by Cameron Jace
“I’m listening.”
“Repeat after me, it’th a nice thong,” she whispered. “Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Pardon me?”
“Jutht thay it.”
“All right,” Jack smiled. “Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Little thtar.”
“Little star,” Jack followed.
Then they sang together:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Jack definitely wondered about the stars, like he did about the moon. But he had to ask, “Again, how is this going to help me find my sister?”
“If you thay it until you fall thrsleep, it will answer you witheth and guide to where you can find Jill,” the girl said.
“I wish it was that easy.”
“It ith,” she insisted. “We jutht have to athk and the univerthe will thhow uth.”
“Such lies. You think I haven’t prayed for nights and nights to find my sister? This, whatever is up there in the sky, is just… well, a sky.”
“You’re wrong. The thtarth will hear your witheth.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Becauthe we athked the thtarth for help before you came,” she said. “We athked the thtarth to thend uth thomeone kind, who’d thave us.”
Jack’s face changed. He didn’t know what to think about what she had just said.
“Jutht try it, pleath,” the girl insisted.
Jack nodded. “But you said the stars weren’t stars. Then what are they?”
“Didn’t you get it, Jack?”
“I’m a slow believer.”
“The thtarth are witheth.”
“Wishes?”
“Dangled from the thread of a thpindle like puppeth from the thky. They’re waiting for uth to grab them and with upon them. It’th jutht we’re tho conthumed by life we forget to athk.
That night, Jack sang this song on and on until he was about to sleep, but nothing happened. And he knew nothing would. He just did it so Jill wouldn’t be mad at him one day. So she wouldn’t accuse him of not knocking on all doors to find her.
Jack’s eyes trembled as he sank into the darkness of his dream, where he dreamed of Jill’s accusing face in their father’s hands as he ran again.
The same dream over and over again.
Jack jolted up, sweating, hardly breathing. Slowly he collected himself, staring at the twilight. Soon it would be dawn and the stars will totally disappear. All his wishes will disappear.
“Stupid stars,” Jack mumbled. “I’m too old to believe in fairy tales. I’m thirteen for God’s sake.”
He gathered himself for another day of stealing. Today he’d visit the queen’s castle again. And maybe try to visit that quirky girl in the house next to the tree.
Which reminded him of the fortune cookie in his pocket. Reaching inside he picked it up and stared at it. At least it felt good knowing Death would never know about the name inside. Jack must have a saved a life this way. It bothered him that Death picked names from a tree, but who was he to judge?
Now the question remained. Would he want to open the cookie? Would he want to know the name of the man or woman he’d saved?
Not a bad idea, he thought. He might pay that person a visit, too. They must live nearby, right? Or how would Death reach them?
More questions piled up in Jack’s head. Did Death fly? If not, how did she reach people who lived far away? Or was Death simply a job, and there wasn’t just one Death in red?
“Let’s see.” Jack curiously crushed the cookie against the branch in the tree.
The paper fell out.
It was crumpled.
Jack unfolded it.
The handwriting inside was thin and small.
He squinted, dawn pooling upon the world behind him.
Then something happened to Jack.
He couldn’t breathe.
The name on the paper, it couldn’t be true.
Jack winced and fell on his back, eyes looking upward where the stars had been before. The toothless girl was right. The stars were wishes, and they granted his.
But how was this possible?
The name on the paper from the cookie was Jill.
Knowing Jill was going to get killed by Death devastated Jack, but at the same time he couldn’t believe the coincidence of accidentally saving her. This was the kind of accident too hard to believe or comprehend. Was fate involved in this? Was the universe — as he’s always heard me talking about it — involved?
Shocked, Jacks leaned back to a branch, contemplating all the possibilities. Frankly, there were none. Not in a million years could he save his sister’s life by an accident like that. Not in a million years would he have guessed he could wish upon a star and have his wish fulfilled. Sadly, the toothless girl told him the stars granted every one of us one wish… and one wish only.
But what did it mean to save his sister in such a cosmic coincidence?
For one, it meant his sister was alive. And two, she was nearby, not in that faraway place beyond the sky full of splinters.
How was that possible?
Did Jill cross over like him?
A broad smile painted itself on Jack’s face. Then a whoop of laughter followed. Jill, you brave girl. You must have done it and managed to escaped our father too. You must have found the beans and crossed over.
Jack attempted a happy dance in his green uniform atop the tree, but then he stopped. Something was wrong. If Jill had crossed over to Sorrow, how come he hadn’t meet her. How come she didn’t look for him?
Slumping back on a pumpkin — this one had a child sleeping inside, but the child didn’t bother because Jack needed the rest — Jack realized he’d been given a second chance to save his sister.
And this time, he’d be saving her from Death itself.
Back to me, his beloved Grandmother, Jack told me the whole story and I told him that I had been searching for him already. And that I had more news about Jill.
“The place you’ve been raised in, Jack, do you remember its name?” I asked.
He hesitated. I always knew that it scared him to recite its name. But now he did, because Jill was nearby and he’d do anything to save her.
“Forever Snow,” Jack said. “That’s where I was raised.”
“I thought so,” I said. “Listen, I have penetrated this place with the use of magic cards and have seen through to it, though I still have no means of crossing0 over.”
“We don’t need to cross over,” Jack said. “Jill is here.”
“I know,” I nodded. “And here is what I know about her. Your father did the unforgiving to Jill.”
“What did he do?” Jack pleaded.
“He sold her to the slave’s market.”
“What?”
“He needed money, and he was offered a deal. You know how young boys and girls are sold for hefty amounts of gold these days.”
“Where did he sell her?” Jack’s hatred for his father showed like the flame of the sun in the darkest of nights.
“The Goblin Market.”
“I can’t believe it. I heard about it.”
“Those short and ugly monsters pay money for the youngsters and keep feeding them the Forbidden Fruit.”
“Why?”
“The fruit helps them grow faster, prettier if girls, stronger if boys,” I said.
“You mean they treat them like ducks?”
“I guess you can say so. Then they resell them to the highest bidder. In our case, that would almost always be the Queen of Sorrow.”
“Why would she want the young boys and girls?”
“To swim in their blood,” I shrugged, but then changed the subject. Jack could only take so much horrific news about his sister. “Never mind. You’ll have to save your sister.”
“I’d do anything for her,” Jack said. “Listen, I will go to the market and steal her. I’m a good thief.”
“They won’t let you, Jack. You need to
be smarter.”
“And do what?”
“You need to disguise yourself as a buyer.”
“A buyer?”
“Yes, you have to convince them you want to buy Jill. In fact, why not buy her for real? I wish I had gold to give you so you could buy her, but I don’t.”
Jack’s eyes tensed for a while. I knew he was thinking. He had to find a way to steal the gold to buy his sister, but Jack had never stolen gold from anyone. Not even in the Sorrow’s castle had he seen gold. Where would he get it from?
For two days Jack was planning, asking, and searching for someone in procession of a hefty amount of gold.
And again, it was his children who offered a way out.
“There ith only one for you to get it from,” the toothless girl said. “But it’th dangerouth.”
“I don’t care. Where can I get it?”
And before the children told him, the thud in the trees sounded again. Jack followed the children’s eyes skewing upwards.
“He has gold,” they said. “A lot of it.”
“The giant? Why would he have gold?
“That, we don’t know about, but we saw it,” a child said. “Before we met you, we used to watch him walk the trees. He loved pumpkins, so we were in danger. So we always rolled a few real pumpkins at him. Once, he dropped a stack of gold, and mumbled something about his mother being upset he lost it. Then he mumbled something about her being cheap for keeping a pyramid of gold stacked up in the trees without using it.”
“He has a mother?”
“Imagine that,” the toothless girl said. “Thhe mutht be really big.”
“That’s why we’re going to steal this gold easily.” Jack smirked.
“What do you mean? They’ll squash us dead if we go near it.”
“I think the opposite. We’re like a fly on an elephant’s trump. I really doubt they will catch us.”
And like that, Jack and the pumpkin children searched for the stack of gold…
It would take another diary to tell you about Jack’s adventure with the killer giant and how he got his gold, but it would distract from the awesome journey Jack took to save his children — and yes, that’s the famous fairy tale about Jack and the giant everyone loves to lull their children with. Little do they know that it’s the least of Jack’s incredible adventures.
I will tell you about it later. But to whet your appetite for it, here’s a sneak peek:
1) Jack succeed to steal the gold, but for a price he had to pay years later.
2) The giant’s mother was a dwarf.
“You have to help me, Fable,” Jack told her, now ready to save his sister. “I have the gold and have to get into the market.”
“That’s not hard to do. You’re a thief,” Fable said.
“The hardest part is disguising myself to look like a buyer of slaves,” he told her. “I need to stand on your shoulders and hide behind this cloak so I look tall.”
“I’m small, Jack. You will crush me.”
“Then you stand upon my shoulders.”
“Not a bad idea,” Fable mused. “But with my pigtails, they’d never believe me.”
“You can wear my hat. Also, we should use some mud on your face so you look like a dirty and rugged witch or something.”
Fable grinned. “Speaking of witches, how about I cook you spell? I am a good witch.”
“What?” Jack squinted. He didn’t really trust her. She was about nine years old or something. What would she know?
“Let me do it, please,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for my chance to prove myself as a witch. This is it.”
“I can’t risk it, Fable. This is Jill. I can’t disappoint her again.”
Fable stomped her feet and sighed, then crossed her arms. Sometimes she annoyed him, but she was a good hearted girl and he liked her.
“Listen,” he said. “I have an idea.”
“Better be good.”
“I think it is.” He titled his head toward Death’s cottage and smirked.
“What are you thinking, Jack?”
“The craziest idea in the world.”
“Death is the one who’s going after Jill when you save her. You don’t want her or her daughter involved.”
“Who said I’d get her involved?” Jack’s smirk widened.
Fable met him with a quizzical stare, then said, “I hope you’re not thinking what I am thinking.”
Jack laughed, excited. “But I hope you’re thinking what I am thinking.”
A day later, Fable hid behind the bushes, peeking into the Goblin Market. She’d been watching for hours, waiting for Jill to show up. Jack had described her in detail, and so Fable spotted her once she appeared.
Jill looked a bit older already, almost grown into a full woman. Fable scratched her head. Those Forbidden Fruits were something else. And, as one of the goblins had put it, “Her is Jill. She looks sad, but hey, she also looks delicious.”
Jill was dressed in the finest white dress, as if she were a bride. Her face was colorful and she had roses bunched into her hair. She was practically a doll in the market, and someone was going to buy her tonight.
Fable hated Jack and Jill’s father more and more by the minute. Was he really their father? How, and why would he do this to them?
“Jill the beauty,” the goblin master huffed. “Jill from the Hill.” He waved his arms theatrically. “Jill whose brother abandoned her. And guess what, her father sold her for five hundred shillings.”
Fable wanted to crash into the market and save the poor girl, but it wouldn’t have worked. Fable was tiny and her witchcraft still sucked.
Where was Jack? What took him so long? He and his terrible plan.
Jill shivered in the cage they’d trapped her in. She listened to all those ugly men and women bidding for her left and right.
“Six hundred shillings!”
“One thousand!”
They seemed to like Jill a lot.
“Where the heck are you, Awesome Jack?” Fable gritted her teeth. Eventually, he’d never told her about his brilliant plan, but asked her to wait for him outside the market because he’d need her help later on. Fable wondered if he was disguised. Maybe he was the highest bidder in the crowd, that ugly man with the crooked long nose. How did you disguise yourself like that, Jack? she thought.
“Three thousand shillings!” the man with the crooked nose roared.
“Awesome,” Fable giggled. “Jack turned out to be really awesome.”
It made sense. Jack had the gold in his possession. All he needed was the disguise. She wondered if that Robin Hood man he’d always mentioned helped him with it.
“Three thousand and one shillings!” shouted a buyer from the crowd.
“I'll pay more. Five thousand shillings!” the crooked man said.
And then there was silence.
“Does anyone else want to raise the price?” the goblin master offered. “I don’t see hands in the air.”
The silence continued, only Jill’s chattering teeth were audible.
“Jackpot!” groaned the goblin.
Fable had never heard the word before, but she thought it was ironic. Jackpot clearly meant Jack won. Soon he’d be saving his sister.
The goblins opened the cage but then cuffed Jill in shackles on her hands from the back. They pushed her toward Jack, the man with the crooked nose, but Jill resisted.
“Poor girl,” Fable said. “Jill doesn’t know it’s Jack saving her life.”
Jack paid the goblin and walked Jill to his carriage. A golden one in the shape of a huge pumpkin. Fable was impressed. When did Jack have the time to buy it?
And that’s when everything changed.
While Jack was dragging Jill to the carriage, someone else showed up in the market.
Fable shrieked.
Everyone else in the market caught their breath and dared not even move or attempt an escape. The scariest person on Earth just walked among them.
Death herself.
“Damn it,” Fable swore in whispers. “Of course, Death figured out Jack stole the fortune cookie and now came to finish her job of killing Jill.”
In Fable’s mind it made sense. Jill being sold as slave may have resulted in her death. She’d heard about so many slaves dying from bad treatment by their masters. It sounded like a possible turn of events. That must have been why the Tree of Life chose Jill to die so young.
“What can I do now?” Fable shuddered in her place. She’d never seen Death in her red cloak before.
Death’s face was black and hollow under the cloak, but it moved ever so confident, like a ticking watch, timed for the kill.
Everyone still held their breath, but when Death raised its scythe everyone screamed, begging for forgiveness, even the goblins. They sank down to their knees, hands laced before them, begging Death to spare them.
And of course, everyone promised to do good in life from this day on. Fable rolled her eyes so much she got dizzy.
But Death surprised everyone and snatched Jill from Jack’s arms. She didn’t even say anything, and Jack seemed pretty much tongue-tied. Death pulled the poor girl along, still not uttering a word, and disappeared in the dark.
Poor Jack, he wasn’t going to see his sister ever again.
“Is Death gone?” one of the buyers sobbed.
“I can’t believe I am still alive.”
“She wasn’t here for us, but for the girl we just sold,” the goblin master said. He seemed upset Death messed with his goods. “Next time, I need insurance that my slaves aren’t on Death’s list, you hear me? This is a waste of money!”
Fable wanted to run in and hug Jack as hard as he could. Poor, poor Jack. There was nothing awesome about any of this. How did this happen?
Unable to get inside the market now, she slid down against the tree and began crying. She’d started to like Jill. They could have been good friends. Why would the universe, and the stars, give Jack all these signs and end up taking Jill from Jack — again?
Opening her eyes, Fable saw something approach her in the dark. She couldn’t believe it. Was it Fable’s time to?
“Death,” Fable managed to say. “Please tell me I’m not on your list, too.
Death approached in silence, dragging Jill behind it. Fable realized Jill had passed out already, and now the red cloaked Death held her in its arms, approaching Fable.