First Frost (32 page)

Bianca said nothing.

“So…tell me about Terrance. He seems nice.”

Bianca blushed as she remembered the previous night. They’d kissed until they were too exhausted to even hold each other. She was pretty sure that it had been way past midnight when they’d crept inside the brick house.

“He’s great,” Bianca said.

Rose waited for her daughter to say something else about the elusive young man. He rarely spoke, unless it was to Prince Ferdinand or Bianca.

“Mmm hmm. And?” Rose made a hand gesture to encourage Bianca to continue talking.

“And…” Bianca shook her head as she tried to find the right words to describe Terrance. “He’s kind, smart, handsome and sweet. He’s an amazing kisser, and I wouldn’t mind it one bit if I spent the rest of my life making out with him.”

“Really?” Rose asked.

Bianca nibbled on her lower lip. “Now I wish I had kept that last part to myself,” Bianca muttered as she covered her face in shame.

In the distance, she heard Terrance chuckle.

“Just because you have super hearing doesn’t mean you should eavesdrop on private conversations,” Bianca shouted.

That comment only made Terrance laugh even harder.

“God, will this ever end?” Bianca groaned.

“At this rate? Who knows, sweetie…who knows?” Rose put her arm over Bianca’s shoulder and kissed to the top of her head.

“We’re here,” Prince Ferdinand announced.

Once they stepped out of the woods, they had a clear view of the cliff they all climbed down not too long ago. And dancing in the wind like a long blond snake was Rapunzel’s hair.

“So…you left it there?” Rose ground her teeth.

“Our only other choice was to leave Dad behind. Lucky for us he cannonballed his fuzzy butt into the river we just crossed,” Bianca replied.

“You can undo the knot and retrieve it without climbing up.”

Bianca had a deadpan expression on her face. It took her a moment to remind herself to blink. “You mean…we could’ve avoided this
three
day trek?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question, or do you want me to lie to you?”

“You can’t answer a question with another question, that’s cheating.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you, sweetheart. Besides, I’m sure that I taught you the spell. I guess you were overwhelmed with all the stuff we talked about that day.”

“Whatever,” Bianca muttered. She ran her fingers through her hair and sat down on a flat rock. She was beyond exhausted. All she wanted was to go home, lock herself inside her room, and sleep on her bed.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
We have climbed your golden stair
Please return your hair
To its original form.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bianca watched as her mother coiled the hair around her elbow and thumb until it was a perfect oval and neatly tied up.

“What else didn’t you tell me?” Bianca asked.

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

“I mean, what else did you keep from me? Stuff that was
for my own good
.” Bianca made air quotations with her fingers.

“Did you think I wanted this to happen to you? Is that it? You think I wanted to get kidnapped, tortured, lose my husband and have him turned into a bear, and almost lose you? For what? A crash course in magic? Do you really think I’m that horrible? That cruel? That I would do that to you?”

David sat beside Rose and whined as he rubbed his wet nose at her hand. She wiped the tears that inevitably escaped out of her eyes and waited for her daughter to speak.

Bianca remained silent. There was nothing she could say. She knew better. She knew that had her mother anticipated anything that happened in the past few weeks she would’ve prepared her for the worst. The truth of the matter was that there had been no time. Even Bianca herself had been overwhelmed by the amount of information given to her. She could easily imagine her mother forgetting a detail or two.

“Never mind. I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just…it was a lot to take in, you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly how you feel. I was overwhelmed when I found out. And however harsh my mother was to me, at least she prepared me for the worst. I’m sorry I didn’t do the same for you. I just wanted to protect you so much. I was foolish…and it almost cost me a price much too high. The last thing that I ever wanted was for you to get hurt. Do you understand?”

Bianca nodded.

“From now on…no more secrets. I’m an open book to you. Anything you want to ask me I will answer, okay?” Rose said.

“Really? You mean it?” Bianca asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay.” She took Rapunzel’s hair from her mother’s hands and put it away in her backpack.

“Do you want a moment to say goodbye to your friends?” Rose asked.

Bianca nodded and turned her attention to Prince Ferdinand and Terrance.

“We have to go,” Bianca said.

Terrance nodded.

She knew that neither one belonged in the other person’s world. Bianca couldn’t stay, and Terrance couldn’t go with her.

“Terrance…Prince Ferdinand, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you so much for helping me rescue my mother. I’ll be forever grateful to both of you,” Bianca said.

“It was our pleasure,” Terrance replied.

After a moment of standing stoic in front of each other for far too long, Prince Ferdinand threw his hands up in the air and shouted, “For God’s sake, do I have to do everything around here? Must I really command you to kiss her?” He rolled his eyes and muttered, “I am very disappointed in you, Terrance. Really, really disappointed.”

“Very well…seeing as you leave me no choice.” He cleared his throat dramatically and said, “I, Prince Ferdinand Anthony Charles Ash, command Terrance and Bianca to kiss and embrace each other goodbye.”

Bianca laughed. She turned to her parents and shrugged. “A little privacy, please?”

Rose winked at Bianca and walked away a few feet. David reluctantly followed his wife.

“You too,” Bianca said as she pointed at the prince.

“But it was my command, I must see that my wish is fulfilled,” he argued.

Bianca made a little running man with her index and middle fingers and shooed him away. It took some coaxing, but he eventually followed Rose and David.

She sighed and took Terrance’s hand in hers. She turned it over and traced the lines on the palm of his hand. They were riddled with tiny scars and cuts. This was the hand of a young man that worked every day of his life. She tried to remember a book about palm reading her mother kept in the house. She knew that the thumb represented Venus, the index finger represented Jupiter, the middle finger was Saturn, the ring finger Apollo and the pinky finger was Mercury. She knew that the line that started below the index finger and ended below the pinky finger was the line of the heart. But other than that, she didn’t know what the others meant. There was no way for her to predict what would happen to Terrance once she left Everafter.

All she knew was that she wanted to remember every single detail. She wanted to be able to close her eyes and see Terrance, his smile, his dark brown eyes, and his long brown hair. She didn’t want to leave him behind. All she wanted to do was sit, have him wrap his arms around her and tell her everything about himself. She wanted to know why he had scars on his hands. What he’d been like as a child, what his fears were, and what his dreams were—everything.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he whispered.

“Me too,” she replied.

Bianca hugged Terrance and breathed in his scent. Earth. Ozone. A hint of sweat. She wanted to take a tiny part of him, however miniscule, with her back home.

“Don’t forget me. Promise me you won’t forget me,” she whispered into his ear.

“Never,” he promised.

They held each other for a moment longer and painfully pulled themselves apart.

“I guess this is goodbye,” Bianca said.

“Not goodbye…farewell.”

There was no use in prolonging the inevitable. They kissed each other gently, softly as though they had all the time in the world to feel each other’s lips. Then, before they realized it had even happened, their lips parted and the kiss was over.

It was time to go home.

“We absolutely must find a minstrel to write a song about us,” the prince said as he rejoined them.

Bianca smiled; she was going to miss them.

“Ready?” Rose gently patted her daughter on the shoulder.

“Yeah.” She forced the word out of her mouth. It left her throat dry and with a bitter taste. It felt wrong to lie. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t think she would ever be.

“Find the shortest distance between,
My home and the faeries’ green.
A place for clear days and starry nights,
Put this door within my sight.”

The portal door appeared. The ghost-like door stood a few inches above the ground, waiting patiently to be opened. As if it was a living entity. Magic that was tangible and defied everything Bianca knew about time and space. It made her feel small and slightly insignificant. Almost as though there was still so much for her to learn and even if she reached old age she would never know as much as that door standing before her did.

Bianca turned around and waved goodbye to her new friend, Prince Ferdinand, and Terrance, the young man who could possibly be the love of her life. She wondered if she would ever see them again.

Chapter Thirty-One

Welcome back to Normalville, USA,
she thought as she stepped out of the portal and into her backyard. Everything was familiar once more.
This is so weird.

Bianca let out a shriek as her father fell to the ground with a loud thump.

David’s transformation began the moment the portal behind them closed. His growl quickly turned into a human scream as his bones popped in and out of place, taking on a more human appearance. His black fur dissolved and revealed his olive toned skin. His sharp black claws retracted and became hands. His fangs sank into his gums and reappeared as normal teeth. He let out a blood curdling scream and curled himself into a fetal position as he continued to change back into a man.

Bianca could see the muscles move underneath her father’s skin. She covered her mouth with her hands as she watched her father’s painful transformation. Rose grabbed a towel from the clothesline and swiftly tied it around his waist. By the time he was finished with his change, he was trembling and drenched with sweat even though it was a cool summer evening. He then stared at his hands as though he were looking at them for the first time in his entire life.

“Oh, God. David? Are you okay?” Rose whispered as she stared at the half naked man in her backyard.

“Rose? My Rose?” he asked, his voice hoarse from all his time living as a bear.

Bianca grinned as she watched her parents embrace for the first time in a decade.

“David…I missed you so much,” Rose said softly.

“I thought about you every single day,” he said as he ran his fingers through her bright red hair. He kissed her on the lips several times. Then his lips traveled all over her face.

He finally turned to Bianca and opened his arms to her. He welcomed his daughter into a long awaited embrace. For the first time in a decade, Bianca got the feeling that they would be able to move on. That it would actually be okay for once.

“Come on, let’s go inside. I’m sure everyone can use a nice hot shower and a hot meal,” Rose said.

“Hot shower? What’s that?” Bianca asked.

“I got dibs. I haven’t had a hot
anything
in ten years,” David said.

“I think we can let you go first. Right, Bianca?” Rose asked.

“Yeah. I can stay stinky for a couple of minutes longer,” she replied.

Bianca used the key they hid underneath the frog figurine to unlock the back door. All eyes were on David as he stepped into his home. It was as though he didn’t know what to look at first. So much had changed since he was taken out of their lives. His little girl was no longer a child. His wife, although still beautiful, held so much sadness in her emerald eyes.

“The kitchen is different,” he whispered.

He walked into the dining room; it too was different. Everything had changed. Everything but him.

“Daddy? Daddy, are you okay?” Bianca asked, noting the distress in her father’s eyes.

He quickly nodded and lied. “Yeah…I’m okay. It’s just…a lot to take in.”

“Bianca…why don’t you go up to your room. I’m going to set up a nice bath for your father.” Rose held David’s hand and gently guided him upstairs.

Bianca stood in the middle of the living room and watched her parents slowly make their way up the stairs. She knew they had some more hardships ahead. Challenges to overcome. She could only hope that they could jump through those hurdles unscathed and unharmed.