UnTwisted

by Elise Allen

  “Flissa!” Sara cried.

  Her sister was already there, sitting on the couch opposite their mom, who sat at her desk. The queen must have sent Flissa a bubblegram to call her back from her friends at school well before Primka went looking for Sara.

  Sara was so full of things she wanted to tell Flissa, she forgot they were fighting. Then Flissa shot her an icy look, and Sara’s voice dried up in her throat. She didn’t want to make Flissa any angrier than she already was, so she sat at the far end of the couch, giving Flissa as much space as possible.

  “Really?” their mom said. “Okay, then.”

  She got off her chair and plopped down on the rug in front of them, fluffing out her skirts so she could sit cross-legged.

  “So,” she said. “Want to tell me why the two of you aren’t talking?”

  “We’re talking,” they both said at the same time.

  Normally that would make them lock eyes and giggle. The fact that it didn’t made Sara want to cry.

  “You say that, but I haven’t seen you spending any time together. Not since school started. Flissa, you leave early and come home late; and Sara, you never stay up to wait for your sister with us.”

  “She doesn’t have to wait for me,” Flissa said. “We have the same room. She sees me there.”

  Sara wasn’t sure if Flissa was sticking up for her, or just making an excuse to end the conversation. She tried to read the answer in Flissa’s face, but all she saw was that her sister was agitated. She kept playing with her braid, and she shifted in her seat like she couldn’t find a comfortable place to settle her body. It wasn’t like her.

  “Yeah,” Sara said. “It’s like Flissa said. We’re good.”

  Their mom’s long curls were like their dad’s mustache. You could tell a lot about her emotional state by the state of her hair. Right now her curls drooped.

  “I see…and how do you think your grades have been?”

  Sara didn’t have to think; she knew her grades were okay at best. She’d spent much more time on ferreting out Amala’s secret anti-Genpo motives than on homework, and her classes had been the last thing on her mind.

  “I think I’m doing well in Magic Lab,” Sara offered.

  “You are,” their mom said. “You’re doing excellently in Magic Lab. Flissa?”

  Sara waited for Flissa to crow about her top-of-the-school marks, but instead she bit her lip. “I think I’m doing well in…Athletics?”

  Their mom smiled. “Yes, you have perfect marks in Athletics. But Amala reached out to let me know that outside of those two classes, you both seem to be having trouble concentrating.”

  Sara was stunned. Flissa wasn’t doing well in her classes?

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Flissa quickly said. “You’re going to tell me I’m doing too much, and I have to give up hoodle. But please, I promise you—”

  Their mother’s eyes rounded with sympathy as she held out a hand to stop her. “Flissa, honey, I’m not going to tell you to give up anything. The two of you have been through so much this last year. More than you ever should have had to bear.” She leaned forward and put a hand on each of their knees. “I don’t care about the grades. Your father doesn’t either. I just want to know if they’re a symptom of something bigger. So much is new for you right now; I want you to know you can come to me if you need to talk about anything. And I hope you can go to each other.”

  Sara felt tears well up. That’s exactly what she wanted too, but it seemed entirely out of her control.

  Their mom got up and kissed them both on the top of their heads. “Lecture over. You can go. Unless you want to stay and talk?”

  She looked at them hopefully, but Sara didn’t know what else she could say.

  “Actually, I have a question,” Flissa said. “Can I go to a sleepover tonight on dorm?”

  Their mom frowned. “Tonight? But you have school tomorrow. And I was hoping maybe the two of you would spend the day together…?”

  “I know,” Flissa said. “But it’s for the team, to celebrate our hoodle win. I know we should have done it last night, but we didn’t plan it, so…would it be okay? It would really mean a lot to us. A lot.”

  Flissa glanced desperately at Sara, and Sara saw the sweat on her sister’s upper lip. She didn’t know what the sleepover was all about, or why it mattered so much, but she could tell that for whatever reason, it was vitally important.

  “I think she should go,” Sara said. “I couldn’t really hang out today anyway. I have a study group coming over. Trying to get those grades up.”

  Sara smiled, and her mom gave her a look that proved she didn’t believe her at all, but after narrowing her eyes and studying Flissa’s face, she nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can go. But don’t stay up late. I’ll know if you’re dragging tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” Flissa said. She threw her arms around her mom for a hug, then shocked Sara by hugging her too.

  “Thanks,” she whispered in Sara’s ear.

  Sara hugged her back. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fill the hug with everything she wanted to say.

  “Got your back,” she whispered.

  They moved apart and Flissa gave her a smile, then she ran out of the room. Sara said goodbye to their mom and meandered toward the ballroom to scope out breakfast. On the way, she ducked into a corner by a window and pulled out her message milk vial.

  “This message is for Krystal,” she said.

  The wand glowed blue. It was ready.

  “Krystal, can you come to the palace? Let me know. End.”

  The bubble broke off the wand and floated away. Sara thought a second, then she pulled out the wand again and sent the same message to Jentrie.

  She hadn’t told the truth about the study group, but she did want to have a couple of friends over.

  She had to pick a dress for the ball.

  “No!” Flissa said. “You’re not allowed to do anything.”

  Zinka threw herself back on the common room couch and laughed. “Fine!” She clapped her hands together. “Hoodle team, create a party!”

  The sleepover was Flissa’s idea. When she found Zinka crying in the closet yesterday, Flissa had knelt down and hugged her, then taken her to the bathroom to wash off her battered fingernails and wrap them in bandages. Zinka had thanked her and asked for a minute alone, which Flissa had happily given her. She’d waited in Zinka’s room with Teddy, who’d crawled right into Flissa’s lap, and by the time Zinka strode back in, she was back to her confident, breezy self and acted as if nothing had happened.

  Flissa didn’t call her on it. If that’s what she needed to do to feel better, Flissa understood. But she also knew Zinka had reached her breaking point. She needed time off from everything, and she needed to know that people loved her and cared about her. She’d bubblegrammed the whole team, and while she didn’t tell them exactly what she’d seen, she let them know their captain needed them badly, and together they tried to decide what to do. Flissa honestly wasn’t sure how the sleepover had popped into her head, but once she tossed it out there, everyone seized on it. Dallie got permission from the Dorm Fairies to use the common room overnight, and everyone who lived at home started wheedling for permission to sleep away on a school night. Amazingly, everyone got the okay, probably because all their parents were still filled with pride after the team’s big win.

  Now the whole team was crammed into the common room, pushing furniture around and decorating. Only Zinka was forbidden from lifting a finger. They all demanded she relax for once while everyone else did all the work.

  “Truth time,” Dallie said as she pointed at the couch and tried to move it with magic. Flissa heard a gong—Dallie’s magical signature—but the couch didn’t move at all.

  “Here, let me get off,” Zinka said.

  “Nope!” Beverly-Ann said. “We’ve got it.”

  She physically picked up one end of the couch, and Dallie took the other, givi
ng Zinka a ride across the room.

  “Truth time,” Dallie said again, huffing now as she set down the couch. “Who here has never been to a sleepover?”

  Flissa, Dallie, and Zinka all raised their hands. Dallie narrowed her eyes at Loriah. “Hunkering down in a cave with other prisoners doesn’t count,” she said. “If it did, my hand would be down too.”

  “I know what a sleepover is,” Loriah said. “I wasn’t born in the Twists, remember? Hand stays down.”

  “You’ve never been to a sleepover, Flissa?” Nichelle asked as she pointed upward. Teal sparks danced, and when they faded the ceiling was covered in multicolored twinkling star-shapes. Nichelle was short—not a lot taller than Beverly-Ann the chimp, but she had power on a hoodle field, and Flissa had seen her steamroll girls twice her size.

  “Never,” Flissa said as she pulled a blue shaggy rug into the middle of the room. “Sara and I were invited—Princess Flissara was invited—but my parents thought an entire night away from each other was too dangerous and we might slip up.”

  “Did you ever?” Rosalie said. She walked into the room from the kitchen, her wings filled with bowls of snacks. “I mean, did you ever come close to slipping up?”

  Flissa had to think about it. “I don’t think so.” She looked at Odelia and Nichelle, who had always lived in Kaloon. “Did either of you ever suspect?”

  Nichelle laughed. “That our princess was secretly twin Mages? Never in a million years. You hid it well.”

  Flissa thought she might have heard a hint of bitter-ness in Nichelle’s voice, but she wasn’t sure.

  “We hid the twin part,” Flissa said. “The Mage part we didn’t even know.”

  “I like that,” Odelia said. She was a Genpo from Kaloon, but she lived on dorm because her parents died in the Battle for Kaloonification and she had no other familiy. “Then maybe there’s still hope for me.” She threw out her arms as if she were casting a charm. “Booya!”

  Every Mage in the room cracked up. “No one in the history of ever has said ‘booya’ when they did magic,” Zinka said when she caught her breath.

  Zinka seemed happy—genuinely happy. And Flissa was glad they’d managed to pull the party together. The room was in shape now, with most of the furniture pushed to the edges, and nine puffy sleeping bags on top of the shaggy rug, one opened out into a large nest for Rosalie. There were so many scattered pillows, it looked like a giant had dumped his bag of marshmallows all over the floor. The one piece of furniture left in the center of the room was a table crammed with pitchers of plobquat-mango smoothies and bowls of sweet and savory treats…which they ran back to the kitchen when they realized it was still only late afternoon and they had hours before they’d be even remotely sleepy.

  “Am I allowed to make a suggestion?” Zinka asked. “Or is that against the rules of total relaxation?”

  “One suggestion,” Flissa said, knowing she’d suggest they all go out and play hoodle, which she did. They played until the brightening bugs came out, then they threw down their hoodlehooks and jumped around, catching as many as they could in their bare hands. They giggled as they ran back into the dorm with their treasures, then released them in the common room, where they flashed on and off amidst Nichelle’s magical stars. The multicolored stars tinted the brightening bugs’ glow, so the girls were bathed in colored strobes. Flissa held out her arms and let the circles of color dance over her skin.

  The Dorm Fairies had long since stopped serving dinner, so the girls went into the kitchen and raided the refrigerator for leftovers, then grabbed the snacks and smoothies they’d stashed earlier and brought them back into the common room.

  “A toast,” Zinka said when she’d poured out smoothies for all of them. “To the greatest friends ever. Thanks for this.”

  They all clinked glasses, then drank their smoothies and munched on the snacks. They talked about everything—their lives before Maldevon Academy, things that happened at the school, but most of all the Kaloonification Ball. Loriah, Zinka, Trinni, and Rosalie all had dates, and Dallie demanded the rest of them admit who they’d like to go with, if they could go with anyone. Flissa blushed when it was her turn.

  “Honestly,” she said, “and I know this is going to sound like I’m making it up…I just want to go with all of you.”

  “Awwww,” everyone chorused. Then they threw pillows at her because they swore she was lying. Still, they promised they’d all hang out as a group. Dates were welcome to join, but the team came first. Then they talked about what they’d wear, and Zinka told them the latest on the food and the music…but music reminded Odelia of Nikkolas’s ball-posal and his horrible singing, and that got them into the best and worst ball-posals they’d seen, and they talked and laughed until their voices were hoarse and they were all exhausted.

  Beverly-Ann opened the window to release the brightening bugs, then they crawled into their sleeping bags. Even though Flissa could barely keep her eyes open, she stayed up while everyone talked some more, until their voices faded as her friends dropped off to sleep one by one.

  Before long, Flissa and Zinka were the last two awake. Their sleeping bags were right next to one another, and Flissa could barely see her friend in the dim glow from Nichelle’s magical stars. Still, she could swear the dark circles under Zinka’s eyes were gone.

  “You good?” Flissa whispered.

  “So good,” Zinka whispered back. “Thanks for this. And thanks for not bringing up…the thing. I’m sorry you had to see it.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Honestly, I’m amazed it hasn’t happened to more of us.” She thought about Sara and her crazed obsession with Amala plotting against the Genpos. Her mom had said they’d been through a lot in the last year, and she wasn’t wrong. Was that Sara’s way of falling apart under the pressure? “Actually, I think it is happening to a lot of us, just in different ways.”

  “Yeah,” Zinka said. She closed her eyes, and soon she was fast asleep. Flissa forced herself to stay awake—she wanted to make sure none of her friends woke up with horrible nightmares—but her body betrayed her and soon her eyes closed and she fell into darkness.

  At one point Flissa heard a noise and opened her eyes. Zinka was standing up, trying to gingerly step over Loriah and move toward the door. Flissa reached out and touched her leg. Zinka jumped, and a half second later she crouched in front of Flissa’s face.

  “You scared me,” she whispered. “I almost fell on top of Loriah.”

  “Sorry. Where are you going? Are you okay?”

  “Bathroom,” Zinka whispered. “And then I might check on Teddy. I feel bad that she’s all alone. She likes to cuddle at night.”

  Flissa considered telling her to bring the kitten down with her. It would be nice to have Teddy in their sleeping bags. But there was no way. The cat was still very much against school rules, and she definitely didn’t want to risk Loriah getting spell terrors again. “Give her a kiss from me,” she whispered.

  “Will do,” Zinka whispered back.

  Flissa watched her as she cautiously picked her way over Loriah and Nichelle to get to the door. She wanted to wait for Zinka and make sure everything was okay, but after a while it seemed like she probably just went ahead and crawled into her own bed with her cat. Flissa couldn’t blame her; she might have done the same thing. She let herself drift back to sleep.

  The next time she woke up, it was to the sound of screams.

  Flissa bolted upright in her sleeping bag. She saw Dallie in the middle of the room, eyes wide, hands over her face. She was looking down at Trinni and Odelia…both of whom had gone ramrod straight in their sleeping bags, eyes wide, mouths open in silent screams. Loriah was bent over them, the back of her hand in front of Trinni’s mouth.

  “What happened?” Flissa cried. She looked around the room and saw Beverly-Ann, Rosalie, and Nichelle were also awake, all of them still in their sleeping bags and looking as shocked as Flissa felt.

  “I…I don’t know,” Rosalie said.


  “They’re breathing.” Loriah moved her hand away from Trinni’s mouth, then jumped back like she’d been bitten. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with dread. “Look…they’re awake.”

  Flissa scrambled on her knees until she was next to her stricken friends. Both Odelia’s and Trinni’s eyes darted back and forth in terror, like they were trying desperately to escape their statue-stiff bodies.

  “What happened?” Flissa asked them. “Can you move?”

  No response. Just those darting eyes.

  “Where’s Zinka?” Nichelle asked, anxious. “She’s not here.”

  “She woke up in the middle of the night,” Flissa said. “I saw her. She—”

  More screams came from upstairs.

  “We should check that out,” Loriah said.

  “We don’t have permission,” Nichelle said, gesturing to Rosalie and Beverly-Ann. “We won’t get past the wall. We’ll stay with Trinni and Odelia; you go.”

  Flissa, Loriah, and Dallie tromped over the sleeping bags, burst out of the common room door, and raced up to the second floor.

  The hall was littered with bodies. Some were dressed, others were in nightclothes or bathrobes, their baskets of toiletries spilled out next to them.

  Every one of them had the same stiff-limbed rigor, mouths open, eyes dancing in a wild, desperate frenzy.

  “They’re in there,” one girl wailed as she looked down at a stiff body. “They’re in there, but they can’t move!”

  Flissa heard more screams coming from the third floor, but she didn’t have to go up to know what she’d find.

  “I have to go home,” she told Loriah. “I don’t want to send a bubblegram. I have to tell my parents and the General Council.”

  “Do it,” Loriah said. “Go.”

  Flissa raced toward the stairs, then Loriah bounded after her and caught her arm. She leaned close and spoke softly enough that only Flissa could hear. “When you talk to your parents, you should tell them—did you notice?”

  “Notice what?”