Freya Snow Pup Trilogy

by L. C. Mawson

  “I...” Freya stopped herself before she admitted that she’d blocked her, remembering that she could simply unblock her as soon as they said goodbye. “Okay then. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Jamie said before heading off.

  Freya quickly unblocked her before heading back to the swings, sitting down and focusing her magic to try and sense the same signature that had been surrounding Margaret.

  After just a moment, though, Amber appeared at her side.

  “You’re tired,” she said simply.

  Freya shrugged. “What’s your point?”

  “You can pick this up tomorrow. I think you should do as you told Jamie you would. Call Damon and stay at his tonight.”

  Freya sighed. “I don’t want to bother him.”

  “We both know that he won’t mind. You need to sleep, Freya. You’re still recovering from your fight the other night.”

  Freya frowned as her ribs twinged at the reminder. They were still being held together by magic, which was a pretty constant drain for her.

  “Fine,” she eventually conceded. “But only because I’m injured.”

  She brought her phone out and rang Damon. She was sure that he wouldn’t pick up, given the time, but he did on the second ring.

  “Hey,” he greeted. “What’s up?”

  “I... I had a fight with Margaret,” she admitted.

  “You did? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I just... I stormed out. Would-”

  “You can stay here,” he said before she even had a chance to ask. “Where are you? I’ll come with my uncle to pick you up.”

  “I’m at the park,” she said after just a moment of hesitation.

  “We’ll be there in five.”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, Damon’s uncle’s car pulled up to the park and Damon opened the back door to let her in.

  “Thanks for this,” she said sheepishly as she entered. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “It’s nothing,” Gregor told her from the driver’s seat, waving his hand dismissively as he started driving back to Damon’s.

  “Are you okay?” Damon asked her.

  Freya nodded. “Yeah. It was nothing. I just freaked out and I think we both need some time to cool down.”

  To her surprise, Damon moved his hand up to her cheek. He touched it gently, causing her to hiss as she realised that Margaret’s nails must have drawn blood when she had slapped her. She had a glamour up to cover her battle injuries, which she supposed must have stopped Jamie from seeing it.

  “How did you get this?” he asked gently.

  She shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

  Damon didn’t say anything for a few moments, just regarding her carefully before eventually saying, “Yeah, I’ve had a whole lot of nothing in the past too.”

  Freya suddenly became very aware of Gregor in the driver’s seat, listening to them. She pulled her coat tight around herself.

  “I’m really tired,” she told Damon, hoping that he would drop the subject.

  He nodded. “We’ll be home soon,” he promised.

  FREYA WAS THANKFUL that neither Damon nor Gregor asked her any more questions about what had happened, even once they arrived at the apartment.

  “Freya’s staying over tonight,” Gregor told Charlie, his boyfriend, as soon as they arrived.

  Charlie, a slim, freckled redhead, simply nodded. “Do you want anything to drink? How about some calming tea? I think we’ve got some.”

  Freya nodded as Damon hurried to his room, bringing her back a pair of shorts and t-shirt.

  “Here,” he said. “You can sleep in these tonight.”

  “Thank you,” Freya said simply, taking the clothes to the bathroom and quickly getting changed.

  When she returned, Damon was in his own pyjamas, sitting on the sofa with a pile of blankets. Two cups of dark green tea were sitting on the coffee table.

  “Uncle Gregor and Charlie have gone to bed,” Damon told her. “I thought we could watch a film for a while, if you wanted. I’m not really tired.”

  Freya nodded, settling in next to him. She didn’t want to go to sleep just yet. She didn’t think that she could. Not with her mind buzzing with everything that had happened during the day, her wounds from her fight with the hybrid still stinging.

  “Thank you,” Freya muttered into the blankets as she snuggled into them.

  Damon turned to face her, causing her to blush a little at his proximity.

  “Freya, you are always welcome here. I mean it. If you ever need somewhere, I’m here for you.”

  Freya tried not to cry at that. She was just so tired and sore and she was just done. The whole day had been too much for her.

  She leaned over, picking up the remote and sticking on Power Rangers in an effort to distract herself.

  Chapter Six

  Freya woke up to the smell of pancakes, cringing as her ribs objected to how fast she tried to sit up.

  In fact, everything protested, making her realise that she had slept awkwardly, entangled in a pile made up of equal parts blanket and Damon, the screen in front of her complaining that playback had timed out.

  “Freya?” Damon asked as he woke up.

  “Yeah?” she replied.

  “Did we fall asleep watching telly?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay,” she figured. “I guess we were both just really tired.”

  “We had the spare room made up and everything,” Damon said, looking a little disappointed.

  Freya found herself laughing a little that, though a little disappointment crept into her heart as she realised that he’d had pretty much no reaction to their rather intimate situation. She, on the other hand, was blushing like an idiot. Though she supposed the blushing was probably the least of her problems. She considered it unlikely that Damon would let go what had happened the day before now that she was awake and ready to talk. Or, at least, he would assume she was ready. She could probably drag this out by feigning distress, but it would probably only make him even more concerned. The last thing she needed was for this to go on for days, or even weeks, with Damon thinking that Margaret was an abusive caretaker.

  Her mind immediately started combing through all the magic she knew, trying to find some way that she could erase the events of the night before from Damon and Gregor’s memory. And Charlie’s too, she supposed. She stopped herself halfway through recalling something Mel had mentioned about weaving a complicated deception through a Human’s mind. She hated having to use magic on people close to her. She was used to the lying, she had done more than enough of it before her magic had shown up, but it wasn’t about being used to it. She had learnt to do it all too often over the years - “I love trying new things and changing my routine!” and “Of course spending my free time in a noisy room crowded full of strangers sounds like a brilliant idea!” were two of the most common - but lying about magic as well was just one lie too many. The proverbial straw that Freya would rather not deal with.

  No, this was just something she would have to convince Damon of without magic. It was probably for the best anyway. The more complex the magic, the more difficult it was to have Sensitives accept it.

  “You kids up?” Damon’s uncle asked as he entered the room. “Charlie made pancakes.”

  “Pancakes!” Damon yelled in a funny voice.

  Gregor raised an eyebrow at him while Freya couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Pancakes,” Damon said, as if it was an explanation, with a shrug.

  “And we wonder why your aunt is worried about you staying here.”

  “Aunt Seph just doesn’t have your great sense of humour.”

  “Uh-huh,” Gregor said, narrowing his eyes. “Regardless, there are pancakes in the kitchen.”

  Damon turned back to Freya as his uncle left the room. “Pancakes?”

  “Pancakes sound amazing,” Freya said, her stomach growling in agreement.
<
br />   Damon got up from the sofa, playfully tumbling out of his tangle of blankets, earning him another laugh from Freya. She realised, at that point, that he was doing it deliberately. He was making a fool of himself in a deliberate effort to cheer her up. If she thought she had been blushing before, it was nothing compared to what that realisation brought. She both hated and loved the gooey feeling in her stomach, wishing that things could just be simple between them. Wishing that either she didn’t feel this way, or that he loved her back. Or, she supposed, loved her back and that she had some kind of reassurance that he would understand the fact that she wasn’t Human.

  She shook the idle fancies from her mind as she followed him to the kitchen. They would do her no good and she had to be careful; getting out of this without anyone calling the authorities on Margaret was going to take some expert lying.

  “Are you feeling any better this morning?” Charlie asked her as he plated up some pancakes and placed them in front of her.

  Freya nodded. “Thank you. For giving me a place to stay last night. I know I must seem like some foolish young girl to have run away from home like that.”

  Charlie looked at her sympathetically while Gregor laughed.

  “I don’t think any of us can say that we never did the same at your age,” Gregor told her.

  “This isn’t about...” Charlie started and Freya shook her head, realising what he was suggesting.

  When Freya had first started to figure out that she might be bisexual, Damon had been the only one she had felt comfortable talking to. She had even been reluctant to talk to Amber, given how long ago she had died. After a while, it had just sort of become common knowledge around Damon’s place, which wasn’t really that surprising, given how much time she spent there. She still hadn’t had the talk with Margaret or Ryan, though. She just didn’t see the point. Let that be a problem when she actually had a girlfriend to bring home. It wasn’t her permanent home and there was no use causing trouble over which of the Avengers she fancied.

  Charlie and Gregor had differing opinions about this. Charlie thought that she would probably feel better with it all out in the open, no matter the consequences. Gregor thought he was taking optimism a little too far. But at the end of the day, they both agreed that this was Freya’s decision, not theirs. For Freya, it was much like the fact that she was pretty sure that she was Autistic; lying by omission didn’t kill anyone, and it greatly reduced the amount of crap she had to put up with.

  “No,” Freya eventually said. “It was just a misunderstanding. She’d had a little to drink, I was tired and overly defensive, and we both said some things that we probably regret now. I know I do.”

  “So... You think everything will be okay if you go back today?” Gregor asked.

  “Should be,” Freya said.

  “You shouldn’t go right away,” Damon said, Freya barely understanding his speech through a mouthful of pancakes. “Let her sleep off the drink.”

  “The kid’s got a point,” Gregor said. “If you go back while she’s hung over, you’ll probably only make things worse.”

  “Unless her worrying about where you are only makes her angrier,” Charlie pointed out.

  “I could text and tell her I’m here,” Freya figured. “If she wants me home now, she’ll tell me, but hopefully I won’t accidentally wake her up with just a text.”

  “Good plan,” Gregor said as he started in on his own pancakes.

  Freya quickly sent the text before turning back to Damon. “So, have you heard any more about Bethany? Or Anya?”

  Damon shrugged. “Only a little. Nothing all that interesting, though.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I do wonder...”

  “What?” Freya asked.

  “It’s silly, but... I was wondering, if they were following fairy tales - which, obviously they’re not, because that would be ridiculous - but, if they were, I wonder which version they would be following. You did say there were different versions, right?”

  Freya nodded, doing a poor job of concealing a smile. This was exactly what she needed to be doing, and now she wouldn’t have to lie to Damon about it, or wait until she left.

  “Well,” she said as soon as she had her smile under control, “that’s what the Internet is for.”

  IT WAS ALMOST LUNCH when Freya’s phone finally rang. She and Damon were in the middle of watching a film, while looking up fairy tales on his laptop. The research hadn’t been easy, given that every time the story was retold, parts of it changed, and the specifics of most retellings were under copyright. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of forking over money to find out how each of the many children’s publishers varied in their tellings, not to mention all the animated films. While Barbie as Rapunzel would probably be a fun nostalgia trip for her, she didn’t imagine Damon would manage to sit through it.

  Freya stopped holding her breath as she realised that it was Mel, not Margaret, ringing her.

  “Hey,” Freya answered, almost laughing with relief.

  “Hey,” Mel greeted. “Have you seen the news?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Apparently some kind of plant has overgrown all around the hospital. It’s starting to freak people out. My Coven Head wants to investigate, and I was wondering if you wanted to help. You’ll be compensated, of course.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be there in five.”

  Freya hung up before turning back to Damon.

  “That Margaret?” he asked.

  “No, it was Mel. I forgot that I’d arranged to meet her today.”

  “Do you need a lift or anything?”

  “No, I’m good,” Freya said as she made sure that she had everything she needed in her bag. “And I can head back home as soon as Margaret replies.”

  “And are you... Okay with doing that? When she calls, I mean. Will you be okay to just... go back?”

  Freya shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though. Like I said, it was a one-time thing.”

  Damon narrowed his eyes folding his arms over his chest. If it had been anyone else, she would have suspected that she was in for a lecture.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s not your job to defend her, Freya.”

  Freya did her best to stop herself from sighing. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. If not for the magic, Damon would have been in the right, and she loved him for the fact that he actually cared about her. But there was magic at play here, and she couldn’t hold Margaret responsible for something that she had undoubtedly done herself.

  “I know,” Freya told him earnestly. “Look, Damon, I don’t have an aunt and uncle that I can turn to. If things don’t work out here, then I’m out of the city. If I go back and Margaret hasn’t gotten over our fight, then I’ll start considering it a problem.”

  “Freya... I meant what I said last night, about you always been welcome here. You have somewhere to turn. Please don’t ever think that you’re alone.”

  Freya didn’t really have a response for that, her throat closing up on her. After a few moments, she managed to muster a “thank you” before hugging him tight.

  “I... I better go,” she said hurriedly before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.

  FREYA SHIFTED OVER to the hospital, glad that it wasn’t too far. As soon as she arrived, she saw that it was covered in brambles, blocking all of the doors and windows.

  “Well, this looks familiar,” Freya quipped as she found Mel. It took her a few more moments than it should have, especially given that she was the only one in a wheelchair, thanks to the fact that her scales had been replaced with the illusion of pale, freckled skin.

  Mel raised an eyebrow, lifting her head from the large tome she had been reading, the words written in a script Freya didn’t recognise.

  “Really?” she asked. “I can’t find reference to anything like this.”

  “As far as I can tell, there’s a curse going around. It’s affected a few peopl
e I know, forcing them to live out fairy tales.”

  Mel frowned at the building for a moment before a look of understanding dawned across her features. “This is Sleeping Beauty, right?”

  Freya nodded. “A girl from my school, Anya, pricked her finger on a needle a couple of days ago. She fell asleep and hasn’t woken up since.”

  Mel sighed. “And, of course, she was brought to the hospital. That might also explain why no one has tried to get out. Everyone else was put under a sleeping curse too in the story, weren’t they?”

  “In the Grimm version, yeah.”

  Mel raised an eyebrow.

  “I spent the morning doing research,” Freya explained. “There’s this Sleeping Beauty, a Cinderella, and another one I haven’t been able to figure out yet.”

  Mel frowned. “A curse like that would take some extraordinary power. Even to change the circumstances around one person wouldn’t be trivial. If they were going so far as to mess with free will, especially for longer than a few minutes...”

  “I’m getting the feeling that the tl;dr here is that this is very bad.”

  Mel nodded. “Oh yeah. Like, a large amount of Demons banded together. Slightly fewer if they have access to Ancient power.”

  “Ancient power?”

  “You know, like Angels and stuff.”

  “I thought there weren’t any more Angels on Earth.”

  “Well, no more can be born on Earth. But bar interference, they’re pretty much immortal, so the ones from before the Twilight prevented any more from being born are still around.”

  “And you think they could be involved?”

  “Well, no. The only Angels lingering are Reapers, who are too busy ferrying souls to bother with our affairs, and Oracles, who would never go against Fate’s plan.”

  “What if this is Fate’s plan?”

  Mel shook her head. “Nah. Fate’s got more subtlety than this. You can never trace her work back to her Oracles.”

  “And there are definitely no other Angels?”

  “The Twilight was the last Angel of Life and Mother Nature hasn’t had any daughters since the Fifth Alternate Timeline, and who can blame her after that mess?”