With a Kiss (Twisted Tales) (36 page)

The hag’s hand dropped. “I will not leave,” she whispered. Her bony fingers tangled through Babs’ hair, but she was getting weaker, and we both knew I was right. She gasped out and began another spell against Babs, “
Forget the Sidhe, its warmth and spring. You’re banished. To the earth take wing.”

“No!” I ran forward. Babs was fading fast and I struggled to get to her side, unable to stop it. The mirrors towered around her and I couldn’t see her—not just her image, but her. “Babs, eat the rest of this apple!” As soon as I reached her, I folded her hands over the wedge. I’d let her rule and then she could stay here with Hobs. She wouldn’t have to be alone in the Otherworld.

“Stop.” Hobs tugged the fruit from her poor little hand. His breathing was ragged from fighting the ogres. Gan’s shadow made a mess of the castle behind us. It tore down pillars and knocked down balconies. Hobs threw his arms around us, blocking us from it. “She’ll be stuck here!”

“There’s no other way!” Babs’ hand was disappearing from mine. “Don’t go!” I said. “Fight it! Where is she going?” The hag wouldn’t have banished her anywhere nice.

“Halley!” Tears glistened on Babs’ pale cheeks. She had no idea what was happening.
Halley?
I choked. No, that wasn’t me. That was her. My little girl didn’t even know who she was. I couldn’t let her go to the Otherworld without knowing. How would she get back to me? “I can’t see you,” she said in a small voice. “Where are you going?”

“You can see me.” My hands hovered over Babs, but I couldn’t touch her. She was almost gone. “Look to the first star that appears at night, Babs. Just wish on that star and the moon will smile down on you. That will be me. I won’t leave you alone!” Her blonde hair grew lighter and lighter. She looked exactly like my little sisters. She belonged with them, but they would never know her. The witch wouldn’t be merciful enough to send her to them. “That’s how you’ll find me,” I promised. “Watch for that star!”

“She’ll never remember you!” the hag promised. She made circular motions with her hands. “And you! You will forget she ever existed.”

“No! I’ll be with you!” I called to Babs. “I’ll remember you always—just wish on me!” The smoke of Babs lingered in the air. Her hand was fading from Hobs’ and I saw his worried expression. It gave me an idea. “Your Prince Charming!” I said. It was the only thing I could think of. If the hag could curse her, I could give her my blessing. “Love’s kiss will break the curse!”

“Make it rhyme,” Hobs sounded frantic. “It’s the only way to make a spell.”

“
Love will break the curse,
” I stuttered over my next words. A rhyme? I tried to think of something poetic. “
Though love is blind
,” I hesitated at Hobs’ disbelieving look. What rhymed with curse? “
You could do worse
.” I shrugged at him. Sure, it was one of the stupider things I’ve said, but if it broke the hag’s curse, I’d take it.

“Oh! Don’t worry, Babs. We’ll keep you safe. You’ll never be alone.” I tried to touch her arm, but she was gone. She had heard me though. I was sure of it. I no longer felt the pain at the separation. My curse was broken too, but I still felt it in my heart and it beat dully.

The hag looked furious. My words had sealed her doom. Babs was destined to take
her place as Snow Queen. “I will stop your heart, Princess!” She twisted—faster than it seemed possible—and before Hobs could stop her, I felt her cold fingers trail down my back. I arched backwards as she flew from us, cackling evilly.

My lungs froze and I couldn’t breathe. She had killed me. I could feel my life draining. I had tried . . . and lost everything because of it: Babs, and now my life, but not everything, not Hobs.
Hobs.
He could watch out for Babs if I couldn’t.

“Hobs.” My fingers were brittle from the cold. I found his rough hand. “Find Babs. You’ve got to find her.” He acted like he couldn’t hear me. His arms were around me, though his warmth couldn’t touch me. His eyes were on his mother. I saw another inky hand rip from the vines through the mirror, followed by a twisting head. The eyes were dark and unfeeling and they darted around like snakes. The Otherworldly would kill us all.

“Hobs!” I cried. “You have to leave here. Get Babs.”

The ogres surrounded us, armed with their clubs and daggers. Bugul was nowhere to be seen. Had they killed him too? Hobs’ attention was riveted on the Otherworldly, and he squeezed my frozen shoulder before he stood up. He pulled out his arrow from a fallen ogre’s gut. The arrow could pierce any hide, and it glistened in the cold winter air. His hand ran over it.

“What are you doing?” the hag ridiculed. “Is this for her? Or that kid? You weakling! The Otherworldly is my guest. Hospitality for hospitality. It is the mantra of the Twelve. You cannot shoot him!”

Hobs shook his head. “I’m not.” His arrow scraped past the hag’s delicate shoulder, leaving a dark and bloody scratch. She screamed out in pain, and then laughed bitterly. “You didn’t kill me. How unfortunate for you.” Her
arms lifted and I knew she
was about to finish him off. I cried out weakly and she jerked to a stop, lowering her hands to stare at her pointed nails. “What have you done to me, Hobs?”

“It’s a gift from the nymphs. I laced the tip.”

“My own son?” She tried to control the twitching in her body. “Poisoned?”

“With a love potion.” He lowered his bow. I saw the anguish in his eyes. “I gave you a heart, Mother.”

“Oh.” The Snow Queen’s voice sounded almost human and she clasped her chest, stumbling across the room. “Worse than poison. It hurts to feel.”

“. . . especially when you can’t feel that love returned.”

The Snow Queen whimpered. The ice that covered her beautiful body was melting. She turned watering eyes to the mirror, and with those imperfect eyes she finally saw. The Otherworldly was almost through it. “He will kill you.” Her voice broke.

Hobs watched her, grief written across his face, but still he didn’t go to her. The Snow Queen staggered to him instead, dripping everywhere. She pulled the medallion from her neck with shaking hands and fell next to me. I choked on my breath; it hurt to breathe. My lungs iced over.

“Son!” She reached up and caught his fingers. He cried out in pain. “I’m sorry, Hobany. I don’t want to hurt you.
I love you
.”

Hobs responded with a nod. He looked numb. I doubted he had heard those words from his mother before, and even now they were bittersweet—brought only by a love potion. He knelt next to us, watching her wearily.

She set her medallion over my cold stomach and folded his trembling fingers over it. “You’ll need this. The Otherworldly has the lost treasures . . . get them back . . . you’ll regain your powers. I was going to get them back. I swear. I didn’t . . . I didn’t give him the treasures. It wasn’t me. It was . . .
her.
”

He groaned, but I knew he believed her. Someone else was guilty. Had it been Ratis then? It made sense. “There is one treasure still,” she said, “. . . safe. The Stone of Fal. The mirror . . . it is under the ice. The ice will melt. ” She coughed, her eyes watering over in her agony. “Don’t let that monster get it.”

“How do I save my Leannan Sith, Mom?”

The room was hot. The ice queen couldn’t survive in it for long, but somehow the heat couldn’t touch me. I was turning into a block of ice. “I must die before she does . . .” she said softly. “It’s the only way to break my spell over her. Make her cheeks bloom, Hobany.”

The mirror melted just enough for the vines to push all the way into the room. The Otherworldly dragged himself up by his elbows, pushing free from the thick green stalks like a lizard cracking from its egg. Filthy black slime pooled down his body. He moved with the speed of a zombie in comparison to the grace of everything that lived in this world. The nymphs screamed out in panic, but the Otherworldly wasn’t interested in terrorizing them. He had caught sight of me.

I watched him helplessly. He knew exactly who I was—I didn’t know how. Hobs scrambled to stand between us. The arrow that had nicked his mother was at his feet, and he drew it from the ground. With one quick movement, he cleaned off the remnants of the love potion with his shirt. The Otherworldly grumbled out a laugh. There wasn’t much of me left to save.

“Octavius.” Hobs kicked the wolf hard in the side, trying to wake him up. “It’s your lucky day, man. Fast food.”

Octavius swayed on drowsy legs. Gray and Glasses pulled groggily to their paws. They snarled; I just wished with more conviction.

I felt an icy hand on mine. It was the hag’s. It was colder than mine . . . then warmer. My skin glistened with frost. “Why must we suffer?” She looked older, her black hair whitened and melted, dripping down her neck. Somehow she was more beautiful than ever. I think it was her eyes. They felt warm. “The seasons change, the cycle of life continues. She
will rule after me . . .”

It was the first stroke of midnight. I listened to the toll of the bell and then the crackle in my ears as the frost over my flesh sealed them shut from this world.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back

Between the night and morrow;

They thought she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

—William Allingham
, The Fairies

“I
don’t know what to do,” Hobs said. “Can you hear me, Habonde?” He tried again. “Halley?” I felt his lips on mine and my cheeks bloomed. It was the only way to describe it. “Let this crown you queen,” he breathed.

My memories came rushing back to me. Were they memories, or glimpses of the future? I didn’t know why I still had one. I sat in my faded jeans on a cold park bench and crossed one worn fur-lined boot across the other and leaned against . . . Hobs? With a start, I realized it was him as soon as he put his arm around me. His heat put a jolt through me—it was warm. I never thought I’d feel any warmth again, let alone his.

The snow floated down over us. Everything was white and beautiful . . . back home on Main Street. What were we doing in Omak? I didn’t know Washington existed for me anymore. Piles of plowed snow took over the parking lot across the street from the cinema. I recognized the slush-covered roads, though I had never seen such a harsh winter in my hometown, not since my presence cursed it with too much sun. And now, it was a bleak wintery day, except none of this had happened yet. “Hobs?”

He smiled at me, doing his best to pass off as a human. He had the hot metro thing down with his tweed winter vest and argyle scarf. “Hey look,” he said. “We’re here.”

Here?
FasFoo, the hottest teen hangout in Omak, was just across the street, and my shadow passed me, heading that direction. I stood up in shock, staring after her. We were still the same age. Well, maybe my shadow was a little older than me now—she was halfway into her senior year. She was bundled up in a sleek white coat, her long scarf wrapped several times around her neck. It looked like she shopped solely out of town. She acted like she couldn’t see me.

Daphne talked a mile a minute next to her, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her puffy jacket, her dark stocking cap pulled low over her blonde hair. My shadow’s eyes were on the restaurant. It had been our favorite place to get burgers.

“Kids grow up so fast.” Hobs pulled me away from my spitting image and gestured to a blonde girl about my age walking out of FasFoo. Her hair was greasy and it escaped from a scraggly ponytail at the back of her head. She was in a filthy polyester number stained with mustard and ketchup over black leggings. The girl needed a shower. Maybe a brush?

With quick movements, she polished the windows with efficient squirts of her glass cleaner. Mist from the cold came out of her mouth as she worked. She didn’t wear gloves.

I cocked my head to the side. “Wait a second, that’s Babs! I mean, Halley, I guess.” It felt a little surreal, since the last thing I had been doing was lying on the floor of a frozen ice castle, dying. My last thoughts had been of her. And here she was, alive in Omak!

Hobs smiled broadly. “No, let’s call her Holly. She’s the princess of winter. It fits her.”

Our little Halley . . . Holly . . . whatever.
I stared at her, barely believing she was so close that I could touch her. She didn’t look like a princess. “I like the name Blest better,” I muttered.

“Bridgette!” someone called from the inside.

“I’m coming!” She rubbed harder at the windows, her fingers red from the cold.