Chapter 3
3
“ W here’s Aunt Ovie?” I demand, throwing myself through the front door of the house.
My dad looks up from where he’s sitting in his recliner, smoking a pipe and reading A Dragon’s Quotidian Life, a book about dragons that he wrote.
Dragons are his favorite subject. Don’t get him started on them because he can talk for hours. Even though I like those creatures, the last thing I’m interested in is a long-winded explanation about their mating practices.
Trust me, I’ve heard it all—especially about how dragon courting rituals put werewolves’ practices to shame. If you think the biting between wolves is risqué, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve studied how dragons go about mating. There’s biting— everywhere . And also some scandalous fire breathing that I would rather not think about.
My father looks up from the book, startled, his thinning blond hair falling into his face. “You’re looking for Ovie?”
“Yes. Is she here?”
“I’m not sure.” He points to the ceiling. “She might be upstairs getting your sisters ready.”
Mama walks into the room. Her hair’s piled high on her head in swirly curls, but she doesn’t have on her gown yet. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s looking for Ovie,” Dad says over his shoulder.
She frowns. “Blair, listen, there’s something I need to tell you?—”
I cut the air with my hand. “I already know all about it, Mama.”
She peers at me curiously. “You do?”
“I do and I’m going to talk to Ovie.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I snap, then quickly apologize. “Sorry. It’s just been a stressful day.”
“Tell me about it,” Dad says, looking upstairs, seeming to refer to having a house overflowing with women getting ready for a ball. I’m sure it’s a headache for any man.
Mama nods. “Try upstairs.”
“She better be there,” I reply, exasperated.
No, I’m not exasperated by the fact that I’ve just seen Devlin. He doesn’t get the privilege of doing that to me.
Ever.
A growl rips from my throat as I storm up the rickety steps that line the wall, being sure not to smash my shoulder against the collection of family photos that are hung there for all the world to see.
You know how most families showcase the nice school photos of their kids? Not mine. They like to frame the rowdy pictures, the ones where we put rabbit ears behind each other’s heads. Or worse, the ones where we pretend to pick our noses.
Oh, my family’s got some kind of sense of humor all right.
And the funniest part is that Ovie is MIA. “How can she be missing when she invited Storm Grayson and didn’t tell anybody?” I grumble.
Not true. Somehow Chatty Cathy found out. That horrible woman knew about it before I did and it’s my ball.
Needless to say, Ovie is in big trouble.
“Ovie,” I call.
The second floor’s a mess of dresses. Beautiful frilly gowns are either lying on the floor or are suspended from hangers hooked onto the tops of doors, as my younger sisters fight over who’s wearing what.
“You said that I could wear the pink gown,” Finn argues.
Dallas twirls a piece of her short brown hair around her finger. “And you said that you’d loan me your silver shoes.”
“Have y’all seen Ovie?” I ask, stepping between them.
Finn’s eyeing Dallas, but she’s talking to me. “I think she’s downstairs, getting the ballroom ready.”
Fine. So on we go.
“Where’re you heading?” Dallas asks. “You’re supposed to be getting ready. It’s only an hour till showtime.”
I drop my chin onto my chest. “Fine. I’ll get ready. What am I wearing? Some hideous purple explosion of flowers?”
Normally I like flowers, but ever since we started doing these balls, whoever is in the spotlight always wears some sort of traditional gown, and when witches talk about tradition, they mean big ugly dresses with tentacles coming off them that look like spider legs.
No, I’m not joking.
So it’s hard for me to get excited about a witch ball gown.
Dallas shoots me a wide grin. “Your dress was dropped off earlier. Come and see.”
They guide me to my room. Spread across my bed is a strapless silver dress made of velvet with a white fur bolero over it. Probably not real fur. No one here wants to kill animals. But the fur is soft, very soft, and nice. I push it aside to get a better view of the dress. It has a sweetheart neckline and a full skirt that’s covered in tiny pearls.
I release a low whistle. “Holy cow.”
“Holy cow is right,” Finn says, seeming to have forgotten her argument with Dallas. “Get into it. We’ve been waiting all day for you to put it on.”
Emory appears at the door. Yes, in case you haven’t guessed, all of us girls are named alphabetically, in order to how we were born. There’s Addison, me, Chelsea, Dallas, Finn, Emory, and Georgia. Whew. It’s a mouthful.
Emory’s dirty blonde hair hangs in barrel curls that cascade down her back. “You’re here. Oh, do you love that dress? I had a feeling you would,” she adds with a wink.
Emory is empathic, so of course she had a feeling about how I would react to the dress.
“Well, everybody’s here except Georgia,” I say. “What’d y’all do with our youngest?”
Finn thumbs the doorway. “We made her go on a scavenger hunt for her dress.”
My hand flies to my mouth and I laugh. There’s no one like my sisters to put me a in a good mood. They know exactly how to melt me.
As if on cue, Georgia appears, gently pushing Emory out of the way so she can see. “Do you love your dress? I wanted to wear it so badly that I almost stole it.”
I chuckle. “No one’s stealing this. Come on, y’all. Help me get dressed.”
It’s not until my sisters have finished fussing with my hair and the dress that they let me get a good look at myself in the mirror.
I can hardly breathe at the sight. The dress hugs my curves perfectly, and the silvery color complements my olive skin. Finn took her time curling my hair, and she pushed a mother-of-pearl comb into one side, sweeping it up.
“You look so beautiful,” Georgia says. “I bet Storm Grayson proposes tonight.”
My eyes narrow. “You knew about Storm.”
My sisters, all four of them, stare at their feet. That’s it. Everyone knew but me. Ovie kept this from me. On purpose. What else is she keeping from me? Is the Prince of Neverland going to show up? If such a person exists, I want to know about it beforehand. I don’t need Cathy and her minions having the upper hand.
“I’m going to find Ovie,” I tell them. “Thanks for making me look beautiful.” And I mean it. I really do. “I’ll see y’all downstairs.”
The ballroom is in the back of the house. Actually it’s the parlor, and with magic, my family turned it into a big, beautiful room filled with marble floors, tall windows, grand chandeliers, mirrors, and a cozy fireplace—you know, just in case all the dancing makes someone cold, you can light a fire and warm up (insert eye roll here).
The musicians are setting up when I enter, and I know my aunt has to be here somewhere, making sure that all the preparations are ready to go.
I scan the room and see her. She’s standing in the corner talking to a woman whose back is to me.
“Ovie, why in the world didn’t you tell me that Storm Grayson is coming?”
Her gaze flicks up to me and my aunt, who is like a miniature Kristin Chenoweth on steroids, grimaces. “Well, Blair, if you’d like to know why, it’s because I didn’t invite him.”
“Then who did? Mama? Dad?”
“I did,” comes a commanding voice. The woman standing beside Ovie turns around and my knees buckle. “I invited Storm Grayson, and what are you going to do about it, kid?”
Standing in front of me, wearing a brocade dress and high heels, with her silver hair twirled into a tight bun, is my nana.
My dead nana.
I scream, and Ovie grabs me before I faint on the floor. I right myself and exhale a deep breath. “Nana?” My gaze flicks to Ovie. “What is going on?”
My grandmother clasps both hands in front of her. “My dear, what’s going on is that you and the rest of your sisters have to marry, and I’ve come back to make sure that it happens. I’d like to say something along the lines of ‘over my dead body,’ but it looks like I’m already dead.”
Then she throws her head back and cackles, while my stomach churns like I’m about to vomit. Somehow this night has gone from bad to worse.
And guess what? The evening’s just getting started.