“Then there’ll be seven candidates left.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie. At least our consciences will be clear.”
We got to the ground. Dash and I stepped out into a stark white, empty hallway by the service area. He was looking at me expectantly, waiting for my verdict.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You were all gung ho to steal the Hansel’s complaint so we wouldn’t get caught. Now, all of a sudden, you’re Mr. Honesty, and you’re coming clean to the Queen. What happened?”
He grinned dopily. “Valerie. She and I are, um, pretty close these days, and I’ve told her everything. . . .”
I set my jaw, irked that he seemed to have forgotten his pass at me in the elevator. Was that really just a ruse to throw off the trolls? It certainly didn’t feel like one, going by those kisses.
“. . . and she convinced me that this is the right thing to do. How could I ever live with myself if I won the grant knowing that Marcus got screwed?”
“That’s a whole other issue, Dash. Remember?”
But he didn’t.
And that’s how I knew. I was being set up.
Twenty
An hour later, Tinker Bell put to bed, I had showered out the hair spray from the day and was stepping into a clean pair of shorts when there was a knock on my door. Jess, still in her Cinderella makeup.
“We never see each other anymore, so when I saw your light was on, I thought I’d stop by.” She flounced in and collapsed on her old bed, her new bed being in the sweet Princess Tower. “I miss you. I even miss this tiny, hot box.”
When Jess was promoted to Cinderella, she’d timidly requested to stay as my roomie, and the Queen had ripped her a new one for having the audacity to reject the Princess Tower. Probably no one had ever asked the question, since—aside from a better chance of winning the Dream & Do—spacious, air-conditioned rooms were the major reason why cast members wanted to become royalty.
“You’re better off where you are,” I said. “It’s quieter, so you can get more sleep.”
“Sleep? What’s that? Between working the breakfast and tuck-in shifts at the resort plus my regular shift in the park plus finding time to be with RJ, I’ve forgotten the concept.”
I stuffed Ian’s penlight into my pocket. “So you and RJ are still going strong, huh?”
She raised herself up on her elbows. “He’s so sweet, Zoe, and he’s really into me. Do you know he brings me coffee to my room every morning? And I have to get up at six!”
“Good. You deserve it.” Though I wondered what would happen when the internship was over and Jess went back to high school and RJ to college. Those college/high school romances never seemed to work out.
Jess jerked her chin at the flashlight in my pocket. “Are you going out? Don’t tell me the Queen’s sending you on another one of her bogus late-night errands.”
“This is for me.” For you.
I told her about my “accidental” run-in with Dash that, on second thought, didn’t seem so accidental after all. He’d been waiting for me. Jess listened, brows furrowed, but even she didn’t understand until I spelled it out.
“He didn’t get any of my hole puns. Therefore, Dash is not the prince.”
She laughed. “So? He knew about the shirt, Zoe, and you, the prince, and I are the only ones who know about that. How much more proof do you need?”
I sighed in exasperation. “You had to be there in the woods those two nights, Jess. If Dash had been the real . . .”
Jess put her finger to her lips.
I crawled next to her on the bed and lowered my voice to a whisper. “If Dash had been the real prince in the woods, he would have at least acknowledged the puns in some way. I’m telling you, there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition when I said ‘wholly responsible.’ It meant nothing to him.”
Jess lay back down again, arms crossed behind her head, thinking. “I’ve known you since the day you were born, Zoe. That’s seventeen years and counting, and you’re one of the most perceptive people I know. If your gut tells you that Dash is pushing you to confess to the Queen so he can whittle down the pool of candidates for the Dream and Do, then you’re probably right.”
Finally!
“Thank you.” I got up and grabbed my sneakers. No flip-flops.
“You’re going out there to find him, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Someone has to,” I said, yanking on my laces. “If Dash is going this far to get me disqualified, then we’re all in trouble, including the so-called traitor. Dash wants to win the Dream and Do bad, if not for himself, then to please his father, and the only way to save ourselves is by getting to the truth.”
“And if you find the real prince?”
I zipped up my school hoodie. “I have no idea. Kind of just planning on crossing that drawbridge when I get to it.”
The clock tower struck eleven when I headed toward the forest an hour past curfew without Tinker Bell as an excuse. Two rules violated with a single step.
To me the park was most magical after the guests have left, and this night was no exception. The Little Mermaid’s Falls shimmered with pink, blue, and yellow incandescence, and infinitesimal fairy lights twinkled in the trees. Here, the world was every inch a real fairyland.
A passing troll stopped to shine her flashlight in my direction, but then, recognizing me as the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, gave me a begrudging nod and trudged onward. The trolls had been treating me with a certain deference lately. I could only conclude this meant my boss must have told them to give me carte blanche to do as I pleased so I could perform the necessary preparations for our Special VIP. Believe you me, the trolls weren’t happy about this new agreement. They lived to bust us interns.
I’d just passed Snow White’s Cottage when I heard voices up ahead that sounded like Dash and Valerie. Since they were the last people I wanted to see, I hid behind one of the fake trees used by the witches to terrorize children and made myself small. They strolled by, arms around each other, murmuring and kissing. I could have probably been lying dead on the ground and they would have stepped over my body and kept kissing, that’s how absorbed they were in each other.
I waited for them to disappear over the hill to the Pied Piper’s Glen before hopping back on the path. The park became darker and darker the farther I got into the Haunted Forest. As a cost-saving measure, the gaslights had been turned lower to a dull yellow.
Snap. A branch behind me broke as if it had been stepped on. I froze to get a read on the situation.
Another snap. Then the soft tread of footsteps.
I was being followed. Yes!
My heart kick-started into a fast beat along with a bracing shot of adrenaline. This wasn’t a troll. Trolls tromped. It could have been another cast member out for a late-night walk—though, seeing as how I’d passed the fence to the Forbidden Zone, few would dare. The tiny rotating camera perched on top blinked its menacing red light. I stuck out my tongue at it when it swiveled in the opposite direction.
What I needed now was a lookout.
Latching on to an overhanging branch, I swung around silently and perched like a panther waiting to pounce. Meanwhile the footsteps got closer and closer, and my pulse pounded against my eardrums as I assessed the situation. From the stealthy way my follower also avoided the camera, by ducking down out of its range, I knew I’d found my prince.
He stopped a few feet away, sensing something. A stiff gust of wind blew, and I held on to my tree branch for dear life, praying my attacker wouldn’t become curious and . . .
“Zoe? Is that you?”
There was another gust of wind, and I jumped. Or maybe I fell. Anyway, I landed on him with a heavy grunt.
“Oof!”
He buckled under my weight, his body crashing into the soft forest ground. I rolled him over, pinning his arms and straddling his back. Then I turned on Ian’s penlight for a clear view of my would-be assailant.
“Hey!” he shouted. “I’ve been looking for th
at!”
No freaking way! I brushed aside his black hair. “Ian?”
With one swift move, his leg twisted around mine, and suddenly I was the one on the ground, and he was the one straddling me. “Never mess with a Texan. Haven’t you seen the bumper stickers?”
“I thought it was ‘Don’t Mess with Texas.’”
“Literary license.” He clucked his tongue in disappointment. “Man, I was so hoping the rumors Marcus spread before he left weren’t true.”
I spit out some pine needles. “What rumors?”
“That you’re the Queen’s snitch. You told on him and Jess, and now you’re hiding out in the forest waiting to catch people for violating curfew to rack up more points.” He rolled off and sat beside me, shrugging off his backpack. “And to think I’ve been sticking up for you.”
“Don’t even start. If anyone’s a snitch around here, it’s you,” I said, wiping dirt off my chin.
“Yeah, right.” He pulled a water bottle from the pocket of his backpack and unscrewed the top. “Because I’m the one hanging in trees like the monkey hall patrol.” He offered me a sip.
I was too angry and insulted to accept. “Let’s review the facts. You were the one lurking around the woods the other night when you saw me talking to the so-called traitor, and you scurried back to the Queen to tell her, so she could make you a Prince Charming. Now, you waited until I went into the woods so you could follow me for more incriminating evidence. It’s so obvious.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He took another, bigger swig. “I had no idea you were out here.”
“Then what are you doing in the Forbidden Zone past curfew?”
“It’s past curfew?” He shrugged. “I never pay attention to that kind of thing.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“No, I’m avoiding the answer. But, since you were the one who jumped me, I think it’s only fair that you tell me why and what you were doing hanging in a tree.”
Might as well. He was only going to blab to the Queen that he caught me in the FZ anyway. “If you wanna know the truth, I was trying to catch the traitor.”
Ian flicked his finger at me. “Called it!”
“But not for the reasons you assume. Marcus got sent back to California, thanks to you, and now there are only ten people left who are eligible for the Dream and Do. Dash wants to reduce it to two—him and Valerie. Tonight he almost got me to confess to the Queen that I’d met the traitor twice in the FZ—”
“You can’t do that,” Ian said. “You promised.”
I was about to tell him not to interrupt when I got confused. “Pardon?”
“The first night, when I pulled you from the quicksand, you said something about your being in my debt—though it seems to me since then you kind of forgot about all the nice stuff I’d done for you, such as saving your life. When we ran into each other next, you were all about being loyal to Fairyland.”
I was speechless, unable to move my lips, which hung open in shock. I braced myself for the Ian-esque punch on the shoulder, for him to admit that he’d overheard this in the gym or that he’d listened in on my conversations with Jess. Because he hadn’t even been a prince that first night. He’d been Puss ’n Boots. So he couldn’t have had access to the cologne.
“Seriously, you can’t go to the Queen. Just leave things as they are.”
We sat in silence for a while as I tried to piece this together. “In other words, what you’re saying is, as the witness instead of the perpetrator, I’m not wholly responsible.”
“Nah. You don’t want a stupid mistake like this to hole-d you down.”
I winced. And smiled. “So you’re the guy I’ve been running into?”
“Like I told you before, guilty as charged.”
Then I remembered Marcus, and things didn’t seem so rosy. “But that means you lied, Ian. You blamed Marcus for being the traitor slipping in and out of the FZ, when all along it had been you.”
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “No, I didn’t. Wow, you really do think I’m scum, don’t you?”
“If the shoe fits . . .”
“As it always does in Fairyland. Then you should know I did tell the Queen. The day after the party at the Frog Prince’s, after you said I was the prime suspect, I went to her office bright and early and came clean about why I’d been hiking at night and where I’d been going. I even told you that.”
“I thought—”
“You thought I told her lies about Marcus. I know, I know. You’ve only said it a million times. But I never mentioned Marcus once.”
“And yet you got his role as Prince Charming.”
“Crazy, isn’t it? She said I deserved it after working overtime teaching Marcus how to ride, for all that was worth, and for beefing up Puss ’n Boots so he wasn’t just a secondary character. Guess I must have showed a lot of Wow! spirit or whatever.”
Like Jess, I thought. But I was still confused. You could have all the Wow!™ spirit in the world and still be kicked out of the program for going into the Forbidden Zone. “I can’t believe she didn’t at least read you the riot act.”
He shrugged. “Nope. The only condition was I not tell anyone, so do me a favor and keep this to yourself.”
I slapped a mosquito that had been going to town on my ankle. “The bugs here are murder. I’m getting eaten alive.”
Ian fished into his pack and pulled out a small plastic bottle. Flicking it open, he squirted some of its contents on the palms of his hands, rubbed them together, and then ran them over my legs. The fumes of the princely cologne instantly fogged my brain. Or maybe it was the effect of Ian’s hands.
“The cologne?” I murmured.
“I got hold of a bottle the first day when I heard it was the best insect repellent ever. Guess that’s to be expected with something from the Amazon.” He stood and picked up his backpack while I tried to process that Ian had been using the valuable essence of some rare South American orchid as basically Deep Woods Off!.
“Where are you going?” I asked as he headed away from Fairyland.
“To my usual campsite.” He nodded westward. “The stars are spectacular out there. Wanna come?”
“Now?” Trespassing into the Forbidden Zone was bad enough. Spending the night was out of the question. “I can’t. If the Queen found out, she’d . . .”
“Make you a princess like she did me a prince?” He chuckled. “Look, Zoe, we’ve only got a few more weeks here. We’re not going to be sent home at this stage. Besides, I’m not going to win the Dream and Do, and probably you’re not either, and your coming with me won’t be a black mark on Jess, which is what I know you worry about. So, why not?”
When he said this, it was like he had lifted a heavy burden from my shoulders, a weight I hadn’t known I was carrying. Ian was right. Why not?
And so, I took his hand and followed him deeper into the woods simply because I had nothing to lose.
Twenty-one
We eventually emerged from the forest into a field where frogs croaked in harmony with a chorus of crickets. Even a few fireflies, stragglers from the early summer, rose from the grasses, twinkling to disappear among the stars. A waning moon shed an almost ethereal white light on the rubble of some ancient foundation.
Ian and I scaled the stones and arrived at the edge of a large, still pond reflecting the night sky. Rimmed by a sandy beach and protected by scrub pines, it was so pristine and untouched that I went, “Whoa!” a tad too loudly, causing the frogs to quit croaking and hop into the pond with a plop, plop.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Ian asked, smiling in the moonlight.
“We don’t have anything like this back in Bridgewater. Can you swim in it?” I’d heard lakes in the Pinelands were gross and swampy.
“Oh, yeah. It’s fed by a spring, and the bottom as far as I can tell is almost all sand.” He dropped his backpack onto the rocks, crossed his arms over his head, and pulled off his T-shirt. I tried not to l
ook, but he was a Prince Charming, after all, and let’s just say he met the minimum requirements.
Ian stood at the edge of the rubble, hands on hips. “It’s a dammed-up stream left from when there used to be a gristmill here, so it’s pretty shallow.” He put his arms out and dove in like a racer, skimming the surface.
I hadn’t brought a swimsuit, of course, so I sat on the rocks hugging my knees and feeling awkward.
Ian’s head popped out in the middle of the pond. “Come on in!”
“I don’t have a suit.”
“So what? I don’t care. Do you?”
Um, yeah. “I think I’ll pass.” Anyway, my toes were already curling at the prospect of frogs or fish below. I was a Jersey girl. We didn’t do ponds and fresh water. We did cement and chlorine.
“Don’t be a wimp, Kiefer. Come on in. I know you wanna.”
That was true, too, though mostly because I didn’t want Ian thinking I was such a prude that I was afraid to get my tank top wet. Without a passing thought as to whether this violated the Fairyland morality clause, I stepped out of my sneakers and shorts, shrugged off my shirt, and, wearing just my tank and underwear, ran off the rocks before I could chicken out.
Ian was right. The water felt wonderfully cool and smooth after the sticky-hot hike, and I was able to graze the sandy bottom before I surfaced, careful to keep my legs moving lest there be sea monsters.
“Isn’t it awesome?” Ian swam next to me and shook off the water. I didn’t know if he was going to be one of those guys who liked to torture girls by pulling them under and pushing them down, so I was relieved when he left me alone to float on his back and look at the stars.
“How’d you find this place?” I asked, doing the same. I’d never seen so many stars in my life. It had to be because there wasn’t any ambient light from a city or the interstate.
“Saw it on a map before I got here and decided to check it out. That’s the major reason why I agreed to do this internship, because of the Pinelands. Do you know there are actually carnivorous plants around here?”
How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True Page 14
