Red - A Paranormal Fairy Tale (Fairy Tale Reboot Book 1)

  RED

  Fairy Tale Reboot #1

  * * *

  A modern paranormal retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”

  Sonya Bateman

  RED

  A not-so-powerful witch battles her past and a dark presence lurking in the forest to save her grandma in this modern paranormal retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

  WARNING: This FairyTale Reboot contains sexy and mysterious strangers, angry innkeepers, sarcastic exchanges, sassy old ladies, an umbrella showdown, and a Happily Ever After.

  Aurora Bishop, known to her friends as Red, comes from a long line of witches—but she’s not interested in magic. She lives in New York City, where her dates keep turning out to be toads and the only magic she performs is getting her impulsive friend to stop slipping love potions into people’s drinks. Her mother is the new leader of the city’s coven and happy where she is, but Red isn’t sure what she wants.

  When they receive a message that her beloved Nana is desperately ill, it’s up to Red to return to the tiny village where she grew up and deliver a restoration elixir to her grandmother’s forest cottage. There, she must face not only the memories of her childhood sweetheart, who vanished from the village eleven years ago, but also the darkness that’s swallowing the forest—and the evil presence behind it that wears more than one face.

  It won’t be an ordinary walk in the woods for Red. Because the darkness has big ears, big eyes…and big teeth.

  Chapter 1

  The minute I walked into The Bone Garden, I knew Jenna was up to something I’d regret. This wasn’t our usual scene. Most of the lights were on, and people weren’t shouting over the music—because it was subdued into practical non-existence. The place smelled like coffee and pretention. Worst of all, no one was dancing.

  “Hey, Red! Over here.”

  I spotted my dear friend, who I was going to strangle before the night was through, at a corner table flanked by a couple of beat poet wannabes in trench coats and scarves. One of them wore little round smoked glasses and a smile like a wolf. If I had to guess, I’d say he wasn’t the Paul she’d been gushing about.

  As I made my way across the room, a few people sniffled and snooted in my general direction. Jenna hadn’t informed me there was a downtown dress code, so I’d worn the usual. Jeans, black boots, black lace shirt, and my red hoodie—that was the basis of my nickname, not my hair, which was black.

  Anyway, the outfit had seemed fine for a place called The Bone Garden. But apparently the name was hipster-speak for we don’t need no stinkin’ chairs, because there weren’t any at the tables. Or the bar. How trendy.

  I got there, and Jenna grinned at me like she didn’t realize I was two steps ahead of pissed. At least she’d ignored the dress code too. She was decked out in royal purple and electric blue, her blonde hair done in stiff little pigtails to reflect her inner imp. Unlike what popular culture tended to portray, people like us actually preferred dressing in bright colors.

  I decided maybe I wouldn’t strangle her too much.

  “The fun has arrived.” Jenna grabbed an ice-choked glass of something brown from the table and sipped at it. “So, this is Paul,” she said, lifting her free hand to indicate the guy on her right—the one without the Lennon specs. He smiled and stared at his feet while she pointed the other way. “And this is Lance.”

  Lance? It was everything I could do not to roll my eyes. “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello.” The way Lance drew out the second syllable didn’t boost my opinion of him. He held out a hand and said, “I’m glad you could come, Red.”

  “It’s Aurora.” I only let people I liked call me that. Still, I shook hands so Jenna couldn’t say that I never gave it a chance.

  Lance smiled, and an eyebrow went up behind the glasses. “Even better.”

  Suddenly I felt like I should’ve stuck with Red.

  “You need a drink.” Jenna slipped out behind Paul, grabbed my hand, and started pulling me toward the bar. “We’ll be right back, guys,” she called over her shoulder.

  I managed to wait until we were out of earshot. “Lance?” I hissed. “Really?”

  “It’s not his fault. They’re actors.” She flashed a bright smile. “Off-Broadway.”

  “Yeah. Way off.” I sighed. If I didn’t know how much she liked Paul, I would’ve been out of here when I noticed the lack of seating. “I take it they’re not the nightclub type.”

  She shook her head. “Paul’s too shy,” she said. “It’s really sweet, actually.”

  “And he’s an actor?”

  “Yeah. Isn’t that wild?” We’d reached the bar, and Jenna ordered a Mudslide for me and got herself a Mint Chocolate Blotto. “I watched them rehearse yesterday. He’s a totally different person onstage. And when we’re alone, too.”

  I had to smile at her big, moony eyes and dopey expression. “Prince Charming, is he?”

  “Maybe.” She leaned against the bar and fanned herself dramatically. “I don’t know, Red. I think he might be the one.”

  I snorted. “You’ve known him for what, a whole week?”

  “Seems like forever.” She glanced around briefly, then lowered her voice. “And before you ask, I didn’t even slip him a love potion.”

  “Jenna!” It came out sharper than I’d meant, and a few people shot looks at me. When they stopped staring, I whispered, “Don’t say stuff like that in public. You don’t know who’s listening.”

  She flapped a hand. “They won’t take it seriously.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. But just then our drinks arrived, and as we started back to the table, Jenna changed the subject. “How’s your mom doing?”

  “Crazy busy. But she’s getting a handle on things.” Mom had just been named the leader of the entire New York City coven, and she’d been on the go for the past two weeks, setting up meetings, picking representatives, and gathering information. Not exactly the glamorous side of being a witch, but Mom said she loved it.

  I wouldn’t be moving up the ranks any time soon. I was a terrible witch—mostly because I didn’t practice much. Even Jenna could cast circles around me, and she was only second generation. The witches in my family went back a few hundred years.

  “So that’s why I haven’t seen you guys at Belladonna’s lately,” Jenna said.

  “Yeah.” The restaurant was kind of the unofficial coven gathering place, since the owner was a high-ranking witch. “At this rate, she might be able to pencil in ‘lunch with my daughter’ sometime next month.”

  “Aww. Don’t worry, you’ve got me.” Jenna slung an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. Then she stopped walking abruptly. “Do you think I’m crazy, Red?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on. I’m serious.” She frowned, and her gaze darted over to our table, where Paul was watching her with the same goofy grin she’d worn all night. “I mean, you know he’s not my usual type. He’s not even…well, he’s just an actor. And he’s normal. What if it doesn’t work out? You know how people get.”

  I smiled at her. “Since when are actors normal?”

  “Hey, you’re right!” She brightened instantly and held up her Blotto. “Let’s drink to shy guys.”

  My smile wavered, but I clinked my glass with hers. “To shy guys,” I said with only a little squeak. Of course, Jenna didn’t know that I’d had a thing for a shy guy myself, a long time ago. Before Mom and I moved to the city. I was just a kid, and he’d been a few years older than me, but I loved him more than just about anyone else in the tiny Northern village where I grew up. Right behind Mom and Nana.

  The
n one night, him and his family just…left. Without a word to anyone. I’m not sure he ever knew how I felt about him.

  He’d been the first one to call me Red.

  “Anybody in there?” Jenna waved a hand in front of my face.

  I shook myself. “Sorry, no one’s here to take your call right now,” I said. “Especially if your name is Lance.”

  She stuck her tongue out. “Come on. If he gets really bad, we’ll turn him into a toad.”

  “Jenna Marie.”

  “Fine. Shutting up.”

  I smirked at her. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, patting my pocket. “I’ve got it covered.” Spells were great and all, but pepper spray was faster. Even Mom carried a bottle around since we’d moved here.

  “I bet you do.” She gestured toward the guys. “Shall we?”

  I nodded and trailed her reluctantly back to the table. She went straight to Paul and asked him to try her drink, and I couldn’t help noticing the way their hands found each other and clasped together like magnets. They really had it bad. I was happy for Jenna—I just hoped she wouldn’t be too disappointed when I failed to hit it off with Prince Charming’s pal, the knight in slimy armor.

  I cleared my throat and set my drink on the table. “So,” I said to Lance. “Jenna tells me you’re an actor.”

  “That’s right,” he said, with a look that suggested he could talk about himself all night. “I’m top billed in our production. It’s a retro-New Age take on The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy falls in love with the wizard. That’s me.” He reached out and touched my hair, and I wanted to smack him. “Too bad you couldn’t have been Dorothy. You look the part.”

  I almost told him I was more the Wicked Witch type. But then my phone buzzed in my pocket, saving me from having to answer lame pickup questions. “Hold on a second,” I said while I got it out. Please be important.

  It was a text from Mom. We need to talk about dinner.

  Damn. I hadn’t wanted it to be this important. Mom and I usually had breakfast or lunch together, so dinner was our code for a serious problem of the not-normal variety that we couldn’t discuss on the phone. I shot a message back—be there in 20—then turned to Jenna. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go. It’s Mom.”

  There was a snort behind me, and Lance said, “Seriously?”

  I faced him slowly. “Yes,” I said with false calm. “Seriously.”

  “I gotta say, that’s a pretty lame excuse.” He crossed his arms and peered at me over the stupid little glasses. “I mean, you have to go home to Mommy? Come on.”

  “Listen, Lance.” I didn’t bother sounding calm this time. “My family comes first. You got that?”

  His sneer fell away, and he backed up a step. “Okay. I got it.”

  “Good.” I turned around to find Jenna right behind me, giving him the evil eye. With a smirk, I hugged her and whispered in her ear, “Let’s not turn him into a toad just yet. He probably didn’t mean it much.”

  “Can’t I just give him a couple of warts?” she whispered back.

  “No.” I squeezed her and let go. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Give your mom a kiss for me.”

  “I will.”

  With a brief goodbye for Paul, and an even briefer one for Lance, I headed out to find a cab and tried not to panic. Unfortunately, I wasn’t succeeding with that. Mom had used the code exactly twice in the ten years we’d lived here—and both times, it had been serious.

  I just hoped nobody was dead this time.

  Chapter 2

  Mom lived in an actual cottage—not an easy thing to find in Brooklyn. It was a charming little white place with a stone path leading to a wooden stoop, and creeper vines growing up the walls. Little being the operative word. I loved Mom to bits, but I’d lived on campus while I went to college, and then got an apartment in the neighborhood after graduation. She wouldn’t admit it, but we were both happier not being so cramped.

  The cab dropped me off, and I went right in without knocking. As soon as the door opened, Mom called, “I’m in the kitchen.” The house was filled with mingling scents of lavender, chamomile, rosemary and peppermint—and darker undercurrents of salt and iron.

  She wasn’t cooking. She was brewing.

  I rushed into the kitchen and stopped short. It looked like someone had planted an herb-and-dynamite garden in here. There were piles of leaves and roots everywhere, and a few open vials I didn’t like the looks of. One of them was definitely blood. The small mound of powder-gray earth on the table didn’t make me happy, either. “Tell me that’s not graveyard dirt,” I said.

  “I take it you weren’t home.” Mom didn’t look up from stirring her cauldron—yes, she had one. It was the only old-fashioned tool she still used, but everything else was thoroughly modern. She even kept her spells and potion recipes on her iPad. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” she said.

  “Just a date.” I stepped carefully into the room, avoiding an overturned basket of mushrooms on the floor. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “A date? Oh, honey, I’m sorry. How was he?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Well, in that case I’m not sorry.”

  “Mom. What—”

  “Shush a minute, dear. This part’s tricky.” She stopped stirring and started muttering an incantation. Without looking, she reached back for a pinch of dirt and tossed it into the brew. The cauldron flashed green. Mom stirred in the opposite direction, still muttering, and thick white smoke poured out of the pot to cascade down the sides like water.

  Finally, she stepped back and let out a breath. “Well, that’s about done,” she said. “I think I’ll add a touch of apple blossom, to take out some of the bitterness.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “But what is it? You haven’t told me what happened yet.”

  She frowned and wiped her hands on her apron. “It’s the restoration elixir,” she said slowly. “For Nana.”

  I froze. “What’s wrong with Nana?”

  Before she could answer, the oven timer went off and we both jumped. “Could you pull that out, dear?” Mom said. “I need to wash my hands.”

  “Okay, but you’d better keep talking.” I picked my way over to the stove, found a potholder, and took out a square pan of golden baked something. I sniffed it, and knew right away what it was. “Honey cake,” I said, setting it on the glass stovetop.

  “It’s Nana’s favorite. Thought it might cheer her up.” She shut the water off, dried her hands, and turned around to lean against the sink. “She’s very sick, Aurora.” Her hands twisted in her apron, a nervous habit that meant she was more worried than she’d say. “She doesn’t know what’s wrong, and I can’t tell for sure without seeing her for myself. But she’s too weak to get out of bed.”

  I shivered. “Who’s taking care of her?”

  “She has her helpers, for now. But they can only do so much.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.” Nana always had a way with animals. And there were plenty of them around, because she stuck to the old ways and lived in a cottage in the woods, with no electricity or phones or running water. “But she’ll get better with the elixir, right?”

  “Yes,” Mom said without much confidence. “Listen, honey…I need you to bring it to her.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  She took my silence for reluctance. “I just can’t get away,” she said. “I’d love to see her again, and I’m worried sick, but there’s so much going on—”

  “Whoa. Mom.” I held a hand up and smiled. “I’ll go. It’s no problem. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  Her shoulders slumped in relief, but it didn’t last long. She came around the table, her face knit with concern, and took my hand. “I really appreciate this,” she said. “And I know you’ll be happy to see Nana. But you have to be extremely careful out there.” She squeezed a little too hard, and I winced. “Something’s changed in the forest. No one from the village has gone out in months—they
won’t dare. They say it’s dark like the night, even during the day.”

  My brow furrowed. “But Nana’s out there,” I said. “Wouldn’t she know if something was wrong?”

  “If she did, she hasn’t said anything.” Mom gave a sharp sigh. “In fact, whatever’s going on might be what made her sick in the first place, and she just didn’t mention it until now. You know how stubborn she is.”

  “And none of them bothered to check on her.” A bright thread of anger wove through the worry pounding at my temples. “After everything she’s done for them, they pretty much left her for dead. Right?”

  “Aurora, honey, it’s not like that.” Mom rubbed my arm with cold fingers. “There’s a presence in the forest, and they can all feel it. They’re terrified. And your Nana has always taken care of herself.”

  “Even when people try to help,” I muttered. The anger ebbed, but it still buzzed in the background like white noise. “Well, I’m not afraid,” I said. “I’ll leave early and be there late tomorrow night.”

  She squeezed my hand again. “Promise me you won’t go into the woods at night,” she said. “You’ll wait until morning. And you’ll stay on the path every step of the way.”

  “All right.”

  She gave me The Look. “Promise.”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “I promise I’ll wait until morning, and I won’t leave the path.”

  “That’s my girl.” She hugged me and kissed my cheek. “Oh, and I’ve got something else for you. I want you to wear my protection cloak out there. In fact, it’s meant to come down to you, so I’d like you to keep it from now on.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is it red?”

  “As a matter of fact…” She smiled. “You do look beautiful in red, Aurora Leigh.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She nodded and yawned, and for the first time I noticed the dark smudges under her eyes. “Let me just finish up the elixir and bottle it,” she said. “Won’t take a minute.”

  “Maybe you should have some, too,” I said with a frown. “You’re exhausted, Mom. You’re working too hard.”