by G. Bailey
Standing up from my bed, Sage adjusts the towel on her head and says, “Well, once you have some proper evidence, I’m all for Operation Greyhorn.”
“Oh, I’ll get the evidence,” I tell her, grinning, as she hums her way back into the bathroom. “But in the meantime, please be careful out there, Sage. Another student has gone missing.”
She laughs from the bathroom. “Ha! I’d like to see them try to kidnap me!”
“How are things with you and the professor?” I ask Sage as we trudge through the forest the next morning, heading in the direction Jonah is leading us.
Poor Ronan is running after him, tripping over logs and hitting branches as he goes. The forest moves out the way most of the time for me, Sage and Jonah, and most other people, but Ronan doesn’t seem to have that luck. We left all the students in the clearing quickly today, and I was thankful for it as everyone is freaking the hell out. It’s a few weeks left until the end of term, and the end of the tryouts. It’s not unheard of for no one to pass the tryouts, but we hoped because we found the clue before anyone else did, we might have a head start.
But that wasn’t what happened. We have been searching every inch of the forest for the beanstalks like every other student that found the clue and there has been nothing. Sage and Ronan think it’s a matter of a change of season, and that’s why everyone is out today. The leaves have changed from a thick green to a crispy orange or burnt yellow. The ground is now littered with the dying leaves and Jonah thinks there might finally be something here.
I’m surprised he’s taking us with him, though, considering he usually likes to run off alone.
“It’s like I’ve always looked for him for the wrong reason, but we found each other for the right reason,” she whispers to me. “He is fucked up, dark and dangerous, but under all of it, I know he would do anything for me. I’d only have to ask and I love that about him.”
“He drinks a lot but I’m happy if you are,” I whisper back.
“Yeah he needs to cut that shit out, but it’s something I’m working on,” she replies with a big grin. Recently I’ve never seen my bestie as happy as she currently is, and I love it. Even if he has his problems, he makes her happy, and I like him for it.
“Over here! Quick, guys!” Ronan shouts, and his voice echoes around the forest.
“Shut the fuck up, man! Do you want every student to hear us?” Jonah shouts, slamming Ronan into a tree, and he bounces off it. I’m too distracted by the three giant beanstalks to stop Jonah as I stare up at them. Large orange leaves and vines are on the fall and I think they would have blocked the view of the beanstalks hidden behind them. The top of the beanstalk is completely hidden by the top of the trees and the thick clouds above it.
“Too late,” Sage states and I turn around, seeing dozens of students running towards us. Dammit. I don’t help Ronan the idiot up as I run to the beanstalk, knowing we need to start climbing as fast as we can before the others beat us to it. I run and jump, grabbing a thick vine and using my legs to crawl up and climb onto the massive yellow leaf. Jonah climbs another beanstalk while Sage follows me as I jump from one leaf to the next, gripping on for dear life as we go higher. Just as I’m about to jump, someone slams me into the beanstalk, nearly knocking me off the leaf, and I look up to see Willow just before she jumps onto the next leaf. Stupid bitch did that on purpose! The leaf collapses and she slides off, screaming as she falls into the air. That’s karma for you!
I try not to laugh, but my sick sense of humour just finds the sight hilarious. Something, unfortunately, catches her in a magic net and I glance in the distance, seeing the academy and a row of teachers. Zander has his arm stretched out, glowing as he casts the spell, and soon I realise all the wardens are catching the students as they fall.
“Must be a fun game of catch,” Sage comments when she reaches me, as breathless as I am.
“I wish I was fae so I could fly up,” I mutter and Sage laughs. “The next leaf is too weak to hold us. We need to figure out another way.”
“If I give you a lift up, you could reach that leaf above us and then pull me up,” Sage suggests and I grin at her.
“Teamwork,” I say, fist-bumping Sage’s hand. “I hope Jonah falls on his ass for leaving us.”
“That’s just because you’re always thinking about his firm ass,” Sage says with an innocent wink as she joins her hands together for me. I put my foot in her hand, using her shoulders for balance as she lifts me up and I grab the edge of the leaf. I climb up and reach down, grinning at my bestie.
“So, you think he has a firm ass, too?” I ask as she takes my hand.
I lift her onto the leaf and gasp for air, my arms burning from the effort. Jeez, I’m tired already. I look up at the dozens of leaves ahead of us and groan as I climb to my feet. So. Many. Leaves.
“Enough about Jonah’s tight ass. We need to get a move on,” Sage says, and I nod.
Thankfully, no other students have chosen our beanstalk yet as we keep climbing. We do get endless amusement from the many, many students that fail miserably and fall off the other beanstalks. After fifty more leaves—I know because Sage counted out loud—we finally get to the top one, where a puddle of water lies in the hollow of a brown leaf. The water doesn’t look natural as I lean over it and look back to Sage. It’s bloody freezing up here and we both shiver as we decide what we need to do next.
“I think we need to step into the water,” Sage comments, looking as weary as I feel. Every single bit of me aches and I just want to sleep for a decade or so to recover. “Water is usually a portal to somewhere in this place.”
“I don’t see anywhere else we can go and I don’t want to jump,” I reply, not liking our options here.
“Together?” Sage asks, holding out her hand to me.
I gulp and take her hand as we edge onto the leaf. It’s amazing how sturdy it is. Without saying another word, we both step into the water, which instantly sucks us down into what feels like a water slide. I scream as loud as Sage does, and we slide down into darkness, banging against the sides of a strange tunnel. Sage’s hand slips from mine at some point and then suddenly the tunnel ends and my head goes underwater.
Not again!
I half expect to wake up in the infirmary yet again, but the gods must have decided to cut my sorry ass some slack. Opening my eyes to the palace I glimpsed once before, I find myself still standing on the leaf.
“Holy mother of fuck. We did it!” Sage shouts, jumping excitedly on the spot. Her enthusiasm quickly wanes when she glances back at the palace guarded by two armored giants. “How do we get in? What are we supposed to do?”
I look at the palace, trying to make sense of the task at hand. Giants, like trolls, covet shiny things. What they don’t manage to steal themselves from other realms, they send their magpies to do the dirty work for them. That’s really all I know about their species. Oh, and that they like to eat people like me for supper. Yah. Piece of cake breaking into their palace, right? Sheesh.
Healer Julie said we were protected while in the Enchanted Forest, but I’m willing to bet the same doesn’t apply here. We’re in giant territory now.
I scan the guards for any weak spots. Only their necks and protruding stomachs aren’t shielded by armor. Stupid on their part, useful on ours should we need to attack them. My stomach coils at the thought of their flabby flesh oozing between my teeth. But needs must if they catch us. At least I’m doing this on an empty stomach and won’t have anything to barf up. And at least Sage hasn’t blocked her tracker yet, so if shit really does hit the fan, they’ll find our bodies.
Nodding, I say to Sage, “I can get us into the palace from the shadows next to the tower. We just need to get over there without them spotting us.”
“I say we shift into magpies,” she suggests, pointing to the ledge of th
e tower where there is a row of magpies. “Giants might not be as stupid as trolls, but they’d probably not expect us to do that.”
“Sounds good to me!” Lifting my hand, I high five her and prepare to shift into a magpie.
But then something catches my attention, flickering in the corner of my eye.
I bend over and carefully pull out at a piece of parchment wedged in a gap in the beanstalk.
It’s another clue.
Unrolling the parchment, I read out loud: “To be victorious, one must be full of heart, courage, and use one’s brain wisely.’”
Sage’s eyes bug in their sockets. “I really hate riddles.”
“And why does it sound like something from The Wizard of Oz?” Jonah demands, appearing beside us. His hair and clothes are drenched, which makes me wonder if he fell into the puddle instead of stepping through it. “Heart, courage, and brains. So original.”
“Where’s Ronan?” I demand, tucking the parchment into my pocket.
“He nearly splatted to his death. Unfortunately, Gale caught him just in the nick of time, along with the other idiots who fell off.”
I wince at the image of Ronan splatting on the ground like a stepped-on juice box.
Yikes.
“So what’s the plan?” Jonah asks, eyeing the parchment poking out from my pocket.
“We’re shifting into magpies and flying over to the side of the palace. I can then shadowlocate us inside.” When I catch Jonah looking around at the dense, flat landscape, I hurriedly say, “There’s no shadows here, Sherlock. It’s too sunny and the land is flat.”
With that, I transform into a magpie and swoop down from the leaf. Sage and Jonah join me and the three of us soar into the clear-blue sky. The palace giants remarkably pay us no attention as we join the other magpies resting on the ledge. Good. Looks like we blend in. And when I look back at the beanstalk nestled far away in the distance, we’re still the only team to have found the portal.
I brush my wing against Sage and Jonah’s, then I peel the shadows away from the tower and wrap them around our bodies. It’s difficult to navigate the shadows when you don’t know precisely where you want to go. It’s even more difficult when you’re still a newbie to it. I try to find a dark corner we can hide in, but with Sage and Jonah holding onto me, I lose my concentration and light blasts into my eyes.
I fall roughly on my hands, scratching them on the stone floor as I blink at a room full of gold. Literally everything from the walls and the floor to the ceiling and upholstery is made of gold, and there are countless strange ornaments and statues of people staring down at us.
“Are those real people?” Sage whispers from my side.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know. The clue spoke of the heart first. We should look for that,” I say and Jonah nods, his eyes fixed on a gold statue near us that has long sweeping wings.
A fae.
The statue is truly beautiful, but right now, we can’t focus on that.
I hear a loud scream, followed by a long roar and I swiftly turn around, looking out the window behind us. Dozens of fellow students are running past the giants that are chasing them, and some are being kicked out of the way. No finesse at all, those students. I’m sure I spot Ronan shifting into a bird and flying to one of the windows.
“That is a good distraction for us,” Jonah says, sounding amused.
With a chuckle, he rushes off through the statues, and Sage and I run after him.
“I bet that is the heart!” Jonah shouts as he comes to an abrupt halt, pointing to a sloped hill covered in a mountain of gold coins.
“Look at the harp on top of the coins,” Sage points out.
We follow her finger to the most gorgeous golden harp I’ve ever seen. The soundboard is shaped like a bow with a gold heart crowning the top.
“The heart,” I whisper to them. “But how do we get it?”
“I can shrink it and put in my pocket,” Jonah says.”One down, one to go. This is easy.”
“Then get on with it,” I tell him, knowing it’s only moments before the giants come back and find us. Jonah walks up and starts casting a spell, only it doesn’t work. A list of expletives echoes from his mouth as he tries to successfully cast it, but each time he produces the magical symbols, they disappear into thin air.
I rush over with Sage, all three of us standing around the harp.
“Magic isn’t working,” Jonah grumbles, scratching his head.
Sage huffs at him, “No shit, Sherlock!”
I reach my fingers out and strum them across the strings. A song starts playing on its own, the haunting melody growing louder until suddenly the floor disappears from under our feet, and we each scream as we come falling down.
Rolling in coins, I come to a stop, my breaths coming out in smoke because of how cold it is in here. I roll over, feeling myself holding onto something. I lift my hand up and smile. In my hand is the heart from the top of the harp and it’s glowing a soft crimson.
“You got one too,” Jonah grumbles and I turn my head to see him and Sage on the ground nearby, each of them holding up a little glowing heart. Just above us, the ground shakes one more time as we all stand up, and to our surprise, Ronan falls onto the coins, rolling down the hill to join us.
“Fuck!” He groans, standing up swiftly and looking like a giant threw him through a wall. He’s covered in sawdust and cuts, but I see a heart in his hand.
“You caught up!” Sage happily cheers as Ronan glares at Jonah, and Jonah doesn’t seem even a little interested as he looks around the eerily dark room we’re now in.
There is no light other than what’s coming in through the gap where we fell, and I’m not sure which way we should go. But then I see something materialising in front of me. I step forward and blink a few times, making sure what I’m seeing is real and not just an illusion.
It’s a wishing well.
And it’s not just any wishing well, either. It’s the one I died in.
The one that made me a shadowborn.
I stumble back, unable to comprehend this mindfuckery, and Sage screams just as a wave of darkness creeps into the room, blacking everything out apart from the wishing well.
“It’s me! It’s Sage! Don’t do this!” Sage cries as I hear her running around in the darkness, but I can’t see her anymore. “You’re drunk, David, and you don’t know who I am. Please stop!”
“Sage!” I call out for her but she doesn’t reply.
I spin around, noticing that Ronan and Jonah are gone now too.
“Eva! Don’t leave me!” Ronan shouts from a good distance away.
“No, no, no, no!” Jonah roars, and the pure pain in his voice hurts me to hear. “You can’t be dead. I’ve always been looking for you. Jane, wake up, please!”
“Jonah! It’s not real!” I tell him, because none of this can be real.
“But I am real and you must make a wish, little girl,” a voice, much like Pitch’s when he was a child, speaks from the well. Horrified, I crawl away from the well, my arms and legs trembling, but when I look back, the wishing well is right in front of me. I scream, needing to escape, feeling like I can’t breathe. This can’t be happening. Not again!
“Corvina!” Jonah shouts as I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself.
“It’s not real. It’s not real.” I repeat the words over and over. Sage screams in the background; Ronan shouts and roars about someone called Eva; Jonah calls my name.
“Vina!”
“I’m here…it’s a wishing well…like I died in…I can’t,” I choke out, tears racing down my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling like a child again who’s afraid of the dark, of the monsters hiding under her bed.
“You are Corvina Fucking Charles and you are the most badass woman I have ever met. Don’t you dare let this stop you! You fight, you win and you get your ass out of here alive with me!” I hear Jonah shout, making me pause. “Don’t make me be wrong about you, Vina. You get up
off your ass, open your eyes and face this. Corvina Charles, get up!”
I open my eyes, looking at the wishing well in front of me. Jonah is right. I can’t be scared of this my entire life or I will never move forward like I need to. This room of terror and darkness is clearly a room of fears, and it’s time for me to face mine.
Crawling to my feet, I slowly walk up to the well, reminding myself that I’m not a defenceless little girl anymore.
I am Corvina Fucking Charles.
And this stupid wishing well has ruined enough of my life already.
I can do this… I can face it.
Gripping the edge of the stone, I look down into the bottom of the empty well just like I did all those years ago. Only my tears fall this time.
Not me.
“Make your wish, Corvina,” the voice tells me, “and make it count.”
I take a deep, shuddering breath. “This one is for my parents, wherever they are. I wish I listened to you and never jumped into this well, giving up everything, including you…” I pause, clearing my throat. “And the second wish is for me. I wish I never spent years hating who I became and I wish that I’ll never be frightened of myself again. It’s time for me to make my wishes come true now. Goodbye, wishing well.”
Gathering every bit of strength left in my body, I cast a destruction spell above the well, pouring dark magic into it and smiling as the well smashes into a million little pieces. I stand in the rubble as light pours into the room and slowly the destruction disappears, leaving a glowing blue coin in its place. I lean down, picking it up and reading the single world engraved into the gold.
Courage.
“Good job, Vina,” Jonah says from behind me and I spin around, seeing him holding up a coin in the air.
“Thanks for helping me,” I whisper, feeling surprisingly sheepish about it.
“Just don’t count on it happening again,” he says, tensing up and looking away.
Sage and Ronan appear beside us. Sage is holding her stomach as if she’s in tremendous pain but then she blinks and moves her hand away. There, sitting in the hollow of her palm, is a coin. She did it. I’m so proud of her. She managed to overcome her fear of David, whoever that is.