Prom Nights From Hell Page 0,17

together.

"A peasant woman in France put a spell on it," Madame Z said in a tone that was hard to decipher. It was as if she were compelled to speak the words, even though she didn't want to. Or, no. More like she did want to but was struggling to resist. "She wanted to show that true love is guided by fate, and that anyone who tries to interfere does so at her own peril."

She moved to return the corsage.

The Corsage Chapter Three

"Wait!" I cried. "How does it work? What does it do?"

"I'm not telling," she said stubbornly.

"'I'm not telling'?" I repeated. "How old are you, four?"

"Frankie!" Yun Sun said.

"You're just like all the rest, aren't you?" Madame Z said to me. "Willing to do anything for a boyfriend? Desperate for a heart-stopping romance, no matter the cost?"

I felt my face go hot. But here it was, out on the table. Boyfriends. Romance. Hope flickered in my chest.

"Just tell her," Yun Sun said, "or we'll never get to leave."

"No," Madame Z insisted.

"She can't, because she made it up," I said.

Madame Z's eyes flashed. I'd provoked her, which wasn't nice, but something told me that whatever it was, she hadn't made it up. And I really wanted to know.

She put the corsage in the middle of the table, where it sat doing absolutely nothing.

"Three people, three wishes apiece," Madame Z declared. "That's its magic."

Yun Sun, Will, and I looked at one another, then burst out laughing. It was ludicrous and at the same time perfect: the storm, the wacko, and now the ominously issued pronouncement.

And yet the way Madame Z regarded us made our laughter trickle off. The way she regarded Will, especially.

He tried to resurrect the hilarity.

"So, why don't you use it?" he asked in the manner of a teenager being helpful and polite.

"I did," she said. Her orange lipstick was like a stain.

"And... were your three wishes granted?" I asked.

"Every last one," she said flatly.

None of us knew what to say to that.

"Well, has anyone else used it?" Yun Sun asked.

"One other lady. I don't know what her first two wishes were, but her last was for death. That's how the corsage came to me."

We sat there, all silliness squelched. The situation felt unreal, yet here we were, in this moment.

"Dude, that's spooky," Will said.

"So... why do you keep it?" I asked. "If you've used up your three wishes?"

"Excellent question," Madame Z said after staring at the corsage for a few heavy seconds. She pulled a turquoise lighter from her pocket and struck a flame. She picked up the corsage with a fierce determination, as if committing to a course of action long overdue.

"No!" I yelped, snatching it from her grasp. "Let me have it, if you don't want it!"

"Never. It should be burned."

My fingers closed over the rose petals. They were the texture of my grandfather's wizened cheek, which I stroked when I visited him at the nursing home.

"You're making a mistake," Madame Z warned. She reached to reclaim the bundle, then jerked her hand back convulsively. I sensed the same internal warring as when I first goaded her into speaking of the corsage, as if the corsage had an element of actual power over her. Which was ridiculous, of course.

"It's not too late to change your fate," she managed.

"What fate would that be?" I said. My voice broke. "The fate where a tree falls in the forest, but poor me, I'm wearing earplugs?"

Madame Z fixed me with her thick-lashed eyes. The skin around them was as thin as crepe paper, and I realized she was older than I originally assumed.

"You are a rude and disrespectful child. You deserve a spanking." She leaned back in her swivel chair, and I could tell-snap, like that-she'd released herself from the corsage's unhealthy hold. Or perhaps the corsage had done the releasing? "You keep it, that's your decision. I take no responsibility for what happens."

"How do you use it?" I asked.

She snorted.

"C'mon," I pleaded. I didn't mean to be a brat. It was just that it was so terribly important. "If you don't tell me, I'll do it all wrong. I'll probably... I don't know. Destroy the whole world."

"Frankie... let it go," Will said under his breath.

I shook my head. I couldn't.

Madame Z clucked at dim, foolish me. Well, let her.

"You hold it in your right hand and speak your wish aloud," she said. "But I'm telling you, no good will come of it."

"You don't need to be so negative," I