“Well, if it isn’t Little Miss SOS.”
I sit up—a considerable, even noble effort, which Charm does not appear to appreciate in the least. She’s kneeling beside me, her nose running badly, her cheeks blotched with ash. Prim is on my other side, her enormous eyes crimped with worry. She brushes dirt from my shoulder, plucks something from the greasy nest of my hair.
Behind them is the tiny metal fire ring they bought for their microscopic yard. There’s a pair of flip-flops inside the ring, still smoldering gently, sending up chemical curls of bluish smoke.
I give Charm a quick, woozy smile. “Knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
A look of relief crosses her face, there and gone again. She throws a sullen glance at the fire ring. “I liked those shoes.”
“Uh.” The flip-flops are hot-pink plastic. I can see the dollar store sticker still stuck to the underside of the left shoe. “I owe you a pair?”
Charm shrugs. “It’s fine.” It’s clearly not.
“Okay, whatever. I actually need to go back to where I was, like right now, so if you have another pair to burn that would be great. And maybe a mirror?”
Charm doesn’t move. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Her tone is cordial, but her eyes are thin and hard.
“Thank you?”
“Maybe try, ‘I’m sorry, Charm.’”
“Okay, I’m sorry.” It comes out bratty, audibly insincere. “But I really have to—”
“Shut the fuck up and listen for a second?” Charm’s civility vanishes; she was never a good bullshitter. Prim winces as Charm leans in. “I agree. Let’s recap our situation, shall we? So, first, I tell you I’ve got something important to talk about, and you say, ‘Sure thing, babe!’ But then you Spider-Verse into another dimension and leave me hanging.” I have the sinking suspicion that this speech has been rehearsed, more than once, with and without slides. Prim is creeping for the back door now, leaving me to my fate. “Second, you don’t talk to me for six months. Which is very mature and chill. Then, third, you send me a damn Aarne-Thompson-Uther index number—even though you specifically told me that system was, quote, ‘a Eurocentric mess’ that ‘should be retired from anthropology syllabi’—and failed to respond to any of my requests for clarification. Leaving me to spend the last seven hours frantically acting out the goddamn plot of goddamn Snow White, ever more certain that you’d already bitten into a poison apple or been assaulted by a wandering prince or some—”
There’s a lot more to the speech, judging by the rising volume and level of aggression, but all I can think about is Eva’s small, sad smile right before she wrapped the bodice lace around Snow White’s neck. Like she knew the choice would damn her and didn’t care, because at least she was choosing her own damnation.
I interrupt Charm by throwing my arms around her. She stiffens, then hugs me back so hard it feels vindictive. “You’re such a little shit, you know that?”
I pull away. “Yeah. And I’m really, really sorry. I am. But I have to find a way back into Snow White right now. I have to save—”
Charm tosses both hands in the air. “Some stranger? What about us, Zin? What about me, you absolute turdbucket.”
“I know! I’m sorry, but people need me, okay?”
Charm chews the inside of her cheek before saying, in a voice that could only be accurately measured by the Kelvin scale, “That. Is what I’m trying to tell you. Bonehead.”
A small, extremely uncomfortable silence follows this statement, during which Charm watches me with red, tear-sheened eyes and I call myself every bad name I can think of. It strikes me that neither heroes nor dying girls are very good at sticking around, at the ordinary work of living: calling your friends back and remembering their birthdays, going to the doctor for regular checkups, taking care of the people you love.
Charm sits back, cross-legged, ripping disgustedly at the grass. “You’re so busy mucking around in other worlds you don’t even care about the freaky shit happening in your own.”
“Like what kind of freaky shit?” I ask, very mildly. But I think I know.
“Like fairy tale shit. I bought one of those frozen apple pies—shut up, they’re good—and when we cut into it we found a bunch of blackbirds. Prim’s shoes turned to glass one night while she was dancing. Your mom’s roses went nuts in December, blooming while there was still snow on the ground.”