Versed for a Second Chance

Chapter One

One

It was day one of the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire, and I was somewhere I swore I’d never be again.

On cast and in costume.

“Caitlin…” Behind me, my best friend Nina Pritchard’s voice held a ton of warning in just one word. She clamped my head between her hands and positioned it where she wanted it.

“Sorry.” I shifted on my rickety folding metal chair, trying to find steady ground beneath me. There was a root around here somewhere, throwing everything off-kilter. “Sorry,” I said again as Nina gave an exasperated sigh.

“Yeah, yeah.” But her voice was warm as she clucked her tongue and got back to work braiding my hair. I couldn’t help but smile.

“No more moving, I promise.”

“Have I mentioned that I’m glad you’re back?

” When we were in high school, Nina and I had volunteered for the renaissance faire every summer.

Now she was the dance captain. And apparently the de facto hair braider, since the one who’d come down from her booth was still doing the Queen’s hair, and it was almost time for opening gate. We were all running late today.

“Don’t get used to it,” I warned. “I’m just helping out this weekend.”

There was a snort from beside me, and I shifted my gaze as far to the right as I could without moving my head. In a similar rickety chair beside me, Toby Patterson was lacing up his second boot. “You say that now,” he said darkly. “But this place has a way of sucking you in.”

He wasn’t wrong, and he and Nina were living proof.

While a large part of the cast every summer consisted of high school students volunteering their time, there were also people like Toby and Nina, who’d graduated with me seven years ago.

Now we were well into our twenties, yet every summer they were back, donning both the outfits and the accents.

There were people around here who’d volunteered for even longer.

Not me, though. I’d sworn off the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire when I was nineteen, even before I left home. I’d told everyone who would listen that I was done with this place. And now, here I was. Back again like I’d never even left.

“It’s just this once,” I said to Toby, a stubborn edge in my voice. It bore repeating. I wasn’t back. Not really. I was just holding up my end of a complicated bargain.

Toby held up defensive hands. “Hey, I’m grateful, believe me.”

“So am I,” the Queen chimed in from her seat beside me.

I looked to my left, where my Aunt Emily was in full regalia, all blue brocade and red and gold silks.

She tried to shake her head, but the braider behind her gave a little growl.

We were both being held prisoner while the women behind us worked on our hairstyles.

“There’s no way Toby and I can do this without you,” she continued.

That seemed to be laying it on a little thick, but Toby gave a solemn nod. “As the Queen’s royal guard, I have to walk up ahead and do my ‘make way for the Queen’ schtick.”

“Leaving me all by myself,” Emily chimed in. “I can barely remember the gate speech, much less where I’m supposed to be any given moment.”

“And the Queen has a very full schedule.” I sighed; I got it. “You’re supposed to have ladies-in-waiting.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And now we do.” He looked pointedly at me, and I sighed again. God, I really didn’t want to be here.

But it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. People who were unemployed and had moved back home in disgrace rarely did. I’d expected Mom to charge me rent, but to my surprise she’d said I could stay for free.

I should have known that offer would become a bargaining chip. And when Simon and Emily had come over last night, I knew that they were coming to cash in that chip. And now here I was, shepherding Emily through her day as the Queen.

“I was a lady-in-waiting one time,” I reminded Toby. “When I was fourteen. I’m really the best you could get?”

“On such short notice?” He nodded emphatically.

“We haven’t had a lot of ladies-in-waiting recently,” Emily said apologetically. “Chris knew the role like the back of her hand, and it wasn’t really necessary.”

I hadn’t been home long enough to catch up on the local gossip, but I’d known this one: Miss Chris, our Queen since the Faire had started, had moved away and abdicated her role. So now Emily was filling in, and I’d been drafted.

“Cheer up,” Nina said. “What better way to spend the summer than here with us ren faire lunatics, am I right?” She practically sang with delight as her fingers twisted my hair, tugging gently, and I couldn’t help but snort in response.

“ ‘Lunatics’ is one word for it.” Toby stood and reached for his sword belt on the folding table to my left.

“It was one thing when we were kids, doing this for extra credit in the summer.” He cinched the belt around his waist, tugging down his linen shirt and then adjusting the fabric of his jerkin so that it lay right.

“Now we’re taking on an unpaid part-time job during the hottest weekends of the year. ”

“Running around the woods in pretty clothes,” Nina said, reframing the concept with her usual optimism. “Flirting with pirates, cheering on knights in armor, hot women in corsets. It all sounds good to me.”

“Yeah, well.” If Nina sounded like sunshine, I was a thundercloud. “Be careful who you flirt with.” I was speaking from experience, and they both knew it.

“Ohhhh.” Toby blew out the word like a breath. “You’re talking about Alex.” He glanced up at Nina, then back at me.

Nina’s hands dropped to my shoulders, giving me a reassuring squeeze.

“You don’t have to worry about running into him.

The Sword Bros haven’t been back for the past couple years.

” She fell into a thoughtful silence as she secured my hairstyle with about a million pins.

“I don’t think they do this Faire anymore. ”

“Really?” I risked turning in my seat to look up at her. She nodded before moving my head back to face front.

Emily chimed in next to me. “I told you last night, remember? You said you’d help out with the Faire as long as we hadn’t hired the Sword Bros. And they broke up, what, two or three years ago?” She looked to Nina for confirmation, but Emily’s hair braider nodded from behind her.

“That sounds about right.” The braider’s sigh was wistful. “I have to tell you, I miss those boys. No matter what festival we were working, I’d sneak out to see a couple of their shows.”

“Well, sure,” Nina said. “Three guys in tight pants fighting with swords. Even I could appreciate that, and I don’t even like guys.” That earned her a glare from me, and she quirked a sympathetic smile. “Sorry.”

She had a point, even though I’d never admit it out loud. Those Sword Bro pants really had been something else. What was it about tight pants and a form-fitting vest that made men so attractive?

“Consider him ancient history,” Nina said.

“That’s good news at least.” There was no way I could step foot on these grounds if there was a chance I would run into Alexander Wright.

Alex was the reason I’d left the renaissance faire, way back then. The reason I no longer believed in…well, in a lot of things.

“And even if he was here, you have your own personal armed guard this season.” Toby sketched a bow in my direction—a careful one, considering the sword he had strapped to his hip. “I’d have him locked in the tower, milady,” he said in his exaggerated accent.

I blinked. “We have a tower now?” How much had changed since I’d been away?

“A metaphorical tower,” he said, and I had to laugh at that.

It was really good to be hanging with him and Nina again.

Mom and I had moved to Willow Creek when I was six, and Toby had been one of my first friends.

He’d shared his apple slices with me, I’d split my Goldfish crackers with him, and we’d been close friends ever since.

Together with Nina, the three of us had shared homeroom all the way through our senior year of high school.

I think Mom had always hoped Toby and I would date, but he came out to me when we were home on break from college, so I’d had to let Mom down easy.

Nina had already figured out she was gay sometime during high school, so the three of us remained a strictly platonic trio, with me as their token straight friend.

“Anyway…” Nina picked up a small tiara from the card table next to us and nestled it into my hair, arranging some of my dark curls around it to hide the plastic combs. “You look great. You’re gonna knock ’em dead today.”

My sigh was world-weary, but when Nina wrapped my shoulders in a close hug my heart melted. As complicated as it was to be back in this space, it really had been my home once. And it was good to be around for longer than a holiday weekend. “Jackson’s soon? We really need to catch up.”

She nodded. “Text me.”

At the other side of the folding table, the hair braider put the finishing touches on the Queen, capping off her look with a glittering crown. The glass jewels flashed in the early-morning light as my Aunt Emily stood, brushing her hands on her voluminous skirts. She looked regal, almost ethereal.

As for me, I was somehow in the same dress I’d worn when I was fourteen.

A long pink gown, it was a constantly borrowed staple in the Faire’s wardrobe, and a decade of use showed up on its fabric.

The hem had been raised and lowered several times in the past few years, leading to a hastily attached ruffle to hide the alterations.

Thankfully the side seams had been let out at some point, accommodating the more adult curves I’d acquired since the last time I’d worn it.

It was serviceable, but certainly not perfect, and I couldn’t believe Simon was letting me wear it. He was usually pickier than this.

But I had been a last-minute addition. I should count myself lucky that I had a costume at all.