Fable (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 3)

Sara turned to stare at Jared with bewildered eyes and shook her head. “No, sorry, honey. Is he supposed to be familiar? I don’t know—lately my mind has been pretty muddled. Can you show him the house…please?”

Mina rolled her eyes and held the door open for Jared to precede her into the hall, but not before she snatched an apple out of the fruit dish on the counter. When they had walked out of earshot, she snapped at him,

“Great, just great! Now you’re brainwashing my mom.”

He looked at her, confused. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Riiiight. What in the blazes are you doing here?”

“I started thinking about last night and what you said, and I realized that I may have acted—what happened to your hair?”

“Huh?” Her hand went to pat it, and it was still there.

Jared motioned with his fingers to her forehead, and she ran to the large hall mirror and gasped in shock. There was a whole lock of hair starting from her forehead that ran past her shoulders, and it was gold.

“I-I thought it was a dream,” she whispered, fearing to touch it.

“What dream?”

“I dreamed about the Fae, about Reid and Temple and…and my brother. He was in a golden cage, and there was fire everywhere. He touched me in my dream, and now this.” She swallowed and turned to Jared. “What do I do now?”

He stood there, looking at her in disbelief. “I can’t believe it. You can do it?”

“Do what?”

“Do you understand what this means?” He was getting angry, and reached forward and grabbed her forearms.

“No, I don’t know what it means, except that I’m scared.”

“I—I’m sorry. I was wrong, and this proves it.” He touched her hair in wonder. “If anyone can finish all of the quests and break the curse, it’s you. And you’re right—just because I can’t help you with the Stiltskin, doesn’t mean someone else can’t. The old broads are going to hate me for this…well, they already hate me, but they will be very interested in this new development.”

“Who?” she said impatiently.

Jared ignored her and headed down the hall to the front door. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“To the old biddies. It’s time to stir up the henhouse.”

Chapter 14

Jared led her outside to his motorcycle. She looked up at the house and the broken shutters he was supposed to fix. “What about the shutters?”

He turned toward the house and snapped his fingers, and the shutters reattached themselves to the house magically.

“And the front porch.” Mina wasn’t letting him out of his ruse that easily. Jared leaned toward the porch and barely looked at it before the step was fixed.

“Can we go yet?” Jared was chomping at the bit.

“The house needs painting.”

“Done, now get on,” Jared demanded.

Mina looked up, and the house was a pristine sparkling white.

He grinned and helped Mina put her helmet on, even going so far as to move her braid off her shoulder.