Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (4 page)

They walked in silence for a while. Her parents traveled a lot due to their reputation; they often flew planes across the globe to train other health inspectors or to attend conferences. That lifestyle was partly the reason why she and Robbie got to go away for school. No one would be home otherwise. Fallon didn't think the rest of the world could compare to a place that made her feel swaddled in surprises and charm. Giving Grimbaud up was inconceivable.

“Are you feeling better?” Fallon asked.

“No. It's just hard keeping a miserable face when everyone's so happy.”

“When does student government start?”

Nico flushed. “We have the first meeting on Thursday.”

After throwing himself into campaigning last spring, he'd won the position of treasurer. Nico wasn't particularly popular, but it helped that everyone knew the Barnes name; he had told Fallon about how close he had been to bribing people with free rides on the canal for votes and she was thankful that it hadn't come to that. Nico now had the opportunity to spend time with Martin—as long as Camille, as vice president, remained civil. Breakups were a messy business, fortunes or not.

As students disappeared into classrooms, clearing the halls, Fallon noticed a pair of peculiar girls leaning against a row of lockers. Watching them. The girls had to be related somehow, but they looked nothing alike. Fraternal twins, she guessed, after spotting how they both wore their blazers' sleeves rolled up at the elbows and styled their hair in coiled ringlets that fell down their backs.

“The De Keyser twins,” Nico said under his breath. “Mirthe's on the left. Femke's on the right.”

“Hello, you two,” Mirthe said, her brown eyes flashing.

Femke linked arms with her sister, blinking her green eyes slowly. “You're carrying some unfortunate fortunes.”

“How do you know?” Nico said.

“Can't you hear the whispers?” Mirthe's nut-brown face brightened. “Well, it doesn't matter. Plenty of people were in line yesterday at Zita's shop. I must say, I've never seen such a dramatic display of emotion. Running into the shop was a bold move, Fallon.”

“What else could I have done?” Fallon said, lifting her chin.

“That's precisely what we want to talk to you about,” Femke said.

“Zita's love fortunes weren't kind to either of you this year. In fact, from our observations, they must be set in stone,” Mirthe said.

“Only mine.”

Nico squeezed Fallon's shoulder.

The twins cocked their heads at the same time. Femke said, “So you're going to give up?”

The floor tilted. Femke's question burned in her ears and pressed against her heart. Fallon waited for the pain to stop, wishing that she could just go back in time. No terrible fortune. No invasive questions. But she couldn't go backward. Nor did she want to just fold her dreams away in a dark closet. Her future of living underneath a pile of cats cracked in the middle, but it was Nico who spoke first.

“Never,” he said, swallowing thickly. “Not until I share my feelings with Martin.”

When Fallon found her voice, she said, “I don't want this to be the end. If I can find love somehow, some way, I want to take it.”

The warning bell went off, leaving three more minutes before second period was supposed to start, but no one moved.

Then, finally, Femke and Mirthe flashed matching mischievous smiles. “We can offer you help as long as you work with us.”

Femke tore a piece of paper out of her notebook and scribbled down the time and place of the meeting. When Fallon took it from her hands, she felt the featherlight presence of hope stirring.

 

chapter 3

CHARM-MAKERS

Convincing Anais that Fallon had to stay behind after school wasn't so hard. Fallon claimed that she had to stay behind to ask her history teacher some questions concerning the syllabus.

“Ever the studious pupil,” Anais teased. “When you get home, drop by the store.”

Fallon drifted through the afternoon, caught between breathless anticipation and dread. She didn't know much about Femke and Mirthe besides what Nico had told her before the tardy bell rang: their family ran a respectable weather-charm store and they kept to themselves. One twin was never without the other, and sometimes their attempts at looking alike came out strangely. Nico had told her that the twins came to school once wearing the same electric pink eye shadow and cat-eared headbands. After hearing that, Fallon was surprised that they had left their little bubble to talk to her and Nico. What were they planning?

The meeting would take place in the basement of the school. The science classrooms were dimly lit; jars of eyeballs and other animal parts were on display as if arranged by an interior designer. Fallon's labs in the past had been limited to solving equations in her notebook and measuring melting points and recording phase changes. Not very exciting compared to the creepy atmosphere these rooms boasted. However, the science classrooms seemed to fit the unease she felt as she wandered through the basement.

She heard the sound of laughter and talking coming from one of the open classrooms. She paused in the doorway to find the chairs arranged in a
U
-shape facing the teacher's desk. Femke and Mirthe sat on top of the desk. Nico was already sitting, and she didn't know the other student, a miserable-looking girl with clumpy, unwashed hair.

“Don't just stand there, holding the doorframe up. Come on in,” Mirthe said. “Say hello to Hijiri Kitamura.”

Hijiri sat up in her chair, but she wouldn't look Fallon in the eye. In fact, she seemed incapable of lifting her gaze any higher than her ankles. The girl had to be a freshman because she held her class schedule in a death grip.

“Nice to meet you,” Fallon said.

Hijiri spared a wobbly smile.

“We're just waiting on one more person to join our merry band,” Femke said.

“That's it?” Nico asked. “We're the only ones with bad fortunes?”

“Some of the people we spoke to were too scared to join,” Mirthe said with a stubborn wave of her hand.

“They weren't desperate enough,” Femke added.

“Well, that doesn't make us sound too appealing, does it?” Nico rested his chin on his fist.

“Desperation is a good thing,” Fallon said. That feeling allowed her to take baby steps in the past, inching out from underneath her family's shadow. She wouldn't be surprised if its electric-nauseous energy helped her out again.

“That's right. What other feeling could compete with a town that embraces its chains?” Mirthe said.

Mirthe glanced at the wall clock. “Almost time.”

“He'd better be here.”

“If he skips out on us, we'll leave a rain charm in his apartment.”

“Clever.” Femke opened her notebook and scribbled it down. “Why haven't we tried that yet?”

Like any charm in Grimbaud, they either worked or didn't—it was the risk the buyer took when purchasing a charm. A rain charm was supposed to be used to attract rain, usually bought by farmers or garden enthusiasts. But if the twins planned to use it the way she thought they did, the charm would trap a rain cloud within an apartment. The wood flooring would be ruined, she mused. An expensive prank.

Her thoughts scattered when a boy entered the room. Fallon knew who he was immediately, from the few times she'd seen him leave his apartment at the complex. He was, without a doubt, the boy called Bastion.

“Sebastian Barringer,” Mirthe said with a mock bow. “Nice of you to join us.”

Sebastian surveyed the room with indifference. “So this is the place.”

Fallon didn't want to like this boy or even be remotely friendly to him, but she could understand why girls kept crying outside his door. He had narrow shoulders and a slim build. His hair was styled to look disheveled. Sebastian's eyebrows were dark, dramatic slashes, making him look either perpetually annoyed or bored. Yet, paired with a smooth smile, he could make a girl's pulse quicken. Fallon's own heart had been startled awake the few times she'd passed him at the complex, but she knew better than to take her feelings seriously.

Mirthe pointed to the seat next to Fallon. “Since you're late, why don't you start us off by sharing your fortune?”

Sebastian didn't blink. “No.”

Fallon watched as Sebastian slid into the chair; he rested his hands on his thighs, but the tight pull between his shoulder blades gave away his discomfort.

“This is an important discussion. If we're going to work together, we have to be honest.” Mirthe hopped off the desk and grabbed a marker and an eraser. She wrote the word “Love” on the whiteboard. Then, with the precision of a surgeon, she used the corner of the eraser to slice up the word. “Zita has stolen the same thing from all of you. You may think it's love, and while that's part of it, the bigger picture is that she's taken your freedom. You can't possibly risk going against your fortunes. Why? Because it will bring you heartache and misery?”

“Yeah,” Nico answered, despite it being a rhetorical question.

Mirthe quirked an eyebrow. “Life is about making mistakes. If you don't take chances, blindfolded and frightened as you are, you're not really living, are you? Heartache makes you stronger. Misery is the stuff of good poetry. You're denying yourself much more than the bad things in life by listening to Zita's fortunes.”

When all eyes turned back to Sebastian, he remained placid. “I won't share my fortune. The fact that I'm here should be enough.”

Femke pursed her lips. “Leave it be, sister.”

Mirthe chopped the “e” into indiscernible pieces with a big sigh. “Fine. How about the rest of you?”

Nico started, revealing the fortune that predicted his invisibility for another year. He looked a little less sick than yesterday and grew more comfortable when he told them about Martin and his ex-girlfriend, Camille. “He doesn't like boys,” he explained, running a hand through his hair. “That's just another obstacle for me. But I thought that, maybe if he got to know me … well, that's what I believed before this fortune.”

Femke took notes quietly while Mirthe paced the front of the classroom.

“My love will never be requited,” Fallon said, the words heavy on her tongue. She stared at her hands, tracing each knuckle with her eyes.

“Ah,” Hijiri whispered, “the spinster fortune.”

Fallon's face grew hot. “I don't … I don't have anyone I like. That's why it feels worse. Even if I end up having feelings for someone in the future, it's frustrating to know that it would be pointless.”

Seeking reactions from the others, Fallon caught Sebastian looking at her with a curious expression on his face. She wondered why, discreetly touching her lips in search of crumbs from lunch.

“A death sentence, huh?” he said with a smile.

Her mouth mimicked his. “Close enough.”

Sebastian turned to the twins. “What about your fortunes?”

Mirthe and Femke wore matching, self-satisfied smirks. Mirthe spoke up. “We've lived in Grimbaud all our lives and we've never gotten love fortunes. Zita's cronies won't find us in her database. We remain blissfully ignorant of our romantic futures.”

Nico gasped. “How can you stand not knowing?”

Femke shrugged. “Because that's the way love's supposed to be.”

“And personally, it pisses us off that Zita had driven other love charm-makers away. Once the accuracy of her fortunes was established, the other love charm-makers lost business and had to leave,” Mirthe added. “That's a lot of history and competition gone. Terrible. So we think of our boycott as a nod to those whose love charms are gone now.”

But Zita had done more than chase other love charm-makers out of town; she owned other properties in Grimbaud. Fallon's guidebooks stated that Zita founded the Spinster and Bachelor Villas, and the shops in Verbeke Square paid rent to her. She turned her attention back to Hijiri as they continued sharing their fortunes.

Hijiri smoothed the fortune on her lap, stalling, until fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Her chin dimpled as she fought for words. After Femke handed her a tissue, Hijiri took a few gasping breaths.
“‘You can't inspire love in others if you don't change yourself.'”

Fallon flinched. Robbie had told her about those fortunes. The boys and girls who usually received that message were the ones already attracting bullies. Their clothes were stolen in the locker rooms, their desks carved with foul language. Invisible but noticed.

Each fortune was worse than the last. Fallon didn't know how they would be able to leave the room when the air was so thick with sorrow.

“I don't know what to do,” Hijiri cried, touching her oily hair. “I've always looked like this. Why can't someone love me like this?”

Femke set the notebook down, her face as quiet as Mirthe's was stormy. “Why shouldn't you be loved?”

Like a hook sinking into a fish's mouth, the pain of her words startled them. A different kind of pain.

“That's right.” Mirthe said. She tossed the eraser in her hands, getting ink all over them. “That's exactly the point. Zita will win, just like she always does, if you don't ask yourselves questions.”

Hijiri blew her nose. Nico perked up, his eyes blazing. Sebastian kept his cool gaze on the twins. Fallon drew a breath, waiting.

“The five of us are starting a rebellion,” Mirthe said.

Rebellion. The word made Fallon shiver. She would make a terrible rebel and she knew it. How did the twins look so confident, so sure that all of them could do this?

The twins explained that their grand plan for putting a stop to Zita involved three phases, however, they promised only to reveal one phase at a time, since overwhelming a group of “depressed, heartsick teens” would not be smart. “The less you know, the better,” Femke said with a pleasing smile. “But it'll make perfect sense the further along we get.”