Ugly Girl Read online

  It felt like the earth was swallowing me whole as my feet touched down on the dirt. The wood floor of the house was a good two feet above my head. The dirt walls were packed tight in the narrow space that was only slightly wider than a phone booth. What little light filtered down through the opening informed me that I would be bunking with fat earthworms, spiders the likes and size of which I’d never seen, and various beetles who scurried away from the light into their little hidey holes. I whimpered, knowing my gift of talking to animals didn’t extend to bugs.

  “Pull me back up!” I begged, panicking and pleading as I gazed up into Bastien’s hard expression as he stared down at me over Reyn’s shoulder. “I need some bug spray or something! Reyn, there are spiders down here as big as baseballs!” I heard a hiss and all but screamed for Reyn to get me out. “There’s something else, too! A snake or something! Get me out! I can’t talk to snakes! My magic doesn’t work on them!” I’d tried when Judah and I were camping once, and happened across a small garter snake in our tent. I’d never seen Judah run that fast before.

  Bastien folded his arms over his chest and sneered, “Quit complaining, your highness. It’s the best I can do.”

  Reyn scowled at his friend. “Shut up, Bastien. They’re actual royalty, here. You just shoved the Lost Princess into a hole in the ground! Have some sense.” Reyn was on his knees reaching for me, but froze when he heard a bell ring, announcing someone had tripped Bastien’s security system. “I’m sorry! I’ll try to get rid of them quick.” He turned to Lane, who lowered Abraham Lincoln to my trembling arms. Hamish had no qualms about the bugs, but jumped down and made himself at home in the all-you-can-eat buffet, scooping up beetles and handing a few to Abraham Lincoln, who was whining like the little baby he was.

  “Shh. It’s alright, sweetheart. Mama’s here.” I hugged him to my chest, letting his nose drape over my shoulder as he held onto me for dear life. I knew he could see in the dark, and that he ate bugs and wasn’t afraid of them; what spooked him was Bastien and me fighting.

  Reyn carefully lowered Lane down next to me, and we held each other in the dark, claustrophobic space. I began to wish for my pretend father, who was clearly adept at making the most out of the limited space in a phone booth, since he was Superman. Lane’s arms wrapped around Abraham Lincoln and me as Reyn slid the flooring in place over our heads and placed the chest atop it. I didn’t make a sound after I told Abraham Lincoln he couldn’t cry anymore, or the men would come and take him away from me forever. Hamish stopped his feasting temporarily when the front door opened and let in a series of heavy boots, the severity of which scared me more than I could compartmentalize enough to keep from the animals.

  Something slithery crawled across my shoe and up my pant leg. I bit my lip to keep from screaming when it slipped up to my calf and curled around the bone. I could tell it was waiting for me to react, so I remained perfectly still. Lane didn’t know about the snake, so she rubbed my arms, thinking the soldiers were the only problem.

  Suddenly the snake on my calf wasn’t at the top of my list of worries. A second snake joined him, twining himself with his scaly buddy, and wrapping three times around my leg just under my kneecap. The squeeze started slowly, the coil tightening almost like a hug. I sobbed silently in the dark as I heard the men talking just above us and to the left. I heard Bastien getting mouthy and Reyn’s diplomatic calm that seemed to quell the soldiers’ aggressive, indiscernible tones.

  Then the snakes bit me. I could barely stand, and the vicious jackworms bit me. I felt four sharp entry points digging into the muscle on the back of my leg under my knee pit. I screamed in my mind, but remained perfectly still until Abraham Lincoln decided he wasn’t too scared to be useful. He dropped down and waited for Hamish to help roll my pant leg up before ripping the snakes off of me and sucking them down like gummy worms.

  “I have to call for Daddy!” he whined quietly.

  “Shh! No, baby. It’s fine. We have to wait until the soldiers leave, and then Uncle Reyn can give my leg a look.”

  Sweat began to bead on my forehead and slid down the back of my neck. I heard the beetles skittering in and out of the walls all around us, and then my hearing started to get away from me. It felt like I had cotton stuffed in my ears, and when Lane pulled my face closer so she could whisper in my ear, I couldn’t hear any of it. My leg began to go numb, starting at the exact point of the bite and slowly crawling upward toward my knee. The sweat was pouring off me now, and it was hard to keep my balance in the dark that disoriented me. I clutched Lane and whispered through slick lips, “Snake bite!” Each word took up an entire breath, and I worried at the labor simply breathing caused me.

  Lane stiffened and asked me a series of questions I couldn’t hear or answer. I started wobbling and took in another ragged breath as my leg gave out. It didn’t hurt; it didn’t feel like anything as the cold made its way through my veins like an IV. I couldn’t feel my left leg up to the top of my knee, and the slow crawl with which the numbing was creeping up my leg struck a terror in me I had not known much of in my life. I was so close to meeting my parents. My cousin. I was so close to seeing their faces. Superman’s chin dimple swam in my mind’s eye, and I begged him to save me, to swoop in and Lois Lane me straight out of here. He could fly me around the world, showing me where the very best ice cream was made. We would go see operas and pretend we totally knew what the point of it all was. We would kick the soccer ball around in the backyard for hours while he asked if there were any new boys in my life. I’d roll my eyes and say, “Oh, Dad,” pretending to be exasperated, but secretly pleased that he cared whose car I was getting kissed in.

  Superman, my mom, my cousin, Lane and the world started fading from view as I collapsed in Lane’s arms. She was shaking, or I was. I couldn’t tell anymore. I felt her breath on my face and knew she was whispering to me, but I couldn’t hear any of it. I couldn’t feel her warmth that always managed to find me, no matter how icy my heart got.

  I closed my eyes as a violent shudder ripped through me, nearing me closer to the edge of unconsciousness. One more raspy breath in and out. Then there was dark.

  Then there was light.

  23

  Mommy Fainting

  Then there was pain. Searing, blinding agony jerked me back to the world where there was no mom, no Superman, no cousin and no thoughts in my head other than one giant scream that echoed off the walls of Bastien’s home.

  I wasn’t in the hole anymore. I was in the main room near the kitchen on the floor, and someone was covering my mouth while a strong pair of hands was pushing on top of my chest, anchoring me to the ground while my body jerked around without me telling it to. I was slick head to toe from sweat, and all my bones felt like they were caught in a vice, down to my pinky finger. My left leg was stiff as a board, but I felt something tugging on it. Though I couldn’t really feel much of my leg, each movement shot lightning up through my body and made me feel like I was slowly sizzling from the inside out.

  The hand over my mouth was removed and something was shoved past my lips too far down my throat. On top of burning alive, I was choking to death on a man’s fingers as they spread some kind of thick paste over my tongue toward the back of my throat. It tasted bitter, and like fingers. Come to think of it, that last part was probably the fingers.

  I heard Reyn calling my name while Lane sobbed. Reyn was the one pinning me down, I realized, now with his whole body. I didn’t much care for a man forcing me onto the ground, but something told me to trust him, so I did. My body spasmed uncontrollably. If I knew how to tell any part of me to calm the flip down, I would’ve, but my body would’ve given myself the finger and kept on seizing anyway.

  The paste turned sandy in my mouth, and my head was lifted so someone could tip water down my throat, washing the bitter flavor through my digestive system. I’m not sure how long it took for my stomach to figure out what to do with the paste. Since pain was the only thing I could feel, all my faculties
went to addressing the agony that ripped through my body like little Hot Wheels cars on fire, racing through my veins for the gold medal.

  I screamed, silently this time, into the hand I could tell was Lane’s. She lowered my head back to the wood floor and pressed down on my forehead to steady my senseless thrashing. I heard Abraham Lincoln crying, his howls filling the room and tugging at my heartstrings. Though I couldn’t even control my own body, I wanted to hold him, to lie to him and let him know I was okay. That he wouldn’t lose another mama. Lane had fainted once in the sauna at the gym. I still remember the terror that raced through me at my mommy lying there for an eternity of seconds before she finally roused. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes that day, and knew that if she was gone from my world, there would be no more world to speak of.

  I didn’t want to scare Abraham Lincoln like that.

  I could tell people were shouting, but I couldn’t make out a word of it through my ears that still felt stuffed with cotton. I tried to make sense of the random images that filled my vision, but when my eyes landed on an olive-skinned stranger in his mid-forties with thick lips and kind eyes, I gave up on figuring out what the crack was going on. He wore a black cloak like Armand’s, but he bore none of the scars. Lane opened my mouth for him to look inside, and his fingers poked at my tongue, rubbing something else on it that tasted like the same kind of bitter salve, but didn’t dissolve into sand on my tongue. The paste stuck to me until I manually swallowed it down, and with the introduction of the foreign element to my system, my body started to slow its violent seizing.

  The relief of not moving was bliss. All my body felt was floating, melty bliss. I was bliss.

  Then I was gone, and the world faded to black again.

  24

  Wobbly Legs and Missing Tongues

  I was a pretty healthy kid growing up. For all the sports I played, I never broke a bone. I really only caught the once a year sniffles and moved on from those as quick as I could orange juice myself out of the bed. There was one time when I was in junior high that I caught the flu, and my temperature got high enough for Lane to forego her look of bravery and break down by my bedside as she pressed ice packs to my arms and forehead to cool me down. She didn’t go into work, didn’t shower, didn’t eat, didn’t do anything or go anywhere until my fever broke and I was on my feet again. I remember how very safe I felt, even though I knew I should be scared. I had Lane there, so I knew everything would somehow figure itself out. She’d always been my very best friend, and even while I was puking my guts out, she’d tell me how beautiful I was, and that she was the luckiest girl in the world because she had me.

  When my eyes opened, I expected the first face I saw to be hers. I turned my head left and right, stretching sore and barely mobile muscles. I hissed at a crack in my neck that sounded too unsettling to be healthy. I wasn’t in Bastien’s house anymore. I wasn’t sure where I was. All I knew was that I was in a room by myself without Lane, which didn’t feel right. I swallowed hard, my throat too dry to work normally.

  I took my time sitting up, finding myself in a room with a single window hole near the top of the wall, too high for me to see out. The light that shone through let me know that I was in an empty wooden room on a straw mattress that sat on a low frame. I stretched my legs, shocked that I could feel them again. Slowly I sat up, confused to find that I wasn’t in my jeans and purple Princess Bride t-shirt. I wore a long flannel shirt that looked about Bastien’s size. It was blue and brown and went down to my knees, revealing bare legs and a bandage covering my left calf. I remembered sweating up a storm, but I was clean now. I hadn’t showered since the motel, but running a clumsy hand through my brown tangles, I could tell my hair had been washed.

  “Three more hours, and then I should rewrap her leg. I need that guérit root, though. Where’s Bastien? Reyn should’ve been back hours ago. I can’t leave the Lost Princess.”

  I heard the man’s voice as if he was just outside the bedroom, and I wondered if it was the thick-lipped man who’d shoved that bitter paste down my throat. Gingerly, I picked up each leg and set them on the cold floor. Cold was good; it meant I could feel things. My nervous system wasn’t totally damaged, then. I wished for Hamish to calm me down, but he was nowhere to be found. I was terrified something had happened to him, that some animal or someone had discovered him and taken him from me. I was his home. He needed me, and in that moment, I needed him.

  I tried to push myself off the mattress to stand, but I overestimated my healing speed. Agony ripped through my left leg, causing me to cry out as I fell sideways onto the floor, landing with a thud that jarred my aching bones.

  The olive-skinned man burst through the door. “No! What’s she doing out of bed? Great, Remy. You have one job to do. Bastien’s going to be angry. Angering an Untouchable? Deadly.”

  “I’m trying to walk, is what I’m doing, but apparently I suck at it today. It’s okay, Remy. It’s my fault for walking when I wasn’t sure I could. What’s going on? Where am I?”

  “Oh, where’s my quill? Does she even read our language? Come on, Reyn! Where are you?”

  “I don’t need you to write it out. Just tell me where I am, okay? Tell me how I got here.”

  “Bastien the Bold carried you here, to my home. Nearly bit my arm off when I tried to dress your wound. Where’s my quill?” He looked around the room, wringing his hands as he cast around for what he needed. There was a desk in the corner, but I didn’t see a quill or parchment on it.

  I tried to soothe his unease, waving my hand from my position on the floor. “Bastien’s always biting people’s arms off. I wouldn’t take it personally. Did you need to leave him a note or something?” I straightened my legs and tried to rub feeling back into them, but they were still pretty numb, my skin cold.

  Remy’s straight, black, shoulder-length hair had been pulled back into a short ponytail. He froze at my words, his eyebrows furrowed as he studied me. “How did she…”

  I scooted ungracefully back to the mattress. “Give a girl a hand? My leg’s still totally useless. Feels like my arteries are filled with sand or something. Fun times.”

  Remy seemed to come to himself and gingerly lifted me to sit back on the straw mattress that rested on a handmade wooden frame. He knelt before me and silently asked permission before picking up my left leg to inspect the bandage and the wound beneath. His head was bent over my knee as he pried off the bandage with long fingers. He worked with great care not to hurt me. “Guérit root. We need some guérit root, or the poison won’t come all the way out. The souillement is keeping the damage from spreading, but we need the guérit root. Come on, Bastien!

  “What’s guérit root? Is it somewhere nearby?”

  Remy’s head shot up, staring at me with his pale brown eyes that were almost devoid of color, they were so glassy. “How did she hear that? Is she… Is she listening to me?”

  It was weird to watch him talk. His lips didn’t move, and yet I heard him perfectly. “I mean, I can hear what you’re saying to me, but how are you talking without opening your mouth? Is that a magic thing?”

  Remy lowered my leg to the floor and leaned forward to grip my shoulders hard. A jolt of fear hit me that I was basically wearing a long shirt, underwear and nothing else, sitting on the bed of a stranger, letting him get a good look at my leg. I tried to shake his hands off me, but my body was still too sluggish for ninja extractions. “Dude, hands off! Let me go!”

  His eyes bored into mine, his lips still not moving as he spoke to me. “I need to know if… Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Of course I can hear you. I just can’t figure out how you’re talking without moving your lips. Let go!”

  Remy finally realized his hairy hands shouldn’t be on me, and retracted them. He remained a few inches from my face, transfixed. He examined my features with intensity that made me want to hide. “If you can hear me, then tell me who you came here with.”

 
I bit my lower lip. “Um, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about that. No offense, but I’ve got no clue how I got here or who you really are. Can’t you just pick a number and ask me if I can hear you say it?”

  “Very well. Thirty-four.”

  “Dude, I know you’re older than thirty-four.”

  Remy gasped and stood, pacing on the wood floor. His mind was consumed by half-sentences that all had a note of wonder and confusion to them.

  “Hey, not to disturb your freak-out, but where’s Reyn?” I wanted to ask where Lane was at, but wasn’t sure if Remy was supposed to know about her.

  He started to point to the door, but then realized he could just tell me. The revelation sizzled like something precious in his chest. Like hope. I didn’t understand the buildup, but at least the vibe I was getting from him wasn’t creepy rapist or something. Bonus. “Reyn and Duchess Elaine of Avalon are trying to find more guérit root. Bastien has your animals. He’s summoning a second healer to see if he’s got more herbs to stave off the danger that’s spreading from the bite. We went through all of mine. The poison had been in you too long for a regular dose.” He paused, watching my face with anticipation that softened my concern. “You really heard all that?”

  “Every word. But how are you talking without talking? Can you teach me? That’s dead useful.”

  Remy shot me a look of disbelief, and then light dawned on him. His eyes began to sparkle with moisture. “You must not know about the goings on of our world, then. Everyone here knows about the silencing of the healers.”

  “Yikes. That sounds super bad, whatever it is.”

  Remy’s thoughts skipped around, overjoyed at being able to talk to me, but utterly woebegone about whatever the silencing was. He knelt by the bedside in his jeans and long-sleeved green t-shirt, scooping up my hands and looking into my eyes like he was making a pledge. His olive skin against my sun-kissed fingers looked pretty.