Americana Fairy Tale (3 page)

Honeysuckle’s dragonfly wings buzzed as she flew in frantic circles around their residence in the Hatfield family’s antique grandfather clock. “This is so embarrassing,” Honeysuckle fussed and fretted. “We must make a good showing at the wedding. Even the Charming family is in attendance.”

Ringo squinted into the tinfoil mirror, untied his tie, then made a futile attempt at a perfect Windsor knot. His wings involuntarily perked like the ears of an alerted cat and once again exploded with a cloud of golden glitter.

Honeysuckle coughed and flailed against the twinkling cloud. “By Tinker Bell’s curls, Ringo, if you don’t stop getting your dust everywhere, you’re going to humiliate me in front of everyone.” Honeysuckle fretted and reached out to tame Ringo’s long and scruffy gray-blond hair.

Ringo batted his wife’s hands away in frustration. “Is that all that matters? Appearances?” he asked, smoothing his messy layers of hair into a semblance of tidiness. Instead, his hair looked like the backswept fluff of a brownie.
It’ll have to do
, he decided. At least he’d trimmed his beard. “Oberon forbid I should actually care about Taylor’s happiness.”

“Ringo,” Honeysuckle gasped. “Happiness has nothing to do with it. It’s tradition. As long as princesses marry princes, who the sparklepuff cares if they’re happy? You know ‘happily ever after’ is just legalese verbiage.”

Ringo arched a bushy salt-and-pepper brow as he made one last Hail Mary at tying a perfect Windsor. “Do you not believe in love?”

Honeysuckle butted into Ringo’s personal space and checked her neat chignon in the tinfoil mirror one last time. “I married you, didn’t I? What’s love got to do with it?”

Ringo narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “You are a cold pixie.”

Honeysuckle’s dainty hand lashed out to snare her husband’s arm. Glittering dust erupted from his wings in a consuming, shimmering cloud. Honeysuckle hacked and gagged. “Ringo, if you don’t stop your dagum-dropping dusting, I’m going to be so embarrassed to be seen with you,” Honeysuckle squealed.

Ringo snapped his arm out of his wife’s grasp. “Get over yourself already.” He pointed angrily in the direction of the great hall. “This is my boy’s special day, and all you’re worried about is you. It’s not all about you, and it’s not about Atticus. Taylor earned this. Can you be happy for me and for him for once in your rotten-toadstool life?”

Honeysuckle gasped. Her wintergreen eyes rounded in horror and a fist flew to her chest. “Ringo, how dare you take such a tone with me,” she said, aghast. “Do not even think of mentioning me at the reception.”

Ringo frowned at Honeysuckle’s overdramatic ways, and the grandfather clock chimed the four o’clock hour. He lifted the latch inside the clockface and pushed the plate open. He looked out over the balcony into the great hall of Hatfield Plantation. Rows and rows of elegantly dressed wedding guests waited patiently while shifting in their seats. Some ladies wore gaudy hats plumed with peacock feathers, and gentlemen wore dashing suits with ties or pins properly denoting their lineage. At least the guests weren’t the unwashed masses. Honeysuckle would be pleased.

Ringo swallowed down his nerves, and a puff of glitter flew off his wings. “Now or never,” Ringo murmured and steeled his resolve. He nodded to his wife. “I’m out,” he said and took flight into the mansion.

His pink wings fluttered and sang their childish melody as Ringo crop-dusted a line of guests on his path to the altar. A shower of glitter marked his trail as guests coughed and sneezed on his pixie dust. His gut rolled with humiliation. “Sorry,” he muttered, and another guest sneezed. “I’m sorry,” he repeated as someone coughed. “
I’mjustnervous
,” he babbled as he finally reached the altar.

He settled in the doll-sized chair at the head of the podium. The stocky priest smiled upon him, then nodded to the organist. The heartwarming sound of the wedding march filled the great hall. All eyes turned to the threshold, and Ringo watched his boy enter.

The boy princess wore pink. It was tradition—always with the traditions, no matter how misplaced the good intentions. Taylor straightened into a proper stance befitting a princess. His trailing baby pink robe and cape stretched the length of the long room.

Ringo discreetly palmed his face in dread at Taylor’s ghastly wedding attire. He muttered under his breath, “Think they overdid it with the pink?”

The jolly priest shot him a disapproving look. Ringo tried to give an apologetic smile, but it only looked like he’d eaten some bad fish.

He blanched, holding his opinions to himself that apparently it was paramount to grind into every guest’s head that, yes, Taylor was an honest-to-goodness princess. The knee-length tunic shuffled around his legs, and the golden primrose embroidery winked in the light. The rose leggings and blush boots were absolutely embarrassing on Taylor’s skinny bird legs. The regrettable fur-lined magenta robe dragged the floor like a weight of damnation. Ringo couldn’t fight the embarrassment flooding his face and pretended to dab the tears from his eyes when he wanted to crawl under a rock.

The scathing frown on Taylor’s face made no bones about his distaste for the whole affair. Swaddled in so much pink, Ringo thought he looked like a half-melted, quivering birthday cake.

By some miracle, Taylor made his walk of shame in the awful, soul-swallowing outfit with his chin up and no curses to every wicked witch in the Tri-State area.

His prince was Phillipa Montclair. Ringo watched her stand at attention in her navy-and-red military dress blues. Her long blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders in large loose waves. Ringo thumbed his chin, trying to place her lineage, but came up blank. Presumably she was named for the dragon slayer of old, but she didn’t bear any of the confirming markers. Was she a prince? Female princes were just as exceptionally difficult to come by as male princesses. Taylor’s parents wouldn’t have arranged the marriage if Phillipa wasn’t of noble birth. Ringo couldn’t quite put his finger on it. That “off” feeling shot through him like a bolt when Taylor and Phillipa linked hands.

They weren’t meant to be. And everyone sitting in the great hall knew it. Ringo’s heart sank. He took note of the awkward smile that crossed the priest’s face, and then he cast his attention to the guests.

“Dearly beloved…,” said the squat priest. “We are gathered here today to witness the union of Phillipa and Taylor in holy matrimony. It is a union that has been ordained since ancestral tradition of princes and princesses. In their marriage, they too will pass on their heritage to their children so our legends can endure.”

The sounds of awe and wonderment drifted over the crowd on cue. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been to hundreds of these things, Ringo realized. Appearances. All for appearances.

When Ringo glanced at Taylor, he took note of how Taylor was starting to turn green. Ringo glanced toward Phillipa to warn her. “Phil… Phil? I think he’s gonna—”

Phillipa took the lead and brushed a dark lock of hair from Taylor’s forehead. “He’s fine,” she cooed. “Aren’t you, darling? Perfectly fine.”

Taylor slowly nodded without a word.

The priest remained upbeat and continued with the ceremony. He turned toward Phillipa, and the young lady smiled expectantly. “Do you, Phillipa Margarite Montclair, take this princess, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, to preserve your legacy forevermore?”

Phillipa laced fingers with her princess, and Taylor sucked in a strangled gasp. “I do,” she said sweetly.

Ringo gasped and waved his hand to get Phillipa’s attention. “Phil! He’s—”

“He’s fine, Ringo,” Phillipa said softly but with an undertone of authority. She turned toward her princess. “Aren’t you, darling?”

Ringo watched Taylor tremble and stare straight ahead like a corpse. His lip quivered in a way that suggested he might faint or vomit, and either way it wouldn’t look good for the Hatfield family. Taylor’s restlessness and lack of ambition had been widely documented among the Enchants, and here was the moment where it would all work out, and it was three seconds away from falling into a rancid pile of troll shit. Ringo’s pixie brain turned the dial toward panic, and a puff of nervous sparkles exploded off his wings.

The priest tried to keep things rolling along smoothly and forced a smile at Taylor. “Do you, Taylor—”

“No,” Taylor whispered.

Ringo’s jaw hit the podium.

Phillipa brushed another lock from Taylor’s forehead and asked, “What was that, darling?”

“No,” Taylor growled like a cornered tiger, and the guests gasped. “No,” he repeated and slapped Phillipa’s hand away. “No,” he crowed again while ripping the ribbons from his hair, the dark waves tumbling in a haphazard stream. “No. No. No. No.
No
!”

Silence fell over the great hall, and Taylor glared as he rebuked Phillipa. Rigid with shock, the color drained from Phillipa’s face. Taylor pivoted on his heel and stumbled on his great hall-length robe and cape. He scooped up the fabric by the armfuls and tossed it over his shoulder like a corpse for disposal. He waddled down the aisle, snatching up more of his robe and cape as he awkwardly made his escape.

“Coming, Ringo?” Taylor snarled over his shoulder.

Ringo didn’t need a further invitation. “Hells yes,” he said and fluttered after his boy. The melody of Ringo’s wings was even more painfully cheery than before.

Ringo zipped around Taylor, watching him as he shifted and swaggered like he carried watermelon-sized quintuplets down the mansion steps. He knew quite well Taylor never got into something without a backup plan. Taylor stormed across the dirt and grass of the vast apple orchard-turned-wedding parking lot.

Honeysuckle appeared in a puff of petals next to him, her wings beating with a furious buzz to keep pace. “Ringo, talk to your princess. He will marry the prince this instant!”

Ringo laughed and did a barrel roll around his wife to get by her. “He’s my boy. He’s the champion of his own happiness!”

Taylor found his hidden car at the far end of the orchard, the 1993 Geo Metro hatchback that was more a rusty deathtrap than a car. The locks hadn’t worked since 1995, and Taylor simply pulled the creaky door open. The car groaned with the grinding of metal on metal. Ringo hung back as Taylor set about trying to fit himself into the tiny vehicle while burdened with too many layers of pink. He gathered an armful of his robe and forced it into the passenger side. Ringo gaped in wonder as Taylor stuffed his robe and cape into every nook and cranny of the car until every window was filled with a baby pink cloud of silk and brocade. Taylor finally managed to sit in the driver’s seat and smashed his robe downward out of the windshield with one hand. He pulled the keys from the visor, because both Ringo and Taylor knew someone had to be pretty desperate to steal a rust-bucket Metro.

With a whoop of victory, Taylor shoved the key into the ignition. The car shrieked in protest and sputtered out. “C’mon… c’mon…,” Taylor begged and turned the key again. The exhaust smoke belched from the muffler.

Ringo shimmied through the window to sit on Taylor’s shoulder as Honeysuckle made her angry approach. The furious pixie tapped on the windshield with her star-tipped wand. “Taylor Andrew Hatfield! Do you hear me? You marry Phillipa right now. Or else!”

“But I don’t love her,” Taylor yelped through the cracked windshield.

“I don’t fucking care!” Honeysuckle roared, and churning storm clouds flooded the sky.

Ringo stiffened as if he had been punched in the face with a wrecking ball. He vanished in a puff of glitter and reappeared on the roof of the car. He glared at his wife, snapped his fingers, and the tie angrily unfurled from his neck. He reached inside his shirt collar and produced a pixie-sized blue marble on a length of cord. The marble hovered over his diminutive palm.

Taylor continued turning the key, and the Metro sputtered out.

Honeysuckle’s eyes widened at her husband’s talisman. “Ringo, what nonsense are you up to?” she asked, fluttering closer.

Ringo lifted the marble toward the clouds. The car clicked and rattled, failing to catch.

“Come on…,” Taylor pleaded. “Come on….”

On the roof of the car, the marble rose out of the orbit of Ringo’s hand, floating freely, higher and higher, like a minuscule mote of light. “By the power of Oberon,” Ringo boomed from his tiny body, “bless my princess and his safe journey.”

Honeysuckle fluttered closer, but a gust of wind blew her back. “Ringo, don’t you dare,” she groaned, fighting the wind.

The marble bobbed and hovered effortlessly in the wind. Ringo continued, “By the law of Titania—”

“Ringo, I command you to stop this instant,” Honeysuckle bellowed.

Ringo was undeterred, and the car continued to click and growl.

“I renounce my bond to my heartless, selfish, conceited, arrogant wife,” Ringo finished his declaration. On the final word, a bolt of lightning escaped the sky and stabbed though his talisman, splintering it into three neat shards.

Honeysuckle gaped in horror as the crystal star on her wand burst into slivers of fractured magic.

The car continued to growl, and Honeysuckle flew frantically against the raging wind to catch the shards of her magic. Ringo wobbled on his feet, his energy drained, as the cord and one tiny milky-blue fleck of his talisman found its way back to his neck. He vanished in a puff of pixie dust and reappeared, battle weary, on Taylor’s shoulder.

The car engine howled to life, and Taylor whooped his victory.

As they drove away down the plantation drive, Ringo watched Honeysuckle grow smaller in the rearview mirror. He drooped against Taylor’s cheek.

“What did you do back there?” Taylor asked, guiding the putt-putting car out of the Hatfield Plantation grounds.

Ringo clutched at his chest, panting against the knot welling where his heart had once been. He had no way out of this one. This wasn’t one of Taylor’s many flub-up moments that the nobles giggled about among themselves.

He confessed to Taylor exactly what he had done. “Saved your life.”

Taylor just drove, and Ringo would follow him wherever he roamed. He couldn’t help but notice the smile on Taylor’s face as he drove in circles. Passing through Marietta, Taylor pointed at the Kentucky Fried Chicken.