Of Enemies and Endings

by Shelby Bach

  “I told you, Maddy.” Jimmy Searcaster thrust his wife back, holding her at arm’s length. “We have our orders. We can’t retreat.”

  Then Jimmy squeezed, like he was wringing out a sponge, and all the life went out of Hansel. The giant tossed him to the ground.

  I didn’t notice the screaming at first. Not when Lena caught up to me, not when she and Kyle held me back. Not when Jimmy smiled and dropped his arms, and Matilda’s pale, shocked face turned our way. Not when the giantess plucked the snowflake charm from her husband’s wrist, and both Searcasters disappeared, leaving four huge footprints and Hansel’s body.

  It wasn’t until Lena grabbed my face with both hands that I heard the wail. The sound was coming from me. I stopped. My throat felt raw.

  All of me felt raw.

  The house lights glittered on Hansel’s armor, and his chain mail dipped into his rib cage—a crater the same width as Jimmy Searcaster’s thumb. I was shaking, so Lena took my sword away and passed it to one of the stepsisters. I tried not to cry. This kind of crying would horrify Chase. Then I remembered that Chase wasn’t here.

  “It’s okay,” I heard Lena saying, as she started to guide me toward the Door Trek door. “The reinforcements will round up the goblins in the trees. Let’s just get you home.”

  Someone brought a horse blanket from the barn and covered Hansel—an eleventh grader who was sobbing so hard she was hiccuping. “I’m sorry,” I told her as we passed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Rory.” Lena opened the dusty green door. “He told you to stop. He told everyone to stop.” Then she pushed me through the portal.

  I stumbled into the EAS courtyard, exhausted and numb, and totally unprepared to see Chase kissing Adelaide a few feet away.

  e’d buckled on his sword belt, and she had her quiver slung over a flouncy silk dress. They had been on their way. They had no idea they were too late. They didn’t even know we were there.

  Their lips were locked, and their eyes were closed, and he was stroking her pretty blond hair.

  I had refused to think about this. I’d been determined to go on believing that Chase hadn’t had his first kiss, the same way I’d never had mine.

  I opened my mouth to yell, to tell them to stop, but my throat—still aching from my scream—closed up tight. All I managed was a tiny squeak.

  The rest of my grade didn’t have that problem. “How was dinner?” snapped Daisy behind me.

  Chase and Adelaide burst apart.

  Her gaze slid to me. Triumph rolled off her in waves, but I didn’t look back. This wasn’t about her.

  Chase blinked at us. He’d looked less dazed the time a troll’s club had knocked him flat. “You’re back already? I thought Mr. Zipes wouldn’t be ready until at least midnight.”

  We were the Triumvirate. I thought the three of us were fated to help each other. I thought I could rely on them—on him.

  But I didn’t even know him anymore. Triumvirate or not, I didn’t want to know him. I swallowed hard, and my voice came back, cracked and ragged. “You should have been there.”

  “You said we would only be fifteen minutes late, tops,” Chase told his girlfriend.

  “Fifteen minutes is a long time in a battle.” Even Lena—my careful, neutral friend—sounded livid.

  Chase focused on me, and then, like he was finally seeing us, he said, “Something happened.” He reached out.

  I flinched away from his hand. I hated him for making me break the news. “Hansel’s dead, Chase. Jimmy killed him, and if you’d been there, like you promised, he wouldn’t have had to take on a pillar alone. He—”

  I stopped myself. If I kept going, I would have to explain how I could have stopped it too. I should have gone to help Hansel with Jimmy instead of helping the others with the goblins. No, I shouldn’t have let Matilda go. I should have taken her as a four-story-tall hostage. I should have threatened her to control Jimmy. It was the last thing Hansel had asked me to do.

  At the news, Adelaide reeled back, hands covering her mouth, stunned and guilty, but Chase just stood there, like he hadn’t understood what I’d just said.

  He glanced toward Adelaide and back to me again. “Listen, Rory—”

  “I don’t want to listen.” He couldn’t give me an excuse today—not for this.

  Characters began to push through the Door Trek door behind us. Eventually, some of them would be carrying Hansel’s body back through the portal, and I didn’t want to be here when that happened.

  So I ran.

  I didn’t even try to go home. I knew what Mom would say. You see? Even experienced adults like Hansel aren’t safe. You can’t expect to make a difference.

  But I was supposed to make a difference. Everyone was counting on me.

  I went to Dad’s apartment, but through the door, I could hear Danica wailing. It didn’t seem fair to make Dad and Brie deal with two daughters having a meltdown.

  Kelly and Priya came down the hall, chatting excitedly. They didn’t know yet. I couldn’t bear it if they asked me what monsters I’d fought today. I couldn’t listen to them ooh and ahh over battling giants and goblins. They hadn’t been there. They hadn’t seen their teacher die. They didn’t know how horrible that instant was—the second between realizing what Jimmy was about to do and him actually doing it, the fraction of an instant when I saw Hansel’s death coming and knew I was powerless to stop it. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with stuff like this. I shouldn’t have to carry those memories in my head, of Hansel and Hadriane. I turned and walked in the opposite direction. I turned around every time I spotted a Character I knew.

  The thing about EAS is that it seems endless. It seems like you could explore it for days and always find an unknown corridor, a new door, fresh mysteries to puzzle out. But after living there, you realize the labyrinth folds back on itself. It doesn’t keep going and going. It always takes you to the same places, and sometimes, it takes you exactly where you need to go.

  Rapunzel was waiting for me at the base of her tower. Her long silver braid trailed across the bottom three steps, like she had just come down from her room.

  “I know the news of Hansel.” The sympathy on Rapunzel’s face made me feel all shaky again. She touched my arm, very gently. “And I know of Matilda, too.”

  I burst into tears.

  It was all so messed up. The Snow Queen would keep killing people, and I would keep trying to stop her and totally failing. And eventually, it would be me she killed, and I didn’t want to die. But I didn’t want to live, either, if I would end up just like the Snow Queen. I didn’t want to hurt all the people I loved.

  Rapunzel lifted some folded handkerchiefs from the bottom of the banister; she was always prepared.

  I cried my way through half the stack. Rapunzel didn’t hug me, like I kind of wanted. But she didn’t ask anything of me either. She didn’t try to calm me down or tell me everything was going to be okay or strategize on ways I might live through this.

  Somehow, that was exactly what I needed.

  Finally I took a shaky breath and blew my nose. I knew how this scene was supposed to play out. “You’re going to tell me that it’s not my fault Hansel is dead. Just like with Hadriane.”

  “This death is different than Hadriane’s,” Rapunzel said. “Yes, it was unfair. Yes, his was a purposeful sacrifice, but Hansel was much older than he looked. He was at the end of his life. Some can live centuries, and still not be ready for death, but Hansel was.”

  I stared hard at the crumpled mound of handkerchiefs next to me. “But I could have stopped it.”

  “If you had threatened Matilda, you may have convinced Jimmy Searcaster to release Hansel,” Rapunzel said, “but Hansel’s fate was sealed the moment Solange gave Jimmy his orders. She wanted to create in you a terrible grief. She wanted to distract you.”

  A terrible grief. Those words seemed too small for what I was feeling. “But we could have gotten him out of there.” No one should have died
.

  “A pillar could not be slain on that field. So the next safest solution would be to give Jimmy the life he wanted to take. Otherwise, the giant may have taken a student’s life, and Hansel would have done anything to prevent that.”

  Rapunzel dropped a hand on my head. She waited until I looked up. Her dark eyes glistened, bright with tears, and I remembered: She had known the sword master longer than I had. She was even older than Hansel was. She had probably watched him grow up. “Every instructor here would make the same sacrifice Hansel did. Our time is almost past, and you children are the future we fight for. We would prefer to die to protect you than to witness your deaths, your futures snuffed out. It is natural for the old to die before the young. You gave that gift to Hansel, even if you can’t give it to your mother.”

  I shot her a look. That was a low blow, especially right then. Mom and I argued about that constantly. We would probably fight over it the next time I saw her. Finding out that Rapunzel took her side didn’t help.

  Rapunzel must have known she was pushing it. She pulled a Chase and changed the subject. “Rory, have you thought about who you might become after the war ends?”

  I almost snorted. I couldn’t think past the death, winter, and despair the Snow Queen kept throwing my way. When I thought about the future, I thought about dealing with the fate of magic and defeating the Snow Queen. Reaching high school seemed a little less possible every day.

  “I don’t believe anyone ever asked my sister such a question,” Rapunzel said softly. “She focused only on King Navaire’s destruction.”

  So. There it was—one more thing Solange and I had in common.

  “It may be better if . . .” I was relieved that my hoarse voice only trembled a little bit. “. . . if I didn’t see the end of the war. The world doesn’t need a second Snow Queen.”

  I hadn’t told this to anyone. No one else would listen. Mom wouldn’t have let me finish my sentence. Amy would have given me her thin-lipped glare of doom. Dad and Brie had their hands full with the baby. Lena would just cry, and Chase would say, in his cocky way, You’re not going to die, Rory. And the Director, well, she might agree with me.

  Rapunzel’s expression didn’t change, like maybe she’d known I’d felt this way all along. “You are seeing only two options—Hadriane’s end and Solange’s change. It is not like you to lack imagination. Usually, you see a dozen choices where others see only a few. Your own life should be no exception.”

  “So you still don’t see my future?” I asked. I’d gotten used to her knowing what would happen.

  “I do see it,” said Rapunzel. “But not with my foresight.”

  I felt gazes on me as I walked back to our apartment. Even though I’m sure they could all see that I’d been crying, I kept my head up high and my face blank. I could still play the brave and steady Rory Landon they wanted me to be.

  I reached the hallway of apartments. Students and older Characters clustered together, full of sad murmurs and half-hidden tears. The only activity in the corridor came from the triplets’ new place. The Zipes, the LaMarelles, and Paul Stockton streamed in and out with boxes. One of them—I couldn’t have told you which one—passed on the news: Only Gretel and her family would attend Hansel’s funeral, but the memorial was for everyone. We would hold it at dawn.

  It was a welcome excuse to go to bed early. After crying that hard, all I wanted was my pillow.

  The only person I saw inside my apartment was Amy, and she launched a barrage of questions as soon as she saw me: “Rory? Are you okay? Your mom is taking a shower—do you want me to get her? Your friend Chase stopped by. Then Lena did. Did they ever find you—?”

  I started shaking my head before she’d finished her first sentence. I walked over to my room during the interrogation. I grasped the doorknob, and then I looked at her.

  She bit off her last question, looking stricken. Then uncertain. She glanced at the bathroom door.

  “I just need to sleep,” I said, my voice almost gone. So I did.

  When the dream came back, I hated it. I hated the dusty tower room, the abandoned furniture crowding me, and the tiny cot that looked even tinier with Chase’s lanky body sprawled across it. I hated Chase’s stupid, sleeping face and the pain that sliced through my chest as I listened to his slow, deep breathing. I hated the worry crashing through me and the terror that he wouldn’t wake up, that I was going to lose him forever.

  By the time my alarm went off, fury had licked away the concern. I didn’t care that I’d now dreamed it three times, which usually meant that it would come true. After all, I’d already lost Chase. Tiptoeing through the quiet apartment, careful not to wake Mom and Amy, I couldn’t imagine why I would worry so much. After everything we’d survived this summer, sleeping didn’t strike me as especially dangerous.

  Outside, the courtyard was dark. Already a line of hundreds of people snaked out from an old-fashioned wooden door, hung with black ribbons, waiting for their turn to pay their respects at the Wall of Failed Tales. The wind rustled the Tree’s branches.

  By the time I found the others in my grade, all I felt was hollow. Sadness had carved a great, echoing emptiness inside me.

  It didn’t seem fair to add Hansel’s name to this memorial. His Tale had ended years ago. He hadn’t failed anything.

  Maybe after this war was over, we could lobby to name it something else. The Wall of Fallen Characters was closer. The Wall of Fallen Heroes was even better.

  When red-orange light crept over the buildings, and the door to the wall finally opened, the Canon members went in first, but Sarah Thumb had made sure that we—the kids in my grade who had gone on Hansel’s last mission, the ones he’d died to protect—got the turn right after them.

  Chase and Adelaide hadn’t showed. None of us were surprised.

  When we entered the memorial, Snow White held the chisel and mallet. She passed them to Kyle. Instead of going out the door, she moved deeper into the room, further down the wall. She reached up to trace a name: Don White. Her husband, I thought. Judging by the date engraved there, he must have died in the last war.

  I’d always feared this place, but the idea of having my own name on the wall didn’t seem so terrible anymore. Adding a friend’s name up there was much worse. It was the names of the dead that left the worst scars, and the longer you stayed at EAS, the more grief you learned to carry. This wall held so much pain.

  One swing of the mallet, and Kyle finished his turn. The chisel and mallet hung loosely in his hands. He stared at the spot where someone had already penciled the name, Hansel Keifmeier. The H was already complete.

  Then Kyle handed the tools to me. He stepped back, shoulder to shoulder with Lena. She was too miserable to even look happy about standing next to her crush. “The tools are enchanted,” he said. “I’m pretty sure. So we know what to do.”

  The chisel was heavier than I expected it to be, the mallet unwieldy, and they filled me with a much milder version of the runner’s high my sword gave me. I raised the chisel to the curve of the first A. The tool corrected the angle slightly. I struck. The mallet regulated the blow—precise and firm, not nearly as hard as I wanted to smash things.

  A tiny chip fell from the wall and joined a pile at my feet.

  I passed the mallet and the chisel to Kevin.

  Lena looped her arm through mine. When everyone had their turn, we walked together to the end of the hall.

  Gretel and the Director waited there. Tears glinted on Gretel’s cheeks in the torchlight along the memorial, but she didn’t seem to notice them. Snow White told her how sorry she was, and Gretel nodded her thanks, expressionless. In a black dress that looked way too grand for grieving, the Director gripped Gretel’s shoulder.

  We slowed when we saw them. None of us were sure what to say. Chase was always the one who knew what to do when someone was hurting like this.

  Once an annoying little brother, always an annoying little brother, Gretel had once said. But now Hansel
would never complain about her using her metal foot to win a sparring match again. He would never steal all the good metal dummies before she got to the training courts for class.

  Remembering made me want to hurry past. I didn’t think any of the grown-ups would mind if we just left. They never expected much from the young Characters.

  But Hansel had died to protect us. If I didn’t say anything, I would hate myself. “Gretel, I’m so sorry about Hansel,” I said, and then I knew why the Director held Gretel’s shoulder. Words seemed pale and stupid next to what I was feeling. I wanted her to know how much I wished I could make it better.

  Maybe she understood anyway, because Gretel looked at us. She hadn’t looked at Snow White. “Thank you.”

  We left. Outside the back door, the sun was rising. Indigo-gray clouds were painted across the orange-gold sky, blocking out the light. Flames in a tall brazier licked the air, too hot for summer but pretty in the dimness. Ellie was in front of it. Beside her was a basket of life-size paper models of Hansel’s broadsword. Ellie passed one out to each of us. It felt strange to hold something that looked like a weapon but felt so light and flimsy.

  She waited until everyone in our grade assembled in front of her. “On our wall, we engrave his name. On our hearts, we carve his memory. By these flames, we let him go.”

  Mr. Swallow landed on my shoulder. From his back, Sarah Thumb said, “Hand her one for me, will you, Ellie?”

  Ellie passed a second paper broadsword to me. Sarah Thumb and her mount rode on my shoulder to the bonfire. We pitched the paper weapons in and the flames devoured the swords in seconds. Sarah Thumb’s face was impassive. “Usually, we burn paper gingerbreads for Hansel representatives, but I think he would have liked this better.”

  I didn’t know. This was the first time we had added a dead Character to the Wall since I’d come to EAS. Hansel would have said we were just lucky, but maybe we’d been protected. By the Snow Queen’s shortage of allies. By Hansel, who was gone now.