To The Fairest

by Adrianne Brooks

  She didn’t turn as she replied.

  “It was fine at first.” She told me. “When you were making doe eyes at one another and playing a little slap and tickle. But it’s a bit more serious than that now, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah.” I stated. “We’re getting married. I’d call that serious.”

  “I don’t know if you realize this Alexandria, but Marriage leads to sex, and sex leads to babies.”

  I bit my lip to keep from saying anything.

  “Oh you poor, misguided woman.”

  “What?”

  Shit, had I said that out loud?

  “Nothing.” I hastened. This was going so well I couldn’t screw things up by breaking it to my mother about sexual promiscuity of today’s average American. “What’s wrong with babies?” I said instead. Striving for casual. “I know you want grandkids. When I went to Prom you poked a hole in a condom and winked at me before you slipped it into my purse.”

  “That was the byproduct of ambition and greed.” She admitted. “Everyone else had prospects. You, on the other hand, went to the prom with Rachel. I got desperate.”

  “Ma.” I said. “Focus. What would be so bad about Sam and I having kids?”

  She went silent and for a moment I was afraid that I’d aroused her suspicions somehow. In the end, all she said was:

  “You mix drinks not species.”

  In a way, what she didn’t say felt even more ominous than what she did say and I took my leave feeling more confused and worried than when I’d come over in the first place.

  Chapter Four

  I liked to run to clear my head.

  Back when my magic had been out of control, I wouldn’t have risked an early morning jog through my neighborhood. I lived in a relatively safe part of town. Here, people were more likely to steal your stocks and bonds than the rims off your car. However, back then, it didn’t matter how safe a place was. Once my power flared it was like being surrounded by a pack of hunters. Hunters who wanted certain things from me and who didn’t necessarily care what I wanted or how I felt in the process of their pursuit.

  I didn’t truly appreciate how trapped I’d been, how secluded I’d felt, until I no longer had to worry about all of it anymore. As it turned out, I actually liked exercising. Pushing my body. Feeling the exertion on my muscles and the blankness of mind that came when I finally fell into my ‘zone’. I hadn’t felt uncomfortable in my own skin in a long time. A state of affairs that I was still growing used to.

  There was a part of me that still expected it to be snatched away. To be hunted again. So there was a jittery sensation in the pit of my stomach even as I closed my eyes and enjoyed the flow of morning air against my face. At first I didn’t know what the sound was. The chirping of birds and the soft rumble of early morning traffic as the world woke up was a band all its own. Even if I hadn’t been lost in my own thoughts, I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to distinguish the normal city noises from the singing if the squeal of tires hadn’t jerked me out of my own head.

  I looked up just as the madly swerving car hit a lamppost.

  Oddly enough, that wasn’t the most eye catching thing happening in the street.

  A woman was strolling down the middle of main. She didn’t seem to have a specific destination or purpose in mind. Rather she simply strolled in lazy patterns, a soft smile on her face as she sang to the animals surrounding her on all sides.

  I slowed to a stop, my jaw dropping.

  These weren’t just domesticated dogs and cats, though that would have been strange enough all its own. There were deer and robins, crows and rats, a bear cub, an old lumbering tiger, a kangaroo, a horse, a puma, a fox, and a monkey. They swarmed around the woman, gazing up at her adoringly as she led them. Ten and twenty deep with more on the way. A swarm of hornets swooped past to join the parade and I stumbled out of their way. As I did so, I realized that I wasn’t the only one staring in abject fascination and confusion. Shop owners stood at their windows and doorways, pedestrians lowered their phones and stopped their cars. A school bus full of children pulled over to the side of the road and the excited, high pitched voices of the residents of Live Oak Elementary joined the fray.

  At first I thought the circus was in town and she was a performer. But something about the way the animals flocked around her seemed familiar. Then it hit me. They were enspelled, most likely by her singing. The girl in question looked radiant. Transcendent. There was a glow to her that defied logic, that screwed with my peace of mind. Her eyes were a bright, burning blue and her dark hair moved about her body like something living. She wore a yellow nightgown that came to the middle of her thighs and her feet were bare, as if she’d just been pulled from bed.

  I was reminded of Lord Byron’s poem, She walks in Beauty. I’d never seen someone who so perfectly embodied the concept. It was frightening, humbling. We all stared as her song came to a crescendo. It was a wordless melody. Rising through the air as if thousands of other voices sang along with her. My eyes filled with tears and I took a step towards her. But before I could get too close, before any of us could, a sparkling mist began to climb up the length of her body. It was as if someone had turned on a spotlight beneath her skin. It burst from the center of her chest, traveled up her throat and blinded us to her features. Her head fell back, hair falling in waves down her spine as her back arched. Her mouth opened and the glimmering, sparkling light struggled free and dissipated as soon as it found freedom.

  The woman, more human than celestial creature now, collapsed. As she fell her body broke apart, moths taking over where flesh and limbs should have been. Her clothes hit the ground with a whisper and the animals awoke from their respective trances with cries of outrage. They scattered into the crowd, people screamed, and I stood still as the street erupted in chaos.

  * * * *

  I walked back into the apartment to find Sam perched in front of the television.

  He knew perfectly well how to sit on a couch but was almost more comfortable perching on the coffee table like an oversized gargoyle. His dark hair was plaited in a braid over one shoulder and he wore his reading glasses, a pair of gray sweatpants, and nothing else. I had a moment to appreciate his bare back. The tanned flesh stretched tight over muscle. Under my scrutiny I saw something ripple beneath his skin and my heart skipped a beat. I drew in a sharp breath and Sam looked over his shoulder at me with a frown.

  “The zoo lost their exhibits.”

  “Ah.” I murmured as the pieces fell into place. His brow quirked.

  “Ah?”

  “Let’s just say we ran into each other during my jog.”

  “Let’s say a bit more than that.”

  I hesitated and his eyes narrowed. I had never been able to figure out if he was really far-sighted or if he simply liked wearing the glasses for some reason. I couldn’t complain of course. He was a cutie patootie either way. I told him what happened as I stripped off my sweaty clothes and headed for the shower. Our guest bathroom had finally gotten repaired after our last ‘adventure’ and I eyed it fondly as I bypassed it on the way to the master bedroom.

  “She sort of reminded me of Conric.” I finished, stepping under the hot water and letting it coat me from head to foot. Conric had been the deceptively charming Piper we’d met back when I was looking for a ‘cure’. He’d had the power to weave spells through musical notes, allowing him to control anyone, and anything, he wished. Sam leaned against the corner of the shower stall and watched me, his gaze heated. I was proud of his restraint. Usually he would have come into the spray with me, clothes or no clothes, and we would have had some dirty, soapy, fun. But I had an interview today, and had to leave again soon if I didn’t want to miss out on my first chance at employment since I’d finally graduated from school. It was a position as a sales clerk. Nothing glamorous, but it would give me some cash flow until I found something better. Mostly I was just proud of myself for working at all. I’d never thought I’d be getting out
of the house, interacting with people, living my life. There was some crazy shit going down, true, but this was better than the non-life I’d almost resigned myself to.

  “She couldn’t have been a piper.” He said finally, deep voice pulling me back to the conversation at hand. “Pipers need some sort of instrument to channel their magic and focus their will. Did she have anything like that on her?”

  I thought back and finally had to shake my head.

  “She was practically naked.” Said, lathering quickly as my thoughts began to race. “If she had an instrument, I’m not sure where she would have hidden it.” I frowned, and turned to look at him as I rinsed the suds from my skin. “But if she wasn’t a Piper then what was she?”

  Sam’s eyes had gone blank, his face a mask of concentration, and I sighed as I turned off the water. He eyed me like a hawk while I stepped from the shower and wrapped a waiting towel around my nakedness. Only then did he tune back into the conversation and meet my eyes again.

  “She was enchanted.” He said calmly, as if there had been no break in our exchange at all. I rolled my eyes and led him back into the bedroom so I could dress in my interview ensemble. “Or cursed.” He continued as I slipped on panties without dropping my towel. He seemed disappointed.

  “How so?”

  “The light.” Sam explained. “The fact that it died as soon as the spell was done and the way her body changed.” He shrugged. “It sounds like she was acting out the final stages of a curse or charm. Something her human body wasn’t able to control or fight.”

  I pulled on a pair of pinstriped dress pants and matching vest as I mulled this over.

  “Who could have done such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.” He said honestly, then his gaze hardened. “But her Godmother should have saved her. There was no reason why things should have gotten so far.”

  “What makes you think she had a Godmother?”

  “The moths were carrying that girl’s spirit away. Probably back towards her Godmother. If she hadn’t had a FG she would have just been another corpse.”

  “How sad.” I murmured. And it was. To think that this poor woman had lost her life because her Godmother hadn’t done her job…

  It made me think of Maleficent.

  Of the fact that I still hadn’t see her.

  Worry ate at me.

  “Hey?” I glanced up as Sam stepped into my space and smiled down at me. He grabbed one hand in his own and wrapped the other around my waist. Then he began to sway our bodies, back and forth, as he pulled me in close. A dance that was both whimsical and full of promise. I smiled, unable to stop myself.

  “Hey yourself.” I said.

  “You wanna play hooky today?”

  I laughed. “I should probably wait until after I get the job to start playing hooky.”

  “Common.” He whispered, leaning down to bite the lobe of my ear. I shuddered at the dark promise in his voice. “Live a little. You’re a bad girl at heart. I know it. Come play with me today.”

  “Don’t you have dragon stuff to attend to your highness?” It took more will power than I knew I possessed to say that, but I did it. I knew he was worried about me, but Sam was dedicated to his clutch. It didn’t help that he had a lot of misplaced guilt to work off for what they’d all sacrificed to keep him alive when the brain tumor should have killed him. He sighed, disappointed in me, in the reminder that he had obligations besides indulging in me, and stopped our dance. Leaning his forehead against mine, he wrapped both hands around my waist so that he could cup my ass in his hands.

  I squealed, and he grinned.

  “I have someone I want you to meet.”

  “Now?”

  He laughed. “No. Tonight.” Sobering, his hands began to travel over my body. Not in a sexual sense like at first. More like he was committing the feel of my skin, the shape of me, to memory. “It’s about the baby.”

  Instantly anxious, I ducked my head.

  “His name is Clementine. He’s a healer. A dragon healer. If anyone can help us with this, it’s him.”

  “Why would a dragon need with a healer?” I asked, for lack of anything better. “I thought you all could heal on your own?”

  He shrugged and pulled away. “Some wounds are too deep to fix.” He said sadly. .”You should know that better than anyway. Biting my lip, I couldn’t help but feel as if I should have taken him up on his earlier offer of some naked time shenanigans. It was too late now. It wouldn’t have been very productive, but at least we could have avoided this grim mood. I sighed, knowing it was too late to give in to temptation but wishing I could do so all the same.

  * * * *

  The high end boutique was just one in a long line of novelty shops along the boulevard. Style and Flair catered to the upper middle class with its vintage fashions and $300 Prada purses on the same shelves as hand knit scarves. The place had an easy, jazzy sort of atmosphere that was both charming and exciting.

  I waltzed into the store with ten minutes to spare till my appointment. There were a group of woman standing next to a rack of clothes and I walked over to join them. Intending to ask the most professionally dressed amongst them if they knew where I could find Madam LaRue. I’d never met Madam LaRue but thanks to her reputation, it was almost as if I knew the woman personally. LaRue wasn’t a society matron in the traditional sense. She was more like the madam of a brothel. Her ‘girls’ being the numerous items of clothing that she dedicated her days to collecting. LaRue’s prices were exorbitant and her patience nil. The one and only time she’d tried to implement a layaway policy she’d had to break a woman’s kneecaps for missing payments.

  This was all speculation of course. The stories told about her probably blown out of proportion. Whether or not LaRue was the equivalent of a Mobster Fashionista, I was sure that I’d be able to handle her. If I couldn’t then I’d owe my neighbor Mrs. Pearson twenty bucks. As I neared the group, I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. The strain in their voices that bespoke trouble. My steps quickened and I shouldered my way to the center of the circle only to stop dead in my tracks.

  A young girl lay in a heap on the floor. Her eyes were wide and frightened and she was sobbing and clutching her head, her body straining and bucking. My eyes narrowed as I took a closer look, and I failed when I realized that the weight of her hair was keeping her pinned to the ground. Her hair was growing, faster and faster, it spread across the floor of the boutique with all the fluidity and inexplicable speed of running water. Blond tresses shining like spun gold under the recessed lighting in baseboards and ceiling. The hair touched one woman’s bare toes through her open toed flats and we all stumbled back in alarm.

  I could see the hardwood straining under the weight of the girl’s hair, her body rising off the ground, inches and then feet at a time as her hair continued to grow. If she could have spoken around the strain placed on her neck and upper body I think she would have screamed. Her eyes said she wanted to when they weren’t tearing up at the pain.

  “For god’s sake.” One woman said breathlessly, turning her gaze from the teenager long enough to glare at the rest of us. “Somebody do something.” She ordered. I think, until that moment, shock and horror had kept us all still. Having someone voice the need for action gave us permission to do so and I wasn’t the only one who stepped forward. Walking across the growing sea of hair. It was gaining height now, growing upwards like a hill, the girl’s lower body dangling as she struggled for air, her throat stretched the breaking point. I couldn’t get near her scalp without actually climbing the golden strands like some sort of mountain.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a woman take a pair of seamstress shears to the hair. The scissors cracked and fell apart in her hands. Other women were trying the same thing, cutting and hacking with whatever they could get their hands on, all with the same results. Knowing that no one would be paying any attention, and not sure I cared if they did, I slid my hands deep within the mound and whis
per a single word.

  “Burn.”

  A while ago, an amount of time that was hard to measure with the human mind, Sam and I had been trapped on the other side of the veil. Deep within what had once been the Goblin Market. There, Sam had managed to burn me, indirectly, with his dragon fire. Later, I’d eaten his heart. I’d never spoken of it to anyone, but ever since I’d consumed that part of Sam something had happened to me. I could feel it, in my bones, in my marrow, when he used his flames. When he pulled the fire from deep within his soul to burn the world. I didn’t understand what made me do what I did, or even how I was able to pull it off, but there was a whisper in my mind. A rumbling in my womb. It filled my body with heat, a raging inferno, and my vision narrowed as I released it through the palms of my hands, a lance to strike through the wall of hair.

  It was just a flash, like a lightning strike, over too quickly to really comprehend. But then the scent of burning hair hit me and the strands beneath my feet screamed and shriveled up into thin black husks. The spark had been lit and the dragon fire took off. Eating through the enchanted hair until nothing was left. When the smoke cleared, the girl was once again flat on the ground. She was bald, burns decorating her scalp, but she was breathing easy and peaceful under a blanket of unconsciousness.

  I stepped out of the way as customers and employees both swarmed her. Some seeing what the extent of the damage was, while other pulled out cell phones to call for help. I looked up to meet the eyes of the older woman who had ordered everyone into action and she smirked at the sight of me. Looking me up and down, she took in my outfit and glanced briefly at the clock on the wall.

  “Alexandria Greyson?” She asked blandly.

  I blinked, but managed to nod shortly. This must be LaRue. She stood tall and firm, red hair left loose around her shoulders and her tea jacket and fitted calf length skirt looking freshly pressed. Her heels had to be at least four inches high and the many rings decorating her fingers looked too heavy for her hands. They matched the red gemstone necklace hanging about her neck.