I wished I had thought to ask at the last village if I could buy some kind of painkiller. People here must have some sort of herb or something they used. Better yet, I should have thought to take some ibuprofen from my parents’ provisions. They had a first-aid kit. I’d seen it next to a box of toilet paper—which was another thing I wished I’d brought. The privy at the last village had something that resembled corn husks.
In order to take my mind off the pain in my legs, I took the magic book out of my saddlebag. I might as well try to think up new morals.
I flipped through the book. A new painting of Hudson and me horseback riding had appeared. Hudson’s uniform looked crisp, and his black horse gleamed in the sunlight. I wore a sapphire blue dress with lace sleeves. The painting also showed me wearing some sort of blue bejeweled hat. In reality, I was pretty sure I still had bits of straw entwined in my hair.
The prose read, “The next day the guard and the miller’s daughter rode through the forest. Little did she realize the surprise that awaited her.”
I caught my breath and turned the page, but it was blank. No painting, no words. “Hudson, you need to see this!”
He looked over his shoulder and I waved the book at him. “It says something is waiting for us. A surprise.”
“What?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure if he meant “What is waiting for us?” or “What are you talking about?” I waved the book again. “You need to read this.”
He halted his horse, and I rode to his side. He took the book and looked at the picture. “Love the dress. You really know how to travel in style.”
“Read it.”
He did, then flipped the page just as I had. “So what’s the surprise?”
“It doesn’t say.” I glanced around, wishing we hadn’t stopped. Anything could be hiding in the forest.
Hudson shut the book and handed it back to me. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. Besides, it doesn’t say the surprise is something bad.”
I slipped the book into the saddlebag. “Oh, it’s going to be bad. Surprises in stories are always bad. Robin Hood will ambush us or a troll will be waiting under the bridge. Something like that.”
Hudson flicked his reins, but his horse had found a patch of grass by the path, and she didn’t seem in any hurry to move. Hudson let her eat. “Surprises aren’t always bad. It could be the surprise of …” His broad shoulders shrugged. “ ‘She found a patch of wild strawberries and got to eat something besides stale bread.’ ”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you ever actually read a book?”
He tilted his head at the question. “Have you?”
“Of course I have.” My horse wandered a few steps off the path, chomping leaves from a nearby bush. There didn’t seem to be a point in pulling her away since Hudson’s horse was eating too.
Hudson was still surveying me. “Nick told me you refuse to read books as a way to tick off your dad.”
“Well, I used to read a lot, and I distinctly remember that all the surprises in books were bad. This is clearly a problem.”
“Clearly,” he said with a teasing lift in his voice. He directed his horse farther off the path. She went willingly, stepping over to the next patch of grass. “The horses are tired and hungry, and so am I. We might as well find a place to set up camp for the night.”
I didn’t move my horse. “That’s the last thing we should do. We should keep riding until we’re safe.”
Hudson dismounted and walked his horse farther away from the path. The mare went, pulling up clumps of grass and chomping them as she went. “We have to set up camp sooner or later,” Hudson said. “We might as well do it while it’s light. If something is going to surprise us, I’d rather have it happen when I have a fire going.”
I groaned but dismounted too. He was right. We couldn’t ride until we were safe. No place was safe until we knew what the surprise was.
My legs ached so badly I could only take tiny, awkward steps in Hudson’s direction. Eventually he found a spot he liked and turned back to check on me.
He watched my mincing progress. “Saddle sore?”
“Aren’t you?”
He took a section of rope and tied his horse to a tree. “I told you, my grandparents have horses. You’ll get used to it after a few days.”
If my legs didn’t break off by then. Hudson walked over and took my horse’s reins, murmuring things to her as he led her to a tree. By the time I had winced my way over to help him, he’d already untied our provisions, put them in a pile, and was hefting off his horse’s saddle. I hadn’t even thought about the saddles and probably would have left them on all night.
I watched him effortlessly swing my saddle off my horse and place it on the ground. “Maybe the moral is ‘If you’re going to get stuck in the Middle Ages, make sure you bring along a country boy.’ They know how to build fires, take care of horses, escape from castles—really, is there anything you can’t do?”
“Lots of things.” An emotion flashed across his expression that I recognized but didn’t understand. Self-recrimination. Some memory of a time he had failed had surfaced in his mind.
We gathered wood, set out our blankets, and made a small fire that crackled against the growing cold. We sat beside it and ate apples, cheese, and stiff bread. I tried not to keep checking over my shoulder for a surprise. Hudson ate without speaking. Whatever memory I’d brought up, it was still bothering him.
This was the Hudson the girls had told me about at school. The sullen one.
Finally, I got tired of the silence, of the undercurrent of pain that swirled between us. I put my hand on his knee, trying to console him. “Your mom wouldn’t want you to be sad about her for this long.”
He ripped a piece of bread from his loaf. “She’s off the list, Tansy.”
“She would want you to have a social life, to be happy.”
“What’s the point of crossing things off the list if you’re still going to bring them up?”
“You’ve got to let the sadness go.”
“Fine,” he said with a grunt. “We’ll talk about this.” He ripped another piece from his loaf, but didn’t eat it. “My mom and I got in an argument that night. I told her I was going to a movie with friends but I went to a party instead.” He turned the piece of bread over and over in his hand. “When you’re the police chief’s son, you’re not supposed to go to parties where there’s drinking. It would look bad if the party got busted. I wasn’t trying to undermine my father or the law or anything. I went because my friends were there.” He looked straight at the fire, but I knew he wasn’t seeing it anymore. He was back in that night. “Somebody called and told my mom where I’d been. When I came home, she was getting off the phone and was really steamed. She went off about how I was supposed to set an example. My friends weren’t going to respect the law if I didn’t. And I was making my father a laughingstock.
“I told her I wanted to have my own life, and I didn’t want to be their son anymore.” The rest of the bread in Hudson’s hand crumbled under his grip, but he didn’t notice it. “She stormed out of the house, and I knew I should go after her. But I didn’t. That was the last thing I ever said to her—that I didn’t want to be her son.”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He still kept his gaze on the fire. “I thought she might be headed to the party to yell at my friend’s parents. It wasn’t far away, just the next street over. So I called my friend and warned him that his party was about to get busted.” His voice wavered, dropped. “My mom was probably hit by someone leaving that party, someone who was drunk and going too fast. Because I warned them.”
The breath went from my lungs. I didn’t know what to say. But Hudson didn’t stop, didn’t wait for my reaction.
“My father was on duty that night. He was called out along with the paramedics. He didn’t know until he got there …” Hudson’s voice broke off. “He’s n
ever forgiven me and I don’t blame him.”
I took hold of Hudson’s hand. “That can’t be true. Has he said that?”
“He doesn’t have to. I see it in his eyes every time I look at him.”
Even though Hudson’s hand was stiff and unresponsive in mine, I kept hold of it, pressing it between the palms of my hands as though I could force comfort into his fingers. “He’s probably in too much pain to see what you’re going through.” I intertwined my fingers into his. “Pain makes you blind.”
It was true, and yet it wasn’t. The pain of my parents’ divorce had made me blind to a lot of things, yet here, holding Hudson’s hand, I realized that suffering could also make a person see. I could understand a little bit of the crushing weight he felt because I had been crushed myself.
“I should have gone after her,” Hudson said.
I slid one arm around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. I didn’t think he would return my hug but he wrapped his arms around me, resting his cheek against the top of my head. “I’ll never be able to make it up to him.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “Your father doesn’t want you to carry around this guilt.”
Hudson didn’t say anything else, but I don’t think he believed me. The muscles in his arms and chest were rigid. Neither of us moved, though. We sat there by the fire, arms around each other, while the flames hissed and popped and smoke swirled up into the sky.
Eventually, the tension left him. He let out a deep breath and it drained away. But instead of letting me go, he pulled me closer. As though, after pushing away comfort for so long, he finally wanted it. And I wanted to comfort him. If I lifted my head, I could kiss him. I raised my head and looked into his eyes, trying to read his expression.
He looked back at me with a calm intensity.
I tilted my face to his, then heard an irritated voice behind me say, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you all over!”
I turned, startled. Chrissy stood behind me.
Chapter 19
She wore a filmy green dress with flowing layers that reminded me of plant leaves. Her hair had changed from pink to blond, and small white flowers were woven through it, making her smell like orange blossoms. She carried something in a blue fuzzy blanket, which she held against her chest and shoulder.
Hudson dropped his arms away from me. “Surprise,” he muttered.
Chrissy stepped toward me, eyes blinking to the same fast rhythm that her wings fluttered. “You’re supposed to be at the castle. I showed up in my official fairy godmother outfit expecting a wedding, and the whole place was in disarray. King John is furious and threatening anyone and everyone. He sent all the knights scuttling across the kingdom to look for you, and …” Her gaze swept over me. “What in the world are you wearing? I specifically told Clover to make sure you wore evening gowns.” She made disappointed tsking noises. “Never trust a leprechaun where fashion is concerned.”
“I’m in the middle of the forest,” I pointed out. “Why do I need an evening gown?”
With her free hand, Chrissy pulled a wand out of a leafy bag that hung around her shoulder. “Because this is a fairy tale, and my professor gave me a horrible grade after my last assignment when Cinderella’s ball gown changed into a bath towel at midnight.” She gave a careless shrug. “I did warn her. It wasn’t my fault there were people around.”
Chrissy swished her wand in my direction. Before I could utter another protest, I was wearing a white gown with silver beading radiating from the bodice like an exploding star. I felt something on my head and reached up to touch it. My hair was up in some sort of bun with a tiara nestled into it.
“Now then,” Chrissy said with satisfaction. “We’ll need to get you back to the castle for your wedding.”
I found my voice then. “No!” I sputtered. “I won’t marry King John. I won’t.” I stood up so quickly that my legs nearly gave out. I had to take a couple of stumbling steps before they would support me.
Chrissy’s rosebud pink mouth dropped open. “What’s wrong with your legs?”
“I’ve been riding a horse all day. After I escaped from the castle—”
“You escaped from the castle?” she repeated indignantly. “That’s not supposed to happen. You’re messing up my fairy tale.”
Hudson got to his feet and stood by my side. His voice was calmer than mine, but had a firm insistence to it. “Tansy doesn’t want to be the miller’s daughter. She wants to go home. We all do.”
Chrissy let out a disapproving humph and wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re not even part of this fairy tale. Whoever heard of a nameless extra running away with the heroine?”
I reached out and took hold of Hudson’s arm, afraid Chrissy would whisk him away with a dip of her wand. “I want his help.”
Chrissy shifted the bundle she carried from one shoulder to the other. “This is most irregular. I put safeguards in place to keep the story from veering off track. You shouldn’t have been able to escape from the castle.”
I held a hand out to her, pleading. “Please don’t send me back to King John. I’m only seventeen. I can’t marry some crazy man and have his baby. You’ve got to see that.”
Chrissy’s expression softened and she let out an almost motherly sigh. “I was never going to make you have King John’s son. That’s why I’ve brought you yours.” She moved the bundle from her shoulder and cradled it in her arms, revealing a baby. His eyes were shut in sleep, his lips puckered in an invisible suckle.
“What?” I stammered. “I don’t have a son.”
She handed me the bundle. He was warm and soft, and he had flower-petal-smooth skin. I held him to me and inhaled his baby-powder scent.
“Well, you don’t have a son when you’re seventeen,” she said. “I went to your future and borrowed him. Now you can tell that awful ex-fairy his name, be through with the story, and go home.”
“No …” I held the baby back out to her, panic gripping my chest with more fierceness than the golden heart had ever done. My hands trembled, and I had to force myself to look at Chrissy and not the baby. I wanted to stare at his round cheeks, his button nose, and the wispy brown hair that curled at the ends. My baby. My future son.
“Take him back to the twenty-first century. He’s not safe here.”
Chrissy bent over and kissed his forehead. A puff of silver glitter momentarily twirled around his head. “I know you’ve never taken care of a child, but it’s not that hard. I packed bottles, formula, diapers, and the cutest little outfits you’ve ever seen.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a bag that grew until it was a full-sized, leafy green diaper bag.
In a low voice, Hudson said, “Tansy, you have to tell her what you did.”
I didn’t need the prompting. The words had already started tumbling out of my mouth. “I traded Clover some gold for a change enchantment. So now the fairy tale doesn’t have to end like the real story did. I can’t have my own baby here. Rumpelstiltskin will take him.”
Chrissy’s lips tightened and her wings spanned open sharply. “You changed the fairy tale?”
“It seemed like the easiest way to get home.”
Chrissy tapped her wand in exasperation. “Well, that’s mortal logic for you. Complicate things in the name of simplification.” She put one hand on her hip and held the other out, palm up. “Let me see The Change Enchantment.”
I was still holding the baby, so Hudson got the book and handed it to her. Chrissy opened it, barely glancing through the illustration and text. “Writers,” she muttered, then put her wand to the book. “Give me the nonfiction version, please.”
At once the paintings changed to actual pictures, moving ones, like paper-thin computer screens. She put her wand back into her purse and flipped through pages, pausing at the one where Clover and I made our bargain. She scowled, then turned the next page and the next, watching the important events of the last two days, until she reached the final page and saw herself peering at t
he book in the forest beside Hudson and me.
Chrissy let out a dramatic sigh and slammed the book shut. “How am I ever supposed to finish an assignment to the UMA’s approval when they keep sending me an assistant who purposely sabotages my efforts?” She gripped the book hard, as though she’d like to throw it. “I’ll tell you why he did this. He’s ticked off that I’m using the gold enchantment that he lost to Rumpelstiltskin to complete my assignment. He just can’t bear the fact that he doesn’t own it anymore.”
“It used to be Clover’s enchantment?” I asked. The shabby clothes and second job as a party entertainer suddenly made sense. He had lost his ability to make gold. But had Clover really given me The Change Enchantment to sabotage me? Would he do that? The thought settled into my stomach like I’d swallowed lead. Weren’t there any magical creatures out there that actually helped people? What was going to happen next? Would a unicorn come along and try to impale us?
I glanced down at my baby. I hadn’t ever thought much about having children before, but seeing him, holding him, was doing something to me. Emotions gripped me so strongly I couldn’t even identify what they were. He was beautiful. Perfect. I didn’t want to let him go, and yet the desire I had to protect him outweighed everything else.
I held him out to Chrissy. “You understand why he can’t be here. Anything can happen now.”
“Yes,” she said, clutching the book as proof. “You decided to leave the safety of a plotted story and plunge into the unknown. You might as well have stayed in your old life if you were going to do that. Are you so fond of uncertainty that you had to bring it into your wish too?” Her wings fluttered in agitation, and a wind rushed through the forest as if nature had no choice but to match her mood. The fire blew out. Strands of her hair flailed around her shoulders and bits of leaves swirled at my feet. “I brought your son here because I thought he would be safe within the confines of the fairy tale. You only had to do two simple things when Rumpelstiltskin came for the baby: cry so he offered you a second chance, and then answer his question. His name is Rumpelstiltskin. How hard is that? But now anything can happen. You put your son in danger by choosing this.”