Of Witches and Wind (47 page)

“No. I mean, please? It's part of my speech,” he said. “This is your audition clip.”

Watching myself stammer wasn't exactly appealing, but I looked anyway. I couldn't bear to lie to him
and
disappoint him after worrying him for two days.

He pushed play, and the Rory on-screen was . . . well, she was fine. Her voice sounded kind of weird, but not shaky. But I felt again exactly what I had felt then. My nose prickled. The tears were coming back.

“You were good, Rory. Better than most. You weren't rattled at all. Just like your mom,” Dad said softly.

If he meant my acting talent, he had just edged into the sucking-up portion of his apology. “Even if I don't look upset—”

Dad nodded. “Right. You're just like your mom. I could never tell when she was upset either. And me, I just froze in there. I couldn't believe anyone would lose their temper like that with a kid, and then my mouth just wouldn't move, and you seemed like you were okay. I mean, at least until we got outside,” he said, running his hands through his hair again. We headed through the automatic doors to the parking lot. “I did finally tell that Klonsky woman to go to hell, but don't tell your mother that, please. At the time I was just so stunned, you know?”

“It's okay,” I said automatically. He seemed so shaken.

“It's
not
okay,” Dad said, so loud that a few people waiting for cabs looked over at us. “I told Brie, as soon as you went to the bathroom for your backpack, that I thought I'd screwed up. And she basically told me I'd done the worst possible thing anyone could ever do to a seventh-grade girl. I made you feel like you weren't important in my life, right? Like you didn't matter?”

I just nodded, throat aching, because I was pretty sure that Dad would handle me crying even worse than Chase.

“That is never, ever okay, Rory. Nobody should make you feel like that, especially not me,” Dad said, and then it looked like
he
was going to cry. “I had to come see you. If I didn't, if I left it like that, you would probably never speak to me again, and nobody would blame you. I was really wrong. You're the best thing—no, not thing. But you're the best of everything I've ever done, and I'm so mad at myself for making you feel like anything less.”

I was really crying now, possibly harder than I had in the mirror vault. Dad stopped, right in the middle of the parking deck, and held
me even though we were probably in danger of getting run over.

“You're what I'm most proud of every second of every day, and I'm so sorry,” he said softly.

Maybe you never really outgrew bullies. Maybe Dad wasn't that tough.

But he loved me. And he was trying.

I took several breaths, slow and deep. “I'm glad you came, Dad.”

“Me too,” he said, relieved.

“And I'm sorry I left L.A. without telling you first.” I still felt guilty about that part.

“Yeah. What was that?” He asked, suddenly angry. “You just hailed a cab and booked a flight all by yourself? And I get to the airport and none of the airlines have any record of Rory Landon. If you ever run away again—”

He stopped, shoving a hand through his hair. I stared at him, and he looked a little taken aback too. He'd never yelled at me like that before. Of course, I had never done anything to deserve it before either.

I wished I could say it would never happen again. “I am sorry.”

“I'm not perfect either, so I'm going to leave the yelling to your mom. But you're just a lot more independent than any twelve-year-old has a right to be. Don't tell your mother I said that either.” Dad pressed the button on the rental-car keys, and something beeped several rows over. “There we go. Anyway, honey, the good news is that when I told your mom what I did, she aimed all her anger at me instead of you. It's totally my fault. You should be okay.”

I wiped my face with my sleeve and gave him a look. We both knew I would never get out of this without punishment.

“Mostly okay?” Dad tried. “More okay than you might have been if I hadn't talked to her?”

I nodded. “I'll give you that.”

“You'll give me that,” Dad repeated with a wobbly sort of grin. “We've reached the age where you give me stuff. The next ten years of your life will be rough on me, I can tell. Here.” He pulled something white out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Since when you do you carry tissues?” I blew my nose.

“Since Brie.” He said it so simply, like she dated a whole era in his life. He said it the way I said, “Since EAS.” “She has the worst allergies of anybody I ever met. It's safer for everyone if I carry tissues, believe me.”

He paused, and I knew exactly what he was going to ask next. “Does it bother you that I'm marrying her?”

It did bother me a little, to be perfectly honest. But the only reason I could think of was that I didn't want a Tale with a stepmother in it. Of course, Brie Catcher didn't seem like wicked-stepmother material. “Not really. I think—well, keep in mind that I only had maybe ten minutes around her, but I think I like her.”

I liked that she told Dad the truth. She couldn't help it. She probably told everyone the truth. I liked that she made him see other people a little better. I liked that she made him happy.

Grinning again, Dad unlocked the car. “Then do you want to be my best man?”

“Depends on whether or not I have to wear a tux,” I said, kind of shocked, and I didn't even realize it was a funny thing to say until Dad started laughing.

•  •  •

Dad was right about helping on the Mom front. As soon as we got out of the car, Mom ran out and held me, just like Dad had at the airport. Dad was clearly the bad guy—even though they tried to be civil, all the glares went to him and not me.

Then we sent Dad back to the airport—he had a red-eye flight so he could catch a morning meeting in L.A. He was really glad of an excuse to get away, but he asked me to think about being his best man. He offered to list me as “best daughter” in the program, if I wanted.

I could tell by the way Mom smiled—very politely, like someone kind of crazy had just asked for her autograph—that she didn't like the idea. But I said I would think about it.

Then Mom and Amy ushered me inside, and a weird period of pseudo grounding began. They couldn't pin me for leaving L.A. without permission, at least not completely, so I got a brief lecture on how I really needed to call when I promised I was going to call. I got only one week of no TV or Internet, plus an extra-early bedtime for two weeks.

But they didn't give me any privacy. They even made me leave my bedroom door open all night, like they expected me to run away again as soon as I was out of sight. That first evening, I was just so tired I fell into bed and slept for the next fourteen hours straight. But it got old really fast over the weekend. And Mom kept staring at me—half-wary, half-concerned. I tried not to let it bother me. I'd probably looked at Chase like that when I'd found out I didn't know him as well as I'd thought I had.

Then, on Monday, Mom and Amy both took me to school. Usually, it was just one or the other. That was the first sign of the new routine. The car was silent and tense, and I spent the whole drive frantically trying to remember if I'd had any homework.

Amy parked in front a good half hour before homeroom. The school was basically deserted. “Okay, kiddo. We'll pick you back up at three thirty. Right here.”

“Three thirty?” I repeated blankly, bookbag in hand. They normally picked me up closer to dinnertime.

“We worked out a special schedule for the rest of the shoot,” Mom said, extra brightly, turning around in her seat to look at me. “I get done at three, every day. Just in case you need to talk.”

Oh. Mom thought I was rebelling against her busy work schedule.

Nobody mentioned EAS, but I saw the trick. If they were picking me up as soon as the bell rang, then there was no need for me to go to a special after-school program. It wasn't a punishment if Mom just wanted us to spend a little more time together.

It was going to be even harder to get back to EAS than I'd thought.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. Arguing at this stage wouldn't help.

“Good,” Amy said with a tight smile.

“Have a great day at school, sweetie,” Mom said.

We were all being so polite. That was worse than the new no-privacy rule.

But Rapunzel was proud of me, and Lena's gran was grateful.

I climbed out and wandered through the empty halls. The vice principal did a double take when he saw me, like he couldn't believe any kid would show up so early the first day after spring break. Even Mrs. Lapin wasn't in homeroom yet, but I sat down anyway, suddenly very lonely.

So instead of checking on that homework situation, I took out my M3. “Hello? Anybody out there?”

Lena's face popped up, a spoon halfway to her mouth. “Rory! Getting poisoned must make you really hungry. This is my third bowl of cereal. How did it go with your parents?”

“Weird, but okay.” It was nice to speak with someone who wasn't mad at me.

Then Chase's image cut Lena out. I hadn't expected him to be waiting beside
his
magic mirror. “But you can't come back for a while, right?

“I think I'll have to spend at least a month convincing them.” Actually, maybe two.

“A month?” Chase repeated, annoyed. “Do you know how much training you can lose in a month?”

“Rory,” Lena said, serious now, “did Iron Hans really say that I'm like the Director?”

“Chase, you told her?” I thought I would have to bribe him just to bring it up.

“Because I'm not so sure that it's a compliment,” Lena went on, worried. “I mean, I don't have to follow rules all the time. Right?”

Chase, very wisely, didn't say anything.

“Well, if you're exactly like the Director, that makes me exactly like Solange.”
You would have become me, if you had lived,
the Snow Queen had said. I shuddered.

“I plan to be about a million times cooler than that dumb Sebastian guy,” Chase said. “Nobody's going to turn
me
into stone.”

“If we're really a triumvirate,” Lena said, as if she were extremely doubtful on this point, “then we're actually the third one. Madame Benne, Maerwynne, and that Dapplegrim guy were the first.”

“That Dapplegrim guy?” Chase repeated. “His name was Rikard Longsword.”

That cheered me up. Maerwynne seemed okay.

“Rapunzel told me to tell you hi, by the way. Thursday, after you left,” Lena told me. “That's how I knew I needed to keep the M3 next to me.”

“She told me I needed to tell you what Iron Hans said while
you were sleeping,” Chase said. “Here it is: ‘Stop making so much noise, or you'll wake her.' ”

I rolled my eyes. “I'm sure it was more important than that.”

“He said something like . . .” Chase frowned so hard it looked like it hurt. “ ‘When the battle comes, you three must all play your parts, and when the war runs its course, the world will be forever changed.' ”

Lena made a face. “Change isn't necessarily bad.”

Chase snorted. “Tell that to the Director.”

I noticed I was twisting the West Wind's ring nervously around my finger, and stopped. “I would settle for just not smashing things accidentally.”

“Training,” Chase said. “That's what you need.”

“No, she needs a glove that helps her control the magic.” You could practically see all the invention wheels turning in Lena's brain.

I laughed. “Or maybe I just need to get used to having this on my hand.”

Voices rang out in the hall. I really hoped it was Mrs. Lapin, but they sounded too young.

“Someone's coming,” I whispered reluctantly.

“Oh, okay! Bye!” Lena started chanting the off spell.

“See you later!” said Chase.

I snapped the M3 covering closed just two seconds before Madison, Katie, Arianna, and Taylor filed in. Each one carried a glossy magazine, and I knew that my picture was in at least one of them. I wondered if it was at the airport or the studios.

I waited to feel slightly nauseated with dread, but I didn't. I just felt . . . resigned. I was ready to get this over with.

They flipped pages at their desks right across from me, just
like they always did, and the room filled with the sound of crackling paper.

“You'll never guess what happened to me over break,” Madison said.

“What?” said Arianna.

“I went to this casting call on Tuesday, and this one girl—the director's daughter—was expected to land the role.” Madison shook her perfect hair back. “But when she showed up . . .”

“Bad haircut?” Katie asked.

“Bad teeth?” Taylor asked.

“Bad breath?” Arianna asked.

I looked at her—really looked at Madison—for the first time in a long time. She had a zit on the side of her nose, and concealing makeup caked on around it. She was no Snow Queen. She was just a kid, just like me.

“All these, and more,” said Madison. “She showed up dripping wet—”

No, I didn't just want to get this over with. I wanted to put an end to this whole thing before Mrs. Lapin showed up.

“I don't know what's bothering you, Madison,” I said lightly. “All I did was make you look good. You should be thanking me.”

Madison's superior smile faded a little bit. I wasn't following her script, and it obviously threw her off. “And your dad . . . I mean, her dad, this director—”

“My dad and I had a long talk after that,” I said sharply, “and it's none of your business. You should stop wasting your allowance on those magazines.”

The KATs glanced from me to Madison uncertainly, not sure what they were supposed to do now. Madison's mouth hung slightly open.