Chrissy turned and glided toward the large double doors, her gown swishing around her in waves of blue satin. How could someone who looked so innocent have completely messed up my life—twice? I caught up with her, bristling with frustration. As soon as we were out of the room, I started in on her. “I wished to dance in my normal time period. This is clearly not my time period unless Renaissance fashion has suddenly made a big comeback.”
“Technically, that’s not what you wished for.”
“Technically?” I repeated.
“You said you wanted to dance so well with Jason that you’re famous for it in your time period. You will be. You’re one of the twelve dancing princesses and Jason is the prince you dance with. You’ll be famous for generations.”
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses?” I choked out. “You put me in another fairy tale?” The room’s grandeur seemed cold and foreboding now. “You knew that wasn’t what I meant.” I was breathing so hard something in my dress—a corset probably—dug into my ribs.
Chrissy blinked innocently. “I’m a fairy godmother, not a psychic. Perhaps you should have said, “In my normal time period, I want to dance so well with Jason that I’m famous for it.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Grammar. Who knew it would be so important in life, right?”
I gritted my teeth together. “Well, now I’m clarifying the wish for you. Shouldn’t a good fairy godmother fix her mistakes?”
“Mine, yes. Yours, sadly, no. I’ve used up the magic allotted for your wishes.”
“But . . .” The panic building in my chest kept growing, threatening to erupt in a hysterical scream. Jason was somewhere in this century too. Trapped like I was. What had I done? I had to fix this.
I quickly reviewed what I knew about the Grimm Fairy tale. A king had twelve daughters who snuck out of their bedroom every night, went through a forest of silver, gold, and diamond trees, then danced at a ball with twelve princes. The king noticed his daughters’ slippers were worn out every morning and was so upset by this fact, he offered his kingdom and one of his daughters’ hand in marriage to anyone who could solve the mystery.
Princes and nobles came to the castle and stood watch in the princesses’ chambers, but the princesses spiked their drinks with sleeping potion so the men wouldn’t discover the secret.
One day a soldier did a good deed for a fairy, and in return she gave him an invisibility cloak. He went to the castle and pretended to fall asleep each night, but really followed the princesses, thereby learning the truth.
The soldier married the oldest princess, the other princesses married their princes, and supposedly everyone lived happily ever after. Although I always assumed the prince who had danced with the oldest princess was less than thrilled by that arrangement. A spying soldier with a slick invisibility cloak got to marry his girlfriend. Harsh.
On the positive side, none of the princesses died during the story, so it was a definite improvement over my last fairy tale. On the other hand, I was still in the wrong century, in the wrong family, and I didn’t particularly want to get married soon. Jason would undoubtedly be just as unhappy about the whole arrangement.
How could I fix it?
Chrissy tapped her wand lazily against her palm. “However, if you want to go back to your old home—keeping the things you’ve gained from your wishes, of course—fairies do occasionally barter for magic.”
“Barter?” I grabbed onto the word. “What do you want?” What could she want? She had magic at her fingertips. Rumpelstiltskin was the only fairy tale I could think of where a magical being wanted something from a mortal, and he’d wanted the Queen’s firstborn child.
Not that, I thought. I put my hand to my throat. I couldn’t give away a child.
Chrissy leaned toward me, speaking in a hushed tone. “You and your sisters dance every night for Queen Orlaith, ruler of the Unseelie Court. She has a special goblet. I want it.”
A goblet, not a child.
Chrissy pulled a postcard-sized color drawing from a purse that hung on her belt. It showed a golden cup with a thick stem that curved into a wide base. “Here’s what it looks like.”
I stared at the drawing, trying to process all this. She wanted me to steal a fairy queen’s goblet? Was this sort of request normal? I didn’t recall any fairy tales where fairy godmothers encouraged their charges to take up a life of crime. Should I do it? Did I really have a choice?
Chrissy placed the drawing in my hand. “I made sure your dresses have especially large pockets, so concealing a goblet shouldn’t be a problem.”
I thrust my hand into my pocket. She was right.
“That’s one of my special touches,” Chrissy added. “Sewn in pockets weren’t really in vogue until the eighteenth century.” She reached into her purse again and pulled out two strips of white paper. “Once you give me Queen Orlaith’s goblet, you can use these.” She handed me the strips. They looked like plane tickets. Across the front were the words:
Magical boarding pass. Good to transport one mortal anywhere, any time. Simply contact your fairy godmother with your destination.
Void where travel creates time paradoxes. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other magical coupons. Sales tax applies in Michigan during most portions of the twenty-first century.
“Keep them,” Chrissy said. “Once you give me the goblet, I’ll activate your passes.”
I fingered the slips of paper. I couldn’t even lie without my nose growing, and Chrissy was asking me to steal something?
“Isn’t stealing from other fairies illegal in your world?”
Chrissy waved away my words with a flick of her manicured nails. “Don’t think of it as stealing. You’re simply relocating an object to the owners who should have it. Queen Orlaith stole half of the things she owns.
Chrissy pulled the drawstring on her purse tight. “The gold trees that are part of The Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale used to belong to the leprechauns. She swiped the silver trees from the tree nymphs. The goblet should belong to Queen Titania of the Seelie Court.”
“Oh.” I kept fingering the slips of paper nervously. “Then why don’t you get the goblet from her? I mean, I’m just a teenager. You’ve got magic to help you.” I didn’t know a lot about fairies, but judging from the story of Sleeping Beauty, it wasn’t wise to tick them off.
“I can’t get the goblet because I have magic. Queen Orlaith cast a spell on her island and the forest surrounding it. No magical creature except herself and her son can enter there. Anyone else who tries is attacked by the plants.”
Anxiety began to twine through my chest. “What do you mean the plants attack people? Plants don’t move.”
“Well, not when mortals ask them to. Plants haven’t spoken to your kind in thousands of years, but fairies and plants have a special bond. If Queen Orlaith tells her vines to grab someone, they will. They hold trespassers until she decides how to dispose of them.” Chrissy pursed her lips in disapproval. “It’s usually something over the top to make her point. Once three leprechauns snuck onto her land to try and take back one of the gold trees.” Chrissy let out a sad, resigned sigh. “They’ve been stuck on a cereal box ever since.”
Had I heard that right? “A cereal box?”
“So you can see why I can’t set foot in the place. I don’t want to end up snap-crackle-and-popping for eternity. Mortals and animals are the only ones who can go there safely, and it’s a bit hard to train animals to stealthily retrieve magical objects.”
Chrissy surveyed me, then brushed a piece of lint from my dress. “Which reminds me, what in the world did you do to my postal squid? He came back all twitchy. The poor thing is a nervous wreck.”
I ignored the question. A terrible, and likely, possibility had just occurred to me. “Wait a minute—did you mess up my wishes on purpose so I’d have to get the goblet for you?”