“What do you think?” I ask Jen halfheartedly once I get both boots secured and my periwinkle fingerless lace gloves pulled up to my elbows.
Her smirk is both proud and conspiratorial. “I think all those poser frog-princesses are going to hatch tadpoles when they get a load of you.” She bursts into a fit of laughter while helping me stand. I do my best to fake a carefree laugh, but it feels flat and transparent.
Jen adjusts the clear elastic bra straps she sewed on to keep the bodice in place and sets a tiara made of artificial forget-me-nots and baby’s breath on my head. She was meticulous down to the last detail, even draping fake spiderwebs along the flowers to hang over my neck and upper back like a veil.
When she turns me to face the mirror, my breath catches. Her admiring reflection over my shoulder says she’s every bit as impressed.
The dress looks exactly like I hoped it would, yet even better because she modernized it by scalloping the front hem so it would touch the top of my knees and spotlight my boots. With the addition of the netted slip, the back of the dress barely drags on the floor so I won’t trip while dancing.
Or I wouldn’t trip, if I really was going to prom.
I drag Jeb’s locket from my bodice. The key necklace catches on it and pops out, too. Studying them both, I’m struck by how the chains are tangled together, inseparable, like my two identities have become.
Jen repositions the tiara. “Now tell me what you think.”
I’m determined not to disappoint her, knowing I’ll be leaving her soon, that all her work was for nothing. So much of her time went into this masterpiece, and so much of her affection for me. “You’re a genius,” I whisper. “It’s perfect.”
She fluffs out the back. “Just wait until you’re wearing the mask.”
I glance at the half mask of white satin laid out on the bed, airbrushed to match the dress.
“You’re going to look like one of Jeb’s dark fairies come to life. I wouldn’t be surprised if you two end up being crowned king and queen.”
Her words take me back to a time I wore a gown dripping with jewels while translucent butterfly wings sprouted from behind my shoulders, a time I was crowned as a real dark fairy queen. I can’t decide which title—the high school or netherling one—comes with more prestige, scrutiny, and pressure. That moment in Wonderland changed my future and my past … who I am in the present. I thought prom night would be just as life altering. Jeb and I were finally going to be together in every way.
But it was all a lie. He doesn’t know the real me—he only knows half of me. I haven’t made peace with the other half yet. Until I do, how can I hope to truly connect with anyone?
I have to stop wasting my time, craving an experience that feels so far out of reach now.
“How’s Jeb’s tombstone tux coming along?” I ask, trying to keep myself from spiraling into a funk. I’m supposed to be distracting Jen, after all.
“Just needs a little more distressing,” she answers with a comical lift of her left eyebrow. “And to think you used to say you wouldn’t be caught dead at prom. Now you’ll have to eat those words because you guys are going to be the hottest dead couple there.”
In the mirror, I notice that the red strand of hair has caught in the spiderweb veil, looking too much like the blood sword I used to free Jeb’s cocooned corpse. I bite back the whimper climbing my throat.
Pinning a pleat next to the zipper to tighten a small gap in the waist, Jen peeks around me in the mirror’s reflection.
“This M thing is weird,” she says, digging through her pin box. “I thought you didn’t know anyone in London. And he never mentioned to Jeb at the storm drain that he knew you. Yet he’s a family friend.” She clamps her teeth down on some straight pins and continues to mold my bodice to my waist, taking pins from her mouth as needed.
“Well, my mom met him when she was a kid.”
Jen’s eyes widen, and my tongue locks up. I can’t believe I said that.
“I mean his dad. My mom met his dad. M and I had never met, so he didn’t recognize me that day.”
Liar, liar, wings on fire.
“Ah,” Jen mumbles around the pins. She tugs at the dress to ensure the pleats are secure, spits the pins she didn’t use back into the box, and stands. “Well, I think our limey cowboy is drooling for your bod. Things are going to get real interesting once Jeb gets here. Guys have a way of sniffing stuff like that out.”
This is the perfect segue to tell her about the bathroom episode. The perfect time to cough up yet another lie and cover my tracks again. “I don’t think he likes me like that. He’s just kind of … eccentric.”
Jen picks up her sewing stuff and laughs. “Whatever you say, queen of denial.”
Before I can even answer, either to lie or to finally tell the truth, she’s out the door.