“Bye, Aaron! Bye, Elizabeth! Have fun!”
Aaron and I walked in silence to the subway. “I’ll see you next week,” I said.
“See you next week.” He looked as if he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.
“Okay, bye, then.”
“Bye.”
I had to concentrate very hard to get the ring to take me to the right train platform. Whenever I let my mind drift, I found it pulling me west—following Aaron as he rode the bus across the park.
The next week it was suddenly spring. The snow, already melting, gave a last sigh and trickled down the drains. Crocuses poked up their purple noses around the sidewalk trees. Teachers started talking about midterms.
On Wednesday, Ms. Callender put me on Stack 7, the art collection, with Josh. It was pretty quiet, which was good—I had a French dialogue to memorize. My ring kept wanting me to go upstairs, where Aaron was stationed on Stack 10, Science and Medicine, but when I went to look for him on my break, he wasn’t there. So I walked over to Central Park instead and communed with the snowdrops.
Saturday evening I was doing my math homework when I heard a tapping at my window. It sounded like a branch blowing against the pane. I glanced up and glimpsed a dark shape. A chill ran through me.
Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself—Mr. Stone is stuck in Nowhere and the dark shape that used to hover terrifyingly in windows is a friend now.
The tapping came again. “Polly?” I said, throwing the window open, “is that you?” I wondered how she got out of the Garden of Seasons.
“Hey, Elizabeth.” It was Aaron. He was sitting cross-legged on a flying carpet.
“Aaron! What are you doing there?”
“I just was wondering, what are you up to?”
“I’m doing my math homework, why?”
“Want to come for a ride?”
“You mean now?”
“No, yesterday. Of course I mean now.”
“Um . . . sure.” I put on an extra sweater and hauled the window open wide.
Aaron mushed the carpet up against the side of the building and held out his hand. “Careful,” he said.
His hand was cold but steady. I stepped out and sat down quickly. The carpet wobbled like a water bed.
“Okay?” asked Aaron. “It’s easier to keep your balance if you stay low.” He sent the carpet into an upward glide.
I lay down and looked up at the sky. A fullish moon made the clouds glow. Aaron lay down beside me on his side. I turned over on my side too. He put his arm over me awkwardly, then took it away. After a minute I moved back and leaned against him.
“Are you warm enough? I brought blankets.”
“I’m fine. Where are we going?” I asked.
“Anywhere you like. Green-Wood Cemetery? Battery Park? The Hudson?”
“How about The Cloisters?”
“You got it.”
The wind blew my hair back and ruffled the carpet fringe. I turned over on my stomach and peered over the edge, watching the buildings zip past underneath us. Aaron put his arm over my back again.
“So what did you leave as a deposit? For the carpet, I mean.”
“My sense of humor.”
“Come on. That’s the oldest joke in the repository.”
“Naturally it would be, since I’ve lost my sense of humor. I can’t tell a funny joke now, can I?”
“Your sense of humor doesn’t seem any different to me. What
“My powers of persuasion.”
“No, you didn’t. You got me to come with you.”
“That didn’t take much persuasion.”
“Come on. What was it really? Your firstborn again?”
“No way. I’m never leaving my firstborn again as long as I live. That was too horrible.”
“Yeah, I saw,” I said. “It looked so . . . vulnerable.”
Aaron nodded uncomfortably. He moved his arm away. I changed the subject. “What’s that down there? The East River?”
“No, silly, the Hudson. I guess that means you didn’t get your sense of direction back?”
“Doc says they’re working on it. The ring helps, but it’s not the same thing,” I said.
“Too bad.”
“Yeah. It’s okay, though, my sense of direction was never all that hot . . .” We passed over a necklace of lights strung across the river. “What’s that down there?”
“The George Washington Bridge.”
“Oh, of course . . . So if you got your firstborn back, you must have returned the Snow White mirror?”
“Yeah—I couldn’t get that horrible thing out of my bedroom fast enough,” said Aaron. “Here we are. Hang on, I’m taking us down.”
Peeking out again, I saw The Cloisters—the museum of medieval art that sits on a hilltop in Fort Tryon Park, at the northern end of Manhattan. Aaron put his arm around me and held me tight against the carpet as we banked and glided down toward the castle-like cluster of buildings. We landed with a gentle bump in the high garden overlooking the river.
The still air was mild after the wind of our flight. The moon made the bare trees look as if they’d been cast in silver. Shadows played across Aaron’s face, emphasizing his cheekbones. His lips were a beautiful shape.
He brought out a thermos. “Want some cocoa?”
“Sure, thanks.”
I sniffed at my cocoa. There was something in it besides chocolate. Cinnamon? No, vanilla? Not quite . . . “What is this smell?” I asked. “You didn’t enchant the cocoa, did you?”
He gave an evil chuckle. “What, you’re worried it’s my secret aphrodisiac? And now that I’ve got you alone . . .”
My heart pounded. I hit him on the shoulder. “Come on, what is it really?”
“Ginger.”
“Oh.”
We sipped in silence for a while, watching the lights across the river.
“So what did you really leave as a deposit?”
“My ambition.”
“You? Never.”
“My sense of t-t-timing?”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh.”
“My most precious memory—of the moment I met you?”
“Fine, don’t tell me.”
He put down his cocoa mug, took the empty mug out of my hand, and put it down. He leaned forward—much too far forward—and fell, taking me down with him. “My sense of balance,” he whispered into my hair.
I pushed at him. “Ow, get off, you’re on my arm.”
He shifted his weight but didn’t move away. “My inhibitions,” he whispered into the other ear.
Then he kissed me.
He tasted of chocolate and ginger and apples. Spring air, books. New grass. Magic.
“Hey, you’re not bad at that,” I said.
“Neither are you.”
He kissed me again. Then I kissed him.
