Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3
Read Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 Online
Authors: Chanda Hahn
Tags: #fantasy, #young adult, #teen, #grimm fairy tales
Fable
An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3
Copyright © 2013 by Chanda Hahn
Cover design by Steve Hahn
Editor Joy Sillesen
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
2
nd
Edition
All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in
part in any form is forbidden without written permission of the
author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Sample of The Grey Wolves, Book
7
Sacrifice of Love by Quinn
Loftis
To Aiden & Ashley
So that you will grow up loving fairy tales
like I did.
All that glitters is not gold.
Chapter 1
It was another dog day of summer, and Mina
was miserable. The archaic air-conditioning unit in their apartment
was on the fritz again, and the small table fan barely made a
ripple in the war on humidity. For once, she was anxious for school
to start, just so she could be back into the air-conditioned halls,
but that wasn’t the only reason.
The start of the new school year also meant
more opportunities for her to see Brody Carmichael, her long-time
crush. Things last year had ended awkwardly when Brody and her best
friend Nan Taylor started their almost-dating phase. Or that’s what
Mina nicknamed “their friend, but more than friend, behavior.”
Neither one of them was ready to admit they were an item, and Mina
was fine with the delay, hoping that both of them would come to
their senses.
It was Mina’s family curse that had forced
Brody and Nan into circumstances that created something out of a
fairy tale. Nan was in a coma and was awakened by Brody’s kiss, and
since then they’d been awkwardly inseparable. It was as if neither
one believed it, but they couldn’t argue what fate was pushing them
toward. But Mina knew it wasn’t fate. She knew it was the Story, or
as what she spitefully knew it as — Teague, Jared’s brother.
A flicker of movement on the floor made Mina
move her head away from the fan to glance at her younger brother.
Charlie, oblivious to the heat, was playing some made-up rogue game
that combined Candy Land and Clue. Even in the heat, Charlie was
still over-dressed, wearing his favorite yellow rain boots, Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt, and a Darth Vader helmet.
He rolled the dice, picked up a double red
color card, and moved the little yellow gingerbread man from one
game board to the other. Mina didn’t understand the game or his
made-up rules, but she had a feeling that the yellow gingerbread
man did it in the molasses swamp with the candlestick.
“
Hey, bucket head, you
hungry?” she asked, knowing full well that he could get whatever he
wanted from the fridge himself. But she liked talking to him,
taking care of him.
Charlie shook his plastic-covered head and
continued to scrutinize his boards before rolling to the other side
of the board and picking up another character.
“
Suit yourself. I’m going
up where it’s cooler.”
Charlie bobbed his head up at Mina, and his
little hand waved at her.
She peeled herself off the living room chair
and moved to her room, where she tiptoed over her piles of clothes
on the floor and headed for the open window. She clambered over the
ledge onto the fire escape and climbed up to her rooftop retreat.
It wasn’t any cooler on the rooftop, but at least she got a slight
breeze. Sweat still trickled on her brow, and she wiped it off with
the sleeve of her blue T-shirt. She sat on one of her broken lawn
chairs and surveyed the garden of mostly fake plants, a few live
ones, and a smattering of eclectic decorations consisting of pink
flamingoes, Christmas lights, and a shelf with two gnomes that she
had collected at the end of the school year, Sir Nomer and
Nomita.
It was the first time in months she had
ventured to the rooftop, and she was surprised the rosebush was
still blooming. She’d been avoiding the roof ever since her
confrontation with Teague, when she had declared that she knew who
he was and that killing him would end the curse on her family. He
continued to harass her the whole summer, pushing fairy-tale quests
her way, but she did something she’d never thought she would do.
She ignored them.
She decided to try to take control of her
situation…by doing absolutely nothing. Instead of Teague having all
the power and making her jump through his hoops of fairy-tale
quests, she went purposefully out of her way to avoid them. And it
was relatively easy, if she knew what to look for. For example, one
day their family was going to the mall, and she felt the beginnings
of power stir up around her. A tingling sensation began in her
hands and shot up her arms, causing the hair on the back of her
neck to stand on end. Mina quickly surveyed the situation and saw
the ravens, all seven of them, standing in an odd row along the
sidewalk.
She knew it was another test, and instead of
being manipulated into a confrontation in front of her family, she
exclaimed loudly that they would find better deals at the
neighboring outlet mall. Her family got back in the car and left.
One after another, she had avoided his manipulations. A Rapunzel
quest was avoided by her cutting her hair every day for two weeks.
A trip to the zoo turned almost into a disaster when the bears
began to talk to her and tell her how yummy they thought she
looked; Mina decided that the monkey exhibit would be more
entertaining.
On and on her summer went, and she was
beginning to enjoy her freedom and the fact that she was, for once
in her life, gaining the upper hand, except she was a bit
lonely.
Nan had gone off to drama camp and Brody was
traveling abroad with his parents, which left Mina alone. Sure,
Jared was around, but since she was refusing to attack any
fairy-tale business, he seemed to be off enjoying his freedom. He
kept checking in on her and would look at her strangely whenever
she avoided an obvious quest trigger, but he never pressed her to
action. He seemed more relieved than ever at her course of
inaction. Plus, he was spending a lot more time with his Fae
friend, Ever.
Mina bit back a hint of jealousy and snapped
herself out of it real quick. It was thoughts like that which led
to trouble, and in her case, the Story had used or spurred on her
jealousy to turn her into the evil queen in the Snow White tale.
Since then, she’d learned and grown, and had gotten her emotions
and power under control.
But that was weeks ago, and Mina knew the
Faes’ sense of time on the Fae plane was different than on the
human one, so it could be any day a gate would open up and a whole
army of Reapers could come across, gunning for her—or it could stay
closed for years, and she would grow old. Then what? The curse
still existed and would pass on to her mute brother or her own
children.
No, it would have to end with her. She would
eventually have to find a way to destroy the Story. But every time
she said those words, she would have to remind herself that the
Story was a living, breathing person, and could she bring herself
to kill him?
There had to be another answer, another way.
She was going to have to stop the Fae and close the gates to their
world, and if there wasn’t a way to do that, she would have to kill
Teague. But what would Jared say? What would he do if she killed
his brother?
Music drifted up from the Italian restaurant
down the street, and Mina sighed loudly. She would have to make a
decision, and soon. Time was running out; summer was almost over,
and she felt it in her bones that Teague was going to strike, and
strike soon. But when?
She lay back in the lawn chair and closed
her eyes, wishing for a sign, for a cool breeze or even rain. The
humidity in the air was killing her. She began praying for rain, a
hailstorm, even a blizzard, because every second she was getting
hotter and hotter.
Maybe she should go back inside. The intense
heat on the roof was creating a weird burning-tar smell that made
her nose sting. Mina sat up and looked around frantically, sniffing
the air and looking at the steam vents across the roof. Black smoke
billowed out of them. It wasn’t just getting hotter. The building
was on fire!
She rushed toward the ledge and looked down
at the street below. Their apartment was above the Golden Palace
Chinese restaurant, and sure enough, there down below, the Wongs
were evacuating guests from their restaurant and out into the
street. People began to gather and point up in the air…until Mina
realized they were pointing at her on the roof.
Mom!
Mina mentally screamed, then recalled she was at work before
she remembered Charlie.
“
Oh, heaven help me!” Mina
cried out to no one in particular as she ran across the rooftop to
the fire escape to climb down. Why didn’t she hear a fire alarm?
She knew the building had one; even her room had one, because she
often stared at the red light in the dark when she couldn’t
sleep.
Black smoke billowed out of Mina’s open
bedroom window and rose in plumes into the sky. Grabbing the collar
of her shirt, she pulled it over her mouth and nose, and ducked
into her bedroom. Her door was shut, and Mina carefully felt the
door for heat before opening it and rushing into the hall.
“
Charlie!” Mina screamed
as she raced into the living room. Flames were running up the walls
and creeping along the ceiling. His board game was still lying on
the floor, the Candy Land pieces scattered everywhere. Tears stung
her eyes as she scanned the area for his small form in case he was
hiding. She went to his room and found his bed empty. His room
didn’t have a closet, since it was considered a closet on its own,
and she quickly checked under his bed. Nothing!
“
Charlie, where are you?
Make a noise, hit something if you can hear me!” She was crying now
as her heart began to race in fear. Mina ran into her mother’s room
and cried out when she saw it was as empty as the rest of the
house. They didn’t own much furniture; there weren’t that many
places to hide in their small apartment.
Please, oh, please let him
have gotten out
, she thought. Her only
hope now would be that he had run out the door at the first signs
of fire. Now the smoke was thicker, and Mina had to crawl along the
floor. She tried to head out the front door, but when she opened
it, fire filled the landing. Slamming the door, Mina rushed back to
her bedroom. The fire hadn’t yet reached there yet, but it would
soon.
Her hands shook as she flung items off her
desk, looking for the key. It had been weeks since she’d locked up
the Grimoire, and now she couldn’t remember where she had put the
key. A loud, piercing shriek erupted close by, making her jump. The
shriek came again, this time closer. It sounded like a siren, so
she assumed it had to be the fire department.