Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Read Free Page B

like liquid fire burned her gut, and her face flushed.
    That was when she threw up on them. It came out in buckets. Honestly, Briar didn’t know where all the barf came from.
I guess they aren’t lucky all the time
, she thought to herself watching the boys, their faces slimed by her viscous yellow gunk, and they themselves retching in response. Much to Briar’s horror, Leon Squire, the hunk, the hero, the—
him
—happened to wander by as the scene unfolded. At the sight of vomit slopped across lockers and splattered on the faces of his buddies, he doubled over and quickly sped away, holding a hand to his own mouth.
    Her nickname changed from that day on. It was announced to the school in the usual way, scrawled across her locker: “Hurl Gurl.” Queen of Darkness had a better ring to it, Briar mused. But people ought to keep their distance from a Hurl Gurl just the same. After all that, Briar supposed that Grizzly must now have thought they were BFFs or something stupid like that. Whatevs.
    She couldn’t have Grizzly and her friends orbiting around in her universe for real, or Leon might never make a move. At least in her imagination, he would make some kind of a move. She scanned the sidelines surreptitiously again. Without warning, a few Lucky Boys parted like cherubs flanking a winged God. They stepped aside just enough for Briar to see Leon standing there in all his chiseled perfection. His face, his body seemed straight out of Bullfinch’s Mythology.
    Shit. What am I doing?
Briar thought. She rolled her eyes, covered her face and tried not to hyperventilate.
This will never work
. She tugged on the black hoodie that was loosely draped over her satin Victorian get-up, and she thumbed her handheld, trying to distract herself. She kept her gaze down to keep from hurling yet again. The screen’s glow reflected blue onto her powder-pale face.
    That’s when something unusual caught her eye.
    Instead of her expected death rock videos, Briar was surprised to be viewing a peculiar elderly woman dressed in some sort of archaic garb. She was tall, gaunt, and severe in her neck-high, pearl-buttoned shirt and red waistcoat. She had a small black tie encircling her neck, and a matching black velvet band that outlined her thin waist. There was also a black top hat—the size of a coffee cup—that defied gravity, clinging to the front of her pulled back gray hair. She peered out from the screen through miniscule glasses sitting on the end of her nose—like a puckered old librarian from the
Twilight Zone
, Briar imagined.
    Briar moved her thumb to the refresh key but hesitated as the woman spoke. Though the download that played was choppy and full of intermittent scrambled pixels, Briar held her breath for a moment, captivated.
    â€œBriar,” the elderly said. She looked anxiously left and right, as if checking for unwanted listeners. The transmission became pixelated.
    Say what?
Briar thought.
She did not just say my name, did she?
She looked around for a moment.
Who would do this?
“You’re not funny,” Briar said aloud. This stopped Potato-Juliette’s soliloquy.
    The auditorium went silent. No laughs. No sniggering.
Okay
,
so maybe it’s not a joke
, Briar thought. She sank deeper into her hood, acting as though she hadn’t said anything.
    She peered again at the screen. The image finally stabilized and picked up mid-sentence: “—a dangerous time for—” The transmission scrambled again. Then it restarted. “The Lady Or—” The image twisted a bit and cut out.
    When it came back, the puckered librarian was speaking while petting a fox fur that fluffed around her neck: “A
dillywig
emissary will come—” The screen went black.
    Neither the jostling of nearby auditioners nor the metallic megaphone announcement of her name could take Briar’s attention from the screen. So absorbed was she that she nearly coughed