thirteen dollars still folded up in her wallet right beside her train ticket Even her gum was still there "Sorry," Val said and sat down
"Don’t trust us?" Lolli grinned
"Look, I saw soetting fucked with"
Lolli sat up, hugging her legs to her chest, eyes wide and se of the goat-footed woman moved uneasily behind Val’s eyes "I knohat you’re going to say, but I don’t think it was a faerie"
"So what do you think it was?"
"I don’t know Maybetricks on elo box It ht "That doesn’t "
"But, I mean--faeries? Like ’clap if you believe in faeries’?"
Lolli snorted "You saw one You tell me"
"I did tell you I told you I don’t knohat I sao weird in your arm? Paper that dances around? Is that supposed to add up?"
Lolli scowled
"How do you know it’s real?" Val demanded
"The troll tunnel," Lolli said "You won’t be able to explain that away"
"Troll?"
"Luis ot shot Their mother was dead when the ambulance came, but Dave was in the hospital for a while Luis promised the troll he would serve him for a year if he saved Dave’s life"
"That’s who Dave was doing the delivery for?" Val asked
"He took you on one of those?" Lolli blew out a breath that h "Wow, he really is the worst spy in the world"
"What is the big deal about telling me? Why does Luis care what I know? Like you said to Dave, no one is going to believe me"
"Luis says none of us are supposed to know, not even Dave They’d bedeliveries for Ravus, so errands for them Dave does some of the troll’s jobs"
"My friend Ruth used to s She said she had a boyfriend naland She showed sty poetry Basically, the truth was that Ruth wrote herself letters, printed them out, and lied about it I know all about liars," Val said "It’s not like I don’t believe what you’re saying, but what if Luis is lying to you?"