And I wanted to comfort him. If I lifted my head, I could kiss him. I raised my head and looked into his eyes, trying to read his expression.

He looked back at me with a calm intensity.

I tilted my face to his, then heard an irritated voice behind me say, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you all over!” I turned, startled. Chrissy stood behind me.

Chapter 19

She wore a filmy green dress with flowing layers that reminded me of plant leaves. Her hair had changed from pink to blond, and small white flowers were woven through it, making her smell like orange blossoms. She carried something in a blue fuzzy blanket, which she held against her chest and shoulder.

Hudson dropped his arms away from me. “Surprise,” he muttered.

Chrissy stepped toward me, eyes blinking to the same fast rhythm that her wings fluttered. “You’re supposed to be at the castle. I showed up in my official fairy godmother outfit expecting a wedding, and the whole place was in disarray. King John is furious and threatening anyone and everyone. He sent all the knights scuttling across the kingdom to look for you, and …” Her gaze swept over me. “What in the world are you wearing? I specifically told Clover to make sure you wore evening gowns.” She made disappointed tsk ing noises. “Never trust a leprechaun where fashion is concerned.”

“I’m in the middle of the forest,” I pointed out. “Why do I need an evening gown?”

With her free hand, Chrissy pulled a wand out of a leafy bag that hung around her shoulder. “Because this is a fairy tale, and my professor gave me a horrible grade after my last assignment when Cinderella’s ball gown changed into a bath towel at midnight.” She gave a careless shrug. “I did warn her. It wasn’t my fault there were people around.”

Chrissy swished her wand in my direction. Before I could utter another protest, I was wearing a white gown with silver beading 258/356

radiating from the bodice like an exploding star. I felt something on my head and reached up to touch it. My hair was up in some sort of bun with a tiara nestled into it.

“Now then,” Chrissy said with satisfaction. “We’ll need to get you back to the castle for your wedding.” I found my voice then. “No!” I sputtered. “I won’t marry King John. I won’t.” I stood up so quickly that my legs nearly gave out. I had to take a couple of stumbling steps before they would support me.

Chrissy’s rosebud pink mouth dropped open. “What’s wrong with your legs?”

“I’ve been riding a horse all day. After I escaped from the castle—”

“You escaped from the castle?” she repeated indignantly. “That’s not supposed to happen. You’re messing up my fairy tale.” Hudson got to his feet and stood by my side. His voice was calmer than mine, but had a firm insistence to it. “Tansy doesn’t want to be the miller’s daughter. She wants to go home. We all do.” Chrissy let out a disapproving humph and wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re not even part of this fairy tale. Whoever heard of a nameless extra running away with the heroine?” I reached out and took hold of Hudson’s arm, afraid Chrissy would whisk him away with a dip of her wand. “I want his help.” Chrissy shifted the bundle she carried from one shoulder to the other. “This is most irregular. I put safeguards in place to keep the story from veering off track. You shouldn’t have been able to escape from the castle.”

I held a hand out to her, pleading. “Please don’t send me back to King John. I’m only seventeen. I can’t marry some crazy man and have his baby. You’ve got to see that.”

Chrissy’s expression softened and she let out an almost motherly sigh. “I was never going to make you have King John’s son. That’s why 259/356

I’ve brought you yours.” She moved the bundle from her shoulder and cradled it in her arms, revealing a baby. His eyes were shut in sleep, his lips puckered in an invisible suckle.

“What?” I stammered. “I don’t have a son.” She handed me the bundle. He was warm and soft, and he had flower-petal-smooth skin. I held him to me and inhaled his baby-powder scent.

“Well, you don’t have a son when you’re seventeen,” she said. “I went to your future and borrowed him. Now you can tell that awful ex-fairy his name, be through with the story, and go home.”

“No …” I held the baby back out to her, panic gripping my chest with more fierceness than the golden heart had ever done. My hands trembled, and I had to force myself to look at Chrissy and not the baby. I wanted to stare at his round cheeks, his button nose, and the wispy brown hair that curled at the ends. My baby. My future son.

“Take him back to the twenty-first century. He’s not safe here.” Chrissy bent over and kissed his forehead. A puff of silver glitter momentarily twirled around his head. “I know you’ve never taken care of a child, but it’s not that hard. I packed bottles, formula, diapers, and the cutest little outfits you’ve ever seen.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a bag that grew until it was a full-sized, leafy green diaper bag.

In a low voice, Hudson said, “Tansy, you have to tell her what you did.”

I didn’t need the prompting. The words had already started tumbling out of my mouth. “I traded Clover some gold for a change enchantment. So now the fairy tale doesn’t have to end like the real story did. I can’t have my own baby here. Rumpelstiltskin will take him.” Chrissy’s lips tightened and her wings spanned open sharply.

“You changed the fairy tale?” 260/356

“It seemed like the easiest way to get home.” Chrissy tapped her wand in exasperation. “Well, that’s mortal logic for you. Complicate things in the name of simplification.” She put one hand on her hip and held the other out, palm up. “Let me see The Change Enchantment.”

I was still holding the baby, so Hudson got the book and handed it to her. Chrissy opened it, barely glancing through the illustration and text. “Writers,” she muttered, then put her wand to the book. “Give me the nonfiction version, please.”

At once the paintings changed to actual pictures, moving ones, like paper-thin computer screens. She put her wand back into her purse and flipped through pages, pausing at the one where Clover and I made our bargain. She scowled, then turned the next page and the next, watching the important events of the last two days, until she reached the final page and saw herself peering at the book in the forest beside Hudson and me.

Chrissy let out a dramatic sigh and slammed the book shut. “How am I ever supposed to finish an assignment to the UMA’s approval when they keep sending me an assistant who purposely sabotages my efforts?” She gripped the book hard, as though she’d like to throw it.

“I’ll tell you why he did this. He’s ticked off that I’m using the gold enchantment that he lost to Rumpelstiltskin to complete my assignment.

He just can’t bear the fact that he doesn’t own it anymore.”

“It used to be Clover’s enchantment?” I asked. The shabby clothes and second job as a party entertainer suddenly made sense. He had lost his ability to make gold. But had Clover really given me The Change Enchantment to sabotage me? Would he do that? The thought settled into my stomach like I’d swallowed lead. Weren’t there any magical creatures out there that actually helped people? What was going to happen next? Would a unicorn come along and try to impale us?

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I glanced down at my baby. I hadn’t ever thought much about having children before, but seeing him, holding him, was doing something to me. Emotions gripped me so strongly I couldn’t even identify what they were. He was beautiful. Perfect. I didn’t want to let him go, and yet the desire I had to protect him outweighed everything else.

I held him out to Chrissy. “You understand why he can’t be here.