Snow's Lament

Copyright © 2015 by S.E. Babin

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Rebecca Frank

Book design by S.E. Babin

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

S.E. Babin

Visit my website at sebabin.com

Printed in the United States of America

To the man who makes me laugh and still makes me sigh. I love your freaking face, babe.

Cinderella’s wrath settled around our house like a plague of locusts during Biblical times, smothering and angry. Belle and I would never admit how scary it was, but we also wouldn’t admit we found it secretly hysterical. We rarely saw the pissed off side of the beautiful, displaced princess, but I had a secret talent: I could piss off a saint within five minutes of meeting them.

Cinderella had years to get used to me. She was one of my best friends and able to tolerate me more than the average person. But, this time, I’d deliberately tried to get her goad up, and boy, did I succeed. I owed her for the suitcase stunt she pulled on me a few months ago.

I’d taken great pains to carefully pack for our conference a few months ago, black skinny jeans, boots, dark shirts—all the things I could get blood on and no one would notice. When I got to the conference and had to dress for dinner, everything was mysteriously gone—replaced with frilly pink, pastel blouses and high-waisted trousers. My boots were replaced with dainty flats—you get the idea. If anyone else had done it, I would have reveled in their slow, painful death. Alas, since it was Cyndi, I had to settle for a less deadly form of payback. After all, I would probably miss her if I doled out a more permanent form.

Belle and I sat at the bar in our cozy kitchen, sipping coffee and grinning like loons as we listened to the feminine shrieks coming from the back of the house.

“She’s really pissed,” whispered Belle.

“Isn’t it great?” I whispered back.

One thing most people knew about Cyndi was her undying devotion to all things cosmetic. Entering her bathroom was like entering a war zone. One wrong move and you could knock over the holy grail of moisturizer, earning yourself a vicious ass-chewing from the princess herself. She viewed her porcelain skin and makeup sense as one of her greatest strengths, but today, it was serving as one of her biggest weaknesses.

When we returned home from the Enchanted Forest a few months ago, I found a vial tucked into my shirt pocket. A cryptic note from Maleficent was included that read: a couple drops in Cyndi’s
Sephora
will make her think twice about playing with things not her own. Maleficent could be super scary when she put her mind to it, or, really, when she was just breathing, but I didn’t think she’d actively try to kill any of us. Still, I waited quite awhile before I used it, until I finally thought,
what the heck? How bad could it be?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized Maleficent was a lot of things, but she didn’t have it out for us. So, one night, when Cyndi was outside having a glass of wine with Robin, Belle and I snuck into her bathroom and put a drop in every single one of her cosmetic and bath products. Then, considering we didn’t have a clue what would happen, we sat back and waited.

This morning, the fruits of our labor were revealed.

At first, we didn’t think anything happened. Cyndi came out with her makeup on, looking as immaculate as she normally did. After an hour or so, and during our breakfast, her pristine hair started kinking up, eventually turning into a nightmare the size of Little Orphan Annie’s. Belle and I stared at each other, not saying anything, but blinking in shock. Then, we both bit our lips and watched the shit hit the fan.

A few moments later, her normal makeup began to turn shock-worthy carnival-esque. By then, neither of us could stop our snorts. Cyndi, sensing something was up, lifted one hand to touch her hair and her face went ashen. She shoved her chair back and ran into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, after coming out once to rip us a new asshole, she was still shrieking and trying in vain to scrub the makeup off her face. Unfortunately for her, with every wipe of the cotton ball, the makeup brightened and morphed, as if there were hundreds of layers underneath the first one.

It was a fitting punishment, but I was beginning to feel sorry for her. Surely Maleficent wouldn’t make this permanent.

I bit my lip.

Would she?

My gaze flew to Belle’s, who appeared to have reached the same conclusion I had. “She wouldn’t. Would she?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

We both went back to drinking our coffee, but every time Cinderella dropped another “f” bomb, both of us snorted with laughter.

Another ten minutes passed and Cyndi walked back into the kitchen, her face red from scrubbing with no progress made.

“How long does this last?” she asked in a sullen tone.

I didn’t want to tell her I had no idea. She was already pissed at me. “Soon,” I said vaguely and smiled sweetly at her.

Cyndi glared at both of us, only turning away to pour herself a cup of coffee.

“Careful with your lipstick,” I said. “You don’t want to smear it.”

Belle choked on her coffee and dissolved into giggles.

It took forty-eight hours for the Makeup Caper of the century to fade. We noticed it beginning to wear off the next morning. Cinderella was still furious at us over breakfast, but, when pressed by an overly cheery Robin, grudgingly admitted she might have deserved it.

“But my makeup…of all the things you could have done.”

“Well, love,” Robin said, tipping his coffee mug to her, “that’s why it was so bloody brilliant!”

We stayed away from her as best we could. When we did get around her, the glares she gave us all were hostile and her mumbled threats began to get more creative with each passing hour she looked like a harlequin.

Fortunately for us, it was a weekend. I’d planned it that way just in case things went really awry. You never could tell with Maleficent, but I knew I owed her one next time I saw her. Actually, I owed her more than one, but I wasn’t sure when we’d be in contact again. I was hoping she’d appear to us through the mirrors in our home, but so far, it had been radio silence. I suspected she’d been injured when the portal collapsed since she was the one holding it open and hoped against all hope she was fully recovered and working on getting this fixed. If Robin, Cyndi, Belle, and I were stuck over here after the ridiculous hotel teleportation stunt, I imagined there were others as well.

We weren’t handling it well either. Imagine two homicidal maniacs—possibly three…we were still on the fence about Belle—and a fashion maven cooped up in the same house together for months at a time—not good for anyone. We’d resorted to sparring in our backyard just to get some aggression out while we waited to hear from someone,
anyone
, from the Enchanted Forest.

Naomi screwed us over. Big time. And while she did that, it seemed she’d cut off all communication with the other side. I was a little surprised she hadn’t moved against us though. During our last battle, which had spilled over into my house, Robin had cleverly pickpocketed the amulet she was after, effectively shutting off her ability to control all the portals. While she didn’t have the maximum control she needed, she still had some…obviously. We were stuck over here like airline travelers during a snowstorm. I was itching to get back to work, but we were all a little jumpy about Naomi and what she planned to do once we left the sanctity of our home. For now, we were warded to the gills, thanks to Belle and her freaky, little-understood technomancy.

We were safe when we were within the parameters of our home, including the backyard and front porch, but if we stepped off the curb, we were fodder for Naomi’s henchmen. None of us were naive enough to believe she’d use magic to get the job done when she could easily bespell a driver to run us over when we stepped out to check the mail. Paranoid? Yes. Unreasonable? Absolutely not. She was crazy with a cherry on top.

And so here we were, stuck like fish in a barrel, waiting for the inevitable moment one of us screwed up. It was bound to happen. I was wound tight as a spring, the only relief so far being the makeup stunt Cyndi would probably never forgive me for.

Tough—I was still pissed about my outfits. In fact, I was still angry about a lot of things and the more I sat here stewing in my own juices, the angrier it made me. Max was still out there, waiting for me. His letter was the only thing keeping me going. I needed to save him from himself, even if it meant destroying us. I needed to save his daughter. I needed to save myself and my kingdom.

I sighed. There was a whole lot of needing to be saved and not much saving going on. My fingers itched to wrap themselves around Naomi’s lily white neck. Choking the life out of her would be satisfying, but I wasn’t sure it would actually kill her. So far, she’d proven to be more resilient than gum in a toddler’s hair.

We’d pored over ninety percent of the lore books in Belle’s makeshift library and had come up with squat. There was nothing we could find about opening another portal; no way we could get back to the forest right now. But there had to be something. There was a way. We just needed to find it.

After we cleaned up the kitchen, we all sat around the living room, the television droning on and on with depressing news none of us wanted to hear. It had been like this for weeks. We would read, get depressed, then come in here and stare at the television, each of us lost in our thoughts. Something had to change soon or I was hanging myself from the rafters with one of Cyndi’s silk scarves.

“So,” Belle said after a few moments, “what the hell are we doing?”

“Besides sitting on our butts being completely useless?” I asked.

“I’d say we’re quite good at it,” Robin added.

I threw a pillow at him. “I’m so sick of being in this house. Someone needs to break the stalemate. Soon.”

“We still have that last library section to go through.” Belle stared at me with hope in her eyes. I swear, she was the only one not suffering the ill effects of being stuck in the house. You could probably throw her in a dank prison cell for a year and never hear a complaint out of her if it had books.

I sighed. I knew we needed to do it. If we could find even a hint of information, the tedium would be worth it. “Fine.”

“Yesss,” Belle muttered under her breath. “Let’s go!” she said in an overly cheery voice. She bounded off the couch and motioned for us to follow her into the study.

I used to love this part of the house, but after the last couple of months, I’d avoided it like the plague. We’d spent so much time in here studying ancient tomes, I never wanted to pick up another book as long as I lived. Not that Belle had that trouble. She strolled over to one of the mahogany shelves and began doling out tomes like the good little librarian she always wanted to be.

“Snow, you take the ones about weapon and artifacts.” She handed me a massive stack of dusty books.

“Cyndi, you take the ones on geography and places of power.”

Cyndi groaned. “I hate geography.” She glared at Belle as she grudgingly accepted the pile Belle handed her.

“Sorry,” Belle said, not sounding very sorry at all. “There’s nothing here about current fashion or makeup trends, so geography it is.”

It was Robin’s turn, and I watched in rapt fascination. Robin getting stuck with us was like some form of cruel torture for Belle, but it sure was fun for me to witness. Those two had some weird, twisted history, and for the life of me, I still couldn’t figure out what happened. They were like MI-5 agents, close-lipped and secretive.

“Robin,” Belle said in a curt tone, careful to avoid eye contact with him. “You have sorcerers and magic lore.”

“Yippee,” he said in his clipped British accent. “I just can’t wait to dive into all this.”

Belle rolled her eyes as she slapped the books in his hands. “The faster we get through these, the faster we can ship you back home.”

A hurt look crossed Robin’s face, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. She really had no clue how much she could hurt him. “Well,” he fired back, “I’ll just dive right in so I can get back to the ladies over there. Lots of wenches are missing out.”

He winked at Belle and turned away. She glared at his back for a second until a thoughtful look stole over her face, but it washed away as soon as she saw me watching her. I lifted one of my eyebrows and Belle’s lips twisted before she turned away to select her own books.

We read in silence for the next couple of hours, until I sat straight up. My eyes were crossing trying to figure out the antiquated language, but a familiar picture caught my eye as I flipped through the last chapter of a book titled,
Ancient Artifacts of Queens and Kings.

“Listen!” Everyone put their books down and stared. “I found a picture of the necklace my father gave me.” I turned the book around to show them before I shifted it back to me to read the passage.

“The chronicler’s gem is believed to belong to the first queen of the Enchanted Forest, but its origins before that are a mystery. Lore suggests the gem permitted a kingdom’s chronicler to journey to realms unavailable to the common man, allowing them to document lore and history for the masses. The whereabouts of this gem are unknown at this time.”

“What does it mean?” Cyndi asked.

“Not sure, but a chronicler is someone who documents important or historically significant events. My father used to have one—Simeon was his name—but I haven’t seen him in years. Considering the lore says the gem was used to travel, you’d think we could use it to open a portal.”

The only useful magic in the house right now belonged to Belle. Cyndi had her own brand of unique magic, but I didn’t think it could be used to help us out. Although, I wasn’t sure how technomancy could help us either. Robin and I were just plain old vanilla citizens, for the most part. Each child born in the Enchanted Forest was gifted with something—sometimes magic, sometimes an innate knack for something. Robin had the gift of archery, but over time, he admitted he wasn’t sure whether this was actually his gift or if he just possessed an uncanny, borderline supernatural ability for hitting his target 99.9% of the time. Considering his parents weren’t around to tell him if that was it, he’d have to keep guessing. Since he didn’t have an aptitude for much else aside from wooing the ladies and pissing Belle off, I was pretty sure it was the archery.

I, on the other hand, had a flair for weapons and a big mouth—two things I hoped I wouldn’t be gifted with considering I was supposed to be Queen. Not sure how those would help me keep thousands of people in line, but if that were it, I supposed I’d need to get used it. Belle suspected Naomi, the queen, had stolen my “gift”, but I was unsure about this. I never felt like I was missing something, besides the whole stolen kingdom thing, but as far as magic went, I never thought I possessed any. Even knowing there was the possibility, it hadn’t changed my mind. Maybe it would be something amazing like telepathy or teleportation. I could pop in at extremely inopportune times, scream “Boo!” and get the hell out of dodge before anyone was the wiser. It would be an effective assassination technique, too. Not that I was considering assassinating anyone except Naomi. Still, I could if I wanted to. Alas, this was not Star Trek and Scotty was long gone. I should probably think smaller so I wouldn’t be so disappointed when my gift turned out to be something stupid, like a knack for couponing.