Thanks to Livinginfantasy, Anna Graham, zankoku_na_tenshi, Kyte and Clo for reading and reviewing.
To Livinginfantasy: Here's a shout out to you! Thanks so much for the awesome reviews! They encourage me to keep writing! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! (BTW, those are kisses, not an evil laugh)
To Clo: Kudos to Clo! Your critiques were amazing and very helpful. You've really helped me make Clover's Curse better. Hope to see more of those crits soon!
To zankoku_na_tenshi: I know it's hard to review other people's work when trying to complete your own story, so thanks so much for reading the majority of my chapters and leaving awesome crits! I wish you the best of luck on Land of Sky, Land of Rain!
Inspirational Song: Crimson and Clover by Joan Jett
Chapter 8: A Really Twisted Fairytale
“Ivory?” I screeched. My mouth was still full of pancakes when I said her name, so some of it spilled out of my mouth and landed on my shirt. Embarrassed, I wiped it away.
Ivory rolled her eyes in disgust and stomped inside, and her chunky brown boots made loud thuds on the wooden floor. She looked really disheveled. Her hair was wild and tangled, and she had leaves and twigs stuck all over her navy blue cloak. It was as if she had been running in the woods for the last two days. That, plus the terrifying expression on her face, made her look like a scarecrow.
Despite the sullied appearance, I still couldn’t deny that she was very pretty. Even though her caramel colored hair was a tangled mess, and her face had several dirt spots on it, it was impossible not to see how brilliantly green her eyes were. As she marched over to me, one of the few guys in the inn turned all the way around in his chair to check her out. That bugged me a lot, but I pushed the feeling away quickly. I did not want to be attracted to Ivory.
She stopped a couple of feet away from me and glowered with burning anger in her eyes. I couldn’t help myself; I flinched away from her violent glare. I was scared she was going to beat me up right then and there.
“I have been running for my life for the last two days because of you,” she accused me in threatening tone.
It took me a minute to build up the courage to say something; she looked scary!
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. I meant for the words to sound menacing, like I wasn’t terrified to death of her, but my voice shook involuntarily.
She gritted her teeth and exhaled through her nose roughly. She grasped her sack, and for a minute I thought she was about to hit me with it, but she swung it onto the countertop and sat down on the stool next to me. Eyeing my pancakes speculatively, she grabbed the plate in front of me and slid it over to her side, digging in with ferocity. I was about to protest. I was really hungry. But I was too scared she would decide to eat me instead, so I didn’t say anything.
After eating the rest of my pancakes, she said, “I’m talking about your little friend, the mobster.”
I couldn’t respond to her words, I could only stare in shock. I even felt Munchie stiffen in my pocket. How did she know about that?
“I went to your little hometown, and ran into him in Dewey’s bar,” she clarified, spearing a strawberry with my fork and popping it into her mouth. “Not a nice guy.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, “Slow down. What happened?”
Ivory chewed the strawberry furiously and swallowed it quickly. “After we met in the woods, I ended up going to Shelton. I went to Dewey’s bar for a drink, and he was there. The mob guy, I mean.”
“His name’s Brutus,” I told her.
She looked at me cynically. “Didn’t realize you two were so close. Anyways, Brutus was there, and he was talking about you. Sounded like he was looking for you. I thought he was a friend of yours, so I told him you were on the path heading up to Niveous Mountain,” she sounded a little guilty when she admitted that last part.
So she was the reason why Brutus’ lackeys came after me! Though she couldn’t have known who Brutus really was, I couldn’t stop the flare of rage that built up inside me. My eyes narrowed and I glared at her with animosity.
The anger on her face faded a little bit and she leaned away from what I imagined was the ferocious expression on my face. Good, I'd scared her.
“A-Anyways,” she mumbled nervously, “He sent some guys after you, and they came back a few hours later empty handed. That was when I found out who Brutus really was. He walked right up to me – while I was eating, I might add – and demanded to know where you went, flying away on that dragon.”
When she spoke those words, she wasn’t completely able to hide the awe that crept into her voice, but she moved on quickly.
“I told him I didn’t know, but he didn’t believe me. So then he tried to…force it out of me. That was when Dewey jumped the guy that was holding me and put him in a head lock. He told me to run – I really didn’t want to leave him, but he insisted, and there were about three other guys coming after me.”
“So, what?” I said angrily, “You just left him?”
“No,” she said, clearly offended, “I ran out of the bar in search of Fiona, and they all came out, looking for me. They dragged Dewey out with them, too. So I mounted Fiona and charged at them.
They all scattered when we came near them, and Dewey managed to get away.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, “Good.”
“I didn’t stick around after that. It was pretty clear that Mr. Mob guy wasn’t going to stop chasing me, so I left town with Fiona. I didn’t even stay there for three hours,” she hissed.
“Where’d Dewey go?” I demanded.
“When I ran through the gates with Fiona, I saw him jumping the town wall and then run into the woods. I don’t know where he went after that.”
I exhaled in relief. Wherever Dewey was, I was pretty sure he was okay. He could take care of himself.
“I’m lucky I managed to find this place,” Ivory muttered.
“How did you get here anyways?” I asked, annoyed that she couldn’t find some other inn to go to.
“I ran into a guy who gave me directions,” She explained.
“Who?” I wondered.
“I don’t know his name. He was wearing a red cape, though,” She remembered thoughtfully.
So she ran into Alejandro, too? If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was stalking me. But that seemed unlikely.
“Was he by himself?” I asked carefully. I didn’t want to say, ‘Did he have big red dragon with him?’
“Yeah,” she replied. Good, that meant he’d found a place to hide Carmen. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
She shrugged and chugged down the rest of my orange juice, “Where’s your little rat?”
“He’s not a rat. He’s a hamster,” I said for the hundredth time in my life. Munchie crawled out from my pocket and onto the counter top, towards the plate of food in front of Ivory. I was hoping he would scare her, like he did to most girls, but she just looked at him distastefully and acted like he wasn’t there.
“Where’s the beast?” I asked, knowing she would know who I was referring to.
“Fiona is outside,” she muttered, “Which reminds me, I have to go feed her.”
She stood up and glared down at me one final time before sauntering towards the exit.
“See ‘ya,” I said rudely.
Before stepping out the doorway of the inn, Ivory looked back at me and rolled her emerald eyes. I half expected her to stick her tongue out, too. I wanted to, but I kept a mature hold on myself. I watched her with a straight face as she walked out of the inn, slamming the door behind her with unnecessary force.
***
“Who was that?” Mamma Verena demanded. She had been watching Ivory and me talk from afar, more interested than she should have been.
“No one,” I muttered, looking down from her excited eyes. I occupied myself with drinking the lemonade I’d ordered when Ivory had finished my orange juice.
“She’s pretty,” she appraised, “Could use a bath, though. Is she your girlfriend?”
I choked on my lemonade at the word. Mamma Verena leaned away, looking a little bewildered by my reaction.
“No,” I gasped, “Definitely not.”
Marybell, who had been listening nonchalantly as she cleaned a table few seats away, bounced over to us eagerly.
“I don’t know…” she said teasingly in her Western accent. Then she looked from me to the window, where you could see Ivory outside in the sunlight, making kissy faces at Fiona as she fed her. “I could really see it happening.” She made a heart shape with her hands.
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” I snapped at her.
Marybell just laughed devilishly. “Why so defensive?”
I narrowed my eyes.
Mamma Verena, sensing my angst, said, “Come on, Marybell. Leave the boy alone. He’s right. It’s none of our business.”
Marybell giggled again and strolled away, back into the kitchen. She was so annoying!
“Thanks,” I mumbled to Mamma Verena.
She smiled at me and looked back out the window. “I could definitely see it happening.”
Before I could say anything, she tousled my hair and returned to cleaning the tables as if the conversation never happened.
***
Ivory spent the rest of the day outside. I got the impression that she was an outdoorsy kind of person. I found that I kept looking outside at her, which bugged the crap out of me. I occupied myself by talking to Mamma Verena. I found out that she got paid by Benjamin so that people could stop and rest on their way to the kingdom.
Thinking of Benjamin made me remember Alejandro and Carmen. I wondered if he was okay, wherever he was. I hoped so, since I seemed to be responsible for everyone’s misfortune these days. I guess I couldn’t really blame Ivory for being so pissed at me. She was running from Brutus now, simply because she knew me.
She finally came back inside when night rolled around. She sat a seat away from me at the counter, and tried to pretend I wasn’t there. I ignored her just as well, feeding Munchie a few pieces of cheese.
“I’ll have an iced tea, please,” I heard Ivory tell the waitress when she asked what she wanted. Didn’t seem like she was much of a drinker.
We stayed like that for a few more minutes, acting like we didn’t notice each other’s presence. After a while, I looked up at her, just to see if she was still ignoring me. She was, but she saw me staring at her from the corner of her eye and lifted her head up, spotting me. I looked away automatically, annoyed with myself for getting caught.
There was a long, awkward silence, and then finally she spoke, “So, Clover. Are you gonna tell me why you’re getting chased by a mob guy?”
I turned back to face her reluctantly, “Maybe. If you tell me where you came from.”
She laughed humorlessly, “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
I shrugged indifferently and went back to feeding Munchie. “Well, I don’t have to tell you, either.”
There was another pause, and then Ivory gave in, “Fine. I ran away from home.”
“Why?” I snorted, “Did your daddy refuse to get you another pony?”
“No,” She said flatly, “My dad’s dead. And so is my mom.”
I snapped my head back up and looked at her. Her face was impassive, and her arms were folded across her chest.
“Oh,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty and very uncomfortable, “Sorry.”
She nodded once and continued, “I lived with my aunt and uncle in a house in the woods. I left about three days ago.”
“Why'd you leave?” I asked hesitantly.
Ivory held up her glass of tea and stared at the ice inside as she spoke, “My aunt and uncle…they weren’t very nice people.”
I could sense that there was more to the story, so I stayed silent and waited for her to talk again.
“My uncle was going to force me to marry this farmer, Igor, who was old, smelly and disgusting. He said that he would – quote – drag me down the aisle if he had to.” I heard the contempt in her voice when she talked about her uncle.
I asked the next question very carefully so as not to offend her, “Did you talk to your aunt about it?”
She chuckled darkly, “She was even worse. She said that it was a privilege to be engaged to such a ‘fine and charming’ man, and that I should be grateful to be getting married at such a young age.”
“How old are you anyways?”
“Sixteen,” she said, still observing her iced tea.
Damn, they were jerks. Guess that explained Ivory’s bitter personality. I decided not to say that out loud.
“So that’s it” she concluded, setting her glass down, “I decided that I’d had enough, so I took Fiona and left.”
I had to admit that she had a lot of guts. Running away from home, not knowing what was out there, with nothing but a horse to accompany her. It was really hard for me to believe that she stayed with her aunt and uncle for so long, even though they sounded like unpleasant people. Ivory just didn’t seem like the kind of person that would take crap from anyone. I mean, she’d scared Brutus and his men away with her horse, when I most likely would have run away. She definitely had more guts than I did.
“So,” she began, and turned to face me expectantly, “What’s your story?”
I studied her face carefully, wondering how much I should tell her. She’d been pretty honest with me, so I figured I ought to return the favor. I didn’t answer right away, wondering how best to start it all. It seemed like such a long story, one that started before I ever met Brutus. So I decided to start my story from the very beginning.
“I've always had the feeling that I was cursed. Bad things just always seem to happen to me. I mean, let's start with my name: Clover. What kind of a name is Clover for a boy? Or a human, for that matter? It sounds like a name fit for an elf or a leprechaun, or even a dog. Not for a human.”
I went into detail about my childhood, and Ivory listened without saying anything. Her forest green eyes got really intense when I came to the part about my being an orphan, so I moved on quickly. She smiled a little when I told her about falling into Elizabeth and ruining her dress, and how as a result I became the outcast of the orphanage. Embarrassingly, I even told her the story of how Munchie and I came to be an inseparable duo. She just smiled again and rolled her eyes.
Her expression became sympathetic when I told her I got kicked out of the orphanage when I was fifteen. I roamed over the year I spent in the bakery, and how Mr. Garrow had finally had enough of me and fired me. That was when I told her about the drunken night that changed my life forever. Ivory raised her eyebrows disapprovingly, and her expression reminded me a lot of the ones Dewey sometimes used to give me. It made me miss him a lot.
I described to her how we fled the next day – well, I fled, and how that was the same day that I met her in the Oakwood Forest. She laughed at the memory.
Since she already knew about the dragon, I figured I ought to explain that to her, too. I illustrated to her with words how Carmen looked to me at first sight, and Ivory’s eyes widened with unconcealed amazement when I told her I’d jumped on the dragon’s back to escape Brutus’ men and the Red-cape guy.
Her amazement changed into realization as she figured out that Red-cape guy was the same guy who had given her directions to come here. I explained to her how he was actually Prince Alejandro Ricardo Remirez. I imitated the exact way he’d announced himself, proud and pompous, and Ivory burst out laughing. I laughed along with her hysterically.
Once we calmed down from the laughter, I went on to tell her about how Carmen was really Princess Carmenita Alexandria Renato, Alejandro’s fiancée, turned into a dragon by a witch who wanted to marry Alejandro. Disbelief was painted all over Ivory’s face. I nodded, in agreement with her expression.
I told her the rest of my story and she listened intently, probably hoping for some more interesting things. I explained her that Alejandro had given me the same directions he’d given her, and that was how I came to Mamma’s Inn. I laid out everything to her, all the way from my lousy childhood until the moment she walked into the inn.
“There you go. That’s the story of my life,” I said when I was finished. I was a little out of breath. I didn’t realize my life story was so long.
Ivory stayed silent and stared at her empty glass of iced tea again. For a second, I thought I’d put her to sleep with my long story, but her eyes were open, wide and thoughtful.
“Wow,” she finally spoke, “That…that sounds like a really twisted fairytale.”
I snorted, “Fairytale is the last thing I’d call my life. Where’s my fairy godmother to change my luck?”
“Dewey?” Ivory said, grinning.
I rolled my eyes and chuckled.
“At least you have someone who cares,” she amended, “All I have is Fiona.”
“Guess that’s true,” I agreed, “Sorry about that.”
“S’all good,” Ivory said lightheartedly, “I’ve always been okay on my own.”
I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic towards her at that moment. Here I’d thought I was the only one who ever had it bad. Guess Ivory had it worse than me.
Suddenly Marybell hopped over to us from out of nowhere. She looked from me to Ivory with a sly smile. Crap, here it comes. I thought to myself.
“Aren’t you two lovebirds tired yet?” she teased, “It’s past one o’ clock.”
I glared daggers at her, but she just winked at me.
“Actually,” Ivory began, clearly uncomfortable, “I’m pretty tired. I need a room.”
“Oh, well you can share a room with Clover, since you two seem to be so close,” Marybell said.
I knew that she was joking, but Ivory clearly didn’t because her eyes widened in incredulity. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d slapped Marybell. If it weren’t for Mamma Verena intervening, I’m pretty sure she would have.
“Alright, Marybell,” Mamma Verena finally came to my rescue, hearing Marybell’s jeers. She walked over to us from the kegs and lightly pulled Marybell aside. “That’s enough. I will show you where you can sleep, Ivory.”
I was glad it was her this time and not Marybell. Mamma Verena led Ivory up the stairs to show her where her room was. I followed them shortly after so I wouldn’t say or do anything irrational to Marybell.
Ivory and Mamma Verena were standing at the end of the corridor my room was in when I went upstairs. Mamma Verena was showing Ivory her room, which was right across from mine at the end of the hallway.
They were saying goodnight to each other when I approached them, and Mamma Verena wished me a goodnight as she walked past me, heading back downstairs. Ivory was still standing outside her bedroom door when I walked over to mine.
“So, um, this is my room,” I mumbled, gesturing to the door.
“Mmm, I can see that.” Ivory murmured.
“So, uh, I guess I’ll see you in the morning."
She smiled. “Goodnight, Clover. Nice to know you better.”
“Yeah...you, too.” I returned, “’Night.”
She opened the door to her bedroom and went inside. She gave me another smile and slowly closed the door.
I stood in the hallway like a loser for about five minutes before I realized what I was doing.
Embarrassed with myself, I went into my room and flopped down on my bed with Ivory on my mind before I went to sleep.
***
So I want to know what you think about the big idea. I feel like this is the best chapter I've written so far. I truly wasn't expecting something like this to come out of Clover's Curse. Thanks for reading!
