Read Bayou Fairy Tale for Free Online Page B

plastic address window of the one envelope he dreaded getting, and at the same time, longed for. The weight of what the envelope meant crushed him with the one responsibility he could never escape, yet would proudly carry like a wounded soldier refusing to retreat.
    He didn’t retreat that day. But when the envelopes arrived, the voices whispered he should have. Maybe he should have married Phillipa Montclair, gay or not, maybe none of this would have ever happened.
    Losing Atticus was like losing a limb. Losing Atticus left behind a gnarled scar that itched and throbbed with the arrival of every new envelope, the sensation of longing for wholeness.
    Taylor had once thought he and Atticus had made a secret pact to endure the childhood of embarrassments that came with their princess titles and emerge as proud adults on the other side.
    He had lied to Atticus. Taylor emerged as an embittered, selfish adult. He wasn’t able to appreciate what he had until that day in Cawker City, Kansas.
    Sometimes he wished Atticus was dead. If he were, Taylor could make peace, knowing Atticus wasn’t suffering anymore. Atticus didn’t have the wherewithal to know he was suffering.
    He ran his thumb over the plastic window as if in meditation. Ringo was trying to apologize for his social gaffe about Corentin. Taylor heard him. But he held back the first thing that sat poised on his lips, and it wasn’t about Corentin.
    The envelopes were never good news. They were the news that ruined Taylor’s week with Corentin as he tried to enjoy having Corentin back again before he left every seventh day. As he stared at the seal of the Andersen Institute of Mental Health, the scar opened itself again.
    Taylor ripped open the envelope and yanked out the letter. Like ripping out the stitches, best to get it over with quick. It would hurt like a motherfucker, but Corentin excelled at the care and feeding of raging dragons.
    Ringo remained silent as Taylor read.
    Please be dead, please let it be over, please….
    But it was not that letter. Instead, the words formed sentences that heated his face, and the paragraphs became infuriating. Zee growled, ready to defend her princess.
    Ringo took flight, hovering in front of Taylor, and wrung his hands. “Is it…,” he began and trailed off. “Is it over?”
    “They moved him to a different facility.”
    The words might as well have reopened the old mental wound and revealed a rampant infection.
    “Oh! Thank Storyteller.” Ringo sighed and wiped his brow.
    Taylor folded the paper under his arm with all of his other mail and headed into the librarian lounge. He tossed the Dunkin’ Donuts bag and thumped his coffee onto the table. Without a second glance, he dropped back onto a chair. Ringo took his place among the sock puppets on the shelf. It was easier to keep himself from exposing Devon to magic.
    Taylor ground the heels of his palms against his itchy, burning eyes. Corentin was right. Taylor hadn’t been sleeping much, or at all. And while the Curse Day all-nighters were a regular part of his week, rest was few and far between. Life with Corentin was worth it. Taylor knew what he signed up for, and he was in it even if Corentin’s curse was never broken.
    He snatched the letter off the table and read it again. If it were possible, the words made him even angrier.
    “They transported him to another facility. And they didn’t fucking talk to me about it first,” Taylor said, trying to clarify for Ringo.
    On the bookshelf, Ringo idly repaired the Raggedy Ann puppet’s braid. “You better call.”
    He didn’t need to say whom Taylor should call.
    Taylor yanked the phone from his hoodie pocket and punched in his father’s number.
    When Taylor had discovered the very man he despised with every fiber of his being was the former reigning Sleeping Dragon, he’d felt a sick sense of kinship with his father.
    His father had been just as embarrassed of being a princess as he was embarrassed of his own