by Bach, Shelby
Almost sure that I was the worst swordswoman that EAS had ever seen, I started on the messy piles of weapons.
I turned one spear over and over in my hands, wondering if maybe I was training with the wrong weapon, but my arms were so weak that I kept losing control and knocking over the row of staffs I had just put away. I gave up, settling the spear back where I found it.
Maybe I was just bad at everything.
Then the torches snuffed out abruptly.
I squinted, looking back at the open door, now the only source of light in the closet.
“Hello?” I called uncertainly.
No one and nothing answered, but metal clattered behind me. I winced, wondering what else I had knocked over.
Then I heard the clanking sound again, this time behind the door, and peered closer into the shadows. I wasn’t alone. A large figure rose to his feet in the back of the room. “No way,” I murmured and nervously stepped back.
The figure lurched forward clumsily, hair standing in tufts on his hands and shoulders. The dim light reflected dully on his dark gray skin. It looked like metal.
Iron Hans? Here? My mind flew to the story that afternoon, but I couldn’t believe that even Hansel would be mean enough to send a villain after a kid.
One gray hand fell on a shelf of unused swords, clanking again like metal on metal, and in his other hand, he held the double-headed ax. It was as tall as I was. It could cut me in half with one chop.
I froze, terrified. I knew I needed to run. I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t obey. My mind went blank.
Iron Hans stumbled forward another step, raising the ax above his head.
I squeezed my eyes shut, shoulders hunched forward, waiting for the blow to fall. From the back of my throat came a very small, very embarrassing squeak.
Then someone laughed in a very familiar way. Two someones.
I opened my eyes a crack. The torches burned again, and I saw Chase letting Adelaide down from his shoulders. They were both laughing so hard that he almost dropped her.
I stared at them, filled with a completely different kind of horror. I would never live this down, not in a million years. Chase wouldn’t let me.
Once Adelaide’s feet were on the ground, Chase straightened up with a clink. Both of them wore chain mail, their hands and faces covered with pewter paint. “I knew Yellowstone was a fluke,” Chase said, grinning. “You’re no braver than the rest of us.”
“I never said I was,” I murmured. Adelaide carried a small hatchet, and I couldn’t understand how I thought I’d seen a double-headed ax.
“A room full of weapons and she didn’t even reach for one,” Chase said gleefully, as if I hadn’t said anything, and my fists curled at my sides.
“She didn’t even move.” Adelaide slid the hatchet back into a row of axes.
“Not a Companion I would want on my Tale,” Chase said.
“Basically, a Failed Tale waiting to happen,” Adelaide said.
It was true. It was so true that I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t even argue, and that upset me more than anything.
Without even looking at the rows of weapons I was supposed to be straightening, I turned on my heel and ran out of the closet.
In my head, a voice a lot like Hansel’s said, Class, Rory has just demonstrated how not to handle an ambush. I’m sure most of you will realize what kinds of problems you’ll create if you don’t move when someone attacks.
What if I froze up this badly during a real Tale?
ory Landon, what are you hiding under your desk?” Mrs. Coleman asked.
I froze, caught, as the whole class turned in my direction. I’d been reading “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.” I was so far back in the classroom I thought the teacher would never notice. Oops.
“Nothing.” I shoved the library book deep within the desk.
“Give it to me.” Mrs. Coleman crossed the room briskly. My face burning, I surrendered the book. “The Complete Works of Charles Perrault?” The students laughed, but Mrs. Coleman seemed more puzzled than angry. “See me after class.”
For a second, I wished she had just sent me out of the room, where I could have sneaked to my locker to grab another collection of fairy tales.
I had been reading since I’d got home the night before. After Mom had turned off my light around ten, I’d read under the covers with a flashlight. When I woke up hours later with drool on the page, I read over breakfast.
Reading was better than thinking.
And I really wished I didn’t have to think. I’d just found out that the original Sleeping Beauty was called Aurora. I’d never hated my name so much. I spent the rest of the period miserable, ashamed that I was such a useless coward. I was only fit for the kind of Tale where I pricked my finger and slept for a hundred years.
The bell rang, sounding about a million miles away. After my classmates filed out, Mrs. Coleman sat me down for “the Talk.” I had heard six different versions of it.
“Rory, your behavior is absolutely unacceptable. I don’t know what teachers at your previous schools overlooked because of your . . . circumstances.”
The word she wanted to use was “parents.”
“But,” she continued, “if I catch you reading in class again, you’ll face some very serious consequences.”
Most of my teachers treated me differently from the other kids. Half tried to make me a teacher’s pet so they could cozy up to Mom during the parent-teacher conference. The other half tried so hard not to play favorites that I ended up getting in trouble.
“Sorry, Mrs. Coleman,” I said dully, just hoping she would let me go soon. “It won’t happen again.”
I got off relatively easy. She had me alphabetize all the documentary videos in the supply closet. Next time, she promised, she would send a note home to Mom.
A week ago, Mrs. Coleman’s speech would have really bothered me, but now I had bigger things to worry about.
In fairy tales, all Characters were special. Some sort of trait set them apart.
Rapunzel had her hair. Red Riding Hood had her outfit. Thumbelina and Tom Thumb were both amazingly small. Even an ordinary Character usually got some sort of magical item to help them through their Tale, like Aladdin getting his lamp.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Didn’t Kelly have Puss-in-Dress? Hadn’t Evan’s appetite made him eat the White Snake?
I wasn’t special, not like that.
Chase and Adelaide were probably right. Maybe Yellowstone had been a fluke.
If I wanted a cool Tale, I would have to hope for some sort of magical item. Then again, what use would it be if I froze the second I needed to use it?
I felt a little more hopeful by the time I finished with the videos and Mrs. Coleman let me go. Names and Tales were separate, right? That was why Sarah Thumb had gotten so mad when Philip called her Thumbelina. Maybe the name Aurora was just a coincidence.
Bursting back into the courtyard only a half hour late, I spotted Lena at her usual table under the Tree and jogged over. An odd wooden crate-thing took up most of the table space. I couldn’t see what was in it, but lavender smoke spilled over the top and unfurled down the sides, dribbling over the rim of the table and into the grass. Except for the color, it was like a dry-ice experiment.
It had to be weird even for EAS, because most kids gave Lena and the smoke a wide berth.
It couldn’t be too dangerous, though—not if Lena was sitting in the middle of it, staring into the smoke with a fixed maniacal gleam in her eyes.
Besides, anything was safer than the Table of Never-Ending Instant Refills. Chase was there, with the rest of the sixth graders.
So, I kicked through the weird smoke. It was warm and kind of sticky, like steam from a very hot shower, and it smelled like applesauce.
“I’m kind of afraid to ask,” I told Lena. I dropped into a seat next to her and tried not to freak out when the herd of sixth graders headed our way.
“No. Ask,” Lena said without looking up from the smoking box. All of her fingers were crossed. “Ask me anything. I need a distraction.”
The other sixth graders were ridiculously close now. I avoided looking at Chase. “Okay. What’s the Director’s name?” If the newest Sleeping Beauty was named Aurora too, I was done for.
“Mildred Grubb,” Lena said automatically.
I was too surprised for a second to even be relieved, and I wasn’t the only one. Adelaide snickered, and the triplets looked stunned.
Lena’s head snapped toward all the other sixth graders. “I overheard Rumpel talking to her. We aren’t supposed to know.”
“Don’t use it,” said Chase. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t make myself look back, even to glare. I didn’t want to find out what he’d say if I did.
“Everyone just calls her ‘the Director,’” Lena added hastily, obviously wishing she hadn’t said anything. “Even the rest of the Can—”
Glass shattered inside the box, loud and startling as a gunshot.
“Oh, no!” Lena buried her face in her hands.
“What was that?” Kevin asked. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a clue what was going on.
I waved the last of the smoke away and peered inside warily. Mirror shards sat in the bottom, reflecting my face in each piece. “Seven years of bad luck?”
“No, that only happens if the mirror is cursed.” Lena dropped her hands and sighed dramatically. “Those are the remains of my special project. I got here early to work on it.”
“That sucks.” Kyle patted her shoulder sympathetically, and Lena stiffened like she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes were so wide behind her glasses that you would’ve thought that she had spotted an ogre climbing the Tree of Hope.
“What’s the big deal?” Chase rolled his eyes. “You always have a special project.”
Lena’s face fell, and the words shot out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Was she talking to you, Chase? . . . I didn’t think so.”
Chase looked mad for only about a second and a half, just long enough for me to regret it. Then an evil look crossed his face. Slowly, he squeezed his eyes shut, hunched his shoulders, and squeaked. I knew exactly who he was imitating.
My face burned. The squeak was the worst part.
Adelaide laughed a little. Lena and the triplets just looked confused.
“Uh, what?” said Kevin.
Adelaide and Chase exchanged a smirk. “You tell them,” Adelaide said graciously, and Chase opened his mouth.
The knot in my stomach got so tight that I knew I was either going to cry or throw up, and I didn’t know which one would be worse.
“Chase!” Gretel started across the courtyard, obviously irritated. “Didn’t the Director assign you to help me with the spring cleaning in the menagerie?”
Gretel suddenly became my favorite grown-up at EAS.
“You get to muck out the aviary,” she said. “Tough job, though, with all the phoenixes. Perhaps some of your friends would like to help.”
Adelaide and the triplets scattered. Chase tried to get away too, but Gretel grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him back across the courtyard. I couldn’t even enjoy it properly. I could tell by the way Chase was glaring at me—he’d get revenge by spreading the weapons-closet story around even faster.
I couldn’t think about that right then. Changing the subject was the best I could do
“I’m sorry it broke,” I told Lena, pointing into the box. “What was it?”
Lena shrugged. “Well, I was trying to make magic mirror walkie-talkies. In theory, it’ll work great. All I have to do is divide one mirror into several pieces in easily transportable sizes with a limited communicative scrying spell, but they keep exploding in the middle of cooling down. The Shoemaker says that I should really rinse them with water steeped in foxgloves—he says he’s saved more magic mirrors that way, but I’m not sure that’s it.” She sat back, shoulders slouched, still scowling.
She really did talk a lot when she got worked up. I was trying really hard not to find it funny.
“I bet this never happened to Madame Benne,” she said sourly. “Of course if Madame Benne had published her notes rather than writing it all in that one book, I wouldn’t have this trouble. Maybe if I use regular silver rather than Fey-tempered silver . . .”
Then she looked at me, blinking, obviously just then remembering I was there, and that there was absolutely no way I could follow along.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said apologetically.
“Apparently, neither would I,” Lena said, and we grinned at each other.
“But it’s okay.” She sucked in a very deep breath, staring into the box with so much concentration that she must have been searching her photographic memory. “It doesn’t matter how many times I mess up. I only need it to work one time, and then I’ll have the formula for a new invention.”
She was so determined—and probably ten times smarter than the rest of us. She would get an amazing Tale.
All the sixth graders probably had a good chance of getting decent ones.
The triplets came in a set of three, which even I knew was kind of a fairy tale must-have. Even though it kind of hurt to admit it, Adelaide was beautiful—which is also a fairy tale necessity. And Chase—well, he could really fight.
I was still just me. And there was nothing I could do to change it.
“The rest is just practice,” Lena said, trying to convince herself.
Wait—yes, there was.
Chase couldn’t have started out that good. He just had a lot more practice than everyone else. A year of mandatory weapons classes wasn’t enough. If I wanted to catch up, I knew what I had to do.
I stood up so fast I nearly knocked my chair over. “I need to go to the training courts.”
“Good. I’m headed back to the workshop.” Lena pushed away from the table and picked up the box. Broken glass tinkled inside. “I need to tell Stu—I mean, the Shoemaker—what happened to the mirrors, but I think, maybe, I can use two salamanders at half heat rather than one at top speed.”
“See you,” I said, and I dashed toward the dark door studded with iron before Lena even said Bye. I didn’t have any time to lose. I needed to learn how not to suck.
• • •
So, from that day on, I practiced. It was a lot easier to channel my energy into beating up a dummy than memorizing fairy tales and obsessing over what kind of Tale I would get.
In all of Hansel’s classes, I ran through drills doggedly and stayed late to practice an extra half hour. On days we had off, I found a smaller training court where I wouldn’t bother anyone. I guess it was allowed. Once, Hansel came in. I waited to be yelled at, sword in hand, but he just grabbed a stack of shields and walked by without even looking at me, as if I wasn’t there.
But by the end of the first week of extra practices, I could block everything the little witch dummy could throw at me. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal to anyone else, especially stupid good-at-everything Chase, but it was definitely an improvement.
My sword was always heavier than I remembered, and I got used to being sore. Actually, I got used to a lot of things.
That’s EAS for you. It’s amazing what starts to feel normal. One day, you’re screaming at dragons or gaping at talking fawns, and a few weeks later, you have trouble remembering a time when you didn’t know magic was real. I kept my head down at school and rushed down the street to the red door as soon as the bell rang.
Chase and Adelaide still played tricks on me. Apparently, they viewed me decorating them with food as a declaration of war.
Once, I opened the ruby door to go home and discovered a closet full of ball gowns in floral patterns. Most of them had so many ruffles that they could double as Little Bo Peep costumes. Confused, I closed the door and discovered that it was actually pink with yellow trim, a couple doors to the left of the one I wanted.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chase beside the Tree of Hope, watching me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me glare. Ignoring him was the easiest way to annoy him. “He must have some way of casting illusions,” Lena said when I told her later. “A rowan branch would do it, if you found a Fey or a Sorcerer to enchant it for you.”
During one class in the training arena, I raised my sword to the old witch dummy and found a golf club in my hand instead. I looked at Lena, who pointed to Chase, who started laughing so hard that he doubled over, arms wrapped around his waist. Hansel pretended not to notice.
But he did interfere later when the bell rang and class ended. I was so worn out that I didn’t notice Chase stick his foot out as I passed. I tripped and nearly skewered myself on my own sword.
“What’s your problem?” I snapped.
“Chase Turnleaf!” Hansel bellowed, and Chase looked uneasy—like he knew he had gone too far. “We’re visiting the Director right now.”
I felt I had won that round until I glanced at Chase. He just squeezed his eyes shut, hunching his shoulders. With all the noise of students bustling in and out of the weapons closet, I couldn’t hear him squeak, but I had heard it enough recently so that it echoed in my mind. I stopped smiling.
Chase had performed his Rory-in-the-weapons-closet impression for half of EAS. I didn’t even try to protest. Depending on how many people were around, I had two reactions: flushing the color of Red Riding Hood’s outfit or seeing “Rory Landon” in the curly lettering of the Wall.
Then, I usually went back to the training courts to vent some frustration.
No new Tales started, but at the end of the month, on the same Tuesday I promised myself I would talk to my parents, I did see my first Fey.
I noticed his hair before I noticed the wings. It was bronze-colored—not just a brassy shade of yellow-brown, but actually metallic, glinting in the sun like burnished metal. Since I was distracted with figuring out how to explain EAS, I thought he was just wearing an exotic helmet until his hair rippled in the breeze. Then I noticed the cobalt wings, as long as he was tall, threaded with red spirals like flames.
