Chapter 23 The Goddamned Fairy Castle
LET ME EXPLAIN WHAT THAT looks like.
You take the Disney World template and squeeze it around the middle like a tube of toothpaste, so the bottom and top bulge to bursting.
Then you throw in a little extra leafery and accidental trees sticking out of windows.
And maybe drop in walls with angles that aren’t strictly correct.
Example: a second-floor greenhouse lingering without support underneath (though it’s connected to the castle by an arched stone bridge, obviously).
A roof composed of tulips instead of tiles.
On top of all that, you add an extremely intimidating verticality.
Like since when did you need more than one, or at most, two turrets in a building?
Why twenty? Does everyone need their own winding staircase?
What about ADA access? The more I look at it, the more my discomfort grows.
Then eases. Then grows. Then completely, utterly dissipates.
Yeah, all right. It’s a fairy castle. So, presumably, I am here to help throw a royal fairy wedding. This explains the preposterous budget. And the spectacular Momzilla-levels of entitlement. And the secrecy. But you know what?
These fairies have no taste.
And I know how to work with that.
As much as I can’t wait to hate-view the castle entry hall, it’s probably for the best that Rochester deposits our spaghetti squash coach at the rear-facing servants’ entrance. The moment we step out, we’re met with a security screening procedure rivaling TSA’s.
“Please pass over your bag,” drones a fairy in combat boots. She taps at a sign covered with gibberish. “Any under-wing items will be confiscated if found upon inspection.”
“None of us have wings,” I nearly say, but stop myself.
Beneath my classy couture pantsuit, I reek of alcohol and pumpkin sweat.
My previously trustworthy pet head isn’t here to guide me in courtly fairy manners.
If I’m going to help Mandy pull this wedding off, I need to offend as little as possible. So I hold my tongue.
Which is truly difficult to do when, past the security checkpoint, we enter a scene stolen straight from a middle-schooler’s D I should ask him what they are. You never know when that info might come in handy.
I’m staring at myself in a floor-length mirror when a knock comes at the door.
“Mandy?” I call out. “If that’s you, come in. Apologize and witness my shame.”
“I’m a photographer,” a voice says from the other side.
Photographer?
Seeing my eyes widen in the mirror, I hurriedly mask my surprise.
In my original wedding outline, I had the photographers coming on the wedding day, not the night before.
I suppose our clients could’ve modified this with Mandy’s approval.
What other changes could she have made? I’ve got to get my hands on our clipboard outlining the details.