by Chris Colfer
There was something incredibly familiar about her. The twins were positive they had seen her before.
“I’m Alex and this is my brother, Conner,” Alex said and took a step closer to her. The reflection shot across to the other side and appeared in the glass behind the twins.
“Such funny names,” the reflection said. “Have you seen Mira?”
Conner grabbed Alex’s arm. “Oh my God! Alex, it’s—”
“He’s always hiding from me!” the reflection said and twirled around inside the pieces of mirror. “Mira? Oh, Miiiiiiira?! Where are you?”
It settled in a large shard of glass, and Alex stepped closer to it. “Evly? Is that you?” she asked the reflection. It instantly looked up at her at the sound of the name.
“How do you know my name?” Evly asked with a big curious smile. “Have we met before?” As soon as she asked, her curious expression faded and she began to recognize them as well.
“Yes, we have,” Conner said. “Last year in this castle.”
Alex looked around at the castle remains and a horrible thought came to her. “You’ve been trapped in the mirror this entire time, haven’t you?” Alex asked her.
“Have you seen Mira?” Evly asked as if she hadn’t heard Alex. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
Alex felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. “She’s been trapped and it’s starting to affect her just like it affected Mira,” she whispered back to her brother.
“Miiiiiira? Where are you?” Evly said musically, floating through the glass around the room.
“Mira’s dead, Evly,” Alex said. “Don’t you remember? You tried freeing him with the Wishing Spell but it was too late.”
Evly looked to Alex and just stared at her, as if she was deciding whether or not to believe it. She began circling them more frantically.
“Mira? It’s not funny anymore—please come out now,” Evly asked, her voice growing more desperate by the second. “Where are you?”
It was hard for the twins to watch. Evly wasn’t just in denial; she was cursed.
“Evly, do you remember anything that happened to you?” Alex asked her. “Do you remember the Magic Mirror? Do you remember Snow White? Do you remember being the Evil Queen?”
Evly’s eyes grew and she gasped at the sound of her old sobriquet. “I—I—” Evly stuttered. Her reflection gradually aged and transformed into that of the Evil Queen the twins had known, as the memories of who she was and what she had done resurfaced in her mind.
“I remember…” the Evil Queen said, and her eyes filled with tears. “I remember everything… oh no, what have I done? How did I get here?”
“We tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen to us,” Conner said. “The mirror fell on top of you and you vanished. There was nothing we could do.”
Tears rolled down the Evil Queen’s face as her mind filled with more memories of her heartless life.
“I was such a monster,” she sobbed. The Evil Queen collapsed with grief and her reflection appeared in pieces of glass near the ground. “I poisoned my own daughter.… I harmed innocent people.… I kidnapped children.”
Alex kneeled down to her. She wished she could reach through the glass to console her. “But it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You had your heart cut out and turned into stone, remember? You didn’t know what you were doing.”
The Evil Queen nodded. “I was in so much pain—I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “Pain will drive you mad if it’s strong enough; it’ll change you into something you’re not. It’ll turn you evil.”
“We know,” Alex said. “But that’s all in the past now.”
“You must forgive me, children,” the Evil Queen begged. “Forgiveness is what we all need to forget the past, even if we don’t deserve to.”
Alex and Conner nodded to her, willing to do anything they could that would give her consolation.
“Of course,” Alex said. “We forgive you.”
The Evil Queen smiled at them through her tears of shame. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll never forgive myself, though. I spent my entire life trying to free him from this prison, and now I’m doomed to spend eternity in here without him. I couldn’t think of a worse punishment.”
“We could try to free you if you’d like,” Conner said. “We’re building a wand—a powerful wand. Maybe we could use it to get you out of there.”
The Evil Queen dried her tears and shook her head. “No, let me be,” she said. “I deserve this fate.… I deserve to be inside here.…”
Her head tilted and she stared at the twins, as if someone was whispering something about them into her ear. “You’re on a quest, aren’t you?” she asked them.
“Yes, how did you know?” Alex asked.
“I can see many things from inside here,” she explained. “I can reflect on the world in ways I never could before. I see a large ship waiting outside these castle ruins.… I see a kingdom imprisoned by plants.… I see a whole world in fear.… I see—I see Ezmia!”
The Evil Queen shuddered at the thought of her former mistress.
“But how can this be? I thought she was dead.”
“You didn’t kill her like you thought,” Alex said, sorry to break the news to her.
“And now she’s back and she’s taking over the world,” Conner said.
The Evil Queen covered her mouth. “Oh no. I made the poison as strong as possible—it killed life outside the castle for miles—but even that wasn’t strong enough, evidently.”
Conner kneeled down next to his sister. “We’re trying to stop her. We need to know what her most prized possession was in order to do so. Would you happen to know what that might be?”
The reflection thought on it. “Ezmia’s most prized possession was always herself, and I don’t need magic insight to tell you that.”
“Oh boy,” Conner said. “That’s going to be difficult to retrieve.”
The Evil Queen grew very still as another troubling realization came to her. “Someone is following you.…”
“In here?” Conner asked.
“No, across the land as you travel.”
“Who? The Enchantress?” Alex asked.
The Evil Queen looked off into the distance as if she was trying to see something far away. “No, it’s neither a person nor a thing, but an entity.”
“The ghost!” Conner said. “We’ve been wondering what her deal is! Can you tell us who she is?”
“They call her the Lady of the East.”
The twins were stunned to learn the ghost’s name. They tried to remember if they had ever heard of the Lady of the East before.
“The east!” Conner said. “Every time I’ve seen her she has always pointed to the east! That’s what she was pointing at through my window in Red’s castle! And that’s the direction she pointed to when we were on the ship.”
“You must leave now,” the Evil Queen told them. “The Enchantress grows stronger as we speak—she plans on attacking again very soon. You must hurry if you want to defeat her before it’s too late!”
“But—” Alex started, but the Evil Queen’s reflection turned away from them.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore, children,” the Evil Queen said. “I feel myself fading away more and more as every second passes.…”
“Wait! Please, you have to tell us more! Who is the Lady of the East and why is she following us?” Alex pleaded.
“Where is Ezmia going to attack next?” Conner asked, but the Evil Queen ignored them. “Hello? Can you hear us?”
The Evil Queen turned to them, but her reflection had morphed back into that of a happy and smiling Evly.
“Have either of you seen Mira?” Evly asked with a laugh. “I can’t find him anywhere!”
Alex and Conner sighed hopelessly. They knew they had gotten as much information out of the reflection as possible. They didn’t want to leave Evly there but knew it wouldn’t be long before the curse of the
Magic Mirror took over her soul completely, just as it had Mira’s.
“Good-bye, Evly,” Alex said sadly. The twins headed out of the castle ruins as Evly continued her never-ending search for her long-lost love.
“Mira? Oh, Miiiiiira?! Where have you gone?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SEA WITCH
The others were thrilled by the twins’ triumphant return from the castle ruins.
“Well done,” Froggy said and patted them on the back with a relieved smile.
“We knew you could do it,” Goldilocks said and winked at them.
Red took the wand from Conner—she was mesmerized by it. “It’s so shiny!” she said, although the twins weren’t positive she was impressed by the accomplishment so much as by the fact that they had returned with something else she could view herself in.
“Was everything all right in there?” Jack asked them. The twins looked to each other and both fell silent.
“Not exactly,” Conner said. “We saw the Evil Queen.”
“She’s been trapped in the Magic Mirror ever since she used the Wishing Spell,” Alex said.
Everyone was just as shocked as the twins had been to discover this. “How horrible,” Goldilocks said quietly to herself.
“There’s no hope of getting her out now, I suppose,” Jack said.
Conner shook his head. “She doesn’t want to be rescued. She thinks she deserves to be in there. There’s not much left of her to save anyway.”
“Well, speaking as one of the victims she kidnapped and almost fed to wolves, I’m not sure I feel sorry for her,” Red confessed.
“There’s more bad news,” Alex said. “We asked her about the Enchantress—she probably knew her better than anyone.”
“What did she say?” Froggy asked, and they all leaned closer to hear the answer.
“She said Ezmia’s most prized possession is herself,” Alex said.
Jack, Goldilocks, and Froggy looked to one another with the same exasperated expression.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Froggy said. “How can living things make up the wand? I understand how the harp could be considered a prized item, but not the Enchantress herself.”
Red scrunched her lips and hummed, thinking on the subject. “I think the Evil Queen is mistaken. I’m not a stranger to loving myself, but that self-admiration comes from something. For example, if you took away my beauty or my incredible ability to match dresses with tiaras, I wouldn’t value myself half as much as I do now.”
The others weren’t sure how to gauge the outburst. Red was always very coherent or not at all; there was rarely an in-between.
“What are you saying, Red?” Goldilocks asked.
“I’m saying it’s not the actual woman we should be concerned about getting,” Red explained. “We need to find what the Enchantress values the most about herself and take it away from her.”
Everyone thought about it and their heads slowly moved in a mutual nod. This was the first moment any of them were happy Red had demanded to come along on the trip.
“That’s so insightful, Red!” Conner said. “Shallow, but insightful!”
“How do we retrieve it for the Wand?” Jack asked.
No one could come up with an immediate answer. What was the one quality Ezmia prized above the rest? There were so many things she obviously cherished. Her beauty? Her power? Her ruthlessness? Or perhaps it was a combination of all three? And whatever it was, how would they take it away from her?
“Well, we knew it would be a challenge,” Goldilocks said and let out a long sigh.
The six headed over the moat and back to the Granny. They returned to a furious harp, whose strings played an angry chord as she pouted.
“Harper? What’s the matter?” Jack asked her.
“That thing peed on me!” the harp exclaimed and pointed to Clawdius, who was crouching shamefacedly in the corner of the lower deck.
“That’s my fault; I forgot to take him out before we left!” Red said. “My apologies—mother in training.” She scooped him up and carried him off the ship.
The crew waited until nightfall before firing up the ship and steering it south.
“Next stop, Mermaid Bay!” Jack called out.
“Does the Sea Witch live in the bay?” Conner asked.
“From what I read, she lives in the ocean waters just outside it,” Froggy said.
“How do we find her?” Goldilocks asked.
“I’m a good swimmer, believe it or not,” Froggy said. “I can have a look around the ocean floor and report back to you. We’ll have to be very careful once we get there—the Sea Witch is known for being very sneaky with her trades.”
“We’ll have to outsmart her, then,” Alex said. “If her jewels are her most valued possession, we’ll have to trade her something in exchange for them.”
“What’s the most valuable item we have in our possession?” Conner asked. “What do we have to trade with her?”
“The harp?” Red asked a little hopefully.
“No, we need to keep her until we can figure out how to incorporate her into the wand,” Jack said.
Goldilocks’s face suddenly lit up as if an actual lightbulb had appeared over her head. “I think we’re all forgetting something in our possession that’s even more valuable,” she said.
“What’s that?” Alex asked. They all stared at her, completely puzzled.
“Red,” Goldilocks said. “We have an actual queen on our ship.”
Everyone immediately turned to look at Red. As expected, the young queen was appalled by the idea.
“You want to trade me to the Sea Witch like some farm animal?” Red said. “Absolutely not! Out of the question!”
“It is a good option,” Jack said, defending Goldilocks’s idea.
Red grunted and her nostrils flared. “Now you listen to me, giant chaser,” she said and pointed her finger at all of them. “So far I’ve built us a ship, lost half of my wardrobe, adopted a killer animal, snuck into the wicked stepmother’s estate, and supplied something nice to look at during this escapade. If you ask me, I’ve gone above and beyond what a normal queen would do! Do you see Cinderella flying a mile above the ground? No! Is Snow White risking her life for the greater good? No! Is Rapunzel braiding her hair to restore peace and harmony? No!”
Everyone slumped. They couldn’t argue, but they also didn’t have much to work with.
“I’ll do it, then,” Goldilocks said.
“What?” Jack gasped.
“I’ll pretend to be Red,” Goldilocks said plainly. “You can trade me for the jewels and the Sea Witch will never be the wiser.”
“We most certainly will not!” Jack protested, outraged by just the suggestion of it.
“It’s the best way,” Goldilocks said. “After you collect the jewels, you’ll only have one more thing to complete the Wand. Once you defeat the Enchantress you can come back for me—until then I’ll keep my cover and make the Sea Witch happy.”
Jack was shaking his head. He couldn’t imagine leaving the woman he loved the most in the world in the hands of someone so horrible.
“Oh, Jack,” Goldilocks said, flattered by how worked up he had become. “You know I’ll be able to handle a little old sea witch. I’ve been stuck in worse situations before.”
Jack held her close, looking deeply into her eyes. “What if, for whatever reason, we can’t come back for you?” he said.
Goldilocks looked down at the floor, knowing what he meant. “If I get anxious, I’ll find a way out,” she said and returned his loving gaze. “You have to trust me.”
It was an incredible sacrifice to make, but no one could persuade her otherwise.
“Red, I never thought I would ever say this, but I’m going to need to borrow a dress,” Goldilocks said.
“I doubt anything of mine will fit you,” Red said.
Froggy cleared his throat. “Darling, don’t be rude,” he said.
“That is—
I’m sure I can make something work,” Red said and gave in. She grabbed Goldilocks’s hand and dragged her down to the lower deck to play dress-up.
Jack went to the steering wheel and looked ahead of them to the horizon, but his thoughts were anywhere but with the ship. Froggy played tug-of-war with Clawdius while Alex and Conner sat on the deck floor near the bow of the Granny.
Alex rested her head on her hand and stared off into space, having her own reservations about their plan.
“What’s on your mind?” Conner asked Alex. “You look troubled.”
Alex sighed. “It’s just a little concerning to think about leaving Goldilocks with the Sea Witch,” she said.
“I know, but what else can we do? It’s a great idea,” Conner said.
“I guess,” Alex said. Something had been on her mind, and she felt it was time to tell her brother before her head exploded. “Conner, when we were back in the Northern Mountains the Snow Queen said something to me—I didn’t think much of it then, but it’s really starting to worry me now.”
“What did she tell you?” Conner asked.
“She said, ‘Of the four travelers, one will not return,’ ” Alex said. “I thought it was just nonsense—I mean, an avalanche had just fallen on the woman—but now I wonder if she was making a prophecy. I wonder if she was talking about Goldilocks.”
“But there’s six of us traveling,” Conner said. “Seven including the mutt and eight counting the harp.”
“I know, it doesn’t make sense,” Alex said and rubbed her tired eyes. “But I’m still worried there may have been some truth to it. We’ve been really lucky so far, but what if one of us doesn’t survive this trip?”
Conner surprised her with his reaction—he didn’t reciprocate her fear but met it with a calmness that reminded her of their dad.
“Alex, we all knew what we were getting into,” he said. “Just because you and I are spearheading this mission doesn’t mean it’s our fault if anything goes wrong. We’re all trying to save the world, and as awful as it sounds, if one of us doesn’t make it in the process… I can’t think of a better way to die than being a hero.”