Chapter X: Ever a Surprise

Thick red curtains velvety-soft to her gentle touch. Lanterns in every color she could imagine hanging from thick, black tree branches, their luminous auras trained on the performers, glowing like mystic lilies. Spotlights shimmering yellow and gold underneath the chilled night air.

Luan Loud was in her happy place once again, and the world rejoiced.

Shame she had to be twenty feet above the ground, though.

"Shake a leg, Luan! I helped you with your dumb juggling routine. It's only fair that you help me with my act. Now get moving!" Lynn called.

Luan wasn't scared of heights. As a kid, she'd probably climbed more than a hundred trees to escape Lori's big-sister wrath. And growing up in a traveling show meant that she, along with most of her siblings, could balance fairly well on a tightrope.

She just wasn't entirely confident that fairly well would be good enough when Lynn insisted on not using safety nets.

"They're for cowards!" she'd said earlier, when they were setting up the stage for their performance.

"They're for sensible people," Rita had argued back. But Lynn had insisted that she knew what she was doing, and with a little persuading (and a little bribery in the form of promising to change the next hundred diapers Lily soiled, including big blowouts), the safety nets had been left in the secret trapdoor, where Lucy's bat, Fangs, was most likely roosting at this very moment, possibly alongside Lucy herself.

Luan hugged the mast she was positioned on tightly and tried not to stare down at the dizzying drop below. She was starting to wish she'd been left in the trapdoor, too.

But she wasn't about to deal with Lynn's heckling on top of all the snide 'boyfriend' comments she'd endured today. Swallowing a lump she hadn't realized had been forming at the back of her throat, she touched a shaky foot to the edge of the thin rope.

It vibrated a bit, but seemed to respond very little to her gentle touch. Meanwhile, on Lynn's end, the rope dipped, shook, and bobbed as the skilled acrobat performed a series of progressively more complicated leaps and stunts, even managing to tightrope-walk on her hands for a short spell. Backwards. The audience roared and hollered their approval in a way that Luan doubted they ever had for her juggling routines and corny puns.

Look on the bright side, remember? Luan chided herself, trying to shake away the stormy thoughts before they could unleash their thunderous torrents upon her brain. Lynn's not your problem. Just get this routine over with, just like we practiced, and then you can go and hang out in the darkness with Lucy for a while.

She could do this. Her optimism restored, she carefully edged out farther and farther, until at last, she met up with Lynn in the middle.

"Finally," Lynn said in between a mocking yawn. "You're such a slowpoke, you big clown." Pointing to Luan's attire, she amended her statement with a pun: "Or should I say, slowcloak."

While Lynn was currently garbed in a sleek red and gold leotard, Luan, taking a rather impractical approach in hindsight, had opted for her familiar yellow cloak. While simple and nondescript, she found that wearing it made her feel much more comfortable, to the point where she felt kind of exposed without it.

Besides, she wanted to make sure she'd be recognizable from a distance, just in case a certain adorable someone might be watching from his window.

She and Lynn performed a few simpler tricks together, such as switching places, playing a little game of aerial leapfrog, and a sort of trust-fall exercise where one girl would lean back, only for the other to catch her at the last minute, right before she fell and horrifically broke every bone in her body.

Luan thought that would be the end of it, just like it had been when they'd practiced this routine, and started to head back to the mast, when to her sudden shock, her sister grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her close.

"Lynn, what are you-" she started to say as her younger sibling unceremoniously picked her up and hoisted her onto her shoulders. Though Luan was taller and presumably heavier than Lynn, she was able to hold Luan's body without even the slightest indication of a struggle. By far the strongest in the family, Lynn could lift (and eat) an absurd amount of weight.

"Trust me, sis," Lynn said. "The audience is gonna get a kick out of this!"

"This wasn't part of the pla-AAAHHHH!" Luan shouted as her sibling tossed her high into the air, prompting a chorus of excited "Ooooohs!" from the audience far below.

While she might've known the ropes of funambulism (Get it?), being completely airborne was an entirely new experience to her, save for that one time she'd shot herself out of a cannon. It was quite strange, and, though she dared not admit it, thrilling, to be so far from the world below, and to feel that odd sense of weightlessness and the cold tingle of her limbs, hair, and cloak against nothing but night and wind. But the experience of soaring free was ruined for her, since she was also scared out of her mind at the thought that Lynn might miss the catch, and thus she could end the night with a broken leg or even a snapped neck.

However, ten panicked (Or overjoyed? She wasn't entirely sure) heartbeats later, she fell safely back into Lynn's spread arms, feeling a faint tremble in her sister's shoulders that hadn't been there before. Had her flamboyant, carefree sibling actually been concerned about her safety?

"You, uh…you good, sis?" Lynn asked, helping Luan regain her footing on the tightrope.

"I'm a little wired, but I think I'll be just fine," Luan assured her, though her heart was still kicking and screaming. As Lynn rolled her eyes at Luan's nervous wisecrack, Luan added: "But why didn't you tell me you were going to chuck me in the air?"

"Because you would've said no!" Lynn replied. "No one ever lets me chuck them!"

"You think maybe there might be a reason for that?"

"Hmm. Yeah, maybe," Lynn admitted.

"Now," Luan addressed her sister as she made her way to the edge of the rope. "This may come off sounding a little high-strung, but I think I'm done here. One brush with death per day is more than enough for me, thank you very much."

"Eh. Suit yourself," Lynn agreed with surprisingly little hesitation. "Love you, sis!"

Less than three seconds later, the acrobat was back to her old tricks, jumping and leaping along the wire in a way that made Luan's worried stomach flop.

Luan stepped carefully back onto the mast and descended down the twenty-foot ladder into the chaos below. Lori and Rita were standing on their tiptoes, craning their necks and making a "time's up!" hand signal at the oblivious Lynn Jr up above, trying to get her to stop her high-wire schtick and make way for the next act. Meanwhile, Lynn Sr and Lincoln were helping Lana, the resident animal trainer, wrangle in her mammalian, avian, and reptilian costars, all of which had escaped their cages and were running willy-nilly across the stage. Her giant snake had even snuck off and slithered across the laps of a few unfortunate, screaming audience members in the front row. A loud explosion coming from backstage indicated that Lisa was most likely doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, while Lola was desperately trying to distract a crying Lily with an impromptu ribbon dance. Luna, nonchalantly tuning out her family's noise, played a few loud, dramatic-sounding chords on the organ, accompanying Lynn's acrobatics routine. Finally, Leni seemed to be engaged in an argument with someone backstage. However, Luan couldn't see or hear anyone else there. Was it possible she was shouting at the curtains themselves?

Luan walked up to Leni and nudged her side. "What are you doing?"

"Mom told me to clothe the curtains, but they won't tell me what size they wear!" Leni complained. "I can't work with clients who don't let me know what they want!"

"I think she meant, 'close the curtains,'" Luan said, tugging on a rope overhead. The curtains pulled tight across the stage, enveloping the girls in a crimson waterfall.

"Oh. That makes more sense. Thanks, Luan!"

"Don't mention it," Luan said, sneaking behind the red curtains to the secret trapdoor in the floor and activating the lever to pull it open. She bent low to inspect the interior. Just as she'd suspected, a pale, grim face frowned up at her and a fanged bat whistled a greeting.

"Mind if I hide in here with you for a minute?" Luan whispered to Lucy.

"Sure. But one pun and you're out," Lucy threatened.

"I henceforth accept the terms of your contract, your Royal Spooky Highness," Luan replied in a snooty accent and a clumsy, fake curtsey before leaping into the abyss below.

With the door shut, the siblings were encased in nothing but darkness as black as Lucy's bangs. While Luan could still hear footsteps and muffled shouts from the stage above, she had to admit that she was starting to appreciate the solitude of Lucy's secret dark places, especially now that she was trying to recover from Lynn's fear-inducing shenanigans.

"Lynn threw you on the high-wire, didn't she?" Lucy's raspy voice whispered.

Luan nodded, then remembered she was in total darkness and quickly said, "How did you know?"

"Your heart rate is through the roof."

Luan touched two fingers to her neck and observed that, indeed, her heartbeat was still going a mile a minute. That little stunt pulled by Lynn had screwed her up more than she'd realized.

"You always have a pretty fast heartbeat," Lucy mused. "But you only get a pulse like this under two sets of circumstances: whenever something scares you or whenever Benny flirts with you."

That was another point in the eternal darkness's favor. Luan appreciated the way it was able to hide the deep blush that was setting her cheeks on fire.

When Luan said nothing in response, Lucy added: "Your silence speaks volumes, too, you know."

Neither girl said a word more, each stuck in their own heads. Their own thoughts.

Luan's mind turned once again to the high-wire, to how she'd first tested her balance carefully, then more confidently, before Lynn's big stunt shook up everything she knew. And, of course, how horrifically close she'd come to the deadly drop below never once escaped her mind.

In many ways, her own life felt kind of like a berserk tightrope routine. The balancing act had started when she'd first laid a hand on those imposing wooden doors, daring to knock without knowing who or what stood behind. Like an unsteady, unsure little acrobat's first steps onto the high wire, she'd taken her own careful steps into the Stone Castle. And when that wire, and that boy, seemed gentle enough, didn't snap under her weight or try to throw her off, she'd grown more and more confident, and she knew Benny had, too.

But even when a tightrope seemed calm, Luan knew she still ought to keep her wits and balance about her. There was still so much she didn't understand about curses and magic, and even at times, her own emotions. Any one of those things could cause her to take a tumble; they'd certainly made her trip up a few times in the past.

What would happen next? What if something really big came along, something that might cause her to lose her footing completely? Benny's state had taken a turn for the worse, and some of the villagers were becoming more and more curious about her and her out-of-town expeditions. And, of course, there was the fact that her family was a traveling show. They'd have to pack up and leave eventually, just as they always had. Luan feared what might happen to her friend when they did, if she might have to leave him all alone and the curse unresolved. Forever.

These were all things that might spell doom for her, might blow her right off her feet or toss her high into the night air like stormy gusts of wind. Things that might cause her to take that twenty-foot drop she'd been fearing all night.

Would anyone be there to catch her if she did?

In the darkness, Luan felt her sister's hand brush up against her palm. She took the little contortionist's hand in her own, feeling fireworks of shock where Lucy's ice-cold fingers curled against her own fire-hot skin.

Touching her other hand to her sister's wrist, Luan could feel Lucy's heartbeat. It wasn't rapid and chaotic like her own, but peacefully slow, almost deathlike.

"How is yours so calm?" Luan asked, and Lucy seemed to be able to infer what she meant. Though it was hard to tell in the pitch-blackness, Luan thought Lucy might be smiling as she spoke up.

"Years of practice."

They stood in the silent darkness for a moment more. To Luan, they seemed a striking comedic duo: one cold and the other hot. One calm, and the other chaotic. One at peace, and the other anything but.

Until a knock on the door came suddenly, startling them both. Their flinching reactions were so ironically similar, Luan almost laughed.

"Hey, Miss Spooky! Tell Miss Kooky she needs to get out here; she's on in literally two minutes!" Lori, ever the stressed-out managed, shouted.

"I think that's you," Lucy guessed.

"Yep, got it. I love you, Luce!" She gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek, much to her younger sister's surprise, before opening the trapdoor and crawling up and out to appease Lori.

As the night got older and colder, Luan performed a few of the comedic skits she'd practiced, her favorite of which being the one where she and a few of her siblings ran around dramatically screaming about a tiger on the loose only to reveal that the animal in question was only Lily in a striped kitten onesie. That one never failed to elicit a silly mixture of giggles and "Awws!" from the audience.

And, just as she'd done on that very first night that had plunged her world into chaos, Luan would occasionally glance over the silhouetted hills at that odd, crumbling castle, trying to catch a glimpse of a flicker of candlelight.

Eventually, the stars and everyone under them grew weary, and Rita summoned everyone to the spotlight-lit stage for curtain calls. The siblings soaked in the sounds of applause and tossed coins bouncing onto the wooden floorboards before drifting into the haze of the aftershow minglers.

Tonight, most of the attention was on Lynn, who happily recounted the details of her death-defying acrobatic routines to a crowd of eager children, who hopefully wouldn't try to recreate her stunts at home.

Luna, the master musician, and Leni, the all-time crowd favorite, had managed to draw in a few dozen supporters of their own, which they dazzled with their sparkling, big-sister conversations. Both of them held that rare grace of being able to sound both proud and humble at the same time.

Every now and then, someone would approach Luan, and she'd greet them with a few tired words, peppered by a pun or two and perhaps a backhanded comment about how she'd almost died. However, she seemed unable to hold their attention quite as well as some of her siblings could, and her conversation seemed clumsy and awkward compared to theirs.

What really put her on edge, however, was the way a few people would point at her and whisper, as if they knew something about her that she didn't.

She spent a little time hanging and joking around backstage with Lincoln, whom she knew sometimes felt as though he was living in the shadows of his ten sisters. It was easy to feel a little lost and ignored in a family as big as theirs, and though she didn't say it often, she admired the way Lincoln was able to deal with the problems that came with being the one and only son.

It was there that she spotted, tucked out of sight in the crook of a tree hollow, an odd glint of silky yellow. Further inspection revealed the source to be a small bouquet of lilies that looked suspiciously similar to the ones growing around her friend's door.

"Has someone got a secret admirer?" Lincoln teased her as she pulled the flowers out of their hiding spot and into her hands. He sounded and smiled just like another one of her meddling sisters, proving that genes ran particularly strong in this family tree.

Luan put a finger to her lips in a little "shush!" gesture, not wanting him to draw any attention to her in case any of their sisters might be watching. She noticed a torn scrap of paper tucked in between the golden blossoms and picked it up to read the small, wobbly-looking words:

From your biggest fan.

The affectionate little smile and the blush that stained her cheeks made Luan's innermost feelings known to her little brother, who gave a smug laugh at her traitorous face. She felt her heart leap into that familiar pitter-patter, not unlike what she'd experienced up on that tightrope, as she scanned the nightscape looking for any prying eyes.

To her delighted surprise, a shadowy little spot in the bushes appeared to stare back at her with two hidden, deep black pools that reflected the twinkling starlight up above. The way one of them vanished for a moment in a quick wink made Luan think the odd sight might have had less to do with lights or stars and more to do with a certain pair of clever brown eyes.

That adorable little sneak! she thought as she felt her smile broaden, threatening to light up the entire night sky.

…

Luan spent the next morning scrubbing the floors and washing the dishes (her parents' decision, not hers, but fair since she had in fact been neglecting to do her punished extra chores). It was quite a boring and tedious task, especially now that all of her siblings had gone down to the tavern for breakfast, leaving her all by herself. However, as a comedienne, she had more than a few ways to keep herself entertained.

Every once in a while, she'd hum or sing a merry tune; she especially liked the sea shanties she'd heard from the sailors when her family had once performed near a harbor. Sometimes, she'd scoop up a few bubbles in her palms and try to blow them across the room, though when one landed on Cliff's head, causing the cat to hiss at her and unsheath his claws, Luan decided maybe she ought to save that game for another time.

Her favorite thing to do, however, was to pretend the silverware she was cleaning were alive and talking to each other. She tended to do that a lot, give objects human characteristics for comedic effect. One time, a few years ago, she'd created an entire soap opera drama revolving around the mop's secret closet affair with the broom, which had kept Lana and Lola eagerly watching all afternoon.

"Forget about what everyone else thinks!" she pretended to make one of the dirty dishes say. "Let's run away together! Start a new life in a cupboard somewhere else!"

"But, Lord McPlatters!" she made the spoon in her other hand reply in a high-pitched voice. "I'm just a simple peasant teaspoon. Why have me when you can have any high-class whisk or ladle your porcelain heart desires?"

"Because you're the only one who makes me laugh, Spoonia," the plate said. "None of those snooty crusts of cutlery would ever be enough for me. You are the only utensil I will ever truly lo-"

Suddenly, Leni walked in with a steaming mug of coffee, causing a startled Luan to accidentally drop her plate and spoon into the sink with a splash. Curses! she thought, putting on a dramatically mournful face. The lovers have been sacrificed into the stormy sea! Why must my romantic dramas always end in unspeakable tragedy?

"Luan, what are you doing?" Leni asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Nothing! Just washing the dishes," Luan replied, trying not to look suspicious.

"Well, that's a really weird way to wash dishes," Leni said, and Luan wondered with an embarrassed blush just how much of her impromptu little silverware skit her sister had overheard. She fished her sponge out of the sink and picked up a fork, cleaning it in silence.

After a moment, Leni spoke. "O-M-Gosh, you know, this is just like that fairytale! Cindy-somebody, I think…" She scratched her head. "Or maybe it was…nope! Pretty sure it was Cindy."

"Cinderella? Seriously?" Luan facepalmed, which probably wasn't a smart thing to do considering her hands were coated in dish soap. "Look, I just want to make one thing fairy clear to you: my life is not a fairytale!"

"Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. I mean, you've already got a reputation for being the village weirdo, a magic prince who, like, definitely has a thing for you, and now you have to do all the chores, too. Face it, Luan, the only thing you need now is some kind of ballroom waltz at midnight and then you'll totes have all the elements of a classic fairytale!"

"Comediennes don't waltz, Leni," Luan pointed out.

"Well, maybe this one does!" Leni replied. "Just you wait. I bet any second now, someone will come walking through this door with news of a fancy dance, just like in the storybooks!"

Luan was just about to scoff at her sister's absolutely ridiculous remark when Luna and Lola burst through the door, each holding a colorful flier.

"Yo, check this out, dudes!" Luna said. "A masquerade ball! Tonight!"

As Leni cheered, Luan tossed her hands in the air. "What are the odds?"

She was beginning to feel as though her life was just one big comedic punchline after another. And they were all, for some reason, at her expense, making it especially hard for her to laugh at them.

"Sibling meeting in five!" Lola announced. "We all gotta put our heads together if we want to convince Mom and Dad to take us!"

Luna and Lola vanished as quickly as they'd arrived, accidentally dropping one of their fliers in the process, which drifted gently to rest on the floor like a fallen flower petal.

As Luan bent low to read the words, Leni gave her a playful tap on the shoulder.

"See? What did I tell you? Fairytale."

…

Unbeknownst to that funny girl, that peculiar comedienne, it wasn't chance at all that had caused those fliers to mysteriously appear. It was the work of one very tired enchantress.

Could you blame her, though? According to her calendar (which was magic, of course, enchanted to never forget a date so she'd actually remember her doctor's appointments), the fifth anniversary of the day she'd set down that awful curse was just around the corner. Benny could consider himself lucky if he had mere days before the sixth petal fell.

And this enchantress wasn't about to take any chances. This was her mess and God be danged, she was going to clean it up.

She just wished it hadn't required so much magic. But it was becoming more and more apparent to her that the problem between the comedienne and her prince was that both of them were more than a little scared, and neither seemed prepared to make the secret feelings they both shared known to the other. If the enchantress wanted to make sure they broke the spell in time, they needed more than just a gentle nudge. What they needed was a big old shove.

The enchantress's plan had been complicated, but luckily for those two curse-laden idiots, she wasn't afraid of a little challenge. She'd convinced (okay, fine, hypnotized) the owner of the local inn to let her rent out the neighboring courtyard for the night, and with a quick flounce of her reliable magic wand, elaborate party decorations had appeared out of puffs of lime green smoke. With another flick of her wrist, hundreds of perfectly-made flyers had appeared, and she sent them flying here and there across town on wayward gusts of magic wind.

Conjuring up dozens of costumes out of thin air was a far more difficult pursuit, and since the enchantress wasn't really the creative type, she just stole all of the designs right out of one of the town seamstress's sketchbooks. Well, it was her fault for just leaving it lying right out in the open after all. It was just asking to be snooped at and plagiarized from.

She could feel her magic draining as she summoned a colorful merchant's tent and set it up right smack-dab in the center of the provincial little town. She needed to gather as much attention as possible if she wanted to plan a perfect, curse-breaking party in such little time.

She also needed a disguise. She was pretty sure that none of the townspeople she'd tazed had managed to get a glimpse of her face, but when one worked in the dark magic industry, it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, any spellcaster over the age of twelve who was worth anything could pull off a simple spell like that.

So, with a light touch of her green wand, her eternally youthful face and sunny-blonde hair disappeared under snarls of wrinkles and gray curls.

The enchantress had gotten most of the basics down. However, the most daunting task still remained: making sure both of her star-crossed little miscreants would come to her party, dance together, confess their undying love for each other, and live their stupid happily ever after so that she could finally sleep at night with a clean conscience.

Convincing the girl, she knew, would be easy, a mere afterthought at best. If Luan wasn't drawn to the party on her own volition, the enchantress had little doubt that someone in her massive family would drag her there themself, especially once they caught word of the monetary reward she was offering to anyone willing to attend (because a little bribery and damage to the economy never hurt anybody, right?).

Convincing the boy, however…that was where the real challenge lay. She had to admit that getting him to come out of that castle and face the unpredictable world–even if it was just for one night and even if it was unlikely he'd seem out of place at all when everyone else would hopefully be wearing costumes–was a pretty big request. It would take a lot of cunning, surely.

Fortunately, the enchantress could be pretty crafty when she wanted to be.

…

"You all want to go to this party tonight?" Lynn Sr had barely been home from his day job at the bakery for five minutes, having only just settled into an armchair with the daily paper, before all eleven of his children had made a mad scramble to crowd around his feet. They'd given him a pretty impressive impromptu presentation about the benefits of dancing and party food on one's emotional health, no doubt masterfully orchestrated by Lincoln. He was quite moved by their performance, to be frank.

From their spots on the floor, each one neatly seated criss-cross-applesauce, the children all nodded, pleading smiles plastered across their adorable faces.

He noticed Luan's grin in particular seemed a little more forced than usual, almost nervous. She'd barely even said anything at all during her siblings' dramatic presentation. Come to think of it, she had been a little off since yesterday. Maybe someone had sabotaged one of her whoopie cushions or something.

"I don't know about this," Rita argued, standing behind her husband's chair with her arms stiffly folded. "Aren't any of you concerned about how short-notice this is? I mean, the fliers just came out this morning. It seems a little shady to me."

"So? A party's a party, brah," Luna retaliated. "I'll be totally miffed if some lame-o band handles the tunes instead of me!"

"I heard from a reliable source that was definitely not Mr. Sprinkles that this is going to be the party of the century!" Lola said. "Imagine what it'll do to my reputation if I don't go!"

"Plus, everything's free," Lori chimed in, pointing to the flier in her hand. "Literally! The food's free, the costumes are free to rent, the admission is free. Look! They'll actually pay you to attend."

"Okay, wow, that is shady," Rita said. "It sounds kind of desperate, to be frank."

Lynn Sr paid his concerned wife no mind. His eyes practically popped out of their sockets as he read over Lori's flier. "Ten silvers? Is this per person?"

"Um, I think so," Lori replied. "Why?"

"That's enough to pay our rent for nearly a month!" he exclaimed. Ignoring Rita's facepalm, he added: "Get in the caravan, kids! We've got some costumes to rent!"

…

It didn't take them long to find the old woman who for some reason was so adamant on hosting such a large and fancy gathering in such a short amount of time. Her colorful, silken tent had already gathered a large crowd in the village square, even though it had just gone up this afternoon. It was almost like it had been pulled right out of thin air.

A younger Luan would've laughed at a thought like that, deeming it absurd and impossible, but in the span of these past couple weeks, she'd learned that just about anything was possible with a touch of magic.

Something about that tent and the lady running it certainly seemed magic to her.

While her siblings ran around, excitedly inspecting the rows of masks and beads, Luan hung back. She usually would've joined them quick as a wink, but for some reason, she just wasn't feeling up to it today. Maybe it was just the worried thoughts of her friend and the preoccupation with resolving the mysterious curse starting to take over her thoughts again as she thought back to the conversation that had transpired between them yesterday, but Luan just didn't feel like smiling the way she usually did. Or laughing. Or dancing. She couldn't even think up a good pun.

Something cold and sharp came to rest on her shoulder just then. Luan flinched, a shocked, panicked breath escaping her lungs. She turned her head, meeting the glittering green eyes of the shopkeeper: a grizzled, curly-haired old woman clad in emerald robes. A woman Luan was most certainly certain she'd never met in her life, though she was surprised to catch a hint of recognition within the merchant's otherworldly-looking eyes. Her bony hand tightened its grip on Luan's narrow shoulder, her pointed red nails nearly digging into the girl's delicate flesh.

"Hm." The woman neatly clicked her tongue as she scanned Luan's face. "The funny girl who flirts with beasts. Very nice. I've been expecting you."

Those words, though simple on the surface, rattled Luan right to her core. This woman knew who she was? Who Benny was? Did this mean that other people knew about him as well? Was her friend then in danger?

And this old shopkeeper–who was she, really, by the way?-had been waiting for Luan's arrival–even expecting it? Why?

And would the thing between her and Benny really be considered flirting? Did she want it to be? Why was this the most confusing and pressing question of all? It wasn't supposed to be!

None of these painfully pressing questions were able to escape her lips. All she could muster in her genuinely bewildered state were two soft and shaky words: "You…know?"

The old merchant nodded. "Your secret's safe with me," she reassured her. Or at least she tried to. That did not actually reassure Luan in the slightest. Still gaping and silent, Luan kept puzzling over how this woman had been able to learn so much about her.

Removing her frozen-cold hand from Luan's shoulder at last, leaving the patch of skin she'd touched as chilled as stone. She bent down to pick a cloth sack off the floor and hand it to Luan. "In terms of costumes, I'd go with this one. Just make sure to follow your heart and practice your steps, funny girl."

The woman disappeared between the aisles and canopies of dresses in a flash, leaving Luan even more perplexed and confused than she was before.

…

Theatre practice was, as usual, a difficult task for a distracted and troubled girl such as Luan. Just trying to focus on the script of her star-crossed romance was as impossible as trying to bake a pie without flour and sugar. Her tired, weary eyes were too blurry to even read the words as she sat by herself in her usual spot on the steps leading up to the stage, underneath the stained-glass murals.

It was, however, a welcome respite from her meddling siblings, who had bugged her the whole ride there with their endless teasing about how she was apparently going to dance the night away with her 'boyfriend,' just like in those fairytales.

She'd tried once again with zero success to explain to them that she did not have a boyfriend, nor was this some kind of fairytale. In her eyes, this was more like some tragic comedy play where everything went wrong for the main character, who was the unwilling butt of every joke. Not exactly the kind of script she expected to have a happy ending.

"Nope! You and Benny are totes going to dance just like in that Cindy story!" Leni had argued, apparently forgetting the fact that Luan was total crap when it came to dancing.

Fed up with this, Luan had finally said: "You can ask him all you want, but he's not going." In all the time that she'd known him, he'd never once ventured farther than the Dark Woods. And she didn't blame him. Going out the way he looked was just asking to end up on the wrong side of a pitchfork.

But was that a sad, wistful sigh that had just come out of her lungs? As if, just for a moment, she wanted to believe in fairytales and miracles and other funny things like that?

Dang it. Get your head out of the clouds! Luan told herself as she tried to read her script once more.

However, she'd forgotten that Madame Bernardo was nearly as invested in her potential love life as her ten siblings. The minute she dismissed her students for a five-minute break, she approached Luan with a broad smile.

"Is that boy of yours coming to the dance tonight?" She asked, taking a seat on the steps beside Luan.

"Well," Luan clarified, "First of all, I'd hardly call him mine. Second, I don't think so. You see, Benny is…he's…"

Both her head and mind stammered as she tried to find a good way to end that sentence. Cursed? A little different-looking? Terrifying? Terrified?

"...shy," she finished after a long, awkward minute. "A little skittish." That wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the full truth, either.

"Not a fan of the limelight?" Madame Bernardo said, and Luan almost thought it funny how unknowingly ironically wrong she was. With a sad, overdramatic sigh, the director added: "Such a shame, that is. I would rather like to meet the dashing little Romeo who seems to have stolen away my young student's heart. And also at times, her brain, which we really do need to work on fixing, my dear." She gave Luan a quick tap on the head, reminding her that it did still tend to go empty whenever she was called upon to recite some of her lines. Then again, if her teacher knew about everything that Luan was dealing with right now, maybe she'd be just a little more lenient.

"I know," Luan said, looking down at her feet as simmering hot bubbles of self-hatred boiled up inside her. There were very few feelings she despised more than the knowledge that she was disappointing someone, especially when the person in question was her own mentor. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you!" Madame Bernardo quickly interjected. "We just need to figure out how to get you to focus. And how to get all those feelings that are buzzing around in here–" She paused to gesture to Luan's chest. "-to come out onto here." Now she waved her hands at the stage behind them.

"Easier said than done," Luan said, pulling loosely at the yellow ribbon that bound her tight ponytail, still nervously avoiding meeting her mentor's eyes.

"I know," Madame Bernardo said, getting down on one knee so that she was at eye-level with her student. "Believe me, I've had to deal with the pains and agonies of love more than a few times myself. And it never gets easier. But we've still got time to sort this out, Luan. Don't give up hope."

Luan nodded, though her head kept hopelessly spiraling: I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time.

Not only to figure out how to recite her lines right, but also to figure out how to break the spell that had ensnared her sweet friend for…exactly how long? Luan realized she didn't know that answer, had never asked that question. Nor did she know if that third petal had already fallen, or if it was still just trembling the way it had been the day before. All she knew for certain was that soon–horrifically, painfully soon–the spell would become permanent and it would be too late for her to save him from a life that would probably be very lonely and miserable.

Who knows what that would do to him? she asked herself. Would do to me?

The fear she felt for him was so strong that every moment she spent here, rehearsing lines instead of trying to figure out the secrets of those magic books, was pure torture.

She wondered what her life would be like if her internal struggles were as trivial as Madame Bernardo thought. Nothing more than the dilemma of an awkward girl too scared to approach the cute, shy young actor she'd had her eye on? Sweet comic relief, she wished her problems were that simple.

It was beginning to dawn on her that maybe her life would never be as easy as it had been before the castle and the curse ever again.

She recalled a day far in her past when she was only knee-high, her hair still tied in twin pigtails instead of the single ponytail she wore now. She had sat on the front porch, sobbing from a small cut on her ankle. Her mother had gently tended to her daughter's simple injury, though Rita had wryly told Luan that she'd better enjoy these little mishaps while she could, because one day, when she was older, she'd have "big adult problems" and "big adult responsibilities" to worry about. Luan, through streams of tears, had asked what she'd meant, though Rita only responded with a brisk shake of her head and the words: "You'll find out when you're older, honey."

I think I just found out, Mom. The thought worried her. She wasn't quite sure she was prepared to handle something as big and confusing as this. In her opinion, she was much too young, much too naïve, to try to concern herself with anything more important than puns and plays. Wasn't she?

Unfortunately, the world didn't seem to care about her opinion.

Catching the signs of her student's worry, which were probably super obviously drawn in lines all across her face, Madame Bernardo placed her hand on Luan's chin, lifting up the girl's head so her eyes would stop staring at the floor and instead meet her own green-eyed gaze.

"I won't pretend like I understand what you're going through," Madame Bernardo told her. "But I can tell you're stressed out, and it hurts me to see you this way. You know you can talk to me if you need to, right?"

Luan, at a loss for words, nodded again.

"Have faith in yourself, sunshine. And put a little faith in that boy, too. He might just surprise you, y'know." Madame Bernardo grinned. "They always do."

"I'll try," Luan promised, though she was surprised by how weak and shaky her voice sounded.

"The show must go on, after all!" Madame Bernardo said, picking Luan's script, which she'd apparently dropped without noticing, off the floor and placing it in her student's hands. "And speaking of shows, it's back to rehearsal with you, silly girl. Break's over."

Luan knew Madame Bernardo was right. Even though her heart ached and worried without rest for Benny, she couldn't ignore her other responsibilities. What she needed to do was to put on a brave face and make it through the rest of her theatre practice.

But the minute she got home, she was going right back to that spellbook. No hesitations.

…

Benny pulled three more of those offending purple fliers out of his coat pocket with a frown.

He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but ever since that morning, papers had sprung up everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling, even inside all of the kitchen cabinets. He thought the total count was more than two hundred, which was impressive dedication, though also an impressive waste of paper.

He didn't even bother to look at the things for more than a moment, just tossed them into a messy pile and went on with his day.

From the small glances he did allow himself to take, they seemed to be advertising some kind of party. A dance.

Well, if someone was trying to set him up, trying to make him leave the safety of his stone walls with these annoying little advertisements (and he had eleven very good guesses as to who might be behind this), it wasn't going to accomplish anything.

It wasn't that Benny didn't like parties, or that he didn't know how to dance, because his snobby tutors had made it imperative that he did. It was rather that he didn't enjoy the thought of being screamed at or flambéed alive with torches, as he was sure his few acquaintances knew.

However, he did allow himself to wonder wistfully if he would've had any fun if he had been able to attend such an event. And he wondered if Luan knew how to dance, if she had ever danced with someone before, and if she would say yes or no if he ever managed to work up enough foolish courage to ask her to.

He was still puzzling over this when he heard a knock on the door.

No matter how much time passed or how much he tried to stop them, Benny didn't think his ears would ever stop pricking up in excitement at that sound.

"Who's there?" he asked, hoping the reply would be a pun.

"Um…Leni and Lori and Luna and Lynn and Lisa," Leni's voice responded. And Lana, Lola, Lily, Lincoln, and…um…Lisa."

"Elder sibling, you seem to have counted me twice," Lisa said.

"You didn't count me at all," Lucy added somberly. "Sigh. Typical."

Benny opened the door, welcoming the usual entourage of Luan's crazy siblings. His trained eyes searched for a beautiful, bright yellow cloak as the children stepped inside and hung up their colorful array of jackets, though it was soon glaringly apparent to him that it was missing, along with Luan herself.

"No Luan today?" he asked.

"Nah," Luna said, pulling open the red drapes to let streaks of afternoon sunlight into the room. "She's been busy as a bumblebee all day, luv. If Mom's not making her wash the windows, she's off reading that fancy book of hers."

"Yeah. Ever since she got home from theatre practice this afternoon, she's been really boring. Get this: earlier, I asked her if she wanted to make mud pies with me and she told me to make like a tree and leaf her alone! She wouldn't even look up from her dumb book for a second," Lana complained. "She spends hours with that thing!"

"Luan? Boring? Now that's something I'd like to see for myself," Benny said, though he did sort of have a guess as to which 'dumb book' Lana had been referring to. Luan had really meant it when she'd told him she wasn't giving up on figuring out the way to undo the curse. While it touched him that she was willing to do all of that for him, and that she was so obviously worried about him, it also broke his heart. He was certain as the sun that all of her efforts were useless, despite how much she'd tried to argue with him that they were not. And besides that, someone like Luan shouldn't ever be cooped up inside all afternoon with a book. Her place was outside in the sunshine, laughing and smiling (preferably with him), reciting lines of Shakespearean plays and throwing cream pies.

That was the real Luan. The one he missed whenever she was gone.

Knowing they wouldn't do him any good, Benny tried to get all his thoughts of Luan out of his head so that he could focus on the other pressing issue at hand. "By the way, would any of you care to explain this?" He pulled one of the offending purple fliers off the top of his pile and held it up for all of Luan's siblings to see.

To his surprise, they all looked rather shocked and confused.

"How do you know about that?" Lynn asked, tilting her head at a confused angle. "Luan says you never leave your castle."

"I didn't have to. There's about a hundred of these things all over my walls."

"It wasn't any of us," Lori said with audible certainty. "We haven't been here all day."

"And you're sure your sister hasn't stopped by?" This did seem like exactly the kind of thing Luan would do. She was cute and sneaky like that, though he couldn't think of any reasonable motive she would have for pulling a stunt like this.

"Maybe, but I don't think so," Lori responded.

"Well, next time you see her, tell her it won't work. She should know by now that I don't do things like this." He shook his head to punctuate his point.

"That's really a shame, brah," Luna said earnestly. "I figure you could sweep that girl right off her feet if you wanted to. Even with all your fur, fangs, and claws."

Lori nodded. "It doesn't take a genius to see that she literally has the hots for you. Take it from me. I've got a boyfriend, so I totally know my stuff."

"She thinks you're cute," Lola assured him. "She wrote it in her diary!"

Her siblings glared at her.

"Probably!" Lola amended. "She probably wrote that in her diary. Which I know nothing about, obviously." When her sisters and brother looked unconvinced, she added: "What? You guys really think I'm a snoop?"

As he grappled with the uncomfortably warm and stinging blush spreading across his furry cheeks, Benny knew he shouldn't take Luan's siblings' teasing seriously. They must've been mistaken, they had to be mistaken. Luan definitely cared about him–she'd made that explicitly clear to him time and time again–but there was no way she could ever possibly fall for him the way he had so deeply and helplessly fallen hard for her. That was ridiculous. Impossible. Ridiculously impossible.

She was beautiful. He was a hideous and scary beast. Those two kinds of things didn't belong together. That was, quite simply, how the world worked and that was how it always would. To think otherwise would only bring him heartbreak, especially when the deadline on his enchantment was so soon.

Benny knew all this, knew he wasn't supposed to defy the stars and fall in love with her, and yet he couldn't help but think about all the times she had perhaps given subtle signs that she was into him, too. Did all the times she'd squeezed his hand, blushed at something he'd said, and leaned in close to almost-kiss him mean something? Anything?

He wished Luan would stop leading him on like this. It messed him up every time.

He also wished his tail would stay still like he was telling it to and not give a quick little swish at her siblings' words, the way it was currently doing. He hated it and he hated that he knew what it was trying to say: "Do you really think so?"

No, I don't, he mentally told it, feeling very much like a fool for needing to have a serious conversation with one of his own body parts. Be quiet!

Luna smirked, probably catching sight of the wagging tail he was trying so hard to hide and make behave. "Bet she'll be pretty bummed out if you don't show."

"Even more bummed out than she already is!" Lana added, giving her older sister a wink.

"That's right," Lola chimed in. "She's been sad and worried and boring and stressed out all day! Madame Bernardo told me she couldn't even focus on her lines at practice this morning. She said there's something serious going on with her, and none of us know what. All I can tell you is that Luan's seriously in need of a pick-me-up, if you know what I'm talking about."

It's really that bad? Benny thought with a cringe. He knew Luan was upset, probably much more so than she let him see, but so worried that she couldn't even concentrate on one of the things she loved most of all? That was downright alarming.

"At least consider it," Lori said to him as she and Leni sat down at the table to play a game of chess. He wasn't entirely sure Leni knew or cared about the rules, because she seemed much more interested in finding out what kind of material her white king was made of (her best guess was marble) than in actually protecting it from Lori's black pieces.

Lynn yanked one of the few still-hanging purple fliers off the wall and held it up, pointing to a cluster of words. "Besides, it's a masquerade party. Everyone goes in costume, so no one will suspect a thing. Just slap on a mask and you'll fit right in!" She gave him an affectionate punch on the arm before walking over to cheer Leni on as she made her first genuine move on the chessboard.

"And, hypothetically, if someone did," Lisa reasoned, looking up at him with an expression he couldn't quite place. "I have close to zero doubt that someone such as yourself could easily take them down."

Benny inspected the claws on one fluffy paw, recalling what they had been able to do to those wolves that had dared to get anywhere near Luan (as well as what he'd almost done to Luan himself). Lisa's statement was probably true.

"And if you somehow can't," Lola said, "We'll take them down for you!" She cracked her knuckles, sporting a manic grin that made Benny glad he'd somehow managed to get on her good side. "Nothing gets past all eleven of us!"

You're not seriously considering going, are you? Even with the support of eleven Louds (twelve if he could get Rita to side with him, and the probability of that seemed likely) and the apparent added security of being able to claim his odd looks were merely an elaborate costume, the risks this sort of thing could entail were insane. He didn't even want to think about what might happen if he got caught by the wrong person.

However, Benny found that he wasn't quite as concerned about the potential danger as he probably should've been. None of that mattered much when it came to Luan. The way her siblings had described her had made it sound like she'd been pretty distraught lately. If there was any possible way he could think to lift her spirits, he was going to do it.

If that included braving torches and pitchforks and going to a very crowded public place in the twisted form of a scary cursed creature, albeit 'in disguise,' then so be it.

A stupid decision? Maybe, but at least he was stupid for her.

"I'll think it over," he promised, earning a collective cheer from all of Luan's siblings.

"Glad to hear it, mate." Luna gave him a pat on the head before reaching down low to pull Lily away from the sharp edges of a broken floor tile.

"Good boy," said Lola, spreading her picnic blanket and plastic tea set across the cold floor. "Now get your butt over here, Benjamin. The tea's getting cold!"

He knew better than to ever argue with Lola Loud.

…

The enchantress was, of course, quite pleased to hear of all of this–quite pleased that her sneaky little prank had paid off after all. She had a few more preparations to make for what was to occur tonight, but she didn't think it was anything her last few bits of dark magic couldn't handle.

All according to plan, she mused to herself. All according to plan.

...

A/N: Yeah, it's that time again-time for another chapter of this silly little fanfic. You're turning five months old today, sweet brainchild 'o mine, and yet you still refuse to release me from the prison that is my own imagination. When this bad boy turns six months, I feel like I should buy a little cake or something. Is that something fic authors do? It should be.

By this point, poor little Lulu's having a very difficult time, and she will only continue to veer wildly across the emotional spectrum as the chapters go on. Do you think our boy might be able to brighten her up a bit? I certainly hope so.

The idea I had for that one iconic scene to take place at a masquerade ball actually came from-you'll never believe it!-William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Anyone who's read the play knows that the two romantic leads meet at a party, but did you know that in a lot of film and stage adaptations, it's specifically portrayed as either a masquerade ball or a costume party? Because they're in costume, they don't recognize the other as a Montague and a Capulet! You can look up what specific costume Juliet usually wears, but reader be warned, it's a spoiler (shhh!).

I do like to throw in the occasional Shakespeare reference like that. This fic has actually managed to get me interested in reading more of his plays. I do think it's really funny that while some fics only have one source material to put in little references and Easter eggs from, I technically have three. And by golly, do I love to use them!

And somehow, we ended up with another 9,000-word chapter, proving that I learned absolutely nothing from the last one. If you're wondering if I'm this unhinged when I write my college papers, the answer is a big resounding YES.

I hope you enjoyed reading chapter ten (we're in the double digits now, yo!), and I hope that my crippling writer's block will ease up a little so that I can work on chapter eleven without wanting to smush my face into the keyboard.

Love you guys! :)