Briar and Rose and Jack

by Katherine Coville

  He looks down and observes the beanstalk receding into the distance below. Is that the base of the stalk he sees? Is that small dark smudge a crowd of people? But he is still so high! Too high. Higher than the birds! Looking back, he sees that the struggling giant has managed to close the gap between them considerably. Jack renews his efforts with a will, moving even faster than before. Suddenly one foot slides out from under him. He grasps the beanstalk tightly with both hands and saves himself, but his foot has rammed into a coiled vine all the way up to his knee. He is stuck fast.

  He can’t believe it at first. Surely he can free himself! It can’t be over! He tries to yank and twist his leg, but that seems, if anything, to tighten the coils around it. Breaking into a cold sweat, he tries to bend over, but the harp tied to his body makes this difficult. Still, he manages to withdraw his knife from its sheath and reach down to hack at the vine. With the first swipe of his knife, he loses his balance and falls from his perch on the beanstalk, dropping the knife in the process. A moment later, surprised to find himself still alive, he realizes that he is hanging upside down by one leg, still held fast by the coiling vine. He sees his situation clearly. It is only a matter of time now, he knows, as the giant works his way along the bent beanstalk, ever closer to him. Which will it be? Death by falling or death by giant?Let it be by falling, he thinks. Then, at least for a few joyous instants . . . I can fly.

  * * *

  Lan and Briar have reached the bottom of the beanstalk to find that the Giant Killers are hard at work. They have heard Jack’s signal and are zealously chipping away at the base of the mammoth beanstalk. They have already cut a wedge out of the side facing the mountain, and now, from the opposite side, they will hack and hew until the great stalk gives way and falls to the earth. While Lan wobbles with exhaustion, Briar finds Arley and Quentin looking up, staring hard as far as they can see for any sign of Jack.

  “Can you see him yet?” she asks.

  “No,” Arley responds, “but we heard his horn. He can’t be too far away.”

  Despite her promise to Jack, Briar feels she cannot move from this place until she sees him get safely down. She stands rooted to the spot, looking up, while the village young people change shifts so that a fresh team of workers can resume the job with renewed vigor. Lan looks at the castle in the distance and, with a gasp, points out the black fog hovering over it. “What terrible trouble is this?” he cries. “Something must be horribly wrong. Come, Lady Briar, we have to hurry!” Taking her arm, he reminds her that it was Jack’s parting wish that she go to the castle with him and help him. Lan hangs on to Briar’s arm and entreats her strongly, warning her that the gray fairy might still be working her wickedness. “The whole castle may be in danger!” he urges. Still she hesitates. Finally, Lan looks into her face and enunciates, “This is the way Jack wanted it. This may have been his last wish. You have to honor it.”

  Briar breaks down in tears briefly, then nods and pulls herself away, but only with a promise from Arley that he will come and find her with news of any development. She and Lan divest themselves of their backpacks and put the giant’s bag of treasure and the hen into Arley’s care. Then, with Lan’s arm over her shoulders, Briar helps to support his weight as they hobble back to the village. She is surprised to find Mother Mudge not at home and the whole village frighteningly empty and quiet. They make their way up the street toward the castle, knocking on doors as they go, but no one answers. At last they hear a baby crying and follow the sound to a large cottage where there are two small, scrawny children in the doorway, staring at them wide-eyed, looking sad and scared.

  “Well, hello,” says Briar gently. “Are you here all alone?” This gets a silent shake of the head from one and a finger pointing inside from the other.

  Briar puts her head in the door and says “Hello?” while her eyes adjust to the relative darkness. Inside, she sees several old women, most of whom she knows. Granny Beasely is hushing a crying baby, and Agatha, the baker’s wife, holds a little one on each knee while a dozen children of various sizes are milling about. The old women look up at her and ask, “Have you seen them?”

  “Do they still live?”

  “Are they coming back?”

  Briar is at a loss. She can only answer with questions of her own. “Who do you mean? Where is everyone?”

  “Is this some terrible curse?” asks Lan.

  The women all talk at once, but between them they manage to inform Briar and Lan about Mother Mudge leading the rebellion—how the great crowd of villagers had marched into the castle the night before, leaving the oldest ones to care for the youngest ones at home. They hadn’t come back or sent any word since. Several of the old men had ventured out some time ago to see what they could find, and they had not yet returned either.

  Briar and Lan exchange glances. “We should go at once!” Lan urges. “Anything might have happened!”

  Briar agrees, and they quickly take their leave. As they hasten up the street, they catch sight of a trio of elderly men hobbling toward them carrying swords and shields, and they rush to meet them.

  “What news?” Lan calls out.

  One old codger shakes his sword in excitement, saying, “The way is blocked! Inside the castle it’s all grown over with great thornbushes! There’s no way in!”

  “Can’t even see anything!” quavers another, using his sword as a walking stick. “It’s evil, is what it is!”

  “It even smells evil!” adds the third. “What on earth can we do?”

  “You can give us your swords!” Lan declares.

  The old men confer with one another; then one of them says, “They’re old and dull, but you can have them, for all the good they’ll do you.”

  “Thank you!” says Briar. “And can we have your shields as well?”

  “Yes, yes, and good luck to you,” comes the reply, and they are handed over.

  Briar and Lan accept the gifts gratefully and take their leave of the old men.

  Once again they head for the castle. All is eerily quiet as they cross the drawbridge. Only a crow’s rough call pierces the ominous stillness. All at once, the stench hits them, a wave of putrescence that makes them gag, and now they can see in through the gatehouse to the impossible tangle of black vines and deadly thorns within the castle.

  “Can anybody be alive in there?” Briar wonders aloud, then swallows hard.

  “Rose! She’s got to be; she’s just got to be!” Lan pauses, trying to calculate how many hundreds of blows it will take to open a pathway to the castle keep. “There’s only one way to find out!” he says, and after backing away from the smell to take a few deep breaths, he charges in through the gatehouse and strikes a blow with his sword on the first foul vine he encounters, rending it from its roots. “Ha!” he exclaims as Briar circumvents a three-foot thorn and strikes her first blow.

  “At least it can be cut!” Lan says, noticing that a brown sap is oozing from the chopped ends of the vine, and the horrid smell grows suddenly stronger, strong enough to sting his nostrils. A drop of the sap falls onto his arm, where it sizzles and smokes, burning right through his sleeve and into the skin beneath it.

  “Aaagghh!” he cries, and shouts out to Briar, “Watch out for the sap! It burns!”

  Briar draws back, avoiding a dripping globule of sap from the vine she has just cut. She hesitates, then realizes that she must risk getting burned in order to proceed. “I’ll try to go faster,” she says, hoping to forge ahead before the sap can ooze out.

  “I’ll keep chopping as long as my arm and my sword hold up!” Lan responds. Sheltering himself somewhat with his shield, he lifts his sword again and again, a surge of extraordinary strength coursing through him now at the thought of saving his loved one. Suddenly his sword breaks, yet even so, he hacks away at the forest of thorns with half a sword. But his days of confinement and near starvation have left him with little endurance, and he begins to falter. The sword and shield seem to become heavier, until his arms c
an barely lift them. Faintness threatens to overtake him. Finally, he calls out to Briar, “I’m done in! You go ahead. I’ll try to follow.”

  Briar nods; then her eyes widen in a look of horror as she discerns two inert bodies lying among the tangle of vines and thorns. “Look! I think they’re dead!” she cries, pointing at the fallen men. She turns and carefully carves a path over to them. Kneeling to listen to their chests, she still can hear faint heartbeats. She tries to rouse them, but there is no response. “It’s some kind of deathlike sleep, like the one I was in. It must be an enchantment!”

  “I dread what lies ahead of us,” Lan replies, “but we must go on.” Lan smothers another cry as the foul sap burns into his back. “Hurry, or we’ll be burned alive! Hurry!”

  Briar tries to quell her fear and anguish. Holding her shield above her head, she cleaves even broader strokes with her sword, slashing away at the snarl of monstrous plants as though her own life depends on it. She tries to go faster, for with Lan forced to follow behind her, he is in greater danger from the caustic sap. Though he covers his head and shoulders with his shield, she hears him cry out with pain as the sap falls, sizzling, on his foot. She turns to him, cringing at the sight of his smoking burns. “Oh no!” she exclaims. “I’m sorry!”

  “Go on!” cries Lan. “I’ll be all right! Go quickly!”

  Briar turns back to the seemingly impossible task with renewed vigor. She decides to make for the great hall in the castle keep, thinking that would be the most likely place to find anyone. She can barely judge her direction in the thick forest of thorns, but through it she dimly perceives the large double doors of the stables on her right and more bodies scattered at the foot of them. She tries to look away, but it seems there are human figures lying limply everywhere, and she and Lan find it necessary to step over or around them. Looking more closely, Briar recognizes many of them from the village. When they finally can make out the door to the great hall ahead on the left, they have to pick their way more slowly and carefully over the bodies, now crowded closely together, while the accursed sap drips on them. Briar is appalled to be causing such harm to these innocent people, but it is impossible to turn back. It’s only a short distance now to the doorway, but even Briar’s great strength is flagging. Two strokes. Three strokes. How many more can she manage? She takes a deep breath and, with all her strength, severs the last gnarled vine before her. Then, climbing gingerly over a heap of human forms jammed in a doorway, she collapses into the great hall, Lan following after her.

  “No more thorns!” Briar cries with great relief as she and Lan look around, taking in their surroundings.

  It is a scene they never could have imagined, and it tells a story. Tables covered with white linen fill the center of the room, as if in preparation for a great feast, but where are the guests? Peering into the diminished light, they discern groups of bodies crowded into each corner of the hall and around the tables in the center. Here, near the main door, are peasants’ bodies, many of them lying on top of their weapons. Briar puts her head down and listens to several of them breathe. “Still alive. These must be the rebels,” she speculates. “And look! There! It’s Mother Mudge! She looks so peaceful. But why are they all sleeping? It is an unnatural sleep.”

  Massed at the farthest corner of the room are bodies with no weapons but decked out in silks and sparkling jewelry. “Look there,” says Lan, pointing. “It’s the royals and the nobles, all backed up as far as they could get. I bet they were cowering in their boots! And over there!” He indicates the raised dais with the two thrones on it, two bodies lying prone before them. “It’s King Warrick! And the queen too! Everyone has been put to sleep!”

  Just then a small, buzzing voice above them calls, “Not everyone! We fairies put all the people to sleep, but we are quite awake.” A fluttering motion draws their attention upward, where they observe what looks like a tiny golden bird hovering around their heads. “I stayed here to guard Princess Rose while the other fairies are off looking for her true love.”

  “I’m her true love!” cries Lan. “I may not be a prince, but my love is pure and strong, and I’ve come to awaken her!”

  “Oh, splendid! This is good news indeed!” the gold fairy exclaims. “I’ll summon the others. They’ll be so relieved! It really is too difficult to find true love these days!” She shakes her wand vigorously, and it turns red. “There! They’ll be here directly. Now, you’ll find Princess Rose in her room at the top of the stairs. Go quickly, before the gray fairy—”

  There is a noise like a thunderclap. “Before I what?” comes a voice dripping with venom. “Before I ruin your little birthday party? Before I make you wish you had never been born? Before I curse you all into oblivion?”

  The three turn, choked with apprehension, and see the gray fairy standing in the middle of the floor, the tables tumbled all around her, burning into cinders.

   Chapter Five

  JACK KNOWS THAT HIS FATE WILL catch up with him soon. It has been some time now, and still he dangles by his leg, half a mile above the earth, held in the grip of a coiled tendril of the beanstalk. He can feel the blood rushing to his head, making it throb and ache. Meanwhile, he observes that the giant’s struggle to get to the top of the upside-down U formed by the bent stalk has merely resulted in bending even more of the beanstalk down to the giant’s own side. He is hanging lower than when he started, getting ever nearer to Jack’s level. Jack, on the other side of the U, has a vague hope that the tip of the stalk will break off and send the giant plummeting to his death, leaving Jack unharmed. So far, though, the beanstalk has proved too flexible to even crack.

  Helpless to do anything but wait, Jack grows calmer as he observes the giant’s frantic efforts to get within grabbing distance. Even now, Jack knows, the Giant Killers must be working away to ensure the giant’s doom. He knows he will not die for nothing. And Briar must be safely on the ground by now. He ponders gratefully the brief wellspring of love that they found, knowing it would have been brief anyway. She is a lady and he is a peasant, and they never would have been allowed to be together. He hopes with all his heart that she will not pine away for him, that she and his mother will be a comfort to each other.

  The giant is nearly level with him now, roaring with frustration. An idea lighting up in his evil brain, he swings one enormous arm to set himself swaying, back and forth, back and forth, just a little at first, then farther, wider, closer and closer to Jack. His huge hand is stretched out, reaching, reaching to catch hold of the lad. Once . . . twice . . . three times, and the giant nearly has him. Jack closes his eyes and prepares himself to meet his fate. Four . . . five . . . six more swings, and the giant’s hand just misses him.

  Then a sharp crack from below tells Jack that the Giant Killers are through! They have won. A smile spreads across his face as the giant’s sweaty hand closes tightly around his head and body, yanking him away from the beanstalk seconds before the whole thing begins to collapse in a mighty avalanche of green. The giant’s obscene glee instantly changes to shock and terror, the last things he will ever feel as he finds himself falling, and falling, and falling.

  * * *

  The gray fairy stands leering evilly amid the flames, in a haze of swirling yellow smoke.

  “You . . . you . . . witch!” buzzes the gold fairy.

  “Oh, no,” sneers the gray fairy. “Nothing so prosaic as a witch! I’m far more exotic, more stupendous, more unique, more extraordinary! I’ve been planning my revenge for sixteen years, and I’ve always known you would do your utmost to interfere! I’ve got a whole new repertoire of tricks to try, so go ahead! Exercise your feeble powers! Just see what I will do!”

  There is a small pop and a flash of light as the hummingbird-size pink fairy appears above their heads, and another pop, pop, pop as the green, blue, and white sparkly fairies arrive in small flashes of light. The gray fairy, startled, throws her arm up to protect her face, staggering backwards. Her eyes grow dilated, the whites showing al
l around the irises, but she quickly recovers her nerve. “You’re no match for me!” she howls. “No matter how many of you there are!” and she begins hurling bolts of sizzling magic at the other fairies. With their tiny size and quick, darting motions, they make difficult targets. Suddenly there is another pop, and another, and another, with three more flashes of light. The purple fairy, the yellow fairy, and the red fairy appear, but before the others can warn them to scatter, the gray fairy’s bolts of magic strike the three and turn them instantly into rats. They fall to the floor with little ratlike cries and skitter away into the shadows.

  “That was uncalled for!” responds the gold fairy furiously.

  “Oh?” drawls the gray fairy archly. “You’re all against me. You’ve always been against me! Now see how it feels when I am against you!” With a flash from her wand she summons forth a flock of hungry sparrow hawks, and the great hall becomes a flurry of bloodthirsty hawks, flying feathers, and fleeing fairies.

  The gold fairy pops into her full human size. “Shame on you!” she declares severely, flapping away two surprised sparrow hawks with one arm. The other fairies quickly follow suit, popping into their full size well away from the gray fairy, who laughs maniacally at her own cleverness. While she is thus distracted, the gold fairy puts one hand behind her back, waving Briar and Lan toward the stairway, and the two creep quietly in that direction, hiding behind their shields. With the painstaking concentration of tightrope walkers, they step carefully over the sleeping bodies, hoping to escape the gray fairy’s notice.

  Suddenly the gray fairy whips to attention, as if sensing something amiss. She bats away the frustrated sparrow hawks darting about her head and, with a swift motion of her hand, makes them all go up in smoke. “Who wants to be next?” she snarls, a line of spittle trailing from her mouth. “You!” she cries, pointing at the gold fairy. “You and I have come to a day of reckoning! You really think you can thwart me? Ahhahahaha! Fabulous! You have no idea what I am about to unleash!”