by Emma Savant
Being a faerie wasn’t fair sometimes. His expression hadn’t changed, but I’d felt the way his heart had skipped a beat when he’d looked at me, and the confusion that had overtaken him a second later.
He still had a girlfriend, I reminded myself. Fighting didn’t mean a breakup. Everything wasn’t going to change tonight.
“We should dance,” I said, my voice bright as Cortney’s to break the tension. I hopped up and held out my hand, shaking my hips a little in a way I knew was more ridiculous than alluring. “Come on.”
Ten seconds before midnight, the room started screaming a countdown. They were celebrating the beginning of NebulaCon, which would officially kick off in the middle of the ball. But they may as well have been cheering for Elle and Kyle. As the room shrieked and laughed around them, they looked at each other like the world was there just for them. Kyle put a gentle hand on Elle’s cheek and leaned in. Their lips met just as the clock struck midnight and the room exploded into cheers. It was the most beautiful kiss I’d ever seen.
My happily-ever-after could wait. Elle’s was more than enough for tonight.
Chapter 31
I drifted through dreams where Lucas and I wandered deep through a forest, enchanting wild mushrooms to dance to the pulsing beat of dubstep. But before my alarm clock beeped enough times to bring me fully to consciousness, the sinking feeling in my stomach let me know today would not be a good one. Last night had been perfect. This morning was like waking up and realizing I’d blown my entire paycheck on bubblegum and cotton candy.
I would face the Oracle today.
The Oracle only ever spoke to the godmothers at noon and midnight, except on very special occasions. At noon today, the park holding the Oracle’s Fountain would become strangely empty. The Humdrums wouldn’t know why they left or fell asleep; they wouldn’t even realize it had happened. And in those moments, my fate would land squarely on my shoulders. I felt the weight already.
At least I had the memory of Elle’s face last night to focus on, and the text on my phone that said, Kyle just got me Summer Glau’s autograph!!! Omg! HE IS THE BEST. I had no idea who Summer Glau was or why her signature was worth three exclamation marks, but the giddy joy rising off the words was unmistakable.
Imogen met me at the door to Wishes Fulfilled, wearing a loose sweatshirt and a hoodie. She looked exhausted but happy, at least until she got a good look at my face.
“I’m supposed to be out glamoured as a squirrel with a hurt leg to see if anyone stops to help,” she said. She managed to roll her eyes through her concern. Animal glamours weren’t her favorite, mostly due to how big she claimed people’s nostrils got when they cooed down at her. She gave me a quick squeeze.
I tried to relax into the hug and remind myself that at least Imogen would still care about me after today. I couldn’t say as much for anyone else in the building, or, for that matter, my own home.
“I’ll be cheering you on,” Imogen said, which was sweet. I’d barely had time to text her the whole story before falling into bed last night, and I knew she must be burning with a million questions. “I’m trying to pick a spot close to the Fountain but we’ll see what happens. Good luck!”
An icy chill hit when I walked into the office. Lorinda was behind her glass windows. I caught her eye as I walked past. She didn’t smile. Neither did Aster or Maybelle. They’d both peeked out when my footsteps had sounded, but their heads popped back into their cubicles almost as fast. Aster looked scared. Maybelle looked like she thought I deserved what I was about to get.
Word had spread fast. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. These women were busybodies for a living.
The morning dragged. The monotony of the filing only gave me time to think up horrible scenarios. I didn’t even know for sure what the Oracle did when a faerie godmother failed. Tabitha had told me a horror story about a junior godmother who’d botched one of her early cases. The girl had lost her job, been punished by the Oracle for upsetting the balance, and ended up checking herself into a Magical rehab clinic for fairy dust addiction. She’d been in and out of there for years, Tabitha said, and never really moved on with her life.
That wouldn’t happen to me, of course, I told myself. I was more sensible than that. I was grounded. I was calm. I was a lowly intern. And I had made the right decision.
My confidence lasted a whole three seconds before another slew of nightmare scenarios started chewing at the edges of my thoughts.
When quarter to noon finally arrived, it was almost a relief. Lorinda stepped outside her office, her presence thickening the tension in the room. She crooked a finger at me. “You,” she said. “Downstairs. Titania help you. This is what I get for letting an intern do a godmother’s job.”
I didn’t know what she had to be so defeated about. She wasn’t the one about to lose her job and face the wrath of Reginald Feye, who would no doubt ship me off to Austria by mid-afternoon.
Lorinda and I rode down in the elevator in silence. Aster and Maybelle would both have their noses pressed against the glass. This was too juicy for anyone to miss. I would have watched, too, if I hadn’t been the one on trial.
When we stood right in front of the sprawling, mesa-like fountain, Lorinda finally turned to look at me. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?” she asked.
I shook my head, then, realizing she deserved more than sullen silence, changed my mind. She’d given me a second chance and I’d blown it—willfully and completely. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. This must be aggravating for you. I just couldn’t do it.”
“It’s not our job to judge,” Lorinda said in a pained voice. A pedestrian walked past us down the sidewalk. I wished I could grab his arm and walk away with him.
“I know,” I said. I’d heard it a million times. I understood it, intellectually. But last night, when the moment had come to make Elle’s real wishes come true, there hadn’t been a choice. I couldn’t let happiness pass Elle by just because of some paperwork. “I’m not cut out for godmothering,” I said, almost as much to soothe her as myself. “It’s probably best I’m getting out early before I’m on a case that matters.”
She put a hand to her forehead and massaged away the hair-fine wrinkles there, then rubbed her temples like she wished she could push me right out of her thoughts. “They all matter, Olivia,” she said, too exhausted to keep explaining this to me.
We stood in silence as the minutes ticked by. The street behind us and the park in front of us slowly emptied, but I could see Imogen lingering down the street. She looked like a squirrel until I glanced over my glasses, and then she was just my best friend, sitting cross-legged on the ground with her ponytail draped over her shoulder. She gave me the thumbs-up, and I tried to be comforted. The air hung still and silent, waiting for something to happen.
And then the Fountain erupted in a spray of water and blue light.
It seemed impossible that anyone for miles around, Humdrum or Glimmer, could miss the Oracle’s display. I’d watched the Oracle judge Tabitha from the windows before, and it had never looked like this. The light and spray was a glamour just for me. Water rushed in a torrent over one of the staggered blocks that formed the Fountain, creating a silver waterfall that showed me my own face rippling in its turbulent mirror.
“You have completed your Story.”
I had never heard the Oracle’s voice before, but knew instantly that it couldn’t be anyone else. It had risen up from everywhere all at once, authoritative, seductive, and female. The air vibrated around me.
“Your Story has held my attention with great interest, Olivia Feye,” the Oracle said, putting just enough emphasis on the “great” to make me even more nervous than I was. I looked into the waterfall mirror. Was it her face or mine staring back at me?
“Olivia is only an intern, Your Honor,” Lorinda said. I felt the energy in the air dismiss her, the way my dad sometimes did when I spoke out of turn. He didn’t need to say or do anything; he could just g
lance at me and look away, and I knew I wasn’t invited to the conversation. The Oracle didn’t even need a glance. The breeze shifted to tell Lorinda to be quiet, and she was. Tree branches swung gently in the air behind the Fountain.
I was a bug under a microscope. If I looked up at the sky I’d see all the great faeries from ages past peering down through the clouds, judging me. But when I looked up, there was nothing but overcast skies hanging low and languid. A robin sitting on a nearby tree branch cocked its head and stared, curious about what was going on and why I seemed to be at the center of it. I wished I could explain.
But I couldn’t explain all of this. Not to a bird, and certainly not to the Oracle.
“You make uncommon choices,” the Oracle said.
I didn’t know what to say in response. Was I even supposed to say anything? I didn’t know that, either.
I settled for chewing on the inside of my cheek and pressing my toes against the ground inside my shoes, tiny fidgets I hoped the Oracle couldn’t see.
“You told the girl about her heritage,” she said. Again, it was fact, devoid of judgment. Which was odd, coming from the one authority that had more right to judge me than any other. “How do you defend that?”
This was my chance. I scrambled for something clever to say, only to find that my mind had, for the first time since I’d woken up, fallen silent. Nothing I could say would dress up the situation and somehow trick the Oracle into thinking I was wiser than I was.
There was only the truth.
“She deserved to know, Your Honor,” I said.
“On what grounds?”
The air hung heavy and expectant while I tried to tease out the reason that had sat smug in my gut but never gotten as far as my brain.
“It’s part of her,” I said, searching for the words even as I spoke them. “Some of us have to hide who we are.” I thought about the container garden by my bedroom windows, the college brochures hidden in my nightstand underneath old notebooks, and the way unavailable, Humdrum Lucas had smiled at me last night as we danced. “It’s hard to hide yourself when you know who you are. But it’s got to be worse to not even know. I mean, she had to, deep down. She had to know she was different. I could tell her, or I could let that sit like a splinter in her forever. And yeah, I didn’t handle it the best.” Beside me, Lorinda shifted and cleared her throat, but I kept talking. “At least now she gets to choose which world she wants to be part of.”
Silence snaked through the air when I finished, edged by the distant hum of cars threading their way through the city, all managing to stay clear of this block and the girl talking to the fountain.
“Things were going well after that,” the Oracle said. “Then you disrupted the Story. Why?”
Again, truth was the only answer. “Elle wasn’t happy with Tyler. She never would be. She was happy with Kyle.”
“And that’s enough reason to derail a Story?” the Oracle demanded.
What did I have to lose? I’d walked into this conversation planning to have nothing when I walked back out. She couldn’t take anything more from me.
I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said. “It is.” Lorinda winced. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t help her now. “I know my job as a faerie godmother is to maintain balance and follow through on clients’ wishes,” I said. “But that’s not my job as a person. I was never planning on being a godmother forever, but I do have to live with myself forever. I couldn’t have lived with knowing that someone’s true love maybe passed them by because I didn’t make things right. I know that’s wrong. But I had to do the thing I can live with.”
“Interesting,” the Oracle said, almost interrupting me. A long silence followed. I shifted, feeling the urge to run taking root in my knees. This was the longest five minutes I’d ever had the misfortune to experience. Lorinda felt just as uncomfortable as I was. I wasn’t sure how she could be, given that it wasn’t her entire life on the line; but then, Lorinda took her job seriously. A failure on my fault was a personal failure to her. Maybe that lack of boundaries was a consequence of being so immersed in this job. Being a godmother meant ignoring that some stuff was none of your business. After so many years of being a professional nosy neighbor, Lorinda probably felt like everything was happening to her all the time.
Maybe it was good I’d be getting out when I was, assuming I could avoid being shipped off to Austria on the next available magic carpet.
“Step forward and receive your judgment,” the Oracle boomed. The robin took off. My heart fluttered like it was trying to do the same.
I stepped forward until I was at the edge of the Fountain. I’d seen Tabitha do this part before. The water had filled itself with gold coins sticking like pennies to the floor of the fountain pool. What would it be for me? Snakes? Curses? Actual pennies, thrown in by Humdrums who didn’t realize the power of a wish?
I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long breath, trying to steady my spinning stomach. When the breath was gone, pushed all out and given to the Fountain, I opened my eyes, ready for whatever came.
Almost ready.
What actually sat in the water made me stumble back, my head whipping from side to side to catch the trick. But this was no illusion. Gold coins glimmered beneath the water’s surface, hundreds of them ready to be scooped up.
It had to be a trap. The water would suck me under when I touched it, or curse me. But the Oracle was silent, waiting for me to try.
Heart thudding, I got on my knees and reached out, fingers trembling. I heard Imogen gasp from her spot on the sidewalk. I’d forgotten she was watching. We all watched, tense and waiting, as my hand stretched out toward the water. One fingertip touched the surface, any ripples it might have created lost in the motion from the falling waterfall. I didn’t breathe.
And then my hand came up again, a gold coin glinting between my fingers.
I looked up to the silvery mirror, my face a blur of confusion. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“There’s only one way Cinderella’s Story ends happily,” the Oracle said. “It has nothing to do with her father’s wishes. For the Story to come right, Cinderella must, with the aid of her faerie godmother, go to the ball with her Hero. You even managed a kiss at midnight, which I thought was a nice touch.”
“It was the wrong guy,” I said. “The wrong ball.”
The Oracle’s voice was almost as dismissive as her energy had been of Lorinda a few minutes earlier. “Details,” she said. “You managed the happily-ever-after, which is the point. And her stepsisters were publicly humiliated, which is good for balance if not for family relationships. Her Story was, by all accounts, a resounding success.”
The waterfall mirror shimmered and crashed onto itself with a raging torrent that subsided almost as quickly as it had come. The Fountain burbled quietly. The Oracle’s presence was gone, and birds began singing in the trees again. A car drove behind us as I stared into the water.
The gold coins were still there. I hadn’t been punished or cursed. I still had my college money, and, judging from the bewildered look on Lorinda’s face, I might even have my job.
“Pick those up,” Lorinda said finally. Her round blue eyes mirrored my shock. She waved her hands, as flustered as I was frozen. “No point in the Humdrums seeing all that and running off with it.” She got down awkwardly to her knees and helped me scoop the coins out of the cool water, muttering to herself the whole time. I didn’t ask her to speak up. I couldn’t process another thing.
Imogen’s mouth hung open as we walked past, my shirt held out and billowing with heavy gold coins. I hadn’t even thought to bring a bag to carry them. I hadn’t thought I’d be taking anything away from this, except maybe a heavy dose of shame.
The elevator door dinged. We stepped inside. I could hear both of us breathing over the soft creaks. When the doors opened again, Lorinda stopped and turned to me. “That was unexpected,” she said, which was the most obvious thing I’d heard all day. “I must say, I
did not anticipate…” She trailed off, staring at me. She worshipped the Oracle. And the Oracle letting me off without so much as a warning—and with a shirt full of gold—threw her worldview for a loop.
She blinked at me several times before shaking her head and saying, in a bright tone to balance out the confusion she must know was pouring off of her, “Looks like you might be offered a Junior Godmother job after you graduate next year after all. So long as you keep up the good work.”
My brain didn’t have room for that. It was already stuffed full of the knowledge that I’d failed, wasn’t cut out for this, and deserved to be ruined by the Oracle. Now I was supposed to handle “Good work”?
I frowned at Lorinda. “I think I’m going to go home early,” I finally said.
Her shoulders relaxed a little. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said. She gave me a little wave as I hit the main floor button with my elbow. In a moment I was out the door and into the warm gray light of ten minutes after noon.
Chapter 32
“So I’m probably going to spend the summer still working and maybe fit in some volunteering at a local community garden if I have time,” I finished, but Kyle wasn’t listening.
To be honest, neither was I. We’d both been keeping an ear on Elle’s conversation with her dad. They sat across a table from each other across the room, sipping Italian sodas. For the first time since I’d met her, they both felt like they wanted to be there.
“I think that’s fair,” Greg said. He leaned back in his chair. “I didn’t realize how serious you were about buying the place.”
Elle raised an eyebrow. “Just a teenage phase, right?”
“I underestimated you,” he said. He pulled the papers on the table toward him and gave an approving nod. Kyle’s pride swelled next to me. He’d helped her draw those papers up, a comprehensive business plan that showed exactly how Elle was going to run the business the way she wanted and still turn a profit. “To tell you the truth, I thought the whole thing was just you trying to remind Deborah and me how much you don’t approve of us.”
