Chapter 6
Rachael:
After breaking the ice with my small prank on Gale, the rest of camp went by like a breeze. Me, Gale, and even Snow got into a prank frenzy for the rest of camp. Gale, of course, retaliated with a prank of his own for my fake death prank on him. Snow then proved herself to be a worthy best friend when she saw me walk back into our cabin green and exclaimed that she would avenge me and she entered herself into me and Gale’s long-standing prank war with her own sinister prank. Just like with the first prank I had on Gale and Snow was involved, I too was involved with Snow’s revenge prank. I will never forget Gale’s face when he realized what prank Snow had pulled on him and I know Snow never will too because she took a picture of it. Snow had sweet talked this other very good looking prince to use his amazing wood sculpting skills to build a large raft with a wooden bed frame built into it. She then talked with Gale’s roommates that don’t like him very much and had them replace Gale’s original bed with the bed-raft sculpture and the next morning Gale woke up to me smiling down on him in the middle of a river before I jumped on the waiting boat Snow had and we left him to float down river for a while. Monroe, the always responsible one in our group called the Mistakes, was the one who ended what would have been a long and interesting river journey for Gale who was strapped to the bed-raft frame. Things between me and Monroe, at the best, are very awkward. I still don’t know how much Monroe remembers about since we rarely actual talk other than when I thank him for covering for me, Snow, and Gale when we get caught. Snow told once that she and Monroe were placed in an arranged marriage since they were very young and so she sees him covering up for her as just a marriage duty and so never thanks him while Gale just has some strong silent resentment for Monroe and feels that he owes him nothing; thus, I am the one left to thank Monroe for his mostly unappreciated work to keeping us out of too much trouble.
It was the last week of camp before any of us realized it. Snow and Gale had both gotten themselves sick from their latest prank on each other that I had optioned out of when I went to the main office cabin to receive mail from my mother about ending my engagement with Trevor, Monroe’s younger brother. Sadly the camp leaders told me that Monroe and I still had to camp activities even though half of our group was bed ridden to their cabin. And so Monroe and I woke up early and headed up to a mountain that’s within the camp boundaries to go hiking by ourselves to retrieve a green apple from the top of the mountain. We made very good use of our time as we silently and swiftly scaled to the top of the mountain.
“A house?” Monroe said surprised. I hoisted myself up on the last rock to see a small cozy cabin. My face scrunched up at the sight. The camp leader didn’t say anything about a house on top of the mountain. Monroe turned to me and I shrugged before walking to the house. I opened the door and walked in while Monroe stood from outside. “You shouldn’t just barge into someone else’s house without being invited.” I rolled my eyes in response and walked around the small house. There are seven beds and seven chairs around a long, but short table. Obviously, seven people live here and from the size of everything in the house they are all pretty short. “Rachael, did we ever meet each other before camp?” I twisted around to look at Monroe started.
“What!?” Did my mother’s medicine not work on him from that night? Is he starting to remember that night or has he known all along?
“I feel like I’ve seen you before camp even started,” Monroe said staring at me from the open window with his left hand holding up his head as he leans against the windowsill. I looked at him for a long moment as I thought of how to handle this situation. It would be bad to have the brother of my ex-fiance getting suspicious of me especially when I am first in line to inherit my step-dad’s kingdom. I looked away sighing and immediately a brilliant idea of how to extinguish the situation popped into my head.
“Of course, you have. I’m the girl your brother has been visiting every week,” I said turning back to scowl at him. My words worked. Monroe took a step back away from the window sill and lowered his head as he apologized. I forgave him like the good princess I was raised to pretend to be and decided to try to fish around what he remembered from the night I tried to kill him. “Where else would you have thought we had had met before?” I glanced over at him to see him mumble something, but it was too soft for me to hear correctly. Before I could try to piece together what he said, he snatched out his hand to yank me back. We both ended up falling together with me on top of him. “What the…” I stopped when Monroe held out a fake green apple.
“You almost tripped on it.” Oh, so that was why he grabbed me. We both got up.Monroe snuck the green apple safely into his little pack around his waist and I watched as I wondered what he had mumbled before.
He said that he had met you before in a dream. He thinks that night is just a dream.
I turned around to see Isabella smiling at me with her right index finger in front of her mouth as she slowly disappeared in front of me. I smiled back in return. It’s really great sometimes to be a friend of a spirit. She’s always with me and can pass along tidbits of information to me in front of people without anybody being the wiser. I sighed relieved that Monroe thought of me using my magic as just a part of a weird dream. I turned back over at Monroe to see an old super skinny woman in all black torn up clothes coming up from behind Monroe.
“You!” The old woman shouted pointing a long crooked finger at me and Monroe. Monroe quickly turned around to look at her. “You came out of my house!” She was facing towards me and I looked out to see the front door still open from when I walk in. Oops.
“We’re really sorry about this. We didn’t steal anything: we were just looking for something our counselor sent us up here for. Nobody told us that anybody lives up here and we thought it would be best to check the house,” Monroe said. I silently chuckled: that would never work.
“Oh well then, in that case, you are both forgiven.” I almost choked on air. It actually worked. I turned to look at the old woman to see her blushing and flipped her short greasy thin black hair laughing. Of course, he can get the old hag to forgive him: he’s had lots of practice from getting counselors to make them forgive me, Snow, and Gale. I guess I zoned out a moment to think about how things will turn out for each of us from our group after camp and was startled when I heard Monroe call out my name.
“Please take this red apple as an apology for my mistake of you.” I must admit I was impressed that Monroe was able to twist everything around so that the old hag was the one who was apologizing to us. I looked down to see the small bent-over old women holding out a shiny red apple.
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