A Questionable Quest

Chapter 31... in Van calls his infuriatingly invisible fairy godmother

Apparently, Van's grand plan was to invoke his own fairy godmother. Of course, neither of us knew how to do that, considering the usual invocation didn't seem to work on her.

"Say it again."

"I already did." Van clenched the table in that same little library corner we'd been stuck in for nearly two hours now. "I've said it maybe a hundred times now."

"Then you didn't say it right," came my (extremely logical) conclusion. Van just shot me a look. I waved my hands. "Say it one more time, just to make sure."

Van looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. He squared his shoulders, and breathed in the musty book-filled air.

"Oh Spirit of Guidance, Fairy of Life, I call upon my Fairy Godmother. Heymere, hear my call."

Silence.

Van waited. I waited. The silence doubled, then tripled in length. Van opened his palms, in a "see?" sort of gesture.

Eventually, my shoulders slumped. Nothing. "You're certain you said it right?"

"Did it sound right to you?"

"... yes." I frowned. Then snapped. "How could this happen? We have less than an hour... and nothing!" I waved my hands wildly.

Before, when we'd called Dorissa, there had been no time pressure. Soon after, however, a messenger had arrive from my parents, saying that they needed me in an important meeting at nine.

Five minutes later, a messenger had arrive from the King and Queen of Portsburring, stating that they needed their son for an important meeting at nine.

Putting two and two together had been the easy part. At nine o'clock, our parents were meeting to discuss my fate -- and if that fate didn't involve an engagement to either Portsburring prince, my parents and I had no business staying in this foreign palace.

Van settled into the chair nearest him. He tapped his fingers against the table, pensively -- or, perhaps, anxiously -- but said nothing.

I checked my watch. "Eight thirty-two," I read aloud. I couldn't keep the dread from my tone. More importantly, though, I couldn't suffocate this burning frustration. My hands clenched, unclenched, clenched, and unclenched. Over and over.

Dorissa had been unwilling to help us. Heymere -- Van's fairy godmother -- hadn't even bothered to show. Neither of us had any ideas and, if we did, I sincerely doubted we could do much over the course of the next twenty-eight minutes.

I collapsed into the chair next to Van, feeling just a little defeated. "Bloody hrrackg." There was almost no infliction behind the words. Almost. What infliction I did manage to muster, I clung tightly to.

After all, we weren't defeated quite yet. We still had twenty-eight -- no, twenty-three -- minutes. And an entire royal meeting.

I just hoped it would be enough. I also hoped that, somehow, I could scrounge up a plan in the next -- I checked my watch again -- in the next fifteen minutes.

Vans fingers continued their drrrrum, drrrrum, drrrrum pattern on the hard surface of the desk. His other arm came up, found my hand in my lap, and gave it a squeeze.

We sat like that for the next twelve minutes, the wheels in both of our heads spinning rapidly, but also just soaking in each other's company. After all, this might be the last time-

I cut off the thought. No. No.

We were going to... to... to think of a plan. And, if we couldn't, we were going to go into that meeting, and stare and glare and stare until his parents blessed an engagement.