Chapter 24 Is This Real LifeIs It a （Really Weird） Fantasy? #2
As much as it sucks, all these questions and hurt feelings have got to temporarily take a back seat.
I’ve got a job to do. Turning on my internal autopilot, I demand Rochester find the clipboard I’m just realizing I must have dropped in the hall.
Then I turn our conversation to a discussion of logistics.
I confirm the vendors’ names, the new timelines Mandy came up with, the locations where prep will be taking place, and the support staff the castle will provide.
I even jot down the castle’s Wi-Fi password.
Beneath it all, I can only think one thing:
That I’ve got to save Hanry. After I kill him.
I’ve got until morning to figure this out.
Considering that it’s Hanry’s wedding, it’s beyond frustrating that I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing. But for the moment, I need to center my concerns somewhere else.
Having introduced us to our clients, Rochester’s next task is to lead Mandy, Jurgis, Gustavo, and me back to the servants’ quarters.
He shuttles us down a tight, winding staircase into a natural cavern with soaring ceilings, stalagmite-covered floors, and three dozen fairy servants dressed in velvet overalls.
Only after eyeing a window at the end of the room do I realize this is a warehouse, not a cave.
And those aren’t stalagmites. They’re Chiavari chairs thrown atop carpets of moss, surrounded by buckets of white anemones, boxes of candlesticks, and folded linens.
I get it now: this must be the basement where wedding décor goes to die.
“What do I do with all this junk?” I ask Rochester.
“Is that not your job?” He smirks. “The servants have been commanded by Mab to work to your instruction.”
“Really?” I ask, mollified somewhat. “I’ve got the power?”
“Yes. You’ve got the power.”
“You look giddy,” says Mandy.
“Of course I am! I have both a zombie and an Oompa-Loompa army, Mandy. This is my childhood dream.” Before I swore off the paranormal world, I had a minor obsession with Roald Dahl books.
So what? It doesn’t mean anything, except that I’m power-hungry.
Clapping my hands together, I draw the attention of my fairy hordes.
“Listen up, team! I’m in charge now, while Rochester escorts Mandy to Princess May’s room.
They’re going to discuss the princess’s last-minute requests. ”
Though he seems suspicious, Rochester doesn’t argue.
I wave Mandy goodbye—she gives me a big wink that would blow our cover if she weren’t so Mandy.
Once she’s gone, I set the Fairy-Loompas to reorganizing the room and determining what décor can be salvaged.
I single one out, instructing: “Bring me your three most responsible fairies. Each of them will need to lead a team of… uh, six, to transfer our décor into the Throne Room for staging. And get my door-fairy to bring me the fishing tackle box in Mandy’s luggage, would you? ”
“Fine. Can I go back to bed after that?”
What a work ethic. “Absolutely,” I say.
When my door-fairy does—grumpily—arrive with the emergency kit, I delve into the fishing tackle box and uncover a pack of saltines and a handful of glow sticks. I stuff the saltines into my mouth, then turn to my team, ready to investigate their progress.
Or at least that’s what I intend, but instead come face-to-face with Jurgis’s and Gustavo’s empty, far-too-proximal grins.
Making a guess, I say, “You want more information about the wedding site, don’t you?
To know how to position your shots? Get the best angles on your video?
” I read into their empty smiles a befuddled acknowledgment. “Perfect. Follow me to adventure.”
“Adventure?” asks Jurgis. “I thought this was a wedding.”
“An adventure wedding?” cries Gustavo. “Will there be rock climbing?”
I roll my eyes and get to work, hoping I can keep my sanity until tomorrow.
Gustavo and Jurgis’s desire to plan out their shots couldn’t give me a better excuse for breaking away to search the castle.
Bowing out from the wedding preparations, I retrace Rochester’s steps and return us to what seems to be the castle’s primary residential floor—mindful of potential hazards like hoofing antelopes and wedding guests in search of seconds.
“Dark?” asks Gustavo as we approach the Royal Wing.
“Bad lighting,” I agree. “No good for video.”
“Bad traps,” says Gustavo. His tone of voice indicates more hopefulness than concern—which is a bit odd, until I remember how fond he is of putting booby traps in his movies.
“All right,” I accede. “You two should stay back. I’ll go down the hall alone. Get help if I don’t return, all right?”
“Wish,” says Jurgis. “See in dark. Whooo.”
“What?” I ask, confused, but Gustavo laughs.
“Wish much,” he seems to agree. “Monsters! Monsters, dark!”
The last thing I see before surrendering to darkness is Gustavo with his arms flapping as if in an attempt to fly. Jurgis gives a solemn nod beside him.
Remind me to never get enchanted by fairies.
Feeling my way along the wall, I walk about two minutes before I reach my first door.
I run the back of my hand over the wood carvings, wondering where it leads.
As far as I can tell, there’s no door-fairy nearby, encumbering my entrance.
Or booby traps. My biggest concern so far is that I might tug open the wrong door and run into Hanry’s brother or his awful, bullying cousins—who will almost certainly not help. And will tell on me. Immediately.
Luck is on my side, though. Because the door unlatches at my touch, opening straight into a candlelit suite.
Right away, I can tell I’m in Hanry’s quarters.
It’s subject to a familiar chaos of odds and ends and keepsakes.
Like a bear pelt on the floor. A gallery of plant rubbings tacked to a far wall.
A wreath hung over the bed. The bed itself has a bonus, two-foot extension to accommodate a sleeper with added height.
The chief problem is that Hanry isn’t in this room, and it seems like he hasn’t used it for a long time, either.
I swish inside, hoping I’m wrong. Artifacts of Hanry abound: I find a small collection of books, a childhood slingshot straight out of Mark Twain.
A framed photograph—the first one I’ve seen in this whole castle—of a young Hanry and a lanky kid with a well-practiced scowl and mysterious, hooded eyes.
Between the two of them towers the alleged King Tits, wearing a plaid flannel shacket over a Patriots jersey.
And a muffler wrapped, turbanlike, around his antlers.
Could the kid be Seb, Hanry’s brother? Maybe. But the photo’s useless to me—it doesn’t hint to where Hanry might be. Why he isn’t in his own room.
“Come on,” I say, frustration welling up. I ball my hands into fists in my tulle skirt. “Come on, something’s got to—”
“I believe Their Royal Highnesses indicated Hanry was not to be interrupted this evening,” says a deep voice behind me.
I pivot on my foot, only to face the imposing, shadow-born sight of Rochester. I’ve been caught, Hanry-room-handed.
Shit.
Rochester seems fed up as he deposits me, Gustavo, Jurgis, and Mandy in the servants’ quarters.
It so happens that the Royal Wing’s rooms are equipped with silent spell-alarms to detect intruders.
A further line of questioning reveals that these are actually just nanny cams. Either way, it puts the kibosh on any more Hanry-searching activities.
By this point, it’s well past midnight. I’ve had a full workday, gotten drunk, traveled to Fairyland, been shot at by fay, discovered my ex is getting married, snuck into random rooms of a castle, and taken pains to get a wedding I really don’t want to happen underway.
I’m exhausted—and if Hanry’s fairy godmother is trying to hide his fatigue, he’s failing at it too.
A single forehead-hair has fallen out of place.
“Well, Roachster, I hope you’re planning to get some sleep. That hair of yours isn’t doing so hot. You seem ravished,” I say, elbowing his side.
“I wish,” Mandy mumbles to a wall. Her longing for Rochester is entangled with some kind of desire to escape him—an interesting development I’m not too tired to notice.
Hmm. She and Rochester were together kind of a while, weren’t they, when he escorted her to visit Princess May?
And they must’ve communicated often over the past month while I was in New York.
I wonder if Mandy tried something. Did it end badly? Poor thing.
“I will return to accompany you personally tomorrow,” Rochester says, characteristically staring at me a little too hard.
I wait, ready to be subjected to more insinuations that I’m an untrustworthy deviant—but no. Rochester steps robotically over the sprawled-out, snoring door-fairy and leaves. Only after Hanry’s fairy godmother rounds the corner do I crack the door open.
“Don’t freak out,” I tell Mandy.
She pales. “Why?”
“Because I went to Hanry’s rooms. He wasn’t there. Also, because of this.”
Inside our guest suite awaits an entire flock of crows. Plus one vampire bat, emerging from a gloomy corner of the room. And—this part actually makes me smile—on top of an old-timey bag of leather luggage bounces a buoyant, red-haired, bearded head.
Bulan. Dark Dave. And the crows, even. I can’t believe they all came, like I’d asked.
“Bulan!” Mandy exclaims. She sprints past me and hugs him, grip fierce and frightening.
While they’re busy, I usher Jurgis and Gustavo in behind me and pass the two of them a fairy tarot card deck I pocketed from the warehouse cavern.
I don’t know if the unenchanted versions of the men are woo-woo enough for tarot, but card games reliably keep empty minds occupied.
“Hello, Mandy!” Bulan grins into the pixie’s chest. “I have missed your bodily assault! And Sabby. Nice to see you too.”
I fold my arms. Sure, I’m ecstatic to see him, but Bulan left on terms that do not merit hugs.
“Oh, I’m just ‘nice,’ am I?”
“It’s a euphemism!” he says warmly.
Mandy releases him. Still exuberant, she cries, “I found your body!”
What?
“What?” asks Bulan. The color drains from his face. “Oh no. Oh dear. That’s terrible news.”
“Whoa,” I say. Fighting overwhelm, I pick my way across Bulan’s murder of ruffled birds. “Bulan, what’s this? You have a body?”
“Naturally! However, I fear that someone else has been carrying it with them for a substantial length of time,” says Bulan. “Mandy, is she in the castle?”
“She is!” says Mandy, startling two crows near her feet.
I cannot think with all this flapping. Frustrated, I cry out, “Where is who?”
“Princess May,” says Mandy, not understanding as usual.
With effort, Bulan lifts his eyes to the ceiling above my regal four-poster bed and answers.
“My ex.”