Beauty’s Monstrous Demons (Fairy Tales With A Monstrous Twist)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

T oday is my eighteenth birthday, and I’m spending it alone the way I have every year that I can remember. No one cares about the foster kid kicked from place to place for a paycheck. I’ve gotten used to it, as much as anyone can at least.

Today is also the day I age out of the system. I get to say goodbye to the group home I’ve been living in as I finish school. I graduated four days ago, and it feels surreal. No more curfews that are a ridiculous dick measuring contest or being told what to do.

So I packed all of my things into the shitty car I saved up for a year to buy, and drove to the state fair. It’s silly, but I’ve always wanted to come here. In my dreams, it always looked different and I had a boyfriend or friend to do it with.

Funny how fantasy can differ so much from the reality of my life.

Walking through the pathways of the fair, I smile at a stall for a corn dog. I’ve always been partial to food that comes on a stick. It’s so silly to me, but also so satisfying.

Getting into the short line, I decide today is a ‘yes’ day, within reason. I have money burning in my pocket from the state for my birthday, a scholarship to a school three hours away, and nothing but time. I deserve a little fun.

Smiling, I order my corn dog and pay for it, doctoring it up with ketchup and mustard before taking a bite. My moan would say that it’s the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, and at this moment, it is. Sadly, I haven’t put much thought into moments of joy, solely focused on getting out of this town.

Walking through the fair is fun, and I even get on the Ferris wheel to say goodbye once and for all. After this, I’m getting in my car and driving straight to Charleston. I’ll stay in a hostel, get a job, and work over the summer. I’m a hard fucking worker.

No one can deny that.

At the top, the Ferris wheel stops, and the small bucket I’m in alone swings riotously. Hands squeezing the bar with a gasp, I gaze out at the world.

“Everything looks so tiny,” I breathe, eyes wide. Hell, I feel like a speck in the grand scheme of things.

The people down below are muted up here, allowing me to just feel. I want things to be different than they have been. I want friends, a cute boyfriend, maybe even a cat once I’m in the apartment the school is providing.

I’ll have a roommate or three, but I’m used to living with other people in my space. That’s one thing that won’t change.

It’s funny how you can live in a town with four thousand other people, and still feel as if no one knows you. And no one cares to, either.

As the wheel moves again, I sniffle, wiping away the tears that have fallen. No, I can’t abide by that. Tears have their place, and it’s not here.

By the time I reach the bottom and step off quickly for the next people to take my place, I’m back in control. I’m overstimulated, that’s all. Clearly, I’ve reached my limit of peopling for the day.

Winding my way toward the exit, a sign for fortune telling by Madam Sera catches my eye.

I very much doubt you can tell my future.

Snorting, I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Monsters share the same air I breathe, and I watched a demon catch his son with his tail when he jumped from a chair earlier. Denying that magic doesn’t also exist is like saying the moon doesn’t go dark every thirty days.

Maybe this fortune teller is legit too.

The day of saying ‘yes’ ends when I leave the fair, so instead of shrugging it off, I walk into the tent.

“Hello?” I ask, biting my lip. My blonde curls tumble forward over my shoulder, forcing me to push them back.

“I’m here,” a woman murmurs, walking through the tent toward me.

A curtain falls behind her, cutting off the area she was in. Everything around me is covered in colorful tapestries. It’s beautiful. She’s someone who enjoys life, I’d like to think. Having so much beauty around them would make it impossible not to.

“I was wondering if I could have a reading? The price wasn’t on the sign. It’s late in the day, I understand if you’re packing up,” I say.

Now that I’m here, I’m already having second thoughts. I’m eighteen. Do I really want to know what my future holds?

“For you? I’ll do your reading for free,” she murmurs, gazing at me with her hazel eyes. Her dark hair is pulled back into a long braid, her ears pierced with pretty gold earrings.

“Oh, you deserve to be paid for your time,” I gasp, shaking my head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Consider it your birthday present,” she says, waving my words away. “Come sit.”

I… what? I didn’t tell her it was my birthday. My feet move as if they have a mind of their own, practically pulling me toward her table.

“Don’t think too hard about it,” she teases me, taking a seat. “The universe tells me things sometimes, and my cards tell me the rest.”

My butt falls into the chair, teeth still worrying my bottom lip. Yet, nothing too crazy has happened yet, so I nod. It could be some kind of parlor trick, and I’ll get out of here unscathed outside of giving myself a tongue lashing for stopping here at all.

“Okay,” I murmur. “What do I need to do?”

“I need you to choose five cards,” she says, lifting her cards and spreading them out picture side down. “Think about any questions you may have about your life. Past, present, and future.”

Thoughts cross my mind in a jumbled mess as I choose the five cards. I’ve often wondered about my parents, but received some interesting things today. My folder was handed to me to take with me this morning, and it clearly says that my parents gave me up of their own volition.

That’s when I decided to come to the fair. I needed to clear my head. The rest of the folder is underneath the seat of my beater, waiting for me to come back to it. I couldn’t bear to read anymore after finding out all the daydreams that my parents had died or lost me weren’t true.

“Here we are,” the woman murmurs.

Fortune teller seems like the wrong term to call her for some reason. The cards are spread in a simple cross, and I wait as she turns them over one by one.

“You’re lost, looking for where you belong,” she says as she gazes down at the first card. “You’ll move several times before you find that place. Go where the winds blow, girl. That’s your intuition keeping you alive.”

My eyes widen at that, watching as she turns over the next card.

“Education will be a pretty place to hide, you’ll meet a lot of people, experience things you’ve always wanted, but you must remember not to share too much,” she says. “Your past holds a lot of secrets, ones your parents died to keep.”

“This isn’t funny,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Please don’t speak of them, they gave me away.”

“The cards tell me they died soon after they did something that cut their very hearts from their chests,” she replies. “I’m sorry if this is a shock to you. I can’t control how much or little they want to share.”

“I don’t know my parents,” I rasp. “I should go.”

“Please don’t,” Madam Sera says quickly. “I’ll be forced to dream about this reading over and over if I don’t finish it. Please?”

Blowing out a breath because I’m unsure if that’s true or not, I stay in my seat. I’m not paying for this, there’s no reason for her to lie.

“Thank you,” she says, turning over the third card. “One of the secrets you’re holding will be revealed in two hours’ time. If you’re planning to drive, pull over if you feel a cramp or something odd happening to your body. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s important.”

Feeling restless, I nod. Three cards have been flipped up, two more to go. I can finish this.

“Your body is going to change after that,” she adds. “You’re unique, no one else is like you. Remember that. Next card…”

Madam Sera stops at the view of two people who seem to be in love. That’s good right?

“I see…” Her eyes close as she thinks. It’s as if the cards are a direction for a reading, but someone else is speaking to her. My body is filled with anxiety, my toes digging into my steel toe shoes.

The summers are brutal here, but so are the winters. Boots work in all flavors of weather.

“Lorelei,” she whispers, her voice sounding far away. I didn’t tell her my name, and the hairs stand up on my arms. “Listen to your instincts, they will lead you to where you belong. Time grows short. You have until your twenty-first birthday to find your scent matches or…”

I’ve never heard that term in my entire life. My breaths are coming out faster, my fingers curled into my palms as my anxiety and fear begin to war against each other. I’m fucking fighting my instinct to run, you twat!

I don’t understand any of this.

“Or what?” I ask, my voice high and scared.

Her eyes open, looking clouded and conflicted. Her hand trembles slightly as it flips the last card over, and it’s an image of death. As if released from my paralysis, I run out of the tent, ignoring her voice yelling my name.

I can’t listen anymore. I have too many unanswered questions, and not enough answers. I run all the way out of the fairgrounds to my car, intent on leaving this podunk town behind. All I can see whenever I blink are how her eyes appeared to be completely taken over by the cloudiness in her pupils, almost as if she were blind.

The open windows and blaring music on the radio try to drown out my thoughts, almost working until my stomach begins to cramp two hours later. The tarot card reading and her words echoing in my mind are the only reasons I pull off on the abandoned road as my insides claw at me, thick liquid coats my leggings, and all I want is to have sex even though I’ve never had it before.

I feel emptier than I ever have in my life, and everything hurts.