Shades of Doon Read online

  Without so much as a honk of its horn, the truck smashed into the much smaller vehicle. The sickening crunch of twisting metal filled my ears, along with a strange buzzing noise. The sound surged and became thunderous cheers as Doon snapped back into place. The car accident was gone, leaving me with a discomforting sense of vertigo as I noted Duncan and Jamie standing over their disarmed opponents. They’d won the match.

  Fighting the urge to barf, I clapped for Team MacCrae, whom I’d dubbed Surfer Dude and the Amazing Ogre in honor of Vee’s and my first time in Doon. So much had happened since then. My Indiana bestie had defeated the evil witch and, in doing so, became queen of the legendary Scottish kingdom. I’d faced my fears in order to destroy the zombie fungus and gotten a second chance at happily ever after with the boy of my dreams. It was the stuff of fairy tales . . . and yet, Cinderella’s epilogue had never included delusions of a head-on collision between two horseless carriages.

  I glanced at Vee, who was wildly applauding her Charming. She had that manic aspect of someone committed to avoiding their present reality. When she caught my eye, her facade cracked. Her face turned a sickly shade of yellowish-green that mirrored how I felt on the inside.

  Jamie, Duncan, Fergus, and Ewan exited at the opposite end of the arena. Guessing that we would not see them again until they’d cleaned up, I placed my hand under Vee’s elbow and lifted her to her feet as I stood. “The queen and I need to use the royal restroom.”

  Vee’s brow furrowed. “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, I do.” I tugged at her sleeve. “Are you sure you don’t need to tinkle?”

  Tinkle was the code word we’d used in junior high when we wanted to chat privately in the girl’s room. Vee’s eyes widened slightly as she nodded. “Actually, I do need to go.”

  As she stepped toward the back of the royal box, Emily Roosevelt and Gabriela Rosetti, who’d recently joined the royal entourage as Vee’s ladies-in-waiting, moved to follow. Vee stopped them with a wave of her hand. “Thanks, but I think Kenna and I can do this alone.”

  In tandem, we climbed down the stairs and walked a short distance away from the festivities to a short brick structure. There were several such bathrooms ringing the arena, but only one had a private guard and required a crown to enter. This particular building had two doors, one for the king and another for the queen.

  The guard stepped aside and we entered a private sitting room. Divans and oversized ottomans in plush cream fabrics dotted the area. Interspersed tables provided a variety of fruit, sweets, and drinks — all decidedly unappetizing after what I’d just witnessed.

  Vee headed straight to a set of sinks at the back of the room, where she turned on the taps and splashed water over her face. One of my first and most favorite discoveries about the kingdom of Doon had been its running water — a pleasant surprise given the medieval kingdom’s lack of other modern conveniences like electricity, refrigeration, and microwaves. Yay for modern plumbing!

  My bestie took her time patting her face dry before speaking. “What’s up, Ken?”

  She looked so composed that I instantly doubted what I thought I knew. “Uh,” I stammered, unsure how to begin. “That was a surprising turn of events out there.”

  Her brow pinched. “You mean with Jamie and Duncan? ’Cause they were the favorite to win, regardless of Fiona’s trash talk.”

  Though Vee and I shared a brain more often than not, this didn’t seem to be one of those times. Rather than fish for confirmation that my hunch about her was correct, I blurted out, “Cars. I saw cars. Actually — two cars and a truck, and they collided with a crunch and I’m pretty sure I’m Coco Puffs.”

  The corner of Vee’s lip twitched, and then her careful composure cracked with a gigantic sigh. “Oh, thank heavens.”

  “That I’m cuckoo?”

  She shook her head as she sank onto a plushy divan. “That you saw it too. I thought it was just me — that I was getting sick again or something.”

  I sat in the chair opposite her and searched her vibrant blue eyes. “So we’re both crazy?”

  “No. It means what we saw was real.”

  Her words were hardly reassuring. “So how come the villagers didn’t freak out?”

  “Kenna, you really have to stop referring to the other citizens as ‘the villagers.’ You’re one of them now. They’re not about to come after you with pitchforks.”

  No matter how many times Vee said that, I still felt like an outsider. Duncan said to give it time, so I was trying not to obsess about being the new kid on the block. But I was mentally digressing. Returning to the topic of tales from the weird side, I said pointedly, “No one else seemed to see the collision except us.”

  “I’m not sure why.” Vee bit at her lip, signifying she was deep in thought. “None of the other Destined seemed to see it either. Just us . . . Maybe it has something to do with our gifts, or our connection to the Rings of Aontacht or the modern world. Or maybe — ”

  “Or maybe it was PTDS. A post-traumatic Doon stress.”

  She responded just as I hoped, with a half-hearted chuckle. I’d heard somewhere that a sense of humor meant you hadn’t gone completely off your rocker. “I think you mean post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an interesting theory though. We should probably do some research, see what we can find about visions appearing to those called to Doon.”

  “Okay — let’s not do any of that.” Vee started to protest, but I rushed on. “Wait. Just hear me out. There’s no reason to believe that we’ll have more hallucinations. For all we know, it was an isolated thing, like the adrenaline rush bus drivers get when they need to lift a car off a baby. So please don’t make a big deal about this.”

  “But — ”

  “No buts.” The sound of bagpipes drifted in from the coliseum, signaling we were almost out of time. If we didn’t hurry back, people would come looking for us. “Let’s pretend that nothing happened and enjoy the absence of conflict for once. We’ve got princes who adore us and a ka-lay-lee to go to.”

  “A céilidh.” She pronounced it kay-lee, like a girl’s name. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  Fiona had described it as a gathering with traditional folk music and dancing. Apparently the weekly dinner-dances held in the Great Hall of Castle MacCrae were also céilidhs, but the one tonight in the village marketplace, marking the end of the highland games, would be the mother of all gatherings. In addition to dancing, there would be folk art and storytelling — the closest Doon had to a thriving arts scene.

  Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a tube of mango-granate lip gloss and handed it to Vee. “Doesn’t a Kaylee party sound better than research?”

  Vee contemplated the gloss like it was a horse full of Trojan soldiers before taking it out of my hand. “Besides,” I prompted, “what do you think is going to happen if you tell Jamie about this? Do you really want to go on lockdown again?”

  Even though Doc Benoir had declared Vee recovered from whatever had caused her to collapse the day that I’d decided to stay in Doon, the cause was still a mystery. And without a reasonable medical explanation, Jamie tended to hover over her like a male version of Mama Rose searching for the slightest hint of a relapse.

  “Fine,” Vee capitulated, “we can chalk whatever happened out there up to PTSD — for now. But if anything like that happens again — to either one of us — we’re going to tell our friends immediately and then do everything we can to get to the bottom of it. Deal?”

  She held out her hand and we shook on it. “Deal.”

  After the drama of the Eldritch Limbus, we were entitled to time off for good behavior. In the last couple months we’d rescued Doon not once but twice from evil, and it was high time to enjoy the benefits of saving the world. Her Royal Highney and I had waited long enough for our happily ever afters.

  CHAPTER 3

  Veronica

  A cool breeze from the open window flowed over the nape of my neck, chilling the sweat beading on my
skin. I scrawled my name across the bottom of the page and then dripped hot wax in the corner and impressed the royal seal beside my signature. Adding the sheet to the growing pile of accepted petitions, I rubbed the now dulled points of the crown on my luckenbooth pendant. The ornament had belonged to a long-ago queen of Doon, a young girl named Lynnette who had died trying to save her kingdom from a band of witches.

  Normally, the pendant brought me comfort and a sense of connection, but today it wasn’t doing its job. I tucked the long chain back into my blouse. After stealing the necklace from the forbidden ground of the witch’s cottage — the home of the very witches who had killed Lynnette while attempting to take her throne — I hadn’t shown it to anyone. Even if Kenna and I had journeyed to find the one book that could help us break the curse trying to destroy Doon, when I’d stepped foot on that cursed ground, I’d committed an act of treason.

  Suddenly so cold that my teeth chattered, I pulled a shawl around my shoulders. Memories of what I’d seen that morning in the arena burned against my closed lids. My eyes popped open and I grabbed the next petition. The paper shook in my hands. I set it down on the desk and wrapped my arms around my waist. Even if I could pretend to believe what Kenna and I had seen was benign, or some shared delusion, deep down I knew there was more to it. All I wanted was to be settled, to enjoy my new lease on life. To have a happy, peaceful reign with my amazing co-ruler by my side and to have something I hadn’t had since I was eleven years old — security.

  How wonderful would it be if the trivial disputes and appeals on these pages were the most dramatic thing in my life? If I could do the work I’d come to love, leading and shaping a kingdom, and then end each day snuggled up on the sofa with my incredible boyfriend and a good book, or having dinner at Rossetti’s Tavern with friends . . . I sighed, the picture in my mind one of pure bliss, and perhaps a pipe dream.

  I shivered hard and pulled the soft wool of the shawl tighter around my shoulders, as I skimmed the document before me; a request to use an empty storefront in the village, the one down by the loch. A name jumped off the page — Analisa Morimoto. Ana was one of the Destined who’d crossed the bridge during the most recent Centennial. An orphan who’d survived the streets of London as a petty thief and document forger. She’d fast become a friend and ally.

  She wanted to start a kickboxing gym for women. An image of the women of Doon shedding their skirts for “short trousers” and sleeveless shirts, kicking and punching their way out of the conventions of the past, made me chuckle. Doon was about to experience a revolution.

  I signed Analisa’s petition with a flourish, hoping she’d welcome my help to flesh out her ideas. I’d be her first customer. The stamp sank into the dollop of wax, and I extracted it with a satisfying pop. I was moving on to the next paper before me when a knock sounded on my office door. Before I could answer, my prince charming strode into the room.

  “Are ye ready?” He quirked a roguish leer as his eyes swept over my face, reminding me he was at least one quarter villain. “You certainly look ready. Good enough to eat, in fact.”

  And right on cue, my heart did a pirouette inside my chest.

  He crossed the room and leaned down, placing his heated lips against mine in a kiss that chased every last chill from my skin. But the moment his mouth departed, the cold shook through me and my headache returned with a vengeance. Jamie perched on the corner of my desk facing me, his eagle-sharp gaze searching mine. I couldn’t reveal that I was feeling less than perfect or he’d rush me to the clinic faster than you could say “carrageen moss.” I swallowed a wave of nausea at the thought of the seaweed-like herb tonic that Doc Benior had forced me to drink by the bucket load during my recovery.

  Jamie’s warm fingers brushed my cheek as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Are ye feelin’ all right?”

  When I awoke after my collapse, the first thing I saw was Jamie, Kenna, and Fiona red-eyed and whispering as if someone had died. Apparently that person had been me. But after sleeping for forty-eight hours straight, I’d felt fabulous, and Doc Benoir had given me a clean bill of health. Jamie, on the other hand, had been wrecked. My usually stoic boyfriend hovered over me asking every thirty minutes if I felt all right or if I needed to rest, the fear in his eyes heartbreaking.

  “I’m fine. Are you all right?” I stared at the purplish bruise shading the skin beneath his light stubble.

  He gripped his jaw and moved it from side to side with a wince. “No’ bad. Better than wee Ewan, I’d wager.” He smirked. “Now, about that dance . . .”

  I picked up a stack of papers and tapped them against the desk to align the edges. “I just have a lot of paperwork to catch up on. Why don’t you head to the festival and I’ll meet you down there later this evening?”

  The thought of putting on my queenly smile and kissing babies as if nothing was wrong, as if I hadn’t just witnessed the modern world converging on my enchanted kingdom, sent a sharp pulse of pain through my temple. Hopefully, a cup of tea and a nap would kick this headache, but the other issue was not so easily solved. I opened my mouth to blurt the story to Jamie, but stopped. The tension lines that normally rested between his brows were gone, the planes of his face relaxed and mobile — for the first time since I’d met him he looked like an eighteen-year-old boy. I couldn’t steal that joy from him simply because Kenna and I had shared some abstract vision.

  “Vee.” Jamie set a wide palm on the pile of my unfinished work. “I can help you with this in the morn’. The people want to see their queen. To celebrate with her. As do I.”

  I nodded, pushed back my chair, and stood. “Okay, let me go change. But the paperwork will have to wait until after lunch tomorrow. I’m spending the morning with Kenna.” I kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Aye. I’ll meet ye in the courtyard.” He slid off the desk and sauntered out the door, calling over his shoulder, “Dinna be late!”

  After a ponderous journey up the one hundred and twenty-seven steps to my tower suite, I was beginning to rethink my decision. My body didn’t seem to want to cooperate, every move laborious as if I were trudging through the southern bogs of Doon. Breathing hard, I finally reached the landing, pulled myself up the last few steps with the handrail, and almost bumped into Eòran’s broad form.

  “Yer Majesty!” My personal guard’s bushy brows lowered until they almost touched his equally shaggy mustache. “Is anything amiss? Should I get the doc?”

  I paused at the top of the stairs and rubbed the back of my head, which was now throbbing in time with my temples. On the tip of my tongue was an order to send word to Jamie, telling him I wouldn’t make the festival after all, but I knew that would only send my already on-edge boyfriend into panic mode. So I lowered my hand and forced the grimace off my face.

  “I’m fine. Just ran up the stairs too quickly.” I breezed past him, but heard his uneven footfalls pursuing me around the curve of the hallway. The poor man hadn’t fully recovered from his battle with Sean MacNally and his band of insurgents, who had been convinced Kenna and I were committing treason instead of working to save Doon from a curse. The slight pause and scrape of his steps twisted my gut. He’d been so tenacious in trying to protect me that MacNally had broken his femur to stop him. Though Jamie had doubled the guards at the base of my tower, Eòran refused to stay off the job a moment longer, even if it meant serving before he was fully healed.

  “May I at least ring for a bit of tea, Yer Majesty?”

  Warm tea and a cozy blanket sounded like heaven. I let out a sigh as I pushed open the massive wood and iron door to my suite, longing to curl up in the pillowed window seat of my sunroom turret. But instead I replied, “No, thank you, but you can accompany me down to the carriage in a few moments and then take the rest of the day off.”

  Before I finished speaking, the guard shook his head, his eyes widening.

  “I won’t take no for an answer, Eòran. I’ll be perfectly safe with Jamie, a
nd I won’t have you standing up here all alone while all of Doon is celebrating.”

  He’d stopped shaking his head, but his jaw was set in a stubborn line.

  “Surely you have someone you’d like to hang out with rather than me?”

  The man’s impossibly broad shoulders slumped as he cast his eyes to the ground. “There’s no one . . . my queen.”

  The man had to be at least forty years old. How could he have no one?

  “Well, that settles it then. You’ll attend the festival as my guard.”

  He lifted his gaze, his eyes alight with purpose.

  “And my friend.” I shut the door in his bewildered face before he could argue, and strode to my bedroom. Traditional Doonian dress was lovely, but I was ready for something more “me.” I shucked the heavy skirt, and then lifted the blouse and sash over my head in one movement. Noticing my pendant had come off with it, I tucked the necklace into a box in the back of my wardrobe, where I stored it each night. As much as I enjoyed wearing the pendant, there would be nowhere to conceal it in the new maxi dress I planned to wear.

  I lifted the dress from the hanger and laid it out on the bed, admiring my creation. I’d designed it during my forced bed rest, and the finished product had been delivered last night. It had turned out even better than I’d imagined. Slipping the scarlet cotton sheath over my head, I let the soft fabric fall into place just above my knees. But that was just the first part of the dress. I stepped to the full-length mirror to tie the overskirt around my waist, a sheer fabric embroidered with a swirl of fall colors that fell to my ankles. Short kid-leather boots and a matching shrug completed the outfit. The effect was stylish, yet feminine, and definitely pushed the boundaries of Doon propriety.

  Feeling a sudden burst of energy, I removed Jamie’s mother’s circlet from my head, unbraided my hair, and finger combed the waves around my shoulders. I jogged to the dresser and found the new tiara Emily had commissioned for me — one I’d been saving for a special occasion. The gold filigree design was more ornate than what I usually wore, yet still lightweight, and ended in a peak of blood-red rubies that matched my outfit to perfection. As I secured the royal circlet into my hair, I realized my headache was gone.