Page 23 of The Never Queen

So we bought a larger house about a mile away in the neighborhood known as the Woods because it butted up againsta protected forest and was known to host the best trick-or-treating.

The day we purchased the house, a sprawling, ten-bedroom Gothic Tudor built by a son of one of the original railroad barons, I asked Pan where he got all this money. Not only had they purchased our house, and the cottage for Mom, but they had also bought the old Victorian in an effort to protect the many secrets we now had buried there (namely the bodies of dead brownies in the backyard).

In answer, Bash plucked a few leaves from a nearby bush and held them out in his hand. “Watch.” He closed his fist over the leaves and then opened it again, just a second later, and the leaves had turned into a pile of hundred-dollar bills.

I marveled at the magic, shuffling through the bills as if I expected the trick to evaporate, for the money to return to what it was. But it didn’t. The paper felt real, slightly textured. And each bill had different smudges of dirt and grim, as if it had built up over a decade.

“How long will it last? And what happens when they realize they’re holding a pile of leaves?”

“Money is just energy, Darling,” Pan had said, like that should explain it.

“It’ll stay like that forever,” Kas clarified. “Or until we change it back.”

“Okay but you can’t really mean to buy a house with cash. Like actual cash.”

Bash laughed. “No. We have a bank account for that.”

And so, that afternoon, the papers were signed, the money transferred, and the keys handed over.

The house was ours.

When I was a kid, I had marveled at houses just like the Tudor, more a fantasy than anything else. How could anyoneactually own such a place? I imagined they were princesses living in a fairytale.

We stayed there for the first week as we all settled, us in our Tudor, Mom in her cottage with Leo.

It felt like a fairytale and also so real, it almost chaffed.

Kas heads up the bank, ducking beneath the hanging branches of a willow tree. “Leo mentioned he last remembers them being on the path to the east of the fountain.”

We cut through the willows until we reach the paved path that winds through the park. There aren’t a lot of people out tonight, and the park is quiet with the noise of the city muffled beyond the park’s borders.

Black iron lampposts have already flickered on, illuminating the path in pools of diffused light.

We’re quiet as we approach the section of the park where Mom disappeared. To our left, the fountain is all lit up, the water spraying from the statue of a nymph chiseled from marble.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

We keep walking. Leo said they were about ten feet from the nearest park bench. When we reach the exact spot, we break apart and circle the fountain, the trees, the line of bushes, but find nothing. Not even a hint of a struggle.

“Now what?” I say, a sense of unease creeping up my spine.

I hug my arms over my body, glad I had decided to throw on a sweatshirt at the last second. It’s my favorite sweatshirt, my good luck sweatshirt now. Bash bought it for me in Darlington Port a few months back right before I got to meet my great-great-great grandmother, Wendy Darling. I never used to believe in superstition, but then I was wearing it the day I found out Wendy was pregnant, making me an auntie (or great-great-great niece, if you want to get technical).

The sweatshirt is a rich shade of maroon with block lettering on the chest that saysThe Myth is Mine.

Bash had it custom made by an artist.

Pan rolled his eyes so deeply when he saw it that I thought he was dying.

And from that moment on, it became a permanent fixture in my regular wardrobe.

Come on, Mom, I think, rubbing warmth into my arms.I have the good luck sweatshirt on. Where the hell are you?

“Let’s head to the cottage,” Pan says.

If we follow the path back toward the pond, but cut left before the copse of willow trees, it’ll lead us out of the park, to the street, and Mom’s neighborhood just beyond. From there, it’s just three blocks to the quiet, tree-lined street where Mom now lives.

We walk in silence. A few people cross our path, most ignore us. Two men recognize Pan and nod a hello before ducking their heads and scurrying on.