Americana Fairy Tale

by Lex Chase

  “Hungry?” Corentin asked, and Taylor was taken by surprise at his sudden overfriendliness. “How about a change of clothes?” He gestured to the diner. “It doesn’t have much selection, but I’m sure you’ll find something… less hideous.”

  “Read my freaking mind,” Taylor said, spitting giggles.

  CHAPTER 6:

  WHAT DO YOU DO

  WITH A PROBLEM LIKE TAYLOR?

  The Oasis Travel Center and Derailed Diner, Robertsdale, Alabama

  June 6

  AS TAYLOR sat at the counter sipping a Dr. Pepper inside the Derailed Diner, Corentin sat on the stool next to him. Corentin thumbed through his wallet. Taylor smiled, and Corentin caught the expression out of the corner of his eye. He was a cute kid, but if he ran off from his wedding, he wasn’t entirely a kid. Corentin knew the facts and figures that all Enchants married at twenty-five and not a day later. Maybe it was the wretched pink outfit. He was a scrawny thing. Did they not feed princesses? That was a weird enough concept already. Corentin had heard of the male princesses and female princes, but he had never run across any. Not that he remembered, anyway.

  Corentin considered his credit cards, trying to remember which one still worked and which one didn’t. His finger settled on the edge of the gold one, and he tried to jog his memory of when he’d last used it. Nothing came to mind, one way or another, so he settled on the platinum one. All of his cards had his name on them, so he was sure they were his, even if the driver’s license photo looked nothing like him. He’d never had a Mohawk, nor was he of Arabic descent.

  “Hey? Did I say something wrong?” Taylor asked and apparently never looked away with his big peach-pink eyes. That was a little weird too. Must be a princess thing.

  “Um, sorry,” he said, then flashed a smile. “Was just daydreaming. What is it?”

  “I asked where you’re from.” Taylor tilted his head in the way an eager puppy would. “I mean, your accent is insane.”

  Corentin arched a brow. “What acc—”

  Taylor burst into laughter and Corentin narrowed his eyes. “Don’t give me the ‘I don’t have an accent’ thing.”

  Corentin clued in quickly that it was the inherent trait in every Enchant to blindly trust. This would make things easier. He tried a smile, and Taylor seemed to go along with it. Corentin turned away and faked a cough, trying to find a way to change the subject. He turned back to Taylor again with a smile, and Taylor nodded obliviously. Corentin flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles on both hands. He couldn’t get over the pink-eyes thing. It was just far too bizarre. “My plates say Louisiana,” Corentin said and hooked a thumb at his Ford F-150 in the parking lot. “The one next to the Metro.” Taylor followed the gesture, and Corentin noticed the concern on his face. “It doesn’t look like much. But it gets me where I need to go.”

  Frustration always made Corentin’s temples throb. He reached into his canvas messenger bag and pulled out his lifeline. A stack of composition notebooks that had been duct-taped together to form one large compendium and was stuffed to the gills with papers, pictures, receipts, Post-Its, and every possible colored tab he could collect. He unhooked the bungee cord that held the monstrous notebook together and flipped to a page in the green-tabbed section. He scanned the pages, then flipped to another green tab that was six tabs later and continued scanning. He frowned and flipped to another green tab somewhere in the middle. He smiled.

  “Excellent,” Corentin said to himself and ran his finger over the list of credit cards to find which one was maxed and which one wasn’t. He closed the notebook, which still remained open by ten inches, fished out his gold card, and slid it toward Taylor. “Use this one.”

  Meanwhile, Taylor sat still and silent. He stared at Corentin like he had just sprouted three heads.

  On Taylor’s shoulder, his fairy godfather was the first to say something. “You know, if you’re a hoarder… it’s cool,” Ringo said cautiously.

  “Ringo,” Taylor hissed.

  Corentin’s attention darted to his tome and back to the princess and fairy. He glanced at his mishmash of notebooks again. “Oh, yeah. That….” He tried to sound as casual as possible.

  “Not to sound rude,” Taylor said and pointed. “But that is a little weird.”

  “It’s my curse, you know. Every Enchant has one.” He placed his hand on the steep slope of the cover. “Have to write everything down.”

  “Like a Storyteller?” Taylor asked, and Corentin recognized in Taylor’s smile that his trust had returned.

  He looked past Taylor to the yellow school bus mounted on the wall behind the counter. The lights still blinked like it was preparing to stop. “Kind of like that,” he lied, then changed the subject. “What’s yours?”

  Taylor wilted under the question. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said quietly.

  Corentin grinned. “Let me guess. When the sun sets, you turn into a mermaid?”

  “I don’t really have one.”

  Corentin thought he heard Taylor mumble. He leaned closer to hear better. “Don’t have what? A tail?” he asked.

  Taylor looked down at his lap, and his fists tightened. “A curse. I don’t have a curse.”

  Corentin blinked and recoiled out of Taylor’s space. “You don’t? You’re Curseless?”

  Taylor frowned darkly. “Why don’t you announce it to everyone, asshole?”

  “Wow,” Corentin said, then turned back to his messenger bag. “Yow.”

  Taylor fidgeted with his fork, running his thumb over the tines. Corentin noticed he had only eaten half of his burger. The Derailed Diner wasn’t particularly known for anything not swimming in grease. Patrons talked around them in a low, undulating wave of chatter. Taylor wouldn’t look at Corentin.

  Ringo, on the other hand, glared venom upon him. “I think you need to occupy yourself for minute,” Ringo stated with terrible calmness.

  Corentin puffed a sigh and pushed away from the counter. “Yeah, got it,” he said and slid the credit card closer to Taylor’s elbow. “Here. Take it and get yourself something to change into. There’s showers in the back. Might make you feel better.”

  Taylor muttered something that sounded like a thank you, and Corentin took that as his cue to shuffle off to the restrooms. He glanced over his shoulder and watched Taylor lift the card off the counter and flip it through his fingers.

  Corentin shoved his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket, and his fingers fluttered over the contours of his phone and pocketknife. He pivoted and bumped his way into the men’s room by pushing the door with his shoulder. After stepping carefully over the floor tiles, he stooped and checked under the stall doors for occupants. He then peeked around the dividing wall toward the urinals. One guy was finishing up, and Corentin twisted away quickly toward a sink and picked at his hair in the mirror.

  He listened for the flush and the footsteps toward the sinks. The guy rounded the corner, and Corentin put on a mask of casualness as he ran the water in his sink. He pretended to pay no attention and splashed water on his face, pressed his fingers to his tired, itchy eyes, and smoothed his hair back with damp hands. He snatched a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped his face, then held the towel there until he heard the telltale swing of the door.

  Alone at last.

  Corentin hurried to the door, light on his feet, and his heavy work boots made barely a sound on the tiles. He upended the metal trash can and wedged it tight under the door handle. He took a breath, counted to five, and listened for approaching steps. Nothing. His ears perked when he heard the whisper of toilet paper. Corentin looked toward the stalls and found a tail wafting from the ventilation.

  Returning to the sink, he retrieved his pocketknife and antiquated candy-bar phone from his pocket. He had noted in his tome of composition notebooks that he tried to make calls on it once. But with no charger and no knowledge if it had even been activated among the mundane human companies, it wasn’t for that. A hag down on the bayou had showe
d him what to do and whom it would call.

  He flipped the corkscrew out of his knife with one hand and balanced the phone on the lip of the sink. He mentally counted backward from seven, and when he came to one, he drove the point of the corkscrew into his left palm. He gasped from the familiar but always disconcerting pain. The sacrifice was always needed on behalf of his kind. As the blood flowed down his fingers, he tossed the pocketknife into the bowl of the sink. Corentin scooped up the phone in his left hand, and the blood slicked over the back casing.

  The magic was instant. Black and green tendrils of energy seeped from his wrist and leeched over the phone. The tiny screen blinked to life in a green spark, and he lifted it to his ear. No need to dial—the phone only called whom he served at any given time. It rang once and then clicked with the connection.

  “What is it?” Charles’s voice growled over the static.

  “You didn’t tell me he was Curseless,” Corentin said with irritation. He dabbed the beads of sweat collecting on his forehead.

  “I didn’t?” Charles said, sounding surprised. “It must have slipped my mind.”

  In the mirror, Corentin watched his face contort with slowly brewing anger. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a Curseless princess? We had a deal. I bring him to you and you release me.”

  “Did I say that?” Charles said. “Wow, your memory might be getting a bit dodgy.”

  Corentin’s knees quaked with the magic draining through him into the phone. He leaned on the sink for support. “Don’t you dare patronize me. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  “Oh, huntsman….” Charles trailed off with a chuckle. “Do you think threatening someone like me is going to work? That’s cute.”

  Corentin sighed, feeling the sweat pour down his back. He couldn’t win this argument, and Charles knew it very well. “What would you have me do?” he sighed in defeat.

  “It’s very simple. You don’t even have to take notes in your ghastly book,” Charles said with a smile in his voice. “Curseless or not, Taylor remains a princess in the Hatfield clan. Taylor is, regrettably, the eldest child in the family line. I can’t enact my plan to the fullest until he’s properly disposed of, due to all that magical bond business that the younger princesses can’t be acted upon until the older princesses are married off. I’m certain you recall every last detail….”

  Corentin didn’t, but he wasn’t going to press it. And he needed Charles to get to his point in the next three minutes before he passed out from the strain. “What the hell are you going on about?” he grunted and tightened his grip on the sink.

  “Since you won’t remember any of this anyway by dawn, let me spell out my fiendish plan as a true villainous cliché,” Charles said. “Let’s begin with a very simple statement. Taylor’s younger brother, the bastion of virtue he is, is this generation’s Snow White. You know what that means, right? Deep in your Cronespawn soul, you don’t even have to search your thin memories.”

  “The Witch Butcher…,” Corentin whispered, then wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  “Precisely,” Charles said. “As long as Taylor remains walking this green earth, his younger brother is immune to the majority of my magic. I thought by marrying him off to Phillipa Montclair, she’d discreetly take care of all my problems.”

  Corentin’s blood boiled at the name. “Phillipa? That thing?”

  “Oh, are we still scared of a pretty girl?” Charles said. “I will admit she does have some pretty big teeth….” He hesitated and then chuckled. “About to faint yet?”

  Corentin’s thighs tingled with muscle spasms. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Get to the point. What do you want me to do? Cut out Taylor’s heart and bring it to you? You’ll release me then?”

  “Did I promise any of that?” Charles said, chuckling.

  “If you don’t, I’ll see to it no harm comes to Taylor,” Corentin growled.

  “Huntsman…,” Charles said. “Don’t be so stupid. If Taylor stays alive, his brother comes into power over all Enchants. And if that happens, Snow White will bring genocide against all witches and their kin. You understand this means you too. My plan is very reasonable, you see? Just take Taylor out to the middle of nowhere, put your trusty knife into his chest, and dump him. Simple as that.”

  “Simple as that,” Corentin repeated.

  “And since I am such a giving person,” Charles said. “I’ll put it in your head to remember your orders and be tempted every step of the way. How’s that?”

  “And you’ll release me,” Corentin stated. “I have your word.”

  Instead, Corentin was greeted with the sound of static and the phone going dead.

  “Dammit!” Corentin spat and threw the phone into the sink alongside the knife.

  He gripped the sink and stared at himself in the mirror. Even under the usual dust and dirt, he had gone pale with the drain of his tiny sliver of magic.

  Behind him, the privacy stall flushed. He froze and stared in bewilderment as the lock popped apart and Taylor’s pixie fluttered out while zipping his pants. Ringo nodded to Corentin and drifted over to the sink next to the one with the bloody knife and phone. He washed his hands and studied himself in the mirror, checking his teeth and smacking his lips.

  Corentin watched the tiny pixie in silence, his chest heaving with the need for air.

  The scruffy little man fluttered around Corentin, bounced on the paper towel lever, and pulled off a sheet to dry his hands. All the while, Ringo glared at him. “Cut out his heart, huh?” Ringo openly accused him.

  Corentin snapped into action with the surge of adrenaline that overtook his need to pass out. Lunging forward, he tried to snatch Ringo out of the air. Ringo evaded him and zipped upward out of reach. Corentin crashed into the sinks and scrambled on top of them to reach the pixie. Ringo fluttered in a figure-eight pattern and showered nervous glittering dust onto Corentin, who coughed and flailed, only managing to rip off Ringo’s tiny shoe.

  Ringo yelped and fluttered for the door, then fumbled to pull the handle with his doll-sized frame. Corentin seized the moment and slapped his hands around Ringo’s middle.

  The pixie wiggled in his grasp. “Lemme go! Lemme go!” Ringo yelped and then chomped on Corentin’s finger.

  Corentin barked in surprise with the stab of pixie teeth. “You little shit,” he grunted. “Listen to me.”

  Ringo squirmed and kicked his feet. “Oh, I heard plenty. Just you wait till I get my hands on you!”

  “You really want to listen to me,” Corentin said tersely. “I’m on your side.” At the worst moment, Corentin’s knees buckled, and he fought to keep his hold on Ringo. “Please listen,” he said and slumped against the nearby wall. “I want to help.” Corentin slid down the wall and sat upon the tiles. Thankfully, he might have gotten through to Ringo, because the little man watched him with concern.

  “You don’t look so hot, boyo,” Ringo said.

  The lights were glaring in Corentin’s line of vision, and he rested his head against the wall. “Dark magic…,” he said with a sigh. “I have a bit of it in me, but it doesn’t agree with my system. Comes with the huntsman turf.”

  “And if you use too much dark magic, it’ll eventually kill you,” Ringo said. “Unless you break your curse.”

  “Exactly,” Corentin said. “Which is why I need Taylor.”

  Ringo’s eyebrows furrowed. “I think we’ve been through this. I’m not letting you cut out his heart.”

  “I’ve reconsidered that part,” Corentin said, trying to catch his breath. “You… need to understand…. Charles isn’t the Curseless simpleton he appears to be. He has Taylor’s brother captive, and I think you can put two and two together from here.”

  Ringo looked down at Corentin’s bloody knuckles and the blood seeping into his pressed shirt and tie. “Glad I could serve as a rag for your hand.” The pixie didn’t sound enthused about it. “So you’re telling me Charles is in cahoots with a witch to bump off Snow Whit
e via bumping off his older brother.”

  “Not in cahoots. Is,” Corentin said.

  “Is…?” Ringo asked, then gasped. “Charles is a witch?”

  “Ayup,” Corentin said, and his eyelids fluttered. His head drooped and then jerked with the return of consciousness. “That’s why we’re killing him. I break my curse, and we save Taylor’s brother.”

  “And I should trust you, why?” Ringo asked.

  “Because lucky you, with Taylor being Curseless, there’s no way it would help my cause,” Corentin murmured as sleep danced along the edges of his mind.

  “And if Taylor had one?” Ringo asked.

  “I wouldn’t be appealing to your reasonable senses.” Corentin’s grip on Ringo loosened enough to release the pixie.

  Ringo took flight again and hovered out of reach. He glanced to the barricaded door and back to Corentin. “I’m going to hate myself in the morning, but I realize we need someone with your particular set of skills,” Ringo said with a sigh. “I’m going to see if this works.” He lowered to Corentin’s face and hovered there while he collected a golden ball of light in his palm. “Hold still.” He pushed the light between Corentin’s eyes.

  The pixie magic thrummed in Corentin’s synapses, and the restroom bloomed into bright candy colors and birds tweeting. Daisies sprouted through the cracks and opened with smiling baby faces. A unicorn trotted by on his way to the urinals. Corentin felt instantly alert, aware, and blissed out happy.

  And then he belched smoke.

  Ringo drifted back as Corentin got to his feet. “Uh-oh,” Ringo said as Corentin staggered to the nearest stall. Corentin heaved once and expelled the contents of his greasy meal into the toilet. The clarity that rushed into his thoughts was a relief.

  “You all right?” Ringo asked.

  Corentin nodded and hurried to the sinks to gather the knife and the phone, then scrubbed out his mouth. He blinked, and the land of enchantment that had filled the bathroom vanished. “Congrats, little man,” Corentin said and kicked the trash can away from the door. “You have a particular set of skills as well that will be very useful to me too.”