Even teen evil queens need love. Right? (Or at least a handsome sword-fighting minion to do their bidding!)
***
Bad things happen when Rowen is around and the worst part is, she has no idea why until a massive family secret sends her on a fantastica...
The sky was angry—black, windy, with sharp pellets of rain. At unexpected intervals, the blackness was punctuated with the staccato of lightning and thunder so loud, you could feel it in your bones. We tore through it all, holding on tight, scrambling over treetops and mountains. Faster! Faster! A monster commanded the storm. A monster full of rage, desperate to claim us. But within the deep, trembling bellows of thunder, I sensed the monster's secret. A sadness so profound, I could barely breathe.
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The next few classes went by pretty smoothly. I even made a gratitude list of all the stuff that hadn't happened:
Falling Halloween décor.
Liquid mishaps.
Candygram deliveries.
Visitation by the local authorities investigating a mysterious town hack.
Miles sightings.
Tyra sightings.
Miles-and-Tyra-together-locking-lips sightings.
Even though I was still wearing the atrocious, hot, itchy horse outfit, I'm going to call it a win.
It was right before lunch, and I squeezed my way past a crush of Vampires in the hallway, trying to get to my locker.
No, not actual vampires. At Coffin Ridge High, Vincent Vampire was our mascot, because hey, what are your options if your town is called Coffin Ridge? "The Zombies" don't work, because Zombies are slow and shed body parts. "The Corpses" is just, ick. So we went with Vampires. Most of the schools in nearby towns were things like Bulldogs, Wildcats, Pirates, or Knights, but at least old Vinnie was original! And if any of those other mascots had to fight a vampire, they'd totally lose. A vampire would just make eye contact, hypnotize them, and have lunch.
And speaking of lunch, my stomach grumbled at me accusatorially. It wasn't my fault I hadn't drunk my morning smoothie; I silently told my stomach. But my stomach just continued rumbling, and with so many people close by, my face heated. It's always amazed me how we get embarrassed by normal bodily functions. I mean, everyone has them! But there you go. We have to go through life pretending like we're robots.
I finally got to my locker and had just opened it up when the worst thing happened.
No, aliens did not abduct me. Which, come to think of it, could be fun. Aliens probably had really advanced computers on their flying saucers!
And no, the people around me didn't seem to notice my stomach complaining, because they were making a ton of noise. It was like being inside a hornet's nest.
The worst thing I referred to was that it turned out that, of course, Tyra's locker was right next to mine. She shimmied into the space beside me and opened her locker and smiled that half-smile/half-smirk at me.
"Oh, Rowen, poor thing. You look positively miserable in that horse costume. It was really too bad there wasn't another princess dress."
"I kind of like it," I lied. "A princess dress wouldn't suit my personality."
