Authors: Chanda Hahn
“You won’t be getting it,” he
growled.
And Mina realized suddenly
what was going on.
He was Fae, and Ever knew it.
“We’ll see,” she smiled
knowingly.
The man took his time lining
up the last shot. Mina could tell he was trying to figure out what was going
on. He tossed the last ball, and before it even got to the can, Ever knocked
the whole milk can over, and it rolled away.
“Hey, that’s cheating.” The
vendor turned on the girls in anger.
“So was what you were doing,”
Ever snapped back. “Don’t even pretend you weren’t doing that to us. Don’t try
and out-cheat a Fae.” Ever glared at him, and her skin glowed a bit, making the
vendor cower in fear.
“Sorry, Miss. I didn’t know.
I’d never intentionally cheat my own kind.”
“I may be Fae, but I’m not
kind—or patient. Now give me my prize.” Ever pointed at the popgun.
The vendor nodded quickly,
grabbed a hook, and reached up to grab the wooden gun off the display. He kept
looking around nervously.
“Here. Now take your prize
and scram!” He turned his back on them and went behind the booth.
“Wait, so he was Fae?” Nan
asked.
“Yeah. Not a very strong one
either.” Ever shrugged and handed Charlie the popgun. “I wouldn’t worry about
it, Nan. There are lots of Fae living on the human plane now. Most of them are
harmless, and you don’t even know they’re here.”
“Most…” Nan said and waited
for Ever to continue.
“Like me. I’m harmless,
unless someone tries to cheat me, and then… you know.”
Mina felt uneasy running into
a Fae at the school fair. Still, Ever wasn’t worried, so Mina told herself not
to worry either. Just because there was one Fae here didn’t mean there were
others.
They continued walking the
fair, stopping to ride the carousel and Ferris wheel and browsing the baked
goods. It was easy to spot the drama club’s table selling pies. The football
team obviously manned the football toss game, and there was a loud ruckus from
that direction.
Mina had yet to see anyone
from the water polo team’s booth or Brody. Until they bumped into a long line
of girls.
“What’s this?” Nan stood on
tiptoes to try and read the banner and mumbled, “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Mina asked, a sinking
feeling in her stomach. She copied Nan and got up on her tiptoes to see that
the white and blue banner read
Kissing
Booth
.
“That’s kind of disgusting.”
Ever made a face.
“And not sanitary,” Nan said,
“but look at that line. I swear we came by here earlier, and it wasn’t that
long.”
A feeling of dread crept back
into her stomach, so Mina excused herself to walk around the line and check out
the front of the booth. Her fears were confirmed. None other than the water
polo team hosted the booth. The boys were lined up across the back of the
booth, and each girl got to pick who they wanted to kiss. It seemed like two
lines had formed since almost every other girl wanted to get their five seconds
with Brody Carmichael.
He even had a stool to sit
on. It seemed a lot of people were upset since he hadn’t been there the day
before, and they had come to get their picture and kiss today. He was the
town’s celebrity, not to mention extremely rich. Of course everyone wanted
their picture with him.
Mina had shown up just in
time to watch an excited sophomore bat her eyes and lean over to give him a
kiss on the lips. The chaste kiss only lasted a few seconds, so there wasn’t
really anything terribly wrong. Not that Mina had any official right to be
jealous.
“Maybe you should get in
line? Nan suggested. “Since he
is
sort of your boyfriend.”
“I don’t know,” Mina
answered. “It’s not really my thing to make a show in public.”
“As far as people at school
are concerned, he’s your boyfriend. Show them all that you’re not intimidated
by this. Besides, I don’t think this was his idea for the kind of booth it
would be. The rest of the team outvoted him.”
“Okay, you’re right.” Mina
answered. “I should do this.”
Nan and Ever took Charlie off
to the zipper, so Mina could have some privacy.
The feeling of dread eased,
and she was able to ignore the line of girls.
Until Mina noticed the group
in front of her. It was the cheer squad. Next in line for the kiss was a petite
girl with a white-blonde ponytail. Brody’s ex-girlfriend, Savannah White.
Come
on, Brody. Turn her away
.
Mina tried to send him her mental message, but it didn’t really work. Savannah
put her money into the donation box and pointed for Brody to step forward. She
leaned forward expectantly.
Mina watched him sigh and
then lean in to give her a peck, except it
wasn’t
just a peck. Savannah’s arms snaked around his neck and held on as she deepened
the kiss.
Pull
away. Pull away
. Mina
internally screamed, but his friends started to hoot and holler and egg them
on.
“Go. Go. Go!” The guys
chanted.
Savannah swung her legs over the
table and got on her knees, kissing him intently. Her hands were running
through his hair, and Mina still couldn’t believe that Brody was letting it
happen.
When he finally pulled away,
his hair was tousled, and he had a confused look in his eyes. Savannah made a
show of wiping the sides of her mouth and holding her hand up in the air. The
cheerleading squad clapped and cheered.
“Still got it, girls,”
Savannah said as she stood up and jumped off the table. “Something for you to
remember me by, Brody,” she taunted. “Come find me later.” She waved and
sauntered off.
Priscilla Rose bumped her hip
in congratulations.
Brody sat on his stool, a
look of shock on his face.
T.J. slapped his back and
said, “Man, why did you ever let her go when she could kiss like that?”
Brody chuckled and rubbed the
back of his head as he scanned the crowd of girls next in line. He froze when
his gaze met Mina’s.
Since the squad had come to
watch Savannah, that made Mina the next person in line. The five dollar bill in
her hand trembled with her nerves, and she looked up at Brody. His face was
flushed, and he hurriedly wiped at his mouth.
Mina took a deep breath and
tried to calm her temper. It should have bothered her a lot more to see them
kiss, but, frankly, it didn’t. What hurt her was that he didn’t pull away.
There was no way she would
kiss him after Savannah. She didn’t want sloppy seconds. A small part of her
wanted to go away and ignore all this, but he’d just—thirty minutes
ago—offered her his ring again. Who did that and then kissed their ex
like
that
? She stepped forward,
shoved her five dollars into the acrylic donation box and looked along the
group of guys. There were quite a few she knew by name, but there were also
some she didn’t know. One was standing off to the side watching her intently.
He had sandy brown hair, green eyes, and a hard mouth—and looked slightly
out of place among the other guys. Something about the way he looked at her
made up her mind.
Her hand pointed at him, and
his eyes went wide. He stepped forward, and she could see confusion among the
water polo team members as they all watched Brody.
“What’s your name?” she
whispered as the green-eyed guy came over.
He wore a gray jersey shirt
and generic blue denim jeans. He smiled at her. “Whatever you want it to be,”
he said in a low voice.
“That’s not funny,” Mina
chastised. Her hands went sweaty.
“It’s not meant to be.” He
leaned on his elbows across the booth and waited expectantly.
Mina leaned forward and was
about to kiss him, when her eyes glanced over at Brody. He had stood up and was
being held back by T.J. He looked angry, his fist clenched. But he also seemed
hurt and confused by this stranger in the booth.
As much as she wanted to try
and get even, she realized that wasn’t the kind of girl she wanted to be. Mina
shook her head and leaned back. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I made a mistake.”
A look of anger flashed in the stranger’s green eyes at her change of heart.
“No, you didn’t,” he growled.
Fast, he leaned across the table and pressed his lips to hers.
It shocked her. Literally,
there was a shock as his warm mouth pressed to hers, and she froze, unable to
move. There was something about that tone—that voice—she knew very
well. Her heart sped up, and her hands shook. His strong hands gripped her
shoulders as he kissed her. Angrily.
First she was filled with
fear, then curiosity. She could feel his anger drain away during the kiss. Then
it stopped being angry and turned gentle. He pulled away and tenderly nuzzled
her lips with his own. If he wasn’t holding her by the shoulders, she probably
would have slid to the ground.
Mina couldn’t open her eyes,
but the strange boy didn’t let go of her. Finally, when she opened them, she
saw, not the green eyes of the stranger she’d picked out of a crowd, but the
dark blue eyes that haunted her dreams. How in the world, out of the fifteen
guys to choose from, had she picked her enemy in disguise?
He stared into her eyes,
daring her to say something. He wasn’t hiding who he was from her anymore, and
she wondered if everyone could see what she saw. He smiled in triumph.
“Let me go,” she whispered.
“Never,” Teague warned under
his breath just as T.J’s hand gripped his shoulder. He turned in surprise, and
his grip loosened just enough for her to slip out of it.
Mina realized that Brody was
nowhere in sight, and she used the moment to dart into the crowd and disappear
into the fair.
What had she done?
Mina ran through the crowds
of people and ducked behind the chipped yellow and blue house of mirrors. Her
trembling hand touched her lips as she tried to process what had just happened.
She’d been about to kiss a stranger to get back at Brody but decided she
couldn’t do that to him. And the strange boy she picked out of the group
happened to be Teague, wearing a glamour. What were the chances, and what did
it mean?
Why was he even at the fair,
and why the kissing booth? She wracked her brain and remembered that he had
been standing there for a while. He’d probably somehow instigated the whole
Savannah and Brody kiss, knowing Mina was in the line and would see—his
own way of tormenting her. Except that it hadn’t really worked. She
didn’t
feel jealous at the sight of
Brody kissing the other girls.
Could it be that her heart
was finally catching up with her mind? That she was outgrowing her high school
crush? She needed to search for the others, but she found herself back at the
Date a Cheerleader booth. The whole squad had returned from their break to
resume their dating fundraisers.
The line of guys had formed
again, and Mina was close enough to overhear Savannah and Pri talking.
“So do you think he’ll leave
her for you?” Pri asked.
Savannah had pulled out her
compact and was fixing her lipstick, wiping where kissing Brody had smeared it.
“He’d be dumb if he didn’t. I don’t get what he sees in that Grimey golddigger.
But for a moment there, he really was kissing me back, just like old times.”
A Grimey golddigger? Mina
stormed past the dunk tank and flicked her hand at the target. Mina was so
angry she didn’t even realize she’d released a burst of power toward the tank.
The dunk lever depressed and sent Savannah screaming into the tank. She spewed
out water and started screaming at Pri to find her a towel.
Then, while Savannah was
still inside the tank, a crack stretched along the clear acrylic and fanned
out. Seconds later, the tank burst and water spilled out and knocked the entire
squad of cheerleaders from their feet. They gasped and screamed and tried to
stand, but all they could do was slip and slide in the mud.
Savannah and Pri cried about
their muddy uniforms, while a crowd of onlookers pulled out their phones and
snapped pictures.
Unfortunately, Mina missed
all of the events that she had released onto the cheerleaders. Once Savannah
screamed, something else had caught her attention. Someone who looked familiar
ducked behind a red and white tent.
No.
It couldn’t be. I haven’t seen him since… the bakery.
Mina had to find out to make sure she
wasn’t losing her mind. She’d trapped him in the Grimoire, after all. She
carefully followed the tattooed man as he entered the tent. Mina went around to
the back and tried to look in through a small hole in the tarp. At first, all
she saw was a bunch of blurry shapes, but then they came into focus, and she
saw the man with long, greasy, black hair. He didn’t bother to cover the wolf
tattoo on his bare chest wearing only his black leather vest on his upper half.
It
was
Grey Tail!
He spoke quietly to an old
woman wearing a bright colored dress and sash around her waist. Her white hair
was covered with a shawl, and she argued quietly with the Fae wolf.
“I don’t care if everyone
thinks fortune telling is lame. You get people into this tent, and I don’t care
how. Threaten them, bribe them, or kidnap them. Just get them in this tent. I
don’t want to be old forever. I need to regain my strength before our next
attack!” she hissed.
The woman turned with a
dramatic flair to sit behind a round table that held a fortune teller’s crystal
ball.
“Claire,” Mina breathed out
the witch’s name before taking a step back and tripping over a tent stake,
causing it to shake.
“What was that?” Claire’s
voice said from inside. “Go, and deal with it.”
Mina scrambled to her knees
and took off running toward the middle of the fair. She bumped into someone,
and a tall girl yelled at her and elbowed her in the side. She almost crashed
into another person but regained her balance when she saw a large Tesla
display.
The large electric coil
reached high into the air, and there was warning tape that roped off the
viewing area to keep spectators at a safe distance. But it was the two people
she saw putting on the demonstration that made her mouth go dry. They matched
this time in their black suits. Temple wore a dark suit with gold spats on his
shoes and matching top hat. Reid wore a similar outfit with a bowler hat. It
was unmistakably the Stiltskins, both of them.
Reid held his hand over the
lever of the Tesla machine, and it started to pop as electricity ran up and
down the coil. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Not them too!
She ran from the Tesla
display to check out some of the boosters’ booths. She found Mr. Hamm behind
the booth helping to sell Kennedy High souvenirs. There were a bunch of Kennedy
High keychains, magnets, cozies, and—she quickly scanned the table and
picked up a laser pointer.
She gave Mr. Hamm the money
before twisting the cap to see if the pointer worked. It did. The laser pointer
could cut through planes and reveal a Fae’s true self through their glamour.
Only Royals were strong enough to shift their shape and hold it.
Mina ran back out into the
crowd and used the laser pointer, flashing it at passersby and at each of the
booth vendors. Nothing morphed or changed. Maybe that was it for the rogue Fae.
She spotted Nan and Charlie
on the large carousel and jogged to the metal security fence. She tried to wave
at them to hurry and get off.
“Can’t,” Nan called from her
perch on a giant brown dog before it spun out of sight. Charlie sat next to her
on a smaller tan dog.
“Not till the ride is over,”
Nan yelled again as it went around a second time.
Mina found Ever waiting
impatiently by the carousel exit.
“Ever! We have to get out of
here now! Claire and the wolves are here. So are the Stiltskins.”
“Wait, what?” Ever jumped to
attention. “Didn’t you trap them in the Grimoire?”
“Well yeah, I did, but after
the Grimoire lost its guardian, it became just became a book again.”
“But what about the pages…
inside?”
“Blank. They were blank.”
“Then they must have been
freed from their prisons.”
“All of them?” Mina asked,
utter fear rising within her.
Ever nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Mina and Ever looked at each
other, and neither one could process what was happening.
Ever turned to yell at Nan.
“Nan, get off that dang wolf now!”
“Wolf?” Mina looked closer at
the carousel and what she’d thought was a dog. Gold windmills and flowers were
painted along the trim. In the middle stood a large colorful landscape with a
castle. Instead of wooden white horses, giraffes, and swans, this carousel had
wooden wolves, bears, and griffins.
Her hand trembled as the
carousel slowed to a stop. She lifted the laser pointer and flicked it at a
currently unoccupied golden griffin.
The laser threw off the
glamour. The griffin began to stir. A wing unfolded, and its head turned,
revealing a black beady eye. It blinked right at her.
“Griffin!” Mina squealed and
grabbed Ever’s hand. Ever snatched the laser pointer and shone it at the
closest wolf, who didn’t take too kindly to her laser attack. It lost the
glamour fast, shook out its fur, and howled into the sky.
People backed away in terror,
not understanding how the wolf had appeared in the middle of the stopped
carousel. A child stood right in front of the wolf, waiting to get on it, when
it changed shape. Now the little girl was screaming.
The wolf lunged for her.
Right before it snapped its
jaws around the girl, Mina saw a flash of red hair. Someone grabbed the wolf
from behind and flung it back into the slowly shifting griffin. Nix handed the
girl back to her mom and told her to run.
“Nix!” Ever shouted and
jumped up and down.
“Run!” He pushed Nan and
Charlie toward the exit as mass hysteria ensued. Everyone entering the ride
tried to jump the security fence or run out the exit. The carousel creaked and
groaned under the weight of all the Fae beasts as they slowly revealed
themselves.
Someone in green appeared
next to Nix. Ferah, knives drawn, fended off a griffin as it tried to snatch a
young girl and haul her into the air.
Nan couldn’t get out the
exit, so she went to the fence and lifted Charlie over it and into Mina’s arms.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know.”
She tried to swing her leg
over the fence, but a bear in half-human form yanked her back. She screamed,
and Mina saw her blonde head only for a second before it disappeared back
toward the carousel full of monsters.
“Nan!” Mina yelled with
Charlie in her arms. She tried to hand her brother to Ever, but Charlie
screamed and lashed out until Mina dropped him. He wasted no time running
toward the entrance to go in after Nan.
Ever was already flying over
the fence to find Nan as Mina ran after her brother. Most of the Fae had
scattered into the fairgrounds, and the griffins took to the air screeching a
hunter’s cry. Mina jumped onto the almost empty platform and saw the mangled
gold bars and posts. The carousel was lopsided now, broken into two. She ran to
the back and saw the bear running away, Nan tossed over its shoulder like a
sack of potatoes.
Charlie was right on their
tail and didn’t slow down as the bear ran into the house of mirrors.
“No!” Mina cried.
Charlie disappeared inside
after them.