My Fairly Dangerous Godmother

  The trick seemed so simple when he explained it that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the differences in the coins before. “When did you put the coins in my pockets? My hand was on your arm the whole time.”

  As soon as I said it, I realized it wasn’t true. He’d pulled me out of the way of the men rolling the barrel. He’d opened the gate door and then walked with me on my other side.

  Donovan took hold of my hand and held it up, emphasizing his point. “Sleight of hand. You’ve got to have such good control of your fingers you could pick-pocket the name badge off a policeman.” He let go of my hand. “Not that I did that . . . more than once.”

  He casually picked up a coin, made it disappear from one hand, then dropped it into my lap with the other. “Now you try. Toss the coin up high so your audience’s gaze is focused on it. Look where you want them to look. Their gaze will follow yours. Then make a grand sweep with your right hand, but don’t close your fist all the way until the coin falls through to your left hand.”

  I did my best to follow Donovan’s instruction. I didn’t catch the coin the first time, or the second, or the tenth. It thudded to the ground, sometimes lying sullenly at my feet, other times rolling off in an attempt to escape my doomed magic trick.

  Donovan went after the coin those times. With my long skirts, getting up was a production of hauling lace and ruffles around. This was probably why you never saw magicians wearing Renaissance gowns.

  While Donovan fetched my errant coin, I would toss one of the extras up in the air. The results were the same. Around the twentieth time, I threw the coin too close and it fell down the front of my dress.

  “Hmm,” Donovan said. “I suppose you don’t want me to get that one.”

  I fished it out, blushing. “How long did it take you to learn this?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been doing this sort of thing since I was a kid. Making things disappear was a necessity.” He fluttered his hands dramatically, and both the extra coins vanished.

  He could palm two at once? I couldn’t manage one without it looking obvious.

  “Why did you need to make coins disappear? Were you working your way up to dollar bills?”

  “I didn’t start with coins. I started with food. I went into the neighborhood grocery store and pocketed stuff. It didn’t take long before I got caught. It’s hard to hide cans of ravioli in your jacket.”

  He said it so casually, like it wasn’t an awful thing. I couldn’t imagine being a hungry and having no way to feed myself. “Did you tell the police why you stole the food?”

  “The store manager didn’t call them. I guess he figured a kid stealing canned goods had his reasons. He just banned me from coming back.”

  “He should have helped you.”

  Donovan let out a laugh, not amused, just unbelieving that I was so naive. “My neighborhood was filled with kids like me. The homeless guys fought over trashcan territory. What was one manager supposed to do? He was trying to make a living.”

  The coin lay forgotten in my hand. “So how did you eat?”

  “I realized I needed to be smart about stealing.” He picked up one of the extra coins. Instead of flipping it, he moved it across the back of his fingers—not so much a trick as a nervous habit. “I’d seen restaurants on TV shows, so I knew how they worked. I got dressed in my best clothes took a bus to a good part of town, and walked into a restaurant during the dinner rush.

  If anyone had asked why I was by myself, I would have told them my family was eating and I’d just gone to the car for something. No one asked, though. People are used to ignoring kids.” The coin reached Donovan’s pinky finger and he sent it back the other way.

  “You know how people leave money on tables for waiters to take? Turns out, bills aren’t much harder to palm than coins.”

  I wanted to tell him I was sorry his parents had failed him, sorry society hadn’t helped him. He didn’t want to hear it though, and it was pointless to say. The world was dark in places. You couldn’t fix that.

  “What will happen if you don’t go back to Ohio?”

  “The next time Shane needs money, he’ll do something stupid. Probably steal another car.”

  “Another car?”

  Donovan nodded. “I told you I’d never been caught.” The coin moved around his knuckles. “Shane knew I stole things and figured he could too. You fence a car, and it keeps the rent paid for months.”

  Donovan stopped moving the coin. “The cops picked him up his first try. He got off with a hand slap. The second time he got caught, I took the rap. I didn’t want him to go to juvie.” Donovan put the coin back on the bench. “So those are the sordid details of my past.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I gave his hand a squeeze. “We’ll get back.”

  I practiced making coins disappear for a few more minutes. I didn’t get much better. After that, Donovan put a goblet-sized rock into my dress pocket. I stood by the bench and practiced taking it out without rustling my skirt. I wasn’t much better at this than I was at palming coins.

  After a half an hour of failing at the task, I sank back on the bench with defeat. The rock sat despondently in my lap. This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t learn the art of theft in two weeks let alone two days. I was kidding myself to think I could steal a goblet from underneath the nose of a powerful fairy. “So, what sort of woodland animal are the Seelie fairies betting I’ll be turned into?”

  Donovan motioned for me to get back up and keep working. “You’ll be fine.”

  “If you wore gloves, you wouldn’t technically be touching the goblet. Maybe the curse wouldn’t affect you.”

  Donovan picked up the rock and held it out to me. “It has to be you.”

  I didn’t take the stone. “Have I ever mentioned I’m naturally clumsy?”

  “With more practice, you’ll be able to do this.”

  “In PE after I ran hurdles, the track looked like a line of dominos had been knocked over.”

  Donovan took my hand and set the rock in my palm. “Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to jump over anything to move the goblets.”

  “At the winter choir concert, I lost my footing and fell into the row of girls below me. Think dominoes in sparkly red dresses.”

  “I’m sure it could have happened to anyone.”

  “Torsha Baker was accidentally standing on the edge of Nan Marie Swapp’s dress. When Nan Marie went down, her dress ripped halfway off. She still won’t speak to me.”

  “If you were clumsy before, Chrissy must have fixed it when you wished to be a dancer. I’ve been watching you. You’re as graceful as the other princesses.”

  I would have liked to believe him. “Kailen said I was a lousy waltzer.”

  “No, he didn’t. He said you needed to learn to follow your partner’s lead. That’s different.”

  “You heard him giving me dance instructions?” I suppose that shouldn’t have surprised me. Kailen said it enough times. Still it was odd to think of Donovan, close by, watching my stumbling attempts.

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t much else to do. I figured I should learn how to waltz in case King Rothschild holds a ball. He’ll expect a prince to know how to dance.”

  “Was it hard for you to pick up the steps?”

  “I didn’t have a partner who made me nervous.”

  In other words, no, it hadn’t been hard. It was only hard for me because I was graceless. I let out a sigh. “I hope the queen turns me into a bird. At least it would be cool to fly.”

  Donovan stood up and held his hand out. “It’s time for a dance break.”

  “You want to dance?”

  He kept his hand outstretched. “Cocky fairies get on my nerves. We’ll go over the steps and tonight you’ll blow Kailen away.”

  Not likely. Still it was nice of Donovan to help me. And I was tired of practicing with the rock.

  I took Donovan’s hand and stood up. My skirt swished back and forth from the momentum, more eager
than I was to start dancing. Donovan led me a few feet away from the bench and pulled me into position. One of his hands rested on my shoulder blade. He held the other lifted in his hand.

  Last night at the campfire, we’d sat closer than we were now. While I’d shivered, Donovan had wrapped his arms around me. But I felt his closeness more now. A fluttering of nerves rumbled through my chest and made it hard to concentrate. His hand felt warm in mine. Did mine feel cold in his?

  “We’ll do the basic step for a few counts, then move to the spins and stuff.” He stepped forward, smooth and confident, propelling me with him. “One . . . two . . . three . . . down . . . up . . . up . . .”

  I moved my feet to the rhythm of his voice, doing my best to pay attention. He smelled faintly of leather. And something else. Something beckoning. I couldn’t stop staring at the line his shoulders made in his jacket. I remembered him fighting shirtless, remembered the muscles in his shoulders. Taut. Tanned. Now my fingers rested on his shoulder. It made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

  It was the corset, I told myself. I absolutely wasn’t developing feelings for Donovan.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  I messed up on three. In my defense, it’s hard to count and move your feet when your gaze wanders to your partner’s blue eyes.

  “Sorry,” I said, and flushed. This was so stupid. Hadn’t I learned it was a bad idea to develop crushes on guys I hardly knew? I’d known Donovan for what, twenty-four hours? And part of that time we’d been competing against each other.

  Donovan kept counting off the beats. I concentrated on moving my feet in the right direction and swaying upward when I was supposed to. He had a nice voice. I wondered if he ever sang. My eyes went to his mouth, to the sloping letter M on his top lip. M was for magnificent and marvelous. I wondered what it would feel like to kiss that M.

  Nope. Not a good idea to go there.

  As I listened to the count, I listed reasons it was a bad idea to like Donovan.

  1) Once we left this fairy tale, we’d never see each other again. He lived in a different state.

  2) My parents wouldn’t like me dating a guy with a criminal record.

  3) Donovan could still betray me. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth about working with me. He told me at the campfire that he’d gotten by for years because he knew how to fool people.

  I tried to think of a fourth reason. Couldn’t. I was stuck on the number three like the waltz. Donovan let go of my back, the signal to step out into a twirl. I did and he rewarded me with a smile. It tilted up at one side in an endearing sort of way.

  Ohio wasn’t really that far away.

  “See,” Donovan said. “Kailen didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s the thing about fairy guys. Have you ever met one that wasn’t full of himself?”

  The way Donovan phrased the question made me laugh. We both knew I’d only met one.

  Almost against my will, a list of things I liked about Donovan formed in my mind.

  1) He’d kept me from falling off the stairs even though we were working against each other.

  2) He’d saved me from drowning and built a fire to warm me.

  3) He was patient. He hadn’t gotten frustrated with my lack of skill at palming coins, or working with rocks, or dancing.

  4) He was smart and determined. He’d figured out a way to take care of himself and his brother.

  5) He was loyal. He’d taken the rap for his brother and was still looking after him.

  6) He wasn’t a real criminal—he was like Aladdin from the Disney movie, but without the creepy monkey sidekick. He was a victim of circumstance. Big-hearted. And hot.

  7) Hot probably deserved its own number.

  I started plucking away the other reasons I’d put on my I-shouldn’t-like-Donovan list. He wasn’t going to betray me for the goblet. If he’d meant to get it at any cost, he would have let me fall off the stairs. And what did I care if my parents didn’t approve of him? They didn’t approve of me pursuing a music career, and that had never stopped me.

  But what if none of it mattered? What if he didn’t like me like that? None of the guys at my school had.

  Donovan lifted my right hand and let go of my back, the signal to break away and do our next steps side by side. I did and returned to him again.

  “Okay, let’s try it with music now. Sing something.”

  I’d been contemplating the M of his lips and had to drag my attention back to his words. “You want me to sing?”

  “Yeah. Let’s see if your first wish was worth the magic.”

  I sifted through songs I knew, searching for one that would work with a waltz. The song I’d done for the auditions came to mind.

  Nope.

  I didn’t ever want to sing it again. No doubt Donovan and I would both hear enough of it when we got back home. Spoofs and song remixes. No one would ever see it for what it was supposed to be: a wistful song about unrequited love.

  Donovan hadn’t heard it yet. I supposed he would be the song’s only untainted audience. So there in his arms, I sang the tune. I didn’t worry whether I’d be able to hit the notes while a corset constricted my diaphragm. Chrissy had taken the imperfections from my voice. The music lifted from my mouth, strong and clear, smooth and lilting. I meandered through the treble clef with ease, lingering on the hard, high notes and letting them flow off my tongue.

  Donovan stared at me impressed and then entranced. He hadn’t expected my voice. I looked into his blue eyes and let every note caress him. This was what I’d wanted when I wrote the lyrics. This was what I’d tried for when I’d sung for Jason at the audition—the connection I saw in Donovan’s eyes. He understood the struggle of standing when a person had already fallen down so many times.

  Dancing was easier while I sang. I was concentrating on the notes, not obsessing about where my feet were. I finished the song and started another. Moving with Donovan through the garden felt as natural as talking with him. Fun, and a little bit exhilarating. This, I thought, is why people invented dancing.

  As I finished my third song, Donovan slowed until we stopped. “You’re amazing. I take back everything I said about singing being a useless, wasted wish.”

  “When did you say that?”

  “Oh . . . maybe I just thought it. Intensely. But I’ve changed my mind.” He dropped his hand from my back but kept hold of my hand. I liked the feel of his fingers intertwined with mine, liked the admiration in his eyes.

  “I can see why you wanted that voice,” he said, his own voice low and soft. “It’s beautiful. Like the rest of you.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t break our gaze. There was nowhere else I wanted to look.

  “So . . .” Donovan rolled the word around in his mouth, tasting it. “I know the favor I want.”

  “What?”

  He pulled me closer and lowered his head. He did this slowly, watching my reaction, giving me time to move away if this wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t move away. I kept my eyes open until the last moment. Then I shut them and felt his lips press against mine.

  My worries about my first kiss had been unfounded. Our teeth didn’t bang together. My lips knew what to do. They followed his lead.

  Donovan slid his hands around my waist, and I wound mine around his neck. His jacket lay open and as I leaned against his chest I felt the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It felt like music, and the words that sang through my insides were, “Donovan likes me like that.”

  I’m not sure how long we kissed. He wasn’t in a hurry to end this and neither was I. Finally he lifted his head.

  I smiled at him, my arms still draped around his shoulders. “You’re right. That wasn’t such a bad favor.”

  He kept his gaze on me, but didn’t smile back. Worry tinged his eyes. “I’m probably not your usual type, am I?”

  “I don’t really have a usual type.”

  He stiffened, and the worry in his expression grew. “Because you see so
many different types of guys?”

  It was sweet he thought so many different types of guys were interested in me. I couldn’t lie though, and didn’t want to. If he liked me, he had to know who I was. “At your school do you have girls that are friends with guys, but never hang out with them except as friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m one of those girls.”

  His eyebrows rose in happy surprise. “Score. The guys at your school are stupid.”

  I laughed at his assessment. “Yeah, exactly. So it turns out you can be my type.”

  He smiled, but it was still the shadowed with worry. “Will I still be your type when we go back to the twenty-first century?”

  That was what was bothering him? He thought I was only interested in him as a fairy tale fling?

  I drew out my words. “That depends. What’s your usual type of girl?”

  He pulled me closer. “Beautiful, talented . . . often clumsy . . . completely honest . . . oh, and over Jason.”

  “I think I’m your type.”

  “Good.” He smiled, leaned down, and kissed me again.

  Chapter 21

  Donovan and I held hands on the way back to the castle. I don’t remember anything about the walk—who or what we saw along the way. I felt like the sun had risen inside me, like a long dim chapter in my life had ended and everything was brighter now. It both amazed and frightened me how much a couple kisses could stir my emotions. No, it wasn’t the kisses; it was the feeling behind them. It was Donovan seeing so much in me he couldn’t imagine the guys in my school seeing less.

  Most things hadn’t changed since this morning. I was still stuck in the wrong century, and I had to steal a cup from a powerful fairy in order to return home. But I was grinning like none of it mattered because Donovan was holding my hand. What had happened to me?