Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (13 page)

“
Oh,” she
responded.

“
Now, I know this is
sudden, but Terry assured me that he’s a good worker, and if she
trusts him, then so do I.”

“
How nice.” Her mouth felt
dry, her words forced.

Jared’s eyes narrowed in thought as he
leaned on the back legs of the kitchen chair, teetering on the
brink of teenage rebellion. It was obvious that he knew something
was up, even if her mother didn’t. But Jared replied in a formal
tone, “Nice to meet you…uh?”

“
Mina,” she answered
irritably, knowing that he was only playing a part.

“
What an odd name. Is it
short for something?” he taunted her, knowing full well what it
stood for.

“
Yeah, a fat
lip.”

Wrong answer, because she heard a gasp from
her mother, and Sara stood up.

“
Now, Mina, apologize at
once to our guest.”

“
Mom, look at him. Doesn’t
he even look remotely familiar?” Mina hinted.

Sara turned to stare at Jared with
bewildered eyes and shook her head. “No, sorry, honey. Is he
supposed to be familiar? I don’t know—lately my mind has been
pretty muddled. Can you show him the house…please?”

Mina rolled her eyes and held the door open
for Jared to precede her into the hall, but not before she snatched
an apple out of the fruit dish on the counter. When they had walked
out of earshot, she snapped at him,

“
Great, just great! Now
you’re brainwashing my mom.”

He looked at her, confused. “I didn’t do
anything.”

“
Riiiight. What in the
blazes are you doing here?”

“
I started thinking about
last night and what you said, and I realized that I may have
acted—what happened to your hair?”

“
Huh?” Her hand went to
pat it, and it was still there.

Jared motioned with his fingers to her
forehead, and she ran to the large hall mirror and gasped in shock.
There was a whole lock of hair starting from her forehead that ran
past her shoulders, and it was gold.

“
I-I thought it was a
dream,” she whispered, fearing to touch it.

“
What dream?”

“
I dreamed about the Fae,
about Reid and Temple and…and my brother. He was in a golden cage,
and there was fire everywhere. He touched me in my dream, and now
this.” She swallowed and turned to Jared. “What do I do
now?”

He stood there, looking at her in disbelief.
“I can’t believe it. You can do it?”

“
Do what?”

“
Do you understand what
this means?” He was getting angry, and reached forward and grabbed
her forearms.

“
No, I don’t know what it
means, except that I’m scared.”

“
I—I’m sorry. I was wrong,
and this proves it.” He touched her hair in wonder. “If anyone can
finish all of the quests and break the curse, it’s you. And you’re
right—just because I can’t help you with the Stiltskin, doesn’t
mean someone else can’t. The old broads are going to hate me for
this…well, they already hate me, but they will be very interested
in this new development.”

“
Who?” she said
impatiently.

Jared ignored her and headed down the hall
to the front door. “Come on, let’s go.”

“
Go? Go where?”

“
To the old biddies. It’s
time to stir up the henhouse.”

Chapter 14

Jared led her outside to his motorcycle. She
looked up at the house and the broken shutters he was supposed to
fix. “What about the shutters?”

He turned toward the house and snapped his
fingers, and the shutters reattached themselves to the house
magically.

“
And the front porch.”
Mina wasn’t letting him out of his ruse that easily. Jared leaned
toward the porch and barely looked at it before the step was
fixed.

“
Can we go yet?” Jared was
chomping at the bit.

“
The house needs
painting.”

“
Done, now get on,” Jared
demanded.

Mina looked up, and the house was a pristine
sparkling white.

He grinned and helped Mina put her helmet
on, even going so far as to move her braid off her shoulder.

She looked up at the cloud-filled sky and
frowned. Jared noted her look. “Trust me, I won’t let a little rain
ruin our parade.”

She gave him a shocked look. “Trust a Fae?
Never. But you’d better keep me dry, or next time it’s the bus for
us both.”

He grinned, showing his white teeth, and
flicked his visor down. Mina swung her leg over the back of his
motorcycle and didn’t know where to place her hands. This wasn’t
the first time she had ridden with him, but every time it was the
same discombobulated feeling of what to do with her hands. She
quickly got over it when the motorcycle roared to life. She wrapped
her hands around his body to hold on as he sped toward the gate. He
didn’t slow down to enter the security code but sped up the closer
they got.

Her heart thudded loudly and she squealed,
thinking they would crash right through it, but it was all for
nothing. At the last second, because of Jared’s Fae power, the gate
opened, letting them dart through. Jared laughed at Mina’s scream
and did nothing but go faster, making her squeeze him even
tighter.

It was a twenty-minute
drive before he pulled up to an old recycling plant on the
waterfront. The building was a faded pea green, with the
words
Green Mill Recycling Center
barely legible. The windows were boarded up, and
even the doors had chains on them, deterring unwanted visitors. She
headed toward the front door, but paused when Jared passed her and
headed around back.

Jared searched around in the piles of “to be
recycled bins” until he found the metal entrance door to a cellar.
This door, unlike the others, wasn’t chained or boarded up. It was
sealed with a metal disc. The disc itself was bronze, with a sun
and moon engraved on it. Ancient lettering was scrawled around the
edges. He reached down, placed his palm upon the emblem, and
whispered something unintelligible. Seconds later the seal glowed,
then unlocked.

Jared grinned, opened the doors that led
into a dark stairwell, and beckoned for Mina to enter. “Ladies
first.”

Mina hesitated. “Uh, age before beauty.”

“
Grimms never
win.”

“
Prince before
pauper.”

“
Oh, fine. Just don’t say
chivalry is dead. ’Cause you had your chance.” He went down the
steps first, stepping confidently over the plastic bottles and
cardboard containers.

“
Do you have a
flashlight?” she asked, feeling uneasy.

“
You’re not scared of the
dark, are you?”

“
No, it’s not the dark
that scares me. It’s the unknown…
and
you
,” she whispered.

He wasn’t supposed to have heard the last
two words, but he did. He turned on his heels quickly to face her,
making Mina stumble on a glass bottle and skid into him. He deftly
caught her against his chest, and when she struggled to remove
herself from his grip, he didn’t let go at first.

“
Careful,” he said.
Pushing her back away from him roughly, Jared reached down, picked
up a glass Coca-Cola bottle, and closed his eyes. A few seconds
later a bright light emanated from inside the bottle. “Here you go.
It will only last for a few minutes, but it should help chase the
scary monsters away…including me.”

Mina took the glass Coke bottle from Jared
and stared at it in wonder. It was beautiful, a treasure, and it
indeed lit up the passageway quite nicely. Walking with it, she
could feel soft warmth coming from the bottle, but it never once
burned her.

“
It’s right up here.” He
led them another twenty feet before he came to a dead
end.

“
There’s nothing
there.”

“
Aren’t you the observant
one,” he replied sarcastically. “I bet you could always find Waldo,
too. Now, bring the bottle closer so I can see.”

She complied, and Jared reached into his
back pocket and pulled out a small metal box. He selected two
odd-shaped objects and inserted them into a miniscule hole in the
wall. She could hear a few clicks of metal on metal.

“
What are you doing?” she
asked.

“
Since I don’t have a key
to this fine establishment, I’m picking the lock.”

“
But you just used magic
on the other lock. Why can’t you do that on this one?”

“
Because the other one was
a magic lock, and this one isn’t. It’s a regular Schlage five-pin,
so stop talking and let me concentrate…or would you rather do the
lock picking?” He held the lock picks out to her.

Mina shook her head but asked, “If we are
going to these people for help, why don’t we just knock and use the
front door?”

Jared’s shoulders hunched in guilt. “Because
I never knock. I shouldn’t have to knock.”

“
So you just do this for
your own enjoyment.”

“
Yes, and to see the look
on their faces when I get the better of them.” He grinned at Mina,
and under the glow of the Coca-Cola-induced light, he looked
stunning. So handsome that she almost forgave him for wanting to
give up on finding her brother.

“
A-ha!” The lock clicked,
and he doused the light. Jared reached behind him and grabbed
Mina’s hand, and opened the door silently. A soft glow filled the
passageway, and they entered a large library. Jared pushed the
bookcase door they’d just entered through closed without a
click.

There was a fire burning in the fireplace on
the far wall, and the lounge chairs looked warm and inviting. One
of them was currently occupied.

Mina watched as an arm reached out to take a
teacup from a side table and disappeared behind the back of the
chair. A few seconds later the cup was replaced, and the shuffle of
a newspaper could be heard; the reader had not noticed their
intrusion.

Something warned her to not say a word,
mostly because Jared had been existentially quiet since they’d
entered this room. He got Mina’s attention with a wave of his hand
and gestured to the west side of the room with his head. She turned
to Jared and poked him in the arm, hard.

He cringed and dropped his shoulders,
refusing to look at her. She pinched him harder until he turned
around and swatted at her hands.

“
We’re breaking into
someone’s house?” She mouthed the words dramatically, and then hit
him on the top of the head.

He tried to shush her with his hands, and
then made a sheepish grin and nodded.

Mina scrunched up her face
and raised her hands as if to strangle him, but got herself in
check.
Why?
she
motioned with her hands.

“
Because you asked for
help,” he whispered, while never taking his eyes off the occupant
in the chair.

“
We are trespassing, and
we’re going to get caught, or worse, thrown in jail,” she hissed
quietly into his ear.

“
Nah.” He moved over to
the far end of the room by two double doors next to a table with a
large vase.

“
Hello, Jared. Nice to see
you again. Remember what happened the last time you tried to sneak
into here?” The eloquent voice belonged to a woman.

Jared froze and rolled his head back to look
at the ceiling, like a teen who’d just been chastised. “Yes,” he
grumbled.

Mina jumped at the voice and bumped the
table. The vase on it teetered precariously and then toppled over
before either one of them could catch it. Mina gasped as it crashed
to the floor and shattered. Her head snapped to the occupant in the
chair, and she heard a long, drawn-out sigh.

“
Jared, Jared, Jared.
Whatever am I to do with you? I fear that you will never learn.”
The paper was tossed lightly to the side, and the woman stood up to
address them both. She was familiar. It was her music teacher, Mrs.
Colbert.

“
Mrs. Colbert?”

Mrs. Colbert looked perturbed that Jared had
brought her here, and she stepped quickly over to the Fae prince
and placed her hands on her hips.

“
What do you think this
is, a public library? You can’t be coming and going here as you
please. You do not have permission to be here, and you weren’t
supposed to bring her here, either. You, Fae prince, are ruining
everything. Just because you did us one good deed does not mean the
past is easily forgotten.”

The door opened, and another woman peeked
into the library. “Constance, there has been another
development.”

Mina was confronted with a woman who looked
extremely familiar but at the same time foreign. There were enough
similarities to give her doubt. The height, the dark brown eyes,
the tone of voice, but she was missing the wrinkles, the gray hair
at her temples, and her thick and terrible accent. But it wasn’t
until the woman recognized Mina, let out a squeak of fear, and
slammed the door that she knew she was right.

A few seconds later the door reopened, and
Mrs. Wong stood before her.

“
Mrs. Wong?”

Mrs. Colbert rolled her eyes and motioned to
the woman. “Drop it, Mei—the prince let the cat out of the
bag.”

“
Mrs. Wong, what’s going
on here? Are you one of them?”

Mei Wong’s soft brown eyes closed as she
took a deep breath and slowly let the glamour drop. There was only
a faint shimmer of the air around her, and the old Chinese woman
Mina knew and loved was replaced by a small woman with big
beautiful eyes and skin the color of warm chocolate.