by Gina LaManna
Sweat lined my brow not three seconds into the descent. The trellis was definitely ricketier than I remembered. It made a thwacking sound against the side of the wall, the wood creaking under my figure. I shouldn’t have eaten that second Twinkie.
When I reached the halfway point, I took a break and scanned the yard. I caught sight of my father doing the same thing as me, except he’d chosen to launch his escape from the bathroom window.
Since his memory had started to go, my mother kept a close watch on him—especially since the incident where he’d popped down to the gas station to get a jug of milk and ended up halfway to Florida in the back of a semi-truck. He’d forgotten the milk.
I finally landed on firm ground. I jogged around to help my dad off his branch of the trellis and together, we headed toward the tree house I’d played in as a child.
“What’d you tell Mom?” I asked as we climbed onto the wooden platform my dad had fashioned years ago. “Does she know you’re gone?”
He shook his head. “She would not be happy with my excuses. She’s talking to your grandmother though, and you know how they can talk after their cappuccinos. I figure we have two hours before she heads to bed and Andalina leaves. When your mother retires upstairs, I need to be snoring. Understood?”
“Dad, you can stay here. You don’t have to come with me. Just give me directions.”
“I want to come along, Ains.” His eyes lit up as he stepped inside the fort and looked around. “Please don’t treat me like a child, too.”
Years ago, this treehouse had served as my personal playground. It’d been a boat, a fort, a castle, and a beauty shop, if my sister was playing. If my brother was around, it was the jailhouse for a vicious game of cops and robbers. My siblings were several years older than me, but we got along as well as siblings could, and we’d loved imagining the treehouse in the jungle, on the beach, and in the frigid cold of the north.
Our imagination had taken this old, wooden fort and made it something new and fresh and exciting. My dad’s eyes reflected that same excitement as he looked back at me.
“I need some freedom, Ainsley,” he said, his voice softening. “I love your mother dearly, but she worries. You’re with me tonight. Just don’t leave my side, don’t let me wander off, and make sure I’m home in two hours. Give me these two hours with my daughter, please.”
“Of course,” I said softly. “Let’s just be careful.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, pumpkin.”
My dad pointed to the corner that housed my old dress-up clothes along with a dusty plastic dressing room set with a full-length mirror, brushes and barrettes, old makeup, and watered-down perfume. It’d initially been my sister’s, but when she’d moved on to real makeup and real fashionable clothes, I’d adopted it as my own.
Also included in this movie star set were piles upon piles of chintzy, fake pearl necklaces, costume jewels that shone like stars, and rings that contained plastic gems the size of my fist—all the things that made a little girl feel like a princess.
“Take something,” my father said, selecting a necklace of fake pearls. “Anything will do, but the bigger the better.”
I selected a ring to match the pearls, a hollow gemstone I’d won at a bowling alley, or possibly found in the bottom of a cereal box…. “Dad,” I said carefully, “you do know this jewelry is fake, right?”
He turned to me and winked. “Of course, sweetheart. That’s not the point. Where we’re going, this will do.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s time you meet Glamour.” He spoke the name in a hushed voice, as if this thing, this person, could hear us. “Here’s what you must know.”
I nodded. “Listening.”
“First, you must present a gift.” He held up the pearls as an example. “Then, while we’re in her presence, you mustn’t look her in the eyes for longer than three seconds. You must not comment on the looks of anyone else in the room—nothing good, nothing bad, simply nothing at all.”
He paused, and I nodded. “Anything else?”
“One more thing.” My dad tucked the strand of pearls he’d selected into his pocket then turned to me. He ruffled my hair enough to muss it up, then licked his thumb and dragged it across my lightly applied mascara. He stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. “There.”
I looked in the mirror and flinched. “Dad! What’d you do?”
“Leave it,” my dad cautioned. “It’s for a good cause.”
“I’m a fright fest.” I looked like a clown with insomnia. The mascara had smudged dark circles around my eyes, and my hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks. “Why?”
“Glamour is sensitive about her looks. She won’t speak to most females, and she especially won’t speak to a female whom she deems competition.”
I swallowed. “Am I less competitive now?”
My dad’s eyes glistened, and he gave a crooked smile. “I can’t wipe the pretty off of you, pumpkin, but a bit of a costume will throw her off. We only need to give her the jewelry. Once she accepts the gifts, we’re golden.”
I looked skeptically at the crackerjack prize in my hand. “You don’t say?”
“Trust me,” he said. “Follow my lead, okay?”
“Here goes nothing.” I followed him out of the treehouse, tucking the ring onto my finger for safekeeping.
Even as we crept through town on foot, keeping to the shadows and moving quickly, I couldn’t help glancing at the fake rock on my finger and wondering what Glamour could possibly want with a piece of plastic, and more importantly, what she knew about the Frost King.
Chapter 10
“We’re here.” My father’s cautious footsteps wound down to a halt outside the local watering hole. “Do you have your gem?”
I flashed my ring. “Got it.”
He nodded, then gestured for me to pull my hood down. “We’re going inside. Remember, no eye contact.”
We’d both worn mostly dark clothing to sneak around in the night. My father was clad in black jeans and a dark windbreaker, and I’d opted for leather pants and a gray hoodie pulled over my head.
I hadn’t chosen the leather pants on purpose, but I’d worn jeans over to my parents’ house, which forced me to raid the leftovers in the back of my old closet. Apparently high school Ainsley thought leather pants were hot. They were also squeaky, which wasn’t conducive to our sneaking through town, and they were tighter than I remembered. Damn Twinkies.
I pulled the hood down, smudged up my makeup a little bit more, and made my way inside the bar and grill that served as a place for magical folks to sip drinks, talk business, and show their true colors—or forms—without the risk of human eyes peeking inside.
Unlike my friend Ace’s bar, which was located on top of the world and filled with the flashiest clientele the magical world had to offer, Broomstix Bar housed the seedy sort of folks who paid in cash with fast fingers and sticky pockets. One didn’t walk into this place with wads of coin on hand, and one didn’t come in here alone if one was a female—I’d learned that much on the job when I’d tried to track a rogue werewolf here a few years back.
“There.” My father nodded toward the back corner then glanced back at me and ruffled my hair once more. Nodding his approval, he gestured for me to follow. “Keep your eyes averted.”
I did as he instructed, weaving my way through the bar. I kept close behind him, but even now, here with my father, I felt the eyes of strangers on me with frightening intensity. Their gazes tore at my clothes, peered passed my slouchy sweatshirt and straight through my smudged makeup. These people were looking at something else—something more—and it made me squirm.
I shivered as we approached our destination.
“Good evening, Beautiful.” At first my dad’s words caught me off guard. He’d never called anyone beautiful except for my mother. However, the way he spoke the word, it resembled a title, similar to how one might address a queen or senator. “We’ve bro
ught you gifts.”
Peering around my dad’s shoulder, I glanced at the woman he addressed. A crooked black witch’s hat sat atop a head of long, jet-black hair curled into perfect ringlets. I couldn’t see her eyes; her chin was tilted downward and the hat covered the upper half of her face.
Her lips, however, glowed a deep, deep red the color of rubies. Fishnet gloves lined her arms from the tips of her fingers up to her shoulders, her nails poking out of her gloves and sporting the same blood red that matched her lips.
“Gifts?” She spoke in a seductive purr, her voice silky smooth and suggestive. “What gifts have you brought for me?”
My dad’s hand landed on my back as he guided me forward. “First, my daughter will present her gift.”
I quickly—and a bit awkwardly—slipped the ring off my finger and extended it toward her. “A ring,” I said. “A really, really pretty ring.”
Her hand snaked out, her wrist dainty and small as she slid the fake rock from my palm. When her skin brushed mine, goosebumps skittered over my arms. She was freezing, cold like the dead but soft as baby powder. I watched, captivated, as she examined the ring.
Her lips pursed into a red O as she examined the toy like a jeweler might inspect a rare ruby or a precious pearl. I could feel my dad’s hand tensing on my back, and I sensed that this was the deciding moment. I waited patiently, my eyes downcast, as she blew on the ring, dusted it off, and then eventually slipped it onto her finger.
I kept my eyes averted until she spoke. “Thank you for your gift.”
My father’s breath exhaled in a whoosh as he stepped forward to present his fake pearl necklace. I moved to the side, peeking up as the woman began to examine the second gift. Once I peeked, however, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
The crackerjack ring had disappeared—or rather, it had morphed into something new, something beautiful and shiny and expensive. It glittered like a real gemstone, and I wondered if I was going crazy, or if there was some serious magic at play.
Finally, she accepted my dad’s gift. She smiled at him, running her tongue along her bottom lip as she fastened the pearls around her neck. As the strand of cheap beads fell against her collarbone, they changed, too. In a second, they’d transformed into a gorgeous, shining strand of pearls that had me doubting my sanity for the second time in as many minutes.
I was familiar with magic, certainly, but this was something else. No spell, no incantation… I briefly wondered if she could spin straw into gold.
My father elbowed me in the ribs. I turned away, realizing I’d been staring. I made up for my mistake by watching my toes for the next several minutes as the conversation resumed.
“You’re here for information,” she said softly, her voice curling from her lips like a wisp of smoke. “What can I do for you this time, Frank?”
My dad rested a hand on my back, his voice firm but commanding. “This is my daughter. Her name is Ainsley, and you will speak with her.”
The hum of the other witch’s dissatisfaction sizzled through the air, the slow burn of distaste growing until I could hardly handle it. My dad gripped my back tighter and tighter and tighter until finally, the witch tipped her head far enough upward to expose her face from under the pointed hat.
“Dear Ainsley,” she said, “I’ve been curious to meet you for ages, though having known your father for many, many years, I thought you’d have been more…beautiful.”
Her face was extraordinary, and there was an intensity to the beauty of her milky white skin that was ethereal, unique. Her eyes, the color of wine, pulled me toward her, their strange coloring enhancing her eerily beautiful features to an out-of-this-world level of stunning.
Her heart-stopping looks matched the allure of the long, wavy locks draped over her shoulder. She wasn’t human, but I couldn’t say for sure what she was—a witch maybe, but with some particularly strange magic.
My dad’s fingers gripped me so tight I flinched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, forgetting about my dad’s instructions to look immediately away. Her features were nearly intoxicating, drawing my gaze toward hers. When our eyes locked, the result was jolting. “Thank you for your time.”
“Thank you for your gifts,” she said in the clipped, polite tone of a dinner host. Flashing the ring on her finger and toying with the pearls around her neck, she sat back in the chair and gave a sly smile, the fishnet gloves on her arms allowing swatches of pale, creamy white skin to peek through. “Now, what can I help you with?”
“The Frost King,” my father said, moving forward. The woman’s gaze dragged away from mine, slipping away slowly, slowly, like sand through an hourglass. She studied my face until I could hardly handle it anymore, and then she turned to my father as he spoke. “What is his story?”
“Your Storybook didn’t help you?” She rolled her eyes lazily, though even such a dismissive gesture looked royal on her. Looking at me, she bit her lip and smiled. “I’ll have you know, once upon a time I was the best storyteller in the land. The Author knew nothing compared to me.”
“I believe it,” I said. “You have a way with words.”
“No, I have a way with seduction.” She winked, her luxurious, inky black lashes sweeping the tops of her cheeks. “Anyone will listen to your words if you make it worth their while.”
I believed her. Already, she had me spellbound, and she hadn’t even begun spinning her tale. “What about the Frost King?”
“You’re just like your father.” She sighed, the noise like a sewing needle: sharp, pointed, and quick. “So focused on business. I always tell him to loosen up a bit.”
Leaning forward, she stroked her velvety fingers across my father’s chin. He stood rigid, like one of those British soldiers, staring unflinchingly forward.
“Glamour,” he said, removing her hand with his own and placing it gently back on the bar table. “You know I’m married, and I love my wife. I love my daughter. We’re here on business.”
The word love seemed to set her off, those wine-colored eyes deepening to a pool of darkness so black a person could lose themselves there. A sudden flash—so brief I wondered if I’d imagined it—of uncontrollable anger slipped into her gaze, and she lost it. She lost control of whatever magic made her beautiful and instead, a ghost of her true self appeared.
Underneath the Glamour was a witch so ancient her hair hung down in stringy patches, her skin loose, her face faded into wrinkles. The display lasted only for an instant, but it was enough. Then the beauty returned, and I was left wondering which was the truth and which was a lie.
Eventually, she calmed until her irises turned the shade of cabernet and she glanced back at me, her face even more smooth and more beautiful than before. “Love, of course. You always were loyal, Frank.”
“Thank you for your understanding, Glamour,” he said. “You know I admire your wisdom. Now, the Frost King.”
“A legend,” she said with a sigh, settling back in her chair and crossing her arms over a shapely chest. She wore a tight black dress that went down to stiletto covered feet on the end of long, slender legs. “I’m assuming you’re asking because he’s returned to the Cities from the north.”
“Why is he in town?” my father asked. “He has no meetings with MAGIC, Inc. I would have heard about it.”
“Maybe it’s the prophecy coming true,” she mused, an eyebrow lifting upward. “You’ve been waiting for this.”
“The prophecy?” I turned toward my father, but he gave a single shake of his head.
“What prophecy?” he asked. “You know we’re not privy to that information.”
“The Frost King prophecy has been lost for ages,” she said. “Before you ask, no, I do not know what is stated in the actual prophecy, and no, I do not know a soul on earth old enough to know the contents of its pages. Even The Author will be at a loss for this.”
“How do you know about it then?” I asked. “The stories?”
She glared at me. “I have a way
of knowing things.”
“Don’t question her,” my dad muttered under his breath. “Only ask questions about what you need to know.”
“He’s right, you know.” Glamour stroked her fingers along the table, doodling a pattern with her nails. “Before your father figured out how to use his little Storybook, he used to come to me for all of his information.”
My father’s jaw tensed. “The legend.”
“All the Guardians needed me,” she said. Flashing her eyes toward me, she shook her head. “You’re a Guardian, too. I can smell it. You seek the thrill. You strive to do good. You’re poor; your weakness is adrenaline. Everyone has a weakness.” She bit down on her lip so hard I feared it would bleed. “Anyway, I digress. The Frost King has always borne three children—twin girls, and a son. That is how the legend goes. One of the daughters rules by ice, the other by fire. The son, however, takes his father’s place on the throne of the Frost Kingdom. One of his sisters is good, the other…”
“What does this have to do with his visit to town?” I pressed on, remembering the shadow in the window. “Are his sisters here, too?”
“I have no more information. Your only way forward is to locate the prophecy.”
“How?” I tried to keep my voice level. “I thought it was so old nobody could know it.”
“You can’t find it,” she said evenly. “It will find you.”
“What does that mean?” I stepped forward as my father laid a hand on my arm. “Please, tell me how. I think someone is in trouble, in the castle.”
“If I were you, I would be open to any opportunities that come your way,” she said. “Because the prophecy will reveal itself in time. Rushing its reveal will only lead to its destruction.”
“Thank you,” my father said, gripping my hand. He nodded a long nod then pulled me away. “Ainsley, let’s go.”
“Goodbye, Frank,” she said. “Ainsley, come back to me any time, darling.”
My father pulled me out of the room, moving as fast as I’d ever seen him move. “Let’s get home,” he said. “And let’s keep this quiet, shall we? Your mother doesn’t like her much.”
