Chapter 25 I am Not a Member of the Broken Hearts Club. Who’s Got Time for That? #2
Enjoying her determination, I light my bedside candle with a butane candle lighter.
“I’m a photographer,” says Jurgis, predictably. Then, pointing at Gustavo: “He is a videographer.”
As the room lights up, Dark Dave screeches in obvious pain.
I grin at my friends and vendors. With a spike of disturbing optimism, I slither-tumble off my high bed and shut the door.
“What time is it, Mandy?”
“About seven,” she chirps back.
“All right. Let’s get going, people and pixies and heads. Mandy, destroy the evidence of our nefarious plans. Everyone else, grab your glow sticks. Are we ready to find Hanry and kick off our heist party?”
Jurgis and Gustavo, overnight BFFs, obediently click on their glowing bracelets while eyeing the newest vendors with mild suspicion. Jurgis lifts his camera. “Photography?”
“Not yet. For now, go where Bulan’s crows tell you. Follow their instructions. They are your gods now.”
“Caw,” says a bird atop the desk.
Mandy laces her fingers together and grimaces. “Sabby, don’t you need to get ready?”
That pours a bucket of water over my positivity.
How can I focus on my own appearance while Hanry could be suffering in a dark, dank, and mushroom-ridden dungeon? What if he’s so hungry that’s all he has to eat? Wall fungus?
“Mandy,” I say tightly. “No.”
“But, um… I was thinking you’d maybe want to change?”
I grab the hem of my wedding dress and shake it. “What do you think will happen if I take this off?”
“Our hosts will probably get angry.”
“Naked. Bad,” says Matthew the stylist. A desperate sweat has broken out over his forehead, belying his placid expression. Poor guy. If the enchantment can’t fully override his sense of aesthetics, this castle must be doing numbers on him.
“Don’t worry,” I promise everyone. “Hanry has been naked enough for all of us. This dress is staying on. But Matthew, if you have any ideas, I’m all ears. Also, what are the odds you’ve got a portable phone charger?”
At 7:15 precisely, Mandy and I parade our MUA and stylist to Princess May’s bridal suite in the aptly named Green Wing.
“It’s Spüktacular Weddings,” I announce with false cheer. You would never know I’d managed a mere two hours of sleep. That half the night I stayed up worrying about Hanry. Or that I’m preparing to cause more mayhem than is normative among the least normative members of the Community.
As an honored guest of Fairyland, New York, Princess May was placed in a suite that exceeds ours in lavishness.
The seating area brims with activity: there’s a harpist, a flutist, and a would-be sumo wrestler in a tutu performing interpretive dance.
I’m not sure who these people are. Is it an entourage?
Are they bridesmaids? Then I notice an awkwardly dressed male mannequin chilling in a recliner, a rug tossed over its head. And then I decide it’s not my business.
“Announcing Samantha and Mandy,” May’s door-fairy says, pitchy-squeaky like a train on poorly maintained tracks. “Matthew and Shaki.”
“I told you. Stop. Talking,” says a low woman’s voice. “You grate on my ears.”
I seek out and find the imperious voice’s source: a petite Asian girl with a chin-length bob, wildly untamed eyebrows, and a chic, modern gold crown held in place by bonsai antlers.
The girl—princess, I should say—looks like she’s barely eighteen.
Her skin is crazy-perfect; not a trace of acne.
Has it been magically removed? All I know for sure is that this is 100 percent Hanry’s future wife—based off her antlers, crown, and the bored expression, which fails to conceal the personality of a block of cheese.
Also, I hate her. I hate how pretty she is, in spite of her rude expression.
“Did you bring your team to get me ready?” Princess May smirks. “By the way, nice dress.”
I stick out my hand. “Samantha Spük. Nice to meet you, Princess May.”
My rival flutters her eyelashes but stays regally still.
“My name is not May.”
My smile doesn’t break. It’s Rule #1 of the wedding industry, right? Roll with everything. Even when you are facing up against someone who thinks they’re better than you, and they might be right. I mean, seriously, what does an accountant-pretending-to-be-a-wedding-planner have on a fairy princess?
“Okay,” I say. “What should I call you, then?”
“May is short for hime-sama. Of course, that isn’t my name either. In the same way Sabby isn’t your name. Except your name doesn’t signify royalty, of course.”
Got it. This princess is no block of anything.
She’s the kind of person who plays at cute while busily unsheathing mascara from the tube in order to stab you with it.
This makes her somewhat more interesting, but so not Hanry’s type.
He’d be more likely to end up with that sumo-dancer. At least they seem straightforward.
“My name signifies witches,” I say nonchalantly, not asking what her real name is. “And bad decisions.”
May raises an eyebrow. “Whose?”
“Great question. How about we discuss it while you get ready for your big day? Mandy here—who you met last night—will help Matthew and Shaki with their work.”
“Do I really need them?” May asks, waving dismissively at two of the best visual artists in the world. “I can cast my own glamour.”
“Mm-hmm! So, I’ll be back in about five hours with your lunch.”
“Five hours? Why so long?”
I could swear Shaki flinches at the princess’s imperious and annoyed tone, but Matthew merely smiles at his hair dryer.
I unhand it from him and pat him on the shoulder.
He deserves encouragement. After all, he helped get some charge back into my phone and did a bang-up job removing a foot of fabric from the hem of my wedding dress, making it easier for me to walk.
Or run. Hopefully, when we escape from the castle, there will be a minimum of cardiac exertion.
An added bonus: it looks significantly less bridal now. I almost like it.
“This is a human wedding,” I explain to the princess. “Traditionally, human brides take hours to get ready. But we’ll go as fast as we can. Shaki, Matthew, find the power outlets and get on with it. Chop-chop!”
“I’ll do the chopping,” May tells Shaki as I leave.
Mandy stares after me with a kenneled-puppy expression. “Goodbye, Sabby,” she whisper-cries.
That poor pixie. I know she’s distraught at being forced to spend the morning in the bridal suite—the last place a male fairy named Rochester would be caught visiting.
But I need Mandy here, using her oodles of charm to discover May’s motive for marrying Hanry.
To ferret out any doubts. Then she can launch a devious attack, asking coy and innocent-seeming questions, spurning May to question her decision-making.
Maybe we can convince the princess to call the wedding off.
Granted, the odds of that happening are astronomically low. But is it wrong that I’d prefer to rescue Hanry in a way that doesn’t beget a lifetime of fairy wrath?
After all, May’s isn’t the only anger I have to worry about.
When I arrive at the State Room, I am witness, first and foremost, to Mab, the queen of Fairyland.
A twenty-foot length of eucalyptus garland drapes her arms and shoulders.
It looks like she’s carrying the love child she created with the tree staircase.
Is she still drunk? Is this just the way she is?
No. They are my decorations for the State Room. How dare she!
“Good morning!” she calls out, fluttering the garland. “It’s very green.”
“Sure is,” I say. I smile at her as I walk to the head table, where a crow has perched, clamping a tuft of red hair in its beak: either a signal from Bulan or the result of an accident. Possibly both.
“Does Bulan want to see me?” I ask the bird. “If so, can it wait?”
“It’s greener than I wa-a-ant!” drawls Mab.
The crow spits out Bulan’s hair and jumps, painfully, from the table to my shoulder. I face the queen and say with hopefully veiled confusion, “I see.”
“Do you!?”
“Your Highness, the proposal suggested a largely green palette. Could you tell me what isn’t working for you?”
“We need more purple.” Mab drops the garland off one of her shoulders like she’s Marilyn Monroe. I half expect her to call me “darling” or something, but instead, she says, “Salmon-ella-bee, I just feel purple would be nice. PURPLE, DO YOU HEAR ME?!”
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, in hopes I sound appeasing.
“Lovely, dear, thank you!”
Mab flits off, anger abruptly vanquished. The garland trails after her like a loyal hedgehog. Emphasis on the hedge.
“Do you want me to help you take that off?” I call out as she strides away.
She doesn’t seem to hear.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
I survey the State Room, now cleared of distraction.
I know that in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if table 6 lacks decorations, since we’re planning to kidnap Hanry before he takes his vows.
And Mab’s pleasure in adorning the room in purple flowers is unlikely to outweigh her anger at my criminal mischief.
Especially when all my ruinous, wedding-sabotaging machinations begin at 1 p.m., sharp. Beginning with the release of an impala. It’s going to be a double black diamond downhill slide.
But when an overalls-clad fairy servant minion crosses my path, I grab him by his shoulder straps and ask, in spite of everything: “You! Any chance there’s a flower market around here?”
The fairy casts me a Rochester-y non-look. “The closest market is in Albany.”
“Is it a flower market or a supermarket?”
He offers a shrug in reply. Fine: it’s up to me, then.
I whip out my phone and text my Salem wholesaler to see if he knows someone local who can do a last-minute favor.
Sure, it’ll be great if I can appease Mab by getting her flowers.
More importantly, though: when the carriage returns from its errand in Albany, it’ll be empty and ready for us to use in our escape. That’s why I’m doing this. Obviously.
Bulan’s crow tugs unhelpfully at my earlobe. “Crraww?”
“Stop. I’ve got to finish this text,” I hiss, protecting my unfairly abused head.
“Craww crawww,” the bird-demon says.
“Fine! I’ll go where you want. Minion, give me your phone number.”
The fairy’s mask of indifference falters, but he obeys.
I send him a text so we have each other’s contact information, then say, “Get a carriage ready and have your best-dressed, most aesthetically sensible fairy go to Albany and pick up our order at the address I’ll send you.
Tell your other minions to fill the vases a third of the way up with cold water and set up the garlands and candles following my outline.
Leave a finger’s width of space in the vases for additional stems. Got it? Keep those arrangements loose.”
“I will allow them to run as they please,” the fairy says hesitantly.
“No, there should be no running. Do I have to do everythin—WAGH!” The crow is ripping out my hair. From the goddamned root! “Fine! We’ll go now, you fiend!”
A few chunks of hair poorer, I stalk out of the State Room.
This better be quick. I have a feeling Mab isn’t done with pitching last-minute ideas, and next time she might move forward without discussing them with me first. I’ve got to find a way to keep her busy.
The last thing I need is for Momzilla cottoning on that I’m ruining her son’s wedding.
Besides, I’ve just been violently depilated by a bird. There’s only so much a girl can take.