Views from the Tower (2 page)

Then the clouds rolled over us, snatching us up in their hungry jaws. It was dark and wet. The moisture coated the inside of my nostrils and throat, like breathing underwater.

“Kade!” I screamed, my voice snatched away by the wind and muffled in the stifling moisture of the storm. I felt his mind press against my own, his amused laughter rippling through my mind with warm fire.
Hold on, Wren
.

And then we were falling, plummeting out of the sky like a falling star, streaking down to the cool sea below us. Kade flew close above the water. The storm was over us now, the rain beating down onto the sea. The steam was rising off of Kade’s back in huge puffs and below him the ocean surged and roiled as his wings displaced the water. I clung to him feeling as if I were about to be ripped apart from the twin sources of energy—the storms’s elemental pulsing above me and the answering power from the beast below.

I could see our island in the distance. Kade was racing toward it. A roar ripped out his throat—I could feel it well up within him, the muscles in his back rippling as it tore out of him, so very loud—I felt like he could shake the thunderheads out of the sky. We surged forward and somehow got ahead of the storm. The island was coming up fast, so fast. He slid onto the beach sand spurting up around him as I tumbled off his back, laughing in a jumble of panic and relief and excitement. We’d beaten the storm to the island by a mere half minute. The churning clouds covered the last strip of blue sky as I turned, huge raindrops darkening the sand around my feet, and ran back to the safety of our cave.

The Price of Beauty

It was hopeless. I sat and stared at the piles and piles of straw around me, but no amount of staring was going to change them into gold. No amount of spinning would either. What had my father been thinking to boast to the king that I could spin straw into gold? That was impossible for anyone but a sorcerer. I could barely spin wool into thread. I was much more adept at growing things in our little garden and keeping the books for my father at the mill. And of course, looking pretty.

My face was my family’s real wealth. I’d known from a very young age that my purpose in life was to catch the richest husband that could be bought with my beauty. I would have been happy with an untitled land owner. Someone with enough money to make my family comfortable with a home I could call my own. A home where I could raise babies and vegetables.

My mother insisted I could catch a baronet at least with my dark curls and saucy dimple. My father had thought I could reach even higher. As high as the ruler of the land. And so when the king had traveled through our small village, my father had seized the chance to declare me the most beautiful girl in the land. That wasn’t quite enough to tempt the king, and so my father had brashly proclaimed that I could spin straw into gold. As proof he pointed to the braided gold necklace I wore around my neck.

The gleam of greed in the king’s eye had told me that my fate was sealed, though he was wise enough not to take my father at his word. Now I was closed up in a tower room filled with nothing but straw and a spinning wheel. I was being tested, and if I failed the test, I would lose my life. If I passed, I would win the king’s hand in marriage. For beauty and a supply of gold limited only by the amount of straw one could procure was dowry enough even for a king.

I’d done all my crying in the first few hours of my imprisonment, and now I was prepared to die. I’d tried to open the window, figuring that it would be better to leap to my own death than to have my head cut off by the king’s executioner. But the tower’s only window was sealed tightly.

“This is a fine situation you find yourself in.” I turned toward the voice, startled. The door had been closed and dead-bolted. I knew I was alone.

A man stood in the center of the room. He was hunched over, his body twisted strangely. His face was obscured by the dim light, but it also looked twisted, as if it had been scarred.

“Who are you?” I asked, more from curiosity than fear.

“Someone who can help you. For a price. I have magic that can spin this straw into gold for you.”

“That would spare me for a night, but what happens to me the next time the king asks me to spin for him? Eventually the king will discover the truth.”

“Oh, I would be willing to assist you every time you are required to spin. Again, for a price.”

“I have nothing to pay you with.”

“There’s your pretty necklace.”

“Why would you want my necklace when you can spin all the gold you want? And that would pay the debt one time. Would your price go up every time you spun for me?” I shrugged. “Why not just let the king find out my deception and kill me now? It is easier than living with the fear of discovery.”

The twisted man looked confused by my response. I wondered if this was the first time he’d been turned down.

“Will you take me with you instead?” I asked. “You can come and go from this tower; I could go with you.”

He snorted derisively. “And what? Do you think you can make me want you like all of these men want you? You’re a pretty bauble, nothing more.”

“I don’t know you, so I don’t know if I could make you want me. I don’t know the king either, but of the two of you, you’re the one not currently threatening to kill me.”

He laughed. It was a bitter sound. “So then, I am preferable to death.”

“Many things are preferable to death,” I answered honestly. “But marriage to the king would be like a slow, living death. I do not want to be his queen. I don’t want to be dependent on him for my life. Death now would be my choice.”

He looked at me through narrowed eyes. “You are a strange one, to turn down riches and power.”

“I don’t desire riches. I just want to be happy.”

“Everyone has their own definition of happy, miller’s daughter.”

“They do.” I didn’t tell him what mine was. I felt, somehow, like that would be giving him power over me.

“I am in the business of making deals: I give you your heart’s desire, and you give me something in return. How can I help you if you don’t tell me what you desire.”

I looked down at my skirt. The king’s servants had clothed me in a dress fit for a princess. It felt weighty and uncomfortable to me, as if it too were trying to trap me. I stared at the intricate beading on the skirt, as if somehow it would give me the answer I sought. If only I could figure out a way to not be beholden either to this twisted man or to the king.

“I have something to trade,” I finally said. “If you are willing to take it.”

“What is that?” he sounded bored, but I could see the spark of interest in his eye.

“My beauty. Would you trade for it? A one-time bargain—you take my beauty and I...I will look like you.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“I want to be taken out of this tower. I want a little cottage in the woods for my very own. And I want to never see you, or be asked to bargain with you, again.”

A strange look passed over his scarred face. “You will grow tired of being ugly and want to go back on your deal.”

“No,” I assured him. “I will not seek to trade with you again.”

“A cottage in the woods, you say?”

I nodded and he clapped his hands twice, loudly. The tower was gone and I stood in a little clearing in the forest. A small cottage with a thatched roof sat by a sparkling stream. It was quiet and secluded, and everything I could have wanted.

“This meets with your approval, then?”

“Yes,” I looked him squarely in the eye. “I wish to trade for this cottage. And then to never see you again.”

“Time for payment then,” he laughed and clapped his hands again.

I felt my body changing, twisting and distorting; felt the scars streaking down my face.

“I’d ask if you’re happy with your end of the bargain, but I don’t really care.” The twisted man was still laughing, except he wasn’t twisted anymore. He was actually quite handsome. He stood tall and straight, his face no longer scarred. I recognized my dark curls on his head and the dimple in his cheek as my own. It was odd to see my features made masculine on someone else’s face, but I felt no sense of loss. Only relief. “You won’t learn to value your beauty until you’ve lived without it for a while.”

I merely smiled. I could feel the movement of my lips pull at the scars on my face. I turned and walked toward my cottage. I didn’t turn back to look; I knew that the now handsome man was gone.

He was wrong, I already had learned the value of my beauty and the value of freedom. It has been many years and I have never once regretted my choice, but I sometimes wonder if he has.

Oh My Fairy Godmother

He was standing near his locker. It was now or never. Okay, it wasn’t really now or never—I’m sure I could accost him in the parking lot after school or something, but “it’s now or sometime later” isn’t really as psychologically motivating.

I’d even worn a powder blue t-shirt for the occasion. Not that it was required or anything, but channeling the fairy godmother from Disney’s Cinderella made me feel all postmodern and referential. Of course, fairy godmothers looked nothing like the slightly tubby, gray-haired, blue-cloak-wearing animated character.

I should know. I was one.

And I was just one poor, distraught soul away from full licensure.

The four-levels were kind of a big deal. My aunt was beside herself with excitement that I was about to become the youngest fairy godmother in two generations to complete them. She’d gotten her license when she was twenty-one. My grandmother had been almost twenty-five before she’d finally passed her four-levels. I was one happy customer away from earning my full license before I got out of high school.

The first three had been relatively easy. A business woman, a shop clerk that worked with my cousin, and the lead singer of a struggling punk band had all become satisfied recipients of my magical services. It took a surprisingly small amount of magic to get people to buy the whole fairy godmother deal, especially when they’d never met you before and you just poofed into existence in front of them.

Level four was harder. Level four consisted of fairy godmothering someone who actually knew you. For some reason it’s harder to believe that your friend or coworker is a magical being than to believe it of a stranger.

My level four was currently pulling books out of his locker in the main hallway of John Quincy Adams High School. I took a deep breath and headed down the hall.

“Hey, Justin.” I leaned against the locker next to his and crossed my arms casually. “Got a minute.”

Justin Donnell looked up in surprise. “Hey, Maggie. Sure.”

His surprise wasn’t unwarranted. We hadn’t talked much in the last year or so. Justin and I had been friends forever and a day—well at least since second grade. There was a time, oh say second grade through sophomore year in high school, when I’d wanted to be more than friends. But Justin persisted in seeing me only as a buddy, and even more dastardly, lusting after the uber-popular Stacey Fuller. Justin had not-so-secret aspirations of moving past geekdom and into the popular crowd. I chose not to support these lofty goals, and we’d had a falling out right around the time that the whole fairy godmother training thing started taking up quite a bit of my time. Justin and I had existed in a sort of uneasy “nod to each other in class or passing in the halls” state for almost twelve months now.

I rolled my eyes when I caught sight of the Dr. Who t-shirt he had on beneath his open plaid button-up. If he wanted to be popular, this was not the way to dress. Seriously, he needed me. Maybe he was filling out said t-shirt a little better than he had been last year. I didn’t really notice.

“There’s really no good way to put this,” I started. I could see the wariness in his hazel eyes almost immediately. “The thing is, I’m magic. In fact, I’m a fairy godmother. At the moment, your fairy godmother.”

Justin stared at me for a moment and then threw his head back and laughed. I had expected this reaction, so I just looked at him calmly while he guffawed.

“Okay, what did you really want to talk to me about?” he asked once he finally stopped laughing.

“Actually, it’s not a joke. This is what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m going to be your fairy godmother for the next two weeks or so...I mean, I am your fairy godmother, like if you’re ever in dire need in the future, I might pop in and help. But you get my concentrated attention for a few weeks.” I ignored his stare and produced a card from my back jeans pocket. “My card.” I handed it to him.

He took it, still staring at me as if he was certain I’d gone ‘round the bend. FInally he looked down at the card.

“Maggie Goodwin, O.M.F.G.” he read out loud. “What the heck?”

“Oh my Fairy Godmother, that’s how you call me if you need me. You know like ‘Oh my fairy godmother!’” I cupped my hand around my mouth, as if I were an actor dramatically calling out for a character who was off stage.

“Maggie, you’re nuts.”

I shrugged. “Or you could just text me.”

“I’m not gonna text you. I don’t want to support this delusion.”

“Look, I get it; you don’t believe I’m a fairy godmother. It’s hard to believe that someone you know is a fairy godmother.”