“Hey, bucket head, you hungry?” she asked, knowing full well that he could get whatever he wanted from the fridge himself. But she liked talking to him, taking care of him.
Charlie shook his plastic-covered head and continued to scrutinize his boards before rolling to the other side of the board and picking up another character.
“Suit yourself. I’m going up where it’s cooler.”
Charlie bobbed his head up at Mina, and his little hand waved at her.
She peeled herself off the living room chair and moved to her room, where she tiptoed over her piles of clothes on the floor and headed for the open window. She clambered over the ledge onto the fire escape and climbed up to her rooftop retreat. It wasn’t any cooler on the rooftop, but at least she got a slight breeze. Sweat still trickled on her brow, and she wiped it off with the sleeve of her blue T-shirt. She sat on one of her broken lawn chairs and surveyed the garden of mostly fake plants, a few live ones, and a smattering of eclectic decorations consisting of pink flamingoes, Christmas lights, and a shelf with two gnomes that she had collected at the end of the school year, Sir Nomer and Nomita.
It was the first time in months she had ventured to the rooftop, and she was surprised the rosebush was still blooming. She’d been avoiding the roof ever since her confrontation with Teague, when she had declared that she knew who he was and that killing him would end the curse on her family. He continued to harass her the whole summer, pushing fairy-tale quests her way, but she did something she’d never thought she would do. She ignored them.
She decided to try to take control of her situation…by doing absolutely nothing. Instead of Teague having all the power and making her jump through his hoops of fairy-tale quests, she went purposefully out of her way to avoid them. And it was relatively easy, if she knew what to look for. For example, one day their family was going to the mall, and she felt the beginnings of power stir up around her. A tingling sensation began in her hands and shot up her arms, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. Mina quickly surveyed the situation and saw the ravens, all seven of them, standing in an odd row along the sidewalk.
She knew it was another test, and instead of being manipulated into a confrontation in front of her family, she exclaimed loudly that they would find better deals at the neighboring outlet mall. Her family got back in the car and left. One after another, she had avoided his manipulations. A Rapunzel quest was avoided by her cutting her hair every day for two weeks. A trip to the zoo turned almost into a disaster when the bears began to talk to her and tell her how yummy they thought she looked; Mina decided that the monkey exhibit would be more entertaining.
On and on her summer went, and she was beginning to enjoy her freedom and the fact that she was, for once in her life, gaining the upper hand, except she was a bit lonely.
Nan had gone off to drama camp and Brody was traveling abroad with his parents, which left Mina alone. Sure, Jared was around, but since she was refusing to attack any fairy-tale business, he seemed to be off enjoying his freedom. He kept checking in on her and would look at her strangely whenever she avoided an obvious quest trigger, but he never pressed her to action. He seemed more relieved than ever at her course of inaction. Plus, he was spending a lot more time with his Fae friend, Ever.
Mina bit back a hint of jealousy and snapped herself out of it real quick. It was thoughts like that which led to trouble, and in her case, the Story had used or spurred on her jealousy to turn her into the evil queen in the Snow White tale. Since then, she’d learned and grown, and had gotten her emotions and power under control.
But that was weeks ago, and Mina knew the Faes’ sense of time on the Fae plane was different than on the human one, so it could be any day a gate would open up and a whole army of Reapers could come across, gunning for her—or it could stay closed for years, and she would grow old. Then what? The curse still existed and would pass on to her mute brother or her own children.
No, it would have to end with her. She would eventually have to find a way to destroy the Story. But every time she said those words, she would have to remind herself that the Story was a living, breathing person, and could she bring herself to kill him?
There had to be another answer, another way. She was going to have to stop the Fae and close the gates to their world, and if there wasn’t a way to do that, she would have to kill Teague. But what would Jared say? What would he do if she killed his brother?
Music drifted up from the Italian restaurant down the street, and Mina sighed loudly. She would have to make a decision, and soon. Time was running out; summer was almost over, and she felt it in her bones that Teague was going to strike, and strike soon. But when?
She lay back in the lawn chair and closed her eyes, wishing for a sign, for a cool breeze or even rain. The humidity in the air was killing her. She began praying for rain, a hailstorm, even a blizzard, because every second she was getting hotter and hotter.
Maybe she should go back inside. The intense heat on the roof was creating a weird burning-tar smell that made her nose sting. Mina sat up and looked around frantically, sniffing the air and looking at the steam vents across the roof. Black smoke billowed out of them. It wasn’t just getting hotter. The building was on fire!
She rushed toward the ledge and looked down at the street below. Their apartment was above the Golden Palace Chinese restaurant, and sure enough, there down below, the Wongs were evacuating guests from their restaurant and out into the street. People began to gather and point up in the air…until Mina realized they were pointing at her on the roof.
Mom! Mina mentally screamed, then recalled she was at work before she remembered Charlie.
“Oh, heaven help me!” Mina cried out to no one in particular as she ran across the rooftop to the fire escape to climb down. Why didn’t she hear a fire alarm? She knew the building had one; even her room had one, because she often stared at the red light in the dark when she couldn’t sleep.
Black smoke billowed out of Mina’s open bedroom window and rose in plumes into the sky. Grabbing the collar of her shirt, she pulled it over her mouth and nose, and ducked into her bedroom. Her door was shut, and Mina carefully felt the door for heat before opening it and rushing into the hall.
“Charlie!” Mina screamed as she raced into the living room. Flames were running up the walls and creeping along the ceiling. His board game was still lying on the floor, the Candy Land pieces scattered everywhere. Tears stung her eyes as she scanned the area for his small form in case he was hiding. She went to his room and found his bed empty. His room didn’t have a closet, since it was considered a closet on its own, and she quickly checked under his bed. Nothing!
“Charlie, where are you? Make a noise, hit something if you can hear me!” She was crying now as her heart began to race in fear. Mina ran into her mother’s room and cried out when she saw it was as empty as the rest of the house. They didn’t own much furniture; there weren’t that many places to hide in their small apartment.
Please, oh, please let him have gotten out, she thought. Her only hope now would be that he had run out the door at the first signs of fire. Now the smoke was thicker, and Mina had to crawl along the floor. She tried to head out the front door, but when she opened it, fire filled the landing. Slamming the door, Mina rushed back to her bedroom. The fire hadn’t yet reached there yet, but it would soon.
Her hands shook as she flung items off her desk, looking for the key. It had been weeks since she’d locked up the Grimoire, and now she couldn’t remember where she had put the key. A loud, piercing shriek erupted close by, making her jump. The shriek came again, this time closer. It sounded like a siren, so she assumed it had to be the fire department.
If Mina was someone who swore, she would have been swearing up a storm at the moment, but instead she tried to think level-headedly for a sixteen-year-old. But in the face of being burned alive, that didn’t happen.
She gave up searching for the key and took an aluminum baseball bat that she kept in her room for protection against surprise fairy-tale attacks and began to swing at her desk. It wasn’t a sturdy desk, and now that she thought about it, it probably wasn’t the best place to store the Grimoire, since after a few hits to the underside of the drawer it came loose. She grabbed the small book and headed for the fire escape.
Normally, she would take the ladder up to the roof, but now she had to get the ladder to release and go down. It was stuck. She tried kicking it and jumping on it, but it only slid down a few feet. It would have to do. She turned and had started to climb down the rungs when she thought she heard someone call her name.
“Charlie?” She looked up and could have sworn she saw someone walking around up on the roof. The heat was getting intense, and the smoke made her cough. Even knowing it was highly impossible, she felt she had to check. Could she have missed him, and he’d gone onto the roof?