A frog.
I pull away from Caroline. “Okay, I’m going.”
“Wait!” she calls after me.
But I can’t wait. The frog hops closer to a group of tourists. I reach for Meg’s hand. “Come on!”
Chapter 38
By some silent agreement, we don’t run. We don’t want to scare him. When we reach the cemetery, the tourists have moved on. All is silent. A chill ripples across my arms. All the while, I keep my eyes on the gray grass and gray dirt.
What was that? Something moving between two crumbling baby tombstones. I drop the backpack and take a step forward. Another. No movement. I stop, listening. Nothing but faraway music and an engine sputtering. Then, the engine stops, and there’s Meg’s breathing.
I hold my own breath, hearing what I’ve been listening for, the rustling of a small creature moving. I crouch low, still holding my breath, until I hear it again. I rise and touch Meg’s hand. She’s heard it too. With our eyes, we agree that I’ll go ahead.
I move my foot above a bare spot of grass. I stop. Silence. I slide sideways, my hand brushing the smooth coolness of granite. I lean over, scanning the grass for my prey. Meg has taken a side path around. Now she crouches low. In the shadows, she could be a panther, stalking a jackrabbit. For an instant, our eyes meet, and I silently thank God for Meg. Then there’s a rustling, and a bit of movement in a bunch of grave flowers. I lunge, feel the frog’s coolness beneath me. I close my hands around it, but catch only dead, dried petals. I look to Meg. She’ll get it. I know she’ll get it. But I gasp and stop. The catlike figure in the shadows isn’t Meg. The crouching figure rises, and it is tall, broad shouldered. Siegfried!
There’s movement. I drop the flowers. The frog hops farther away.
“Get it, you idiot!” A shrill voice behind a crypt. I look toward it and see Sieglinde, Sieglinde and Meg. They’re locked in some sort of combat, Sieglinde holding Meg at bay as if under some sort of spell.
“Get it, Johnny!” Meg says. “You can do it! It has to be you!”
That’s all I need. I lunge for the frog. Siegfried lunges at the same time. The frog hops away. We both miss catching it and are locked, arm in arm, for an instant. I see his face.
He’s a kid. A big kid, but a boy younger than I am. Maybe fourteen. Definitely not old enough to drive legally. I can take this kid.
Except, oh yeah. He’s got magical powers.
But maybe not. When I saw him at the port, he shot me with a gun.
Yeah, a gun is way less threatening than magical powers.
I see the frog again, hopping away past a tombstone that says BELOVED WIFE. For an instant, Siegfried seems to freeze. I run at the frog. I lunge. Siegfried recovers and dives through the air. The frog makes to jump again.
“You have to trust me, Philippe!” I say to him. “I’m here for your family. These guys want to kill you! One of us will get you, and you want it to be me.”
The frog stops midspring, and I tackle him, just as Siegfried finally reaches me.
I summon all my strength, more strength than I knew I possessed, and kick him in the stomach. He yells in pain. I wrap the frog in my shirt. At the same moment, Meg breaks free from Sieglinde’s spell-lock and rushes toward me. “The cloak!” she yells and pulls it from my still-open backpack.
Sieglinde’s right behind her, screaming, “You fool! Idiot!” at Siegfried, but he’s down for the count. She runs and lunges for the cloak just as Meg gets it wrapped around both of us.
“You have the frog?” she says.
“Yes.” I feel its cold frog heart beating against my stomach. It doesn’t struggle. “Yes!”
“I wish I was in my bedroom!” Meg whispers.
I feel the cloak being ripped away from me.
Chapter 39
“Where are we?” Meg asks me.
Not her house, that’s for sure. The room is dark, lit only by moonlight, and strange objects surround us. And yet, as my eyes become more used to the darkness, I make out the mast of a pirate ship, a giant parrot, stuff I’ve never seen before.
“Ribbit!” In my hand, the frog croaks his indignation. I push myself up on my elbow and look out the window.
Tombstones. The cemetery. Sieglinde!
I hear a woman’s voice, shrieking. She’s out there. Right outside screaming at Siegfried for letting me get away. I realize the shapes around me are old Fantasy Fest floats. A jester’s mouth grins wide at me from a corner. The cloak took us to a bedroom, but not Meg’s.
“We’re at Caroline’s house,” I whisper to Meg. “But why . . . ?”
I tug at the cloak and look at it. It’s been ripped in half. Sieglinde must have the rest.
“I think we lost our transportation,” I say. “I guess it couldn’t take us that far.”
“But we have the frog,” Meg says.
“For how long, though? She’s right out there.”
A shadow crosses the moon.
“If only we could make him back into a prince,” Meg says. “It would be easier to keep track of him.”
“Good luck,” I say. “We need to find someone who loves him. And he’s a jerk.”
“Ribbit! Ribbit!” The frog hops and croaks in protest.
“There, there, little frog.” Meg pats him, and he calms down. “It would help if you could be nicer to him. What did the spell say exactly?”
I try to remember Victoriana’s words. “The spell can be broken . . .” I picture Victoriana’s balcony, the ocean, her blond hair streaming in the breeze. It was a week ago, but it seems like forever. “. . . by the kiss of one with love in her heart.”
“Love in her heart,” Meg repeats. She reaches over and puts her hand out for the frog. “Come here, little guy. You’re a cute little froggie.”
“What are you—?”
“Well, he was hot, and it’s not like I have a boyfriend or anything. Plus, he’s a prince.” The frog hops onto her hand. She places it in one of the few bare spots on the floor.
She kneels and leans toward him. “Let’s just see if it works.”
“Wait!” I grab her arm. “What are you doing?”
“This.” In the moonlight, I watch as she holds the frog down, stretches out her neck, and before I can speak again, she plants a kiss on his warty green head.
Chapter 40
He was no frog but a king’s son with beautiful eyes.
—“The Frog Prince”
“Mon dieu! Where am I?” The man—because that’s what he is now—is in my lap, flailing his arms, and speaking with a French accent. “Who are you? And where . . .” He turns, squashing my knee as he does. “. . . where is ze fair maiden who has saved me?”
Meg laughs. “I’m afraid that’s me.”
“You?” Even in the darkness, I see surprise contort the Prince’s handsome face. He looks at Meg, wrinkles his nose, then looks back at me. “She?”
“Yeah, her. Would you mind shoving over, buddy? You’re sort of on my leg.” I’m trying to stay calm even though, in that one instant before Meg kissed the prince, I realized the truth, the wonderful truth that filled me with joy, the awful truth that struck me down with despair.