The next morning, Cory and Blue rode with Lionel, Macks, and Estel to the park where Micah and Quince’s wedding was being held. After parking the car, they started following signs that read, THIS WAY TO THE WEDDING! Cory carried the bag with her new shoes and the things she was going to need to get ready. She was hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything when Blue said, “There are the tents.” She looked up to see two white tents set up in a small clearing.
“They aren’t very big,” remarked Macks. “It must be a small wedding.”
“I want a huge wedding, Macksie,” said Estel.
“I know, sweetums, and that’s what we’ll have,” Macks told her.
“Creampuff was disappointed that she wasn’t going to have to cook for a lot of people,” Lionel said.
“They didn’t invite very many—only family and close friends,” said Cory. “Look, there are my grandparents.”
Clayton and Deidre Fleuren stood at the edge of a small crowd, looking lost and slightly confused. They waved when they spotted Cory and Blue.
“Why are you wearing that?” Deidre said, wrinkling her nose at Cory’s ordinary clothes. “I thought you were supposed to be in this wedding.”
“I am,” Cory replied, and held up the bag she was carrying. “The store is bringing the dresses here. I have to go change my clothes.”
“I don’t know if Quince is here,” said Deidre. “Micah said he hasn’t seen her.”
“That’s a good thing,” Cory told her. “It’s supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride the day of the wedding. At least not until she walks down the aisle. Is her family here?”
“I don’t know!” Deidre snapped. “No one has introduced me to anyone. Hello, Lionel. I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you were dead.”
“No, I’m still very much alive,” Lionel said with a laugh.
“It’s good to see you again,” Cory’s other grandfather, Clayton, said as he held out his hand.
“Cory,” Deidre said in a loud whisper. “Why did you bring two ogres with you? I told you they’re nothing but trouble.”
Cory glanced at Macks. He looked particularly rough with his broken nose and missing tooth, but at least he was wearing a nice suit. “Macks is our friend, Grandmother. He’s also a friend of Micah’s. And this is Macks’s fiancée, Estel.”
“Well, I never!” said Deidre.
“Your mother hasn’t arrived yet,” said Clayton. “I thought she’d be here.”
“I’m sure she was invited,” Cory said as she looked around. “I bet she shows up at the last minute.”
“She’d better hurry, then,” Blue told her. “The wedding is supposed to start soon.”
“I need to go find Quince and get ready. I’ll see you at the reception,” Cory said, and kissed Blue.
Cory wasn’t sure where to look. She peeked into both tents. A long buffet table was set up in the first tent, along with smaller tables and lots of chairs, but there was no one in it. Everyone seemed to be headed for the second tent. When she peeked inside, she saw that rows of chairs had been set up to face the other end. Micah’s neighbors Salazar, Felice, Selene, and Wanita were seated together on one side. She also saw a few teachers who taught with Micah, as well as some people she didn’t know.
Cory finally looked past the two tents and saw a third that was much smaller. She had taken a few steps toward it when she heard Quince wail, “What am I going to do?”
“How could this have happened?” cried a woman’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” Cory asked as she stepped into the tent.
Quince was sitting on a chair holding a garish pink dress covered with ruffles. Another dress in a sickly shade of green was hanging from the corner of a large mirror. A woman who looked like an older version of Quince stood beside her, wringing her hands.
“Oh, Cory, I don’t know what to do,” Quince said, holding up the pink dress. “They delivered this instead of the dress I ordered. Look at the color! Look at the size! And the ruffles! I can’t wear this.”
“And that dress is for you,” the woman said, pointing at the one hanging on the mirror.
“I’m sorry that I forgot to introduce you, Cory. This is my mother, May Apple,” said Quince.
“Everyone calls me May,” the woman told her.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Cory said, then turned to look at the dresses. She was afraid that fairies were trying to ruin the wedding just because she was involved, and was thinking that she never should have agreed to be Quince’s maid of honor, when it suddenly occurred to her that the dresses seemed very familiar. Surely she had seen them before. Cory was trying to remember their visit to the store, when she recalled where she had seen the dresses. “These are the gowns those ogresses picked out! They must have gotten the tags mixed up. I bet those sprite children switched the tags! It’s just the kind of thing sprites like to do.”
“But what am I going to wear?” Quince cried. “The ceremony is going to start soon and no one would even see me in this dress.”
“Can we send someone to the store to get the right ones?” asked Cory.
Quince shook her head. “There isn’t time.”
“Even if we could stand the color, we can’t alter them. There’s far too much fabric to pin up,” said Quince’s mother.
Cory thought for a moment. If they couldn’t exchange the dresses, or pin them up, maybe there was something else they could do—something that wouldn’t take any time at all. “Just a minute,” she said. “I might know someone who can help.”
Cory ran to the tent where the ceremony was about to begin. Spotting Micah’s neighbors, she darted to the row where Wanita was seated. “Can you come with me?” she asked the witch.
“I don’t want to miss the start of the wedding,” said Wanita. “I do love watching the bride walk down the aisle. I always watch to see if she’ll trip.”
“Believe me, you won’t miss a thing,” Cory told her.
When Wanita stood up, Cory hustled her out of the tent. “We need your help,” she said, leading her straight to Quince. “The store brought the wrong dresses.”
“What do you want me to do—turn the shop girl into a mackerel?” asked Wanita.
“Quince, do you remember Wanita? You may have met at my birthday party,” Cory said. When Quince nodded, Cory turned back to Wanita. “Actually, I was hoping you could change the dresses. These were made for ogresses. They aren’t anything like the dresses we ordered.”
“I see!” Wanita said when Quince held up her dress. “You want me to make them smaller.”
“And less pink,” said Quince. “And lose the ruffles. I want the dress I picked out—not this!”
Wanita shrugged. “I can do that. But first you have to put them on. It’ll be a lot easier to get the right sizes if you’re wearing them.”
As Cory and Quince changed their clothes, May looked at Wanita and said, “You can do all this in just a few minutes?”
“I’m a witch. I can do lots of things in a few minutes. Tsk! This is taking too long. I want to get back to the tent to make sure no one takes my seat. Here, let me help.”
With a wave of her hand and a few mumbled words, Cory and Quince were wearing the dresses.
“Oh!” Quince cried out from inside the enormous pink pile of fabric where only the top of her head was visible.
Cory struggled inside the green dress, trying to pull the neckline below her eyes so she could see.
“All right!” said Wanita. “Size first!” With a wave of her hand, the dresses shrank until they fit the girls.
“And next we’ll lose the ruffles!”
The ruffles vanished, leaving two plain, but full-skirted dresses.
“Can you change the—” Quince began.
“Style? Of course! We’ll start with the bride’s. The neckline is all wrong. No, not that. Maybe this. A little low. No, not low enough. Go stand in front of the mirror and tell me when I hit on something that you like. Sleeves? Short sleeves? No sleeves? High waist? Low waist? No waist? Long train, no train?”
Cory and May stood back to watch as the gown changed on Quince with every flick of Wanita’s wrist. When Quince finally liked the style, Wanita said, “Now about the color. Are you sure you want to change it? I actually like the pink.”
“But I don’t,” Quince said firmly. “I want it to be a very pale blue.”
It took three tries before Wanita hit on a color that Quince liked. Then it was Cory’s turn. Instead of letting the witch try her hit-and-miss approach, she told Wanita what she wanted. It took her just a few tries to get the dress close to the one Cory had originally picked out.
“Can I go now?” Wanita asked when Quince and Cory were satisfied.
“Yes, and thank you very much!” Quince told her.
“You’re welcome,” said Wanita. “We can call this my wedding present to you and Micah. I bought you some dishes and wrapped them myself. They’re already on your gift table, but I think I’ll take them back and keep them now. I really like their pig pattern, and apparently I like pink a lot more than you do.”
“I should go sit down now, too,” May said as Wanita ran out of the tent. “You girls both look lovely!”
And then she was gone, leaving the girls to pick up their bouquets. “What do you think the ogresses are going to do when they end up with our dresses?” Cory asked Quince as they left the tent.
“I can only imagine!” Quince said, and started to giggle. She was still grinning when the music started and Cory preceded her into the bigger tent.
A single fiddler was playing just inside the opening. Cory glanced at him as she passed by and nearly tripped over her own feet. It was one of the twins from the Battle of the Bands, and the sour look he gave her was enough to curdle milk. The music faltered for a second, picking up again a moment later. Cory kept walking, focusing on the people on either side of the aisle.
Her smile grew broader when she spotted Blue sitting between Lionel and Macks, right behind her mother’s parents. Micah was only a few paces beyond, but the only one he was looking at was Quince. Cory recognized the man standing beside him. It was Mr. Chirith, a teacher from the Junior Fey School. The man standing in front of him was Judge Terwilliger, one of Micah’s old students.
As Quince approached Micah, Cory stepped to the side. Cory glanced over her shoulder when the judge started talking. There weren’t that many people there, so it was easy to see that her mother hadn’t shown up. Cory was still looking behind her when six tiny fairies dressed in pink and yellow flew into the tent and down the aisle. They were carrying baskets full of flower petals to sprinkle on the heads of the guests. When their baskets were empty, they left and came back with more petals, dumping them on Quince and Micah. Quince started to sneeze, and Micah looked alarmed. Judge Terwilliger didn’t seem to notice and kept talking, even though Micah kept shooting the fairies annoyed looks.
Cory wondered if the fairies were there to cause trouble because of her. If this was her fault, shouldn’t she do something to stop them? Unable to think of anything she could do without wrecking the wedding, she stood there, watching helplessly as the fairies came back again.
“You may kiss the bride,” Judge Terwilliger announced, and Cory realized that she had missed most of what he’d said.
Micah turned to kiss Quince, and Cory could see how happy they were. It made her feel pleased with herself to know that she was the one who had brought them together.
The music started again, and the newlyweds had just begun to walk down the aisle when the tiny fairies returned, their baskets filled with petals mixed with glitter. They scattered the sparkling petals on the bride, the groom, and everyone near the aisle. Quince sneezed again, and this time she couldn’t seem to stop. Hiking up her skirts with one hand, she hurried out of the tent with Micah running to keep up and the fiddler playing faster to match her pace.
“Well, that was different,” said the judge, loud enough so only the people near him could hear.
Cory and Mr. Chirith walked down the aisle side by side. Everyone was going into the next tent, where the tables and chairs were set up, but Cory stepped aside to wait for Blue.
“You look beautiful!” he said when he saw her.
“Thank you,” Cory told him. “You wouldn’t believe what we had to go through for our dresses.”
“Was there a problem? I heard that you came for Wanita.”
“There was, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“Hey, Cory! You’ve gotta come try the food!” Macks called to her. “Creampuff outdid herself this time!”
“Shall we join him?” Cory asked Blue. He chuckled and nodded, so she took his hand and they started for the buffet table. They were almost there when Cory got sidetracked by Quince’s angry voice. She spotted the bride standing in the corner, talking to a fairy dressed all in yellow.
“I don’t know why you didn’t ask me first!” Quince was saying to the fairy. Although the fairy was full-size, Cory recognized her as one of the tiny fairies that had scattered flower petals during the ceremony.
“It was our surprise wedding gift to you! It wouldn’t have been a surprise if we’d told you. Some people are so unappreciative!” the fairy cried before flouncing off.
“Why don’t you join Macks?” Cory said to Blue. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”
“Is everything all right?” she asked Quince, who was wiping her nose with a handkerchief.
Quince glanced at her, then steered her away from the other guests. “The fairies who dropped the flower petals during the ceremony are my cousins. They know I’m allergic to flowers, but they did it anyway. I suppose it’s possible they forgot about my allergy, but even so, they should have asked. It was my wedding, after all.”
“I didn’t know that you’re allergic to flowers,” said Cory.
Quince nodded. “It’s a shameful secret to have when you come from a family of flower fairies. It’s why I didn’t go into the family business.”
“And it’s why you wanted artificial flowers for the bouquets!” said Cory. “I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, but I won’t tell anyone.”
“I knew I could count on you!” Quince replied. “Micah told me that you never tell anyone’s secrets. Excuse me, there he is. I need to talk to him.”
Cory was on her way back to the buffet table when she saw Deidre talking to the genie Salazar. “That’s so interesting!” Cory’s grandmother exclaimed. “Tell me, what was the strangest thing that any of your clients has ever wished for?”
“Usually it’s power or riches. Love is a big one, too, but we can’t make people fall in love. I’d have to say that the strangest requests are when someone makes a wish without really thinking about it. I had one person ask for a gumball machine. And another wished the day was over so she could put her children to bed.”
“What a waste of a good wish!” Deidre cried. “What would you have wished for if you could have wished for anything?”
“More vacations!” said Salazar.
Cory laughed and kept walking until Wanita called out to her. “Cory, you never told me that your grandfather is the Clayton Fleuren, who creates those wonderful fish-scale models! I love your work, Mr. Fleuren. I saw a model you did of a pig at the Porcine Palace, where I take Theo for grooming. It was in a glass case, but it looked so real I thought it might be alive.”
“I’m glad you like my models,” said Cory’s grandfather. “I made that pig model years ago. I remember it very well because I had such a hard time finding fish with the exact shade of pink scales that I needed.”
“You should have seen the model Grandfather made of Prince Rupert’s castle,” Cory told Wanita.
“I would have loved to have seen that!” Wanita cried as Cory turned toward the food table again. “What are you working on now?”
When Cory finally got in line, she was behind the twins, Selene and Felice, who were talking to one of their old teachers, Mr. Chirith.
“We remember you better than any of our other teachers,” Selene was telling him.
Felice nodded. “You had a major impact on our lives.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, smiling politely. “I was afraid you might be angry after I flunked you in Shape-shifting 1. I’m glad you recognized that you both needed another year of practice before you moved on.”
“We were slow at developing our abilities,” Felice admitted. “There was one thing you did that we had a terrible time mastering. Would you mind showing us again how you do the blink and change?”
“Right now?” he said. “I wouldn’t mind showing you, but I don’t think this is either the time or the place.”
“I told you he’s getting too old to do it,” Selene told her sister. “We’ll have to ask someone younger to show us.”
“I suppose I could show you now,” said Mr. Chirith. “Watch closely.”
Felice and Selene weren’t the only ones watching when the teacher’s face became impassive. He blinked and an instant later, a raccoon was standing next to the table.
“That was fast,” said Selene. “But we’re even faster.”
In a flash, the twins were leopards: one black and one spotted. With a snarl that made everyone turn and look, they sprang at the raccoon, who shot between them and ran out the opening of the tent into the forest beyond. The two leopards ran after him and were soon out of sight.
“I guess they never really did forgive him,” said Deidre, who had come up behind Cory. “Oh, dear, I think one of the twins must have spilled her drink on you when she changed. If you can go take that dress off, you can probably clean it before the stain sets.”
Cory glanced down. It looked as if an entire cup of berry juice had splashed on her dress. If she was going to keep it from staining, she’d have to clean it soon.
“Please tell Blue that I’ll be right back,” she told her grandmother, and hurried out of the tent. The little tent where she’d left her other clothes was only a few yards away. She’d change into the clothes she’d worn to the park, then …
Shadowy figures stepped out from behind a tree. One shoved a cloth soaked in something stinky under Cory’s nose, while another held her as she struggled. She was losing consciousness when one of them slipped a bag over her head and she collapsed into the other’s arms.