CHAPTER 4
A few dizzy moments later, the colors and motion did resolve themselves, but not back into the park. Not into Missoula, Montana.
Josie was sitting on something soft. She brushed it with her fingertips. Velvet. A window revealed green woods lurching past. The window was in a door. She was inside a car. No, more like an old-timey carriage.
Josie Pie was riding in a carriage.
“What a wretched span of road,” said a voice beside her, in a French accent.
Josie turned to see Misty, the blond book club leader, though gone was the flyaway hair and cable-knit sweater. Now her tresses were piled high in a tremendous updo, way beyond prom night and a few black streaks away from Frankenstein’s bride. Pearls draped around the peak of her hair and from her ears and long white neck. She was dressed in a pink gown with huge skirts and gigantic hips that took up half the carriage. Clearly eighteenth century. Was Misty performing in a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel or something? But just moments ago she’d been in the park, dressed as if for a Patagonia catalog shoot.
Facing Josie and Misty on the carriage’s opposite bench sat Marcus and Meaghan, equally outfitted in eighteenth-century costumes, though less resplendently.
“Misty, what’s happening?” Josie said.
Misty kept staring out the window. “It is hardly misty out. Clear for miles. Not that there is anything worth viewing in this godforsaken landscape.”
“What are you wearing?” Josie tried.
Misty looked down at her gown. “What is the matter? Did that impudent wench at the last inn spill some of her ghastly excuse for breakfast on my gown? Clean it at once!”
Meaghan and Marcus leaned forward, inspecting the skirts of her gown.
“It looks fine, milady,” said Meaghan.
“Fine?” Misty asked with a raised eyebrow. “Just fine?”
“It looks magnificent,” amended Marcus. “Absolutely spectacular. And not a spot on it.”
Josie had been dumbly looking around, still waiting for the world to resolve itself. But with each second that ticked by, panic tightened her ribs. She fought for a deep breath but couldn’t seem to breathe. Due to her tight corset, perhaps? Because she was indeed wearing a corset. She could feel it binding her beneath a river-blue servant woman’s dress. Gone were her sweats. Gone, apparently, were her wits. She tried again for a deep breath and began hyperventilating.
Marcus and Meaghan looked at each other and giggled.
“Milady, your waiting woman has taken to hysterics,” said Meaghan.
“Oh yeah, I have,” said Josie between gasps. “I’m definitely … having some kind … of a ’sode.” She pulled on the glass window, sliding it halfway open, and shouted, “Help! I’m hallucinating! Is Mia okay? Someone call 911!”
Misty scooted as far away from Josie as her hips would allow, which was a good centimeter.
“Regurgitate your breakfast on my gown and there will be a beheading,” she said.
Josie grabbed at her neck to loosen her dress so she could breathe, but there was nothing there. Her neck and upper chest were bare, her dress so low-cut she was surprised her breasts didn’t just pop out. That corset must be really tight.
A corset that she hadn’t put on. Yet she was somehow wearing. Was she having another stress dream—without having fallen asleep? Hallucinations couldn’t feel this real, could they? Had she been so upset about Justin that her sanity had instantly snapped? Or maybe the park had been gassed with a hallucinogenic chemical. In that case, Mia might be affected too.
“Mia!” she shouted. “Mia!”
“Oh, for the love of the Mother, shut up,” said Misty.
Meaghan and Marcus giggled again.
Josie looked at them hard, her stare accusing them of drugging her, dressing her in a costume, and stuffing her in a carriage. For a prank this elaborate, she must be on video.
She looked out the window for the cameras. But all she saw was wild woods. And then, coming up from behind, a man on a galloping horse.
Thump. An arrow lodged into the carriage beside the window. Josie startled. Misty screamed.
More buzzing as arrows swarmed past them. Frightened neighs of the horses. And then they heard the carriage driver shout, “Highwaymen!”
“Highwaymen!” said Misty with terror.
“Highwaymen!” said Meaghan and Marcus with glee.
“Highwaymen?” said Josie. “What are high—”
A face appeared in her window: a man dressed like an old-time bandit with a scarf tied over his nose and mouth. He was riding a horse, keeping pace with the speeding, lurching carriage. He grabbed onto the open window and leaped from his horse onto the door of the carriage.
Josie punched him in the face.
“Sorry!” she said as he fell off the carriage. “It was instinct! I … I don’t know what’s happening!”
Her knuckles throbbed. She rubbed them and looked around to see if anyone was mad at her for punching one of these odd cosplayers. Maybe she’d get arrested for assault? But Misty was just staring straight ahead at nothing, literally clutching her strand of pearls. Meaghan and Marcus shoved each other, each trying to see whatever was happening outside the other window.
A thump on the roof of the carriage. The wheels squeaked; the carriage lurched. More shouts. The carriage shuddered and stopped.
Muffled voices. A cry for help. Laughter. Josie held her breath.
Her door opened.
Standing there, fists on hips, was a guy with a black scarf around his lower face. He was otherwise dashingly dressed in a tricorn hat, long black leather coat, green silk shirt, tight brown pants, and knee-high riding boots.
This wasn’t the same guy she had punched. Though all she could see of his face were his eyes, they arrested her. Dark brown, under rust-colored brows.
“Justin?” she said.
But his attention was on someone else.
“My Lady Fontaine!” he said. “I had no idea you were riding inside this wheeled tea cake. How unexpectedly adventurous of you.”
Lady Fontaine? And highwaymen. From the book. The book! Josie looked around her, but it was nowhere in sight.
The highwayman with Justin’s eyes offered the lady a bow both deep and extravagant, with one arm across his chest and the other behind him. As he rose, he lowered the scarf, revealing his Justin-like face. Misty and Josie gasped in unison.
“Justin!” said Josie.
“Marquis de Sainte-Marie!” said Misty.
“My lady, that name is no longer my property, nor are the house and lands that go with it, as you well know. Now you may address me as His Highness the Bandit King.”
He reached out his hand, and Josie lifted her own, thinking he was reaching for her, but he went right past, leaning against her leg to get to Misty. He took the hand of “Lady Fontaine” and kissed it. Josie pressed herself against the seat, trying to get out of their way.
He looked like Justin, but it clearly wasn’t Justin. Justin was a boy who knew her better than anyone, and who looked at her like he loved her. He’d loved her.
Misty slapped his cheek. It was a nice, loud crack of a slap, not a fake stage hit.
“Rob us quickly and then let us go, you insufferable refuse.”
He rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “Allow me a moment to consider your kind request.”