But then Wanda gasped. In fact, everyone gasped.
“PleasesayIdon’thavetheshoesonpleasesayIdon’thavetheshoeson!” Toni squeaked out, too afraid to confirm her deduction.
“Okay, so you have the shoes, but look on the bright side,” Marty chirped, rubbing Toni’s arm, her sky-blue wings thumping swiftly. “They’re fabulous. I mean, they match your dress like a dream, all purple and sparkly. Love!”
The day’s events welled up inside Toni, sitting square in her chest, overwhelming her, constricting her breathing. Enough crazy was enough.
She pushed off Wanda, stumbling toward Brenda as her ankles bowed and her legs wobbled.
Blowing a stray piece of hair from her eyes, she planted her hands on her hips to come off as authoritative as possible and said, “Let’s just cut to the chase, y’all. I have to take the shoes to Oz to see the wizard or a variation thereof. The guy you call King Dick, right? And along the way, shitty stuff’s gonna happen to me. A psychotic witch, on a bender to frighten even the best sociopath, is going to terrorize me, too, correct? Because all she really wants is the shoes on my feet. There’ll be fire, and rain, and psychedelic flowers, and flying monkeys. But the whole time, all I ever had to do in order to avoid the shitty stuff and the sociopathic witch was click my heels three times and say the words ‘there’s no place like home’, yes? So why don’t I just do that now and we can all part ways and be home lickety-split.”
Brenda’s face went utterly blank. She stared at Toni for a moment. But then her lips returned to that annoyingly happy grin. “What kinda crazy are you blowin’ out your piehole, girl? Didja hit your head on the way in? Who in tarnation’s the wizard? Never mind. No time for explanations. Your job is to take the shoes back to their rightful owner, King Dick. Because he’s the only one who can remove ’em from your feet now.”
“She stole them. Why can’t she take the shoes back?” Toni asked, pointing to the prone body with a cringe. Why had she had the shoes to begin with? What did the shoes mean?
Brenda rolled her eyes as though the answer was obvious. “Well, duh. Because she’s drunker than a coon who fell in a barrel o’ hootch, that’s why. The effects’ll last for days. Maybe even a whole month.”
Some of her old spirit returned, the fighter in her rearing its ugly head. The one she’d tried desperately to muffle for three years now. “Okay, then who says I have to be the one to take them back?”
Brenda’s next words were petulant, as though Toni had dared defy her edict and she wasn’t going to stand for it. “Said me, Sugar.”
Toni shook her head and might have followed up with a stomp of her feet, but the heels were at least four inches and the ground was icy. “No. That’s not good enough. I want an explanation.”
“Tough cream puffs. You want out, you gotta do your time in the realm,” Brenda said, that beautiful smile still wreathing her pink lips. Then she turned to Nina, Marty and Wanda. “Now, y’alls? Your job is like findin’ a John Deere in your garage after your lawnmower just sputtered its last breath! You have to help Toni get to the castle and return the shoes, because that’s where she’ll find her happiness. Which is what we fairy godmothers do best. Shower folks with happiness. So, your job as honorary members is to get your girl here to Castle Beckett by Christmas Eve. And you three will have limited use of those special powers you got. Otherwise it’s cheatin’, ya hear?”
Toni closed her eyes. Special powers? She wasn’t ready to hear what their special powers entailed.
“Got any other jobs available? Like a Brenda the Good Witch of the South flayer?” Nina asked, her mouth turned downward in a sneer.
“How does honorary troll grab ya?” Brenda asked, her hand on her hip, her expression haughty.
Nina didn’t answer but she growled again, snapping at the witch.
Brenda assessed Nina for a moment, clearly unafraid before she said, “Listen, the realm assigns jobs according to your aura, and somehow, Cranky Pants, the realm thinks you should be a fairy godmother, one who helps a nice girl who needs some happiness in her life get to the castle. I don’t make up the jobs, I just assign ’em, Sugar.”
“Why can’t I just take the shoes off and give them to you to take to this King Dick? You two seem tight.” Toni planted a hand on Wanda’s bare shoulder to steady herself and rubbed her toes along the back of one shoe to push it off, only to find it wouldn’t budge.
“Because you need a J-O-B, Sugarlumps. You can’t be a fairy godmother; your aura’s all wrong for that at this point in your life. They stay on until you get to the castle, and that’s just that,” she said with another infuriatingly radiant smile.
Because of course it couldn’t be that simple, more panic seized her as she struggled to remove the shoes again, to no avail.