“To what?”
“To the end of one day.”
“What happens then?”
“Like I said, if we don’t get Bianca home, very, very bad things.” I made an exploding motion with my hands. Bianca leaned forward and put her head between her knees.
Rachel sat on her desk, turning her back to us. “Like when it was midnight and your pumpkin disappeared?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Except it didn’t really happen like that. Never mind. It’s the same principle. When our day is up, then poof, the magic disappears.”
Rachel nods, but doesn’t turn. Bianca lifts her head, takes a deep breath, and stands. “CeCi, can you give Rachel and me a few minutes?”
“Just a few, Bianca. We have to figure this out.” I left them and wandered around the library, eventually curling up in a chair in the corner, letting exhaustion overtake me. Part of me wished I could hear their conversation, and part of me was glad for the escape. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what Rachel’s capacity for imagination was.
After a bit, I made my way back to the office where I found Bianca and Rachel both in tears, slumped into one another, holding hands.
“I’m sorry to break this up, but can we swing by the police station on the way to the portal?”
Bianca was pale. “If they can’t find it, I won’t get through.”
“CeCi, if staying here messes up Bianca’s papers—”
“Pages,” Bianca corrected.
“And ruins your kingdom, can’t you just give your bracelet to Bianca?”
“No,” Bianca said. “If I go through with her bracelet, she’ll be stranded here for good. She has a whole life inside. A husband and friends.”
“It’s an idea,” I said, tears starting to smart my nose. The thought of never going home again was petrifying. “I guess it’s better than letting Grimmland be torn apart.”
“CeCi, I’m so sorry. I never meant—”
“Sh, Bianca. Hysterics don’t help us now.” I hoped I didn’t look as queasy as I felt. “We’ll have to see what happens. We can’t not try.”
The police station ended up being a bust—it was such chaos, it was a wonder they could find anything at all. We hit traffic going back to the portal, and even I began to bite my nails. I wanted to get out and run—at times it would have been faster. Rachel raced to the top of the Magic Castle’s long driveway, parking in a line of honking taxis.
“Thank you,” I said to her, reaching for a hug.
She grabbed her purse instead. “No. I’m coming with.”
“You can’t come with,” I said, misunderstanding.
Rachel shook her head. “I want to watch you go.”
Bianca pursed her lips. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”
“I want to,” Rachel said, so soft I could barely hear her. “I’m trying.”
“Let her come,” I said. “We have to hurry.”
The portal is usually only visible along the edges, like a trick of the light or a mirage. But when we got there, it was shimmering like a curtain of sequins. A warm wind had picked up, dust devils spinning up a fine grit into our teeth and hair. My clock bracelet showed two minutes to noon. Bianca kissed Rachel, walked toward the portal, made it halfway inside, and was thrown backward onto the ground.
“Shit.” She righted herself and dusted her hands. She’d been agitated but calm until that point. Now, she began to flail at the portal, which, to the casual observer, looked as if she’d gone mental. Thankfully there was a dearth of casual observers.
“Bianca, stop,” I said. “We can’t freak out. We have to think.”
“Does this make you Human now?” Rachel asked.
“Not quite,” I said. “She still has magic inside of her. That’s why she can still go partway through. The clock bracelet connects her with the other side.”
Rachel paused from consoling our hyperventilating friend. “Will the bracelet fit over both of your wrists?”
I inhaled, angry with myself for not thinking of the same thing. “You’re brilliant, Rachel. Don’t let anyone tell you different.” I unhooked my bracelet, handing it to Rachel. Two of Bianca’s wrists could have fit into one bracelet, but my wrists are so much bigger. Around both our wrists, the bracelet was at least two fingers from closing.
“I’ll cut my wrist,” Bianca suggested, wide-eyed.
“Don’t be stupid,” Rachel said.
The portal began to cloud, bright sparks traced their way through the ether. I stuck my hand in and pulled it back. Something pricked my skin. A large branch erupted from the portal, narrowly missing Rachel. “Rachel, be careful. Step back.”
“Just go, CeCi.” Bianca hiccupped. “Leave me.”
“Oh yeah? And what?” I asked. “I go home and watch our world collapse? Pay the price for your irresponsibility?”
“My irresponsibility? I came up here to help you.”
“Maybe at first. But now you only want to find out where your father is, and look where it’s gotten us.” The sparks were coming thicker and hotter and my patience was shot.
“Okay, fine. You’re right. I don’t give a shit about you or anyone else. I fell in love for fun.” It was Rachel’s turn to pale.
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” I said. “All of ours. None of ours. Look at the portal! The world, your Pages. We have to go back. Now.”
“No more fighting.” Rachel was pleading. “Do something.”
“Take my hand, Bianca.” We wouldn’t have a home to get to if we didn’t get there soon. If only Rory could help us.
I began to scream into the portal. For Rory. For Solace. Hoping our desperation might travel through the pandemonium inside, if our bodies couldn’t.
Bianca joined me. “Rory! Snoozer! Please.”
The portal shimmered brightly, then faded. Just before it began to shrink, I could have sworn I saw Rory’s face. The air began to swirl, and the portal before us grew smaller and smaller.
Then, beyond all hope, we watched as hands groped their way out of the now-smoking air. Rory’s arms were marred and scratched from the flotsam and jetsam spinning around inside, but her clock bracelet appeared intact.
“Wait, Rory. Stay there. Don’t come any farther,” I yelled, yanking Bianca toward me. “Rachel, help me fasten our bracelets together.” Two small wrists and one big one. The squeeze hurt, but Rachel managed to force the last hinged clasp closed. The wind roared at the mouth of the portal; thunder and hail pelted our faces. Everything was slippery and cold where it had been burning just a moment before.
“Pull, Rory,” I screamed. “Rachel, push!”
The next thing I remember was coming to on the floor of Rory’s tower, the walls and the clock itself in pieces all around us.
I am desperately trying to gather my thoughts. And awaiting a summons from Solace, who is no doubt furious. But all I can feel right now is relief.
And gratitude. Rachel. That brave, beautiful woman. How could we possibly thank her? I wonder if she curses the day she ever heard a Fairy Tale or is knee deep in the children’s section of the library. I wish we could have spared her seeing all that, learning everything all at once. We owe her everything, at the very least the answers to the rest of her questions.
Love,
CeCi
Princess Briar R. Rose
Somnolent Tower Castle
South Road, Grimmland
Rapunzel,
My first clue something was amiss came when the clouds began to swirl. I’d imagine there were a great many who thought nothing of it, perhaps chalking up the change in atmosphere to an errant fairy or a disgruntled wizard.
It took me a few moments to realize why I was having such terrible déjà vu. And then it came to me. The awful day so long ago. That day, Solace had whisked me—mouth still full of sixtee
nth birthday party cake—up the stairs to the tower. Fred was calling up to me, even as Figgy’s sentinels half-flew, half-dragged him away to learn his sentence. The stone walls seemed to quake each time the thunder roared and the air grew colder and colder.
So when the temperature began to fall just before lunch, I climbed the tower, trying to push the thought out of my mind that Bianca might be responsible for such a breach.
The tower room was littered with small debris. Pebbles and leaves. I slipped on my clock bracelet, and stepped through the clock. At the other end of the tunnel, the portal looked strange. I put my hand above my eyes to shield them from the small twigs and raindrops. When larger branches started to force their way in, I tried to take cover, crawling toward the other end on my stomach. A chair from the tower passed over my head.
A flash of lightning and a thunderbolt sounded, and afterward it was as if someone had drawn a curtain on the sun. The tunnel was black except for a glimmer where the exit to the Outside should have been. I focused on getting there, slowly but surely.
When I finally did, I couldn’t see out clearly. I could hear Bianca and CeCi and I thought Rachel, though that didn’t make any sense. I tried to reach through but electric sparks flitted through the air, snapping and cutting my skin.
Just before I drew myself even closer to the ground, wondering whether to turn back or hunker down, I saw CeCi’s hand reaching through. I could hear her yelling but it was difficult to make out any words over the roar of wind and thunder.
CeCi screamed for me to wait and then I felt her take my arm and unclasp my bracelet. And then I felt skin on skin on skin. The air began to freeze around us in tiny, razor-sharp crystals. Someone’s fingers fumbled and the bracelet tightened down on my wrist, cutting into my skin, now wet with blood.
“Rory, pull!” CeCi shouted. I opened my eyes briefly to see my wrist buried in a pile of three, bound by two interlocking bracelets. I felt an enormous shove from the other side of the portal and heard a sound like the world ripping in half and all of a sudden we were in a pile on the tower floor.
The wind quieted, as did the sky, now visible in the places the tower’s ceiling had fallen through. The face of the clock was fogged and cracked, glass tinkling to the floor.
The tower was ruined. The north wall collapsed. The fine furniture in splinters sticking out from what stone remained upright.
“Thank Grimm you came for us,” CeCi sobbed.
“Rory,” said Bianca, feeling the floor beneath her, as if ensuring it was real. “You came. You saved us, and I’m sorry. I am . . . I’m so sorry.”
Bianca and CeCi continued to grovel until the three of us all fell unconscious.
Sometime later my staff retrieved us, and we woke in my quarters.
I ordered tea and scones and listened as they babbled and groveled some more. I let my nurse tend my cuts and scrapes and told her to do the same for my friends and let them stay as long as they wanted and needed in order to get their bearings.
Then I excused myself to get dressed. As tempting as resting might be, I have errands to attend to.
Rory
Important Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White
Onyx Manor
West Road, Grimmland
Z,
There aren’t enough bloody marys in the whole of the Realm to deal with the two surliest bridesmaids ever in the history of pre-wedding brunches.
Ever since our overemotional recovery and Rory’s baffling Ice Queen routine, we’ve avoided discussing the whole portal clusterfuck. So it isn’t terribly surprising that we don’t have our stories straight when Solace interrupts this morning’s event, thumping her back foot on the floor of the open doorway.
“You three obliterated my portal,” she says, paws crossed.
CeCi and I begin explaining at the same time. Rory just sits there and picks at her eggs. I mean, Rory saved my ass. Our asses, plural. But she’s been completely bizarre ever since she found out about Henry. I know she’s pissed at us. For Henry. For ruining her tower. Yes, we’re shitty friends. But we still could have used her help with Solace.
“We’re sorry,” says CeCi. “Things got . . . out of control.”
“Did I somehow not make myself clear? I trusted you to treat the situation with gravitas.”
“Then you are as gullible as CeCi,” Rory says in an unfamiliar drawl. “Good thing our delinquent diva returned in time!”
“I beg your pardon, Briar Rose.” Solace drew her ears flat against her head. “I remember a time you also vouched for your friend.”
“I never agreed to sacrifice my own timeline,” Rory says.
“That’s because no one asked you to,” CeCi says, her lip half snarl. I wonder momentarily if there’s a place I can take these two and exchange them for my old friends, the ones who bickered with me instead of each other.
“You were right, Solace,” I say. “It was easy to get distracted—complacent. But thanks to Rory . . .”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this. You’re welcome. Enough.” It’s as if someone else has taken over Rory’s body. She’s even dressed differently, in a simple black gown. No gloves or parasol or purse. No lace. Snoozer wears an unadorned, matte black leather leash.
I know I was pushing things with her before—my cake, my temper, my dresses, my disbelief in True Love. I do know that now. But I miss the romantic, babbling Rory. The Rory who loved us back.
“This is not the day to discuss repercussions.” Solace eyes CeCi, then me, then the table of bloody marys. “But there will be repercussions.”
“Figgy’s never going to let us go Outside again, is she?” CeCi sounds like she’s making a statement instead of asking a question.
“And what about my tower?” asks Rory, rolling a potato across her plate.
Solace sighs. “It’s less of a matter of allowance and more of a matter of physical impossibility. There is a rift in the portal itself. Until it’s fixed, no one can go Outside.”
My heart skips a beat. “For how long?”
“We’ll see. Malice lent me her old spinning wheel to begin making the time threads that will stitch the portal back together. It’s a laborious process.”
My chest feels constricted. It dawns on me that our mistake has sealed any tiny chance that I can find my father in time for the wedding. CeCi shakes my shoulder.
“I may require your help once the threads are ready,” Solace says before leaving. “For now, attend to matters here. It seems you have plenty.”
CeCi and I stare at our plates while Rory finishes her bloody mary, sucking loudly at the bottom of the glass with her straw.
I’ve always known about cause and effect. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an avalanche like this before. I’ll cooperate with Figgy. And Solace. Even Malice, until we fix things. I’ll follow the Pages. Every last paragraph. Until I’m free.
Love,
B
From the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming
Crystal Palace
North Road, Grimmland
Dear Zell,
Edmund insisted we meet with his parents before Bianca’s wedding. Darling talked me through dressing simply yet elegantly. We picked an ice-blue gown, lace ribbon, and pearl jewelry. If I’d only had dark hair, I’d have passed for Rory from far enough away. Meanwhile, Sweetie gave me lessons on calm breathing.
The twins were a constant stream of cheering chatter, all while swearing to keep the conversation secret from Lucinda, who had been curiously quiet with her newly gleaned information, except for the odd, snakelike grin she gives me when we occasionally pass in the halls.
Edmund’s parents’ chambers are white. And I don’t mean the soft sort of neutral kind, but a bright, spotless, blinding sort of white. It feels silly but, as I only met them briefly at our wedding, I don’t know them very well at all.
They’re always visiting the king of this or the queen of that, exchanging skeins of Rumple’s golden thread from the north end of Narnia to the south end of Somewhere Out There.
“So, Cecilia,” began Edmund’s mother, “our son tells us that you’ve decided to pursue a vocation.” The crown sitting on top of her red curls looked like it weighed twenty toads, the silver plating studded with fat rubies.
“Ambitious,” his father added, sitting back with his long, snowy beard in his lap. “Don’t see that every day.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ve been cooking most of my life and recently began studying at a prestigious school Outside to learn about the ever-expanding realm of food.”
“Ambitious but not very progressive,” said the queen, frowning.
“Poppycock,” the King said. “Now there’s a Realm I’d like to visit! The Isle of Ice Cream, the Fjords of Filet Mignon, the Bastion of Brulée!”
“Your Highnesses, I want to be clear: I don’t wish to return to servanthood. I see myself as an artist. A creator.”
“Call me Elvis,” said the King with a lazy wave. “Are you doing any of that avant-garde sort of food? My latest copy of Saveur talks about deconstructed pie. Do you know how to make deconstructed pie? Maybe a nice peanut butter and banana?”
“We’ve studied some,” I said. “I could certainly give it a shot. My emphasis is on pastry.”
“Edmund has explained how you plan to balance your occupation with your civic duties, but I’m not sure how you plan to raise children alongside.” For the life of me, I could not decipher the queen’s facial expression.
Edmund takes my hand. “Well, Mother, see, CeCi and I aren’t sure parenthood is . . .”
“I told you, Betty. They’re not going to have any grandchildren. You owe me a foot massage. Now we can go on another tour! We’ll call it ‘Not So Fast: The Return of King Elvis & Queen Betty.’ And since we don’t have to buy baby toys, we can afford the yacht! I’ll tell Morrison to put the deal together.” Edmund’s father, His Highness King Elvis, toddled off, presumably to his chambers to send a pigeon to whoever Morrison is.
Letters to Zell Page 20