Liar in the Hollow Court (The Courts Beneath #1)

Chapter 1

THE FAE WERE just a town legend until the day they took Mom.

“Movie starts in twenty minutes!” I hollered from the front door of our little house, pulling on my puffy red winter coat. “Hurry up!”

My younger sister, Marissa, appeared first. Her eyeliner was thick, as always, despite the fact that we’d be sitting in the dark for the next few hours. “It’d better be good,” she grumbled. Our town’s sole movie theater only played one movie at a time, so we didn’t have a lot of options.

Hot on her heels, our youngest sister, Olive, nearly bumped into the doorframe coming from the kitchen because she couldn’t be bothered to look up from her phone. “The website says it’s a rom-com!” she chirped, dancing an excited jig on the way to the door.

“No. They forgot to update the page again. That was last week’s movie.” I sighed as I pulled on my gloves, since we had to walk to the other side of town. Thankfully, it wasn’t far. Selmo only had 783 residents total.

Both Olive and Rissa groaned, because that meant we’d probably get an action movie, or worse, a thriller. But none of us stopped putting on layers, because what else did we have to do?

“Mom! You coming?” I yelled when she still hadn’t shown.

Usually on Saturdays when Dad got called into work, going to the movies was our tradition.

We typically went to the town’s one and only gas station beforehand, bought snacks to sneak in, and then wandered the three blocks of stores on Main Street after.

“I’ve got a last-minute meeting, girls,” Mom called, poking her head out from the kitchen, without her usual smile. “Go on without me.”

Slightly odd that she was working on a Saturday, especially a few days before Christmas.

That should’ve been my first clue.

But as we headed out the door, Rissa and Olive distracted me with bickering over which kind of candy to get.

“Seriously, if it doesn’t have chocolate, it’s not worth eating,” I reminded them, stepping around a slushy pile of melting snow on the path as we cut through the park in the center of town. “And it’s my turn to buy, so I have final say.”

“Heads up!” a male voice hollered right before a snowball smacked me in the face.

It knocked me sideways.

My phone flew out of my hands as I slipped on a patch of ice, arms flailing like a cartoon character.

I hit the paved path hard.

My butt took the brunt of the fall, but my wrist also slammed into the black pavement, hard enough to bruise.

I hissed in pain.

“Brynn!” Olive grabbed my elbow to help me up.

Rissa turned to glare at the older boys fooling around on the playground. Despite being only a junior, she could be fairly intimidating. “You did that on purpose!”

They definitely had. But I didn’t want to pick a fight. I preferred not to be noticed at all, really.

Ethan, a fellow senior at Mackenzie High with floppy brown hair and an irritatingly attractive face, jumped off the merry-go-round, where he and his friends had been spinning wildly, trying to unseat one another.

I’d had a crush on him freshman year, but three years later and lots of time in his company had cured me.

As he approached, he held his hands up at Rissa’s accusation, stopping by the playground swings. “Sorry!” he called to me, jumping up to stand on one of them, swaying back and forth, but his unrepentant grin said he definitely wasn’t. “My bad.”

His friends followed, taking over the remaining swings or leaning against the swingset poles. They cracked more jokes that I could only half hear through the pounding in my ears.

Giggles came from the top of the playground behind them.

I glanced up to find a group of senior girls from my class witnessing my humiliation as well.

They’d camped out at the top of the jungle gym tower with blankets and nail polish.

They snickered loud enough for me to hear. That was probably intentional.

I didn’t really fit in at Mackenzie High. Or anywhere.

Half the senior class seemed to be hanging out at the park despite the cold. I couldn’t blame them. There was nothing to do in this town. But now every single one of them would gossip to their friends. Everyone at school would think it was hilarious.

“Can you see the steam rising off me?” Rissa growled. I couldn’t tell if she was asking me or them. “That’s how pissed I am!”

“I thought she was one of the fae, coming to steal us away,” Ethan told us, pressing a dramatic hand to his chest and pointing at me. The other seniors cracked up all over again.

“Uh-huh,” I muttered, dusting the snow off my knees and bum, leaving wet patches behind on my jeans.

People disappeared often, and instead of realizing the obvious—that Selmo was the most boring city in the entire world and of course they would leave if they could—people liked to blame the imaginary fae.

It’d become a sort of weird small-town habit to blame them for any bad thing that happened, even something as ridiculous as this.

“You actually believe the fae are real?” Rissa mocked Ethan, standing up for me. “I guess you’re as dumb as you look.”

“Oh, they’re definitely real,” Ethan swore with mock innocence. “Although . . .” He looked me up and down. “You’re right, they’re supposed to be good-looking. I should’ve known better.”

My face flamed.

I lifted a hand up to my plain brown hair and brown eyes, self-consciously brushing a finger through my bangs to straighten them out.

Clumps of snow fell out as I did, leftover spray from the snowball.

The throbbing pain in my cheek told me I probably had a huge red spot on my usually pale skin and that Ethan hadn’t bothered to check if his snowball had ice.

I cleared my throat, trying to ignore him and his friends and the way half my face was on fire, and swiveled around to look at the ground.

“Where’s my phone?” The colorful phone case should’ve stood out against the snow.

It was custom—an early Christmas present from Mom—with pretty bookshelves full of vintage books and flowers.

“Um . . . It’s not good,” Olive said in response, which didn’t make sense at first. That wasn’t what I’d asked at all.

I turned to find her holding it out to me.

My brand-new iPhone, the one I’d worked hundreds of shifts at the library and saved up for months to get, had a massive spiderweb of cracks filling the entire top half of the screen.

“No . . .” I whispered. Swallowing hard, I blinked quickly, trying not to cry and give Ethan something else to make fun of.

“You’re really not supposed to throw those,” Ethan called, shrugging as if it weren’t a big deal. Maybe to him it wasn’t. Not everyone in Selmo struggled to make ends meet. But for me, I’d have to work a million more part-time shifts at the library to afford to fix it.

“Yep,” was all I said in response.

I wish I could say this was because I was taking the high road, but it was more that I could never think of a good comeback on the spot. Whenever I tried, I always gave him or his friends more ammunition.

“That’s all you’re going to say?” Rissa hissed at me, running to catch up as I tucked my injured phone into my coat pocket and continued down the path without a word.

Olive caught up too, holding up her own sparkly pink phone to show a video. “You guys should see this.”

I held my breath and stopped walking. My impressive fall from a minute ago happened in slow motion on the screen. A second later, snickers behind us had me moving again, shoulders hunched.

“Seriously, he’s a jerk. You have to stand up to him, Brynn,” Rissa snapped, speed walking next to me, glaring back over her shoulder. Her dark eyeliner and dyed-black hair contributed to her overall fierce confidence, which I wished I could emulate.

“What do you want me to say?”

Olive frowned, blue eyes glued to her phone, thumb swiping over and over. “Maybe it’s better she didn’t say anything.” At first, I was glad she took my side, until she added, “They would’ve just recorded that too.”

Even she thought I was a loser who could never say the right thing.

“Let’s just go enjoy the movie.” Rissa looped her arm through mine as the path ahead split, tugging me to the left, toward the theater.

But as we reached the intersection, I slowed. “I don’t really want to go anymore.”

“Seriously, Brynn?” Olive brushed her dark blond hair out of her face as she looked up from her phone. “Don’t let them get to you.”

“Yeah,” Rissa agreed. “It’s not that big of a deal. They’ll forget about it by the time the movie is over.”

But I wouldn’t.

“I know it’s not a big deal,” I lied. “But now I need to save all my money to fix the screen.”

Olive’s nose scrunched up. “I can buy the snacks. It’s my turn next week anyway.”

“But there’s also the ticket,” I said lamely.

Rissa turned her glare on me, not believing a word. “You can’t just wallow in your room all day. Come on, Brynn.”

“I won’t, I swear.” With my throbbing face and burning eyes, it was hard to force a smile, but I did. “I also want to try to pick up a shift at the library. It’s going to take weeks to pay for this.”

“Oh. . . Yeah.” Olive winced, clutching her own phone a bit tighter.

Rissa squinted at me, not as quick to accept my excuse, but eventually, she grumbled. “Fine. See you at home.”

My smile fell once their backs turned. Maybe I actually should try to pick up a shift. That’d be a nice distraction.

I tried to call first. But with the cracked screen, dialing each number was a struggle. I got stuck on the two at the top. Worried that someone from the park might come this direction, I gave up.

Shoving my hands into my coat pockets, I stepped off the path to the library and cut through the woods, taking a shortcut.

In an attempt to avoid a pity party, I tried to think about unimportant things. It was cold enough that we might get snow again tonight. I wished I’d worn my hat. It sucked growing up in this town where everyone knew everyone else.

They’d all decided early on who fit in and who didn’t.

And I definitely didn’t.