Chapter Three—The Waiting
The Listians wanted my blood.
“We have to go around the world and
pick up the rest of the List.” Mollie wet her lips, attempting to keep calm.
“Do you know how long that will take? How many countries we’ll have to visit?”
“Not to mention how many of us there
are!” added Jess, who had joined us shortly before.
“We have no money, or mode of
transportation!” Tawnya threw her hands up in the air. Northstar was writing
again, but she glanced in my direction and gave me a Look.
Beth and Daisy, however, were sitting
peacefully on either side of me.
“It’ll be fun.” Beth insisted, putting
a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “And I didn’t have any plans this week
anyway.”
“Maybe you didn’t…” mumbled Stephanie.
“I’m sorry.” I said again, eyes
downcast.
“Forget about it.” Daisy turned to
face me, a smile on her face. “Pretty soon, more of the American List members
will check their mail, and we can start. We’ll be done before ya know it!”
I perked up. She was right; feeling sorry
for myself wasn’t helping any. So I did what came natural to cheer everyone up.
“Through dangers untold, and hardships
unnumbered…”
And in no time at all, all of us were
reciting The Words.
“You have no power over me!”
“Ladies,” a voice boomed above us,
“you’ll not do that again!”
We looked at one another until we
couldn’t contain ourselves any longer.
And broke into fits of laughter.
* * * * *
“Does anyone have a watch?” I asked,
shielding my eyes from the sun. Jareth had gone through the trouble of making
us uncomfortable; that was for sure.
“It’s 1 o’clock,” replied Lori. I felt
bad for her; she was wearing baggy pants and a flannel shirt, and looked like
she was roasting.
“Never have I wanted people to read
their e-mail as badly as I do right now,” Stephanie remarked. At least she had
a way to keep cool: she beat her wings to create a breeze.
“Maybe some of the American members
are at school, and can’t get to a computer.” Starlight commented. It was a
possibility. We had a few college students on the List.
Starlight stood behind Stephanie, her
silk dress and forest green velvet cloak swaying as the Faery beat her wings.
The appearance of Starlight had been an interesting one, to say the least. Apparently, she’d been at Jareth’s castle when he found her and brought her to the rest of us. In a flash of silver light, both King and Listian appeared. They argued, Starlight saying that he was a bit uptight and Jareth countering that her flooding his bathroom didn’t exactly make his day.
“You just can’t take a joke, your
Highness.” Starlight said calmly.
“Ha! The day you present to me a joke
that I approve of is the day I admit it’s a sock!”
The only way I can describe the
following moments are utter silence and dropped jaws. Excluding Starlight, who
had a wry smile on her face. The King’s face grew red and he muttered something
inaudible before vanishing in a cloud of glitter.
“I think almost all of us are here.”
Helen sighed. “We only seem to be missing—”
“Me.”
The group looked up to find a familiar
figure. She had short brown hair and glasses, and was wearing jeans and a David
Bowie T-shirt.
“Anakerie!”
“You’re damn right, it’s me! I wouldn’t
miss another chance to make fun of Our King.”
I got up and ran to my dear friend and
fellow Listian. The other girls did the same. We were happy to have another
ally and List veteran with us. Now we were ready.
“Jareth, we’re all here!” I announced
impatiently. “What country are we going to first?”
“You think it’s that easy?” the King’s voice echoed sinisterly.