Ashes to Ashes

by M. J. Padgett

  The room fell silent, and everyone focused their attention on my brother. His story was a mystery to everyone, including my father who sat at the long table adjacent Marcus. Jack, who was usually the goofball that avoided being the center of attention, commanded the room with his very presence and didn’t seem bothered by it in the least. Because he’s not just Jack, he’s Julian.

  Jack looked at me, confused. “Yeah, we definitely need to get that bad habit fixed. Yes, I am Jack and Julian, one and the same just as you are both Saskia and Sierra—kind of. The easiest question to answer why am I so large and golden? Because I asked to be. Seriously, why you all didn’t ask Ravenna to make you bigger and stronger is a mystery to me, but anyway, it’s true that I died. I was attacked by a troll on the south side of the mountain in the early morning. I was searching for Ely and his family. I knew Father wouldn’t have a family killed, never, but I also knew Ely wouldn’t run off and leave Sierra... Saskia... I mean... oh for Heaven’s sake, from now on, everyone goes by their real name! I mean, not your... I mean your real name from this century.”

  After his minor tantrum, he went on with his story. “I came across Gräfin Bianca Rehberg while in the forest. The woman was obsessed with me, but I wanted no part of the crazy woman. She badgered me to marry her, but that morning she was especially insistent. When I told her no again, she lost control. Before I knew it, she’d sent a troll after me. It was quite painful, and I died.”

  His dramatic pause irked Wil, who said, “On with it, please. We have work to do.”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your panties in a twist. So, I died and came back, but I wasn’t cursed. I was saved.”

  “Saved?” Calla asked. “Someone brought you back?”

  “Sort of... I’m not entirely clear on the details. I only know I saw her face, the woman who saved me, for just a moment before I died. All I know after that was I was reborn and somehow ended up with Sierra and Cecily. I remember the face but not the name,” he said sadly.

  “Wait, did you say Bianca had you killed?” Wil asked, then he really did get his panties in a twist. “Bianca! The supposed princess from—”

  “From Schattenland, yes! She was also the witch who saved me from Ella’s curse. I remember now, but why would she do that if... what’s she planning?” my father asked.

  “I’m less concerned about what she’s planning than I am the fact that she’s in this very castle!” Wil shouted, then ran out of the room.

  “What? She’s here?” Jack yelled behind him.

  “Yes, she arrived during the fight, back from America stating she had no luck in finding her siblings!” Wil was in a tizzy, but so was I. She could be anywhere, even with our children.

  Ely was on it in a flash, running toward the children’s rooms. People darted everywhere, searching the castle for the woman. Jack stormed about, and I feared he’d kill her right where she stood if he found her, not that I cared, but the poor people of Goldene Stadt had seen enough horror for one day.

  Ely returned within minutes. “Julianna and Fiona are with the boys. They’re safe, and there’s no sign of anyone I don’t know on that hall. Thaddeus and a few others are guarding it now.”

  I nodded, then followed my brother around the castle while Ely searched elsewhere. We scoured every inch of the castle, including the courtyard, but those who knew her face claimed she wasn’t among the newcomers from Goldene Stadt either. She was gone.

  We reconvened in the dining hall a few at a time. Calla and Julianna’s parents were reading through books and other papers, searching for answers to various open questions while we hunted for Bianca.

  Jeanine looked up when Calla entered the room with Wil.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “No, she’s gone, or she’s blending in well. I can’t find her anywhere, the little witch,” Calla spat.

  “Me either. We searched the entire east wing and no sign of her,” Caleb said, annoyed he and Julianna had been so easily tricked by Bianca. I remembered the conversation I’d overheard between Wil and Jeanine, him telling her over the phone that Bianca was odd. Maybe the Grimm brothers should be the ones running the show.

  “Us either.” Cecily and Felix appeared from the north section of the castle. “If she’s here, she’s hiding well. There’s no sign of her.”

  “I can’t believe we fell for her lies,” Jay said. He threw his journal of notes to the ground.

  “Jay, dear, it’s not your fault,” Jeanine said, but her tone and her words did not match. She was growing frustrated, maybe scared.

  “Isn’t it? Wil and I wrote all these stories, and now it appears we’ve been fools all along! Every story we wrote was a cover story to protect a petulant little princess, and we fell for Snow’s deception so easily!”

  Jeanine was frustrated. “If you two don’t stop blaming yourselves for everything that happens, I’ll lose my mind. You were under duress. You had no idea what you were doing, and if Snow weren’t already dead, why I’d kill her myself for this!” She waved her hands in the air, an act of frustration, but when she did the draperies hanging in the large windows behind her caught fire.

  “What the...” Ravenna had just entered the room and caught the tail-end of the incident.

  Jeanine gasped. “Did I... did I do that?” When she pointed to the flaming window dressings, the wall shook and burst outward. Crumbling rock fell onto the open area below.

  Calla dropped the glass of water she’d been holding, stunned at the sight of her mother’s ability. Everyone was stunned, and Ravenna was the only one able to speak.

  “I’d say so, yes. I’m not sure how—” Ravenna’s statement was cut short by Jeanine screaming. She fell to the ground in a heap, her cries sending a chill down my spine. She writhed on the floor, her face distorted hideously.

  “Mom! What’s happening to her?” Calla screamed, running toward her adoptive mother.

  “No!” Ravenna yelled, grabbing her tightly before she neared the woman.

  “Let me go! Mom! Mom!” Calla was beside herself, and Wil had to hold her back. He took her gently from Ravenna and tucked her tightly against his chest while the rest of the family stood frozen in place.

  Jeanine writhed on the floor, her pretty face morphing back and forth between the face we knew and something resembling a hawk or eagle— an enormous bird, at any rate. Ravenna took a step closer, gripping Gerald’s arm tightly. He stayed back, but it was obvious it pained him to do so.

  Jeanine screeched in pain as she struggled against whatever was causing her transformation. I gasped when I heard a loud snap, then another and another. Every bone in her body appeared to break then heal and break again. Her pain was immeasurable, but we were powerless to control what we did not understand. Jeanine let out one last shriek of pain then fell silent on the ground. Her body trembled, her skin darkened and charred as if she’d been caught in one of the fires in the forest.

  “What was that?” Wil whispered, and then Jeanine screamed once again.

  Her scream was drowned by the sound of a high-pitched squawking, an ear-piercing scream that echoed through the castle. Her body rose from the ground, and her arms flew outward. Everything around us began to shake. The rock wall crumbled again, and chunks fell free, tumbling to the ground. Several of the family scattered and ran outside, likely to ensure no one below was injured. The castle continued to shake, almost the same way the ground shook when Heidi was angry.

  “She’ll take down the castle!” Henry yelled, the shaking drawing him and Seline into the dining hall.

  “Help her,” Gerald cried, at a loss to help the woman he swore to protect.

  Jeanine’s screams gave way to bursts of fire from her mouth, and in an instant her entire body broke, remaking itself into a giant bird, but it was unlike anything I’d ever seen or read about. Calla screamed, and Wil tried to hold her back, but it took all his strength, and help from Marcus. I felt the urge to fix it as I always did, but there was nothing that anyone could do.
I didn’t even know where to begin.

  Jeanine’s screams made way to somewhat coherent calls. She flew through the open space in the wall and into the clearing, breathing fire on everything in her path. Once outside, she seemed to calm slightly. She circled the courtyard, a large bird, black in color with brightly colored feathers on the tips her wings. People fled the yard, and once it was clear, she landed in the open space and stretched her wings out, then wrapped them tightly around her body. Her figure grew smaller, shrinking until all that remained was a petite woman shuddering in the cold.

  Everyone ran outside to help her, or at least to figure out just what the heck had happened. Jeanine sat, fully clothed in the middle of the courtyard looking around as if she had no idea how she got there.

  “Can someone please tell me what just happened to my wife?” Gerald yelled, shell-shocked behind us.

  “I’m not certain just yet,” Ravenna said, approaching Jeanine. By now everyone in the castle, including the children, were scrambling about. I took Hans and Little Wil’s hands and kept them close, just in case.

  Fiona joined Ravenna, staring intently at Jeanine. “Jeanine? Can you hear me?”

  Jeanine looked up, her eyes a deep shade of orange that glowed brightly. Ravenna gasped, her hand covering her shocked mouth. Jeanine shook her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were clear, normal brown. She stood and looked down at her own body, her clothing intact but charred.

  “What... what am I? What did I do? Did I hurt anyone?” Jeanine managed with a fearful voice.

  “No, no, everyone is fine. You... well, you, my darling are supposed to be dead!” Ravenna cried, seeming excited.

  “Would someone tell me something? Anything at all?” Gerald begged as he took his wife in his embrace. Wil released Calla, and she ran to her mother.

  Fiona looked at the group of shocked people behind her. “Jeanine is... she’s the missing thirteenth fairy from Weisserwald, but if she’s alive... it makes no sense. We can’t both be alive, can we?” Fiona looked to Jeanine as if she held the key.

  Jeanine blinked, then said, “Huh?”

  Ravenna placed a gentle hand on Jeanine, gaining her attention. “You are Thirteen, the missing sister of the Twelve Fairies of Weisserwald, well, it was The Thirteen Fairies until you disappeared. We thought you dead, for sure, when your sisters passed away, and Fiona became the next Fairy Godmother. But I suppose, maybe you died, and now you’re reborn as... you know what? I have no idea, but we’ll figure this out together like we always have.”

  I leaned toward Ely and whispered, “Remember when you said you’d given up on reality?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, staring at Jeanine.

  “Ditto.”

  Epilogue

  One Week Later...

  I watched my son running in the open field, chasing his father as they pretended to be an evil king and the prince who saved the day. One day I’d explain everything to Hans, though I often wondered if he knew more than I did about the ways of the world. Ely fell to the ground, vanquished by the brave and noble Hans.

  “Okay, I think I need a break. Why don’t you join Aunt Calla and Little Wil picking blackberries?” Ely offered. Hans ran across the field to where Calla was walking with her son who squealed when Hans picked him up high over his head.

  Growing up in Schwarzwald was good for them, and I loved how innocent they were. Neither had ever seen a television, let alone played a video game. In truth, their lives were far more fantastic than any game could ever be.

  Ely sauntered up to me and kissed my cheek, then pulled me onto the ground where he settled to relax.

  “Do you think he’ll ever tell us more about Snow and Joseph Hines?” he asked, and I knew the details were bothering him. It bothered me, too, but I couldn’t very well force the story from my son.

  “Maybe one day when he’s ready. Joseph is still missing, and we know Snow was evil, so all I can say is thank goodness Hans had someone watching over him all those centuries. He seems fine, right?”

  “I guess so. I’m just curious I guess. Are you and Cecily still pouring over that silly song?”

  “The Song of the Lost? No, not really. I think there’s too much of the puzzle missing for it to make sense. I mean, at first read anyone would say it’s about Snow and the seven Salien children, but if Fiona says it isn’t, then I’m stumped.” I’d read the poem a hundred times, picked it apart line by line, but nothing ever came to me.

  Ely snuggled a little closer and wrapped his arm around my waist. I was happy to have a little breather before moving back to Golden Stadt, but I would miss Schwarzwald. It was so close, but with the reconstruction ahead, I knew I wouldn’t spend much time there.

  “I’m still surprised my brother decided to take the throne. I honestly thought Jack would go back to Philadelphia like he’d planned and leave it to me again.”

  Ely snickered. “Are you jealous? Because I seem to remember a very feisty princess who wanted nothing more than to run away with me or am I thinking of someone else?”

  I shoved him hard in the shoulder, and he fell to his side laughing. “Shush. You know I love you, I just meant it’s surprising. Things with his parents are a little dicey right now, but I think once he speaks with them in person it will improve. They do love him, and him being adopted doesn’t change that.”

  “It’s the lies that hurt, Sierra. They had no intention of ever telling him. I’m not sure I can explain how that must hurt.”

  Ely and Jack had become close, likely because they were close in their first lives. Obviously, Jack wasn’t nearly as close to my best friend slash boyfriend as I was, but they still spent a good deal of time together along the border of our kingdoms.

  I was lost in a memory of my past life when he leaned over and kissed me again. “I love you, Sierra. That you, this you, and I’m pretty sure I would have loved all the versions of you in between. And I know you feel the same way, or I’d still be a sleeping sack of idiot on the bed, so...” he faded, seeming to lose his words.

  “So?” I asked, anxious to know what was on his mind.

  “I was just trying to figure out how to make this special, but I guess asking with your father’s full permission this time is a step in the right direction.” He got up and knelt in front of me, and though I knew we planned to marry, his honest proposal still caught me off-guard.

  “You deserve everything I can give you and more, but I was hoping you’d have mercy on my mischievous soul and marry me, anyway?”

  My jaw dropped, and that was surprising considering everything I’d seen and done in a little over two weeks. I practically tackled Ely to get to the shiny ring he offered, making him laugh harder.

  “So, am I to take that as a yes?”

  “Yes, you knucklehead! Yes!” He slipped the ring on my finger and kissed my hand, lingering for just a moment.

  “And to think a couple weeks ago you were going to have me thrown in jail.”

  I laughed then. “Yeah, because you were a creepy stalker dude. I had no idea you were my creepy stalker from way back when.”

  We laughed a while longer thinking of our first days, but I soon grew sad and disconnected. When Ella’s magic was reversed, and so many people revived, Jemma, Cecily, and I assumed our mothers would also revive, but still, they sat in stone in the castle. Ravenna and Fiona tried everything to change their fate, but it seemed their stone bodies were permanent.

  They eventually put that issue on the shelf, literally and figuratively, to focus on other things that needed attention, primarily Jeanine’s newfound powers and her memory loss. She had no idea who she was before she was Jeanine Benson, and the woman was scared to death. I didn’t blame her. It was difficult enough to believe I was a princess from a fairytale land; I couldn’t imagine discovering I’d not only adopted a princess but was a missing fairy from fifteen centuries ago. Add the whole phoenix rising thing she had going, and I felt it would make anyone go crazy.

&
nbsp; And that was only one of the issues we were facing. Heidi refused to practice magic at all, not even simple healing. She stayed locked in her room most days and only left if Brody begged her to. The key was in him, her doting husband whom she would do anything for, even if it meant showing her face in public. She was determined to believe we all hated her for what she’d done, no matter how many times we tried to convince her it was necessary.

  Then there was Ella’s mysterious helper who appeared and disappeared at the most inopportune times. No one had any idea who she may be, but most assumed she was another princess from one of the neighboring lands we had yet to explore. That assumption only made me more fearful that the mission ahead would only grow more difficult with each kingdom we explored. But we had to investigate. If we didn’t, then there was a good chance hundreds or thousands of other innocent people would continue to suffer, perhaps die at the hands of a sociopathic ruler.

  Thoughts of Dannie invaded my mind then. My best friend, an innocent bystander caught in the middle. She didn’t have to die, and thinking about her made me wish I could resurrect Ella and kill her all over again.

  “What are you thinking about? You’re supposed to be happy right now unless the thought of marrying me has suddenly turned your stomach,” Ely teased.

  I sighed, long and loud, releasing as much pent-up emotion as I could.

  “So much I don’t even know where to begin, but it would be nice if my mother and aunt could attend the wedding, whenever it will be thanks to that pesky evil we have to find and kill, or... whatever it is you do to pure evil.”

  “You never know, darling. Someone may find something that wakes them from their state,” Ely tried to encourage me.

  “Maybe, but sometimes death is the end, even in fairy tales. Where I come from, dead is dead, so what’s left may be a coffin of sorts.”

  “Where you come... you’re from Goldene Stadt silly, but I know what you mean. Still, don’t give up hope so easily. Look at our son,” he said, pointing across the field where Wil had joined his family, taking turns tossing the boys in the air. “He never gave up hope on either of us, and here we are. Don’t let go of that dream, Sierra.”