cooed.
Agatha coughed.
“I’m so happy for them, aren’t you?” Sophie mooned, dabbing nonexistent tears. “It’ll be such a thrill. Having a new mother, two brothers, and going to the shop each morning to churn”—she gulped—“butter.”
Agatha gaped at Sophie, back in her favorite dress. “You’re pink … again.”
“Like my loving, Good heart,” her friend breathed, stroking pink-ribboned braids.
Agatha blinked. “Did they put toadstools in the punch?”
“Sophie!”
Both girls turned and saw Jacob, Adam, and Stefan trying to fix crooked blue tulip garlands over the altar at the front of the tent. Standing on pumpkins to reach, the boys beckoned her with waves.
“Sweet little munchkins, aren’t they?” Sophie smiled. “I could just eat them both u—”
Agatha saw her friend’s green eyes chill with fear. Then it was gone, and the only traces left were the bruised circles beneath them. Nightmare scars. She’d seen them on Sophie before.
“Sophie, it’s me,” Agatha said quietly. “You don’t have to pretend.”
Sophie shook her head. “You and me, Aggie. That’s all I need to be Good,” she said, voice shaky. She clasped Agatha’s arm and looked deep into her friend’s dark eyes. “As long as we keep the witch inside me dead. Everything else I can bear if I try.” She gripped Agatha tighter and turned to the altar. “I’m coming, boys!” she shouted, and with a strained smile, swept off to help her new family.
Instead of feeling touched, Agatha felt even more miserable. What’s wrong with me?
Her mother came up beside her and handed her a glass of punch, which she downed in one gulp.
“Added a few glowworms,” Callis said. “Brighten that sour face.”
Agatha spat a spray of red.
“Really, dear. I know weddings are putrid things, but try not to look hostile.” Her mother nodded ahead. “The Elders already despise us. Don’t give them more reason.”
Agatha glanced at three wizened, bearded men in black top hats and knee-length gray cloaks, milling between seats and shaking hands. The length of their beards appeared to indicate their relative ages, with the Eldest’s funneling down past his chest.
“Why do they have to approve every marriage?” Agatha asked.
“Because when the kidnappings kept happening, the Elders blamed women like me,” her mother said, picking dandruff from her hair. “Back then, if you weren’t married by the time you finished school, people thought you were a witch. So the Elders forced marriages for all those unwed.” She managed a wry smile. “But even force couldn’t make a man wed me.”
Agatha remembered when no boy at school wanted her for the Ball either. Until …
Suddenly she felt even grimmer.
“When the kidnappings continued, the Elders softened their stance and ‘approved’ marriages instead. But I still remember their terrible arrangements,” said her mother, digging nails into her scalp. “Stefan suffered worst of all.”
“Why? What happened to him?”
Callis’ hand dropped, as if she’d forgotten her daughter was listening. “Nothing, dear. Nothing that matters anymore.”
“But you said—” Agatha heard her name called and spun to see Sophie waving her into a front-row seat.
“Aggie, we’re starting!”
Side by side in the first pew, a few feet from the altar, Agatha kept waiting for Sophie to crack. But her friend clung to her smile, even as her father joined the priest at the altar, the fiddlers began the procession, and Jacob and Adam strewed roses down the aisle in matching white suits. After months of fighting her father, fighting for attention, fighting real life … Sophie had changed.
You and me, Aggie.
All Agatha had ever wanted was to be enough for Sophie. For Sophie to need her as much as she needed Sophie. And now, at last, she’d won her happy ending.
But in her seat, Agatha didn’t feel happy at all. Something was bothering her about this wedding. Something worming through her heart. Before she could pinpoint it, the fiddlers slowed their tune, everyone under the tent stood, and Honora waddled down the aisle. Agatha watched Sophie carefully, expecting her friend to finally betray herself, but Sophie didn’t flinch, even as she took in her new stepmother’s bulbous hairdo, pudgy behind, and dress smudged with what looked like cake frosting.
“Dearest friends and family,” the priest began, “we are gathered here to witness the union of these two souls …”
Stefan took Honora’s hand, and Agatha felt even more dismal. Her back hunched, her lips pouted—
Across the aisle, her mother was glaring at her. Agatha sat up and faked a smile.
“In love, happiness comes from honesty, from committing to the one that we need,” the priest continued.
Agatha felt Sophie gently take her hand, as if they both had everything they needed right here.
“May you grow a love that fulfills you, a love that lasts Ever After …”
Agatha’s palm started to sweat.
“Because you chose this love. You chose this ending to your story.”
Her hand was dripping now, but Sophie didn’t let go.
“And now this ending is yours eternally.”
Agatha’s heart jackhammered. Her skin burned up.
“And if no one has any objections, then this union is sealed forever—”
Agatha pitched forward, sick to her stomach—
“I now pronounce you—”
Then she saw it.
“Man and—”
Her finger was glowing brilliant gold.
She let out a cry of shock. Sophie turned in surprise—
Something flew between them, throwing them both to the ground. Agatha wheeled to feel another arrow graze her throat before she lunged away. She could hear children crying, chairs falling, feet stumbling as the mob stampeded for cover, dozens of golden arrows whizzing past, gouging holes in the tent. Agatha spun for Sophie, but the tent tore off its stakes, toppled over the shrieking crowd, and swallowed her, until she couldn’t see anything but muffled shadows flailing behind the canvas. Breathless, Agatha crawled on all fours over a shattered altar, hands clawing through mud and trampled garlands as arrows landed ahead with shearing rips. Who was doing this? Who would destroy a weddin—
Agatha froze. Now her finger was shining even brighter than before.
It can’t be.
She heard a girl’s screams ahead. Screams she knew. Sweating, shivering, Agatha skimmed under overturned chairs, shoving the last fringe of tent off her, until she felt a blast of sunlight and scraped into the front garden, expecting carnage—
But people were just standing there, silent, still, watching the skyfall of arrows from every direction.
Arrows from the Woods.
Agatha shielded herself in horror, then realized the arrows weren’t aimed at her. They weren’t aimed at any of the villagers. No matter where they came from out of the Woods, their shafts curved at the last second, tearing toward one and only one target.
“Eeeeeyiiiiii!”
Sophie ran around her house, ducking and batting arrows away with