by Sarah Peters
“I have five mothers,” he said unexpectedly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the car and answering my question from the lawn.
“Biological, or were you adopted?” I asked rudely.
He cast one moon-pale eye over his shoulder towards me. “I was born the traditional way.”
“Are they sisters?”
“Excuse me,” Becca interrupted, “but when you say the traditional way, do you mean traditional for humans or traditional for fairies?”
“Is there a difference?” I grumbled. “He’s still rude, no matter what.”
“There is a difference,” Tobias replied, tone stiff. When Becca and I glared at him, he shrugged. “My mothers wanted a child, and so they each ate a berry gathered during the longest hour of night on the winter solstice from the top of a witching hill. They put the seeds from the berries in an empty chestnut, which they wrapped in a pouch woven from the final silk of a hundred-year worm that they buried under a birch tree. A single snapdragon grew, and from its flower, I was born five days later.”
What.
The.
Heck.
“Oh ok, so totally normal,” I said after the silence stretched into deeply uncomfortable territories. I bopped my forehead against the back of Becca’s seat rest. Of course of all the guys in the world, I’d be into one who was born from a flower. Of course.
Uncomfortable quiet descended again.
When we finally turned onto Becca’s street, she quite unexpectedly snapped, “oh NOW he decides to show up?!”
I peered between the front seats as we approached her house. Finn leaned against her garage, arms crossed, his head down as he waited.
“He’s been a real dingdong today,” I added for Becca’s benefit. I couldn’t quite bring myself to share how he hadn’t sat with me at lunch, especially not with Tobias in the car. “C’mon Tobias, let’s go beat him up on Becca’s behalf.”
Tobias pulled into the driveway. “Who is that?” he asked as he stopped the car and Finn looked up.
“Finn,” I reminded him. Seriously, he’d seen the dude last week. Had argued with the dude last week. Had taken me to Homecoming with Finn last week.
Tobias’ face didn’t change expression, but his eyes also didn’t leave Finn. “No it’s not. Finn is a changeling, and while he’s spent the majority of his life trying to blend in with mortals, he is not one. That is a human.”
Ummm wait, what.
WHAT?
My mind whirled in the two seconds it took Tobias to park and turn off the car. If he looked like Finn but was a human--“IS THATBABYNAPPEDFINN?!”
I bust out of the backseat like a bandit and charged towards FakeFinn. I tackled him to the ground before he realized what I was about, and I sat on his chest when he tried to push me off.
“What have you done with Finn?!” I demanded.
“I am Finn, get off!”
“You certainly are not,” Tobias said, closing the car door behind him. He crossed his arms and gave FakeFinn a dispassionate stare. “You’re human, not fey.”
“Who the hell are you?” Finn snapped, struggling to push me off even as he glared up at Tobias. Definitely not my Finn! Finnabundy never swore!
“Tobias Monday,” he replied with one of his superior, disarming smirks.
FakeFinn, baby napped or just an impersonator, apparently recognized the name. His face paled and he closed his eyes. “Catherine,” he said quietly, “you do know that Tobias Monday works for the Queen of the Winter Falls, don’t you? It’s not safe to be around him after you interrupted the ceremony.”
“What’s it to you, faker?!” I didn’t relent when he tried to squirm free. “Where’s my real Finn?!”
“He’s fine,” FakeFinn muttered. He opened his eyes again.
I stared down at him. Maybe they were a little different, FakeFinn and RealFinn. Both were freckly and auburn haired, with that wide mouth, but FakeFinn’s eyes seemed browner than my RealFinn’s, and he had a generally un-jolly look about him.
…Although, if this was the human baby that my Finn had been switched with, did that mean this doofus was the real Finn???
“Where is he? Why are you pretending to be him?”
“The king took him back in reward for his role in stopping the Winter Court’s magical rejuvenation.” FakeFinn warily glanced over my shoulder towards Tobias but flicked his gaze back to me. “He’s in the king’s good graces; he’s fine.”
“Is he coming back, though?” Becca asked.
Fake Finn scoffed, but I kind of got the feeling that he was almost as upset about the switch as we were. “He’s back where he belongs—why would the king switch us again?”
So, no.
No Finn.
“Are you the stolen baby?” I finally rolled off him. “The one the fairies took and exchanged with Finn?”
FakeFinn pushed himself onto his feet and dusted off his butt. “The one and only,” he confirmed. I noticed he positioned himself so his back wasn’t to Tobias. “Sent here to make sure you’re not harmed by the Court of the Winter Falls.”
I pointed at Becca. “Great job you’ve been doing.”
Finn glanced at Becca, giving her sheep’s head a cursory glance before shrugging. “You weren’t harmed,” he said to me. “Who cares about some human caught in the crossfire?”
I inhaled. Becca inhaled. We grabbed each other’s arms. Me to comfort Becca, Becca to stop me from launching myself at Fake Finn. “Some human?! Excuse you, this is one of Real Finn’s best friends you’re talking about, Mister!!!” I struggled in Becca’s grip. “Let me kick him in the dingleberries, please.”
Becca ignored my request. Her gross sheep eyes blinked, and her large ears twitched. “Excuse me,” she said to Fake Finn, far more politely than me, “but if the Court of the Golden Sun is rewarding Finn, wouldn’t they want to reward Cat too? She’s the one who did all the hard work, after all.”
“Huh what?” I stared at her in alarm. Based off our experience with fairies not even fifteen minutes ago what the heck was she doing trying to get me further involved?!
Tobias, however, sent Becca a glinting, almost approving glance. Why hadn’t that jerk ever looked at me like that?! He uncrossed his arms. “The human’s right, of course. Ultimately it was Cat’s actions, not Finn’s, which stopped the ceremony and ruined my court’s chances at a magic renewal. I know if she had done the same to your court, my queen would call her in and bequeath all manner of favors and rewards upon her.” He paused and shot Finn a disdainful look. “And sent more than a pitiful human to look after and protect her.”
Considering Tobias was the person who was probably the most danger to me, I gave him a withering glare, which he ignored.
“Either I let Cat knee you in the nuts,” Becca advised, apparently on the same bizarre wavelength as Tobias, “Or, you take us to the Court of the Golden Sun.”
“But why,” I groaned. “I hate fairies. Like, officially as of ten minutes ago, hate all of them.”
Becca’s face wasn’t really capable of displaying the range of human emotion, but her lips curled and she gave me a look like she wanted to bite me. “If we can convince them to reward you, you can ask them to remove my sheep head.” In a softer voice she added, “and maybe get our Finn back in the process.”
Oh. Smart thinking, actually.
“I didn’t know you were this smart,” I whispered.
“I’m just bullshitting, roll with it please,” Becca whispered back.
Now a unified front, we turned back to FakeFinn. “Well?” I asked. “I demand rewards. Or at least a formal thank you.”
FakeFinn did not look convinced.
“You don’t want to be here, do you?” Becca stepped in. I was glad she’d noticed that about him too. “You’d be stuck hanging out with me and Cat forever, and based off how grumpy she’s been all week, I don’t think the two of you get along. She’s an acquired taste.”
I decided this was payback for me calli
ng her dumb and accepted it as such.
FakeFinn glanced at Tobias, but the fairy hadn’t uncrossed his arms and apparently had nothing else to say on the topic.
Finally, FakeFinn swore under his breath in a very un-Finn-like way and pushed his hand through his hair. “Fine. But I’ll need to talk to them first. So don’t get any of your hopes up.”
“Atta boy,” Tobias said in a condescending, scathing tone, like a pile of snow falling off a roof and dumping over one’s head. He uncrossed his hands long enough to twitch his fingers dismissively. “Goodbye.”
Apparently Tobias’ name held weight with the Court of the Golden Sun, because FakeFinn gave us a displeased frown but skedaddled anyway.
“I’ll drive you home,” Tobias said to me, ignoring Becca. He pulled open the car door and slid in.
I looked at Becca.
“I don’t like this plan,” I informed her. I grabbed her in a hug, ignoring the sheep head. “None of it. But if you don’t hear from me by 8, you’ll know Tobias or his moms got to me, and just let my parents know I didn’t suffer, ok?”
“You’ll be fine, and Imposter Finn will help us get close enough to the other court to grab Finn, I’m sure of it,” she muttered back at me, arms tight around my back. Quieter, she added, “anyway, Tobias saved us from his moms and I don’t think he was meant to do that. I think he likes you.”
I, She Who Never Blushes, became an unfortunate color of red and mumbled a goodbye, and waited until Becca was safely inside before I turned back to Tobias’ car.
Here’s the thing.
Tobias was clearly working for a pissed off fairy queen, he clearly didn’t give two hoots if I (or Becca) had a sheep head, his moms had wanted to eat me, he’d been born from a flower, and now he wanted me to get mixed up with the Court of the Golden Sun. He’d also purposely led me to believe after the Homecoming Dance that despite all that, he liked me.
I wasn’t convinced he did like me, but none of it mattered because I liked him and I’m stupid and think I can win over anyone, even when I’m, as Becca so kindly put it, an acquired taste.
I eyed Tobias through his windshield. He gave me a bland look in return.
Ugh, screw it.
I hopped into the passenger seat. “Why do you want me to go meet with the Court of the Golden Sun?” I asked, because this seemed like the most important of my many, many questions.
Tobias didn’t answer for a few seconds, instead backing the car out of the driveway and onto the street. When he did answer, his pale eyes were on the road, not me. “Would you be interested in making a deal with me?”
I stared at the side of his face.
“Well, a bet, more than a deal,” he amended with a small smile. I did not trust that smile. It looked like the smile the meteor gave the sun before it crashed into Earth and killed off all the dinosaurs. It was a smile that promised only trouble. I was naturally drawn to danger like a cat was drawn to a laser pointer and had to clear my throat and look away from him.
“You still haven’t told me what I stole from you,” I said, refusing to be pulled into his schemes. “Or how you’re going to make me pay for it.”
“The suspense it part of the punishment.” Cool as a cucumber, he repeated, “Willing to make another deal?”
I knew I should say no. Like, I KNEW I shouldn’t make another deal with him.
But the punishment for the last deal I’d broken had so far involved a lot of awkward flirting and promising threats, and as far as punishments went, I was by no means complaining. After all, I was sitting alone in a car with him, and just last week I wouldn’t have imagined such a thing would be possible.
“I’m probably wiser this time around,” I declared unconvincingly. “Tell me the terms of this deal. And what I get out of it.”
His lips almost twitched into a smile. Nearly. “This bet will be solely between yourself and myself. I will bet that I can free Finn Brooks from the Court of the Golden Sun before you can return Becca’s head to normal. If you succeed before I do, you can ask me three questions or wishes, and I’ll grant them.”
“And if you win?”
“I get to make the same number of demands on you,” he said. Before I could chew over what demands or questions he could possibly want to throw at me, he continued, “but either way, your friends are saved.”
“You’d really do that? Try to get Finn back? Normal Finn, not weird FakeFinn?“ I missed my buddy. Well, and the pesto sandwiches he’d always give me during lunch. I’d watched FakeFinn eat both of the pesto sandwiches his mom had packed for him yesterday without even offering to share with me.
“If you agree to the deal, yes.”
“And not like, transformed into a cactus, but actually him?”
To both our surprise, this startled a laugh out of Tobias. He had a beautiful laugh, one that reminded me of sunlight hitting icicles and spreading a glittering burst of light everywhere. Something fleeting but infinitely magical.
“As himself,” Tobias confirmed, clamping down on that laugh and carrying on as if it’d never happened. “So, do we have a deal?”
I held up my hands. “Hold up a hot second. Is there a timeframe for this?”
“The winner will be decided when either Finn is freed from the Court of the Golden Sun, or Becca’s head is restored. At which point it will be concluded.”
I mulled over this. He was right, it was a win-win for me. Even if I lost, I’d at least have Finn back. I scratched my chin. “But what’s in it for you?”
He smirked. “I am not willing to let you go to the Court of the Golden Sun without a representative from my court.” After he came to a stop at a light he added, “plus, I am competitive and enjoy a challenge.” The look he gave me suggested he also enjoyed making me uncomfortable. “Do we have a deal?”
I could practically hear a choir of angels behind me shouting “DON’T DO IT, CATHERINE WADELL. DON’T DO IT.”
Eh, screw the angels. I stuck out my hand and grabbed his when he let go of the steering wheel. I gave it a hearty shake. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
A Nighttime Drive
Exactly three hours and fifteen minutes later, a large oak leaf fell out of midair and weighed down by a hefty acorn, smack landed on my face.
I rubbed the spot on my cheek where the acorn had struck me and stared at the empty space above my bed from which the leaf had appeared. I flipped over the leaf.
On the other side were the words “To the Mortal Entrance of the Court of the Golden Sun” and underneath an address written in loopy golden letters that caught and held the light like a jewel.
“Why do you have a leaf?” Meg wondered, walking past me with a towel wrapped around her hair. She sat down at her vanity (it doubled as my desk) and started patting her face with the contents from one of her many bottles.
I lowered it so the glittery address was out of sight. “I’m collecting leaves now,” I decided. “It’s my new thing.”
“You do you,” Meg replied equably.
I turned over and grabbed my phone. I still didn’t have FakeFinn’s number or Tobias’ (which was weird, why hadn’t he given me his number? Did high ranking fairies not use cellphones or did they just drop leaves on people when they had a message to send??) only to remember it was drowned from my adventure in a pool. I discreetly reached across the floor with one foot and slid Meg’s over to me while her back was turned. I texted Becca. “This is Catto. Got a leaf from the Golden Sun. Has an address? Want2 investigate???”