She grinned from ear-to-ear, looking me over. “You know how we are.”
Merna was a witch. My entire childhood the only picture I had of witches were that they were wicked, evil creatures who did nothing but cause death and destruction. After all, I had watched one kill my father and afterward it had tried to kill me. But Merna wasn’t like that at all. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She was living proof that good witches existed. While I wanted to hate all witches, I couldn’t because of her.
I stood back to take another good look at her, still not believing that she was really there. “It’s been almost two hundred years. Where have you been all this time.”
Merna took my hands in hers. “I lived in Eirwen until the fall of the great kingdoms. Then like many, I moved away when things got bad. Trust me though, I spent a lifetime searching for you and I was certain we would meet again. You are still so, so beautiful.”
We didn’t talk as she ran her fingers over my face like she was trying to memorize everything about it. “I’ve missed you so much. Tell me everything. How has your life been all this time? What have you been up to?”
We took a seat at small wooden table in the children’s section. “Since I left the palace I did what I had to do to survive, to change with the times. Lots of different odd jobs here and there. My resume is literally a mile long.”
Merna chuckled and patted my hand.
“This life is pretty good. I love my job here in the book store and I hope I can keep it for a while. I have a great boyfriend, Brayden. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me since you, Merna. He’s amazing. He’s so kind and patient. He puts up with all my faults and he still loves me. Brayden is just a pure, good-hearted person.”
Merna grinned. “That’s wonderful, dear. I’m so glad you have someone to share your life with.”
I nodded. “I also have two friends, Jade and Keelie who are a lot of fun. Merna, what have you been doing all this time?”
Her smile tightened. “There’s been . . . a lot going on in the witch world. I’ve been busy with that but that’s nothing to concern yourself about, dear. You have enough troubles of your own.”
A knot rose in my throat. “Did they ever find out what happened to Snow?”
Merna shook her head. “No, but I do know that she’s alive and well. She’s managed to stay well-hidden from the queen and the other witches of the Crimson Coven. She was raised well. The girl’s resourceful.”
I couldn’t help but agree with that. When we played hide-and-go-seek as children Snow always found the best hiding places. Sometimes it would take me an hour to find her. Most times I’d only find her because she’d fallen asleep and her snoring would give her away.
“Good for her. I’m glad she’s okay.” I wondered if she was like me. If her curse had been the same and if she still looked young like I did.
“Merna, something bad happened. Queen Angeline came to me the other night.” I was so glad she was here and she couldn’t have come at a better time. Merna always gave me the best advice.
She paled slightly but she didn’t look surprised. “She did. What happened?”
“She told me the only way to break my curse was to complete a task. To kill a girl named Scarlett and bring the queen her heart.”
Merna took a deep breath. “Ella, you are going to have to cross a line that can never be uncrossed.”
“Merna, of course I’m not going to do it. I can’t kill anyone. But how am I just supposed to accept living with this curse? You’re a witch. Can’t you break it?”
She took a deep breath and rose to her feet. “Ella, none of us have been dealt a fair hand in this life. I didn’t ask to be born from a witch and to have a sisterhood of wicked vixens I can’t help but call family. But I deal with it. You didn’t ask to be cursed, but you should deal with it the best you can.”
“So, you want me to just accept this? Merna, that’s not fair. I’ve been through enough as it is. I’ve watched my parents die. I slaved for years in that godforsaken palace only to be thrown out. I’ve had my skin literally burned from my bones all because I wanted to try on a pair of earrings and now I must wander aimlessly through this life year after year with no ending in sight. That’s no way to live.
“I want to be with Brayden forever. I want to grow old with him. I want my feet to be healed. I don’t want to have to spend my life coming up with excuses for why I have to wear boots all the time.”
Merna sat back down. “Fine. I know this life hasn’t been easy for you at all. I can’t break your curse. One witch trying to break a curse that’s been set by five—it’s just not possible, Ella. If I could have broken it, I would have a long time ago.”
“You’re telling me my only option is to kill a girl? I can’t do that.”
She looked relieved. “That’s what I thought. I knew you would never be able to do it. Anyway, I probably shouldn’t stay too long. She’ll know that I’ve been here.”
I followed Merna to the door. “Where . . . where would I find this Scarlett, you know, if I wanted to?”
Her shoulders slumped, a sure sign that she was disappointed in me. I hated when she felt that way, but I also needed to keep my options open.
“It’s my choice really. I get to decide rather I want to break my curse or not.”
Merna swallowed hard. “Scarlett lives with her grandmother in a cabin in the woods.”
“A cabin where?”
“California. A place named Covington Cove. It’s a more rural area.”
“Thank you.”
Merna moved toward the door again.
“Wait, Merna. She lives with her grandmother? How is her grandmother still alive?” We were all cursed at the same time and that would mean Scarlett has been around as long as I have.
Merna gripped the door handle, squeezing it tight. “Scarlett and her grandmother are not what you think they are. If you think defeating Scarlett would be some easy feat, you are sorely mistaken. Trust me when I tell you it’s best you stay away from them.”
“What do you mean they’re not what I think they are?”
She shook her head. “Just stay away, Ella. I mean it.”
Before I could even say goodbye, she passed through the door and vanished.
17
After a whirlwind of a day I was expecting to spend a quiet relaxing night with Brayden, even though I couldn’t share with him anything that had happened that night. Unfortunately, things got even worse.
I walked in to find our small bed piled with giant gift boxes. For a split second, I thought Brayden had surprised me with a bunch of gifts for no reason, but then I remembered we didn’t have that kind of money to spend frivolously and Brayden would never shop at any of the places where the boxes were from—Tiffany’s, Jimmy Choo, Gucci.
“Where did these come from?”
Brayden sat at his desk hunched over his laptop. He slammed it shut. “That’s what I want to know. The apartment manager brought them up not too long ago. He said they were delivered this afternoon. My guess would be Mr. Moneybags who you were cozying up with in the club.”
“Bray, that’s ridiculous. First of all, we weren’t cozying up and second of all, how would he even know where I live? I barely talked to the guy for five minutes.”
“I’m sure your friends helped him out with that.”
Brayden turned around and went back to work. I wasn’t sure what to do. One part of me wanted to throw the gifts out and another part was dying to know what was inside those fancy boxes. If they were gifts for me, why shouldn’t I open them?
Downplaying my excitement, I hurried over to the boxes and opened the first one slowly.
Each of the boxes had a tag that read To Ella from your Fairy Godmother. There was a box from Tiffany’s containing a necklace, bracelet, and a pair of earrings. A nice leather jacket from Chanel. A pair of Ugg books. A couple of pairs of jeans from True Religion. Three pairs of Fendi boots. There was one box at the bottom of the p
ile from a store I didn’t recognize. The box was completely silver. The tag on it read To Cinderella and nothing else.
“Cinderella?” Brayden asked. I hadn’t realized he was standing beside me. “Like Cinderella, Cinderella?”
My stomach twisted in a tight knot. These gifts had to be from someone who knew me—as in knew who I really was.
“Open it,” Brayden urged, but the truth was, I didn’t want to know what was inside. Carefully, I opened the box. Inside was a white silk pillow and on top of the silk pillow was a beautiful pair of clear glass slippers. The same ones the queen had given me to kill Snow. I had no desire to have those shoes in my possession.
Brayden swore under his breath.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t you get it? Someone is playing a cruel joke on you. Calling you Cinderella? Sending you glass slippers?”
Even though I knew who the shoes were from, I had to play along. “But who would do something like that?”
Brayden rolled his eyes. “I’ll give you one guess.”
I knew where he was going. “Jade and Keelie would never.” My friends might have a mean streak, but I knew for certain this was not their handiwork.
“I have to finish this tonight,” Brayden said, turning his back on me and heading back to his desk. It was then that I noticed a white note card blending in with the satin pillow. Slowly I lifted the note and read it to myself.
Put these on the girl called Red
Remove her heart once she is dead.
Bring me the gift to lift your curse
Fail, your fate will be much worse
I crumpled the note and shoved it in my pocket. After shoving the gifts back in their boxes and stashing them in our tiny closet, I took a shower, ate a cup of noodles, and then crawled into bed. I didn’t sleep one wink that entire night. Witches, curses, and mysterious girls were racing through my mind.
Time went on and I tried my hardest to forget about glass slippers and girls named Scarlett.
Brayden and I were in a great spot. He was getting lots of freelance work and making progress with his own books. Things were going great at the bookstore and I was still having fun hanging out with Jade and Keelie.
Suddenly, something changed and my life became one huge train wreck. One night at almost 1 AM, I got a call from Lionel. I’d never heard him so angry and frantic. He was shouting about Bookington’s being on fire. The fire had been classified as arson and the book store was closed until it could be repaired. The strange thing was that the fire had been started with a furnace and a pile of straw. Everyone was at a loss as to how a furnace and straw had ended up in the store in the first place. Of course, the surveillance equipment had been conveniently destroyed in the fire. It was a mystery to everyone else, but I knew it was the queen up to her old tricks. She wanted to ruin my life and remind me of my days in the furnace room.
I spent my days applying for jobs at as many places as I could. Jade and Keelie were generous enough to give me money when I needed it without expecting me to pay it back, although I was careful never to let Brayden know where the money came from. One day, just as I was on my way to a job interview for a data entry clerk, I opened the door to Queen Angeline standing in the hallway.
Before I could do anything, she shoved me back inside, slamming the door behind her. She pushed me again, sending me flailing onto the bed. She towered over me. “What the hell have you been doing all this time?”
“What?”
“What have you been doing?”
I shrugged. “Just living my life.”
The queen pursed her lips. “Yes, that’s the problem. You’ve been living your life, playing with your little friends and acting like you don’t have a task to complete.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to kill anyone.”
The queen yanked me up by the front of my shirt. “No. I let you get away with that before. Don’t you understand that if you had taken care of Snow, we wouldn’t even be going through this? We all have to do things we don’t want to do. You think I wanted to marry that idiot king and put up with his asinine daughter all those years? Of course not. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten to rule Eirwen. I wouldn’t be queen.”
I attempted to pry her fingers from my shirt, but they wouldn’t budge.
“Don’t you mean, wouldn’t have been. I mean, since Eirwen doesn’t exist anymore, you’re technically the queen of nothing.”
She clutched my shirt tighter, this time digging her nails into my chest. It hurt like hell, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of flinching.
“These are your options, Cinderella. You can either take care of Scarlett or I will take care of someone near and dear to you.”
She flicked her fingers toward a strip of black and white photos of me and Brayden that we’d taken in a photo booth, hanging from the wall and my heart dropped. “Leave him alone. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
She grabbed my throat, digging her nails into my skin. “You love him, so he has everything to do with this. You will get Scarlett to put on those cursed shoes, or the boy dies. He’s kind of handsome. It would be such a waste. However, these are your options. You will deliver her heart to me, or I’ll eat his instead. The choice is yours. By the way, tell dear Merna I said hello.”
With that, she vanished, leaving me shivering. I was so worried about the threat to Brayden’s life and the impossible task the queen had required of me, I didn’t make the job interview.
When Brayden came home later that evening, I was in bed, huddled under the covers like a frightened child.
Brayden set a pizza box on the table. “A customer cancelled an order so I got to bring it home. Hungry? It’s sausage, your favorite.”
The pizza smelled delicious but the last thing I wanted to do was eat. I sat up and covered my knees with the blanket. Brayden took one look at my tear-stained face and seconds later he was at my side. “What’s wrong, baby? You didn’t get the job?”
I wished the issue was that small. My problems were so much bigger than landing some entry-level job. Brayden was my best friend and I couldn’t even share with him the most important parts of my life—even the dangerous parts that put his life in peril.
I shook my head. “I didn’t make the interview.”
Brayden furrowed his brow. “What? What happened? You said it sounded like the perfect job.”
“It did.”
“So why didn’t you go?”
I couldn’t look him in the face and lie to him. It was one of the worst feelings in the world. “I decided to take a nap and I woke up too late.”
Brayden sighed. “El, I can carry us for a couple of weeks, but if you don’t find a job I don’t know if we can make rent next month.”
Guilt squeezed my insides. “I’m sorry. I’ll find something this week. I promise.”
Brayden touched my chin and lifted it to so I had no choice but to look him in the eye. There was no way I could lie when I did that and he knew it. “Tell me the truth. It’s not like you to sleep through a job interview. What really happened?”
I shook my head and said nothing so I wouldn’t have to lie.
Brayden shoulders drooped in frustration. “What are you hiding from me? It’s something, I know it. Ella, I love you to death but do you realize how little I know about you and your past and your life? All I know about your family is that your parents are dead and you don’t have anyone else, like me.”
Well, that was true. Brayden had grown up in foster care because his mother had taken off when he was six. He had a father who had gotten in contact with him for the first time about five years before, but they only communicated once every blue moon. All we had was each other.
“What’s there to tell?”
His eyes darted back and forth, meaning his mind was working overtime. “Everything. I know you’re from Oklahoma, but I don’t know anything more than that. You’ve never told me anything abou
t your childhood or what school was like for you. I tell you things like that all the time. El, even if horrible things happened to you in your past, you can tell me about it.”
I was tempted to tell him everything but I pressed my lips together instead to keep my secrets inside.
Brayden grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “What’s really bothering you? I know you and you’re not acting normal. Something’s going on. Do you know that you talk in your sleep?”
I did? What the hell did I say? “What do you mean?”
“You talk about snow and a palace and a wicked queen.”
The last thing I needed was him thinking I was crazy. “Oh. I shouldn’t do so much reading before I go to bed maybe.”
Brayden wasn’t buying it. “Ella, tell me. I promise you can tell me anything.”
I took a deep breath and opened the floodgates. I’d tell him as much as I could, but not everything. “Everything I told you about my parents is true. My mother died from an illness when I was a toddler and my father was murdered.”
“You never told me how your father was murdered. I understand it’s something you wouldn’t want to talk about but . . .”
“That’s why I don’t talk about my childhood. My father was murdered by a woman when I was five. That woman, she was never caught, but she’s contacted me. She’s been threatening me. Those gifts that came the other day were from her.”
Brayden jumped up so fast that it startled me. “What? El, why didn’t you say something? We need to call the police.”
I tugged on his sleeve. “No! Bray, please, that’ll just make everything worse. Let me handle this. There’s nothing the police can do.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing they can do? The woman who killed your father is roaming free and now she’s threatening you? I’m not going to let her hurt you, Ella. She needs to be locked up.”
I grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “Brayden, please. This is why I didn’t want to tell you anything about this. I knew how you would react. The police can’t help me. They’ll never be able to find her. I have to handle this on my own.”
Forever Ella: The Everly Girls Book 2 Page 10