Mrs. T’s hand was oddly cold as she shook mine and gave me the gift certificate. “Mimi, would you please come to my office? I’d like to speak with you.”
I shook my head numbly. “You’ve found your apprentice, Mrs. T. His name is Vik. Or Guy, or whatever his real name is.”
I’d failed. Not only had I made some stupid mistakes—not tasting my batter, and choosing an overly complicated decoration—but I’d been betrayed by a person I thought was my friend.
My family gathered around me with hugs and words of encouragement, but I pulled away before they could start making excuses or giving sympathetic looks. I returned to my station and packed my equipment. Sure enough, they went back to talking to their friends like nothing terrible had happened. I could disappear into thin air and no one would notice.
Everyone in the café milled around, eating, drinking, laughing, and taking pictures. I abandoned the cookbook and gift certificate on a counter and crept through the empty kitchen and out the back door. I shuffled across the bridge and watched the river flowing below me. I stepped onto the path and disappeared into the woods.
CHAPTER 25
THE BEST CUPCAKES
I wandered on the path, gazing at the packed dirt under my feet as the midday heat rose around me. I breathed in the sharp smells of the woods and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Vik had been right after all. I didn’t win. He saw to that. I was such a fool for ever trusting him.
I came to the two hemlocks and stopped. This was where I’d met Vik. Did I want to go back there?
I stomped my foot. I wanted to see the pond and the banyan tree. I wanted to walk in those places and breathe those scents and feel like Vik hadn’t ruined everything for me. At least I could still enjoy my woods.
I walked through the hemlocks.
There was no pond or banyan in sight. I shoved my hair out of my face. What was going on?
I headed back through the hemlocks and scratched my head. I stepped through again.
Still no pond, still no banyan.
I held my breath and listened carefully. I hoped the boar showed up. Or the cobra, even. I felt like fighting something.
But the forest stayed silent.
Everyone had forgotten about me. Even the woods.
I walked back on the path, came to my hangout, and went inside. This was the last place I’d seen Vik in the woods, where he’d been so cruel. I hadn’t understood why at the time. But now I did, and I wished I could go back to not knowing again. I lay on the cool dirt floor. It would be so nice just to disappear. I closed my eyes, but couldn’t sleep; the humiliation of the contest played over and over in my head.
“Mimi?” I opened my eyes to a kid’s silhouette in the entrance.
Kiera came in a little awkwardly, clutching a couple of books and a paper bag that rustled.
“Leave me alone.” I turned my back on her.
“I’ll leave. But first I’ll give you your stuff,” she said.
I squinted in the dim light. “I don’t need any stuff.”
“Let me show you, and then you can decide if you want it. By the way, Mrs. T was looking for you. And so was that kid who won.”
“Vik?”
“Wasn’t his name Guy?” Kiera paused. “Anyway, he was looking for you everywhere. And by then, so were your parents and the rest of your family. You freaked everyone out.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, I know how you felt. I hate losing. I hate it so much that sometimes I get a little carried away.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Carried away, meaning you tried to pass off a carrot cake from a French bakery as your own?”
Kiera flushed and nodded.
I shook my head.
“And don’t forget the napoleons,” she said. “They were from Sucre et Sel, too.”
I rolled my eyes. She was unbelievable!
“Anyway, that weird spiderweb waitress said she’d seen you go out the back door. I told your parents I’d follow you and bring you back. So here I am.”
I shrugged.
“You forgot your books.” She handed them to me.
It was exhausting just to talk. “The prize was one book.”
“Well, Guy or Vik or whatever his name was handed me these two. He said they were yours.”
I looked down. The first one was Puffy Fay’s new cookbook, The Art of Baking Magically, but the second one was mine, too.
It was my copy of Puffy Fay’s first cookbook, the one I’d lost in the woods weeks ago.
“Vik gave you this?”
Kiera nodded. “He said to tell you he was sorry.”
“Yeah, right.” So Vik had stolen my book in the first place, before we’d even met. Another lie.
“He also gave me one of these.” Kiera reached into the paper bag and held out one of Vik’s cupcakes. Even in the dim and musty hangout, it practically glowed with beauty, and the roses smelled intoxicating. Roses, for love of all types, and longing.
I scrambled to my feet. “I don’t want that! Why did you bring it in here?”
“But don’t you want to know?”
“Know what? I failed—again!—in front of my family and friends—in front of the whole town! I blew my shot at getting to work with Puffy Fay! I was fooled by a kid who’d pretended to be my friend, then betrayed me. I never want to bake again. I never even want to see a cupcake again!”
Kiera wiggled her eyebrows. “I finished behind you, remember? Even cheating couldn’t get me a win.” Kiera cradled the cupcake like it was something precious. “But Mimi, it’s only humiliating if you make it that way. Emma always said you were the most fantastic baker she’d ever met. And as much as I wanted to win, I have to admit that you deserved to. So how did that kid beat you?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Well.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe you could try tasting this.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and sat down again. “Fine.” I took the cupcake and bit into it.
I let all the tastes play in my mouth. The cupcake was light and creamy and subtly infused with aromatic cardamom. It was covered in a luscious rose-cardamom frosting. There were rose petals in the cake and on top, red and pink. They were fragrant and sweet and the tiniest bit salty.
“Joy and sorrow. Laughter and tears,” I said. “These cupcakes do taste like love. And love that you wished you still had.”
Kiera took the cupcake from me and bit into it. “I’m not sure I can taste love,” she said, “but it really is scrumptious.”
I glared at her.
“Too soon? I heard your dad was in the hospital. I hope he’s okay.” Kiera smiled without a trace of snarkiness. “I’m sorry I’ve been so mean to you. Emma always said you were cool. But I thought you were stuck-up.”
“Stuck-up! Me?” I asked.
Kiera shrugged. “You always act like you don’t care what anyone else thinks about you. And your baking . . . you’ve been a star since we were in first grade, when you brought in that chocolate-peppermint fudge for the fall bake sale.”
“I . . . what?” I asked.
“Anyway, you didn’t have to go out of your way to help me during the Bake-Off, but you did. And I realized what a jerk I’ve been,” Kiera said.
I stayed silent for a long moment. “You may be a jerk, but at least you have great taste in carrot cake.”
Kiera started to laugh. Giggles bubbled inside me until they burst from my mouth and I sprayed cupcake crumbs everywhere, which made us both laugh more. I laughed until tears streamed from my eyes, and I couldn’t tell if I was laughing or crying. I laughed until I had to lie down again to stop my head from spinning. When I opened my eyes, Kiera was hunched over clutching her stomach and snickering.
“I have one more thing.” She reached into the bag again and brought out two of my lemon-lavender cupcakes; the sugar on the violets sparkled. She handed one to me.
“To friends.” She r
aised her cupcake like a glass for a toast.
“Especially ones you find unexpectedly,” I said. I tapped my cupcake to hers, then took a bite. The cupcake was light and sweet, tart and creamy, and the sugared violets gave it a slight crunch. We finished our cakes in silence.
“I’m no expert like Puffy Fay, and I agree they’re both delicious, but I would choose yours, hands down,” said Kiera.
We crawled out from under the tarp and blinked in the light of a perfect summer day.
“Want to hang out at my house?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll call my parents from there.” I glanced at my watch. “I just need to be back home by six to go to my brother’s play.” But I didn’t need to worry about making something for Henry and his friends.
I knew one thing for sure: I was never baking again.
CHAPTER 26
THE PLAY
The Comity Youth Theater’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened on a magical summer night. As the sun melted like an enormous sherbet ball, the clear, full moon rose over a small wooden stage at the edge of the woods. The actors played guitars and tambourines, accompanied by the insistent chirruping of cicadas. The air smelled of lilacs and pine trees. It wasn’t hard to believe that we had been transported to a different forest, where feuding fairies tangled the fates of regular people in their webs.
My family filled the front row. In the play, Titania and Oberon quarreled over the changeling boy, and Oberon enlisted Puck to help him. Using the love blossom, Puck made Titania fall in love with a donkey-headed man.
The two mortal men, Lysander and Demetrius, both loved Hermia. But Puck made a mistake with the love blossom. Both men were enchanted into loving Helena, who reacted suspiciously and miserably and blamed Hermia for their strange change of heart. The situation was eerily familiar. I glanced over at my sisters, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves, not recognizing the similarities to their own lives this summer.
I enjoyed seeing Lily as petite, confused Hermia and Fletcher as the vain and snarky Demetrius. But no one was better than Henry playing Puck. He delivered his lines like he’d been born knowing them, swung onto the stage on ropes, and jumped and tumbled like an acrobat. He reminded me of Vik and how he could climb up the banyan tree like it was nothing. I shook my head to get rid of the image.
In act three, a fairy fluttered onstage and said her name was Peaseblossom.
Did I hear that right? I flipped to the front of my program, and sure enough, Peaseblossom was listed as one of Titania’s fairies. There were also other fairies—named Moth, Mustardseed, and Cobweb. I pushed my hands through my hair and remembered a gigantic spiderweb headband. This was getting way too spooky.
During the intermission, I pulled Jules to a quiet place to talk.
“Did you notice that fairy’s name—Peaseblossom?” I asked.
“Funny name,” Jules said.
“But that waitress at the While Away—she’s called Peaseblossom!”
“Huh? Which one? The cranky one, or—”
“The nice one,” I said impatiently. “With the pink flowers in her hair.”
“So?”
“So? Isn’t it weird that this girl with a fairy name has come to our town right when everyone starts acting strange?”
Jules shrugged. “Everyone seems okay now.”
“Girls.” Mom hurried to us with her purse slung over her shoulder. “Work called. There’s an emergency with the go-live, and they need me at the office.”
“Now? But the play’s not over,” Jules said.
“I know.” Mom glanced at her watch. “But unfortunately, I don’t have a choice. I couldn’t find Dad—I guess he’s still in line for the bathroom—but I told Riya. You can all go home in Henry’s car, or you can get a ride with the Clarks. I might be gone all night. Tell Henry I’m so sorry, and I’ll come to another show.”
“Okay. Love you,” I said.
Mom kissed us and dashed away just as the bell rang, signaling the end of intermission.
As Jules and I went back to our seats, I noticed that Dad’s place at the end of the row was still empty.
Act four opened with Titania proclaiming her love to the donkey-headed man. The audience crackled with laughter, but I kept checking Dad’s empty chair. I jiggled my leg, and Jules told me to stop.
Puck and Oberon came onstage. After explaining that Titania had given up the Indian changeling boy who’d caused the whole fairy fight, they released Titania from the love spell, resulting in general hilarity when she realized she had fallen in love with a donkey. Dad still hadn’t returned. What was taking him so long? He was missing the best parts of Henry’s play!
Something flew into the corner of my vision, and I turned away from the stage to look.
The pitta bird landed a few feet in front of me and stared. It hopped a few feet forward and then stared again.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered to Jules. I slunk away from the audience, away from the stage, to the small shed that contained the bathrooms. As I thought, it was empty. Dad wasn’t there.
He’d left. But why? Did it have anything to do with his weird behavior this summer? I thought he’d been cured of that.
I chewed on a strand of hair. Think, Mimi. Think.
We thought that Dad had Lyme disease. But Emma had had Lyme last summer, and she didn’t eat everything in sight or have purple eyes.
And Fletcher, Cole, and Henry did have purple eyes this summer, when they’d been enchanted by the honeysuckle.
I clapped my hand to my forehead. I’d been a fool!
Dad was under a spell.
A fairy spell.
And the answer lay in the woods.
I stepped into the trees. The full moon cast everything in sharp shadows. Leaves and branches, fern tops and mushrooms glowed in the silvery light. The path felt as familiar as the hallways in my home. I was searching for a place I knew well, where I knew I would find him. It was just around the bend.
Small creatures scurried in the underbrush, and an owl called to its mate. A breeze set the leaves to whispering. I took deep gulps of night air to steady my whirling mind. I arrived at the two hemlocks leaning against each other.
I stepped through.
There was no pond or banyan tree in sight.
I went back through the hemlock gate. Why couldn’t I get to the banyan? There was some fairy magic at work, I was sure of it.
Calm down, Mimi. There had to be something. Some sort of key. What had happened all the other times I had found the banyan tree?
I stood still and listened to the woods. A soft wind rustled through the leaves. Crickets chirped a lullaby. A mockingbird began its song for the night, and it reminded me of the pitta singing and Vik’s beautiful, haunting song.
The key.
I knew what it was.
CHAPTER 27
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
I began to hum “Come with Me.” I couldn’t help loving the song and its unearthly beauty—fairy beauty. It was the key to finding the magical parts of the woods, the places I’d never seen before Vik showed up. A secret signal.
I stepped through the gap between the hemlocks. The pond stretched out in front of me, placid and lovely, and along its banks was the banyan, its leaves shining silver in the moonlight.
I ran to the enormous tree. “Come out, Vik! We need to talk.” Holding my breath, I circled the trunk. I searched the ground for footprints, but I couldn’t see anything in the shadows.
I jumped to the lowest branch and climbed in the dark. My hands and feet knew what to do, and soon I arrived at the branch where I had first met Vik.
He wasn’t there. Neither was Dad.
“Come on!” I pounded the trunk, nearly losing my balance and falling out of the tree. “VIK! COME HERE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”
No answer. I was all alone.
I pulled my hair in frustration. “I need to find Dad! I need help,” I whispered.
Something feathery bru
shed my face. The pitta landed on the branch and regarded me.
“Will you help me? Where’s Vik?”
Without a second glance, the bird took off again into the darkness. Had it understood what I’d said? Even if it had, could it get Vik to come here? And if Vik did come, how could I convince him to return Dad?
I leaned against the tree trunk, feeling better with something solid behind me. I sat there for what seemed like a very long time. I wondered when Jules had noticed I hadn’t returned, and whether she’d alerted Riya and Henry. Was the play over? Were they all searching for me in the woods? I imagined them calling my name and finding the empty hangout. They’d never be able to come here, wherever here actually was. Not without the song.
Then I heard it, moving through the air like an overwhelming aroma, steadily growing closer.
“Mimi? What are you doing here?” Vik’s voice came from the bottom of the tree.
“Vik? Vik, I have to talk to you!”
“I’m coming,” he said.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to see him again. I didn’t want to talk to him. But I had to find a way to convince him to return Dad.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the branch. A moonbeam illuminated him, and I forced myself to look. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a regular kid. But I knew he wasn’t.
“Where’s my dad?”
“Isn’t he at your brother’s play?”
I clenched my fists. “You know he’s not. You’re the one who made Dad’s eyes glow purple and made him eat everything in sight. You’re the one who made him forget who he is.”
Vik shook his head.
“How could you, Vik? I trusted you. I thought you were my friend.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“I am your friend.”
“I know exactly who you are. And what you are, Puck.”
“I’m not Puck. If I were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d just be off on my next madcap adventure.” Vik smiled.
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