I have to complain about anything, especially a nutritious meal after a long day of voluntary exercise?
I lifted my fork, my arm shaking from the effort, and shoved the sausage into my mouth. Chewing and swallowing as quickly as possible, I ate half the sausage and several bites of tepid turnips and cabbage.
“Holding your nose really does work.”
Vee stood in front of me, chuckling. She’d learned that the hard way when her mom, Janet, had run out of money before payday and therefore concocted a culinary specialty she called “freezer casserole.” Which basically consisted of whatever remnants were in the freezer mixed with cream of chicken soup. The recipe varied; one week green beans and cream of chicken topped with bits of frozen waffle and baked at 375 degrees until golden brown; or peas, carrots, and cream of chicken topped with freezer-burned french fries and broiled to a crisp. No wonder Vee was such a foodie. She had a whole childhood of crappy meals to make up for.
“Darn right, chica,” Vee said, popping a morsel of scone into her mouth.
Surely I was hallucinating from the intense combat training I had endured at the hands of my boyfriend. I blinked my eyes, but the apparition of my bestie remained.
“Duncan has your best interests at heart. And from the looks of you, he’s doing a great job.” Sometimes I really hated that we shared a brain.
She reached for my hand. “Come on.”
I rose from the table and let her lead me to the door. “Where are we going?”
“To storm the castle, silly.”
I hesitated. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“No.” She shook her head, grinning mischievously. “It’s fun. After all, why do you think they say, ‘Have fun storming the castle’?”
She tugged at my hand, but I refused to budge. “Nobody says that.”
With a musical laugh, she jerked me forward. “Stop stalling. We’re already late.”
Half expecting her to turn into a white rabbit, I stumbled forward. The ground beneath us began to sway. Suddenly, we were surrounded by wisps of mist, gliding along a glassy surface like a snake. I crouched down and discovered water on all sides. We were on a tiny raft, bobbing along on something infinitely calmer than an ocean.
The panic of the sudden scene shift must’ve shown on my face, because Vee squeezed my hand. “Relax, silly. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.”
“And where’s that?”
Pointing ahead, she replied, “See.”
The mist parted to reveal a wooden dock at the base of a massive stone wall. Craning my neck toward the night sky, I noted turrets complete with gargoyles. The castle was straight out of a Disneyland nightmare and bigger than anything I’d seen in real life. And just like in Sleeping Beauty, it was surrounded by an impassibly thick, thorny hedge.
The hedge wrapped around the base of the walls in both directions as far as the eye could see. “How are we going to get past the shrubbery?”
“I know a secret entrance.” She stepped off the raft onto the dock. “I just need the magic key.”
The minute Vee’s foot touched dry land, the hedge changed. Tiny black flowers—petunias—began to sprout along the base of the brush. The thorns began to pulse with an eerie violet light. Their tips began to crackle and hiss as drops of purple liquid oozed forth. I covered my mouth against the smell—rotting meat, moldy compost, and month-old garbage.
Zombie fungus! The hedge wasn’t a hedge at all, but one of Addie’s spells.
Now I could clearly see that the decayed shrubbery was really a magical barrier surrounding the castle. And just like when we’d faced the witch’s curse along Doon’s border, Vee seemed oblivious to it.
“Wait!” I gagged out a warning. “Stop!”
Vee set her jaw, determination radiating from her blue-green eyes. “I’m doing this with or without you.”
“You can’t,” I gasped, my nose and throat burning from the foul stench. “It’s a zombie hedge! You have to go over it!”
But it was too late. Vee was already reaching into the hedge. For a millisecond she stared at her hand as the skin turned purple and fell off in putrid chunks. Then she began to shriek.
“Kenna!”
“Go up! Go up!” I shouted.
The boat began to rock, and I blinked up into Fiona’s startled face. The stench of rot gave way to the earthier aroma of roasted root vegetables.
Cold slime dripped from my face as I pushed back from the table, my fatigued arms twitching from adrenaline. “What happened?”
Fiona handed me a napkin, her sympathetic face pinched with concern. “Ye fell asleep