The Fae Prince

Chapter 1: Cake and Apples

Northwest Territories, 2005
Wednesday
12:45pm

Haley

"Cathy, I'm going to lose my mind," I growl as I throw the sheets of my bed around in an attempt to find my favorite pen.

"Just use a different pen, Haley," Cathy groans in annoyance as I rummage through my desks drawers next.

She was sitting on my bean bag eating all of my licorice.

"No, it's my favorite pen because I like the way it writes. None of my others pens write the same," I pout, "And stop eating all of my licorice! I don't like having to go out in the cold if I don't need to."

"I think I see it sticking out of your doc's." Cathy gestures to the shoes under my bed and I grin like the Cheshire Cat, completely forgetting about my poor licorice.

"I love you," I muse as I pluck it out of my boot.

Cathy rubs her temples and sighs. "You give me migraines."

"You wouldn't have it any other way though, eh?" I blow a kiss towards her and she pretends to slap it away.

I walk around my bed and to my desk, sitting down and getting to work on a rough draft of my short story.

"What exactly do you need your pen for anyway?" Cathy asks as she gets up from my bean bag to sit on my bed.

She leans over my shoulder to look at what I'm writing, chewing obnoxiously loud in my ear.

"Mr. Calloway wants me to write a short story for his Sunday ad in the paper," I say as I furiously write down ideas, "He thinks it will generate more customers."

Cathy leans back onto one hand and twirls a piece of licorice in the other.

"Haley, you work in a city of roughly 20,000 people. I don't think you'll get much more action at that bookstore than you do now simply because of an ad in the paper," she scoffs in disbelief, but quickly changes her facial expression when she sees me turn to look at her, "I mean it's possible, but let's be real. People aren't into hardcover copies of books anymore. This is the age of technology, and sadly, paperback books are not apart of that."

I huff and ignore her comments.

"Can I at least know what you're going to write about?" Cathy pleads.

"Faeries," I say, "My mom used to tell me stories about them when I was a kid, and, as weird as it sounds out loud, I have a lot of dreams about them."

I pause my writing and think back to the dream I had last night. A man, a faerie, beckoned me into a garden that was filled with plants and had walls of flowers that seemed to touch the sky. His pale blue eyes dared me to accept his invitation, pulling me into his devious trap. I woke up in a cold sweat after I had accepted the faeries hand in my dream.

"No, I know the story is about faeries. I want some of the plot, though," Cathy shoves my shoulder.

"Now that is a secret I'll never tell," I raise my eyebrows and give her a kissy face.

"Are they gonna be, like, tinker-bell faeries?" Cathy scrunches her face up in confusion.

"No, not like tinker-bell faeries." I roll my eyes as I set my pen down. "I'm talking about old-European folklore faeries. The one's who were creepily perfect looking and had pointed ears and stole children. Those faeries."

Realization dawns upon Cathy and she nods her head in understanding. "Ohh, okay. I think I get it now. So like Rumplestilt-"

I slap a hand over her mouth.