Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (6 page)

Mina nodded and adjusted her backpack over
her shoulder. It now felt like someone had loaded it with bricks.
Jared opened the door and motioned for her to enter first.

The school smelled the
same, a weird mixture of books, paint, and sneakers. The
air-conditioned air hit her as soon as she walked in, and she
balked at the memory and guilt that assailed her. Jared gently
touched her elbow and pushed her forward. She reached into her
green jacket and pulled out a crumpled-up class schedule
labeled
Grime, Wilhelmina—Junior. Class
A
. Other than her name, she couldn’t make
out where her first class was located. Her eyes were watering. She
didn’t even know if Nan was in any of her classes. She was a
wreck.

A cute girl with a pleated skirt, black
boots, and a skull shirt popped up next to them and latched onto
Jared’s arm. Her short black hair had a new stripe of purple added
to it, giving Ever added flair.

She started chatting nonstop, and Mina could
feel the slight breeze created from her invisible wings. Ever was
Fae, like Jared. A pixie, to be exact, who had the biggest crush on
the banished royal prince.

“
Oh, did you see who I got
for history—snooze fest. And advanced physics. Yikes! I think I’m
doomed to be a student here forever. I’ll never pass those
classes.” The pixie kept chatting until she noticed someone to the
left of Jared. When she saw Mina, she paused long enough to say,
“Hey, Gimp.” And then she was back to her self-absorbed universe,
asking Jared to hang out after school.

Mina shouldn’t have been surprised at Ever’s
reaction. Pixies tended to have short attention spans. But Jared
was put off by Ever’s words. He pulled his arm out of her grasp and
gave her an ugly glare to be quiet. She took his cue and
immediately stopped speaking, and slowed to walk a few feet behind
them. Jared directed Mina to her home room class and stopped
outside the door.

“
Here you are, safe and
sound,” he said lightly. “Don’t worry—if you get through today,
tomorrow will be a breeze. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes, and
I’ll come make sure you don’t get lost on the way to second period.
Here, give me your backpack, and I’ll put it in your locker for
you.”

“
Wait, how do you know
where my locker is, and how do you know the
combination?”

He smiled crookedly at her, and for the
first time since the fire she felt a stirring of emotion other than
sadness. Her mind flickered back to their encounter in the storage
room, and her cheeks flushed. It was like her frozen heart had
started to thaw just a little at his smile.

“
Ah, that’s for me to know
and you not to find out.” He opened up her backpack, pulled out a
spiral notebook and pen, and handed them to Mina before turning and
leaving.

Mina almost dropped the notebook and had to
maneuver quickly to grab it. Instead of sitting near the front of
the room, she headed for the farthest corner of the room and sat in
the back row. Ever happened to be in the same home room as Mina and
gave her a worried frown before sitting up a few rows and over. It
was obvious that Ever was upset at Jared’s treatment and was going
to take it out on Mina.

Students began to file in, and Mina stared
at the spiral notebook, preferring to not make eye contact. She
must have stared at the notebook for two minutes before she noticed
something odd about it. It was the Grimoire, but it was once again
in a notebook shape and not the small leather book she had seen it
in before. Jared must have changed its shape while it was in the
backpack on purpose, then handed it to her. She didn’t even know
that was possible, but then she realized again—stupidly—how closely
they were connected.

She flipped open the notebook and perused
through all of its prisoners, because that was what the book was, a
jail of sorts. But the oddest of all was how this all started.
Mina’s ancestors, Joseph and Wilhelm Grimm, had found a way over to
the Fae plane and demanded that the gates between the worlds be
closed. The Fae agreed, but only if the brothers could complete a
list of quests, which would be logged into a powerful book that
resided in the Fae world. Unfortunately, the Grimm Brothers had
been tricked by the Fae. There wasn’t an end to the quests, because
if one Grimm failed, the responsibility passed on to the next son.
And the challenges started all over again. Mina had figured out
that it had nothing to do with the quests and everything to do with
being manipulated by the Story. The Story wanted the Grimms to trap
the uncontrollable power-hungry Fae that lived on the human plane
for them.

But somewhere along the line, a witch or
powerful Fae split the Fae book in two and ensnared the royal
brothers Teague and Jared as servants to these books, one on the
human plane to help the Grimms, while the other resided on the Fae
plane. Mina had yet to find out what it was that the brothers had
done to deserve their fate, but Jared refused to talk about it. He
would only say that he had been banished from his home and must
live as a servant to the Grimms. That was how Mina figured out that
Teague was also bound somehow as well.

She fingered the pages and traced the faint
outlines of the pictures drawn on the paper. There was a lifelike
drawing of Claire and Grey Tail, the Chicago Bears football
players, and others. Her hand started to shake when she saw the
scared faces of the innocents trapped within as well. For a Reaper,
a killer that hunts down Grimms, had gotten ahold of the Grimoire
and was using it to trap innocent Fae within its pages. There was
her teacher Mrs. Porter, a UPS worker, a young girl. Quickly, she
flipped the pages and saw Diedre and the Reaper locked in a death
grip frozen on the page. She turned one more page, and her heart
felt like it was being ripped out. The picture was of Brody kissing
Nan, and in the background was the hospital on fire. It was a Snow
White and Sleeping Beauty tale wrapped into one, complete with
fiery dragon and glass hospital.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the
picture. Why would Jared give this to her? It was hard enough for
her to accept her responsibility at the lack of fairy-tale quests
solved over the last two months and her brother’s death in the
fire. She wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she lost her
mom.

She was about to flip the notebook closed
when a shadow fell across the page. Mina quickly covered up the
drawing with her arms and looked up into the smiling face
of—Brody.

“
Hey, Mina, looks like we
have home room together.”

Please,
she thought,
let that be
it for the questions
. As much as she
wanted to speak to Brody, to hug him, to kiss him, to tell him she
had feelings for him, and to please explain the kiss at the end of
last year, she couldn’t. Not without falling apart like a
blubbering baby.

The teacher, Mr. Ames, began going over the
morning’s announcements, club activities, and sports tryouts. Brody
took the desk right in front of her and didn’t turn back for more
conversation. Nan never walked through the door, probably meaning
she was in a different home room, since this year they’d organized
the students by alphabet. And Taylor was at the end. Luckily for
her, she had the most laid-back class of the day with Brody, but
unluckily for her, she also sat in the seat farthest from the
door.

When the announcements were over, they had
free time since it was the first day of school and there wasn’t any
homework or tests to study for. But Mr. Ames made his way over to
the back of the room and straight for Mina’s desk.

He knelt down to be at eye level with her
and took a deep breath. “We heard about the fire and the death of
your brother. The school faculty and I know that this is a
difficult time for you. If you need anything, please speak up and
let one of us or the school counselor know.”

He had been trying to speak quietly, but it
was obvious by the stiffening of Brody’s shoulders and the audible
intake of breath in front of her that he’d overheard their teacher.
Well, that was one less awkward conversation she would have to
have.

Brody turned and whispered quietly to Mr.
Ames, “If the school and faculty wanted to support Mina and her
family, why didn’t any of you come to the funeral?”

The question had taken the teacher aback,
and Mina mentally cheered on Brody.

When Mr. Ames went back to the front of the
room, Brody spun around in his chair with pity in his eyes.

“
That wasn’t sincere. They
should have been there to show support. I should have been there
for you more.”

Her heart felt like it was being stabbed
repeatedly over and over with a knife. “Why? You’re not responsible
for me. You’re not my boyfriend.” She could tell the words hurt him
a little, because his cheeks reddened and then his eyes dropped
down to stare at her lips. She knew he was remembering their shared
kiss at the hospital. There was no denying the attraction…or the
fact that an hour later he was kissing her best friend.

Mina sucked in her breath when she saw where
his eyes lingered. She, too, began to remember their kiss, but she
remembered a different kiss, their first kiss on the school stage,
a kiss that he would never remember. Her heart began to pound, and
her lungs screamed for air at the intensity that was building to a
crescendo.

He reached out and touched the top of her
hand, and Mina jumped in her seat, causing her notebook to fall off
the desk and onto the floor. He moved his hand from hers and bent
to pick up her notebook. She felt a loss as soon as he moved his
hand, and he didn’t put it back when he handed her the
notebook.

“
Well, I thought at least
we were close enough—” he began.

“
No, Brody…we’re not. We
won’t ever be close, because my
best
friend
means the world to me.” Her
emphasis on the word “friend” left him no room to argue.

The spell was definitely broken, and she
needed to get her heart under control. This was no longer her
boyfriend.

“
Does Nan know that we…?”
Brody gestured between the two of them, referring to their
kiss.

“
That night at the
hospital? No way…not if I can help it. You’re not going to tell
her, either…right?” She gave him a pleading look.

“
Uh, no,” he said quickly.
He seemed tense, like he was upset that she hadn’t told
Nan.

It took every ounce of Mina’s willpower not
to do a face plant into the table. That wasn’t exactly what she was
hoping for, and now she was dying for the bell to ring.

Thankfully, he turned around and began
talking to one of his water polo friends. When the bell did ring,
she was up and out the door first, despite being in the corner. She
was surprised to see that Jared was already outside the door,
waiting for her, and put his hand on the small of her back to lead
her to the side of the door.

“
How was it? Think you can
survive five more periods?” he asked softly.

Brody walked out the door behind Mina and
saw the placement of Jared’s hands on her. He scowled.

A squeal could be heard down the hall,
followed by the pattering of running feet. Mina was bombarded by
blonde hair, strawberry perfume, and the blubbering crying form of
Nan Taylor, who clamped onto her neck. Nan’s long blonde hair was
in a side ponytail, and she wore a teal lacy shirt and denim
shorts, a zillion colored bangles on her wrists. Her cute nose and
eyes were red from crying.

“
I-I-I can’t believe it.
He can’t be gone.” She started to cry loud and hard, and Brody
looked uncomfortable and unsure of how to comfort his girlfriend,
since she was wrapped around Mina’s neck.

No one understood Charlie like Nan. The two
were the best of friends and had a dynamic brother-sister
relationship, teasing and name-calling included, that Mina envied.
Nan was an only child and treated Charlie like her own brother.
Mina was feeling really guilty now for not finding a way to get
hold of Nan when she was in New York at drama camp.

Mina felt her eyes start to tear up, but she
held them back and comforted Nan. Students stopped and stared, and
quite a few made rude comments, but Jared’s and Brody’s stern looks
kept them at bay, giving the girls time to confer.

There were a few girls who didn’t take the
hint. Savannah White and Pricilla Rose—both girls stopped and
rolled their eyes. Savannah used to date Brody at the beginning of
last year, and now she had it out for anyone who stood between her
and him. She looked killer in her designer skirt, lace tank top,
and bejeweled flats. Her white-blonde hair was in its signature
high ponytail, and her lips had enough gloss you could almost see
your reflection in them. Pri wore a similar but toned-down version
of Savannah’s outfit.

“
So I heard on the news
that the Tard died and your house burnt down. I bet secretly you’re
relieved you don’t have to live with him anymore in that
dump.”

The whole commotion in the hallway
immediately stopped, as if her words had been spoken over the
intercom. It became so quiet that you could hear Mina’s and Nan’s
sharp intakes of breath. Mina wasn’t prone to violence and was
about to think of something mean to say back to Savannah, but she
didn’t have a chance to, because Nan Taylor, perky, happy-go-lucky
Nan Taylor, pulled back her fist and punched Savannah in the
face.

Savannah wasn’t prepared, and fell to the
floor. Nan stood over her shocked face and yelled, “No way was he
handicapped, or different. He was the most special, coolest, and
smartest kid ever. And the world is a much sadder place because
he’s not here. And don’t you ever, EVER, insult him again!” Nan
shook with anger.