Americana Fairy Tale (31 page)

Corentin got to his feet under Taylor’s power, and the two hurried for the miniscule sprout in the sand.

“Grab on,” Ringo yelled over Lucy’s rumbling steps.

Taylor and Corentin looked at each other, and Corentin arched a brow. “Grab on what?” Taylor asked. He glanced over his shoulder as Lucy made up ground between them. Windows of the shops lining the boardwalk bubbled and exploded with Lucy’s terrible charge. Taylor watched Corentin, and Corentin shook his head with a pained look in his eye that said he knew what Taylor was thinking. The mundanes all around succumbed to pandemonium with their exposure to Enchant magic, and all Taylor and Corentin could do was survive Lucy. Margate City would be ruined when all of this was over.

If it would be over.

Ringo zipped between Taylor and Corentin and pointed to the newborn plant. “The stalk. Grab the stalk!”

Taylor didn’t wait for Ringo to explain himself; he wrapped his hand over the plant, and then Corentin’s locked over his. Taylor met Corentin’s intense gaze, and it appeared he was trying to inspire confidence in Taylor for the merest of moments until the stalk shot from the ground with them still hanging on. The beanstalk rocketed upward, growing higher and higher. Leaves and tendrils shot outward, and the foliage expanded exponentially to the sturdiness of thick, leafy platforms. Taylor and Corentin had no breath to scream with as the wind tore at their hair and clothing. They lost their grip on each other when gargantuan leaves sprouted from underneath them. They clung to the leaves with all that life was worth, and the leaves cradled them safely. Corentin squinted against the wind shear and forced his head up to look at Taylor across from him on his own leaf. Taylor kept his body flat, and his hair whipped painfully across his face. He managed a peek at Corentin and nodded to him over the roaring beanstalk growth.

“It’ll be okay,” Corentin howled into the wind. “It’ll be okay!” he yelled again.

Taylor could only tilt his chin in a semblance of a nod against the rocketing upward motion.

The ground became farther and farther away, and the air became thinner. Taylor’s clothes became damp from passing through the cloud barrier. He tried to breathe, but no air would come. It would be over soon. He hoped it would be at least.

The stalk’s growth came to a slamming stop. Taylor and Corentin gripped their leaves, and their thin human bodies quaked with the chill of the upper atmosphere. Taylor slowly opened his eyes and lifted his head. He looked around and saw nothing but the infinite expanse of the wild blue yonder. He tried standing on his leaf and smiled when it appeared stable enough. He looked left, and a passenger plane cruised at maximum altitude in the distance. He looked right, and another aircraft cut across the sky in the opposite direction. He hesitantly stepped to the edge of the leaf and looked down.

Taylor blanched and immediately stepped back.

Underneath them were the tops of puffy clouds, the hard ground, and the solid sheet of the ocean. Taylor tried and failed at not hyperventilating.

“You okay?” Corentin called to him, his voice muted by the pressure in Taylor’s ears.

Taylor nodded slowly. “Just don’t look down.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” Corentin said with a nervous chuckle.

“Are you scared of heights?” Taylor asked. His voice sounded awkward inside his head.

“Quite a bit,” Corentin said as if it were a trivial matter.

Taylor fanned his fingers at his sides through the frigid air. “That makes two of us, then.”

“So, this was Ringo’s brilliant idea, but I’m failing to see the brilliance in it,” Corentin called to Taylor.

“As much as it pains me, I have to agree,” Taylor said and then frowned. “Do you hear that?”

Corentin listened and cautiously glanced over the edge of his leaf. Taylor pressed his lips into a thin line as he listened to the droning sound. Taylor arched a brow as the noise intensified into a scream, and suddenly the owner, Ringo, burst through the cloud layer. He flew as fast as his wings could flutter, mouth wide open and bellowing a single-note scream. Ringo shot through the air and flattened himself to the stalk between Taylor and Corentin. His chest pumped furiously with panting breath.

“Oh crap, oh crap,
oh crap
!” Ringo babbled.

“What?” Taylor and Corentin asked in unison.

From below them, the tusks, then trunk of Lucy pierced the clouds. She trumpeted her horrific call.

Corentin blinked at the iron and steel elephant climbing the stalk with lumbering ease. He whistled. “Okay. That’s just not right,” he said in a calm tone.

“Chop down the beanstalk,” Taylor said.

“Come again?” Corentin asked. Clearly, he wasn’t too keen on the idea. “In case it escaped your notice, we’re thirty thousand feet up.”

“The ocean’s right there,” Taylor snapped and pointed. “It’ll cushion the fall.”

“We’re thirty thousand feet up!” Corentin yelled back. “The ocean may as well be concrete.”

“I got you kids covered,” Ringo said. He nodded at Corentin. “You two need to hold hands for it to work.”

Taylor noted Corentin’s uncertain expression as he glanced from Ringo to Taylor and back again. Corentin frowned and clenched his fists. He called to Taylor, “You stay put. I’ll come to you.”

Taylor shimmied to the edge of his leaf and stretched out his arm. Corentin crept to the edge of his own leaf, and the wide gap of the stalk lay between them. Taylor watched Corentin contemplate Taylor’s leaf but refuse to look down. It was obvious Corentin didn’t approve of the findings. There was at least a ten-foot jump between the two leaves. Corentin frowned darkly, and Taylor’s gut lurched with anxiety.

“You can do it,” Taylor said. He smiled brokenly, and tears stung his eyes. “It’s just a stupid little jump.” Taylor knew there was no way to make it sound like such an insignificant thing. Within minutes they’d be dead.

Lucy blasted her war cry, and the stalk trembled with her lumbering climb.

Corentin’s knees buckled under him, and he dropped backward onto his leaf.

Taylor dug his nails into the surface of his leaf. “Corentin,” Taylor howled. “Corentin, come on. Get up. You can do this!” Taylor knew Corentin was just as terrified of dying as he was. At least they agreed on something.

Corentin got to his knees and braced himself.

Jump to the leaf. Jump to me
.

Lucy closed in. The steel of her exterior squealed and crackled with the frigid air. The iron frame of her body groaned and made tiny pings from fissures splitting into the beams.

Corentin dashed across the leaf, and he kept his eyes on the goal. Taylor conjured every happy thought he could come up with. Not that it ever did anything anyway, but it was nice to take his mind off his imminent death. At the right moment, Corentin would jump and land, pretty as he pleased, on Taylor’s leaf. Taylor would be relieved, and Corentin would say something witty and charming, and Taylor wouldn’t be able to decide between punching him in the face or hugging him. Yes. That’s
precisely
how it would go.

Taylor took in a sharp breath when Corentin made his leap. He sailed through the air…

And landed short.

Corentin scrabbled for a handhold and dug his nails into the leaf. He squawked something embarrassing that was a cross between a curse and a shriek for help.

Whatever it was, Taylor understood and slapped his hands over Corentin’s wrists. “I’ve got you,” Taylor snarled, lost in the madness of determination. “
I got you
.”

“You’ve got this.” Corentin tried to assure Taylor as calmly as possible. “
You’ve got this
.”

The stalk trembled again with Lucy’s crazed ascent. Her bloodcurdling roar rang out, and Taylor’s chest rattled from the sound.

Taylor’s fingernails dug rents into Corentin’s hands, and the flesh wept with blood, making Corentin’s hands sticky and slick. Corentin gritted his teeth, and Taylor watched him try to swing himself up.

“You’re slipping!” Taylor screamed.

“No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not.
No, I’m not
,” Corentin said, and Taylor saw the complete panic in his eyes.

Corentin tried to pull himself up, and Taylor tugged with him. Corentin gave it one last heave-ho, and Taylor shrieked when three of his fingers snapped under the tension. They locked gazes in an effort to gauge the situation at the same time as the leaf edge shredded underneath Corentin’s grip.

Corentin let go.

Taylor wailed as Corentin fell farther away, and Lucy closed the distance between them.

Lucy tossed her terrible steel and iron head, and Corentin vanished into the depths of one of Lucy’s eye-windows. Taylor shrieked and flailed back, fighting to keep his balance. Corentin was gone. Just
gone
. The fear clamped around Taylor’s body like a too tight straightjacket. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this anymore. He would die here. This was how it ended. He knew it wouldn’t end with Corentin torturing him and dumping his body in some horrific position with his shirt over his head and his shorts tangled around his ankles.

Lucy flailed her trunk to swat Taylor from his perch. Ringo fluttered into action, dissolving the steel-plated trunk into rose petals. In the rush of the sweet scent, Taylor’s clarity returned. If he was going to die here, he would take Lucy out with him.

“You still have to chop down the stalk!” Taylor yelled at Ringo.

“And you have to get to Corentin,” Ringo called back. “He’s still alive!”

Taylor brightened at the good news. And this was the moment he would save the day. He clapped his hands once. His hand throbbed with the memory of three broken fingers, but it seemed so trivial. He had a huntsman to save and a beast to conquer. Taylor sized up Lucy. If Corentin could fall into an eye-window with no effort, Taylor had this in the bag.

Lucy tried to roar but only blew another round of petals.

Taylor frowned. “This
sucks
,” he hissed.

“Think of it like skydiving. Without a parachute,” Ringo said, and Taylor frowned at Ringo’s attempt at an assuring smile.

“So, like falling to my death. Okeydokey-den,” Taylor said. He looked down and only concentrated on Lucy. If he looked down to the earth below, he’d completely lose his mettle. He swallowed a breath of courage, didn’t bother counting to three, and leaped into the nothing.

Taylor’s arms treaded through the air, as if that would help him steer his trajectory. He cracked hard, right between Lucy’s eyes. The steel sheets dented with the impact, and Lucy bellowed. Taylor had to get inside, and it wasn’t going to be easy. Lucy tilted her head to the left, and Taylor slid over her contours. “
No, no, no, no, no, no!
” Taylor screeched as he flailed for a grip on Lucy’s exterior and hooked the opening of Lucy’s eye. Broken fingers be damned, he was not letting go.

Lucy roared again and, much to Taylor’s relief, tilted her head to the right so he could drop inside the open eye-window. Taylor fell into the darkness and slammed into beams and ductwork on his way down. He fought for handholds to steady himself, only to fall into Lucy’s open interior. He closed his eyes and hit bottom.

Only the bottom was soft and grunted with the impact. Taylor’s eyes snapped open to find he had gracelessly flopped onto Corentin. Inverted against each other, Taylor got more than enough information about Corentin when eye to eye with his crotch. He yelped and fought to correct himself and was too aware Corentin got more than an eyeful of his junk as well.

Taylor propped himself on his knees beside Corentin’s hips and sat back on his thighs. He quickly brushed his messy hair from his face and sniffed. He couldn’t resist the tears that streamed down his cheeks. “You’re okay?” Taylor squeaked. “You’re okay?” he asked again and cupped Corentin’s cheeks in his palms.

“Y-yeah…,” Corentin croaked. “My liver said hello to your knee a second ago, and my shoulder’s broken, but I’m peachy….”

“Hold on to me,” Taylor said with a firm tone. “I suspect the way down won’t be pretty now that we’re inside the thing.”

“The belly of the beast…,” Corentin said and then hoarsely chuckled as he linked fingers with Taylor.

Taylor snorted, and his lip trembled. “Very funny,” he said and failed at hiding the crack in his voice.

“Stop trying to get the last word in,” Corentin groaned.

“Well, stop trying to have the last word,” Taylor said with a smirk.

They watched each other, and Taylor swallowed, feeling the urge to say something, but said nothing at all. Lucy’s body rocked around them. Corentin held Taylor’s hand and swayed their hands together, like a lazy, loving couple in bed on a Sunday morning. It was such a brief, tiny thing, but Taylor’s body tingled with the comfort of the gesture.

“I like that we try to offset our terror with humor,” Corentin said as Taylor trembled in his grasp.

Taylor hastily wiped at his face and forced himself to keep smiling. But his expression showed a contorted mix of happiness and fear. “I’m glad I’m not the only one scared out of my mind.” He wiped at his face again, sniffed, and waved his free hand. “I’m okay. I’m okay,” he muttered. But he wasn’t at all.

“There you go again with the last word…,” Corentin said hoarsely. His thumb grazed over the meat of Taylor’s own.

Taylor watched him, and Corentin had that look on his face again. The one Taylor saw on the beach a mere thirty minutes ago when Corentin had intended to kiss him. Taylor was terrified then, but watching Corentin under him and certain they would both die, all he could think about was giving in to the kiss. Taylor didn’t even know if it would work. His Princesshood spell had previously repelled Corentin. The spell had proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt, Corentin wasn’t his true love.

“I’m going to die, and I’ve never been ki—” Taylor was cut off by the growl of a chainsaw drowning out all conversation.

Lucy swayed and made a startled honk of confusion. Taylor and Corentin locked gazes as they held on tighter. Taylor sat up like a startled rabbit, and his lips were drawn in a tight line, too afraid to openly cry. The stalk creaked, then swayed backward. His knuckles bleached white as he held on to Corentin’s hand.