Freddie's Shadow Cards Read online

  Freddie narrowed her eyes. “Why should I help you?”

  “Who do you think let Dude loose back there?”

  Freddie thought about the giant crash that had saved her from getting in trouble just a moment earlier. “You did that on purpose?”

  “Yeah,” Carlos said. “I saw you drop the cards. I helped you. So now you owe me, right?”

  Freddie sighed. He was right. She did owe him. “What’s your problem?”

  Carlos bit his lip, looking embarrassed. “The truth is I’m tired of Jay getting all the attention on the tourney field. I mean, he’s a superstar and I’m just the short shrimpy VK who gets knocked around a lot.”

  Freddie suppressed a giggle. The last tourney game she’d watched had been exactly as Carlos just described. Jay had scored all the goals and Carlos had spent most of the time on the ground.

  “So you want the Shadow Cards to make you a better tourney player?” Freddie confirmed. “I mean, the cards are good, but they’re not that good.”

  Carlos scoffed and gave her a friendly punch in the arm. “Ha-ha. Very funny. I don’t know what I want. We have a game in less than an hour and I just need some help. I need to get noticed out there. I’m sick of being trampled by everyone…even my own teammates.”

  Freddie sighed and removed the cards from the pocket of her dress. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  She sat down on the floor of the tourney shed next to Dude and fanned the cards out in front of her.

  Carlos smiled, looking extremely relieved, and sat down across from Freddie. “Thanks, Freddie. This is really wicked of you.”

  Freddie shrugged. “What can I say? I’m feeling pretty wicked today. Okay, let’s do this.” She extended her hand and let it float just above the cards. Then she recited the spell.

  “Masters of the Shadow Land, I call upon your knowing hand. I offer you this sinner’s song, to guide the path he walks upon.”

  The cards immediately responded, and her shadow morphed into the misty black snake that formed a question mark.

  “Go ahead,” Freddie said. “Ask for what you want.”

  Carlos cleared his throat and spoke to the cards. “How do I become a tourney star?”

  The answer came swiftly. The dancing ball of light landed on a card right in front of Carlos. He flipped it over and they both leaned in to see what the card had to say.

  It was a picture of a tourney field. It was empty. But then, a second later, the picture came to life and a team stormed the field.

  “Hey,” Carlos said. “That’s the Sherwood Forest Falcons. We’re playing them today.”

  They watched the Falcons run around the field. When one of the Falcons’ forwards had possession of the tourney ball, the entire team ran into the kill zone and converged in the same spot, forming a protective circle around the forward with the ball.

  “What are they doing?” Carlos asked, his furry eyebrows pinching together as he watched.

  Then, in the chaos of the dragon fire coming from the cannons on the sidelines, one Falcon snuck away from the huddle and started walking slowly toward the goal, like he was just repositioning himself. Both Freddie and Carlos had to lean in close and squint to notice that he had the tourney ball. But no one on the field seemed to notice. They were too distracted by the strange huddle that was happening in the kill zone.

  “Whoa,” Carlos said. “I’ve never seen anyone do that. Do you see how slow he’s walking so he doesn’t attract any attention? That’s really sneaky!”

  The image on the card kept moving until the forward who had snuck away with the ball made a goal and the Falcon cheerleaders went crazy.

  Freddie let out a gasp. “I think the cards are showing you the Falcon’s big play for today’s game!”

  Carlos looked up and met her gaze with excitement. “You’re right! And now that I know what it is, I can intercept it and save the game!”

  Freddie smiled a delicious villainous grin. “All hail Carlos De Vil, the new tourney star.”

  I got the AKs what they wanted. Now it’s time for me to get what I want.

  Watch me enchant these folks at the Auradonnas rehearsal.

  As she watched Carlos stroll onto the field to warm up for his big tourney game, Freddie gave herself a mental pat on the back. She was getting pretty good at this saving-the-day stuff. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be able to stick around to watch the game, because her Auradonnas practice was at the same time.

  Freddie turned and headed back toward the dorm. The sun was high in the sky, making Freddie’s shadow look squat, like a hunched-over old lady with a cane.

  “Good work today,” she said, commending the shadow. “You’re on a roll!”

  When Freddie reached the dorm, she hurried up the steps to her room. She wanted to get in some last-minute rehearsals before the actual rehearsal. Even though Ally had promised her a spot in the group, she still had to impress the rest of the singers. She still had to prove she deserved that spot. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself during her very first rehearsal—especially when their big national competition was coming up in only a few days.

  But when she burst through her door, she was startled to find Jordan in her room, sitting on her bed.

  For a second, Freddie wondered if she’d barged into the wrong room. But then she saw CJ’s makeshift pirate ship sail on the other bed and knew that she was in the right place.

  “What are you doing in my room?” Freddie asked accusingly.

  Jordan stood up from the bed and stomped over to Freddie, a deep scowl on her face. “You tricked me,” she snarled.

  Jordan sounded angry. But Freddie wasn’t going to be fooled by that again.

  Freddie laughed. “Is this a thing you do? Where you pretend to be mad but you’re actually ecstatic?”

  Jordan looked confused. “What? No! I am mad. I never should have trusted you. You’re evil. You and your shadow! Pure evil.”

  Freddie smiled. “Thank you.”

  “That’s not a compliment.”

  “It is where I come from.”

  Jordan narrowed her eyes and glared at Freddie. “I can’t believe I let you manipulate me like that. I should have known never to trust the daughter of the shadow man, the most deceitful villain to ever live.”

  Freddie touched her chest. “Again, thank you.”

  “Stop thanking me!” Jordan yelled. “You ruined my life!”

  “Wait, what now?” Freddie asked. “I thought I saved your life. Did you forget already? Web show? Big hit? Millions of views? Ring a bell?”

  “My Web show is over!” Jordan cried. “And it’s all your fault!”

  Freddie’s eyebrows knit together. “Okay, I think I missed something.”

  “Look!” Jordan said, shoving her phone in Freddie’s face. Freddie blinked in confusion as she attempted to read an Auradonian Times news article that was on the screen.

  But she didn’t have to read it. The headline told her all she needed to know.

  KING BEN’S ROYAL TOUR DELAYED INDEFINITELY

  “Delayed?” Freddie said, her questioning eyes darting back to Jordan.

  Jordan lowered the phone. “Yes! Because of my Web show! The episode of him gobbling porridge like a beast went viral. Everyone at Auradon Prep loves it, but his advisors worry that no one can take him seriously as king right now. They’ve postponed the entire tour until this blows over.”

  Freddie cringed. “Ouch. Mal’s gonna be mad.”

  “I’m mad!” Jordan said, pointing at herself. “Me. This is about me. I’m the victim here.”

  “You?”

  She huffed. “After Fairy Godmother found out it was my Web show that aired the exclusive, she prohibited me from filming another episode for a month! Do you know what happens to Web shows that don’t post for an entire month? Everyone forgets about them. They die a slow, painful death.”

  “Sounds fun,” Freddie said.

  “Stop making jokes! This. Is. Your. Fault.”
<
br />   “Whoa, whoa,” Freddie said soothingly. “Let’s just calm down and be rational about this. I’m sure we can—”

  “There’s nothing to be rational about!” Jordan yelled. “You knew this would happen. You tricked me into using those cards.”

  Now Freddie was getting mad. “Hold up. I did not know this would happen.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’re a VK, and VKs lie all the time.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Freddie admitted, “but I’m not lying now. I swear. Look, let’s go over to Mad for Tea, have a scone, and talk about this calmly. I’m sure we can figure out how to fix this.”

  Jordan’s mouth twitched as she thought about whether to listen to Freddie. “Fine,” she said, stalking toward the door. “But you’d better fix this. Or I’m telling Fairy Godmother the truth. The whole truth.”

  Freddie cringed. Fairy Godmother could not know that Freddie had used shadow magic at Auradon Prep. She’d be expelled.

  Plus, Auradonnas practice started in an hour, which meant she had sixty minutes to convince Jordan not to turn her in and get herself across campus to the chapel.

  She would have to rock some serious velvet voice to pull that off.

  But a few minutes later, when they arrived at Mad for Tea, Freddie felt her hopes crash and her heart sink to the bottom of her chest

  Uh-oh, she thought as they stepped inside the tea shop. This might be more complicated than I thought.

  Freddie glanced down at her feet. But she couldn’t even see her feet.

  Because she and Jordan were standing in ankle-deep water.

  Uh-oh. Maybe I’m not the shadow sorceress after all.

  “You!” Ally cried as soon as she and Jordan entered the Mad for Tea shop. “You horrible, terrible, evil villain, you!”

  Freddie smiled. “Is this Compliment Your Fellow Student Day or something?”

  “What happened here?” Jordan asked, lifting up her now soaked boot.

  Ally started crying. “It was the furniture! When we pushed it into the back room during the party, one of the chairs shoved up against a water pipe. The pressure was too much! The pipe burst this morning and flooded the whole tea shop! The plumber told me how much it’s going to cost just to fix the broken pipe and it’s all the money we made from the fund-raiser! And that doesn’t even include getting all this water out—which means we won’t have anything left over to buy the new costumes. And my mum is coming home from her vacation in two days and she’s going to see this disaster and I’m going to get in trouble. And it’s all her fault.” Ally jabbed her finger at Freddie.

  “Hold on. Back up,” Freddie said, putting up her hands in a defensive gesture. “Why is everyone around here suddenly blaming me for their problems? I didn’t do this.”

  “The whole reason this happened was because of your stupid Shadow Cards!” Ally cried. “They told me to go to Evie’s room so I would get the idea for the raffle prize. And it was because of that raffle prize that we had too many people in the tea shop and had to move all the furniture to make room!”

  “Hey, those cards got you exactly what you wanted. You wanted people to come to your party. If we hadn’t used the cards—”

  Ally cut her off. “If we hadn’t used the cards, none of this would have happened. I told you the party was getting too big. People were showing up from halfway across the kingdom to get a chance to use the mirror! If we had just hung fliers around school like I suggested, we would have had a successful normal-sized party and the pipe never would have broken.”

  Freddie pondered that for a moment. She glanced around the tea shop for her shadow and found it on the wall behind her.

  Is that true? she asked the shadow silently in her mind. Did the cards really cause this?

  “You’re the one who convinced me to use the cards in the first place!” Ally went on. “You said it would be the best way to get people to the party.” She gestured wildly to the flooded tea shop. “And now look what kind of trouble I’m in! And it’s all your fault!”

  “Okay, I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” Freddie said.

  “Actually,” Jordan said pensively, “she has a point.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Freddie fired back.

  “If I hadn’t used the cards,” Jordan went on, tapping her finger against her chin, “then I never would have gone to the banquet hall to film my Web show episode. I never would have caught King Ben on camera eating porridge like an animal. It never would have gone viral. The royal tour never would have been put on hold. And Fairy Godmother never would have prohibited me from filming my Web show!” She finished that last part with the excitement of a sleuth who had just solved the crime of the century.

  “Exactly!” Ally said, pointing at Freddie. “Those cards are evil!”

  “Now, just hold on a minute,” Freddie said. “Do you hear how ridiculous you both sound right now? Are you really going to blame a pack of cards for what happened to you?”

  “YES!” Ally and Jordan said at once.

  “That seems a little unfair.”

  Just then, Jordan’s and Ally’s phones beeped at the same time. Jordan looked at her screen and her scowl deepened. She turned the phone around to show Freddie the message.

  Evie: Oh my gosh! Carlos just tried to block some crazy play during the tourney game and dislocated his shoulder! We won but the doctor says he probably can’t play for three more games!

  “Let me guess,” Jordan said in a snarky voice. “You used the cards on Carlos, too?”

  Freddie opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.

  Carlos got injured blocking that play?

  She was starting to worry that Ally and Jordan might be on to something. What if the cards were really at fault for all this? What if the shadow spirits that lived inside them had purposefully done this? What if the cards really were evil?

  Well, of course, they’re evil, Freddie reasoned. But I got what I wanted out of them, didn’t I?

  Or had she? Freddie soon realized that Ally hadn’t yet talked to the group about letting her in. She was supposed to do that at practice, which started in half an hour.

  Freddie fidgeted nervously with the hem of her dress, trying to figure out what to do. She needed to find a way to smooth everything over.

  “C’mon, Ally,” Freddie said in her charming velvet voice. “Let’s talk through this on the way to the chapel, okay? We’re going to be late for practice.”

  “Practice?” Ally yelled. “There is no practice!”

  Freddie felt her stomach tense. “What do you mean, there’s no practice?”

  “I canceled it. I have to deal with this mess!” She kicked her foot, splashing a bunch of water toward Freddie and Jordan. Jordan jumped out of the way. Freddie was not as quick, and the water splashed in her face.

  Freddie tried to remain calm, but it was getting more and more difficult. She gritted her teeth to keep from losing her temper. “But today was the day you were going to tell the Auradonnas I was joining the group.”

  Ally looked at Jordan in disbelief and then back to Freddie. “You really expect me to get you into the group after what you did?”

  “A deal’s a deal,” Freddie reminded her.

  “This wasn’t a deal!” Ally screeched. “You tricked us. Both of us. And poor Carlos. We should have seen it coming. Your father is Dr. Facilier, after all. Of course, we shouldn’t have trusted you. What were we thinking?”

  “You can’t go back on your word,” Freddie said, getting angry.

  “Why not?” Ally cried, tears streaming down her face. “You VKs go back on your word all the time.”

  “You’re the ones who couldn’t keep a secret about the cards after you promised you would!” Freddie angrily reminded them.

  “Hey!” Jordan said. “Ally was the one who told me.”

  Ally reeled on Jordan. “And you told Carlos!”

  “Not the same thing,” Jordan said defensively. “I told a VK. You told an AK.”
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br />   “What does that matter?” Ally retorted.

  “I think it matters,” Jordan reasoned.

  “Well, I only told you because I thought I could trust you,” Ally said. “But apparently you’re just as bad as the VKs.”

  Jordan scoffed. “Speak for yourself!”

  “I would never speak for you,” Ally said to Jordan with disgust.

  “Good!” Jordan screamed. “Because I’d hate for everyone to think my head was in the clouds, too!”

  And soon all three of them were yelling and pointing fingers at one another.

  “Enough!” Ally finally screeched at the top of her lungs, causing everyone to fall silent. She turned her angry, tear-filled eyes to Freddie and in a slightly calmer voice said, “You know, maybe if you had just helped me spread the word about the party—maybe if you had just been nice to me, instead of tricking me with dark shadow magic—I would have let you into the group.”

  “I didn’t know this would happen!” Freddie insisted.

  “I don’t believe you,” Ally said, “because I don’t trust you. And that’s why I’ll never let you into the Auradonnas.” Ally turned and sloshed into the kitchen.

  “Well,” Jordan said brusquely. “I guess that’s one thing Ally and I agree on. I don’t trust you, either.” Then she turned and trudged out the front door, leaving Freddie alone with her shadow in ankle-deep water, listening to the tiny ripples that lapped against the walls of the flooded tea shop.

  Shadow Cards? More like shady cards!

  I’m further away from singing with the Auradonnas than ever.

  Freddie couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned, thinking about everything that had happened. She didn’t understand how so much could fall apart so fast.

  That afternoon everything had been great. Freddie was going to join the Auradonnas, Ally had raised enough money to buy new costumes, Jordan had the most popular Web show in all of Auradon, and Carlos was going to be a tourney star. The cards had given all of them exactly what they’d wanted.

  And now, after only a few hours, it seemed like the cards had taken it all away.