The Real Folktale Blues (Beyond Ever After #1)

by Random Jordan

  “What? My safety? I don’t need a bunch of flowers protecting me. Now put me down!” I reiterated but they just weren’t listening.

  “No. You must stay rooted.”

  I sighed and stopped swinging around before my head started to hurt too much. “This is because I killed those small flowers isn’t it?”

  “Dear me, no. They were always complaining and leeching resources from us. Weeds, the lot of them.” The flower explained while dangling me further from its face.

  “Then why are you holding me up?” I spat my question since I was starting to get dizzy and my head was feeling like a balloon being blown up.

  The flower rolled its eyes. “I already told you. A walking flower like you is not safe. You must be rooted.”

  “Then let me on the ground, so I can root myself!” I spewed, feeling even more pressure in my head from being upside down. This couldn’t be very good for me.

  Luckily, the flower I had been talking to cried out in pain and the vine around my leg loosened to drop me to the grass. I crumpled in a pile and groaned before looking through my mess of hair to see the vine flick the little fox through the air as he held on by his teeth.

  Brave little guy.

  My hand clapped over my mouth as the tiny fox couldn’t hang on and went soaring into the sky until he just froze somewhere above where Kit had squashed a lot of the birds.

  I could barely manage a breath as I laid there, flabbergasted. The flower behind me cried out and I looked to see it kissing the vine where tiny teeth marks were.

  I would have laughed if I wasn’t so concerned for whatever just happened to the baby fox. Instead, I stood up and turned on the flora while I heard Kit bounding over to me on the ground.

  “What did you do to the poor fox?” I accused and coiled a hand into a fist.

  The flower pulled the vine away and looked over my broken body, then to the baby beast floating in the air. But it was Kit that ended up speaking first. “It wasn’t the flowers, Dori.”

  “The snapdragon speaks truth.” The flower added. “That happens to all moving flowers in this area now.”

  I glanced around but all I could see were the fox, the flock of crushed birds and Kit, that could move like me. “Then why aren’t more people stuck here?”

  “Be-cause…” the flower huffed, “It only just started with the flying rainbow flowers. You would be stuck too if I hadn’t grabbed you.”

  “Oh…” I lowered my head and ground my teeth. “Thanks.”

  “Now what do we do, Dori?” Kit asked and for the first time I realized the spirit was calling me by a nickname I’d never heard before. At least it wasn’t ‘Red’.

  “We find the pile of clothes. Then we’ll figure out how to get the fox.” I explained while turning to look around at my strange surroundings again.

  Then it dawned on me.

  “Wait.” I shot a glance to Kit, hovering just above me. “How did you know it wasn’t the flowers?”

  “It is the same magic as before. The kind that doesn’t work on me.” The spirit shot a stare at me like I was crazy. “Flowers don’t do that magic, Dori.”

  “Neither do humans.” I added, mirroring the same look back. I was getting way too comfortable abusing a dragon, even if it wasn’t a real one.

  The flower brought my attention away from the intensity of our gaze. “The pile of petals?”

  I blinked and translated in my head. Petals must mean clothes. “Yes, the petals. You know where they are?”

  The vine coiled up and pointed toward the reverse waterfall. “Behind the tainted flowing water. But no flower should go there. We were warned.”

  I grinned. “Good thing I’m not a flower then.”

  The red flower whipped its vine around. “No, you can’t! You will just end up like the fly trap up there!”

  “It’s probably right, Dori. Look at the frozen mist around the waterfall, and even here… water flowing in that direction or looking that color is never good.”

  I did look to the frozen water and the strange waterfall. But it was hardly going to stop me. I just needed a plan.

  “Get down here Kit.” I demanded and pointed at the ground.

  “Not if you are going to hit me anymore.” The fake dragon stubbornly refused and even shook its head.

  I groaned. “Get down here. And don’t piss me off or I will hit you again.”

  “Then…” the dragon searched for words or maybe courage, “then… I’ll hit you back!”

  “Good. Don’t ever let someone strike you, without getting them back.” I nodded and watched the spirit descend next to me before grabbing a hold of the mane. I threw myself up onto the dragon’s back and took a deep breath.

  I had to relax.

  My eyes closed as I gripped tight to Kit’s hair. “Okay, you can feel the magic, so dodge it and get me to the waterfall. Sound good?”

  “Are you sure?” Kit sounded weary, which made me cringe. Maybe this wasn’t a good plan.

  “It’s better than me walking through all that frozen time or whatever it is.” I took a deep breath. “Just do it. And tell me when you get to the waterfall.”

  “Okay…”

  My hands and thighs couldn’t have wrapped around that dragon tight enough as I felt the brisk wind grate against me. I didn’t dare open my eyes, since as long as they stayed closed I could be ignorant to how high in the air we were.

  And it stayed like that until I could hear Kit’s voice over the rush of water near my ear. “First stop… Creepy waterfall!”

  I loosened my fingers and inched open my eyes to see we were still a good ten feet over where the water broke against invisible rocks in the sky.

  “Get me lower.” I yelled, as calmly as I could manage, to the spirit.

  “I’m not sure I can…” The mirror creature glanced down then squeezed an excited bleet. The dragon dived so fast I almost tumbled from the spot I clung to. I managed to grab the mane tightly just in time as my heart pounded in my ears.

  Never again. Never riding a dragon, real or fake.

  The spirit stopped cold, hovering inches from the orange stream of water, and jolting me to the point of my heart pattering even harder.

  Cries came out of the dragon and I realized my fingers were yanking at the golden mane of hair. I let go and turned around on the spirit’s back to see a shallow cave with the clothing and my cloak resting in it.

  My feet jumped up on Kit’s back and I stepped carefully a few times, steadying myself and trying not to look down as I called over the roar of the water. “Lower your tail.”

  The spirit must have heard me since both back and tail lowered in a slant toward the cave entrance. I nearly fell off again, clinging to Kit’s back instead.

  I crawled the rest of the way along the ridges and scales until I was hanging on the end of the dragon’s tail like it was a flimsy tree branch.

  “Back up!” I demanded and wrapped my arms around the tail harder as it bobbed low then twisted high before stopping five feet above the cave floor.

  Satisfied I was close enough, I let myself drop to the floor, landing on my back with a gasp. I laid there for a moment just to catch my breath and look to my cloak.

  Finally…

  Once I was to my feet again I yelled with my hands around my mouth. “Go get the fox. Do whatever you have to, just don’t kill him.”

  The giant dragon head nodded and then the spirit faded into the red sky. A sigh escaped me. Hopefully the fox was alright. I’d have to make it up to him after this.

  My eyes shifted back to the clothing and I ran forward, snatching up my cloak as I dropped to my knees.

  Something was wrong though. I could tell from the very feel of the fabric.

  This was not my cloak. But it was made to look like it.

  Someone was playing games with me.

  I sifted through the length of the red fabric and my breath caught in my throat. Inside of the hood, a dark symbol was etched. In this particular case
, there could only be one reason for a rune.

  I walked into a trap.

  Even as I think it, the rune in the hood glows, and the entire cloak starts to disintegrate in my hands.

  Faerie Fudge…

  I didn’t even wait before tossing the cloak aside and scooping up every last piece of the remaining clothes. I ran to the edge of the cave with my hands full, taking one glance back at the imposter cloak to see only the hood was left.

  I didn’t know what would happen when the rune was consumed and I didn’t have to, to know I just needed to run; far away from it.

  I yanked a shirt from the clothes in my arms, juggling them around as I threw it in front of me. It didn’t freeze so I moved forward and picked the shirt up with my toes.

  My eyes shot back to the hood, seeing only a sliver of it left as I threw the shirt with my foot.

  The tunic froze in the air and I pressed against the wall away from that area before throwing a brassiere from my fingers and moving forward while picking it up with my toes again.

  Two more tosses got me by with the bra before it got stuck in a frozen state and I adjusted again.

  I knew it was already too late. I was moving too slow.

  My eyes fell back to the cloak to see only the glowing sigil left.

  My heart wouldn’t stop pounding as I tossed another piece of clothing and moved along.

  I finally make it to the meadow, leading to the giant flowers, before looking back again to see a glow of humming darkness pulsing from behind the waterfall.

  I was so dead.

  A few more pieces of fabric hung over the grass as my bare feet padded next to the flowers. I dropped the clothing in front of them and snatched up a set to wear for myself before glancing around for Kit and the fox.

  “There.” The red flower pointed with a vine near the storm of plume that the frozen birds caused. Among the feathers emerged the little custard fox with a limp to his step.

  I rushed forward, but stopped when I realized this area was littered with time distortions. My eyes shot between the fox and the glow emanating from the waterfall.

  “Come on!” I roared with all my voice.

  The fox didn’t move any faster though.

  I could feel each beat of my heart radiating through my body and my breath hitch as the fox looked like he was slowing down and not moving faster.

  I wanted to keep yelling, but my voice caught on my tongue. My mouth felt so dry it was sticking together and closing up. Even breathing was harder.

  But why?

  My eyes widened as I looked back to the glowing sigil. It wasn’t behind the waterfall anymore.

  There was no waterfall. There wasn’t even ground past where the tall flowers were. It all disintegrated in invisible flames, just like how the water had been crashing against invisible rocks.

  My hands were shaking as I turned back and reached out for the fox just as he limped close enough.

  My arms scooped around him and pulled him against my chest, with the small collection of clothes in my other hand.

  I shot down the stairs, just as I heard the horrible hacking howls of the talking flowers being consumed or erased or whatever was happening to them.

  I didn’t even want to imagine what it was. I just ran.

  I tried to glance around for Kit, even attempted calling for the spirit, but my throat grated any words away before they could reach my lips.

  Where was that fey-blasted spirit?

  I couldn’t wait around. Steps were disappearing rapidly behind me. It was like this world was just… unraveling…

  Like the cloak! Of course…

  I would have been admiring an unraveling spell of this magnitude, if I hadn’t been in the direct path of it.

  My heart pattered like a hummingbird as I turned on the last step of the stairs and saw nothing but four steps behind me. I dove backwards while I scanned for Kit one last time.

  Nothing but scarlet. The color of distortion and change.

  My color.

  But it didn’t seem inviting now, as I watched the last steps disappear into grains so small they might as well have been nothing.

  My heart jumped again as the breath gushed out of me and my face crashed into the cold stone floor of the mirror tower.

  Despite the aches, I stumbled to my feet and rushed through the looking glass without even turning back to look at how close the unraveling was to me.

  I fell to my knees on the other side, from the sheer agony I was wallowing in.

  I would have passed out right there.

  I would have.

  If it wasn’t for the voice I heard, that made my heart soar with such firm happiness that my eyes were tearing up.

  “Dori! We made it!”

  Six

  Bread Crumbs

  Walking has to be the most wonderful thing in the world. Well, as long as you aren’t being chased by an unraveling spell. I like it though, because it gives me time to think; normally.

  Instead, every time I started to have some kind of train of thought on my situation at hand, I would get interrupted by Kit chatting away with borrowed fox lips.

  I glanced down into the massive pocket where the little cream and custard fox was sitting. Luckily the shorts I grabbed as I ran for my life, actually fit me and had big pockets. It was almost like they were made for me to wear with a fox in them.

  I swear someone was playing with me, like a wooden boy everyone knows. I just hope it wasn’t really the Blue Faerie; though I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Could you silence Kit or something? It is your mouth.” I asked the fox. All he did was twitch his ears at me and turn his nose down into the pocket. He was actually trying to silence the mirror spirit. Bless his little fox heart.

  Then Kit’s muffled voice came out of the vulpine lips once more. “You could just ask me instead.”

  “I have asked you. But a minute passes and you have something to say about the terrain.” I groaned.

  “Well excuse me that I had not ever seen a flower like those before.” Kit continued, while I could only assume he was talking about the blue bell flowers that had been along our path ever since we escaped the unraveling mirror-world and descended the short tower.

  “You got to see talking flowers that you stomped all over. Trust me, these ones aren’t special. So please, just give me five minutes of quiet. That’s it.”

  I heard Kit huff out a breath before the fox curled up in my pocket and seemed to rest for a bit, hopefully the spirit with him. This finally gave me the peace to think about all the bread crumbs being tossed in front of me to deal with.

  The main problem I had now was retrieving Goldie again. Since she was supposed to be my package to be delivered to get this ridiculous favor of Charming’s done.

  Then there was the matter of my cloak being stolen. Which really on a personal level is more of a concern to me, but much harder to track down since I don’t have a damned clue where to start.

  To get to my cloak I only knew that Hue, Goldie, and Bonny were nearby when I was knocked out.

  I was facing Goldie when it happened, which meant she wasn’t doing it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved with this.

  Hue would have just killed me and not bothered with taking my cloak, or wounding me, if he had been involved. In fact the hood was the last thing Hue would take from me. He knew better.

  This left Bonny. Someone I hardly knew anything about. Other than she has a single eye the same color as apparently the people to drop me off in that tower.

  Two rare eye colors with slightly different designs were far too much of a coincidence. Somehow Bonny was involved in this situation, which meant Charming might be the cause of all this, since Bonny was a soldier for his army.

  Then again, it could be an entirely different person causing problems, who could perform an impossible magic.

  I didn’t exactly tread lightly in the world.

  It could have even been some other group, ambushing r
ight after the transfer before I could find anything about what was going on with Goldie.

  After all, whoever took my cloak and left me in that tower, also took Goldie from my care. That meant she might have been the real reason I was attacked in the first place, and the reason I was left alive.

  But then why would they take my hood and cloak?

  This was all just starting to turn into a headache. Actually the headache I had before was coming back. Right at the base of my skull like something was squeezing the back of my head, constantly.

  I groaned.

  Apparently my groan meant Kit could talk again. Or at least that was how the mirror spirit took it.

  “So, where are we going anyway?”

  I ground my teeth, and flicked a strand of raspberry hair out of my face. The makeshift cloth tie I used for my unruly hair, couldn’t keep my bangs out of my face, which I wasn’t really used to.

  “Visit some old friends, twins, if I can just find the trail.” I explained, mostly more in thought than anything.

  I still only had a mild idea where exactly I was, other than somewhere on the outskirts of Hue’s Kingdom, possibly into the territory of Outer zone.

  There were no major markers for me to figure out my location, other than the blue bell flowers all around this trail. Real blue flowers always came from Hue’s territory. They ended here though, and far to my non-mountainous side I could see the great poppy field of the Outer Zone.

  Flowers really were the easiest way to tell what territory I’d find myself in. Charming’s had violets. Hue had Blue Bells, the Outer Zone had poppies, Rosa’s had gobs of lilies, Adam did red roses, while the Heart Family kept painted white roses. I could keep going all day, but honestly I’d rather not list every single territory.

  “Oh, well, where is your friend’s place?” Kit asked, which luckily stopped me from thinking any further, or just to make sure I could do it, I would have listed all the territories.

  “Not far. I just have to find the trail. Which if I am on the right mountain it should be close.” I explained while glancing up at the encroaching twilight sky. “I hope.”

  The place I was looking for was a secluded village. Similar to the one I grew up in, just different people. The village lied between the Outer Zone, the Blue lands, and whatever the fey Charming called his territory.