by Sarah Cross
“How old are you?” Blue asked, taking her hand and turning it over, unfolding her pointer finger from where it was curled against her palm, and touching it softly, examining it.
“Almost sixteen,” she said. “My birthday’s in a few days.”
“How many days?”
“Four.”
“Oh,” he said, his word cut short by breath. “Do you have any prohibitions on you? Restrictions?”
“What do you mean?” It was a struggle to keep her hand still, to keep from ripping it away or curling her fingers around his and holding them. Her nerves jerked each time he touched her. The softer he was, the nicer it felt, the worse it became.
“Things you’ve been forbidden to do. Things that have been kept from you.”
“Sure. Lots of things. Everything. My godmothers are the most overprotective people on the planet. I’m not allowed to be here, for one.”
“But anything specific?” he asked.
“I’m not allowed to ride in my friends’ cars. I’m not allowed to get my license until I’m eighteen. I’m not allowed to date. Not allowed to watch R-rated movies. Not allowed to go for walks after dark. Not allowed to play with sharp objects. The list goes on and on.”
Blue nodded grimly, like she’d confirmed something for him. “Okay. Well … I’m going to tell you something. You might not like it.”
“About my … curse?” she said, still hoping that he would tell her no, she was mistaken.
But he nodded instead.
“Mira, you have what’s called a märchen mark. Märchen is the German word for tale. As in fairy tale.”
“What do you mean?”
“It identifies you. It places you in a role. It tells you what you’re meant to do, or what will happen to you. It’s like … your destiny. Your curse.”
Blue laid his hands on the table, a slight tremor running though them. “There are certain places where our kind gathers. Beau Rivage is one of them.”
“So your friends—they’re all … cursed.”
Blue nodded. “Yes.”
“What does my mark mean? What’s my role?”
“The wheel that you have, and that Freddie has, represents the spinning wheel from ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ ”
Mira drew in a breath and held it. Felix’s favorite tale.
Fate.
“You’re a Somnolent,” Blue continued. “That means you were cursed, probably when you were a baby; and that there is an object—not necessarily a spindle, since the tales evolve and that would be too archaic now—that is destined to send you into an enchanted sleep if it cuts you or pricks your finger or something. Possibly a very long sleep, depending on where your prince is when it happens. And whether he knows how to find you.”
“My prince?” Mira blinked at him, stunned. “I have a prince?”
“Um, yeah. That would be Freddie.”
Freddie. Freddie was nice. Freddie was sweet. And a chick magnet—not to mention a bluebird, butterfly, and chipmunk magnet.
But Mira couldn’t see him as her boyfriend and curse breaker, the love of her life.
She let out a long sigh and stirred her melting milk shake. So far, fairy tales and happily-ever-after didn’t seem to go hand in hand. And being a princess—if that was indeed what she was—wasn’t the dream come true she’d imagined back when she was five, dancing around the house in a pink tutu and plastic tiara. If Bliss and Elsa knew the truth about her, she was surprised they hadn’t burst out laughing at the sight: a real princess playing princess.
She swallowed a mouthful of runny ice cream, her throat clenching as she put two and two together. Elsa and Bliss.
“I am so dumb.”
Blue arched his eyebrows. “Isn’t that my line?”
“My godmothers. Are they fairy godmothers?”
“Probably,” Blue said. “If they were entrusted with your welfare. But I guess they could be human. Stranger things have happened.”
“Stranger things like us,” she said.
She no longer thought it was cute that the café was called Gingerbread House, or that the walls were decorated with candy. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find a boy in a cage in the kitchen, being fattened up by a witch like in “Hansel and Gretel.”
One of the waitresses hovered nearby, wiping down tables that were already clean—she was obviously eavesdropping. Stupid fairy-tale town.
“Can we talk somewhere else?” Mira asked, nodding toward the nosy waitress.
“Sure,” Blue said, getting up. “I wanted to bring you to Layla anyway. She’ll explain this stuff better than I can.”
By three o’clock, Mira and Blue were camped in leather armchairs by the wide front window of The Emperor’s New Books used bookstore, waiting for Layla to go on break.
The shelves housed an eclectic assortment of books that Mira doubted anyone would ever buy: acrid-smelling romance novels from the 1970s, crossword puzzle books with half the answers penciled in, travel guides that hadn’t been useful in decades. A plastic crate of record albums gathered dust on the floor, and just beyond it stood a wire rack stuffed with well-thumbed graphic novels—the only nod to the current century.
Mira got the impression the store was more of a hobby for the owner than a business. And from what she’d seen so far, the customers treated it like a library. The current sole patron—a young police officer who was flipping through baby name books like his life depended on it—was taking forever to leave.
Layla was sorting through a shipment, looking as effortlessly gorgeous as the last time Mira had seen her. Blue had poured himself iced coffee from the pitcher in the employee fridge and was absorbed in a comic book. And Mira, who normally would have been content in a bookstore, was too antsy to read anything.
“What’s Layla’s märchen mark?” Mira asked, leaning toward Blue, keeping her voice down.
Grudgingly, Blue abandoned the comic he was reading—a Peter Pan retelling, full of ethereal girls and fey lost boys. “Layla’s Beauty, from ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ We all feel bad for her because she has to put up with Rafe.”
“Oh my god, Rafe is the Beast,” Mira said. She felt stupid; it was so obvious.
“Yep. Beastly on the inside, soon to be beastly on the outside, once a fairy sets the curse in motion. He’s supposed to be redeemed by the end of it, but we have very little faith in him. It’ll take a miracle to get Layla to fall in love with Rafe. We just hope he can still play bass with monster paws. Otherwise, we’ll have to find a new band member.”
“You say that like you think it’s funny.”
Blue shrugged. “Isn’t it? It’s what he deserves. Not that we don’t like him, but sometimes you have to learn things the hard way.”
Mira glanced at him. “And you? Did you have to learn something the hard way?”
“Nice try,” he said. But the smile on his lips didn’t quite reach his eyes.
What Mira really wanted to ask was what Blue’s heart mark meant—and what Felix’s mark was, if he had one—but Blue seemed to be going out of his way not to tell her. His reticence made her uneasy. She knew there were bad people in fairy tales: wolves that swallowed women whole, stepmothers who treated their daughters like slaves, tricksters who struck impossible deals—and so many more. Could Blue be one of the wicked?
She didn’t want to fight with him. Not when they were finally getting along. So instead of pushing him, she asked, “What about Viv? Is she Snow White?”
“Bingo. She’s a Somnolent, too—you guys have enchanted comas in common. Henley’s the hapless Huntsman. One day, Viv’s stepmom will order him to cut Viv’s heart out and bring it back to her. That always adds an extra dimension of hilarity to their hookups.”
“Oh my god.” Mira recoiled. “He won’t do it, though, right?”
“Who knows? She’s such a bitch to him and he’s so obsessed with her that he just might. He freaks out whenever he suspects some guy around here could be her prince; he’s definitely not eager to
hand her over to someone else. He’ll be relieved when he finds out you have a claim on Freddie.”
“I don’t—” She shook her head, not ready to accept that. It was too weird.
“Freddie’s not so bad.”
“Nothing against Freddie, I just …”
“You don’t like feeling trapped, like your future is already mapped out for you.”
“Right.”
“Trust me, no one does.” Blue picked up his comic again, like he’d decided now would be a good time to avoid her. His head was bowed, and a maelstrom of blue spikes stared back at her, stiff from the salt water.
Mira batted the comic out of the way. “What about you? What’s your trap?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Curiosity killed the brat.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. It seemed appropriate.
“Sexy,” he said, flicking his own tongue at her. She kicked him in the shin in response. Blue bent forward to grip his leg, cursing.
“Still sexy?” she asked. “What was that you said about learning things the hard way? Maybe that’s your curse.”
She let him read for a while, figuring she should give him a break, and she stared out the window, watching people go by and wondering how many were cursed. Had that old woman been a damsel in distress once? Would that boy grow up to slay a giant? And was that girl, the pretty one with the dirty face and the careworn clothes, heading home to clean house for a wicked stepmom and two greedy stepsisters?
It was strange to think of another world being hidden behind the regular world. An entire society where destiny ruled.
A triumphant “aha!” from the stacks caused Mira to glance over. The police officer with the baby name books was scribbling madly in a notebook, like he’d made some great discovery.
“Mix in some numbers and symbols,” Layla advised as she whisked by. “They’re savvier now at picking unguessable names. They learned it from Internet passwords.”
The officer hissed through his teeth. “Damn it! This will take forever!”
Layla patted his shoulder. “Sorry, Leo.”
Mira’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. Sometimes this place was just too weird.
Finally, the young officer hustled out the door with his notebook of names, calling out a quick “Thanks!” as the jangling bell announced his departure. Layla flipped the CLOSED sign on the door and came over to join them. She had a thick leather-bound book balanced against her hip.
Layla had been yanking books down from dusty shelves all day, but there wasn’t a speck of dirt or a drop of sweat on her. Her sleek, black hair was as frizz free as a Barbie doll’s, and her dark eyes sparkled, even when she wasn’t smiling. She was like a Renaissance painting—flawlessly beautiful—and there was a warmth to her beauty, too.
“I feel bad for Leo,” Layla said with a sigh. “True names are much harder to crack these days. The troll is almost definitely getting that baby.”
“Troll?” Mira said.
“Rumpelstiltskin curse,” Blue explained. “Leo’s the guy charged with finding the troll’s true name, so the queen can save her baby from his clutches. Sucks to be him.”
“Um, maybe someone should tell him it’s Rumpelstiltskin?” Mira said.
Blue laughed. Layla gave her a small smile. “Rumpelstiltskin is the name in the tale,” Blue said. “It’s not the name of every troll. That would be too easy.”
“Oh,” Mira said, disappointed.
“Anyway,” Layla said. “We’re not here to talk about poor Leo’s curse. We’re here to talk basics. Are you ready, Mira?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Layla placed the leather-bound book on the table in front of them and opened it with a whump. The pages were gilt-edged, printed with dark brown ink. It seemed to be a sort of encyclopedia. The text was laid out in two columns, and each entry began with elaborate cursive—a work of art in itself. Some entries were accompanied by symbols—an apple, a braid, a crown—all inked in the same deep brown. Line drawings of fairy-tale scenes illustrated the text.
“I grabbed this from the back,” Layla said, her expression colored by mischief for a second. “I’m not supposed to touch it—it’s an antique. But my boss isn’t here today, and I think Mira deserves something special for her introduction. If you spill coffee on it,” she added, looking pointedly at Blue, “I will kill you.”
“Understood,” Blue said, shifting his iced coffee out of the way.
“What is it, exactly?” Mira leaned forward to peer at the pages. Layla had opened the book to a seemingly random place, and the first entry read:
The Changed
Those who are physically transformed by magic, for good or ill, often accompanied by discomfort, suffering, or pain. The curse can be undone, sometimes through true love, sometimes via other methods (killing the enchanter, &c.).
Some roles that belong to the Changed category are the Beast (“Beauty and the Beast”), the Mermaid (“The little Mermaid”), the Kind and Unkind Girls (“The Fairies”).
“It’s a taxonomy of curses,” Layla said. “It explains our roles, our marks, lists the tales … and also the categories we fall into. For example, your mark is the wheel….” Layla flipped ahead to the “Sleeping Beauty” listing, which was illustrated with the same wheel shape Mira had on her back. “Your tale is ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ your role is the princess, and your overarching category is Somnolent.”
“That’s a lot to keep track of,” Mira said.
Layla shrugged. “It’s mostly intuitive once you get the hang of it. Viv is also a Somnolent princess, but her tale is ‘Snow White,’ and her mark is an apple. So there’s some overlap.”
Layla leafed through the book, her fingers turning the pages almost lovingly. “Originally, this book was made as a reference tool for young fairies so they could learn the various curses and make the right choices about whom to bestow them upon. But now it’s more of a collector’s item. Fairies have easier ways of sharing information.”
“But aren’t we born with these marks?” Mira asked.
Layla shook her head. “Did someone tell you that? We’re usually cursed when we’re children, or older, once our personalities have made themselves known. There are some hereditary curses—curses that run in a particular family, that is,” Layla said, glancing quickly at Blue. “And—”
Mira turned toward Blue, to ask him about it—but he just held his coffee up and away from the book, like that was the issue here.
“I’m not going to spill it,” he said. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Um, anyway,” Layla continued a little awkwardly, “you were probably cursed as an infant, Mira—most Sleeping Beauty Somnolents are. Viv was cursed when she was a baby, too. But my curse was bestowed when I was ten, and Jewel was cursed only a few years ago. So it varies. Anyone with magic in their blood has curse potential, but it takes a fairy to awaken it.”
“There’s magic in my blood?” Mira swiveled her wrist to look at the cluster of veins there, suddenly nervous about what they contained.
“It just means that somewhere in your family’s history, there’s an ancestor who wasn’t fully human—a fairy, perhaps—whose magic was passed down to you,” Layla said. “In a very diluted form, of course.”
“Fairy-human relations are generally frowned upon,” Blue said. “And by relations, I mean—”
Mira cut him off, heat spreading across her cheeks. “I get it.”
“So our curses are punishments for those forbidden trysts,” Layla said. “Fairies feel they have a right to test us—to make us undergo an ordeal. Although some fairies have a soft spot for us. Some are good. And these days, they don’t curse everyone—lots of people get skipped. We call that having a dormant curse.”
The talk of fairies brought Mira’s thoughts back to Elsa and Bliss. Were they both fairies? Bliss she could sort of see as a fairy godmother, what with the frilly dresses and the bouncy steps and the charm shop. But Elsa seemed
too practical to be magical. And she couldn’t imagine either of them punishing someone.
Well … except maybe her. For disobeying them. And lying to them.
Thinking about her godmothers made her eyes well up. She could call them, tell them she was in Beau Rivage and knew the truth now—but what if they were furious with her? What if they overreacted and took her away again?
She wasn’t ready to leave. Wasn’t ready to surrender her independence either.
Layla was still explaining. “It’s not just a matter of having magic in your blood—there’s a social dividing line, too. Prince and princess curses are reserved for the people we call Royals. We call them that because their families were members of the nobility, once upon a time. They’re usually rich—”
“Marrying the peasant who spins straw into gold—always a good move,” Blue said.
“—and they’re considered to be the fairy-tale elite, although their curses aren’t necessarily more desirable—as I’m sure you and Viv would attest. But that’s all subjective anyway,” Layla said. “Traditionally, what’s viewed as a bad curse is bestowed by an evil fairy. Rafe’s Beast curse, for instance. Whereas my curse, which is supposed to be a good one—because I’m destined to break the Beast’s enchantment,” she said, rolling her eyes, “was bestowed by a good fairy.”
“In other words, a fairy could view your curse as a reward, and you might still hate it,” Blue said.
“Good and evil are our descriptors for fairies, by the way,” Layla said. “It’s best not to call a fairy evil to her face.”
“I’ll remember that,” Mira said with a smile.
Someone banged on the glass then, startling them. It was an old woman whose hair hung down in matted orange, black, and white strips, like ragged cat fur. She was carrying a wicker basket and looked slightly crazed. Layla pointed to the CLOSED sign until the woman scowled and went away.
“We do have some power over our lives,” Layla added, turning thoughtful. “We make our own decisions—it’s just that fate has a way of twisting our efforts to meet its expectations. So there have been Cinderellas who’ve run away from the ball, fled their princes, and kept running until their glass slippers cracked. And there have been Wolves who chose not to devour Red Riding Hood or her grandmother and were accepted into the Hood family with gratitude, only to turn feral again weeks later and slaughter everyone—because murder is a Wolf ’s nature.”
