To The Fairest Page 9

  Or in her case, a ‘fowl’ bitch.

  I burst out laughing only to wince when the motion forced my belly against the window ledge. A few seconds later, I was relieved to see Chris come back into the room, broom in hand. He shooed LaRue away with the bristled end, visibly reluctant to get too close to her. She made a rude sound that had him flinching before she gave in to peer pressure and waddled off. Chris dropped the broom with sigh of relief and hurried to release me. He opened the window the rest of the way and I tumbled into the house with a curse.

  Chris helped me up, stifling a smile as I righted myself and straightened my clothes. I ached from being stuck in the window. When I thought about it, it was actually unsurprising considering the ratio of what I ate as compared to how much I exercised was way off. I briefly considered fixing that, then dismissed the idea as requiring too much commitment. I was a purebred American after all.

  “So…” Chris crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at me. “Is there any particular reason why you broke into my house?”

  “I wanted to say hello?”

  He snorted. “At 11:00 at night?”

  “I didn’t know there was a time limit.”

  “You could have just knocked you know. I would have let you in.”

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Really?”

  His cheeks flushed with shame and he shifted from one foot to the other. I knew it. He and Rachel had been avoiding me after all. His sudden nerves were proof that I wasn’t just being paranoid.

  “Why are you here?” he asked finally.

  That stung, but she tried not to let it show.

  “I—” My mind went blank and I shrugged, feeling helpless. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  It was true. With Sam gone there was nowhere else I felt safe. I had no idea what I had expected by going to Chris and Rachel. They would be just as clueless as I was on how to turn a goose back into my boss. But even so…even so, there I was. Chris was about to say something when we heard a shout from the back of the house. I frowned.

  “Rachel?” I called, stepping forward. Though the voice had been female, it hadn’t sounded like Rachel and I started gathering power just in case some shit was about to go down. Chris stepped in my path and I eyed him, suddenly growing suspicious.

  “What was that?”

  He looked away. “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying.” I snapped.

  “No I’m not.”

  “I clearly heard something.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Patience wearing thin, I planted my fists on my hips.

  “Do you want me to hurt you?” I asked kindly. “Cause I’ll do it.”

  His chest puffed out in outrage. “Do you…wanna…I’ll…slap your…your...” His face reddened as he searched desperately for something to say. Anything to end the sentence he’d already started. He muttered something incoherent that ended with, “dropkick you in the boob.” and I stared at him, disgusted by the poor quality of his comeback. The man was obviously unwilling to commit to threatening me with violence, even during trash talk and he slumped, emotionally exhausted.

  “Dropkick my boob?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m trying okay? Words have the power to hurt.”

  There was another cry, and I hurried forward. I only managed a few steps more before Chris slid to a stop in front of me, blocking my way again.

  “Move.” I growled.

  He shook his head. “Can’t do that.”

  We stared at each other, neither of us blinking. My eyes were beginning to water when I decided to throw him a curveball.

  “Are you having an affair?” I asked.

  Dumbfounded, he blinked and his mouth dropped open. While he was distracted, I darted around him and ran down the hallway towards the soft whimpers coming from one of the extra bedroom. Chris gave chase, but I was faster and by the time he’d caught up with me I’d already thrown open the door where the sounds had originated and looked inside.

  Rachel jumped, her eyes widening at the sight of me. Chris appeared at my back and she glared at him over my shoulder.

  “What part of, ‘Get rid of her’ did you not understand?”

  “I don’t think you fully appreciate just how fast she is. It’s like trying to catch a greased up crackhead.”

  Rachel winced and shook her head. “Baby, do we have to have a talk about appropriate similes again?”

  I ignored the two of them, my attention focused instead on the woman lying in the bed. She was pale and her eyes moved restlessly behind closed lids. Sweat coated her body, and she thrashed beneath the blankets Rachel had tucked in around her. I’d never seen her like this, so weak and frail, and fear was like spoiled wine on the back of my tongue.

  “Maleficent?” I said softly, only to cringe when she screamed and bucked in the body. Her body shimmering out of focus for a moment before she was made solid once more. Rachel, Chris, and I all slapped our hands over our ears until the screaming had faded and Rachel sent me a dark look from Maleficent’s bedside.

  “Can you not do that?”

  “What? Say her name?”

  “Yeah.” Chris said, stepping around me to come further into the room. “She keeps trying to follow the call, but she can’t. She says it’s like being yanked through barbed wire. It’s…painful.”

  “I’ll bet.” I muttered. I realized that I was shaking and I wrapped my arms around my middle as I met Rachel’s eyes. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Rachel swallowed thickly, and when she spoke her voice was hoarse with emotion.

  “I, we, think that she might be dying.”

  “Holy crap.” I breathed. “We’re all screwed.”

  Chris nodded. “Our sentiments exactly.”

  * * * *

  “I started having these…I don’t know…attacks.” Rachel began, half of her attention on me and the other half on Maleficent as she spoke. “When I was first cursed I learned how to sort of step out of my body. Usually it only happened when I was asleep, when I could sleep. But a while back I started slipping out even when I was awake.”

  “I talked to Madam Clara.” Chris explained. “She said it was a side effect of the sleeping curse. That it could be cured by someone with enough power to pull it off.”

  “So we called Ma—” Rachel stopped herself just in time.

  “You should call her Mal the Magnificent.” I offered helpfully. “She likes that.”

  Rachel snorted. “Of course she does.”

  “When she showed up,” Chris continued, “she seemed…off.”

  “How so?”

  Chris and Rachel shared a glance. “She was talking to herself.” Rachel told me finally. “We were right there but she didn’t really see us. Then she started flickering in and out. It was like watching basic cable with a broken antenna. Nothing but static.”

  “When I tried to check on her, she grabbed my hand and started crying.” Chris looked haunted still by the encounter and Rachel reached for his hand and squeezed. “She said, ‘I can’t save broken things from a monster with no name’.”

  Something about the words left me feeling shaken and I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes glued to Maleficent’s face.

  “She’s been here ever since.” Rachel finished and I frowned.

  “That can’t be right.” I said. “The other side would have tried to pull her home at midnight.” My explanation stumbled to a halt as Rachel shook her head from side to side.

  “She can’t go.”

  “What do you mean she can’t go?”

  “Every night, at midnight, something tries to shift her from one plane to the next.” It was Christopher that spoke and both Rachel and I looked at him. “But she fights it. I don’t know why. But when she does, we lose pieces of her.”

  At my expression, Chris reached down and whipped the covers back. I gasped, my hands rising to cover my mouth as I stared down at the empty space where Maleficent’s legs should have bee
n. From the thigh up, small chunks of her flesh seemed to have been erased entirely. The edges smooth as if someone had taken a cookie cutter to her. Nausea rose and the heat that had finally died down began to rise in earnest. My body reacting to the panic I felt as if it could protect me from whatever had caused it. I must have looked as sick as I felt because Rachel pulled the blankets back up, hiding the damage.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, feeling numb.

  Rachel shook her head sadly. “I wanted to. But—”

  “But?”

  “Danielle.” Chris finished bluntly and I drew back as if they’d struck me.

  So that was it. They hadn’t told me about Maleficent or asked me for help because they thought I would run off to tell Danielle. Even now my mother still didn’t know where Rachel and Chris lived, and I had been given strict orders to keep it that way. As far as I could tell my mother had lost interest in Rachel and Chris, though that wouldn’t stop her from exacting revenge if she ever ran into them again.

  My mother was vindictive and she had grudges older than most car notes. Finding out that Maleficent, her quote unquote arch-nemesis, was incapacitated in Rachel’s guest bedroom would have been too much temptation for her to just pass up. She would have come gunning for them if she’d found out. Placing all of their lives at risk.

  To think that they believed me capable of placing them in that kind of harm was more than hurtful. It was completely devastating. I would have gotten up and left, but one look at my Godmother’s face held me immobile. Right now, Maleficent’s continued survival was more important than my hurt feelings. Anything that affected her directly affected not only Chris and I, but the rest of her charges on earth as well. If it could take her out, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of us met similar fates. A Godmother and her charge were inseparable in many ways, even if the former had no idea of the existence of the latter.

  My throat felt tight and I had to clear it several times before I could speak. Knowing the extent of their distrust left me feeling like an outsider. They were so very much in love, so very much on one another’s side, that there didn’t seem to be any room for me anymore. It made me sad. Even so, I was involved now whether either one of them wanted me to be or not. Luckily for them, I’d been hanging around Danielle long enough that I had the beginnings of a plan.

  “I think I can help.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t want any of your magic Alex. It’s sort of how we got in the mess in the first place.”

  “First off,” I snapped, “dial it back a bit because your bitch is showing. Second, my magic didn’t do anything. Unless I’m missing something I’m nothing like my mother so I’d appreciate it if you two stopped treating me like a goddamned super villain in training.”

  That shut them up nicely and I continued more calmly.

  “What I’m proposing isn’t really a spell. It isn’t even really magic.”

  “Then what is it?” This from Chris.

  “It’s a way to see beyond the veil.” I nodded towards Rachel. “You could probably do it in your altered state if you knew what to look for.”

  “And what are we looking for?”

  “In this case it’s ‘who’ not ‘what’.” I corrected gently. “And I’m going to try and talk to Seraphim.”

  It took them a minute to get it, but the wait was priceless. Rachel gasped and Chris looked as if he were about to be sick.

  “Isn’t she—?”

  “If you hurry you can still make it to Wal-Mart before they close.” I interrupted him. “The Ouija boards are going to be before Monopoly and Clue but after Candyland.” I glanced at Rachel. “You have $20.00?”

  Chapter Ten

  As it turned out, Rachel did indeed have $20.00.

  Looking extremely unsure about our course of action, Chris left in a squeal of tires. He had just gotten his license so he was still a little heavy on the gas, but otherwise he’d taken to driving pretty quickly. At least he was no longer afraid of the car, though he tensed if anything larger than a jeep passed too close. I stood on the front porch with Rachel and watched him go, a sad smile on my face and my arms crossed around my middle.

  “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” I said, projecting nostalgia. I sighed and leaned my head against Rachel’s shoulder and she muttered something under her breath before shrugging me off.

  “Get in here and explain to me why there’s a goose eating out of my fruit bowl.”

  “Oh.” I followed her inside and shut the door behind me, amused as I watched her slip off her house-shoe and go after aforementioned goose. “That’s my boss.” I said as she swiped at LaRue. Turning, Rachel gazed blankly at me. As if trying to figure out whether or not to be surprised. Then, obviously remembering who she was living with, she sighed and shook her head.

  “A goose?” She said instead.

  “There are worse things.”

  She snorted softly but conceded the point.

  I watched her as she crouched before LaRue, her manner unthreatening as she made soothing sounds in the back of her throat. I didn’t know what to expect until LaRue waddled right into her arms. Rachel grinned, holding the cantankerous animal against her chest and smoothing her feathers.

  I gave her suspicious eyes.

  “Witchcraft.” I hissed accusingly and she laughed with such ease that it was like old times again. Curling up on one side of the couch she crooned to LaRue as I sat down beside her.

  “Ever since I played ‘Kiss the Girl’ with Chris, I’ve sort of had a knack for understanding the fanged and furry.”

  The goose was neither fanged nor furry but I got the point.

  “So you’re like, what, an animal whisperer now or something?”

  “No. I just—” she shrugged. “I just get them now. I can’t read their minds or anything, but I get them.” She fingered the small stone that sat in the hollow of her throat. “I think it might have something to do with the Toadstone. I haven’t really looked into it.”

  “Hmm.” That was the best response that I could come up with after being told that my best friend was being transformed into the animal equivalent of Doctor Xavier.

  “What about you?” She fired back, eyeing me from beneath her lashes.

  “What about me?”

  “Where’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Rippled.”

  I sighed. Depressed by his absence all over again.

  “Alas. His muscles they are a-rippling elsewhere.”

  Her brows shot up in surprise.

  “He left you alone?”

  “Yeah.” I said slowly. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “Think about it. How many times have you two been apart since you first met.”

  “Two, maybe three times.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Alex.” She drawled, tsking beneath her breath.

  “What now?”

  “You’ve been together for about a year now and you’ve only been apart from each other three times?”

  “Does near death experiences count?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Then two.”

  “Wow. Just Wow. That’s super unhealthy.”

  “Oh please. You and Chris are no better.” I made an obscene gesture with my hands and she went to smack me before remember that she had a bird in her lap. Instead she settled back in her seat with the greatest dignity.

  “Christopher and I happen to be in the honeymoon stage of our relationship. We have a few months still before it becomes creepy and gross. You and Sam have long since passed the point of no return. I bet you rub your noises together and use words like ‘Sweetie’ and ‘sugar plum’.”

  “You know what, you’re right.” I said seriously. “We do that all the time. Give each other cutesy nicknames I mean. For the longest time, I was ‘God yes baby just like that’.”

  Rachel whistled. “That must have been one hell of a christening.”

  “Tell me about it. You should hear the outgoing m
essage on our answering machine.”

  She threw back her head and laughed.

  “Our answering machine.” She repeated with a shake of her head as she sobered. “Must be serious.”

  “What was your first clue?” I asked with a half smile. “The fact that we bought a landline or the engagement ring.”

  “Honestly?” She asked. “The fact that you farted in front of him at your birthday dinner and didn’t blame me for it.”

  “When are you going to let that go?”

  “I was twelve, Alex.” She groused. “Bodily functions can be traumatizing for a twelve year old, especially in mixed company.”

  “Rachel. We’ve been over this. Everyone knows that if you smelt it you dealt it. It’s physics.”

  “God, you’re impossible. How do I put up with you?”

  And just like that my good mood was ruined.

  “You don’t.” I said. “You haven’t ‘put up’ with me for a while now.”

  The change was subtle, but I recognized the signs of regret as they made themselves known. The averted gaze, the tight mouth, the lost look in her eye.

  “Alex—” She started, but I interrupted her before she could come up with another excuse.

  “What did I do?” I asked quietly, hating how my voice cracked. “Just tell me that. What did I do that was so awful that you had to stop being my friend?”

  “Oh honey.” She shoved LaRue aside and leaned forward to grab my hands. “You didn’t do anything. We never stopped being friends. Why would you think that?”

  That’s when the tears started. Great gasping sobs that turned speaking into a stuttering, Olympic level, sport.

  “You. Stopped. Talking. To. Me.”

  “Breathe Alex.”

  I did so, the exhale coming out in a plaintive wail. “Why do you hate me?” I sobbed, “You were going to be my Maid of Honor, but you can’t now because. You. Hate. M-me.”

  “Jesus.”

  She allowed me another minute or so of self-pity before pinching the sensitive flesh of my inner arm. I hissed and jerked away.

  “What was that for?”

  “Are you done?”

  I nodded sullenly and she sighed.