by Chris Colfer
Grandma and Xanthous quickly led the soldiers outside to the front lawn. The twins followed closely behind them, with Sir Lampton at their feet, and watched from the porch. Even though they knew she was a veteran leader of the fairy-tale world’s Happily Ever After Assembly it was still strange watching their small grandmother give orders to the large soldiers.
“Take your places,” Grandma instructed.
The soldiers positioned themselves on the perimeter of the Baileys’ front yard. Their house looked like a miniature Buckingham Palace. The Fairy Godmother waved her crystal wand and one by one turned each soldier into a lawn gnome with a bright flash. They all had pointed red hats and white beards.
“They look just like the gnomes in our neighbor’s yard,” Conner said. “I almost tripped over one today.”
“That was a soldier, actually,” Sir Lampton said down by his knee. “He’s been watching the outside of the house for a couple of months.”
“Creepy,” Conner said.
“What’s going on out here?” said a sweaty and green-faced Bob, stepping out of the house. “Where’d all the soldiers go—and where’d all those gnomes come from?”
“You just answered your own question, I’m afraid,” Alex said.
Bob’s eyes darted around the front lawn as he understood. The twins felt sorry for him; in less than an hour he had discovered his girlfriend had been kidnapped and had ties to the fairy-tale world. But overall, they thought he was handling it well.
“After the fourth time I vomited, I realized I wasn’t dreaming,” Bob said. “I have no history of mental illness in my family, so my best self-diagnosis is that it’s just one of those nights.”
“Don’t worry, Bob, the shock wears off eventually,” Conner said to him. “I think—Alex and I have only known for a year and we’re still waiting.”
Grandma walked back to the porch with Xanthous, giving him careful instructions as they went.
“The soldiers may be an eyesore for the neighbors, but at least they’re disguised,” she said. “I want you to stay here and watch over the twins. No one is to enter or leave this house without my permission.”
Alex and Conner only heard the tail end of their conversation but it was enough to infuriate them.
“What do you mean no one can come or go?” Conner said. “We’re going to be stuck in our own home?”
“Until it’s safe,” Grandma said.
“But I have to work,” Bob said. “I have patients and surgeries to attend to. People need me.”
Grandma thought on this for a few moments. “You may come and go as you wish,” she said. “With all due respect, it’s my grandchildren I’m worried about.”
“What about school?” Alex asked.
“You can go back as soon as everything has settled down and we figure out where your mother is, but for right now we can’t risk it,” Grandma said. “The less contact with the outside world, the better off you’ll be. I’ll write to the school and tell them you’ve both fallen terribly ill.”
“You can’t lock us up!” Conner yelled—loud enough for the whole street to hear.
“We haven’t done anything wrong!” Alex shouted. “Why are you punishing us like this—”
Their grandmother waved her wand at each of them and they went silent. They tried speaking but no sound came out; she had magically muted them.
“Please obey my instructions,” Grandma said. “Even with several soldiers, Xanthous, and Sir Lampton watching over you, I’ll be worried sick.”
Grandma looked down at Sir Lampton.
“I’d like for you to stay a dog for the time being,” she said. “The gnomes will attract enough unwanted attention as it is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sir Lampton said with reluctance—he had been quietly hoping his dog days were over.
“Now, I must be going,” Grandma said. She waved her wand and the voices of her silenced grandchildren returned.
“So that’s it, then?” Conner said. “For a year we hear nothing from you and now suddenly it’s, ‘Hey, kids, your mom’s been kidnapped and, oh yeah, I’m putting you both on house arrest’?”
“I never thought you could do something like this to us, Grandma,” Alex said and looked at her grandmother as if she was a stranger.
Their grandma took these comments to heart. She didn’t like disappointing them, but unfortunately she had no choice—she could only do what she thought was best and hope they’d forgive her one day.
“I know you dislike me a great deal at the moment,” their grandmother said. “But you’re the only family I have left. You mean more to me than anything else in the world. One day when you have families of your own, you’ll learn that there is no length you wouldn’t go to to ensure their safety, even if they end up hating you for it.”
She left them on the porch, in the hands of the others, and walked off into the night, slowly disappearing into soft, sparkly clouds.
“I love you both,” she said sadly, and a second later, she was gone.
“We should get inside before anyone sees us lingering on the porch,” Xanthous said.
He and Lampton escorted Bob and the twins inside. Whether the lockdown would last days, weeks, months, or years wasn’t certain. But for the time being, the Bailey twins were prisoners in their own home.
The first few days of captivity went by very slowly for the twins. They couldn’t eat or sleep; all they could do was worry about their mother. The question that haunted them the most, however, was why had she been taken?
How could their mother, a simple nurse at a children’s hospital, have gotten involved in all of this? Why had their grandmother been taking such measures to protect her grandchildren in another dimension? Was their mother even in this world, or had she somehow been taken into the fairy-tale world?
Xanthous and Lampton were tight-lipped about the whole thing. Despite the daily pleas from the twins to tell them something—anything—they insisted no news was the best news.
Unfortunately, the twins’ imaginations did little to soothe their distress. Were the Troll King and Goblin King seeking revenge on the twins for stealing their crown a year ago? Had the Big Bad Wolf Pack somehow resurfaced? Did it have something to do with the Evil Queen and her Magic Mirror?
The twins didn’t have any answers and it was driving them mad.
Also testing their sanity was how crowded their home had become. Their rental house felt small with just three people and a dog, but now a dozen grown men had been added to the mix. The guest room had been filled with cots, and most of the downstairs looked like an army camp, with swords and shields and pieces of armor everywhere you looked.
Xanthous ran a tight ship while he looked after the Bailey home. He was very strict about the soldiers’ shifts, making sure they rotated being gnomes and being in the house evenly. Meals were always served at precisely the same times every day. The twins were only allowed outside once a day, in their backyard, and only if Lampton was watching them.
Xanthous was very devoted to his duties, too. He spent every day glued to the window facing the front yard, and the twins never saw him sitting down for more than a few seconds.
Bob had been very kind and checked up on the twins every morning on his way to work. His stories of the sick children he was taking care of at the hospital were the only contact they had with the world outside, so they looked forward to it every morning.
The bags under his eyes were a clear indicator that he felt as helpless as the twins did. He also unsuccessfully tried getting information out of Xanthous and Lampton. At one point he tried bribing Lampton with a bright bouncy ball in exchange for Charlotte’s supposed whereabouts, but it just offended him.
The twins tried making small talk with the soldiers they were practically living with, but it was apparent that they knew as little as the twins.
“Do you enjoy your time as a gnome every day?” Conner asked a soldier.
“It isn’t altogether unpleasant,” the soldi
er said with a shrug. “It gives me a lot of time to think.”
“Speak for yourself,” the other soldier said. “I had a pigeon sit on my head for four hours yesterday, and he left a present on me, if you catch my drift.”
“Gross,” Conner said.
“Can’t you just turn back into a man and shoo it away?” Alex asked.
“I wish,” the soldier explained. “We can only transform back if there’s danger. Otherwise we’d all be shooing off pigeons and blowing our cover.”
Alex and Conner made a mental note of this.
Later that night, the twins had just finished dinner when a bright flash came out of nowhere. The twins looked up, and floating down from the ceiling was a sky-blue envelope.
“It’s from the Fairy Godmother,” Xanthous said and flew up into the air to retrieve it—apparently a fairy didn’t need wings to fly. He hovered in the air a few feet above the ground while he read it, keeping it out of the twins’ sight.
Alex and Conner stood below him. Xanthous’s eyes grew large as he read the note from their grandmother. “I see,” he said when he was finished reading. He floated down and faced the twins.
“Your grandmother would like me to pass along some information to you,” Xanthous said.
“Yes?” Alex asked. They were practically vibrating with anticipation.
“We believe your mother is in our world,” Xanthous said. “That is all.” He placed the envelope on his shoulder and the flames devoured it.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Conner asked, unsatisfied with the update.
“Neither, it’s just information she’d like you to have at this time,” Xanthous said.
The twins let out exasperated sighs. Knowing more almost made it worse.
Later that night, Alex pulled Conner into her bedroom to speak with him privately. She turned up her radio so Lampton’s canine hearing couldn’t pick up what they were saying.
“Mom’s in the fairy-tale world,” she said to him. “You know what that means?”
“What?” Conner asked.
“It means I think Grandma may have lied to us,” Alex said. “How else could Mom have gotten there without her knowing about it? Maybe she isn’t the only fairy who’s capable of traveling between worlds.”
Conner nodded.
“I don’t think Grandma lied to us,” Conner said. “I think we’re just mad at her right now so now we’re trying to blame her for anything we can.”
Alex rubbed her tired eyes. She knew he wasn’t altogether wrong.
“Just a few days ago I was worried about Grandma and angry with Mom, and now I’m worried sick about Mom and furious with Grandma,” Alex said. “It’s crazy how fast things can change.”
“Yeah, it is,” Conner said with a sigh.
“How do you think Mom got there, then?” Alex asked him.
Conner thought on it for a good moment. “I wonder if there’s more than one way to get into the Land of Stories,” he said.
Alex’s head jerked back up at him. She had spent so much time hugging books and trying to re-create their last portal, she’d never thought about other options.
“Like what?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Conner said. “But if Grandma’s storybook had the capability, I’m sure she would have created other ways over the years, right?”
“It would only make sense that she would have created other ways to come and go,” Alex said, thinking out loud. “Not for her, necessarily, but for the other fairies she recruited to help spread the stories around our world—right?”
Conner’s eyes widened and he pursed his lips.
“What’s your question?” Alex asked him.
“I hate that you guys know when I have a question!” Conner said and then asked, “Are you sure there’s no way you could make a portal on your own?”
Alex would have loved to believe that she was capable, too, but knew in her heart that if she was, she would have surely found a way by now.
“No, it was Grandma’s magic,” Alex said. “I just… I just…”
“Turned it on?” Conner asked.
“Right,” Alex said.
“Then I wonder if Grandma has anything else we could turn on,” Conner said.
Another thought dawned on Alex as soon as he said this. “And maybe that’s why she didn’t know where Mom was,” she said, nodding to herself. “Maybe someone had gotten hold of something, like her storybook, and used it to get to Mom.”
They looked to each other and small smiles appeared on their faces. They weren’t smiles of happiness, but smiles of achievement. They knew they were on to something—they could feel it.
“But who?” Conner asked.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOOSEY GOOSEY
The next evening the twins sat in the living room and watched the news with Lampton. He sat with his nose just a few inches away from the screen, completely mesmerized by it. His head was tilted and a single ear was raised.
“I must say, of all the technologies in this world I’ve been introduced to, this is by far my favorite!” Lampton said with a wagging tail. “The television is remarkable!”
“I’ve seen Magic Mirrors do much more impressive things,” said Xanthous, perched by the window, devotedly watching the neighborhood. “Although one thing I think I definitely could do without is the fire alarm. If I set it off one more time, I swear I’m going to yank it off the wall and smash it into pieces.”
“Well, with all due respect, being on fire in this world is never a good thing,” Conner said.
Xanthous raised an eyebrow judgmentally and turned back to his window. The flames on his shoulders rose in spite.
A bright flash suddenly filled the room. The twins looked up, and floating down from the ceiling was another sky-blue envelope, just like the day before. Once again, Xanthous flew up to retrieve it and read the new note from their grandmother in midair, away from the twins’ curious eyes.
When he was finished reading he placed it on his shoulder and let it burn away before returning to the ground.
“We’re leaving,” Xanthous said and immediately had the twins’ full attention. “Sir Lampton and I are being called back into our world.”
“Why?” Alex asked.
Xanthous took a moment to compose his response.
“The Fairy Godmother needs us there more than she needs us here,” he put simply. “But don’t worry, she’s sending in a replacement to watch over you.”
Conner grunted. “Oh, great,” he said with a massive eye roll. “Who’s going to babysit us now? Bingo and the tooth fairy?”
“No. Mother Goose is replacing us,” Xanthous said.
Alex and Conner stared blankly at him and then at each other. Was he being serious? Xanthous didn’t seem like he had much of a sense of humor.
“What?” Xanthous asked them, with no trace of sarcasm. “I’m serious. She’s flying in from Europe tonight.”
“The Mother Goose?” Conner asked. “As in the ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’ Mother Goose?”
“Yes, of course that Mother Goose,” Xanthous said and looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Is there any other Mother Goose?”
“What is she doing in Europe?” Alex asked.
“Someone has to continue your grandmother’s storytelling work while she deals with the crisis at home,” Xanthous said. “But I wouldn’t mention Jack and Jill to her, unless you want to hear her talk about conspiracies all night. Mother Goose has always been a bit of a… well… handful.”
Mother Goose was the only member of the Happily Ever After Assembly the twins hadn’t met in the Land of Stories, so they were looking forward to finally meeting her. However, the woman they expected her to be and the woman she actually was were very different geese.
A little past midnight, the twins were awoken by Lampton’s shouts.
“She’s here! She’s here!” Lampton called through the house. “Mother Goose is landing!”
The twins met in the hall, rushed down the stairs together, and followed Xanthous and Lampton into the backyard. They looked up into the night sky but didn’t see anything but stars and the moon.
“I don’t see anything,” Conner said.
“Trust me,” Lampton said with his ears raised. “I can hear her.”
Suddenly, a large silhouette flew past the moon. A large object was zooming toward them. The twins squinted, trying to see what it was. The closer it traveled, the more clearly they could see, riding on the back of a gigantic white goose, none other than Mother Goose herself.
“I have to admit, when you said she was flying in tonight, I wasn’t expecting this,” Conner said.
“Easy, Lester! Slow down, boy!” Mother Goose shouted in a raspy voice. She yanked on the reins of her large bird.
They were approaching so fast, the twins and Lampton dove under a patio table, taking cover. Xanthous remained exactly where he was, not deterred in the slightest—he had seen Mother Goose land before.
The goose landed hard on the ground with such a thud the entire house shook behind them. It felt like a mini-earthquake.
“Good lord, Lester! You call that a landing?!” Mother Goose reprimanded the horse-size goose. “Meteors make softer impacts than that, you stupid gander!”
Lester rolled his eyes, or at least the twins thought he did. His webbed feet were planted deep into the lawn, and he struggled to pull them out.
Mother Goose was a short, stout elderly woman. She had curly gray hair under a pointed black pilgrim hat that had a silver buckle on the front. She wore a baggy green dress with a white ruffled collar, large boots, and thick aviator goggles around her eyes.
“Are we even in the right place?” Mother Goose said, looking around. “I can’t find my map—this is why I need to install a GPS in the back of your head.”
Her goggles made her eyes appear enormous and obviously impaired her vision because she didn’t see Xanthous standing directly in front of her.