Devoured (19 page)

I want to tell Max I think that’s a very good idea, but his dad swats him on the back of the head and then corners a woman walking by and demands she take the picture.

He puts his arm around my waist as his wife herds the kids toward us. “Smile,” she says, even though it looks like her toddler is about to lose it.

I feel the man’s hand sliding down my waist toward my butt and I jump out of his arm, determined not to add being groped to my list of problems. “You know, I think I should stand with Max!”

Max looks horrified, but I put my arm around him and beam for the camera. “Say ‘Land of Enchantment!’”

The family mumbles, “Land of Enchantment,” and I wave to them as I walk off.

“Have an enchanted evening!” I look at my watch. The park closes in thirty minutes. I only agreed to stay long enough to meet Lucy, but Mom went home to rehearse with Fergus until I call her to pick me up. She’s got a competition to practice for and I know how much she hates it when I interrupt her.

I poke my head around until I see the Shining Star group. I guess I can hang out with them until closing—it’s certainly safer than being dragged into another photo op.

Only thirty minutes and I’m done with Land of Enchantment forever!

EIGHTEEN

The park loudspeakers start playing the closing lullaby, and I realize Mr. Roy must’ve recorded Ari singing it. It’s really pretty, but I can’t help thinking Nicki would’ve sounded better—her voice had a strength and clarity that Ari’s doesn’t.

I turn away from Lucy and my shoulders slump. I drop my smile, feeling utterly exhausted from trying to maintain the happy face, and fight back tears. It’s amazing how many little things make me think of Nicki. I still can’t believe she’s gone.

“Good-bye, Lucy, it was very nice meeting you today,” I say, not looking her in the eye.

She hugs me. “Good-bye! Thanks for playing with me!”

“My pleasure,” I call out as the group heads toward the exit.

When the song ends, Mr. Roy’s pre-recorded goodbye message plays for the departing crowd.

“On behalf of our entire Land of Enchantment family, I want to thank you for spending your day with us. May you have a safe journey home. We hope to see you again soon.”

“You won’t be seeing me again,” I whisper as I make my way to the office building to change out of my costume.

“Hey, Megan!”

Casey Winters is running down the path. She stops in front of me, panting. “Miss Patty wants to see you.”

“Oh, I forgot to get my paycheck.”

“Are you going to the party at Dillon’s house?”

I shake my head. “Not feeling much like partying.”

“Oh yeah, sorry,” she says, avoiding eye contact. “Um, if you change your mind, though, stop by.”

She rushes off and I sigh. I can’t wait to be alone with Luke tonight.

I head into the office building and wind my way through the halls toward Miss Patty’s. I round a corner and freeze.

I hear Nicki singing.

“My cage has many rooms, damask and dark. Nothing there sings, not even my lark.”

My heart pounds as I slowly approach the office, certain I’ll see Nicki’s ghost waiting for me there. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but if she’s there, maybe she can tell me what happened to her.

“Nicki?” I whisper as I walk through the door, only to find Ari facing the mirror.

She sings another line as she lightly runs the fingers of one hand up and down the gilded frame.
“If I cannot fly, let me sing.”

I stare at her, my blood pounding in my ears. “You sound just like …”

She turns to me and gives me a cold smile. “Like Nicki? Do you think they’ll finally give me a solo
now
? I mean, it’s not an exact copy of her voice, but it’s
pretty damn close
.”

“What …” is all I can manage, not comprehending what she just said.

“First, why don’t you shut the door,” she says sweetly, but there’s venom in her eyes, and the hair on the back of my neck rises.

Adrenaline pumps through me, and I start backing out of the room. “I think I should go,” I choke out.

Ari rolls her eyes. “Yeah, no,” she says calmly. She opens a drawer in Miss Patty’s desk, pulls out a small gun, and points it at my head.
“Shut the door.”

I gape at her. “Is this a joke?”

“No, the joke is I thought you were my friend.” She waves the gun toward the door. “Now, are you going to close the damn thing already?”

Not taking my eyes off Ari, I reach back, feel the knob, and push the door shut. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because a little birdie showed me this.” She moves to the right, and I have a clear view of the mirror.

“Oh, God,” I whisper as Luke and I appear in the glass— in his bed. I stare at the scene playing like a movie. “H-how did you …” I squeeze my eyes shut. “Make it stop!”

“That’s enough, Mirror. I’ve witnessed that particular betrayal more times than I can stomach anyway.”

When I look up, the room is reflected in the glass again.

Ari narrows her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you,” I say.

“I’m so sure. You were pretty smart, though. Having Nicki answer Luke’s phone was genius, I never thought to keep tabs on you,” she says. “When the mirror showed me Nicki and Luke in his car, I thought
she
was making a move on him, but it was you all along.” Ari shrugs. “Oh, well, at least I got the voice out of the whole messy deal. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be Broadway bound after all.”

“
You
killed Nicki?”

“No, but we have a little tradition in my family. Do you know the story of Snow White?”

I stare at Ari incredulously. “
What
are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about my ancestors. Way back when, Snow White married her prince, only there wasn’t a happily ever after. Seems the prince was a bit of a dog and couldn’t keep his hands off the servants and she saw it all, courtesy of my little friend here.” She points the gun to the mirror, and the face appears.

It bows its head to me, staring at me with its dark, smoky eyes and a smirk on its lips. If I didn’t know any better I’d think it was enjoying this.

“You said it was just animatronics …”

“Yeah, I lied about that. This here is a one-hundred-percent-certified magic mirror—it shows me anything I want.”

“This isn’t happening,” I say, hoping I’m going to wake up.

“As I was saying,” Ari continues, “poor Snow White sought comfort with the only man she could trust—the one who spared her life.” Ari looks at me expectantly. “Care to take a guess?”

I shake my head.

“Party pooper! It was the woodsman. He fell in love with Snow White the moment he set eyes on her. When her stepmother ordered him to cut Snow White’s heart out, he couldn’t do it, and he let her go.”

Bile rises in my throat as I realize what this means. “
You
cut out Nicki’s heart!”

Ari takes a deep breath and points the gun at me again. “I’m
trying
to tell a story here. Don’t you want to hear the stuff that isn’t in the books?”

“Ari, no, please just let me go.” Tears come to my eyes as I think about what she did to Nicki, and how I set this all into motion.

Ari waves the gun in a circle. “Sorry, but the person with the firearm gets to makes the rules. And right now you have to listen. Better yet, watch. I’ve seen it a hundred times. It’s really quite riveting, kind of like the History Channel and a horror movie all wrapped up in one. Mirror, would you be so kind?”

The smoky face smiles broadly for a second, and then disappears as if a wind had come up and blown it apart. I see the girl from the vision Remy showed me in the costume room.

“Ari, no,”
I beg, already knowing just how badly this story ends.

The girl—Snow White—is crying and trying to pull away from a broad, rough-looking man who is holding her firmly in his arms. “What?” she says. “Take Eliza from the only father she’s ever known to run off and live in the
woods
, are you mad?”

“Eliza is
my
daughter!”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m the queen now, for God’s sake! I can’t just walk away from everything.”

He tries to kiss her, but she turns her head away from him.

He grabs her tighter and shakes her. “I alone have been faithful to you, yet I still have to share you with that pig!”

She pushes against the man’s chest and breaks loose but falls as she tries to run. He’s on her in a flash and pins her arms back above her head. “Eliza is mine;
you are mine
!”

She struggles and kicks at him. “No. I told you from the start I could never leave him.”

Rage boils on his face. He reaches toward his leg with one hand and draws a knife strapped to his calf. “I will not share you,” he says coldly.

I turn my head as she screams.

“Stop it!”
I cry out.
“Please!”

“He finally made good on her stepmother’s orders—too bad the old queen didn’t live to see it,” Ari says.

I stare at Ari, who just returns my look with a faint smile. “You’re crazy. This is all crazy. It can’t be true.”

Even as the words leave my mouth, I know I’m wrong, because my sister has already shown me the end of this particular fairy tale. And now I know why Remy was going on and on about apples and knives: The queen tried to kill Snow White with the poison apple, but it was the hunter’s knife that finally did the trick. A trick the Roys have apparently adopted.

“Remy!” I whisper. I need Remy!

The door opens behind me and I jump.

“What’s going on?” Miss Patty asks. She looks back and forth between Ari and me. “
Arianna Roy!
Put the gun down!”

“Don’t you have something better to do right now,
Patty
,” Ari snarls.

Patty looks behind her shoulder, and then shuts the door. “Don’t worry, Megan, everything will be okay.”

Relief floods through me until I see Ari’s face twisted with rage, and I get the feeling she’s too far gone to listen to anything Patty has to say.

“Everything’s not going to be okay,
Mommy
. She knows what happened to Nicki, and if she tells, you’re going to get in a lot of trouble.”

Patty’s mouth drops open. “Me? I’ve only ever tried to keep you away from that damn mirror!” She runs over to it. “I knew this was going to happen! I knew it! What did you show her?”

Luke and I appear on the surface again and Patty gasps. “Oh, for God’s sake! Stop!” she shrieks at the mirror. “Why do you torment her like that? You know what she does afterward, but that’s what you want, isn’t it? More blood.”

The face resurfaces and its hands appear folded under its long, pointy chin. “I merely do as I am commanded—it seems young Arianna is the one with the taste for blood.”

Patty turns to Ari and holds out a hand to her. “Don’t listen to that thing! Come on, honey, it’s too late for you and Luke, you know that. Why bring her into this at all?” she asks, tilting her head toward me. “You know what the mirror’s like, it’s just trying to goad you into doing something you don’t want to do.”

“Oh, I want to do it, and this time it’ll work!” Ari hisses. She walks around the desk toward me and I step back until I bump up against the wall. She points the barrel of the gun at my heart, and my legs shake. “This is what Luke wants,” she says, tapping the gun on my chest, “and if I can get it, he’ll be mine.”

“It’s too late for that,”
Patty says shrilly. “Tell her!” she yells at the mirror.

The face cocks his head, eyeing Ari and me. “I’ve told her as much many times,” it says. “I warned you, Arianna. I warned you that Kayla’s heart would not get you what you desired, but you wouldn’t listen. Having consumed it, you’ll never be more than a sister to him now.”

“You killed Kayla?” I whisper.
“You killed Luke’s sister and ate her heart?”

“Shut up!”
she shrieks. She turns to the mirror, all the while keeping the gun pointed at me. “Hers will
counteract
Kayla’s heart. I know it will, and Luke will love me as much as he loves her.” Tears flow down her cheeks.
“He just has to!”

“It might work,” the mirror states matter-of-factly. “If he loves this girl enough, it might work.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. This is insane!”

Patty looks at me sympathetically and then turns back to Ari. “There are other boys, honey.”

Ari scowls at her stepmother. “You just don’t want me to be happy.”

Patty’s eyes open wide with surprise. “How can you say that? I was the one who begged you not to do anything to Kayla. I told you it wouldn’t work!”

“You knew?” I ask, stunned.

Patty turns to me with a shocked expression on her face. “Oh, I …”

“Yes, Miss High and Mighty knew,” Ari says smugly. “Why don’t you tell Megan which ride Kayla’s buried under? And how you delayed the installation of the new ride so we could stash Nicki’s body there before the cement base got poured. Of course, we weren’t able to get her body here since
someone
was poking around in the woods with my boyfriend!”

I stare at them in disbelief. “How could you?”

Tears pull Miss Patty’s makeup down her face in streaks. “You don’t know what it’s like living here with this thing badgering me all the time. And Arianna always gets her way. Always!”

Patty faces the mirror. “I
begged
you not to show Ari anything. I begged you and now …” She turns to me. “And now I guess we really don’t have a choice. I’m so sorry, Megan. I tried to warn you.”