Chapter 32: That Kind of Imagination

Before they reached their own room, Dawn stopped Naomi. “Let me see if Corrie is in. If she’s here the explanations will go much quicker.” She knocked on the door, but no one answered. She tried the doorknob but, as she expected, it was locked. She felt an anxious twisting in her gut, but there wasn’t time to go looking for Corrie or Edie right now. Naomi was impatient and upset, and she didn’t want to make that worse.

They went into their room, and Dawn locked the door behind them. If Corrie wanted to come in she would let her—or maybe Roe or Annie, since they also knew—but she didn’t want anyone else walking in. Naomi sat down on Dawn’s bed and looked at her expectantly. Dawn sat down on her desk chair and stared at her hands in her lap for a while, trying to think of how to begin. Finally she said, “Well, I meant the note literally. I think Edie’s girlfriend Leila might be a faerie, and I need to talk to Corrie about it to see what she thinks, and if we should tell Edie about my suspicions.”

Naomi blew out a sharp breath, obviously not satisfied by this beginning of an explanation. “But what the heck does that mean?”

Had Naomi ever read anything with faeries in it? Dawn had to think. Yes, she realized. She’d borrowed Corrie’s Sandman books. So she would know what Dawn was talking about when she described folkloric faeries, as opposed to Tinker Bell. She started with Sandman, then went through the explanation of what she had seen over the last month that she’d been at Chatoyant College, including what her aunt had told her the day before, even though she hadn’t yet told anyone else about it. She figured she owed Naomi that much. She did gloss over what had happened to Annie and Edie, figuring, as she usually did, that the stories were theirs to tell, not hers.

At the end of it all, Naomi just sat staring at her, wide-eyed. “You’re not just making this up?” she asked softly.

Dawn shook her head. “Do you think I have that kind of imagination?”

Naomi smiled slightly. “Actually, yes. But I don’t think you could come up with it this quickly, and you did offer to have Corrie help with the explanations. Plus, if you wanted to lie to me, why would you have left that note where I could see it?”

“I could have been planning to set you up all along,” Dawn offered, but she was smiling too, hoping that Naomi wouldn’t believe that.

Naomi grinned. “No, that would be stupid. And anyway, wouldn’t it be really annoying living with a roommate who believed such a story?”

“You say that like it’s not annoying to live with you already.”

Naomi stuck her tongue out, then swung Dawn’s pillow at her. Laughing, Dawn blocked it, and wrestled with her roommate for a moment before getting it back into place. Then they both sobered.

“I guess you really do need to talk to Corrie about this,” said Naomi.

Dawn nodded slowly. “I do.”

Naomi pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s see if she’s back yet. If not, you can call her, right?”

“I can. I don’t know how urgent it is, though… I mean, my aunt told me her suspicions yesterday, I can’t just call Corrie and decide it’s suddenly urgent that I talk to her.”

Naomi shrugged, walking over to their door. “You can tell her you want to talk to her but not that it’s important. You’ve both been really busy so it obviously makes sense that you didn’t have time to talk.” She unlocked and opened the door. “Come on.”

Dawn stood up and went out into the hallway with Naomi. They both knocked on Corrie and Edie’s door, but once again, there was no answer. Dawn sighed and went back into their room to get her cell phone, hoping she wouldn’t interrupt anything.

Corrie answered on the second ring. “Hey Dawn! What’s up?”

“Just wondering when you’re going to be back,” Dawn answered, trying to sound calm and carefree.

“I don’t know. I guess I should get back soon and do my homework. Is something wrong?”

“Um… to be honest, I don’t know.”

Corrie laughed a little. “Okay. Actually, I’m kind of hungry. Do you want to meet for lunch soon?”

“That would be great, actually,” Dawn said. “Okay, see you in like ten minutes then.” She flipped her phone closed, stared at it for a moment, then replaced it in her purse and turned to Naomi. “Do you want to get lunch with us?”

“Absolutely,” said Naomi. “I’m starving.”