A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(19)

Mindy threw her hands into the air. “Vermont! Vermont, he says!” she declared as if Conner had said his sister was living on Mars. “Do you have any proof of this? A photo or a postcard with Alex’s handwriting, perhaps?”

“You think I’m lying to you?” Conner asked. He was beginning to worry they might be on to something. How much did they already know?

Cindy stepped closer to him and looked directly into his eyes. “We practically live in the library, and last year we saw some things, some questionable things,” she said.

“Like what?” Conner asked.

“Well, for starters, Alex used to come into the library every day at lunch,” Mindy said. “And every day she would go to the back and take one book off the shelf.”

“She would hug it and whisper sweet nothings into its spine!” Lindy continued.

“Why would she do that, Conner? Your sister was the smartest girl in the school. It was so out of character for her to be talking to inanimate objects, don’t you think?” Cindy said.

Wendy squinted and nodded.

“So you’re ambushing me on a plane because my sister hugged a book?” Conner asked, trying to make them seem crazy.

“We think she was talking to someone!” Mindy said. “She used to say things like ‘Please take me away’ and ‘I want to go back!’ ”

“And then the next thing we know, Alex is gone,” Lindy said.

“Left for Vermont, or so you say,” Cindy said, and swiveled her head.

Conner tried to make his face as expressionless as possible. He didn’t want to give them any hint that their suspicions were remotely valid. “You guys are insane,” he said. “What are you implying? Do you think Alex ran away?”

Mindy clenched both her fists in frustration. “I don’t know if she ran away, is working for the government, was abducted by aliens, or something else,” she said intensely. “All I know is, something isn’t right and I know you know the truth! And even if you don’t tell us what’s going on, we’re gonna find out!”

“Because that’s what the Book Huggers do,” Lindy said. “We read between the lies and get to the bottom of things.”

Wendy nodded again and punched the palm of her hand in a threatening manner.

“The Book Huggers?” Conner asked.

“That’s what we’ve renamed the Reading Club,” Cindy said. “In honor of Alex… wherever she is.”

However close they were to discovering the truth, they were still the most obnoxious people Conner had ever had to deal with and that kept him from spilling any of his family’s secrets.

“I think you guys read too much,” he said. He pushed his way through them and went back to his seat. He could feel their cold glares on his back as he went.

When Conner sat down he noticed Bree wasn’t staring as attentively at her book as before and she had pulled an earbud out of her ear. Had she been listening to the Book Huggers assault him?

“So your sister lives in Vermont now?” Bree asked.

“Yes, with my grandma,” Conner said. Bree’s questions were much more difficult to dodge. He felt himself wanting to tell her the truth about his sister—and anything else she may have wanted to know.

“Vermont’s pretty far,” she said.

“It is,” Conner said. “But we talk on the phone a lot.”

“So that’s where you went ballooning, then, I take it?” she questioned him further, starting her own interrogation.

“Um… yeah,” Conner asked. “Why?”

“Just curious,” Bree said blankly. “So if you’ve never flown before, how did you get all the way up to Vermont?”

He knew she could see the uncertainty in his face. “Train?” Conner peeped.

A coy smile spread across her face. “Interesting…,” Bree said. “I see why they’d be suspicious.”

She wasn’t looking at him like a boy she thought had a crush on her anymore, but rather the way she looked at her novels: He was the mystery she was invested in now.

Bree placed the earbud back into her ear and returned to her book, occasionally side-eyeing him over the course of the flight. Conner made himself as comfortable as possible in his tiny seat. His first flight would also undoubtedly be the longest flight of his life.





CHAPTER FOUR





A WEDDING IN THE WOODS


Alex spent the following afternoon on the grand balcony of the Fairy Palace. She leaned on the railing and gazed at the beautiful sights around her. Everywhere she looked she could see fairies of all shapes and sizes preparing the palace and the gardens for the Inaugural Ball. Every flower bloomed a little brighter, every pond rippled a bit clearer, and every bird’s chirp was a little merrier. The whole kingdom was buzzing with excitement for the ball… except for Alex.

A year ago Alex had wanted nothing more than to live with her grandmother in the Land of Stories. Just the idea of learning magic and becoming a fairy had seemed like a stretch, but here she was, days away from being introduced to society as a new member of the Fairy Council. It was more than she could ever have wished for, more than she would ever have thought possible, and maybe more than she could handle.