One Black Rose (24 page)

After Susan left Carley said, “She’s amazing. And so nice.”

I agreed.

We had a snack to tide us over until dinner, then we both showered, and finally it was time to put our dresses on. I was a little nervous. I’d been so upset the day before I had never actually tried the dress on, and although Susan had said that it matched my exact measurements, I still wasn’t sure how I’d look.

Taking a deep breath, I slid the white dress over my head, zipped it up, and looked at myself in the mirror. I had thought it looked pretty hanging in the store, but Susan’s changes had made all the difference.

I met Carley in the hall. Her dress was the palest purple and fell a few inches above her knee. It complemented her pale skin and blond hair perfectly. “You look wonderful,” I said.

“Wow, so you do. Look at the dress. I love all the sparkles she added,” Carley told me. And it was true. Susan had added a lot of sparkles, but it wasn’t until Carley said it that I realized she’d done the sparkles in a specific design.

“She drew a rose on your dress,” Carley pointed out in awe.

I looked down. Yes, that’s exactly what Susan had done. I took a deep breath. This was going to be a very interesting night indeed.

Nick finally came over, and the three of us walked to the Roths’ together. Nick looked great in khakis, a blue button down, and a jacket. “It’s the only one I have,” he said sheepishly. I told him he looked wonderful.

He had brought each of us a small bunch of flowers. I put mine in a vase before we left, but Carley decided to take hers with us, which Nick seemed pretty happy about.

Even before the Roths’ house came into view it was clear that there was a party close by. Cars lined the streets on both sides. Nick, Carley, and I passed families and other men and women all dressed up and all walking toward the same destination.

“I feel like I’m going to prom or something,” I said.

Carley grinned. “Trust me, this is going to be way better than prom.”

Nick nodded. “I just wish they’d have one every week.”

“We’d get sick of it if they did,” said Carley.

“I wouldn’t,” said Nick. “The Roths have every video game imaginable. It just sucks that Logan Roth is so good at them. I wonder if he’ll be there this year. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He will,” I said absently. “I saw him last night.”

“When did you… oh never mind,” said Nick, realizing that he knew exactly when.

I was too nervous about Holt seeing me in this dress to notice that he’d trailed off.

“Nothing wrong with Autumn having friends,” said Carley, linking her arm with mine. “They just happen to be cute guys.”

Yeah, and neither of them wants to be friends.

By that time we’d reached the front of the house. It looked so splendid it made me gasp. Just the night before it had looked like an ordinary house. Now it looked like some incredible castle you’d see in a Disney movie. There were colorful decorations everywhere. Flowers were strewn on the walkway and draped like garlands over the walls. Little lantern lights hung from everywhere and somehow there was now a fountain in the middle of the driveway.

“I have no idea how they pull this off in one night,” said Nick. “It’s like magic.”

Not exactly
.

Holt had already given me a demonstration of what Fairies could do, but if he hadn’t this would have been enough. Summer Fairies really knew how to make something beautiful. I wondered fleetingly if any of it was an illusion. It was pretty hard to believe that a fountain had just suddenly sprung up in their courtyard, but there it was. As we passed I stuck my hand over the running water and felt its coolness wash over my fingertips. If it was an illusion, it was a perfect one.

Nick and Carley both knew a lot of people in the courtyard, and we stopped several times to chat for a bit. It was just after seven and I hadn’t seen any sign of the Roths. Instead of going up to the front door, which was open, Carley and Nick steered us around back. Now it was time to walk through the flowers again.

It was the first time I’d been out there since that fateful day with Holt when he had told me everything I had wanted to know, but this time walking into the garden didn’t make my heart race, nor did I feel disoriented. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The back of the house looked just as incredible as the front. The center space, paved in stones, was filled with tables covered with platters and bowls of food. My stomach instantly started growling and Nick said, “I’m starving. I could eat all of that.”

The three of us stood around one of the tables for a few minutes, filling our plates. There were small dessert dishes of strawberries dipped in black or white chocolate. There were bite-sized cupcakes of every variety and color I could imagine and some I couldn’t. There was every kind of seafood (of course, it was Maine) and every kind of cheese. Even the neatly cut and prepared vegetables looked delicious.

Carley looked around in wonder and said, “You know, every year I think I won’t be surprised any more, but every year I am.”

“Agreed,” said Nick.

I was about to say that I thought it was incredible when I heard soft music. A band had been setting up while the guests arrived, and now they started to play. The men and women in white jackets sat in a half circle on one side of the back courtyard, surrounded by flowers.

“Isn’t it great?” Holt asked from behind me. I turned so fast I almost dropped my plate of food.

There he stood, dressed in a black suit with an open light blue shirt underneath. He looked splendid.

“Yeah,” I said. “You look amazing.”

I blushed. Couldn’t I keep my foot out of my mouth just once with him?

He beamed at me. “Thank you, so do you.” I noticed a slight flush on his cheeks and it made me smile.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked.

“What? No one is dancing,” I said, looking around.

“We’ll be the first. Come on. It’s custom for someone in my family to start us off.” He gently pried the plate of food out of my fingers. Carley took it off his hands, saying, “I’m making no promises that this food will be here waiting for you when you come back. Now you two go on.”

Feeling like I might faint, I let Holt lead me onto the dance floor. I’d never felt so wonderful. Between the dress, and the beautiful garden, and everyone dressed to perfection, and the music, and Holt, I wasn’t sure anything in the world could make me happier. I couldn’t imagine anything ruining it.

At first no one realized what we were doing, but once Holt took me in his arms people started to turn away from their conversations and their enjoyment of the grounds to watch us dance. I thought I would be self-conscious having all those eyes on me, and I might have been if it wasn’t for Holt’s tight hold on my hand and his arm around my waist, steadying me and guiding me through the steps.

As we danced, other couples joined in. At one point even Carley and Nick took a turn. Holt and I just kept dancing. Even after it was completely dark and the lights had come on, casting a warm glow over all of us, we kept dancing. I briefly wondered where his family was, where anyone else was, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that moment of pure happiness.

Finally, after another song ended, Holt and I stopped. There were lots of people dancing in the back courtyard now and everyone spun past in a whirl of bodies.

“Would you like a drink?” Holt asked me, still smiling.

I nodded. I knew my face was flushed.

As I followed him to the table where drinks were being served, I saw Leslie. Her face was as white as snow; her lips formed one thin line. I had never in my life seen anyone look so angry.

The evening turned from brightness to dread. I looked around for Samuel, hoping to spot him and point out what his “cousin” looked like, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Holt and I found Carley and Nick sitting together on a bench, sharing some food. I sat down on a nearby bench while Nick went to get us waters.

Eyeing me, Carley said, “Well, I guess you’ve made your choice.”

I had just been reaching for one of the chocolate-covered strawberries on her plate, but this made me pause mid-move. “What?”

“You didn’t see Samuel earlier?” Carley asked, her voice accusatory.

“No, when?”

“While you and Holt were dancing. He came in and watched the two of you for a few minutes,” she said.

“When did he leave?”

“When his mother came in. If it’s possible, she looked even angrier than his Leslie over there,” she said. So Carley had noticed Leslie’s wild-eyed look. And Mrs. Cheshire had come. That wasn’t good.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Carley. “I’m all for love and stuff, but I think they’re mad.”

I felt my heart sink. I knew she was right.

I didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because just as Carley finished speaking, the Roths’ French doors, which faced the garden, exploded. The noise and splitting of glass caused everyone at the party to cry out. I ducked down low, covering my head, hoping to avoid any of the flying debris.

All around me I could hear coughing and panicked questions. I dared to look and see what had happened, then wished I hadn’t. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Standing in the doorway, her red coat framed by the damage she had just done, was the Winter Queen.

Looking at her now, I was sure that there was no part of Mrs. Cheshire left there. Her hair was blacker than midnight and her marks gleamed out into the darkness, framed by the palest skin.

She took a step forward, then another step. Trailing behind her were the women of her court. Lydia was one of them, and when she started to come into the back garden Leslie came out of the house and moved to join her.

When The Winter Queen saw me, her roving eyes stopped. I gasped as she raised her hand, pointing towards me. Everyone in the garden had scattered. Even Carley and Nick were no longer sitting on the bench, but hiding behind a large potted plant. The Cheshire girls behind the Winter Queen had fanned out, giving her wings on either side. Every one of them looked just as nasty as their queen. I could see the garden around me withering and dying from the cold.

I choked. I could feel myself turning icy, so cold I couldn’t move. I imagined that on the outside I looked like an oversized ice cube. I was entranced in her stare and encased in ice. I tried to take a breath, to fill my lungs with air, but they wouldn’t move. I struggled wildly, like I knew they did in the movies, but it felt like my brain wasn’t connected to my body, and my limbs did not move on command.

Even as I tried to fight, the edges of my vision started to grow black and my mind started to feel heavy. Without air I wasn’t going to stay conscious much longer, and with the Winter Queen’s cold eyes on me I had very little chance of fighting off unconsciousness or even staying alive.

With my last ounce of clarity I glared back at her. Instead of feeling hate radiate off her the way I had become used to, I was surprised to feel a profound sadness. She was sad that she had to destroy a potential wife for her son, but it had to be done. This mess of a situation where I was supposed to be with him, but he didn’t really want me and I wanted someone else entirely, had to end. And as far as she was concerned, the only way he could move on from it was if I were dead.

The other option, that Holt got me and my power instead, was just too horrible for her to contemplate. And she would stop at nothing until she’d gotten what she wanted, what she knew had to happen.

Suddenly, all the awful stuff of the last few days seemed irrelevant compared to this. The Cheshire girls threatening me now made sense, as did Mrs. Cheshire’s fight with Mrs. Roth, and Mrs. Roth’s insistence that Holt take me home yesterday. Mrs. Roth had known this was coming.

She had known that Mrs. Cheshire wanted me dead.

I vaguely registered that all of the other guests had faded into the background. Most had fled. I tried one last time to breathe, and when I couldn’t, when the blackness became too much, I simply fell sideways, knowing that I was too cold, like an icicle, and that I would shatter onto the bench like a million tiny crystals.

If only I’d gotten to kiss Holt first.

“Stop, stop right now,” a familiar voice cried, but I couldn’t see who it was. I couldn’t think anymore. I slid into darkness.

Then, just before I lost consciousness entirely, I felt something snap inside me. A black anger coupled with a red-hot rage ran through me. I gasped for breath. The anger and rage were being forced out of me. Whatever had its hold on me was being forced away and I took in one painful breath, then another, and another. Gratefully I took great gulps of air. I had never thought it could taste so good.

Finally, I was able to open my eyes, but once again I wished I hadn’t. The once-stunning garden of the Roths had now become a crumpled, dead battleground.

The flowers were withered and black, almost like a fire had raged and burned them all away. I felt like weeping. All that beauty and life had been destroyed. I looked for the source of whatever had saved me, and to my shock, there was Logan leaning over me.