Of Sorcery and Snow (43 page)

That went over like Iron Hans trying to swim.

“Fairy-tale Characters,” Mom repeated dully.

“Magic is real. You've seen it.” I showed them the band of plain silver on my left hand. “This is a ring forged by the West Wind, and when I use it, it makes me really strong.”

“Uh-huh,” Amy said, obviously not believing me.

“I can prove it.” I looked around for something to demonstrate on, but I didn't see anything they wouldn't mind me smashing. They were mad enough without me destroying furniture.

“Rory,”
Dad said, like a warning.

I'd known that they wouldn't believe me—I'd let that be my excuse for putting off telling them, but I couldn't do that anymore. We were in too much danger.

I tried a different tactic. “It runs in families. Dad, the Director told me it mostly comes from your side.
Your
father had a Tale too. I think it was ‘The Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was.' Did he ever mention it to you?”

He was about to blow his stack. “My father died when I was
eight, Rory, and he worked too much to tell me bedtime stories.”

“I'm telling the truth this time,” I promised. They just kept scowling.

I should have told them on a day they weren't
furious
with me. That was the real problem.

Then the doorbell rang.

We all sat there, ignoring it, but then it rang again. And again, but this time, it didn't
stop
ringing. Someone was leaning on the buzzer.

Amy pushed away from the wall and opened the door, and I could hear someone scolding, “Don't make them mad before we even get inside.”

My head popped up.

“Lena?” Amy asked.

“And Chase and Kyle. We're all friends of Rory's,” said another familiar voice.

Mom and Dad's glares got even
less
friendly.

“Did you invite them here?” Mom asked, and I shook my head quickly.

“Well, right now is a really bad time,” Amy said. “Rory probably won't be allowed out much again ever, so— Hey!”

“We know Rory's in trouble. That's why we came.” Lena barreled into the living room in full-on fearless leader mode, and I knew right away that this was her idea. She swerved around the couch and sat right next to me, pulling a bag off her shoulder.

I wondered if I could kick them out of the house before they made things worse. Dad looked like he might explode, but Mom said, pretty calmly, “I know Rory appreciates you trying to help, but this is really a family matter.”

Then
Kyle
strolled into the room and zeroed in on the TV. “I
completely agree, ma'am. We'll clear out of here after we set a few things straight. I'm Kyle, by the way.”

“Chase Turnleaf.” Chase was actually trying to be charming right now. He even tried to shake Dad's hand. They'd never met before, and Dad kept glancing from Chase's split lip to Lena's puffy eye. Great first impression. “Nice to meet you.”

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“We're backup,” Lena told me, like this should be obvious. “How far have you gotten?”

“EAS is a school for young fairy-tale Characters,” I said. “The West Wind's ring makes me strong. Dad's dad was a Character.”

“Wow. It's going over
that
well, huh?” Chase said, sitting down so close to me, the butterflies started up again. I shot him a look to let him know he was being unhelpful.

“Put the remote down,” Amy snapped.

“Yes, ma'am.” Kyle clicked the TV on, put it on mute, and flipped through channels. “Just as soon as I find the right station.”

Well, that explained why Kyle was here—he was awesome at handling parents. He managed to be extremely polite, even when he was doing exactly what they didn't want.

Lena took over for me. “It's true what Rory said. Ever After School is full of Characters waiting for their Tales. My Tale was ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.' When Rory told you we went to . . . Rory, where was it they thought we went?”

“Raleigh,” I said.

Dad's mouth was open—I guess I knew where I'd gotten that from.

“When you thought we were in Raleigh, that's where we really were—up in the beanstalk. You know, with giants,” Lena said, but horror grew on my parents' faces. They didn't think I was lying
anymore. Now they thought EAS had deluded us as much as the matches had brainwashed Miriam.

“Time to bring out the big guns,” Kyle said without looking away from the TV.

Lena dug into her pack and pulled out the golden harp, who was
not
happy to be here. Melodie was trying to stay as still as a real statue and to cling to the bag at the same time. “I have evidence! This is the harp we got on my Tale.”

She set Melodie on the coffee table. The harp wasn't even breathing.

“Is it supposed to
do
something?” Mom asked uncertainly.

“Melodie, that's your
cue
,” Lena said sharply, letting the harp know exactly who was mistress.

The harp moaned and covered her eyes. “But it's so
humiliating
.”

“Oh my God,” Amy said, stumbling back, and now Mom's mouth was open as well as Dad's.

“Ventriloquism,” Dad said, glancing at me. “Robotics.”

“I beg your pardon. Have you ever seen a robot with hands like mine?” The harp wiggled her fingers at him.

“That's your mind trying to figure out a logical explanation,” I told Dad, encouraged. “It's like a defense mechanism.”

Mom gave a shaky little laugh. “Then we're dreaming.”

“That's the
other
defense mechanism,” Lena explained. “You'll probably think that you're crazy or that you're dreaming for a while—just until you get used to the idea that magic is real.”

“Bingo.” Kyle set the remote on top of the TV. “
That's
where Rory has been this week.”

Everyone turned. Kyle had found the news, where kids in grubby pajamas were embracing their parents. Two moms were
covering their son's face with kisses, and the banner at the bottom read,
BREAKING NEWS
:
RETURNED!—KIDNAPPED CHILDREN OF PORTLAND
.

“You
were
in Portland?” Dad said, confused.

“We passed through there,” I said.

“There has been a lot of rejoicing here this afternoon, but not a lot of answers,”
said the newscaster.
“So far, none of the kids have been able to tell authorities exactly where they've been. The police have a few leads—the kids were held somewhere surrounded by snow, where music was used for some sort of hypnotic effect, and several have mentioned that they were kidnapped by a man wearing red. But many other children are so traumatized that they've made up stories about evil giants and big bad wolves. It may be a long time before we find out exactly what—”

Amy turned the TV off, but Kyle explained, “The man in red was the Pied Piper. The Snow Queen sent him to take the kids and bring them to her palace in the Arctic.”

“From the fairy tale?” Mom was clearly having just as much trouble as Dad with this conversation.

“The grown-up Characters at EAS gave up on them,” Kyle said. “But Rory didn't. They went on a quest to rescue those kids—the three of them on the couch, and this girl named Miriam. From what I've heard, it was Rory who managed to save everyone in the end.”

“To you, Rory's just your daughter, and you're really mad at her,” Lena said softly. “But to us, she's a hero. That's what we came here to tell you.”

“And if you come to EAS, a bunch of people will say the same thing,” Chase added.

I loved my friends. I really
really
loved my friends.

Mom glanced at them and back to me, her eyes narrowed. Lena
pressed her shoulder against mine, like she was ready to prop me up if I keeled over under the pressure.

“Okay,” Dad said, but it wasn't like the “okay” you say when you're trying to get someone to shut up. It was the kind of “okay” you say when you're pretty sure you've put all the pieces together. “Lena, right? I take it you never had appendicitis?”

I'd forgotten that was the story Lena's grandmother had told them last spring.

Lena shook her head, looking a little hopeful. “Cockatrice poisoning.”

“A cockatrice is like a lizard with a rooster head, but with teeth. It can turn people to stone with its eyes,” added Melodie. “Lena ate a Fey fudge pie laced with its poison.”

“Okay,” Dad said, and he sounded even steadier now.

“You can't be serious,” Amy said, but I always knew she was going to be the hardest to convince.

Mom said nothing. Her face didn't say a lot either.

Kyle pointed at the door. “Everybody out.”

“But . . .” Lena didn't want to leave, not when we were finally making progress.

“No, this nice lady was right. This is a family matter. We've said what we came here to say, and now it's up to Rory.” Kyle waved as he opened the front door. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said, and then he was gone.

“Nice to see you again, Ms. Wright and Amy. Nice to meet you, Mr. Landon.” Lena hugged me hard so she could whisper in my ear. “Call me on the M3 if you need more backup.” Then she was on her feet too, gathering up her bag and reaching for Melodie.

“Can you leave the harp?” Dad said. He wanted to examine her.
Years of working with props made him want to see exactly how she worked.

“I don't know. Could you maybe ask the
harp
?” said Melodie, who clearly hadn't gotten over being called evidence.

Chase leaned in close, right in front of my parents, and I could
feel
my dad noticing. “We'll be right outside.”

“Outside?” I peeked out the window. All the eighth-grade archers stood in a line along the sidewalk. They tried to act like they were just chatting, but that was hard to do when they had quivers and bows slung over their shoulders. When Kyle appeared behind them, they all spun around, obviously waiting for news.

Lena gave Chase a look like,
You better follow me,
and then she headed for the open door, taking Melodie with her. “Bye!”

Dad stood up to see better. “Are those
real
bows?”

“Longbows.” Chase walked out
really
slowly, like my parents were even more dangerous than a bunch of trolls, but eventually, he did go. I didn't feel even a tiny bit sad.

My friends had come, and they weren't leaving.

“He just drew a sword,” Dad said, still watching through the window. It was a good sign Dad noticed the weapon. Logic sometimes made your eyes skip over a sword, so maybe he was starting to really believe us.

But I wished Mom would say something. Her eyes were locked on mine, her face smooth, and it freaked me out that I couldn't read her expression at all.

“Why do you need bows and swords here, Rory?” Dad asked.

This was it. This was when I made them understand the danger.

“They're guarding us,” I whispered. “The Snow Queen. It may not be tonight or even this week, but she's definitely coming.”

Maybe Mom could hear how scared I was. Maybe she'd just
decided to hear me out before grounding me until my twentieth birthday, but concern filled her face.

She moved to the coffee table, not even noticing when she sat on a pile of tissues. She took both my hands. “I want you to start at Saturday night, right after I dropped you off. Don't leave anything out no matter how dangerous it was, or how complicated it is to explain. Tell us
everything
.”

So I took a deep breath as Dad drifted back to the armchair, and Amy took over the love seat.

Then I began.

This book was written and revised on a shorter schedule than the other two, which means lots of people had to put up with behavior weirder-than-usual from me for months straight:

To my awesome agent, Jo, thank you for being totally understanding about my inability to form complete sentences after turning in a new draft. To my patient, savvy editor, Julia, thank you for reining me in and making sure I didn't clutter up the plot with too many Tales, and thank you for giving me those last couple weeks when I really needed them. To everyone at S&S BFYR, thank you for believing in and supporting (and acquiring) The Ever Afters. To Chloë Foglia and Cory Loftis, thank you for being an amazing cover-creating team.

To my parents, thank you for enduring all my complaining about how tired I was. To my friends, thank you for understanding when I disappeared this spring. To my roommates, especially Megan, thank you for taking on more than your share of housework and for not saying anything about the crazed, off-in-another-world gleam in my eyes when I emerged from my writing cave (at the time, anyway). To Lancer and Shakayla, thank you for suggesting I borrow your names.

And most of all, thank you to my readers. This was the first time I've ever written a book when you guys were impatient to find out what happened to Rory, Chase, and Lena. I couldn't have done it without your enthusiasm, so thank you for writing to tell me.