Autumn Read online

  Autumn

  (One Black Rose, Book III)

  by

  Maddy Edwards

  Copyright © 2012 by Maddy Edwards

  This novel is a work of fiction in which names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is completely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the written consent of the author.

  My blog: http://maddyedwards.blogspot.com/

  My goodreads page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5288585.Maddy_Edwards

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  The first thing I noticed was how lovely the world was. Each color, from the dark night to the stars twinkling clearly overhead...everything was beautiful. I moved nothing but my eyes, trying to see everything without disturbing the peace that surrounded me. It was still night and I wondered how long I had been unconscious.

  Maybe it was a different night.

  Maybe days had passed.

  Maybe no time at all.

  Transforming into a Fairy hadn’t gone as I had expected it to. In my imagination, there had been a great ceremony and I had worn an impossibly beautiful dress. My hair was combed. I wasn’t lying in dirt. I had actually taken a shower. Little things like that would have made the evening much different.

  Of course, what I had been envisioning was a marriage ceremony. It was a little odd that I had imagined a marriage ceremony without imagining the groom, but I was a girl. I had been picturing my wedding for years. Ever since I first remembered my mother showing me pictures of her own wedding when I was five, I had dreamed of my own. The fact that the face of my groom was blurry, Holt or Samuel, hadn’t bothered me.

  Because I had thought I had time to figure everything out. I had thought that yes, I had to decide, but it wasn’t like there was a hard and fast deadline for answering the biggest question of my life. Samuel and Holt had ensured that I wasn’t too pressured.

  I tried to reel my mind back in. I shouldn’t be thinking about big life questions at the moment.

  My focus narrowed.

  Suddenly, only the answer to one question mattered.

  Where was Holt?

  I stretched my body, but I wasn’t stiff. My muscles felt strong and fluid. Hold on, back up, I had muscles. Craziness.

  Suddenly, I didn’t think I could ever be stiff again. I had just awakened as a Fairy. The world smelled wonderful.

  The first thing I looked for was Holt’s green eyes, and there they were, watching me. When our gazes locked, he beamed. Butterflies took flight in my stomach.

  Feeling like someone had just turned on the dawn, I tried to sit up. Holt knelt down next to me, guiding me with his hands on my shoulders. His touch made my skin tingle.

  It was the oddest sensation in the world to have expected to be dead and instead to feel like a superhero.

  I grinned back at Holt while he sat back on his heels, enjoying my smile. I ran my hands up and down my legs and over each arm, checking for damage, but I wasn’t going to find any.

  Because I was fine. I was healed. I was a Fairy.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked warmly.

  “Wonderful.”

  His smile grew. “I knew it,” he said. “That’s what I had hoped.”

  I looked around. It was still night, so I couldn’t have been unconscious very long. How had this happened?

  “Logan,” said Holt, supplying the answer for me.

  “Where is he?” I said, trying not to let Holt see me flinch. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid of his brother, even if I was.

  “He’s gone,” said Holt. “I expect we won’t be seeing him for a long time.”

  “Why?” Jump for joy!

  “Because he knows I’ll kill him,” said Holt, his voice cold. I looked at that familiar face, his blond hair almost falling into those bright green eyes.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said, breathless.

  Holt wrapped his arms around me. “If he’s going to make me choose, I think my choice is clear. I’ve already chosen you. I didn’t want it to have to be like that, but he seems to feel it’s the only way. I love you most.”

  A warm feeling spread through my chest. As Holt talked, everything that had happened came rushing back to me.

  We had been at Samuel’s. Everyone else was there, Lydia, Leslie, Susan, Nick, and Carley, even Logan. Nick and Carley had gotten together and broken up in the space of a minute, and Carley had stormed out. Of course, Nick, as any good almost boyfriend should, had gone after her.

  Logan had started a fight and then left in a fit of anger, and I had thought that was the end of it. After Logan left, Holt offered to take me home. I had wanted to talk to Samuel, about what I couldn’t remember, but of course I agreed to go with Holt. He hadn’t seemed worried about Logan. He had probably just figured it was mostly hot air and would blow over. He had been wrong.

  Waiting for us as we walked, Logan had attacked. I wasn’t sure if he had meant to hurt me, but I had a feeling he hadn’t. He certainly hadn’t intended for what happened next. Holt had given me his Rose, exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do. All the difficulty all summer had centered around the fact that my destiny was sealed. I was meant for Samuel; I was meant to accept his Rose. In the entire history of Fairies, the idea that a girl might be capable of accepting two different Princes’ flowers was unheard of, and shocking. Holt was not supposed to be in love with me and I was not supposed to be in love with him, and there definitely wasn’t supposed to be any talk of a Rose, let alone my accepting his instead of Samuel’s.

  Certain members of each family -- Samuel’s mother, the Winter Queen, and Holt’s younger brother Logan -- hadn’t approved of what had been going on.

  Samuel had been willing to give me time to think about the situation, mostly because he had no interest in marrying someone he didn’t know. Samuel had always felt like a cool head at the height of a storm, and I wondered what he would say now. Even if he had spent a solid portion of the summer ignoring me, I don’t think he ever expected me to just turn around and accept a Rose from Holt.

  In fact, I don’t think he expected Holt to offer me a Rose at all. I think Samuel expected everything to settle down and work itself out with time. Holt’s giving me his Rose, even in life or death circumstances, went against some Fairy code, but the events of this evening had demanded it. I was going to die, and offering me the Rose was the only way Holt could save my life. So now I was a Fairy.

  Those facts could not be changed. I just felt bad that it had happened that way, and bad that my decision had been taken away from me, even if it was a decision I would have made myself eventually.

  I smiled a little. Even with what had just happened, even with thinking about Logan, I was happy. I was happier than I had ever been all summer. I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

  Mostly because Holt was there.

  A little because I could smell flowers for miles around and they smelled really good.

  In fact, that starry night was the happiest time in my life. I
hadn’t known that such a small span of time could hold so much wonder for one person.

  Holt never let go of my hand.

  Even though it was dark, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the brightest, warmest day, with the hottest sunshine warming my skin.

  Holt never stopped looking at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And I never for a second doubted how happy he was that he had given me his Rose. There was no doubt in my mind that what he had done was right.

  Everything around me pulsed with new life. Every flower and plant, down to the dandelions, rose up to greet me, as if they knew what I had just become and wanted to welcome me into the folds of their universe.

  When I had imagined my big Fairy wedding and my wonderfully poofy dress, I had also imagined a lot of ceremony. In the Fairy Court, I assumed, when marrying a Fairy Prince you probably couldn’t have a barefooted wedding. I had imagined a stunning wedding and a life of rules. What I hadn’t imagined was finally knowing what it felt like to be a Fairy. But here I was, running around not in a poofy dress, or any nice dress at all, but in my regular clothes, first learning the wonders of living in a new Fairy world.

  “What do you want to do first?” Holt asked.

  “What can I do?” I asked, breathlessly.

  “Anything you want,” he said. “You can do anything now.”

  I looked down at our intertwined hands, and for the briefest moment I thought I saw slight silver strands dancing underneath my skin, flowing from my fingertips to Holt’s, forming an unbreakable bond.

  Still holding his hand, I walked over to the nearest flowers. They were little lupines, tall and purple and fragrant. As I bent down to smell one, the flower rose to greet me. It was as if I was the sun and it was taking warmth and health merely from my nearness.

  With my new Fairy eyes I saw the flow of power between me and everything around me. I was more alive because of my transition, and so was everything else.

  I moved from flower to flower. I don’t know how much time passed, but I could have stayed there forever. The colors were richer and deeper, and when I moved closer the fragrance and colors intensified even more.

  “Do I look different?” I asked, wondering if my mom would be able to tell.

  Holt smiled. “You look different to me, because I can see your signs, the beginnings of your transition, but no human will see it on you. It’s not like your eyes are suddenly bright pink or anything. That’s not part of it.”

  I giggled.

  “What else can I do?” I finally asked. It was gradually dawning on me that I didn’t really know much about what I should and shouldn’t be doing with my Fairy magic.

  From behind me, I could feel Holt smiling.

  “You’re a new Fairy, so you actually need to not do much at first. You will have to grow into your powers and see how they develop and what roots you put down to understand where your strength lies.”

  I nodded and said to him, “People seem to like you a lot. They are always happy to see you.”

  “That’s just my sparkling personality,” said Holt, laughing. I turned around to grin at him. His hand felt warm in mine and gave me confidence.

  “No, it isn’t, because when the Winter Fairies are around there’s cold,” I said. “No one’s running up to them in greeting. They shiver.”

  His face clouded for a moment, and I wished I hadn’t mentioned them. I wanted to reach up and rub the frown away from his forehead. The thought of the Winter Queen finding out what Holt had done petrified me. And she would find out.

  “How long do we have?” I whispered.

  Holt shrugged, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “The sooner we get to my family the better, I’d say, but let’s not go yet,” he said, swinging my hand, his smile returning. “Let’s stay out here a bit longer.”

  “Want to walk?” I asked. We were still close to the road where Logan had attacked us; Holt must have picked me up and taken me to a grassy patch while I was transforming into a Fairy.

  Normally when I was walking at night I was a little worried. Who knew when a rabid bat or worse would come dashing out of the trees?

  Not now, not with Holt. It might have just been my imagination, but I thought that the world around us could sense what we were, and at least in Holt’s case, deferred to him.

  Now, with my new, heightened senses, everything around me had a little more light. It all looked better; small imperfections were smoothed over. This surely had something to do with the Summer Fairies’ power of making everything more pleasant; it made sense that everything the eye could see would be more pleasing.

  “We should head back soon,” said Holt after we had walked a bit. “My family will wonder what’s going to happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “They already know what I’ve done. It’s not like Fairies can keep things like the Rose secret from each other. I’m surprised they haven’t sent out a search party for us yet, but maybe that’s because of Logan.”

  “So, do the Winter Fairies know?” I asked. Somehow the thought of Samuel finding out and being in pain was more than I could bear. Then it struck me as odd that I knew he would be in pain.

  Holt glanced at me and I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. I hoped he didn’t. When he didn’t say anything, I nudged him with my elbow.

  “They will soon,” he said hesitantly, “if they don’t already. Mrs. Cheshire isn’t here at the moment, but my guess is she will be by morning.”

  “What will your mother say?”

  “I don’t know,” said Holt. “I honestly have no idea. I hope she will be happy, but my mother always see both sides of the coin, and in this case I think it’s a very complicated coin.”

  “Do I actually get the Rose in the garden?” I asked.

  Holt nodded. “You should. I have pledged it to you, thereby starting the process of your transition. It should be waiting for you when we get back to the house.”

  “Susan will be happy,” I said, smiling.

  Holt laughed. The sound bubbled up from deep inside and burst out with a wealth of pleasure. “Susan wants any excuse to have a party.”

  I nodded. I wondered if I would be happy. I felt happy, even if everything hadn’t gone according to plan. Sometimes the best things in life are unexpected. I wanted this to be one of those things, but first we had to get over the hurdle of seeing Holt’s family, and that was a really big hurdle, like, Everest big.

  I exhaled a big breath and Holt stopped, pulling me closer and wrapping his arms around me. I laid my head on its usual place against his chest. It was like his chest and my head had been designed to fit seamlessly together. There was no awkward height difference between us. It was perfect.

  He pulled back a little so he could see my face, and I was relieved to see that he was smiling. Behind his head, a halo of stars formed.

  “Everything will be okay. I promise. No matter what, it’s you and me now. I will always be on your side. I will always protect you. I promise”

  “I know you will,” I said. “I never had a doubt.”

  “Good,” Holt whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I had never believed anything more than I believed that.

  Chapter Two

  We started walking towards the Roths’ house. It was a place where all summer I had felt happy and safe. Even if summer was now drifting into fall, I was still happy to be going there.

  But slowly, reality hit. The later the night had gotten, the sadder I had felt and the more I had fought against the sadness. I knew that our perfect evening had to end, and with that ending we would have to confront what Holt had done. I was sure it wouldn’t be very bad, though. At no time had any of the Fairies forbidden me to see Holt or forced me to accept Samuel’s Rose. On the other hand, the Fairies had thought they would have a say in the matter of my heart, eventually. As we walked home I tried not to let Holt see how distressed I was becoming. I didn’t want any
thing to mar the perfect evening, but I couldn’t feel at ease until we had seen Mrs. Roth.

  Reality is always painful when it comes, more so when you know you’ve done something terribly wrong.

  Was what he had done wrong? Did he really have a choice? Would the Fairies see it that way? I tried to quiet the voices starting to speak up in my head.

  Well, I didn’t think it was wrong, but I was pretty sure that a lot of Fairies wouldn’t see it that way. The name Mrs. Cheshire flashed bright and icy in my mind.

  “Are you okay?” Holt asked. His voice sounded loud to my ears.

  “Of course,” I lied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Oh, I can think of one or two reasons,” he said, smiling a little, “but I’m mostly wondering because you have my hand in a death grip.”

  I tried to laugh and loosen my hold on his hand. It wasn’t as easy as I would have liked.

  “I told you,” said Holt. “It’s going to be alright. There might be some yelling, but my mother will understand.”

  “You don’t sound as confident as I would like,” I said dryly.

  He grinned. “I’ve never heard my mother yell before, but tonight might be the night. I mean, one of her sons tried to murder the other, and then I basically got married without her being present and running the show. Any mother would be mad about not being at her son’s wedding.”

  “Are we married?” I squeaked. I was pretty sure I wasn’t old enough to get married. Sixteen is way too young.

  Holt laughed. “No, sorry. You have to accept the actual Rose and we have to have a ceremony, but we are bound now. There’s no going back.”

  Somehow that was comforting. Even if the Fairies were angry, there was nothing they could do to keep me from Holt. I was particularly glad of that considering that Mrs. Cheshire was crazy.

  “Good,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to.”

  He paused, looking right into my eyes.

  Kissing a Fairy when you are not a Fairy is one thing, but kissing a Fairy when you are also one, with heightened sensing and awareness...I’m not sure there is anything more wonderful. That alone would have ruined being human for me, if it had even been possible to go back.