Fairy Tale (18 page)

"I promised I would do anything for her. So when she accidentally killed another fairy, I took the punishment. I was already an outcast for being human, so I assumed it would be easier for me, and she was so fragile. I was incarcerated for two of your years. It wasn't a pleasant experience."

"They hurt you in prison?"

"That wasn't so bad. But when I was released, nearly every fairy who did speak to me before never spoke to me again. Including her." He clenches his fists. "That was the worst part."

By the time he's done explaining, his eyes are wet, which makes me feel guilty, wonder why I'd bothered to press him to tell the story.

"As I've told you, fairies are not capable of love. She wasn't. It's not her fault. It's mine for thinking I could change her."

"That's horrible," I say, looking down at the ground to stop the tears from flowing. And the worst thing of all is that he's going to be headed back there in only three days' time. Why would any person in their right mind want to head straight back into the fire like that? Could he actually be that insane?

"You left Otherworld willingly. You don't want to go back," I say, my voice soft. "The only reason you're going back is... because of the plan? Because of what I asked of you?"

"It's because I know what it's like to lose someone you love."

"But if you go back, it will be even worse than before you left." He points to his swollen jaw, dark purple in the shadows. "I'm not much better off here."

"But you can be," I tell him, unable to stop the words from coming out of my mouth. "Don't you think you'd have a better chance here? With other humans?"

And, under that logic, maybe Cam will have a better chance of fitting in with other fairies. But I refuse to think about anything logical right now.

"I can't let you... We can't go through with this. I will hate myself forever if I let that happen to you."

"Don't you want to be with Cam?"

I sigh. "More than anything."

"There's your answer." He smiles at me, reassuringly. "Don't worry about me. I will be fine."

Somehow, I don't believe him. I say, "Is there a way we can keep you both here?"

"No. That would upset the balance between the two worlds " he says quickly. "But, Morgan, I am fully prepared to do this for you

"... for true love," I complete his sentence.

"Right. Because when two people love each other, nothing should stand in their way."

I mumble a thank-you. My cheeks feel hot, and I have to look away from his intense gaze. I find myself wishing he weren't such a sweetheart. Maybe that would make this feeling stop-this feeling like there's a giant seam in my middle, unraveling as my two halves are pulled further apart.

MY MOTHER WAS to take the time out from her busy food-shopping schedule in order to pick up the two casualties of the wrath of Stevens's biggest defensive tackle, but when the principal explained that we were completely innocent in the matter (as a bunch of onlookers who so desperately wanted a free psychic session or an invite to my party could attest), she softened and said she would be right over after she got the ice cream into the freezer.

So Scab was suspended, and Pip and I have the day off to recuperate. Nurse Jean, an old lady who is obviously a pacifist, considering the number of times she made "tsk, tsk" noises and shook her head with disapproval, gave Pip an ice pack for his swollen jaw, while I got a little Band-Aid for my nose. It turned out that it wasn't as bad as it had appeared; it wasn't broken, which saved me another agonizing trip to the emergency room. Instead, the jerk had scratched me, from under one eye to just above my lip, with his lame studded bracelet that he thinks makes him ultratough but actually makes him look like a groupie of one of those eighties hair bands. I text Cam with the news of the fight, and it's fewer than ten seconds before he's standing in the doorway of the nurse's office, breathing hard.

"Damn" is all he can say once he's surveyed the damage.

"Please tell me that means you're going to kick his ass."

"He's definitely off my list," he says.

"What list? The list of people whose asses you're not going to kick?" I ask hopefully.

He shakes his head. "Look at me. He outweighs me by a hundred pounds."

"Can't you-I don't know-turn him into a toad?"

"I can't use my magic like that. Not yet, anyway."

Oh, right. Bummer.

Nurse Jean pokes her head behind the curtain and grins. "Oh, Mr. Browne! I thought that was you."

Nurse Jean is, and probably always will be, in love with Cam. With all his minor football injuries, he visits her constantly, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had her number programmed into his cell phone right next to mine. He gives her a semiwave, a little bashful.

She steps back and inspects him. "Well, well, well. You look just great. You must be following that new diet I gave you.
Yes? "

He shrugs, and I find myself fascinated by the fact that even a trained medical professional can't notice his obvious physical changes. While she takes Cam across to discuss the diet, I lean over to Pip. "Why can nobody see what's happening to him except me?"

His eyes widen. "What do you mean?"

"Hello? Among other things, his ears are getting pointy, and nobody's freaked out about it."

"You can see that?"

"Uh-huh. Can't you?"

He gnaws nervously on his fingernail. "Massif knew that Cameron would go through certain changes before he fully inherited his powers, so he put a spell over all humans until his sixteenth birthday, to protect him. He was afraid that..."

"I know. That we would discriminate against him the way they do humans. The way they did you. Right?"

He looks worried. "Morgan. He put that spell on
all
humans. You are not supposed to be able to see the changes."

"Well, Massif must have screwed up," I say. "I'm a psychic. I can see things lots of people can't. I can even see Dawn when she's invisible."

"I meant to ask you about that. You really can?"

I nod.

His worried look melts into an uneasy smile. "So, you are an enchantress, after all. In Otherworld, we give that name to any human female with magical powers."

"I guess." I return his smile, my cheeks starting to warm under the weight of his gaze. "Are you saying that if Cam did leave, humans wouldn't notice that, either?"

He nods. "That is a fairly simple spell for Massif. It will be like he never existed."

"But it doesn't sound so simple to me. Everyone loves him. They could never forget about him." I watch Nurse Jean talk to Cam about adding more protein to his diet for his "athletic and muscular body type" and doubt begins to creep in. "You mean, Mr. and Mrs. Browne, too?"

"But how?" I can just imagine Cam's bedroom miraculously changing into a sewing room overnight, and his image disintegrating from every photo I have of him, as if he never existed. It seems impossible.

"That is why I was sent here."

"You mean, you're supposed to take his place? And people won't notice that?" I ask incredulously.

"That is the plan."

"They really think that his own girlfriend, someone who's known him since birth, wouldn't notice the difference?" I ask indignantly, though uncertainty is creeping in. "They
obviously
don't know anything about love."

As soon as the words leave my mouth, it suddenly makes sense, why I've been having those confusing dreams involving Pip. Pip is Cam's replacement. Pip is meant to take his place, in everything.

Seamlessly. As Stevens's starting quarterback. As the Brownes' son. And as my boyfriend. It seems so impossible, and yet, I flash back to the dreams I've had, the confusion. If I could be fooled in my dreams, who's to say I wouldn't be fooled when awake?

"But what about enchantresses?" I blurt out. "I mean, what about people like me? Their spells don't work the same on me. Wouldn't I remember him?''

He shrugs. "Possibly. You might not remember everything, but there would be a chance."

I sink down onto the hard, square pillow on the cot and wonder how that would feel. Would remembering what I had lost make it harder to cope? Or would I be happy, knowing he was there, my own fairy godfather?

Pip catches my bemused expression and says, "But that's nothing to worry about."

"I know, I know. I was just thinking...in case the plan doesn't work..." I stop myself. "But if it does work, will I remember you?"

He thinks for a second. "I do not know, actually."

"I hope I do," I begin, but I catch myself when I realize that every time I think of Pip, I'll know that he's being tortured in Otherworld because of me. It probably serves me right.

"Have you tried envisioning the plan lately?"

I shake off the mental image of Pip being brutally whipped in Otherworld and say, "No. And I won't, I've sworn off envisioning for now. It was making me crazy. "

He smiles. "Taking control of your own destiny?"

"We'll see," I answer. After all, that's only possible when you know exactly what you want out of your life. And I thought I did, but now I'm not so sure.

I SHOULD HAVE known that my mother wouldn't drop everything and rush right over. It's a shopping trip we're talking about, and she doesn't mess around where food is concerned. She shows up at two in the afternoon, after I explained three times to Nurse Jean that we only live three blocks away from the school and that it would be perfectly safe to let us out on our own. Nurse Jean, however, doesn't have the same love for me that she does for Cam. "Principals orders," she'd said all three times, though the last time her voice cracked in exasperation and she looked like she was searching for the nearest medical reference book to throw at me.

So by the time my mother shows up, I'm nearly in a coma from looking at the WHAT SMOKING DOES TO YOUR BODY poster on the wall and watching Pip sleep. His face is like that of a little child without a care in the world, despite the fact that he looks like the war wounded and is destined to be punished even more severely in Otherworld in only three days' time.

"Marone!
Look at your face!" my mother cries when she parts the curtain. She throws her heavy leather bag on my cot, right on my feet, and puts a hand on Pips chin, inspecting his jaw.

"Ow, Morn," I say, sliding my feet out from under her purse and massaging them "You do want me to be able to walk out of here, don't you?"

She ignores me. "How in the world did you get into this mess? And three days before the party!"

"I know. Pictures ruined." I groan, remembering how she had squawked after I came home in an arm brace. "Life as we know it, over."

"I have some pancake makeup," she says, tilting my chin up to the fluorescent light. "It could work."

In the back of my mother's Honda SUV, Pip and I are quiet. But my mother and father both have a knack for saving the world from complete silence She hums along to her one and only, horribly overplayed Andrea Bocelli CD and, in between, peppers us with exciting stories about her trip to Shop Rite. "Turkey Hill was buy one gallon, get one free, so I thought we could have sundaes tonight." And, "The romaine was very wilted, so I had to get iceberg."

My mother invites Pip for dinner, since Cam has a second assignment tonight. I figure this is a good thing; if fairies obviously don't eat so well, it's only fitting that he have a really great meal on one of his last nights on Earth. "Just make sure you pronounce it
pasta fazool "
I whisper to him. "My mother has a thing with pronunciation."

He nods and then leans toward the front of the car.
"Molte grazie, Signora Sparks.
Mi
piacerebbe
visitare l'Italia un giorno di questi"

My mother perks up right away.
"Prego, prego!"
she bubbles.

What is she talking about? Isn't that a brand of pasta sauce that has been banned from our house? When she sees the way he gobbles up her pasta, I'll be surprised if she doesn't offer to divorce Dad and move in with him right away. Meanwhile, Andrea Bocelli is moaning something about
amore.
I wait for Marlon Brando to appear and make me an offer I can't refuse. I stare at Pip, openmouthed, as he goes on conversing with my mom in a language I've never been interested in understanding.

Until now.

When we get home, my mother beams at him and pats his uninjured cheek. Then she says something in Italian to both of us, seemingly forgetting that I have no freaking clue what she is saying. I look at Pip, helpless.

"She wants us to wash up for dinner. It will be ready soon."

"Oh. Um, so, where did you learn Italian?"

He slings his backpack over his shoulder and takes mine from me before I can pull it out of the car. "We had to learn to speak all the languages."

All?'' I ask, doubtful. "So, like, Swahili?"

"Ndiyo," he says hurriedly, maybe to stop me from staring at him with an open mouth, like a freaky blowfish "Let's go inside. I am quite hungry."

At dinner, it's more Italian. My father minored in Italian in college when he was dating my mother, so he even interjects a word or two. I'm starting to feel like
I'm
the person who's new to the world, like
I'm
the outcast. "Can we please speak English?" I finally say, as nicely as possible, so that Pip doesn't think I'm a total brat.

"I'm sorry, hon. But it isn't often I get to practice. And, Pip, you have flawless intonation." She bats her eyelashes at him and then returns to me. "How is the pasta?"

Pip doesn't seem to care about making a fool of himself in front of me. He says, "Fantastic!'' with his mouth full, a little elbow of pasta glued to his chin with sticky orange sauce. At times like this, I can really see what lures the girls in.