“You’re right. I’m your prince. I’m the one you’ve been looking for, the one whose form you desire.” Jared squeezed her arm firmly showing her that he was the stronger Fae.
He’d thought to alarm her but instead her eyes glistened with tears, and her voice rose in happiness. “You know about me then. You know my secret. Can you really save me? All the others said they could save me as well, but they lied. Their kiss did nothing.” She glanced at the creek bed behind her, and more tears ran down her cheeks and across her lips.
Jared caught her quick glance and noticed the tears. He would have to be very, very careful. She wasn’t really crying. The Croanoak could secrete tears.
“It’s because they’re not Fae. They don’t have the power to break the curse. Unlike me. I can be your true love, if only you would do something for me in return.”
Her lips started to tremble. “Oh yes, yes, I want to be beautiful. I want to take the form of a beautiful Fae. Please help me.”
“I’ll help you, if you show me that you don’t care for the others.” Jared made a point to look at the creek. He could still hear the croaks of the bullfrogs. “If you loved me you wouldn’t keep them around.”
He reached out to caress her hair, a safe enough place to touch. She pressed into his hand, like a puppy who wanted to be petted and told they were loved.
“Yes, oh yes! I can feel the power in your words. You are right, only you can be my prince and turn this frog into a princess. I love you!” She reached up to try and pull him into a kiss, but he pulled away.
Jared turned and stepped down off the porch and walked toward the creek. “Not until you prove it to me. Change them back and release them. Only after you’ve proven your loyalty to me will I grant you your wish and give you the form you desire.” He spoke the words loudly and in the direction of the bushes. He didn’t need to look to know that Mina was hiding there with the Grimoire, waiting to pounce.
He just hoped that she’d caught his hidden instructions.
“I can’t,” Kathleen whimpered. “I don’t know how.”
Jared started to lose his temper. He could feel his anger billowing up inside. He knew she was lying. “Yes, you do…my love.” The words were like sandpaper on his lips, but they did the trick.
Kathleen scurried off of the front porch and ran to the creek. She slipped off her shoes and dashed haphazardly into the water. Her body slowly grew, stretched and shifted into an ugly bullfrog form. The frogs peeked their head out of the water and one by one they steadily swam to her.
She held her arms open wide and let her tears flow freely into the water. A misty fog started to form around her feet and the creek bed. Her voice became low and coarse, then she started to croak out loud. More tears fell from her cheeks and every time one fell into the water it glistened like gold and moved through the water to find an awaiting bullfrog. The frog would glow and shimmer and slowly, grow larger, taller, and become a human boy.
Jared recognized Mitch Trujillo from his missing poster, and a few seconds later Kevin Sanders appeared next to him. Another boy, Jared recognized but whose name he didn’t know, materialized. Soon the creek bed was filled with disoriented teenage boys. He waited and counted but it didn’t add up. Kathleen was crying, and the more she cried, the further physically withered she became until she resembled green leather.
“There,” she huffed. “I did it.” Kathleen waved her hands to Jared, and he moved closer to her. She collapsed on the ground, a pathetic version of her Croanoak form.
Jared leaned down to her and lifted up her head. She smiled wanly. “Now kiss me,” she cried out.
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s not all of them.”
She squirmed uncomfortably under his direct gaze. “It’s most of them. I could die trying to save them all. Kiss me now and then when I’m no longer cursed I can save him.”
“I know the rules. If you are in your human form, then you will no longer have the power to free them. Do it now!” he shook her shoulders hard, and he could feel her brittle bones creak beneath his hands. She really was wasting away.
His anger finally pulled her out of her own lovesick enchantment. “You lied to me Jared. You had no intention of ever kissing me!” she screamed. Her green eyes squeezed out one more tear, and she grasped hold of Jared’s arm beneath his sleeve.
“You disappointed me my prince, like the rest. You will now feel what it’s like to be a frog for the rest of your life.”
He tried to pull away but the toxic touch of her skin to his made him lightheaded and disoriented again. He watched as her ugly green stretched lips reached toward his, and he could do nothing to stop it. He was under her toxic spell.
Jared was furious with himself, and he could hear another voice laughing at him, which only made him more desperate to break her hold on him. Move your body! he screamed at himself, but his body wouldn’t obey. His mind was free, but his body a prisoner.