1 The Bitches of Everafter (17 page)

31

This Magic Moment

Bella stopped to use the restroom and Cindy rushed out of the building to have a cigarette. Punzie followed her. Aura pulled Snow aside and said, “How you doing?”

“Fine.”

Something on her face must have told Aura that Snow was anything but fine. “Bullshit. I know how you feel about Jack.”

Snow shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do about it, so let’s just figure out this mess we’re in, form a plan, and get out of this forsaken town.”

Aura said, “We have to tell them, you know.”

Snow looked at Aura. “Tell them what?”

“About Granny,” Aura snapped.

“Oh, yes, right. So we tell them, then we find Granny, then we get answers. Are we going to the café?”

“That’s usually the plan.”

“Okay.” Snow squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked toward the doors. “Let’s do this.”

Snow wished Bella had found her story element before Cindy had. Snow wanted Bella back so very badly because Bella was the voice of reason and respected here in Everafter. The captain of this ship of fools. If anyone could convince Punzie and Cindy who they really were and what needed to be done to get home, it was Bella.

The crystal shoes were tucked away for now, but eventually Cindy would go looking for them. Snow was going to have to convince her to touch them with both hands before slipping them on her feet. No easy task, to be sure, because Cindy loved shoes like Bella loved books. But if Cindy stepped into the famous slippers, that would be her downfall, the same as if Snow had bitten the apple, or if Aura had pricked her finger on the spinning wheel. All of them were vulnerable to the objects that had harmed them in their original stories. 

As Snow and Aura waited outside the restroom for Bella, Snow thought about the insurance policy she had stashed away in case the others never discovered their artifacts. She felt magic when she had touched that apple, and certainly it had been infused with it somehow, because how else would it have transported her so completely back to her true self? She thought that maybe, if they didn’t find all the pieces they needed to remind the princesses of who they really were, then the apples could help retrieve the other lost memories. That’s why she had asked Aura to pick exactly five and hide them away for safe keeping.

The mirrors, or rather, the places where mirrors usually hung—on the bathroom wall and again in the grand upper ballroom—seemed to also contain a hint of magic, although Snow wasn’t privy to how they functioned. Unless...could it be the house itself was enchanted?

She thought about the ‘no mirrors’ rule, wondered why she hadn’t found any on her search of the house even tucked away in a forbidden closet. As ruler of her kingdom, she had had her own magic mirror for a time. It was now painted entirely black and safely stowed away back in Enchantment. She had ordered it destroyed after it had been used against her once, but her advisors warned that destroying it would be a mistake. That its power was unbound and immeasurable and that there was no telling the repercussions of shattering it. Threads of many lives could have been altered. And she wasn’t about to let that happen a second time. So the silver was glazed over to stifle the magic and to prevent anyone from using its powers for evil.

Snow thought again about the rooms she had explored. The clocks, the clothes, the trinkets, and that baffling locked door that she hadn’t been able to gain access to. What did it contain?

The more she thought about it, the more she considered Aura’s conviction that Granny had been taken against her will by someone who meant them all harm could be accurate. Snow wanted to believe that Granny really was on their side.

Unless...the rooms were locked. Or marked ‘Do Not Enter’. So was she really collecting those things to jog their memories? Or did she do it to block them? Or, more worrisome, did she squirrel away those objects to hide them from someone else? Someone dangerous? Did those thrift sale finds contain magic? Or was Granny mad?

There was no way to be certain. Not until they located the old woman.

Bella exited the restroom and the three of them pushed through the glass doors of the community center and stepped out beneath a stifling sky. 

“What have you bitches been doing? Braiding each other’s hair?” Punzie said. “I’ve only got an hour before my shift, and if I’m late, the DJ plays his own list. Do you know how hard it is to make
Build Me Up Buttercup
look sexy with a bum ankle?”

“Sorry,” Snow mumbled, wondering what kind of clientele went to strip clubs in the middle of the day. Homeless guys? Men who lived with their mothers? Mental patients?

The five of them walked the three blocks to Gretel’s Café, chattering about Snow’s story and taking bets on the authenticity of it.

“Admit it, you made that up just so we’d think you had some boulders between your legs,” Punzie said.

“Guess you’ll never know,” said Snow.

Cindy complained about the humidity the entire way. “I swear, my make-up is going to slide right off my face,” she said.

Aura rolled her eyes and Punzie said, “Try walking in six inch heels with a thong up your crack, Miss Priss, then we’ll talk.”

Gretel’s Café was a quaint, curtained establishment with a row of blue leather booths lining one wall, wooden tables in the center, and a long Formica bar where the waitresses served hot coffee and cold sodas. The kitchen was behind the bar, and Snow could see two cooks in white paper hats bustling over the stainless steel pass.

They chose a table in a quiet corner. Gretel greeted them immediately with, “Hey convicts, what’s shaking? Kill anyone today?”

Snow’s four housemates looked at her and shifted uncomfortably.

She looked directly into Gretel’s eyes, smiled, and said, in a deadpan tone. “The day isn’t over yet.”

Aura grimaced and Snow realized that she had slipped out of her unassuming, demure Everafter persona. That was probably not a good idea. At least not yet.

Gretel stared at Snow for a beat, not sure how to respond. Punzie put her hands under her chin and Cindy mimicked her, batting her lashes at Gretel.

“That’s right, fry girl, there’s a new bad bitch in town.”

Punzie looked around, cupped her hand around her mouth and in a loud whisper, said, “What this chick did makes me look like a Girl Scout.”

Gretel swallowed hard, tossed some menus on the table and hurried off.

Snow was smiling when she turned back to face her roommates, who were all giggling.

All but one.

Bella’s face was ice.

32

I Spy With My Fae Eye

Tink had never considered her small stature to be an advantage. For one thing, she couldn’t watch a movie in an actual theater because inevitably someone would sit directly in front of her obstructing her view. She also had trouble reaching the pedals of any normal sized automobile because she needed a booster seat just to see over the steering wheel, and—most infuriating—people tended not to take a person seriously who couldn’t hop onto a bar stool without the aid of a pogo stick.

However, as she sat in a corner booth at Gretel’s Café, Tink realized that being a small person was perfect for spying in a restaurant, because (a.) she could hide behind the giant menu and (b.) she could slip into a bathroom like a whisper and comfortably crouch on top of a toilet seat undetected like she was doing right now.

She had been at the café for half an hour and hadn’t heard a lot of the women’s conversation. While Tink’s hearing was superior, she had a difficult time filtering out background noise. She hadn’t anticipated just how much background noise littered a busy restaurant until she was at the mercy of it. The whir of a blender, the obnoxious cackle of teenagers, the constant chime of bells, waitresses rattling off the specials, the telephone—all of these noises penetrated Tink’s delicate ears, making it difficult to eavesdrop. So when two of the parolees rose to head for the restroom, Tink dashed in ahead of them low and fast like a rat terrier.

After a minute, Cindy’s obnoxious perfume was slapping at Tink’s nose and she had to pinch it to keep from sneezing.

“So the old bat didn’t come home, big deal. Maybe she’s on a bender,” the blonde said.

Aura responded in a scratchy voice that grated on Tink’s nerves. “I don’t think so, Cindy. I think something might be wrong.”

Tink realized they were talking about their housemother, Granny.

Her ears pricked with interest. If Granny wasn’t supervising the house, what would the judge do? Would she arrange for an alternative living situation? Or would she appoint a new den mother? Someone who would keep her eyes and ears glued to the situation, perhaps. Someone who might even find violations that would send that awful Aura back to the slammer. And maybe even Snow White.

Tink didn’t like the way Doctor Bean looked at the dark haired beauty during the session she had just spied on. She didn’t like it one bit. Of course, she only caught brief glimpses of his adoring gaze while she was jumping outside the window of the gymnasium at the community center, but still. It made her angry.

And oh, what she wouldn’t give to get out of the judge’s house and away from that horrible wolf.

She was so elated at the thought that she let out a tiny squeal.

Aura said, “Who’s there?”

Tink held her breath as she heard the soft click of heels approach the stalls.

The clicking stopped and Tink saw the top of Aura’s head poke beneath the stall door. She scrambled on top of the toilet tank and pressed herself to the wall.

Cindy said, “What the hell are you doing?” A door opened and closed. A lock slid into place.

“I thought I heard something,” said Aura.

“So you’re going to poke your head underneath the stalls like a pervert. Oh, and speaking of crimes, I found my shoes in your closet, you whore.”

Aura’s head vanished. “You did?” Her voice faded just a bit and Tink heard another stall door open.

Shoes? What shoes? Tink wondered. The judge ordered Cindy to donate all her shoes.

“Yes I did, you klepto. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

“Calm down, Cindy...um...” Aura stammered. Quickly she added, “You asked me to hang onto them, remember?”

Cindy’s tone faltered. “I did? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Yes, the other night.”

“Now why the hell would I do that? Those things are worth more than your whole
life
.”

A flush.

Valuable shoes? Tink was thrilled at this. She would have a violation on Cindy now and the judge would be so pleased with her impeccable detecting. She was
way
better at this than that stupid oaf, Robin.

“I don’t know. You said something about Granny finding them.”

A zipping sound and another flush.

“I did?” Cindy didn’t sound certain.

“Yep. You were pretty liquored up.”

“
That
sounds like me.”

Liquor? That was another violation of Cindy’s probation. Tink clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting with joy.

“Did you try them on?” Aura asked, her voice shaking a bit. A faucet turned on and Tink had to strain to hear the rest.

“Not yet. I saw a dress at a boutique that would go perfectly with them and I wanted to try the whole ensemble on at the same time.”

“Maybe you could model for us later.”

“Don’t be weird.”

The faucet stopped gushing, and a hand dryer howled to life.

After they washed and dried, Aura said, “Come on, I have to get to my service.”

The door opened and closed and Tink waited a few beats before exiting the stall.

She pulled out her tiny recorder and spoke into it, kicking herself for forgetting to turn it on when she had first snuck into the bathroom. “Tink’s spy notes, volume two.”

Tink made a record of the conversation she had heard between Aura and Cindy, flipped off the recorder, and stepped out of the restroom. She hurried out of the café. She would call the judge as soon as she got to her car.