Awake: A Fairytale

by Jessica Grey

  Alex blushed and shoved the diamond into the pocket of her jeans. “Okay, let’s get the gold then,” she changed the subject.

  Becca and Lilia followed her out of the storage room, exchanging looks like proud parents whose kindergartner had just sat down at the piano for the first time and played a Mozart piece by ear. Alex chose to ignore them.

  The gold nuggets were in a current display, so they had to actually hunt for the keys in Nicholas’s office. GeMMLA wasn’t the most modern of museums. The key cards for the door and the secure storage room and the computers in the offices were, thus far, its only concessions to modernity. The other museums in the Guild were already light years ahead, utilizing video monitoring and other high-tech gadgets. The Art Museum even had a tour that could be downloaded to a smart phone or tablet so visitors could direct themselves around the exhibits. Since he’d been there, Nicholas had been trying to drag GeMMLA, kicking and screaming, into the twenty first century. Most of his efforts had been met with resistance and proven futile.

  As she snagged the display case keys out of Nicholas’s office, Alex thought this lack of technology probably worked in their favor. She was pretty sure that if she walked into the art museum and tried to take a painting off the wall, all sorts of electronic alarms would sound. However, as they slid the keys into the back of the display case, the only alarm was the creak of the metal hinges as the glass door swung open.

  Alex picked up the three pieces of gold. They were heavy and cool in her hand, and while she may have felt a small vibration—the kind Becca and Lilia had claimed with the diamond, the immediate recognition she had felt with the gem was noticeably absent.

  Becca was staring strangely at the gold pieces, nervously, as if she was afraid they might wake up and bite Alex’s hand off. “Put them in your backpack,” she urged. “Having them out is making me antsy.”

  Alex unzipped her backpack and set the gold nuggets gingerly inside. Now that she was walking around with a small fortune on her back, and another probably even larger fortune in her pocket, she was starting to feel a little nervous too.

  No one is going to know what you have in there, she tried to reassure herself as they waited for Lilia to redo the spell on Nicholas’s office door before heading back to check on their two sleepers.

  ~

  Lilia’s spell on the storage room door was still holding firm. This time Alex was pretty sure she could see the edges of the magic hovering around the door, if she tilted her head at the right angle and squinted. She wasn’t sure if she should feel encouraged by that fact or scared out of her mind.

  Nicholas was still asleep in his storage room, snoring rather more loudly than he had been before. She wondered if that meant he was closer to waking up. She couldn’t bring herself to be overly concerned for him, but as they checked on Luke, she found herself remembering how he had called out to her the first time she had touched the gems and found herself in the garden. His voice had been firm, and full of warning.

  “Do you think it’s affecting Luke at all?” Alex asked Lilia. “You know how you were saying Briar Rose can probably tell we’ve been messing with her spell? Should we try to move him off the bed or something?”

  Becca gasped out a small laugh. “We almost killed ourselves moving Nicholas! Luke’s got several inches and pounds on him, and that’s assuming he’s not magically stuck to that bed somehow.”

  “We could try, although Becca is probably right on both counts. I am sure the spell has him bound to the bed. What if trying to move him triggers something?” Lilia answered.

  “Or tips off Briar Rose,” Becca added.

  Alex bit her lip and tried to think of the best way to express the anxiety she felt for Luke’s safety.

  “In the two dreams I’ve had about Luke,—well they kind of turn into nightmares, he gets completely covered by rose vines, like they’re keeping him captive. Or trying to kill him.”

  “Well, I suppose I’m up for trying to move him, as long as we are prepared for any consequences.” Becca sounded resigned. “We are flying totally blind here. We can say maybe it will tip off the big bad fae, maybe it won’t. There’s no way to know until we try.” She glanced at Alex and then at Luke’s sleeping form. “Alex, if you feel he might be safer out of the bed, then I think we should try it.”

  Lilia groaned, obviously not thrilled with getting any closer to the bed then she absolutely had too. “If that is what you want, fine.”

  Alex surveyed Luke, contemplating the herculean task of moving his long body from the bed. He wasn’t really a lightweight. Having recently felt his muscled chest the word that came to mind was “solid.” So how were the three of them going to move six feet three inches of solid mass?

  “We could try rolling him, kind of like we did with Nicholas. What if we just put something soft on the floor and all pushed from the other side until he rolled off?” she suggested.

  “I’ve got a sleeping bag in the trunk of my car,” Becca offered. “It’s part of the very extensive earthquake preparedness kit my dad got me when I started driving.”

  Becca went out to her car and procured the sleeping bag. They arranged it on the floor next to the bed. She looked at the sleeping bag critically. “That isn’t going to offer much padding when he hits the floor, but I suppose he can handle a few bruises.”

  “Better bruises than…well whatever Briar Rose is doing to him,” insisted Alex. “But maybe we should try dragging him off the bed instead of rolling him.”

  “Pulling instead of pushing?” Becca asked. “Yeah, good idea. I’d hate to be responsible for breaking his nose if he lands on that pretty face of his.”

  Alex laughed in spite of herself as the three girls positioned themselves along the side of the bed standing side by side. Becca gripped his right arm, Lilia held both of his ankles, and Alex grabbed hold of the waistband of his jeans. At Alex’s nod they all tugged as hard as they could.

  “Oh my, he is heavy!” Lilia gasped. Becca grunted in assent.

  “Harder!” Alex panted, as sweat beads popped out on her forehead.

  “I don’t think this is just Luke,” Becca ground out. She took a big breath and doubled her effort. “There’s no way he’s this heavy.”

  Alex knew she was right. Her arms and back were starting to scream from the strain. “Stop, stop,” she strangled out letting go of her grip on his waistband. Becca and Lilia stopped pulling with sighs of relief and stepped back from the bed.

  Alex stayed close to Luke’s side and looked down at his sleeping face. The image from her dream of the thorny vines sprouting from his chest as they stood in the little clearing was burned into her brain. She reached down and pushed his long beard to one side, so she could see his chest. There was no rose emblem, just the t-shirt he had been wearing two nights before. She rested her hand on his chest for a moment and could feel the warmth. A human and completely prosaic warmth, so different from the edgy, frantic heat of the magic from the stones on the bed. She could feel his heart beating steadily beneath her palm.

  Alex slid her hands across his chest and around to where his back pressed against the bed, and moved them up and down his back, searching. The warmth receded, replaced by a hard coldness—the invisible bands of the spell holding him to the bed. They felt heavy, solid and unbreakable.

  “There’s definitely magic holding him to this bed,” Alex confirmed sorrowfully as she pulled her hands off the bed. “I can feel it.”

  Neither Becca nor Lilia questioned her. They both had felt the unnatural resistance when they tried to move Luke.

  Alex felt dangerously close to tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, reaching up to brush the long hair off his forehead. She let her hand rest there for a moment, closing her eyes, needing to reassure herself of his warmth after having felt the icy bands of magic.

  An image of Luke flashed onto her closed eyelids, like she had seen him last—smiling down at her on the sidewalk near the bus stop, the rays of the setting sun picking up
golden highlights in his hair. She remembered thinking then that it wasn’t fair for any one person to be that attractive. Unfair, and definitely dangerous to her equilibrium. Even leaning over him, she still felt farther away from him then he had when she was standing in the field.

  Alyssum, she thought. The difference was the Sweet Alyssum. Flickers of white appeared on the edges of her vision. The memory was filling out: instead of just seeing Luke, she could now see the walls of the museum behind him, the cracked pavement of the sidewalk. It was like a picture developing from the center out. Suddenly she was there, her feet firm against the pavement. As she looked down, a plant grew rapidly up between the cracks in sidewalk, small snowy flowers popping out on the scrubby strands. In less than the space of two breaths the alyssum had covered the sidewalk around her feet. Another breath and it had covered Luke’s feet as well. It continued to race down the sidewalk behind him, blanketing the cracked concrete in a torrent of flowers.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, this time to the Luke in her vision. She had no idea if she had spoken out loud, or if her voice was only echoing in her own mind.

  Luke grinned at her. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “Are you? You’re not in danger?” Without conscious thought Alex slipped her other hand into her pocket, her fingers clutching the thin braid of the friendship bracelet she had found in his room.

  “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  “But I want to break the spell!” The words spilled out of her in a frustrated rush. “How do I break the spell?” As she spoke the threads of the bracelet seared into her hand. She could feel each individual strand burning with a bright, fiery magic that she had no hope of understanding. And then she knew. As clearly as she had felt the emerald of the crown seep into her brain, she felt the sureness of what she needed to do. The odd thing was, looking into Luke’s eyes, she knew that somehow he knew too.

  He didn’t say anything as she stepped toward him. The alyssum crushing beneath her feet, their perfume filling her nose and mouth as her breath quickened.

  And then she was in his arms. And it felt right, not a bit strange or awkward. She felt like she belonged there—that they ceased being Luke and Alex and melded into one person. She gazed into his face; it was such a long way to look up, but her neck didn’t crick like it usually did when she looked up at him. He was looking down at her, his blue eyes serious. He lifted his hand and ran it through her hair, the dark gold strands slipping through his long fingers.

  She placed her hands on his chest, lifting her face to his. His hand slipped through her hair once more, his palm coming to rest on the back of her head, holding her securely in place. He began to lower his mouth to hers.

  Alex felt two pairs of hands on her arms, pulling and tugging her frantically away from Luke’s embrace. She resisted, her hands clutching at his shirt, but she was yanked out of his arms, and then out of her vision entirely.

  “What is wrong with you?” Becca shouted uncomfortably close to her ear. “Are you insane?” The shouts were accompanied by a rather violent shaking that caused Alex’s eyelids to pop open, although her eyesight remained disturbingly unfocused. She was halfway across the room from the bed, Becca and Lilia were still holding onto her.

  “What happened?” she asked. Her throat felt dry, and her voice sounded far away even to her own ears.

  “What happened!?” Becca screeched. “What happened!? You almost kissed Luke, you moron, that’s what almost happened!”

  Alex blinked as the room began to come into focus. “You have to let me do it!” she exclaimed. “I’m sure that is the only way to break the spell.”

  Lilia spread her feet farther apart and tightened her grip on Alex’s upper arms as if she was afraid she might make a break for the bed. “We do not know that,” she insisted. “And even if that is the only way to wake him up, you could end up enchanted just as he was. And we would be starting all over again.”

  “Yeah, except we’d have Luke around instead of you.” Becca shook Alex once more for good measure. “I’d much rather have you around while we try to figure this out. You’re a pretty rational, quick-thinking person when you aren’t being stupid, so if you could refrain from any more completely idiotic acts I’d really appreciate it!”

  Alex nodded and both girls released their grip on her arms. She sighed, brushing back the hair that had fallen across her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I could see Luke in my head, and it felt so real. I was sure it was the right thing to do.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Becca snapped. At Alex’s hurt look she softened her voice. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you throw yourself on some sacrificial altar for Luke, especially not until we know more about the spell. And I’m not sure how we are ever going to know more about it.”

  The frustration was almost overwhelming. Alex had to admit that Becca and Lilia were right. It was probably a stupid thing to kiss Luke when the odds were that the enchantment would just transfer to her. In fact, it was the same stupidity she was still angry with Luke over, and when he had kissed Lilia he hadn’t had any idea that the spell could transfer. She wondered if it had felt as right to him to lean down and kiss Lilia as it had when she had lifted her face for his kiss. Alex glanced at Lilia’s perfectly bowed mouth and felt a sharp stab in the general area of her heart. It wasn’t quite jealousy: more of a profound, piercing sadness.

  ~

  The ride back through the city toward Luke’s street was silent and tense. Alex was still on edge from her vision, or hallucination, or whatever it was, in the storage room. Becca and Lilia were both still occasionally eyeing her nervously. Alex wasn’t sure what exactly they thought she was going to do. She’d promised she wouldn’t try to kiss Luke awake, and besides they were several miles away from the museum and getting farther away every moment. It’s not like she was planning to sprint miles through the rain and lay herself like a sacrificial lamb on the enchanted bed and beg Briar Rose to take her instead of Luke. Probably.

  As they exited the freeway and headed towards Luke’s neighborhood Becca finally broke the silence by asking the question that had also been on Alex’s mind.

  “Lilia, do we have any idea what we’re going to try to do? I don’t really understand how it all works, but are we supposed to have a specific spell in mind? We can’t just be like ‘hey magic, want to work through us,’ can we?’”

  Lilia was sitting in the back seat, idly playing with the petals of the lily on the seat next to her. They’d stopped at a large chain grocery store and managed to find a few potted lilies and had also purchased sandwiches and bottles of water at the market’s deli.

  “Yes,” she answered. “You need a specific spell, or at least a specific objective you are attempting to accomplish. I think we should try to stop the rain.”

  The girls both turned their heads and stared at her in shock.

  Alex found her voice first. “That’s rather ambitious.” Her voice felt dry and painful coming out of her throat. She felt the car drifting and whacked Becca on the shoulder. “Turn around and watch the road.”

  Becca whipped her head back around, just in time to swerve away from a parked car. She didn’t ease her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel until she had guided the car over to the side of the road and turned it off.

  “Didn’t you say the storm was magic? Bad magic? As in ‘Briar Rose making things messed up’ magic?” Becca asked turning back around in her seat to look at Lilia, her voice sounding as strained as Alex felt.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that really a good idea for our first time?” Becca continued nervously. “Shouldn’t we try to you know levitate some rocks before we move straight to raising the x-wing out of the swamp?”

  Lilia blinked at Becca. “I am sorry, what?”

  Alex rolled her eyes in spite of the lingering shock and fear that had taken root in the middle of her chest at the thought of going straight up against one of Briar Rose’s spells. “She’s b
een asleep for almost nine hundred years; pretty sure she missed The Empire Strikes Back.”

  “Right, sorry. What I mean is, shouldn’t we do something small first? And by small I’m thinking you know, tiny, minuscule, on the level of ‘oh, was that magic? Would have missed it if I blinked.’”

  Lilia smiled at Becca. “I know you two want to find out if you have magic, but based on the blessing spell you helped me work, I think we are past small already.”

  “Really? ‘Cause I am not so sure we are. I think the small stage could maybe, you know, be revisited. Cause we didn’t really know what we were doing or if we were doing anything at all.”

  “I thought you were excited about this experimenting,” Alex couldn’t help but point out.

  “I was…I am. But I wasn’t thinking we were jumping straight into trying to undo one of Briar Rose’s spells.” Becca laced her fingers together. “I realize that’s the natural conclusion of this. If it turns out we have, for whatever reason, some magic in us, eventually the point is to use it against her in some fashion. But I was hoping to start off in the shallow end of the pool.”

  “I do have a reason,” Lilia offered. “I think the storm is weakening. I do not know where Briar Rose has been for the last eight hundred years or more, or what she has been doing with herself. But I do know a spell of this magnitude takes a lot of power to hold. The rain has been getting lighter, the thunder and lightning have faded. If she has anything of herself invested into the bed—and I think she has a lot of herself there, then she has divided her powers pretty significantly. She is either not paying as much attention to this storm, or it is slipping away from her. Either way, it will make it easier to unravel at the edges, at the weak places.”

  “Great theory and all, but how does it make it a good idea for us to try taking the storm on first?” Becca asked. She had taken her hands off the steering wheel, but they were so tightly grasped together that her knuckles were beginning to go white again.