Mysteria Nights

found my own magic

with you.

Beside the poem hung a placard that told about the artist and the poet. It read:

The medium of our work is not important. It varies from piece to piece. We do not focus on techniques or styles. We simply focus on the same thing we’d like you to focus on—the true magic of love, which will always transcend time and disbelief. May all of you live happily ever after. . . .

—Justin and Candice Woods

DISDAINING TROUBLE MaryJanice Davidson

This is for the girls, who know who they are (if you want to know who they are, check the dedication page from Mysteria). They turn these projects into an awfully good time. Who said writing was work? Okay, my grandpa. And Jenny Hildebrandt. And Jessica Growette. And my sister. And my sister-in-law. And—well, I like it, anyway.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe many people thanks for this story, primarily all the readers who bought Mysteria without which, natch, there would be no sequel. So thanks for unlimbering the credit cards, y’all!

Thanks also are due to my long-suffering editor, Cindy Hwang, and my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who really didn’t suffer much at all.

Triplet: One of three children born at one birth.

—The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

Too good for mere wit. It contains a deep practical truth, this triplet.

—Herbert J. C. Grierson, The Good Morrow

Prologue

When the Desdaine triplets were born on a frigid February night (Withering came first, then Derisive, then Scornful, all sunny-side up and staring with big blue eyes at the ceiling), the doctor and attending nurse screamed and screamed. This startled Mrs. Desdaine, who started doing quite a bit of screaming herself, despite the epidural. Two other nurses and a resident also came running, and so did a custodian, wielding a mop like a lance.

The doctor was screaming because the nurse had dropped a tray full of sterilized instruments on his foot, and a scalpel was sticking out of his little toe. The nurse was screaming because he knew his clumsiness was going to cost him his job. Derisive, Scornful, and Withering just stared at the hysteria greeting their first moments out of the womb, then obligingly yowled when the cold air bit their fair skin and they were poked and prodded and (finally) swaddled in warm blankets. (The janitor went away, presumably to mop something; ditto the superfluous personnel.)

Of course, even in a town like Mysteria, natural triplets (that is, triplets born without the aid of artificial means like IVF or a really good splitting spell) were rare, and triplets that brought about screaming fits from qualified medical personnel were rarer still.

So it wasn’t long before stories began to spring up about the Desdaine triplets. The why behind the stories became blurred over time, but the plain truth behind the stories—the triplets were weird—never shaded much one way or the other.

On their second birthday, the girls discovered they could do magic.

On their third birthday, they discovered if they cooperated, they could do more magic.

On their fifth birthday, they decided being good guys was for suckers.

And on their sixth, they decided they could count on no one but themselves, but that was perfectly all right. Mom was scolding and loving and superb at not noticing things; Dad had died a month before they were born.

And so time passed, probably the only magic those who don’t live in Mysteria are aware of or care about. And the triplets grew older, but not fast enough to suit them or their mother.

One

“Ho-ho,” Derisive chortled. “Here he comes.”

The triplets were sunning themselves by the wishing well, a charming stone well shaded by trees in the center of town. They had chased the night mare away for the sixth night in a row with a combination of charms and spit spells and were celebrating by torturing the mailman, who was a drunk, a kicker of cats, and unpleasant besides.

The girls, who were beautiful and knew it (bad) but attached no importance to it (not so bad), were identically dressed in denim shorts, red tank tops, and white flip-flops. Although most twins and triplets outgrew the dressing-in-the-same-outfit stage by, oh, sixteen months, the Desdaines liked it. The better to fool you with, my dear.

“Mom alert?” Withering asked, squinting. Their mother, thank all the devils, was nowhere in sight.

Scornful waved her hand in the direction of the Begorra Irish Emporium. “Still looking at those tacky little leprechauns.”

“Not so tacky,” Withering reminded her sister. “They do grant one wish.”

“Yawn,” Scornful replied. “Little silly wishes, like not overdoing the turkey. Nothing significant.”

“Do-gooder alert?”

Derisive also waved a hand. “Do-gooder” encompassed three-fourths of the town; there were so few really evil people around these days. That would change when they grew up. As it was, at fourteen, they were formidable. If a Mysteria resident wasn’t a do-gooder, they were neutral, and stayed out of things. This suited the triplets fine. “No problems. Everybody’s at lunch.”

“Here he comes,” Withering said, her nails sinking into Scornful’s arm like talons. She ignored her sister’s yelp of pain. Her conscience was clear, but then, it usually was. Besides, Mr. Raggle, the postal carrier, wouldn’t be the focus of their wrath if he hadn’t called their mother That Name. And in front of the whole pizza parlor, too. “Jerkweed,” she added.

“Now,” Derisive said, and all three girls made the sign of a V with their fingers, spat through the Vs, then stomped on the spit. They visualized Mr. Raggle coming to harm and, before the thought had barely formed in their treacherous teenaged minds—

“Hey! Help! Aaaagggghhh!”

“Scared of heights,” Scornful said thoughtfully, eyeing the postal carrier who had been picked up by unseen forces and flung into the highest branch of the closest maple tree.

“Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that where you could hear,” Withering said, smiling with approval. She