“Where?” Landon asked.
“Is that really important?” Sam asked. “If I tell you, you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Just to catch you up, you should know that I woke up with talking bears, Thistle was trapped on a rock and had to ride a turtle to get to safety and Landon … well … he had a sexually suggestive mermaid try to show him her seashell,” I said.
Sam’s eyes widened as his gaze darted between us. “Is that true?”
“Unfortunately,” Landon said. “She was also tone deaf and swore like a trucker.”
“That’s still better than what happened to me,” Sam said.
“I had to ride a turtle,” Thistle said. “Look at my dress.”
“At least your legs are covered,” Sam said. “I look like I’m about to take my clothes off in an all-male burlesque show.”
“Only if they’re in to some really kinky stuff,” I said. “Tell us what happened. I promise we won’t laugh.”
“Fine,” Sam said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. I had no idea who he thought he was saving face for; we were all in the same boat. “When I first woke up, I was in a … store or something.”
“A store?”
“I had strings attached to my arms and I was on display in the storefront,” Sam said.
“You weren’t wooden, though, right?”
Sam shook his head. “I thought I was dreaming.”
“We all thought we were dreaming,” Landon said. “Go on.”
“After a minute or so I managed to get down, and when I looked around the store I found this creepy old guy watching me,” Sam said. “He had white hair, and he was wearing those really thick magnifying glasses because he was working on some craft project.”
“Did he talk to you?” I asked.
“He said he’d been hoping for a son for a long time, but I wasn’t what he had in mind,” Sam said. “I am not going into the details about how weird he was. Suffice it to say that I don’t think he wanted a child because he was dying to become a father.”
“Gross,” Thistle said, making a face. “That is so wrong.”
Something about this story tugged on a long-forgotten memory, but I couldn’t quite clear my mind enough to grasp it.
“I kind of … bashed him over the head with a lamp and when I raced for the door I was accosted by a … bug,” Sam said. “It talked.”
“Was it a cricket?” Thistle asked.
“I guess,” Sam conceded. “It kept saying weird things about being brave and true. I wasn’t really in a listening mood – and I couldn’t find a flyswatter. I bolted from the store. I was expecting to find a town, but it was just the one store in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing else around.
“I heard the guy coming to in the store so I ran into the woods,” he continued. “I hid there for as long as I could. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t following me, and then I just started walking.”
“How long have you been awake?” Landon asked.
“A few hours,” Sam said. “I’m not sure. It’s not as if I have a way to keep track of time.”
“How did you find us?” Thistle asked.
“It was by accident really,” Sam said. “I just kept moving in the same direction – or what I hoped was the same direction – and then I heard voices. I hid in the bush at first because I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“I don’t blame you,” Landon said. “There’s no shame in it. This place is one freak show after another. I would have hidden, too.”
“You didn’t hide when I saw you,” I said. “You came straight toward me.”
“That was after I recognized you,” Landon said. “I hung back in the trees for a minute or two until I was sure it was you. I wasn’t a one-hundred percent sure until you saw me and started running.”
“Were you running from the bears?” Sam asked.
“Actually, other than being bears, they weren’t that bad,” I said. “The teenage one was a mouthy pain, but he was still pretty normal.”
“Except they were talking bears,” Sam said.
“They were. They said I came into their house the night before and tried out all of their beds until I found one that was just right.”
“You’re Goldilocks.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“She was the heroine in that story,” Sam said.
“I don’t think we’re only one thing here,” I said. “I think we’re working our way through stories, but just because we’ve solved one story doesn’t mean we won’t have to face another. Aunt Tillie wouldn’t make it that easy.”
“Did she curse our dreams?” Sam asked.
Thistle and I exchanged a look. “We’re not quite sure what this is yet,” Thistle said. “We’ve never really dabbled in dream magic. We don’t think Aunt Tillie would do that.”
“I wasn’t under the impression that she had many boundaries,” Sam said.
“She doesn’t,” Thistle said. “The rules she believes in, though, she sticks to. She’s never messed with dream magic before. I don’t think she would start now.”
“This is all because she didn’t want Landon to confiscate her wine, right? No offense, but why are we all here? Shouldn’t she be punishing only Landon?”
“Thanks, man,” Landon said, irritated. “I’m glad we’re all on the same side here.”
I put my hand on his arm to calm him. “Landon … .”
Landon ran his tongue over his teeth, clearly trying to tamp down his temper. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just … this is all so unbelievable. I can’t believe this is happening. I kind of wish I’d hidden in a bush as you did. I could have sat it out until this was all over with.”
“I wasn’t hiding because I was afraid,” Sam protested. “I was hiding because I was being cautious.”
I rolled my eyes, and out of the corner of one of them saw a hint of movement on Sam’s face. Was he giving me a dirty look? I turned back to him, but his face was placid. Something was different about it, though.
“What was that?” I asked.
“What was what?” Sam asked, confused.
“Your face. Something is … different.”
“Oh, great, am I starting to turn to wood?” Sam ran his fingers over his forehead and cheeks, worried. “This is my favorite night ever!”
It happened again. This time I was sure of it. While I was staring directly at him I realized what the change was. So did Thistle.
“Your nose just grew,” Thistle said, pointing.
“What?” Sam clapped his hand over his nose, horrified. “My nose is getting bigger?”
“You’re Pinocchio,” I said. “If you lie, your nose gets bigger.”
“I wasn’t lying. Crap. I felt it this time.” Sam was starting to panic.
“You need to stop lying,” Thistle said. “Even little ones are going to affect you. If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut as much as possible.”
Sam glared at her. “Thanks for that.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Thistle said. “I don’t think the curse knows the difference between truth and sarcasm, so you have to be careful.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky his nose will grow long enough that it can support part of your dress and it won’t make noise,” Landon suggested.
“Shut up!”
“Everyone shut up,” I said, rubbing the crease between my eyebrows. “Stop arguing.”
“No one is arguing,” Landon said, rubbing my back. “We’re just … expressing ourselves in loud voices.”
“We’re frustrated,” Sam said.
“We’re all frustrated,” I said. “We have a bigger worry, though.”
“Which is?”
“We still haven’t found Clove,” I said.
Sam’s face drained of color. “She’s out there all alone. We have to find her.”
“There’s one other thing,” I said.
Everyone waited.
“If
Sam is here, I’m going to guess Marcus is here, too,” I said.
Thistle balked. “Aunt Tillie likes Marcus, though.”
“It’s fairy tales, Thistle,” I said, keeping my voice low. “That means there’s almost always a princess and a prince.”
“Crap,” Thistle grumbled. “This is so unfair.”
“We have to stick together,” I said. “Our first order of business is finding Clove.”
“What about Marcus?”
“Hopefully he’ll find us,” Landon said. “He can take care of himself. Don’t worry about that. Bay is right, though. We need to find Clove.”
“She’s probably terrified,” Sam said.
“Where do we start looking?” Thistle asked. “Were we heading in this direction just so we could meet up with Sam, or will we find Clove this way?”
I didn’t know the answer to the question. Thankfully, I didn’t have to try to scrape something up. At that exact moment, an ear-splitting scream tore through the night, and we all snapped our attention in its direction.
“Somebody help me!”
“Clove,” Sam said, pushing past us and breaking into a run. “Clove!”
“Great!” Landon said. “I was worried things were about to get boring.”
If your hair is long enough for someone to climb it, then it’s long enough to cut off and climb down yourself. Suck it up and save yourself. Sitting around and waiting for a man is a complete and total waste of time.
– Aunt Tillie’s Wonderful World of Stories to Make Little Girls Shut Up
Six
We raced through the woods, branches reaching out to scratch our faces, but nothing could stop us. We’d located our missing cousin, and it sounded as though she was in trouble.
We escaped the woods and found ourselves on an expansive and well-manicured lawn, the moon above casting an eerie pall over the area. In the center of the lawn was a high tower. The lone spire resembled a partially finished castle, and there was only one window in the stone edifice.
“Where is she?” Thistle asked, bending over to catch her breath.
“Help me!”
I glanced around, and when my gaze finally landed on the tower window I had to swallow the worry bubbling up in my throat. “Crap.”
“What am I looking at?” Landon asked, worried. “Is she in that tower?”
I pointed to the window. It was high in the tower, at least fifty feet above the ground. A faint light flickered inside, and a small figure moved back and forth at the window. “She’s up there.”
“Is something attacking her?”
I shrugged. I had no idea.
“Clove,” Sam shouted. “Are you okay?”
“Sam?” Clove’s voice was broken, as if she’d been crying. “Is that really you?”
“It’s me.”
“What are you wearing?”
“He’s Pinocchio,” Thistle said, moving up to his side.
“Holy Godiva! What are you wearing?” Clove asked, giggling maniacally. “You look … so stupid. What is that?”
“The worst Halloween costume ever,” Thistle said, bitterly. “Bay and Landon woke up in their own clothes. Sam and I got stuck in this … crap.”
“Bay and Landon?” Clove sounded hopeful. “We’re all here together?”
“Yes, and we’re thrilled,” Landon said. He scanned the side of the tower. “This is really odd construction. Where’s the door?”
“There is no door,” Clove said. “I’ve been searching for a way out for hours.”
“Did you wake up there?” I asked.
“Yes. I thought I was dreaming at first.”
That was beginning to be our mantra.
“Are you alone in there?” Landon asked.
“Yes.”
Well, that was something at least. “And you’re sure there’s no door or way out?” I asked, focusing on Clove’s terrified face. “How did you get in there if there’s no door?”
“I just woke up here,” Clove snapped. “How am I supposed to know?”
“This really isn’t bringing out the best in any of us,” Thistle said.
“We’re all tired … and scared,” I said. I blew out a frustrated sigh. “Clove, maybe we can find something to pad the ground here and you can jump.”
“Like what?” Thistle asked.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Tree branches?”
“I am not jumping from this high up. I’ll break my neck.”
“She’s not jumping,” Sam agreed. “There has to be a … trick … to end this fairy tale.”
Clove tilted her head to the side, confused. “Fairy tale?”
“We’ve been cursed into fairy tales, or childhood stories, whatever you prefer,” I said. “I woke up with three talking bears. Landon played footsies with a mermaid. Thistle rode a turtle. And Sam, well, he’s obviously Pinocchio – complete with a growing nose when he lies.”
“Fairy tales, huh?” Clove glanced back into the room.
“I wasn’t telling big lies,” Sam said. “In fact, I was mostly being sarcastic.”
Clove ignored him. “Aunt Tillie cursed us into fairy tales?”
“That’s the theory we’re running on right now,” I said. “Why?”
“Oh, just, well … .” Clove leaned down, her face disappearing from view. When she returned to the window she had something gathered in her arms. She dropped it out of the window, a long sheet of something that looked like fabric falling against the tower wall. “I guess being in a fairy tale explains this.”
“What is that?” Sam asked, confused.
“It’s hair,” Thistle said.
“Oh, crap,” I muttered. “She’s Rapunzel.”
The black hair was so long it almost reached the ground. It was only a few feet short.
“Huh,” Landon said. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
“What are we going to do?” Sam asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Does anyone remember how Rapunzel got out of the tower in the story?”
“I never got that story,” Thistle said. “It never made sense to me. Still … I think the prince climbs her hair into the tower to rescue her, right?”
“How does that work?” I asked. “If the prince climbs her hair, won’t that strand both of them in the tower?”
“Maybe the fairy tale will end if we just get someone up there with her,” Thistle said.
I shrugged. It was worth a shot. “I don’t see where we have a lot of other options. Someone has to climb the tower and get to Clove.”
Landon blew a loud raspberry. “I guess that means I’m climbing the tower.”
Sam grabbed his arm. “You? Why are you going to climb the tower to save my girlfriend?”
“Because I’m … stronger.”
“You don’t know that,” Sam said. “I work out three times a week.”
“I’m with the FBI,” Landon reminded him. “Saving people is what I do.”
I was starting to think Aunt Tillie was right about his ego being a personality defect. I cleared my throat, but both men ignored me.
“She’s my girlfriend,” Sam said. “If anyone is climbing that tower, it’s me.”
“I thought we were on a timetable here,” Landon countered. “Shouldn’t the one who can climb up there fastest be the one to do it?”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Sam said.
“So?”
“That means she’s my … princess.”
Landon faltered, shifting a look in my direction. “Can you believe this?”
Actually, I couldn’t. I was starting to get angry. “I agree with Sam,” I said. “These are fairy tales. She’s his girlfriend. That means they’re supposed to solve the story together.”
“Are you angry with me?” Landon knit his eyebrows together, conflicted.
“Why would I possibly be angry? That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m not angry.”
“If you were Pinocchio, your nose would tot
ally be growing right now,” Thistle said. “You’re obviously angry.”
“Shut up, Thistle,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not … angry.” Hurt was more like it, but there was no way I was admitting that.
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Landon asked.
“Well, if I had to guess, your princess has her nose out of joint because you’re trying to save another princess,” Thistle said, smirking. “Way to go, Prince Charming. Now you don’t have any princesses.”
Landon shifted his gaze to me. “Is she right? Are you jealous?”
“Of course not.” I averted my eyes and focused on my shoes.
“Oh, this night just keeps getting better and better,” Landon grumbled, running his hand through his hair. He took a step back to clear a path to the tower for Sam. “Go nuts. Get your princess.”
“Thanks so much for your permission,” Sam said. “It means the world to me.” He clapped his hand to his nose, frowning as it expanded again. “Seriously? This is just … crap.”
“It’s a lesson to teach you to stop lying,” Landon said.
“Shouldn’t you be paying attention to your princess?” Sam seethed. “It seems I’m not the only one having nose issues. Thistle was right. Bay’s nose is out of joint because you have to be everyone’s hero.”
“I am not trying to be everyone’s hero,” Landon said. “I am trying to keep everyone together so we can get out of here safely.”
Thistle sent Landon a sarcastic thumbs-up. “Good job.”
“Shut up, Thistle.”
“Is someone going to climb up here and get me?” Clove asked, her patience wearing thin. “I can’t stay up here much longer. I’m lonely.”
“I’m coming,” Sam said, shuffling toward the tower wall. “Just … hold on.” He gripped a strand of Clove hair and tugged on it. “Does that hurt?”
“I don’t even feel it,” Clove said.
“That’s a relief,” Sam muttered. He tightened his hands around the hair, braced his foot against the tower, and started to climb. He moved slowly, taking special care with his foot placement and grip. The higher he got, the slower he moved, and he started to glance down at the ground with alarming frequency.
Witchy Tales: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Fairy Tale Page 5
