Chapter 28 The Puppets of Darkness
I’M CRYING.
That’s fine. It seems appropriate.
I throw out my hands, wandering the pitch-black Royal Wing, a trail of snot and tears littering the floor behind me.
I have no idea where I’m going or where I am.
Most likely, I will fall into an oubliette.
Okay. That’s okay. It’s not much change from my present dark imprisonment—the one of my own making.
I’ve no other option but to go back to New York tomorrow.
To resume living with Jane in my boring, cramped apartment.
To typing out meaningless numbers on a computer under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights.
To be an auditor forever. I put everything on the line to save Hanry, for naught.
And now, the sabotage I’ve coordinated for this wedding will ruin the Spüktacular wedding brand forever.
Even if I did want to go back to Salem and restart my business, no bride will want to work with me ever again.
So, this is it. I’ve made my beige, medium-firm, hospital-cornered bed. And I have no choice but to sleep in it.
Or at least wither away restlessly on it.
Grandma Rose, if you hadn’t had the audacity to leave earth for your heavenly Italian buffet, I bet you’d know how to guide me out of this mess.
But you’re not here. So, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance after that Halloween night when I was twelve.
I’m sorry for avoiding you that summer you gave me a place to sleep.
I’m not super great about externalizing my feelings.
You probably thought I’d had food poisoning instead of an existential crisis.
As you can see, I’ve had my share of misunderstandings too. Look at all we have in common.
I liked your yard flamingos, actually. I admit it. They were an absolute vibe. I even like Salem, if we don’t count Matilda and your other witchy, bodily-autonomy-disrespecting friends.
It doesn’t matter now. Maybe all that matters is finding a trapdoor that would be too creepy for the October Halloween edition of an HGTV home renovation show, and jumping in. Maybe, for once, that’ll take me to a place I can belong: somewhere I can lick my wounds in peace.
No, no. I don’t want to die in this tacky dress. I can’t let Mab and Tits and all those stupid fairies win. Oh god. If the wedding is this bad, imagine their funerals. I want to die with dignity. Or better yet, mope with dignity. Hidden away in the powder room of a ladies’ toilet.
But what I want is irrelevant, because any hope of finding an alabaster throne is cruelly snatched from me in the form of a harsh tug to my hair. And to my dress. And ankle. It takes a moment to realize what’s happening. Why I’m not allowed to wallow endlessly in my despair.
The reason is that I’m being pummeled by crows.
“You can’t do this!” I flail, striking in vain at the birds’ feathery bodies. “Dark fiends! I knew you were against me!”
“Sabby!” cries Bulan’s voice. “There’s a hole there! Watch out!”
“I was watching!” I shout into the black. How dare Bulan witness my tragedy? “Did anything I was doing look accidental to you? I—I… Hnngghhhkkk. I can’t even find a bathroom.”
The crows deposit me on the floor, cawing in a way that indicates they’re reveling in victory. Oh, I hate them. I hate them. I really wish they weren’t solid black, so I could see them and strangle one to prove it.
“Surely you know this is an inappropriate place to relieve yourself, Sabby,” Bulan says.
“I’m going to pluck out every feather from your friends’ wings,” I say darkly.
“CAW-aw-KKK,” a crow says in answer to my threat.
Bulan sighs. “No, no! I can’t have you doing that—these birds are my friends!
Think of it, Sabby! Their centuries of loyalty, their intelligence.
Why, this corvid here is the twenty-seventh generation of my first and bestest friend, who I made as a wee child.
Back when I still had possession of my body.
Which I would’ve explained if you’d given me the opportunity.
Oh. This is strange. Why aren’t you stopping me from regaling you with my life stories? Sabby, truly, what’s wrong?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I mean to growl, but the sound that comes out instead is hiccups. “I have no future.”
“Hmm. That’s dramatic.”
Dear god. If Bulan thinks I’m being a drama queen, there really isn’t hope.
I sink deeper into the puddle of my dejection.
I’m forming an actual puddle again, and this time, it’s not the fault of a magical binding on Grandma’s will.
It’s my own damned fault. Maybe my tears will create an ocean to lift me up someday. Or maybe not.
“Come on, Sabby!” Bulan nudges me with his nose. “Chin up! Your grandmother would hate to see you like this.”
I moan-sniffle. “Nrghhrrrughhh guhh guhhkk.”
“This is very unlike you, Sabby. You must tell me what’s wrong! It’s a matter of urgency. I have made a vow I can’t turn back on, you see.”
With effort, I manage, “I don’t. Black halls. Remember?”
“I promised your grandmother I would look after you.”
What?
Effortfully, I claw back to the memory of when I first discovered Bulan; of opening the closet door to find him—grinning ebulliently atop a dusty shelf of unfolded linens.
He wasn’t surprised by my presence. No; he couldn’t have been.
I’d been blaring BTS from my phone; stomping from room to room and muttering about Grandma’s dubious friends and equally dubious housekeeping. Bulan must’ve known I’d find him.
He’d been waiting for me.
“She put you up to it,” I realize, wiping my upper lip. “This whole time you’ve been Grandma Rose’s puppet!”
“It’s true,” Bulan confirms. “I was determined to honor your grandmother, in spite of your cruel maltreatment. The attempted murder, the punting, the jokes.”
“You love the jokes,” I sniffle. “You’re all about jokes.”
“So are you. And so was Rosie! And both of you, whether you’d like to hear this or not, can be quite careless in how you treat those whom you love. But, deep down, your grandmother was a warm, fluffy pair of knitted socks. As are you.”
What kind of metaphor is that? “Do you even remember why people wear socks?”
“Stop interrupting! Even Mandy knows when to be serious.” That shuts me up.
I huddle more tightly against myself, braced against the bitterly cold stone floor as Bulan rambles on.
“Your grandmother regretted falling out with you. Oh yes, I was there—I heard everything that happened when you were a child! Terrible, that whole dagger business. In case you were wondering, I was living in the cupboard. Well, sometimes the bathroom cabinet. The point remains. Rosie pleaded with your mother to give her a second chance, to have you stay over during summers at least. She worried about you, and she wished nothing more than to ensure your well-being.”
“She had a weird way of showing it,” I mutter.
“Did she? In the months before she passed, Rosie changed her will and wrote you in. As a last attempt to help you, to keep you from abandoning your destiny. From throwing the head out with the bathwater, so to speak.”
Maybe that’s true. If so, Grandma had way too much faith in me. Elsewise she would have known I’m not cut out for the paranormal world, or any world. Not even oubliette world.
“I don’t have a destiny,” I say to the floor.
“You do too, Sabby,” Bulan argues back. “Which is why Rosie made me swear that if I had the chance, I’d pick up the torch and help you.”
“But there was no torch,” I say. “Just a woo-woo stipulation in her obnoxious, nefarious will.”
“Yes, that was a clever thing, wasn’t it?”
“A horrible thing,” I argue. “Not clever—oh.”
I roll onto my side and stare into the darkness.
The implications had been lost on me until now, but if Bulan was used to being Grandma Rose’s puppet, could he have taken on her postmortem mantle of being puppeteer?
Is it possible his playacting ventriloquy with me when we walked around Salem was meant to lull me into a false sense of safety, when in fact he was aware of Grandma’s plans for me?
And he was even helping to accomplish them?
I beat away my scratchy wedding skirt, crawl onto my forearms, and somehow push myself upright.
“Don’t tell me you were involved in trapping me in Salem,” I say.
“Goodness, no,” Bulan says. “But it wasn’t so awful, was it?! You liked it in Salem! You enjoyed setting up the shop, the wedding planning—”
“So what if I did?” I shout, admitting it aloud at last. “I could’ve enjoyed the path I was already on if it weren’t for you!
And for Grandma Rose! Instead, I realized I hated it!
My accounting job was hard, and it wasn’t fun, and everyone I met sucked, and I hated living in New York, and now… now…”
“Now what?” Bulan huffs. “It sounds to me that nothing about your situation has changed. Merely your understanding of it.”
I can’t think of a rebuttal to this. Could Bulan be right?
Maybe this mischievous, Machiavellian, magnificent head—could be right.
The last few months, I was sure I was longing to start at EFG, but what if I wasn’t? Maybe I was just longing for the idea of what I thought it’d be like. For what I thought my life could be.
Then, to hide my pain and disappointment, I got obsessed with missing Hanry.
But that was only half of it. Hanry was the link to my Salem life I felt safe holding on to.
I didn’t want to admit that I’d been afraid to hold on to anyone or anything else.
That I’ve spent years pushing away my family, even some of my friends, in order to achieve what I thought were my dreams.
That I’ve been lonely.
And since last night, while I’ve been theoretically focused on saving Hanry—that is, Prince Hanry, Changeling Abductee and the Wuss of Fairyland—the truth is that as much as I’ve wanted him, he hasn’t been the thing I’ve wanted most of all.
I’ve been in denial for who-knows-how-long. Only now, finally, the truth shines bright in front of me, like a trash fire.
I ran away from New York and came to Fairyland to throw a wedding.
That’s why I’m here—not for Hanry. Because I knew it would be fun, planning this lavish, outlandish event.
I couldn’t wait to be laughing with my friends and handling their hijinks and quirks and building something wonderful.
My deep unhappiness in New York and at EFG ended the moment I left it behind.
I don’t mind the weird monsters and zaniness and unpredictability of the paranormal world. Not in the least.
The truth is, I have loved—I do love this stupid job.
Are you up there, Grandma? Are you watching all of this now, looking down on me and Bulan? Maybe you’re choking on your ziti. You should start paying better attention; there are “I told you sos” to be said. I get it now, okay? I know.
There’s something I like more than Hanry’s face. And it’s not threatening people with finger sandwiches. It’s weddings. These damn amazing weddings.
And if it’s not too late to turn this disaster around, then here’s a promise for you, Grandma: Hanry’s wedding will be the best one I’ve ever done.