Dispelled

Fantasy; Final draft currently at 36,400 words

A quirky, humorous adventure unfolds when all the magic vanishes from the Enchanted Forest following the sudden death of the king—and it’s up to Prince Sandy and June Bug to find out why.

(This sample is still under revision.)

Once upon a time, a young girl named June Bug lived with her parents in a small cottage just inside the borders of the Enchanted Forest.

Or, rather—perhaps I should not begin this story with “once upon a time.” “Once upon a time” is for fairytales, I am told, and this story has an astonishing lack of fairies. You see, dear reader, there used to be fairies in the Enchanted Forest. Even yesterday, you could have wandered out of June’s front door and seen so many of them, your eyes would have been bedazzled by their gold-veined wings, and your ears filled with the shrieks of laughter that chimed like bells in the wind. 

Fairies, in fact, were June’s best friends. She would be very upset when she realized they were suddenly nowhere to be found. She would be devastated when she learned that this was because all the magic in the Enchanted Forest had vanished, and no one knew why or how to fix it.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I should let you see how June figures out something is wrong, and how she handles it.

Otherwise I would not be a very good storyteller, now would I?

On the seventh day of the twenty-second year of King Preston’s reign, June Bug woke up as usual to bright sunlight streaming through the cream curtains that hung crookedly from the window panes—and yet, something felt different. The air, thick and heavy, bore down on her; her head felt stuffed, as though it were filled from ear to ear with the thick woolen scarves that her mom, Mrs. Bug, liked to knit in her spare time.

Uneasy, June threw back the covers and sprang out of bed. Her blue quilt tumbled to the ground, and she kicked it under the bed so her mom wouldn’t notice it on the floor. Mrs. Bug often had her priorities wrong, so June had learned how to get around them.

Nothing seemed out of place. There was her wooden desk with the wobbly chair tucked underneath, her haphazard stack of books on the small window seat, and Lightning, her turtle, lying under his heat lamp. Only Jazzycat was missing; she was probably already outside, chasing the rabbits that were always trying to get into Mrs. Bug’s herb garden.

June frowned, then sniffed the air suspiciously. There was no mossy scent of mischievous changelings, or the woodiness of the Dianates, or foul goblin stench. Only the comforting smell of fresh wood and pine needles drifting inside through her cracked-open window.

June shrugged. She must have been imagining things. 

Time to get ready for the day.

Now on her hands and knees, she shoved aside the blue quilt and pulled wrinkled clothes out from beneath the bed. She pawed through them, searching for her favorite green robe. The bed, built by Mr. Bug, listed slightly to one side. While Mr. Bug’s work lacked a certain amount of finesse, Mrs. Bug had given up on trying to hire servicemen to fix his mistakes. Half the time they never showed up, too afraid to venture alone beyond the charmed protection of the castle walls—or even worse, they disappeared en route.

Once June found her robe, she slipped it on over her flannel pajamas. Then she bounced into the hallway, her clothes still sprawled across the striped rug. She slid across the wooden floor in her thick cotton socks. 

Just outside the bathroom door, she paused. A heat rose in her cheeks at the memory of her fight with Mirror the day before. Maybe she had forgotten to close the sliding door that separated the toilet and shower from the sink, and maybe that had resulted in steam fogging his surface. She didn’t believe for a second that the fog actually prevented him from viewing the goings on in the Enchanted Forest, as he claimed; he just didn’t like being wet.

And Mirror did the unthinkable: He tattled on her to her parents. As his observations of the Forest were the entire reason why her parents had charmed him into existence in the first place, June found herself on dish duty for a whole week. She responded with a few unfortunate statements, and her parents extended the punishment to a month.

June let out a big breath. Once he was in a mood, there was no dealing with him. He could shout all day if he wanted, since he didn’t have vocal cords to grow tired. Or he could sing off-key in the screechiest, most horrifying tunes that made her hairs stand on end. He could be even worse than the deaf Doodle birds, who identified each other by clashing sounds that no other self-respecting bird would be caught dead making.

Well, there was no way around it. She would just have to do her best to ignore Mirror, as she was certainly not going to apologize.

June braced herself, then pushed the door open. To her surprise, Mirror’s phantom face did not appear on his glossy surface. She could count on one hand the number of times that he didn’t immediately have something to say to her.

Of course, you and I, dear reader—we know why he wasn’t there. It’s impossible for a magical creature to exist without magic.

But poor June had not yet figured it out.

“Oh what, so now you’re giving me the silent treatment?” June huffed, although she was secretly relieved. “See if I care!”

She slipped into the other half of the bathroom and leaned over the ceramic tub with tacky griffin claws that Mr. Bug had picked up for almost nothing at the local Woodcutter’s Market. She did not close the sliding door. But when she tried to turn on the shower, no water came out.

She flounced back to Mirror, her hands on her hips. “Very funny, you miserable piece of manticore poop. Just wait until I tell Mom, she’s going to be furious with you.”

The polished surface remained silent.

“Fine,” said June. “Be that way.”

She slid down the banister to the first floor, where her parents would already be eating breakfast. Today was Tuesday, so her mom would be making her special pancakes with berry eyes and a whipped cream smile.

June loved Tuesdays.

“Good morn—” she started to say. 

Her mom was not there. Dough had been poured into the iron frying pan and the berries were swimming along splendidly, but it had clearly not been cooked. A half-empty bowl of whipped cream lay on its square side, the contents spilling out onto the granite counter.

June whirled around to look for Mr. Bug in the breakfast nook, but he, too, was nowhere to be seen. The only trace of him was his newspaper The Forest Times, which lay neatly folded on the circular table that he had hammered together himself.

She frowned. Her parents never left her alone. Although the Bugs abided by the unspoken Rules of the Forest, it was still far from safe. And June—well, she was more vulnerable than the average child.

“Mom?” June peered down the hall towards her parents’ bedroom. The framed photographs, which hung from nearly every inch of the walls, slanted at crazy angles. “Dad?”

Goosebumps prickled up and down her arms. She rubbed at them, shivering. There could only be one explanation. 

Something horrible had happened to her parents. 

June sat down at the kitchen table, kicking its wooden leg, watching as it wobbled back and forth. Her parents had always been there to give her advice. Without them, how would she know what to do?

She dropped her chin into her hands. Usually she would go to Mirror, but he apparently wasn’t speaking to her. 

Maybe if she explained the situation…

She jumped back to her feet and pelted up the stairs to the bathroom.

“Mirror! Mirror, please talk to me,” June pleaded. “Mom and Dad are gone and everything feels wrong, and I…I don’t know what to do.”

June waited. 

And waited. 

The silent treatment, which at first had seemed preferable, now grew eerie.

“Mirror, I’m sorry,” June said finally.

He didn’t answer.