When Sabrina met Puck, there was part of her—a small part. A very small part—that hoped this would be a friend. Another girl her own age? She hadn’t met one of those in ages. Of course, this ended as soon as this girl (who was filthy, and that should have been the first warning sign) threatened the Grimm sisters and then tried to drown them.
So there it was. An enemy, not a friend. A girl to shout at and hit sometimes. Another one.
Still, Puck did seem to like Granny (and Sabrina had been on the fence about Granny, but now that there were really actually giants running around and magic was really real and Granny was maybe not off her rocker, she thought maybe that was all right). And they could use all the help they could get.
So there was that whole thing, and Puck was helpful, even though she was rude and annoying and smelled bad.
But then they did get Granny back, and Granny announced that Puck would be moving in with them, and even worse than that, that she’d be moving into Sabrina and Daphne’s room.
That was just… unacceptable. It was bad enough having to share with her sister , but some girl she’d just met?
“What, are you gonna shove three people on that bed?” Sabrina had demanded. “There’s not enough room for two of us!”
“There’s plenty of room,” Daphne had said. “You just don’t like when I touch you.”
“You sleep sideways ,” Sabrina had snapped back. “You’re practically pushing me off the bed.”
“Well, luckily for you,” Granny had said brightly, as if Sabrina’s wants didn’t matter (when had they ever?) “I’m getting bunk beds!”
She had indeed. And they were weird bunk beds, built by the three little pigs, who spent the whole time arguing, and by Glinda the witch (who had erased someone’s memory but apparently that was all cool now and she was Granny’s friend again). They were against the wall with the highest ceiling, and they took up most of the wall.
They’d been built kind of askew from each other, with one bunk shifted a few feet to the side of the one below, so that there was still head space for the next person down to sit up, though there wasn’t a lot of room above the feet. Each head space also had a built in cubby headboard thing, which was nice, since nobody had thought to add more than one dresser.
Not that Sabrina had much in the way of clothes. Or Daphne, either. Or, apparently, Puck.
Somehow, the beds seemed to take up much less room than they should have, despite each being pretty deep, with enough room for Daphne to sleep at a 45 degree angle the way she liked to without hanging off her bed onto the floor.
Puck had immediately claimed the top bunk for herself. Sabrina thought about arguing, but it didn’t seem worth it. She wanted to be closer to Daphne, just in case, and closer to the ground, too. It would be easier if they had to run. And so what if Puck had seemed really smug about getting the top bunk? Sabrina didn’t care.
Really.
She didn’t.
When Ms. Smirt forced them all to go to school, and when that whole thing with the monster happened, and when Granny decided Puck needed to go to school with them, Sabrina had been… well, honestly, she’d been horrified at the sight of Puck freshly showered and wearing Sabrina’s clothes.
Sabrina’s clothes were not a great fit for Puck. Sabrina was short, and skinny, and muscular in spite of all that. Puck was… well, she was probably muscular, but other than that, and being blonde, the resemblance stopped.
Puck was beautiful in the way mean girls in movies were. Her hair fell around her face in long, loose curls that Sabrina had assumed only came from hours with a curling iron and a whole lot of expensive product, and her skin was completely clear of zits. Sabrina’s pants, which hung loose around her hipbones and dragged a little on the floor (“you’ll grow into them!” Granny had said), sat like capris on Puck, fitted and fashionable even if the bottom seams were kinda bedraggled. The shirt was definitely too small, stretched tight over Puck’s shoulders, its picture of a cartoon cat warped, little stretch marks pulling across the screen printed paint.
Her shoes were still filthy, because nobody would have been able to fit Puck into Sabrina’s shoes. It was a small consolation for knowing that not only would Sabrina be going back to school with terrible hair, but she’d be doing it next to someone who looked like some kind of preteen supermodel.
Sabrina resisted the urge to prod at the zit that had popped up on her chin.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d worried it would be. Everyone else was half asleep, so they weren’t exactly staring in awe at the gorgeous girl and the freak.
Bella was cute . She was cute and she was nice to Sabrina and she had long blonde hair and big green eyes and an upturned nose and oh no Sabrina had a type , didn’t she?
And okay, besides the whole green-eyes-blonde-hair thing, Bella and Puck looked about as alike as Sabrina looked like either of them. Their hair wasn’t even the same shade of blonde. Bella’s was almost white, icy silvery blonde, and her face was broad and flat, the eyes set far apart and the mouth set in a wide smile. Puck’s hair, when it was clean, was the kind of golden blonde that almost sparkled, the kind that shouldn’t be real. She had the kind of cheeks that people described as having apples in them, and her chin was a friendly little bump. All of her skin was covered in freckles. Sabrina, on the other hand, had the kind of hair that was only blonde because it was a little too light to be brown.
Anyway, Bella was one of four kids (other than Sabrina and Puck) in sixth grade who didn’t seem like they were dozing their way through everything. And it seemed like she wanted to be Sabrina’s friend. It was great, and Sabrina’s heart sped up thinking about it. She wasn’t sure if it was the idea of a friend or if it was because she kind of wanted to hold Bella’s hand.
There was no easy way to describe the weird feeling in her gut that Sabrina got when she gave Puck mouth to mouth in the forest.
Wendell, one of five kids in Sabrina’s class who didn’t seem like a half-asleep zombie, had turned out to be as bat-crazy as everyone else in this stupid town, which? Great, wonderful, Sabrina had to deal with that nonsense now. But it felt less important than the way Sabrina’s chest had caught and squirmed at the sight of Puck, not breathing, pale and bedraggled on the ground. The way her gut squirmed when Puck pushed her away and said something about kissing.
As if Sabrina would want to kiss—
Sabrina didn’t even—
She liked boys !
(And Bella. But that didn’t count. She’d had a crush on a boy back in fourth grade and he was definitely a boy and he did count and he’d been her first crush so there Puck.)
Puck went back to being filthy, leaves in her hair all the time, jeans so mud-caked that Sabrina would have bet all the money she had to her name (ten dollars and ninety-two whole cents, mostly in nickels) that those pants would stand up on their own if someone had taken them off her.
The way Sabrina felt didn’t change.
It was weird and gross and she hated it. She hated the way Puck would grin this big crooked smile and her freckles would get all scrunched up by her green eyes. She hated that she could see the tips of Puck’s pointed ears poking out from her hair next to a twig. Hated that she wanted to brush that hair for her. Hated that, when she looked at the dirt under Puck’s fingernails, instead of imagining what they’d look like clean, she was imagining how they’d feel laced with her own fingers.
It was gross and weird and Sabrina didn’t understand it.
Then Uncle Jake showed up and Puck started acting really weird. Showing off, demanding attention one minute and being meaner than usual the next, staring at Uncle Jake all the time and following him around, hovering whenever he and Sabrina were in the same room.
It was almost like she was jealous.
Which made Sabrina weirdly squirmy-jealous too. Did Puck have a crush on her uncle? Gross.
They got in a fight about it.
"I don't know what this is !" Puck wailed halfway through Sabrina's diatribe about awful, rude girls who never took showers. She pointed at Sabrina wildly. "You make me feel… weird . Your sister doesn't make me feel weird, but every time you and I are alone together it's like I'm gonna be sick but I like it and it doesn't make any sense!"
And…
Oh.
Well. At least Puck didn't have a crush on Uncle Jake.
But Sabrina couldn't— she didn't— she was twelve and Puck was gross and mean and a girl and Sabrina didn't know what to do about any of that and why couldn't she just be like everyone else?
So she told Puck, "It's because you're a freak ," and stormed out.
Puck could have died, and she'd have done it thinking—
Well. Thinking that Sabrina. That Sabrina didn't—
That there was something wrong with her.
And there wasn't. Or, well, there were. She was filthy and weird and liked to put glue in Sabrina's hair. But the other thing? The thing Sabrina couldn't even name to herself? That was… kinda nice, actually. Made Sabrina feel warm and soft, down in the pit of her stomach.
So Puck would just have to live so they could talk about it.
So apparently Puck's dad wanted her to grow up and marry some random adult fairy for political reasons.
That was awful.
And sure it wasn't like she'd be a child bride or anything like that, but Puck was still a kid, even if she was technically thousands of years old. Demanding she grow up all in one go was weird and kind of creepy.
And Puck had never even met the guy she was supposed to marry.
And there was the whole thing with Moth, which made other mean girls Sabrina had met seem like kittens. Moth was supposed to marry Mustardseed, but they wouldn't do it until Puck was married, because she was the oldest, so she had to get married first. And Moth had decided Puck's reluctance was somehow Sabrina's fault. Even though Sabrina had been a baby when Puck ran away.
And then there was the cocoon, and the whole murder mystery, and then Moth tried to kill Sabrina, and then Puck had a breakdown about her dad, and in the whole mess of things, Sabrina never found a good time to tell Puck that she'd lied about the freak thing.
And things just kind of went back to normal. Except that now Sabrina thought that Puck's parents stank and she didn't blame her quite as much for wanting to live in the woods and have twigs and bugs in her hair all the time.
“What are you two doing?” Puck asked, coming into their room one night in January.
“She’s brushing my hair,” Sabrina said, with a heavy amount of “obviously” in her tone. Daphne, after all, was currently right behind Sabrina, hairbrush in hand, pulling it through Sabrina’s locks.
“Why?”
“I like it,” Daphne said. “It’s relaxing.”
Puck sat down on the rug, watching, and asked, “Doesn’t it hurt?”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “No.”
“It always hurts when someone brushes my hair.”
“That’s because you only brush your hair once a year,” Sabrina said. “I brush mine every day.”
“And I’m careful!” Daphne added. Sabrina didn’t have to see her to know she was grinning. “If there’s a knot, I grab the hair up here,” she held up a chunk of Sabrina’s hair as an example, “so when I brush, I’m only pulling on the stuff I’m holding, not on Sabrina’s head.”
“Huh,” Puck said. Then, a moment later, “Do me next.”
“ Ask ,” Sabrina snapped.
Puck turned a bright smile on Sabrina and asked, “Please, Daphne, won’t you brush my hair for me?” She fluttered her eyelashes.
Sabrina rolled her eyes and willed herself not to blush. They still hadn't talked about it.
Daphne thought for a minute and then said, "Nope. But Sabrina might."
Sabrina did not want to do that. She was not going to do that.
Puck's hair was thick and curly and nearly down to her waist and brushing it was not fun or cute or romantic or nice in any way. It was just hard work, and every time Sabrina pulled even a little Puck whined like a baby. So Sabrina had to start at the very bottom of the curls and work her way up, loosening the mats a bit at a time until she could work one little section free. It was hard work, and every time she finished a section and let it free, it sprung loose and frizzy, puffing away from Puck's head in a massive golden cloud.
Granny came in after a while and said, "You girls have been quiet, are you up to something?" When she saw the state of things, she burst out laughing.
Daphne had finished on Sabrina's hair and joined Sabrina on Puck, one of them on each side of the fairy's head, both of them covered in stray hairs and sticks and other things that had come loose during the brushing, and Puck sat in the middle, trying hard not to squirm and failing miserably, braiding and unbraiding a bit of the brushed hair while Daphne gave her instructions on how to do it right.
"It would be easier to brush your hair if it were wet, liebling ," Granny told Puck.
Puck wrinkled her nose. "You're not tricking me into the bathtub, Old Lady.
"What if I bring you a wet washcloth?" Granny offered.
Puck mused on this for a second before nodding, and immediately wailing "Ow!" as this yanked her hair through Sabrina's comb, catching it on a knot.
Granny returned a little later with a wet cloth and a bowl of water to re-wet it in. She was right. It was easier.
It took nearly two hours, but they got Puck's hair all brushed, and that plus the water took the hair from a big frizzy cloud full of sticks to the kind of princess curls that shouldn't exist on real people.
"You look beautiful," Daphne said wistfully.
She was right. Even with a big smear of mud on her forehead, Puck was gorgeous. Sabrina wanted to run her fingers through that hair.
She didn't.
They were supposed to get married. Married. Her and Puck. Married! Bad enough to have a crush on someone who’s more matted hair than girl, but married? No. Freaking. Thank you.
The older versions of her and Puck looked so happy, though. It seemed… nice.
That night, the grown-up Sabrina pulled her aside and said, "I know it's hard. But it gets easier once you stop fighting it."
"I just want to be normal ," Sabrina muttered.
"This is normal," the other her said. "And even if it weren't? It's worth it."
Sabrina wasn't convinced. But she wanted to believe herself.
“I’ll give you two some alone time,” Daphne said with a smirk, bursting into the bedroom and then immediately backing back out.
Sabrina, on her bed with a stack of journals, gave Daphne a look of utter confusion. Daphne, for her part, looked pointedly at Puck, on the bunk above with a collection of things Sabrina didn’t want to know about.
"What?" Sabrina asked.
Daphne winked, a big obvious wink.
"Daphne, what are you talking about?"
They weren't even doing anything. Sabrina had been having a peaceful evening. She peered up around the bed to look at Puck. Puck shrugged back at her, equally baffled.
"Bye girls!" Daphne said, peering around the nearly closed door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Puck blinked at the closed door. "What."
Sabrina scrubbed a hand over her face. "I don't know. She wants us to be friends, I guess?"
"Aren't we?" Puck asked.
"You covered me in ants last week," Sabrina pointed out
"Yeah, but that was a joke."
Sabrina frowned. "I didn't think it was funny."
"You never think my jokes are funny."
"That's because they always end up with me dirty or smelly or itchy or scared!"
"Yeah, and you freak out and it's hilarious!"
Sabrina glared up at Puck. "Friends don't upset each other on purpose so they can laugh about it."
"They don't?" Puck asked. "Moth and I did that all the time."
Sabrina thought about her friends from Manhattan, from before. They'd probably forgotten all about her by now, or just thought of her as the girl who never came back after the end of the school year. She thought about sleepovers and making their own lip gloss from a kit and playing truth or dare and telling Kerry that she thought her big sister was the prettiest girl she'd ever seen and Kerry looking confused but never telling anybody, ever.
"No," she said. "Friends take care of each other."
"Oh," Puck said. After a moment, she added, "I don't know if Moth was actually a friend, then."
"Well," Sabrina said. "She did try to kill me and force you to get married to a stranger."
Puck snorted. "Yeah." There was another long pause, then she said, "I think I'd like to be friends. If you want to."
"You have to stop covering me in gross stuff," Sabrina warned.
"But it's so funny!"
"Tough."
Puck sighed, a long, put-upon sigh. "Fine. I'll try."
Sabrina would take it.
When Robin Hood appeared in their lives in a blur of bright playful grins and friendly winks at Sabrina and she felt her heart stirring, there was part of her that was relieved.
Because maybe this mean the thing with Puck was over, and she could move on to having a normal crush.
Or, not normal, because Robin Hood was an adult and that was weird, but she didn’t think anything would happen or anything.
It was nice, having a crush that didn’t feel like something was wrong . Like Sabrina was even less normal than she’d thought. Like she had bad taste and couldn’t help but be attracted to things and people that were bad for her. A crush that was just a crush and not going to turn into anything else because Robin Hood looked at her and saw a little kid.
And, equally important, Robin Hood wasn’t a girl . Not that… well. Okay, so. When Sabrina was nine, a couple had moved into the apartment next door. They were both men. And her parents had sat her down and explained that sometimes men loved other men and women loved other women, and that was okay. And if she ever felt like that, that was fine, and they wouldn’t care. Her dad had told her she wasn’t allowed to date anyone until she was at least fifteen no matter what, but whoever it was, it was more important that they make her happy and she make them happy.
But it was still just one more thing that made Sabrina different and weird and Not Normal.
So yeah. It was nice to have a normal crush that felt silly and fun and low stakes. One where she didn’t have to feel like there was any weight to it. Just her and her feelings and all the things between them and the object of her affections.
Their house got destroyed, and her parents woke up, and they had a weird, weird time for a bit. Henry didn't like that Sabrina and Daphne were spending all their time hanging out with an everafter, even (especially) when Uncle Jake pointed out that Goldie had been Henry's best friend when they were all growing up. But it was mostly cool and okay.
Then Daphne spilled the marriage beans, and Puck just looked confused. "But… we're both girls," she said.
"Two girls can get married," Daphne said.
"They can?" Puck looked between Sabrina and Daphne, confused.
Sabrina nodded. "It was on the news."
Puck stared at both of them. " What ?" Then, a minute later, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't think you'd care," Sabrina said, shrugging. She'd watched the news story herself in a sort of faux-casual way while Uncle Jake had it turned on, and when he'd said, "About time," Sabrina had half-nodded like she agreed but didn't have any reason to really care that much.
"Of course I—" Puck cut herself off to stare at Sabrina. "Never mind," she said, and flew off.
Maybe, if Sabrina were very lucky, a hole would open up in the ground and swallow her, and she'd never have to think about what that look meant.
"I'm a boy ," Puck said, gesturing at her lederhosen.
They were in the Book of Everafter, in the story of Hansel and Gretel. Puck was Hansel, and Sabrina was Gretel, and Daphne was, apparently, a duck. She'd been told off already by another bird for being on scene too early, and run off into the woods a little bit.
"And?" Sabrina asked.
"It's weird," Puck said, making a face.
Sabrina shrugged. "I don't see what's so weird about it. I was Toto a little while ago."
"Yeah but that's different."
"Why?"
"That was a dog!"
"A boy dog."
"Still."
They walked through the woods, Puck scattering breadcrumbs listlessly.
"You're really bothered by this, huh?" Sabrina asked.
"I just—" Puck started, stopped, then said, "How come I'm the boy?"
"I guess the book just doesn't think you're very girly," Sabrina said with a shrug. "And can you blame it? You don't do anything girly."
"So, what, you have to wear makeup and dresses and stuff to be a girl? You barely do that either."
"No, that's not—" Sabrina stopped, flustered. She didn't know how to argue with that. "I just mean. What difference does it make?"
"So do you want to be the boy?"
"No!"
"So it does make a difference!"
"I mean— I don't— just— ugh ," Sabrina muttered.
They wandered in silence for a bit longer. The woods took a lot longer to walk through than it took for a story to tell you two kids got lost in the forest. Sabrina wasn't sure how to argue this with Puck. Because Puck wasn't girly, and Sabrina didn't think it did matter if she was a girl or a boy, but she didn't want to wear the stupid lederhosen either. The dress was bad enough.
"If being a girl is about clothes, then it's stupid," Puck broke the silence. "I've been a girl my whole life, and ages ago everyone wore dresses all the time because nobody'd invented pants yet."
"Then why does it matter what clothes you're wearing?"
"Because the book thinks I'm the boy!" Puck flapped her hands in the air wildly. "What makes me more the boy than you?"
"Neither of us is a boy!" Sabrina declared. "That's the problem!"
Puck stopped walking to stare at Sabrina. "Problem?"
"Never mind," Sabrina said. "It's stupid."
Puck just stood there, waiting.
Sabrina sighed. "I just. It'd be easier if one of us was a boy."
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired of being a freak !" Sabrina wailed. "I just want one thing to be normal in my whole life and I can't even get crushes right."
Puck's face cracked into a smile. "You like me?"
"Not the point ," Sabrina hissed.
Puck frowned. "I don't see why it's any easier for a boy and a girl to like each other than for two girls. Or two boys, I guess. It's all kinda gross and for grown-ups and weird. And you and Daphne said two girls can get married."
"Yeah, but it's different ," Sabrina said. "And everything's already so weird all the time! I want one normal thing!"
"It was super normal when I was younger," Puck said nonchalantly. "Not everywhere, and not all the time, but there was this one place where you were weird if you didn't have a husband and a girlfriend. If you were grown-up."
Huh.
Sabrina squinted at Puck. "You're not making that up?"
"Nah," Puck said, tossing more bread as she started walking again. "I just think what's weird and what's not changes, and it's stupid to worry about it."
"That's because you're weird all the time," Sabrina accused.
Puck grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."
In the aftermath of The Wake-Up Kiss: Sabrina and Puck edition, everyone acted really, really weird. Nobody said anything about it, not even Puck. Not even Daphne . It wasn't until evening that Veronica pulled Sabrina aside and asked, "Is there something you want to tell me, honey?"
Sabrina blushed down to her elbows. She didn't want to talk about this when she barely knew how to think about it. She looked at her shoes and muttered, "What's to tell? You saw it."
"Well," Veronica said, "I can't imagine that's how you wanted to come out to your family."
Sabrina hadn't wanted to come out at all . She must have looked miserable, because her mom pulled her into a hug and said, "You know we're not upset, right? Nothing could make me love you any less, even if this were something that was bad. Which it's not."
"It's so confusing," Sabrina muttered into her mom's shirt. "I thought I liked boys, 'cause of Oscar and Robin Hood, but then Puck— I don't know, Mom. I just—she's not even—she doesn't even shower . But she. I don't know. She understands me, I guess? And I understand her. But everything's weird and I just wish this could be easy."
"Oh, sweetheart," Veronica said, kissing Sabrina on the forehead. "Love's never easy. Being bisexual doesn't change that."
"Bisexual?" Sabrina asked.
Veronica pulled back and smiled down at Sabrina. "It means you like boys and girls. Did you not know that?"
Sabrina frowned. "I didn't know it was—I didn't know you could do that. Like both."
"You can," Veronica promised. "You can like whoever, whenever, for whatever reason. Your dad might be a bit upset that you picked an everafter, but I'll talk him around. And I promise that's the only reason he's not here with me right now."
Sabrina thought about that for a minute, then squeezed her mom tight. It was the only thank you she could manage right then.
Things got busy after that, with the whole world-saving business and Granny being possessed and all that, so it wasn't until after the whole prophecy thing that Sabrina and Puck got a chance to talk alone.
"So that kiss thing," Puck said, kicking idly at the wall of the fort.
"Yeah," Sabrina agreed.
Puck looked at Sabrina out of the corner of her eye. "Are you going to be weird about it?"
"Are you ?" Sabrina countered.
Puck said, "I'm not the one who runs away the minute things get intense!"
Sabrina leaned against the wall heavily. "I've been thinking. About all that stuff you said about normal changing. And about some stuff my mom said. And I've decided something."
"Yeah?" Puck leaned next to her, eyebrows raised. She pushed some hair out of her face.
"I've been an idiot."
Puck laughed. "I could've told you that!" she declared.
Sabrina shoved her, but not very hard. "Jerkface."
"Stinky," Puck shot back.
"You like stinky things," Sabrina countered.
Puck tilted her head against the wall with a smile and said, "Yeah. I do."
Sabrina blushed. But she didn't run.
