Page 14 of Mistletoe Wishes and Dragon Kisses

“Oh, Twigs. I’m so sorry.” Getting to her feet, she stood in front of Shifter. “I wish there was something I can do.”

"Oh, I was hoping you would say that." Smiling, Twiggy leaned closer, and that was when Glo saw the loving expression she'd come to know, and love hadn't reached her friend’s eyes.

Gloria recognized the undeniable truth–that the girl she knew, the girl she thought of as a sister, the girl she loved with her whole heart, was gone. Her old friend was up to something–something really bad. It was the only explanation for the sudden and complete change in the only other person in the world she knew almost as well as she knew herself.

And it made Glo sick to her stomach.

Things had changed. They’d gone from day to night, from white to black, from good to horribly, horribly wrong, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Twiggy was no longer the person she’d known. Her friend was gone. How had this happened? Had something gone wrong when her Beetle Magic was unleashed? Did her body rebel and the Insect just bullied its way to the front and took over the loving warm person who also resided within that same soul? Or was being the center of attention as a world renowned and sought after model more important that anything and everything else–even Glo?

Worst yet, when had her loving, caring friend turned into a con artist–a liar? When had she gotten so coldhearted? Did Twiggy care about anyone other than herself?

None of that mattered in that moment. It had happened, and Glo had to play along. She had to know what Twiggy was scheming and stop her if at all possible.

And that was when she realized something–or someone else was missing. Opening the unique link she shared with Hillary K. Hippo, she reinforced all her mental shielding and telepathically whispered, “Hey, Hill, where they hell are you?”

“Well, lookie there, she actually missed me. Better late than never.”

"We don't have time for your snark. Where are you? Why aren't you here? What is…?"

“I am locked in the root cellar, and that’s not all. I am stuck in some cage that I think was meant for a dog–a dog! Oh, the injustice! The inhumanity! The horror!!!! When I get my hooves on…”

“Let me guess, Twiggy.”

“Damn, you got it in one. How did you…?”

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s up here and… Oh crap! I gotta go! Be there when I can get there!’

“No! Glo! Don’t you dare!”

But Gloria didn't have time to worry about Hilly. For the moment, she was safe, not happy about her accommodation, but safe. And the Brown Witch had bigger fish–or more to the point, Beetles, to fry.

Pulled from her memories by a sound so obnoxious that she actually looked around for the chalkboard and the butthead who was raking their nails down it, Glo's eyes snapped to the front, and what she saw forced an "Ewwww,' from her lips before she could stop it. There she was, the 'not-dead' Twiggy Girdler leaning in so closely to the Magical screen that everyone in the room could see the ooey, gooey, extremely thin membrane slipping and sliding between all the millions of lenses that served as the Twig Beetle Shifter's eyes.

Not to mention, when she blinked, Glo could see that the Twig Beetle Shifter still had her extremely long, incredibly thick fan of black eyelashes. Unfortunately, they were so caked with something defying all manner of description that made those lashes look like hundreds of thousands of creepy little spider legs.

“Holy crap!” Hillary shrieked. “That’s just nasty. Let this be a lesson to the children–do not mess with the Dark Arts.”

And Glo wholeheartedly agreed, but she couldn't speak. Hell, she wanted to throw up, was struggling to catch her breath, and couldn't even contemplate the composition of the clumps and clogs in Twiggy’s lashes. For in every single one of those shiny black lenses–the millions upon millions that made up the Twig Beetles eyeballs–the poor Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love could see her image–misshapen and stretched in ways a face should never be contorted, distorted, or otherwise fucked with–reflected back at her so many times that she swore right then and there to never visit another Funhouse for all ofeternity. Hell, she might even throw out all the mirrors in her house when this was all over.

Sadly, the nastiest, foulest, most hateful person Glo had once upon a time called a friend couldn't stop there. After all, she had been a model and loved to show off, and what better time to put on a show than when you were 'raised from the dead'?

Stepping back, Twiggy opened the two 'arms' on her thorax and the top set sticking out of either side of her abdomen as wide as they would go. Glo watched in horror, unable to look away, as the three pointy claws–adorned with polish the color of the original Bubble Yum bubble gum that she'd chewed enough of to stick herself and many others to a wall in her bedroom during her preteen years–atop what she had to think of as her hands, mostly because they were polished–clicked and clacked as she 'clapped' them together like a drag queen clapping her acrylic nails at Sunday brunch. While the stiff, thick hairs lining the middle set of arms that poked out in every direction wiggled and waggled with the Beetle's every move.

It was all too real and more than a little surreal, but sadly, Twiggy wasn't done yet. Performing an all-too-familiar move, the Shifter with an exoskeleton pushed up on the pointed tips of the four-inch Pepto Bismol pink stilettos she just happened to be wearing and pirouetted like a Goddess be damned ballerina. It was a perfect–albeit weird as all get out and the stuff true nightmares were made of–reenactment of that horrific night when Gloria found out that her friend had quite literally gone to the Dark Side.

“Oh, Twigs, you…”

“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” The Beetle shrieked so loudly and with such a grating hiss that Gloria was forced to take another step back. “Shut the hell up, you spoiled rotten, selfish, petulant brat! You have everything! EVERYTHING!”

Pushing so close to the Magical screen that the stringy antennae she used for smelling were smooshed in every direction and kinked in ways Glo knew would never ever be straight again, the Beetle just hissed and screamed with tiny bits of spittle coating everything in its path. As if that wasn't enough, the Brown Witch could see every single one of the thick black stubbly hairy whiskers poking out of the wrinkly, creased paper-thin flesh surrounding Twiggy’s creepy little mouth in ghastly detail.

The louder the Beetle Shifter screeched, the more furiously her mandibles flapped and flew in every direction. Resembling a conductor’s baton at the crescendoing apex of the 1812 Overture, those eerie, scary, and downright unsettling pinchers swung up and down, side to side, and in so many other directions that they were little more than a blur.

And all the while, Twiggy shrieked, screamed, squawked, and shouted, "You said we were sisters! You said you loved me! You had all the Magic! ALL the Power! All the EVERYTHING and YOU REFUSED TO HELP ME!"

Throwing back her head, crowing and chortling at decibels that would've made AC/DC jealous, Glo was just about to disconnect the call and sound the Brown Family Coven All-Hell's-Breaking-Loose Alarm when Twiggy dropped her head, looked straight at Glo, shoved her face so far into the Magical screen that the crispy black dot parading as a nose popped and crackled in the Enchanted monitor, and ground out through gritted teeth, "I'm comin’ for you, Gloria Angelica Brown! You can’t run! You can’t hide! I’m comin’ for you, your Pukey Pink Hippo, and your Big Ol’ Dragon, too!”

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