“Come on. You heard your boss.”
A particular body caught my eye, one that lay across a serving platter. A body sheared in half like a giant razor blade had cut it off at the waist. The platter was an old one; black tarnish marked it as true silver. The edge I could see was dull gray, the same color I had seen in the feast room in Kingdom. Fleshing silver. I reached out, pulled the body over, and recoiled. The body was Clara, her eyes dark pools of blood. The other half of her body had to still be wherever the mirror once led.
“Come on,” said Liam, giving my arm a pull.
Before I could move she spoke.
“Most have the sense to fear me, darling,” said the Fairy Godmother, her voice coming from Clara’s ruined face. “Or flee if they live under my shadow.”
A mist blanketed the world, the way it had when the Fae Mother spoke to me. I felt Liam pull on my arm, or someone’s arm, and he was yelling, I think.
“Once you strike me, and thrice I return it. Your desires are delicious. What shall I give you, that you may understand the error of your ways?”
I fought to let go of the mirror but it stuck to my fingertips like frozen steel. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“No, but you do want something. Your family. For your first wish I give you the truth of your family.”
Something like a train hit me, and I landed in snow. Maybe not snow, the memory of it, cold and cutting and bitter. “Stop interfering,” said Fairy Godmother, though not to me. “On second thought, there’s always room for one more.” Someone joined me in the memory. I knew with a sinking heart it was Liam, meshed in her spell.
“You’ve forgotten so much, darling, about your parents’ wish. I give it back to you and more. The important part isn’t the what. It’s the why.”
I would have told her off, but I could neither speak nor move. The memories started to come back. This was my house. I remembered so much about it, baking cookies and playing in the tree and a thousand days of summer. A smile came to my heart as I realized I knew where home was. I remembered everything.
Mom and Dad stood outside in the wind and the cold, and they were fighting. Mom’s raven black hair held down in her hood. She grabbed Dad’s hand. “There isn’t time. We must call him now.” As she said it, I knew what night this was, and a sickness swept over me.
“There’s got to be another way,” said Dad. I remembered him holding me, the way he smelled of shaving cream, aftershave, and how rough his chin was. His eyes were as blue as hers.
“They are lovely,” said Godmother. “So unlike you. Where did you get those plain brown eyes?”
My mother turned her back, facing the storm so it lashed her. “It’s the only way, Roland. He’ll take good care of her, and when she’s free, she can return to you.”
“To us.” I saw the hurt on my dad’s face, along with determination. His hands were balled into fists, his entire body tense.
Mom dropped his hand. “She wasn’t yours to begin with, and she’s not mine. I’ve raised her for you, but it isn’t the same. Not the way Hope is.”
Dad shuffled his feet, kicking at the snow. “Make the call.”
Godmother ripped the world from me and formed it again, oozing into place like molten wax. I was sixteen, with too much makeup and my hair looked like it was at war with my head. I sat at our kitchen table, Mom and Dad behind me. On the table stood my makeup mirror, and in the convex side I looked like a clown.
Grimm looked out from the mirror, and the look on my younger face was one of awe as he spoke. “This isn’t how things normally work. Roland, I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”
“You know why we called you,” said Mom.
“I do,” said Grimm. “Young lady, do you understand?”
I didn’t. I couldn’t, but my teen-self looked to Dad and nodded.
“You would work for me only until their debt is paid,” said Grimm.
I knew now how long that could be. Teen me was all too eager to please. “I’m getting a job at the Burger Hut this summer to practice.”
Grimm laughed. “I’m sure you will do wonderfully, Marissa. So do we have an agreement?”
I looked at Dad and he nodded. Mom wouldn’t look at me, but I knew what she wanted. What I wanted more than anything was to please her.
“You will fix Hope?” I watched Grimm with all my teenage skills of lie detection.
“I give you my word, young lady.”
Young me paused and looked up to Mom. Even at sixteen I had the good sense to think before I acted. “How long will this take?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Mom. “You’ll be an adult soon. You’re getting a head start, Marissa.”
Young me glanced back to Grimm, and I saw a tiny smile flicker across Mom’s face. “I’ll do it.”
“Then it is done,” said Grimm.
Mom hugged Dad and started crying.
Young me felt something at her wrist and held it up. A tiny gold chain hung from it. “That’s amazing,” she said.
Grimm began to fade away. “I give these to all my employees. I am never far away now. Call me if you need anything.”
“How many years,” said Fairy Godmother, whispering, “have you traded your freedom for their happiness?” If I had a mouth to scream, lungs to sob, or eyes to cry, I would have. A cry of despair rose within me, but without an outlet, it could not drown out her whisper. “Twice more, child, and then you may ask for your death.”
The floor stank of blood and sour and death, and yet the feeling and smell was so rich it was actually good. I blinked and had eyes.
Liam loomed over me, looking like a giant. “Here,” he said, picking me up like a bag of flour, “We’re getting out of the building like the mirror man said.” He cupped his hands and yelled. “Princess, move it.”
With his help, I limped to the door.
Ari came walking out of the offices with a box of papers. Her jaw was set and her free hand clenched in a fist. “I told you to call me Ari.”
I was lost in memories I’d dreamed of having back, dreams that I knew would be nightmares from now on. I remembered it all. The fighting, the crying. The endless meetings with doctors that had culminated that night. The night my parents had traded me to Grimm.
Ari came running to me. “M, are you all right?”
I couldn’t answer. I could barely walk. Only Liam’s incessant pull on my hand kept me moving long enough to make it out of the building. The hazmat team came pouring in, followed by the bomb squad, and the police.
“I’ll drive us back to the Agency,” said Ari.
I tossed the keys toward her. At least it would be entertaining to see her try.
Liam caught them, holding them out of her reach. “I want to live.”
When we got back to the Agency, I stayed in the car, in the dark parking garage. I still heard Fairy Godmother’s voice in my head, and the images wouldn’t go away. I knew now why I’d made a deal with Grimm to hide my memories.
“I’m sorry,” said Grimm from the rearview mirror, “Liam has explained what she did.”
“He knew it was a spell?”
“He knew it was something. It’s not the sort of thing he would forget. Nor will you now. If I attempt to modify your memories again, it might kill you.”
I sat up and my head spun, or the world spun around me. “You said she couldn’t hurt me.”
“Marissa, I said she couldn’t so much as scratch you. I never said she couldn’t hurt you. That would have been a lie.”
I grasped for reasons, anything that would make what I saw, what I knew, untrue. “Would she tell me the truth?”