Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) (13 page)

A week ago, Mrs. Coleman’s speech would have really bothered me, but now I had bigger things to worry about.

In fairy tales, all Characters were special. Some sort of trait set them apart.

Rapunzel had her hair. Red Riding Hood had her outfit. Thumbelina and Tom Thumb were both amazingly small. Even an ordinary Character usually got some sort of magical item to help them through their Tale, like Aladdin getting his lamp.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Didn’t
Kelly have Puss-in-Dress? Hadn’t Evan’s appetite made him eat the White Snake?

I wasn’t special, not like that.

Chase and Adelaide were probably right. Maybe Yellowstone
had
been a fluke.

If I wanted a cool Tale, I would have to hope for some sort of magical item. Then again, what use would it be if I froze the second I needed to use it?

I felt a little more hopeful by the time I finished with the videos and Mrs. Coleman let me go. Names and Tales were separate, right? That was why Sarah Thumb had gotten so mad when Philip called her Thumbelina. Maybe the name Aurora was just a coincidence.

Bursting back into the courtyard only a half hour late, I spotted Lena at her usual table under the Tree and jogged over. An odd wooden crate-thing took up most of the table space. I couldn’t see what was in it, but lavender smoke spilled over the top and unfurled down the sides, dribbling over the rim of the table and into the grass. Except for the color, it was like a dry-ice experiment.

It had to be weird even for EAS, because most kids gave Lena and the smoke a wide berth.

It couldn’t be too dangerous, though—not if Lena was sitting in the middle of it, staring into the smoke with a fixed maniacal gleam in her eyes.

Besides, anything was safer than the Table of Never-Ending Instant Refills. Chase was there, with the rest of the sixth graders.

So, I kicked through the weird smoke. It was warm and kind of sticky, like steam from a very hot shower, and it smelled like applesauce.

“I’m kind of afraid to ask,” I told Lena. I dropped into a seat
next to her and tried not to freak out when the herd of sixth graders headed our way.

“No.
Ask,
” Lena said without looking up from the smoking box. All of her fingers were crossed. “Ask me
anything
. I need a distraction.”

The other sixth graders were ridiculously close now. I avoided looking at Chase. “Okay. What’s the Director’s name?” If the newest Sleeping Beauty was named Aurora too, I was done for.

“Mildred Grubb,” Lena said automatically.

I was too surprised for a second to even be relieved, and I wasn’t the only one. Adelaide snickered, and the triplets looked stunned.

Lena’s head snapped toward all the other sixth graders. “I overheard Rumpel talking to her. We aren’t supposed to know.”

“Don’t use it,” said Chase. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t make myself look back, even to glare. I didn’t want to find out what he’d say if I did.

“Everyone just calls her ‘the Director,’” Lena added hastily, obviously wishing she hadn’t said anything. “Even the rest of the Can—”

Glass shattered inside the box, loud and startling as a gunshot.

“Oh, no!” Lena buried her face in her hands.

“What was that?” Kevin asked. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a clue what was going on.

I waved the last of the smoke away and peered inside warily. Mirror shards sat in the bottom, reflecting my face in each piece. “Seven years of bad luck?”

“No, that only happens if the mirror is cursed.” Lena dropped her hands and sighed dramatically. “Those are the remains of my special project. I got here early to work on it.”

“That sucks.” Kyle patted her shoulder sympathetically, and Lena stiffened like she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes were so wide behind her glasses that you would’ve thought that she had spotted an ogre climbing the Tree of Hope.

“What’s the big deal?” Chase rolled his eyes. “You
always
have a special project.”

Lena’s face fell, and the words shot out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Was she talking to you, Chase? . . . I didn’t think so.”

Chase looked mad for only about a second and a half, just long enough for me to regret it. Then an evil look crossed his face. Slowly, he squeezed his eyes shut, hunched his shoulders, and squeaked. I knew exactly who he was imitating.

My face burned. The squeak was the worst part.

Adelaide laughed a little. Lena and the triplets just looked confused.

“Uh, what?” said Kevin.

Adelaide and Chase exchanged a smirk. “You tell them,” Adelaide said graciously, and Chase opened his mouth.

The knot in my stomach got so tight that I knew I was either going to cry or throw up, and I didn’t know which one would be worse.

“Chase!” Gretel started across the courtyard, obviously irritated. “Didn’t the Director assign you to help me with the spring cleaning in the menagerie?”

Gretel suddenly became my favorite grown-up at EAS.

“You get to muck out the aviary,” she said. “Tough job, though, with all the phoenixes. Perhaps some of your friends would like to help.”

Adelaide and the triplets scattered. Chase tried to get away too,
but Gretel grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him back across the courtyard. I couldn’t even enjoy it properly. I could tell by the way Chase was glaring at me—he’d get revenge by spreading the weapons-closet story around even faster.

I couldn’t think about that right then. Changing the subject was the best I could do

“I’m sorry it broke,” I told Lena, pointing into the box. “What was it?”

Lena shrugged. “Well, I was
trying
to make magic mirror walkie-talkies. In theory, it’ll work great. All I have to do is divide one mirror into several pieces in easily transportable sizes with a limited communicative scrying spell, but they keep
exploding
in the middle of cooling down. The Shoemaker says that I should really rinse them with water steeped in foxgloves—he says he’s saved more magic mirrors that way, but I’m not sure that’s it.” She sat back, shoulders slouched, still scowling.

She really did talk a lot when she got worked up. I was trying really hard not to find it funny.

“I bet this never happened to Madame Benne,” she said sourly. “Of course if Madame Benne had published her notes rather than writing it all in that one book, I wouldn’t
have
this trouble. Maybe if I use regular silver rather than Fey-tempered silver . . .”

Then she looked at me, blinking, obviously just then remembering I was there, and that there was absolutely no way I could follow along.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said apologetically.

“Apparently, neither would I,” Lena said, and we grinned at each other.

“But it’s okay.” She sucked in a very deep breath, staring into the box with so much concentration that she must have been
searching her photographic memory. “It doesn’t matter how many times I mess up. I only need it to work
one
time, and then I’ll have the formula for a new invention.”

She was so determined—and probably ten times smarter than the rest of us. She would get an amazing Tale.

All the sixth graders probably had a good chance of getting decent ones.

The triplets came in a set of three, which even
I
knew was kind of a fairy tale must-have. Even though it kind of hurt to admit it, Adelaide
was
beautiful—which is
also
a fairy tale necessity. And Chase—well, he could really fight.

I was still just me. And there was nothing I could do to change it.

“The rest is just practice,” Lena said, trying to convince herself.

Wait—yes, there
was
.

Chase couldn’t have started
out
that good. He just had a lot more practice than everyone else. A year of mandatory weapons classes wasn’t enough. If I wanted to catch up, I knew what I had to do.

I stood up so fast I nearly knocked my chair over. “I need to go to the training courts.”

“Good. I’m headed back to the workshop.” Lena pushed away from the table and picked up the box. Broken glass tinkled inside. “I need to tell Stu—I mean, the Shoemaker—what happened to the mirrors, but I think, maybe, I can use two salamanders at half heat rather than one at top speed.”

“See you,” I said, and I dashed toward the dark door studded with iron before Lena even said
Bye
. I didn’t have any time to lose. I needed to learn how
not
to suck.

•  •  •

So, from that day on, I practiced. It was a lot easier to channel my energy into beating up a dummy than memorizing fairy tales
and obsessing over what kind of Tale I would get.

In all of Hansel’s classes, I ran through drills doggedly and stayed late to practice an extra half hour. On days we had off, I found a smaller training court where I wouldn’t bother anyone. I guess it was allowed. Once, Hansel came in. I waited to be yelled at, sword in hand, but he just grabbed a stack of shields and walked by without even looking at me, as if I wasn’t there.

But by the end of the first week of extra practices, I could block everything the little witch dummy could throw at me. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal to anyone else, especially stupid good-at-everything Chase, but it was definitely an improvement.

My sword was always heavier than I remembered, and I got used to being sore. Actually, I got used to a lot of things.

That’s EAS for you. It’s amazing what starts to feel normal. One day, you’re screaming at dragons or gaping at talking fawns, and a few weeks later, you have trouble remembering a time when you didn’t know magic was real. I kept my head down at school and rushed down the street to the red door as soon as the bell rang.

Chase and Adelaide still played tricks on me. Apparently, they viewed me decorating them with food as a declaration of war.

Once, I opened the ruby door to go home and discovered a closet full of ball gowns in floral patterns. Most of them had so many ruffles that they could double as Little Bo Peep costumes. Confused, I closed the door and discovered that it was actually pink with yellow trim, a couple doors to the left of the one I wanted. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chase beside the Tree of Hope, watching me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me glare. Ignoring him was the easiest way to annoy him. “He must have some way of casting illusions,” Lena said when I told her
later. “A rowan branch would do it, if you found a Fey or a Sorcerer to enchant it for you.”

During one class in the training arena, I raised my sword to the old witch dummy and found a golf club in my hand instead. I looked at Lena, who pointed to Chase, who started laughing so hard that he doubled over, arms wrapped around his waist. Hansel pretended not to notice.

But he did interfere later when the bell rang and class ended. I was so worn out that I didn’t notice Chase stick his foot out as I passed. I tripped and nearly skewered myself on my own sword.

“What’s your
problem
?” I snapped.

“Chase Turnleaf!” Hansel bellowed, and Chase looked uneasy—like he knew he had gone too far. “We’re visiting the Director right now.”

I felt I had won that round until I glanced at Chase. He just squeezed his eyes shut, hunching his shoulders. With all the noise of students bustling in and out of the weapons closet, I couldn’t hear him squeak, but I had heard it enough recently so that it echoed in my mind. I stopped smiling.

Chase had performed his
Rory-in-the-weapons-closet
impression for half of EAS. I didn’t even try to protest. Depending on how many people were around, I had two reactions: flushing the color of Red Riding Hood’s outfit or seeing “Rory Landon” in the curly lettering of the Wall.

Then, I usually went back to the training courts to vent some frustration.

No new Tales started, but at the end of the month, on the same Tuesday I promised myself I would talk to my parents, I did see my first Fey.

I noticed his hair before I noticed the wings. It was bronze-colored—not just a brassy shade of yellow-brown, but actually metallic, glinting in the sun like burnished metal. Since I was distracted with figuring out how to explain EAS, I thought he was just wearing an exotic helmet until his hair rippled in the breeze. Then I noticed the cobalt wings, as long as he was tall, threaded with red spirals like flames.

He stalked forward in a way that reminded me of the dragon when it cornered me and Chase—smug and expectant, like he already knew he would get what he wanted. I shrank nervously backward in my chair.

“Torlauth di Morgian,” Lena said, following my gaze. We both watched as he crossed the courtyard.

EASers rushed out of his way. One high school boy didn’t notice quick enough and bumped into the Fey. He stumbled back when Torlauth scowled at him.

“You know him?” I said.

“Well, not personally, but I know
of
him,” Lena said. “Three years ago, he held a jousting tournament in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. He even kidnapped an award-winning cheerleading team to cheer for the competitors. Caused a real stir.”

“Is that
allowed
?” I asked, horrified.

Lena shook her head. “No, a bunch of other EASers went to go rescue them. It was George’s first mission.” I nodded. A mission was a dangerous assignment the Director sometimes sent EASers on—like the field trip to Yellowstone my first day.

Torlauth di Morgian walked past the rest of the EASers and disappeared through an ebony door with silver hinges, the one that opened into Atlantis.

“Why do you think he came?” I asked Lena, suddenly more
worried about meeting that Fey in a dark fairy-tale alley than talking to my parents that afternoon.

“Has to be the Fairie Market next week,” Lena said.

“What Fairie Market?” I asked.

“You don’t know about the Fairie Market? Geez, you
have
been in the training courts too much,” Lena said. “It’s not just a festival. Wait until you see it—the Characters that show up there, and the things they bring with them.” She sounded a bit like Sarah Thumb did when she talked about magic.