by Sarina Dorie
She clucked her tongue. “Thatch is a complete fucktard. A couple days isn’t enough time to plan a wedding. I don’t suppose this is enough of a reason to call off the engagement?”
“No.”
“Fortunately for you, I know you chose me as your real maid of honor.”
I put up a hand to stop her. “My mom—”
“I know,” she went on. “You can’t tell anyone, or else it will hurt their feelings. And it wasn’t a completely idiotic decision to ask the woman who raised you, to be your matron of honor. But let’s face it. She lives in some podunk Morty town. I’m here with you. I know the area better and have connections. As your best friend, it should fall on me to perform the duties of making sure you have a perfect wedding with that despicable man.”
She grinned. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone the truth that I’m your maid of honor. I’ll let your mommy believe she’s the real deal.”
“Um, wow,” I said, trying not to thank her.
Mostly I suspected I wasn’t going to want to thank her. With Vega planning a wedding, I imagined everyone would be wearing black, and they would play funeral music when I walked down the aisle. Not that I knew what funeral music was supposed to sound like.
Vega called a special staff meeting two hours later regarding the wedding.
I was surprised anyone showed up at eight o’clock, since Vega wasn’t an administrator with the authority to call a meeting into session, but people did come. My friends and frenemies did anyway. Pinky, Josie, Gertrude, Pro Ro, Khaba, Grandmother Bluehorse, and Thatch all attended with me. Jackie Frost arrived late. I was surprised she came at all.
“Listen up, witches,” Vega said. “We’re here to discuss Clarissa’s special day. It’s the day all future Stepford wives dream their entire lives about, fantasizing over the disgusting flavor of frosting on their cake and what sappy music they want to force their guests to listen to. This wedding is going to be small, but we’re going to do it right so Clarissa’s insipid fantasies come true. Though there isn’t much that can be done about her choice in groom.”
The staff laughed. Thatch’s face remained impassive. It appeared he occasionally knew when it was best to hold his tongue.
Vega lifted a list and read from it, handing out assignments like it was homework time in her class. No one objected.
Grandmother Bluehorse was in charge of finding a secluded place on campus to hold the wedding, with Jackie Frost in charge of decorations and making sure we had good weather. Pinky was to assist Khaba in creating wards that would make the wedding invisible to the prying eyes of students and intruders. Khaba was to arrange a caterer from Lachlan Falls with some of his connections.
I raised my hand. “Has anyone cleared this with the principal? He might not want me to get married on school grounds.”
Khaba leaned closer, placing a hand on mine. “Honey, all you need is the approval of one administrator. You’re fine.”
Vega jabbed a finger at Thatch. “You had better have those rings ready, Mr. I Think Eloping Is a Good Idea.”
He inclined his head.
Gertrude said she was going to get the unicorns to come and sing love songs to provide music.
Vega snorted at that. “I’d like to see you try to get those virginmongers on school grounds. When you fail at that, I hope you have a backup plan.”
My heart overflowed with gratitude for Vega. I was pretty sure taking over and delegating would have been the job of the matron of honor, but my fairy godmother wasn’t here. And if she had been, it would have called attention to the reason why she was there. Students would wonder what was going on.
In order to draw less attention, Vega would pick her up on Saturday morning, the day of the wedding.
“Abigail Lawrence will be bringing the cake and the dress, so we don’t need to be concerned about that,” Vega said.
“What am I going to do to help?” Josie asked.
“Nothing. You’re going to stay out of the way and make sure you don’t mess things up.”
Josie crossed her arms and glowered at Vega. “We need to find a minister or a judge or a captain to marry Clarissa. Plus, the day of the wedding, she needs someone to help her with her hair and makeup.”
“Fine. Hair and makeup. The worst you can do is make her hair pink again.” Vega lifted her nose up at Josie. “And for your information, I’ve already found her a minister.”
I looked to Thatch to take in his reaction. We’d never discussed religion. I didn’t know what faith he was. There was a lot I didn’t know about him yet.
Probably my mom would be helping me with hair and makeup, but it would be nice to have Josie there to assist as well. The dress wasn’t going to fit, and we would need extra hands to sew it. I knew Josie had that skill.
Vega pointed a finger at Josie. “I’ll be fetching the minister and Clarissa’s fairy godmother that day. That means I’ll be too busy to clean up after any messes you create with your spiders, so you better not fuck things up.”
“What about vows?” I asked. “And rehearsing? And a honeymoon—”
“Not a chance. If we have a rehearsal, someone will find out. As soon as your wedding and the brief reception is done, you’ll get your ass back inside the school, out of harm’s way.” Vega glared at Thatch. “Don’t even attempt a honeymoon.”
He said nothing.
“What about the principal?” I asked. “Is he going to object? Where are we going to live?”
Khaba tossed me an employee handbook, a smile on his face. Before my very eyes, yellow ink highlighted a block of text.
In the case of staff members who are married and in the employment of the school, they may apply for a residence on school grounds if there is space in the available lodgings.
Khaba winked. “Consider it my official wedding gift to you.”
Our dean of discipline had changed a school rule? For me? And the principal hadn’t objected? Or perhaps he didn’t know yet.
I felt so much joy that my friends were willing to do all this for me.
“Any other questions?” Vega asked. “No? Then get the hell out of here.”
That was Vega, the thorns on a rose.
Plenty of stressful moments had occurred in the last year, yet I had retained full control of my dreams thanks to Thatch’s lucid-dreaming exercises and our meditation sessions in his fear chair. I had gone through a period of time during my first two years when my fears manifested a version of Derrick, combined with Julian and even Thatch, though that had been in the actual fear chair itself.
Derrick hadn’t returned to my dreams. I was past the tornado nightmare that haunted me from my childhood when he’d been torn away from me. Or at least I thought I was.
That dream always resurrected itself when I was the most high-strung. As I was now with wedding worries and threats of the Raven Queen heavy on my mind.
One minute I was dreaming about fluffy bunnies happily hopping across a forest of towering red poppies, the next moment I was torn from my happy place by a violent wind. A tornado crashed into my dream, filling me with terror.
Wind tossed me around and whirled me in its embrace. I caught sight of red flowers uprooted from the ground and bunnies tumbling in an orbit above me. Black silhouettes of ravens glided with wings outstretched as they approached, immune to the fury of elements.
It wasn’t that I thought the tornado was real or I was afraid for the safety of the bunnies or myself. I was lucid enough to know I was dreaming and that this was my subconscious making my fears known.
What frightened me was how the wind tasted: like fresh-cut grass and faraway places, like springtime and music. I smelled Cheetos and Old Spice cologne.
I smelled Derrick.
I didn’t want to be in this dream. Whether it was a false Derrick constructed by my mind to torture me or the real deal invading my mind, he wouldn’t be the nice guy and best friend I’d once had. I didn’t want m
y memories of him tainted by a dream version of what he’d become. Instinct told me to protect myself.
Before me, a red door materialized in the eye of the storm. I knew I had to get to it in order to escape. Breaking free from the stronghold of the wind was like swimming through molasses, resistance slowing my movements. I exerted more effort, feeling sweat prickle my forehead and dampen the back of my neck.
I was in control of my subconscious. Thatch had told me I commanded the fabric of the dream. I imagined the invisible barrier keeping me from the exit dissipating. Something popped, and I broke through the resistance. I floated toward the door. It was red and inviting. There was no lock. It opened easily and allowed me to step through.
Beyond my dream lay a desolate landscape dotted with lights. I flew from my door and out across a horizon of rocks and dust that my mind had conjured to represent the dreamscape of subconscious minds.
Like a fish caught on the end of a line, I felt a tugging in my core as I glided above the terrain. It wasn’t a magical compulsion like the times I’d fallen for Fae traps, but I was drawn toward something all the same.
Sparkles caught my eye from below. A green light glittered, and it reminded me of Grandmother Bluehorse. A fiery orange one made me think of Hailey Achilles. Another tasted of silver starlight and arsenic. Immediately I knew it had to be Vega. I wasn’t sure how I understood what I was seeing or where to go, but my intuition guided me. The landscape shimmered with a rainbow of constellations that tasted like the essence of each individual at the school.
A bright blue light glowed on the horizon, set apart from the other lights. Was that Derrick? He was so far away, like a constellation in another galaxy rather than one within my own. He wasn’t in the school. I didn’t know if he was even near the school.
I considered ignoring that blue light calling to me. I didn’t need to tempt fate. The last time I had tried to reach him through his dreams, his mind had been filled with nightmares and visions given to him by the Raven Queen. Thatch had warned me away from him, knowing I would only make things worse.
But I couldn’t ignore Derrick. I never had been able to. He was my weakness.
I still cared about him, even after the way he had betrayed me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings—or hurt him—but I couldn’t allow him to threaten me. He needed to know I wouldn’t let him ruin my wedding or harm my future husband.
He was capable of murder. I had to ask myself if I was capable of the same to protect those I loved. Did that make me like Alouette Loraline?
I ignored the stars speckled along the hills and valleys around me and journeyed toward the far dot of blue. The closer I drew to it, the farther apart the sparkles below me grew. He was alone and an island unto himself. I pushed harder, racing over the vast emptiness between us. My arm stretched infinitely long, and my fingers turned into strings of taffy as I grasped for the blue light just beyond my reach.
Then suddenly I was there at his door. It glowed with a cold cobalt like arctic ice. There was no handle. Last time I had fought with this door, wanting to get to the other side. How much of that resistance had been Derrick and how much might have been Thatch’s doing, I didn’t know. It had taken my affinity to enter Derrick’s dream. I’d caressed the door and seduced his mind into allowing me in.
I placed my palm against the blue surface, expecting I would have to trick the door into letting me past. Instead it swung open easily, revealing Derrick.
He floated, arms outstretched, spinning through fluffy white clouds in a cerulean sky. His hair was longer than when I’d seen him last. It might have been shoulder length, though it was hard to tell with the way it whipped behind him.
I stepped through the doorway, but he didn’t notice me. I almost didn’t want him to. I wanted to savor him in this happy moment, his eyes closed in oblivious bliss as he flew. He was so free and merry, like the old Derrick I once had known.
A flock of birds approached from across a horizon of clouds. At first I thought they might be ravens, but as they neared, they squawked like geese, though they were too far away to make out any details.
I knew I should announce myself. I needed to tell him it was time to let go of me. He needed to stop harassing me with messages. We couldn’t be together. He had lost that chance the day he’d killed me.
Was that why I was here? To tell him this?
As the V-shaped formation neared, I could see the noisy birds were neither the ravens I’d feared nor the geese I’d expected. They were paper cranes.
The flapping of wings and cries of the birds drew Derrick’s attention. The smile slowly slipped from his face. His eyes looked sad. He didn’t so much fly as drift along the clouds.
The clothes he wore were all black. I hadn’t noticed that before. Maybe they had changed when I’d looked away. The dark fabric billowing in the wind reflected the gloom of his mood. The sky darkened.
“You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you?” He looked to me.
I was surprised he even knew I was there. I drifted farther back from him, but there already was a cushion of distance between us. His eyes weren’t angry, only sad.
“Punishing you for what? Haunting me and leaving me messages?” I asked.
“I haven’t left you any messages. I stayed away so I wouldn’t hurt you again.” He waved a hand at the birds, so close the vivid patterns of Oriental designs flashed in and out of view as they darted through puffs of clouds. “It would be so much easier to recover if you left me in peace. It would be easier if you didn’t see me.”
“Oh really? Is that supposed to be a reference to an old joke? Have you been making yourself invisible again? Is that how you’ve been getting into the school to play pranks on me?”
Tears filled his eyes. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I haven’t been invisible since you cured me. I left the school after I . . . after you died, and I haven’t come back.” He swallowed. “I went to the Raven Queen and told her what I did. She wasn’t pleased I’d ruined her chances for drawing you into her flock. She tortured me for not reviving you.”
He looked away. “I can understand if you hate me for what I did to you. I hate myself, but I knew I couldn’t allow her to torture you and chip away at your soul like she did to me.” He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing. Pain crossed his face. “I’m no longer myself and my own master because of her. I would welcome death instead of her enslavement. That’s why I was willing to do anything to keep you from her.”
I believed him. I didn’t doubt he would kill me again if he thought that was the only way. Thatch had done a number of things to keep me safe, lying to me and deceiving me. He’d even used pain magic on me in the Raven Queen’s presence to convince her he was her loyal servant, to ensure I escaped. He’d apologized and hated himself for it. We’d broken up because of it. For all the things he’d done, I couldn’t imagine he’d kill me to keep me from the Raven Court.
Or at least I imagined that was the case.
“I thought you were dead.” I stared at Derrick’s shirt, the fabric shifting like shadows over his chest, revealing the suggestion of a scar. “She sent me a heart and led me to believe it was yours.”
“It was, but I have another.”
Icicles skated down my spine. I wondered whose heart she had stolen to replace his with. My gaze flickered to his chest again. He touched the fabric, and it parted to reveal a ticking clock set in a chest marred by scars. Dreams were symbolic. I wondered if that represented his curse, a bomb about to go off.
He floated closer, the blue of his eyes so vivid the sky looked plain by comparison. “She would have killed me if she hadn’t learned that Mr. Thatch had revived you. Instead, she kept me alive because she thought I might be of further use. Had she killed me, she would never have learned I had stolen your affinity. I might not have known myself. She relished that I could do your magic, and she might have a use for me.”
“To kidnap me and tu
rn me evil like my mother?”
“That was her plan. To get you to join the dark side and convince you to share all you know in order to save her bloodline.”
The flock of cranes flew between us, condor-sized birds flapping their paper wings. Derrick ducked out of the way of one with a pattern of polka dots.
“I will not go with you. I am not going to join the Raven Queen. If you try to ruin my life, I will kill you,” I said. “I won’t allow you to hurt me again.”
“I won’t. I’m not going near you.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture, eyes wide. “I promised I wouldn’t. I escaped the Raven Queen’s wrath and allied myself with another court, but I agreed I would never go near you again. I’m only free from the pull of her spells if I don’t trigger them. That means we can never be together.”
He drifted closer, near enough he could have touched me, but he didn’t. “I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you now. I want you to be happy.” He sounded so sincere, so sad.
Tears filled my eyes. It sounded too good to be true that he was alive and free of the Raven Queen. Even if he wasn’t with me, I could be happy for him if he found another life. I could forgive him for what he’d done, maybe because he was sorry even if he didn’t know a better solution.
I turned away from him. A section of gray clouds parted to allow admittance to a blue sky as vivid as his hair and eyes. Seeing so much of that color did nothing to ease the suffering inside of me. “I want you to be happy too. We need to be apart . . . for necessity.”
His voice sounded raw. “I agree. You need to move on and stop hoping for me.” Each word was pronounced with raw emotion seeping through.
More than ever, I just wanted to understand him. “So why do you keep sending me paper cranes? Why won’t you let me go?”
“I haven’t been sending you origami cranes. I thought you were sending me cranes. Are you saying it wasn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t send them.” Someone had sent him cranes? If he hadn’t been sending the cranes, who had?
