With a Kiss (Twisted Tales) (6 page)

I had no idea.
“The changeling,” I said, “from the play.”

Kesley and Leslie laughed at the obvious and stole the swirly toy. The baby reached solemnly for it. Her chubby fingers danced in the air and they took pity on her, laying it gently back into her hands. Then the twins took turns kissing her cheeks.

“How come you still have her?” Daphne asked.

I sighed. “I’m looking for its mom now.” And I was wasting time.

“
It?
” Kelsey and Leslie giggled in unison. “She looks like a
she
, not an
it.
Huh, cutie?” They made googly sounds at the kid and tickled her on the face with the flowers, but she just watched them with grave eyes. The twins were completely enchanted by the baby’s aloofness, which was probably why they thought I was so awesome. It was the challenge of winning the hard-to-get love.

I was just happy to get the attention away from me. Besides the baby and the exhaustion, something strange was happening, and I didn’t want anyone to notice. If this was what normal felt like, I didn’t want it. These new emotions were making me anxious, and it was only getting worse, which meant I was really in for it. I leaned against a jammed row of seats, smashing my gossamer skirts in the process.

“Honey, you look tired,” my mom said.

“No, I don’t . . .” My voice turned into a whine. It was my only defense against being coddled. It all stemmed from being a sickly baby, which I knew all started with those hands. Why had they come for me in the first place? The faery said the hands messed with my heart. Or, this could all be a relapse, some sort of schizophrenic episode. The only trouble with the theory was that my life hadn’t felt all that real until now.

My family prescribed all sorts of remedies for my low energy, but I tuned it out when I felt something staring down at me from the houselights of the auditorium. My heart skidded to a halt. Whoever it was, it watched from the shadows in the rafters. That meant trouble. I kept my focus on the baby. She seemed real, but what if I had stolen her from someone? No one had been able to diagnose what my disease had been from my childhood—maybe it was a form of kleptomania.

And now I was paranoid.

My mom looked worried. I could tell because she bit her lip and quickly changed the subject. “I like your costume, Halley. What a beautiful tiara.”

Really? The blond wasn’t lying. It
was
a crown. I freed a hand from the baby to touch it. So far, the thing only smashed my head too hard when I let the baby get too far from me. “I just want it off.”

“Oh, does it hurt?”

I cringed at the anxious note. Yes, but why was that the first thing everyone assumed? I wasn’t
that
fragile. I mean, not normally. My family rushed forward to help it off my head. I skipped back a couple of steps, and fought them off with a false sense of bravado. “I have to wear it for the . . . uh . . . pictures. It’s really not that bad.”

“Of course not,” my dad said.

Mom nodded. “Well, it looks beautiful.”

My sisters beamed at me reassuringly.

“Are you adopted?”

I turned on my heel. So, there he was! Mr. Mellow-No-Matter-What-Happens leaned casually against the stage platform, jutting his hip out in his amused, know-it-all way. Now that we were no longer in the darkness, I could see the logo printed across his black punk shirt:
I’m the guy your mom warned you about
. Nope, definitely not ethereal. I knew exactly what he was getting at, though. For lack of a better analogy, my family could’ve been faeries, they were so beautiful, and I was . . . well? Me.

“And why do you say that?” I asked.

“They’re nice.”

He got me there, but I wasn’t about to introduce him to my family after insulting me. I waited for them to come to my defense, but they uneasily ignored the argument. As a rule, they didn’t like contention.

“We’re just concerned. That’s all,” my father said. He treated me to a wink.

The baby hit me in the head with her swirly toy, and I winced. So did everybody else. Her fat fingers barely fit in the handle. I smiled when I saw them. Such cute fat fingers. I gave a tired laugh. The faery queen must’ve put quite the powerful spell over me.

The swirly toy was just inches from my eyes and I gave it a good cross-eyed look. The mirror was gone from the face of it, and something else replaced it. It looked like a fuzzy TV screen or dancing ants. I squinted at the toy, and a face shot into view. I sprang back. The toy clattered to the worn, red carpet. My head shot up and I saw my co-conspirator give me an amused look. That jerk had stolen the toy from the baby and threw it.

“What did you do that for?” I asked.

“Now now, it wasn’t on purpose,” my mom chided me. No matter how much they spoiled me, they never allowed me to be rude.

But he
had
done it on purpose. Not that I blamed him. Why was there a face in the mirror, anyway? I didn’t see who it was, but it was female and terrifying. I peered at the blond under my lashes. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?” He shrugged and reached for the toy. The baby whimpered and I leaned down and grabbed it before he could. “Get away from that,” I told him. “It isn’t yours.”

My family made disapproving sounds, each of them looking startled in their own innocent and gentle ways. My mom managed a stern look, her soft brows floating together like clouds. “Really dear! Give the baby her rattle.”

I folded the baby’s tiny hand over the handle, giving the blond my coldest shoulder. It just figured Mom would take his side.

Chapter Five

She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.

—Alfred Tennyson,
Lady of Shalott

I
rushed through the school hallway, fuming. I looked like a complete jerk in front of my family because of that crack head and even though I was used to it, this time it wasn’t my fault. My mother’s keys jangled in my hands. She had decided to go home with Dad while I tried to find the baby’s mother. But where was she? I rushed backstage with my new baby in tow, past a worried Puck, past the techies and scenery painted with pretty forests and bright clouds.

The hallway to the dressing room was silent besides loud sweeping. I ducked my head, not wanting to talk to anyone. The broom came to an abrupt halt. The band on my head whispered a warning and my stomach lurched when I looked up and saw the school janitor staring down at me. He wore his gray uniform, neatly pressed. I noted his muscular forearms, the large hands holding the broom handle in a killing grip. His eyes were on the baby. The band constricted painfully against my head as if it sensed the danger, too.

“You going home?” he asked in a friendly voice.

That broke my tense spell, and I nodded. “Just grabbing a few things.” I edged past, feeling him watch us while I sidestepped into the dressing room. I slammed the door shut and locked it for good measure. Not for my safety, for everyone else’s—I couldn’t be trusted in public with this baby. I was paranoid of everything and everybody, and judging by my performance onstage, fighting wasn’t beneath me.

The baby cried out, and I set her on the counter next to all the make-up where she couldn’t roll off. My legs felt weak, my head dizzy. I turned on the sink, splashing water over my face, desperate to force myself awake. My heart thumped out a dull beat, and with it, a tide of unwelcome emotions I wasn’t used to feeling. Fear. Pain. Worry. It all hurt too much. After a moment of intense concentration, I forced all the emotion back down to where it couldn’t get to me.

It took me longer than normal to get out of my faery costume and button up my gray jeans with my shaking fingers, but as soon as I did, I collapsed against the dressing room counter and got on my tiptoes to stare at myself through the mirror. I
was
wearing a crown, well, a tiara. At first glance, it was made of silver—I had no doubt it was of more precious material, like magic. Still, it was way too formal for real life. Instead of a jewel decorating the top like I originally thought, there was a bright star.
Halley, wandering star
. That was what the faery queen had called me. Would she be able to track me now that I had this thing on? A scary thought.

The baby played with her toes on the counter. With a quick glance at her to make sure she was okay, I worked to get the tiara off. One tug and it made a strange sucking sound. Pain streaked through my head and I stopped. With my luck, I’d tug my head off with it. I glared at the thing, and tossed up the hood of my hoodie to hide it.

“Don’t worry,” a deep voice said. I glanced up, seeing my new friend through the mirror. The faery costumes toppled around his feet. He leaned over the baby, his shoulder blades jutting out from his muscular back. He looked like an untamed cat ready to pounce on her. Instead, he played with her toes. She kicked back at him.

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

He spared me a glance. “Interesting costume . . . and I’m not talking the tiara.”

He must be referring to my unusual taste in clothes—a green tank layered over a white tee decorated with yellow chicks and was layered over a pink lacy ribbed undershirt, finished off with lots and lots of bracelets from the Colville Indian tribes at the Omak fair wrapped around my arms. I was fascinated with color.

He shook his head at me. “Ever heard of matching clothes?”

“Ever heard of a comb?” I shot out a response. “You look like you just crawled out of bed.” He laughed appreciatively. I kicked over a costume box and stepped on it to look closer into the mirror. A moan escaped my lips when I began to realize the implications of being stuck with a tiara for the rest of my high school career. “I can’t take my SATs like this.” They were on Saturday, just three days away. I was planning on getting the most amazing score ever and taking it somewhere bigger than this place, New York or something.

“No, you
can’t
take a test looking like that,” he said. “I’ll pick out something decent for you to wear. Oh, not too decent. Don’t worry.” He reached over and tugged my hood off my head to check out the tiara. I scowled at him, but let him lift my chin anyway. His fingers were soft on my skin.

I turned to stare at the elegant tiara through the mirror, studying every angle for myself. It would do for our final performance in two days, but it was really the wrong century for this kind of a fashion statement. I sighed. “People think I’m weird enough as it is.”

He didn’t try to make me feel better about it. “You realize you can’t take the SATs with a
baby
either.” His fingers left me to run over the glitter the actresses had spilled on the counters. He sprinkled it over the baby’s bobble head. The glitter caught the light in the air, and she tried to catch it. It was like watching a silent film. She was too quiet, the opposite of when I couldn’t see her. The faeries must have stolen her voice box to get her to stop crying.

The blond turned from her to watch me. “You’re just going to have to get rid of her.” It looked like he was weighing his words carefully, like he was making this up as he went along. “That’s your only option, you know, return her to her mom.”

“Should we call the police?”

“What are you going to tell them?” He turned back to the baby and she tried to grab at his moving mouth. He smiled down at her. “What do you think, cupcake? Should we call in the professionals for this?” As if she could understand what he was saying, she made a whimpering noise in response. My head lifted. He nodded at the baby as if in understanding. “You think so?” he asked like they were actually communicating. Faery or no faery—whatever he was—he could
not
understand baby talk. He steadied his elbow on the counter. His mesmerizing eyes caught mine; they were dark and filled with meaning. “She thinks
you
can help her.”

That completely broke the short spell he had over me. I
should
report this to the police. And they would never believe me. I stared at the tiara through the mirror, trying to figure out what to do when I saw a shadow flicker inside the glass. I jerked back, almost falling off the crate of costumes. My own shadow stayed where it was, peeling off my skin like a face mask. I screamed and swiveled, seeing it behind me, a thin black slice of me. My back shoved up against the counter, and I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping everything would go back to normal if I just ignored it. The mirror, my shadow, my head. My heart! My eyes popped back open and nothing had changed. My shadow stared back at me. I turned to the blond, my chest heaving with my chaotic breaths. “My shadow just came off my body. Did you see that?”