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“No!” screamed Evie, and Jay slid back to the ground.
“Sorry,” she said. “The vultures will peck you to death. We’ll just have to convince them I’m my mom.”
Jay picked himself up and dusted off. “How’re we going to do that?”
Evie smiled. “Makeup.”
• • •
Evie knelt at the doorway, set down her purse, and began to remove assorted cosmetics from its depths—a dizzying array of lipstick, foundation, blush, eyeliner, and every conceivable beauty instrument known to humanity. She turned her back to the boys and began the transformation.
The eyebrows were easy, since she and her mother had the same dark brows. Evie just had to color them in so they looked more menacing. Then she covered her face in a pale powder and darkened her lips to bloodred. As a final touch, she fashioned a black scarf she found in her bag into a black cape.
When she turned to Jay and Carlos, the two of them staggered back.
“Whoa!” said Carlos. “You are way too good at that.”
“Who are you, and what did you do with Evie?” said Jay.
Evie cackled like her mother and held out an apple she’d packed as a snack. “One bite and all your dreams will come true!” she purred in her best Evil Queen voice.
“Seriously, stop it!” yelled Carlos.
Evie giggled and sounded like her normal self. “Okay, fine.” She fluffed up her cape and checked her appearance in her phone’s camera. “I look like Mom, right? Enough to fool those old vultures?”
“Totally,” said Jay.
“Could’ve fooled us,” said Carlos.
• • •
She began to climb up the castle walls toward the vultures’ nest, lifting herself up inch by inch. When she reached the ledge she smiled sweetly at the hungry birds of prey. Her mother’s favorite pets.
“Hello, my dearies,” she said in her best mimicry of her mother’s voice. “I seem to have forgotten my keys! Now let me just…” She reached into the nest. The closest vulture lunged, snapping at her fingers.
Evie frowned. It looked like she would have to channel more of her mother after all. She couldn’t just put on the makeup and expect the vultures to let her have the key. She had to be Evil Queen. The vultures began to shriek and caw at her.
“SILENCE!” she demanded. “You know the penalty if you fail to give me the key!” She glared at them as her mother would.
She looked so frightening and so much like her mother at that moment that the vultures squawked and flapped their wings, flying away from her as fast as they could.
“Sorry, birdies,” Evie whispered as she reached back into the nest and grabbed the key to the front door.
She slid down, Jay and Carlos giving her a hand as she made it back to the front steps. In a blink, they were finally inside.
It was the same as it ever was, dark and shadowy and full of cobwebs. They tiptoed past the kitchen. “This place gives me the creeps,” said Carlos. Jay nodded silently.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Evie. “It’s worse when Mom’s around.”
They made their way through the dark corridors up to the bedrooms, where Evil Queen kept her legendary Magic Mirror. Evie opened the door, half expecting her mother to scold her for letting in a draft. But it was as empty as expected. Mom never missed a night out with her hags.
The mirror’s shards clung to the edges of the frame, but when Evie stepped up to it, it was almost as if it were whole again.
“Magic,” whispered Evie. “I can feel it coming from below, from deep underground, somehow. It’s weak, but it’s working.”
She gazed into the largest fragment. She noticed she was still wearing her Evil Queen disguise, which might turn out in their favor.
“Magic Mirror, from the farthest space, through wind and darkness, I summon thee!” she called.
