Descendants 2 [H.S. & C.S.]

Chapter 11

I've been on the Isle for five seconds and I already feel so much better.
Now, time to get back in touch with my villain roots.
What better way than by looking like my bad old self again?

Harry marched through narrow cobblestoned streets and reached Sorcerer's Square.

Around him, Isle ne'er-do-wells ambled to and fro below clotheslines heavy with damp, soiled garments, and merchants tinkered at their run-down ramshackle shop stalk with outdated objects and slop for sale. Harry made his way down the wet, slick street and approached the double doors of a shabby salon. A weathered sign above showed a giant pair of scissors and a perfume bottle bearing the words Lady Germanotta's Curl Up and Dye. Harry read a clock sign on one of the doors that said Closed until Midnight. He looked around, and when the coast was clear, he pushed open a door peeling with crusty paint and stole inside, quickly and quietly.

Harry stepped inside the decrepit building, pushed aside clear plastic panels, and found a girl sweeping a colorful salon. The place had pipes and wires exposed in the ceiling, hair dryers made with botched together pieces of machinery, and running through a system of pipes over a bathtub. To top it off, the entire place—from the walls, where cracked mirrors hung, to each janky mismatched salon chair—was splattered with streaks of every shade of bright neon dye.

Jesy, Lady Germanotta's granddaughter, wore large gold-painted headphones embellished with tiny flowers and pearly metallic beads. Jesy hadn't heard Harry come into the salon as she swept, moving as if she were ballroom dancing with the broom. She had on a multicolored dress and cat-eye glasses, and each of her nails was painted a different color. Her brown hair back in a bun, and the ends were neon pink.

Jesy turned and saw Harry standing there, and she pulled off her headphones.

"Harry!" Jesy's freckled face lit up. "Is Calum back, too?"

Harry let out a little laugh. "Ha. As if." He put his hand on his hip and looked around the salon. "I, uh, forgot that you guys don't open till midnight," he said.

Jesy nodded.

"The place looks really good," said Harry.

Jesy smiled. Even though she was only a few years younger than Harry, she looked up to him and valued his opinion.

Harry looked at Jesy's gloves, her apron, and the pile of hair she had been sweeping. "So what is your deal? Has your grandmother given you any customers yet, or . . ."

Jesy shrugged. "Just a witch here and there. Mostly it's a lot of scrubbing and scouring and sweeping." She looked at the pile of hair. "Lots and lots of sweeping . . ."

Harry snickered. "The old Cinderella treatment, hey?"

"Yeah. She's gone from wicked stepmother to wicked grandmother."

"That's not much of a leap. Hey, Jesy, you used to do Calum, am I right?"

Jesy leaped and nodded. "Yeah! I thought of the little braids!"

"Ya got any ideas for me?" asked Harry.

Jesy sized Harry up and walked over to him. She picked up a strand of Harry's blond hair. "The washed-out blond with purple tips? The best of no worlds."

She dropped the hair and examined Harry's face. "Hmm, you cannot see where your face ends and your hair begins." She gestured to a nearby chair, which Harry quickly sat in. Jesy snatched Harry's hand and peered at his fingernails. "Ugh! What is this? Bored to death pink?" She spun Harry. "How far can I go?" she asked with a mischievous tone.

Harry smiled. "Honestly, the works," he said coolly. "I mean, whatever makes me feel like me but . . . way worse." He looked at Jesy with his green eyes glinting.