Ever After High: Secret Storybooks

Chapter Seventeen: Faybelle Thorn

There was an echo like footsteps creeping up the staircase. I still sat next to Briar, who laid still on the floor right where she fell after pricking her finger on the spinning wheel. I have to admit that I was scared. Nothing this serious had ever happened to me before. My mom was the Dark Fairy, I didn't come across many things that actually frightened me. This did. I had no idea where I was or what was happening. I didn't know how to get home, or how to save my friend. I didn't know if I would ever get out.

It felt like we'd been here for days. I had shed a tear or two in the beginning out of worry, but now I just sat, staring out the small stone window from my spot on the cold, hard floor. We were at the top of the tower. I considered leaving. I could fly anywhere. I could find help. But when I looked out the window from close up I could see there were no safe havens, no people in sight. Just trees. Miles and miles of just trees. Even if I flew as far as my wings could carry me, I might not make it to wherever I needed to go. I wish I knew where I needed to go.

Now I awaited the footsteps, if I hadn't been imagining them at all. I didn't care who it was, anyone would do. Luckily I wasn't the one in trouble. Briar was trapped in a deep sleep just like our destinies predicted. Anyone would help the poor damsel. I could only think of one person who wouldn't want to help.

"Faybelle?"

Hello, that one person.

"Julian... What are you doing here?"

The prince's eyes shifted to his betrothed asleep on the ground. He pointed, but I already had the idea before then.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

I did give this some thought. Mom would be smart enough to know not to stick around after the young cursed princess fell into her deep sleep. I thought I was different. I knew I was different. "I wasn't just going to leave her here...."

"No," Julian said, "I know you're better than that."

"Well," I said, motioning to Briar, "you'd better get to it." I sighed and walked over to the window. I leaned on it and watched the miles and miles of just trees. Nothing changed.

After a moment I didn't hear him move, so I turned to check it out. Julian wasn't looking at Briar. He was looking at me. His sincere dark eyes stared at mine. "I'm terrified."

I looked away. "You know I really should be the one saying that to you. Do you know how long we've been up here? Waiting?"

"Faybelle I'm serious. You and I both know how this is going to end."

I slid down the wall onto the floor again, outstretching my legs. I took a deep breath. He was right, I did know how this was going to end.

"What are we supposed to do?" He asked, sinking onto the floor a couple yards away.

As if I would know what to do. As if I would know how to get us out of this mess. As if I would know how not to get into these messes in the first place. I was going to be sick.

But I also was not in the mood to speak to Julian. I needed to do something. "What, you're not even going to try?"

Julian inhaled and then exhaled sharply. He glanced tentatively toward sleeping Briar, but then back at me. He blinked hard. "Do you really want me to?"

I closed my eyes, wanting so badly to roll them but I knew he would see. "We don't have any other options here, do we?" I avoided all eye contact but I knew his eyes were still on me. I did not want to look at him. I did not want to even think about him. That's why I switched schools in the damn first place.

For a while his gaze was not on me. I watched him carefully as he stared at Briar's unconscious figure. She was very pretty even when she was sleeping. I didn't understand how his brain worked. Here was a beautiful princess waiting just for him and he won't love her. What a shame.

I had never met anyone more sure of everything in his life. Julian was always confident in his decisions and spoke smoothly, everything he said and did was well thought-out yet he didn't even have to think about it. Now that I think about it he was terribly stubborn, really. He wouldn't change to save a life, which is very well the situation that seemed to be occurring right now.

He wouldn't change to save three lives, which was the highly likely outcome of this misadventure.

I thought of nursery rhyme school, when Julian, Briar and I would play together. I recalled finger painting with them at the long, primary color-painted tables. Our teacher Mrs. Mama Bear of the Goldilocks story asked us what we were painting.

"I'm painting my very best fiends in the whole land," Briar chirped happily as she rubbed her blue paint-coated finger over the three colorful stick figures to create a sky. There was Julian's brown hair and eyes on the left, Briar in the center with long hot pink highlights, and a platinum-blond with wings to her right. Me.

I wasn't painting anything special, I really wasn't. It was a purple dragon. At least, I thought it was a purple dragon at the time. It really just looked like a lizard with wings and a smiley face.

I remembered the look on Julian's face when he saw that Briar had painted all three of them, and all he had painted was me.

"I'm going to try it, Faybelle, but I hope you know this changes nothing," his voice said, snapping me back to the current time.

I got back up to look out the window and I again sighed.

A few minutes later I heard a mumbled string of curses and that's when I knew it. I whirled back around and Julian was standing, hand nervously gripping his hair, staring down at the floor, where Briar still had not awakened.

I don't know how we'll ever get home.