“Where do I go?” Julie asked.
“You need to make a wish,” Zel said. “You need to go to the Wishing Well Motel and make a wish. But it has to be the wish that’s dearest to your heart or the Wild will find a way to make it come out wrong.”
“I’ll do it, Mom,” Julie promised.
“You have to beat the Wild at its own game. It’s the only way to defeat it,” Zel said. Battles, tricks, persuasion, none of it had worked. “The Wild has to play by its own rules. Remember that.”
“I will,” Julie said. “I love you, Mom!”
Zel’s throat clogged. There were a thousand things she wanted to say . . . First was: Don’t go. Sending her daughter off . . . She’d already lost her husband; she couldn’t lose Julie too. “Julie . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful.”
“Have an uneventful day,” her mother said.
Julie waved and plunged back into the forest.
“I love you!” Rapunzel called after her.
The forest swallowed Julie and the cat without a sound.
Chapter Nineteen
Goldilocks and the Beanstalk
Out of the sun and away from her mother, Julie didn’t feel so brave. She was in Worcester now—a solid fifteen-minute drive from the Wishing Well Motel, when the highways weren’t covered in moss and griffins. At a walk, it would take hours. Lots of opportunities for ogres and witches and wolves to make life difficult. For the first time ever, Julie found herself wishing for Cindy and her Subaru.
“You cannot do this,” Boots said flatly.
“Hey, how about a little optimism here?” Reaching down, she scratched under his chin. He didn’t purr or tilt his head into her hand. “Boots, what’s wrong?”
“You cannot rescue her,” he said. “You cannot make this wish.”
Jeez, with friends like these . . . “You’re on my side, remember? Boots?” He didn’t respond. Staring straight ahead, he sat stiff like a stuffed doll. “Boots? You okay?”
Mechanically he raised his head to look at her like he was a puppet controlled by strings. She shivered. Something wasn’t right. “Boots?” She had the sudden irrational thought that this wasn’t Boots. “Are you . . . Who are you?” she asked.
“I am the heart of the fairy tale,” the Wild said, through the mouth of her brother.
Oh, no. No, it couldn’t be. Julie rocked backward. The Wild wasn’t alive. It didn’t have a mind. Grandma, Goldie . . . everyone had said it was a force. Like gravity. Mom had never said it was alive. She’d never said it could do this.
“This story must not be. You must find another,” the Wild said. “You will ruin everything.”
The Wild was alive. It was alive, and it was speaking through Boots. She turned and ran. “Mom, Mom!” She wove between trunks. Behind each tree was another and another and another . . . Panting, she slowed. The tower was gone. She turned in a circle—thick trees in all directions . . .
The cat sat on the path.
Julie yelped. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
“I am offering a gift: the world as it should be.”
She shook her head. That made no sense. None of this made sense. She was talking to the forest? She was talking to the fairy tale? “This is crazy,” she said. “You’re destroying people.”
“On the contrary,” it said. “I am giving them meaning.”
She didn’t understand.
“I give them a beginning, a middle, and an end; a once upon a time and a happily ever after. I give rewards to the good and punishment to the bad. I give order and sense to an otherwise arbitrary existence.”
Oh, God, she thought, it’s crazy. The forest was insane.
With her brother’s paw, the Wild gestured at the shadowy trees. “In here, life is fair. Everyone has a place. Everyone belongs.” With her brother’s eyes, it looked at Julie. Its eyes were matte black. “I am offering you what you’ve always wanted, Julie Marchen. You can belong here.”
Anger flashed through Julie so fast that it made her shake. “You don’t know anything about me or what I want. You put my mom in a tower. You made me grow up without a dad . . .” She swallowed hard as her voice cracked.
“This is how it must be,” it said. “This is how it is.”
“Yeah, well, not anymore,” she said. “Count me out. Not playing. Game over.” She marched past the cat and down the path. She knew it was bravado. How was she going to cross fifteen miles with the Wild actively against her? How was she going to defeat something that wasn’t just powerful but was also intelligent? How had Mom done it? What had happened after the Great Battle? Julie wished she had asked. Yes, Mom had said to hurry, but Julie should have asked. She’d been stupid.
Maybe all along, she’d been stupid. Had the Wild been watching her the whole time, sabotaging her? Had the Wild made Boots take her to the griffin, knowing the griffin would dump her into the water? Had it made Boots pick up the ogre’s wand after she won the ring so that she couldn’t use it now? Or was its interference even further back? Was everything a setup? Was this why she had found Boots with the bikes—so the Wild could possess him? Was this why Boots had been able to avoid his story ending? Had the Wild preserved him to be a pawn? She kept walking.
“You can’t escape,” it said. “Inside me, you play by my rules.”
Over her shoulder, she said, “Yeah? Well, so do you.” Suddenly, Julie had the answer. She almost laughed out loud. It was absurd, but it just might work. After all, the Wild had to play by its own rules! As far as she knew, its rules did not include fairy-tale princesses breaking their royal promises. “Cindy, I’m calling in your promise! I could use that ride now!”
She only half expected it to work, but pine needles crackled as Cinderella’s carriage rolled through the forest and broke out of the bushes onto the path in front of her. The frog-faced coachman reined in the mouse-horses. Cindy opened the door to the pumpkin and waved. “Joo-lie! Quick, hop in!”
Inside the carriage, orange goop dripped from the ceiling. Julie sat, and pumpkin slop spurted out from underneath her with a farting sound. Opposite her, Cindy settled her dress in the mush. In place of her normal glitter, she wore a ball gown covered in diamond drops and pearls. The coachman cracked his whip. Neighing, the horses increased speed, and the pumpkin coach bounced through the forest. Julie saw trees whip past them like highway guardrails. He drives like Cindy, Julie thought. Good. She’d get there faster.
Face pinched and worried, Cindy twisted her gloved hands in her lap as if strangling her knuckles. Julie had never seen her look so unhappy. “I can take you most of the way—at least to the center of Northboro,” Cindy said. “Beyond that, the Wild will force this carriage to the ball.”
Alarm bells rang in Julie’s head. “It won’t force me, will it?” Could she have walked into a trap?
“I won’t,” Cindy said. “I’m Cinderella. I don’t do that sort of thing.” Her voice sounded bitter. Julie didn’t think she’d ever heard Cindy sound bitter. The coach bounced, and Julie knocked into a wall. Cindy caught herself on the window. “You’d best steer clear of fairies, though. Especially godmothers.”
There was a lot she needed to steer clear of. How on earth was she going to make it to the motel on her own? She swallowed the lump in her throat. She shouldn’t have left Boots behind. No matter how the Wild used him, he was still her brother. “You’re sure you can’t go farther?”
“You were lucky you called me when you did. In a few hours, I’ll finish my story and won’t remember you. I’ll simply be Cinderella again and again and again,” Cindy said. She stared out the window at the blur of green. “It’s worse this time, being back here. Before, we didn’t know for sure there even was a world beyond the Wild. We guessed there was, when the Wild grew and we saw new faces, but we didn’t know.” Her hands were a tight knot on her lap. “It will make them more cruel if they remember what they’ve lost.”
“Who?” Julie asked.
Cindy gave her a sad smile. “Not ma
ny people know this, but my stepsisters didn’t need the Wild to force them to be cruel. Every time they regained their memories, they hated me anew for their blinding. And I took it, all the work and all the hatred, because how could I blame them? After hundreds and thousands of cycles, there’s no way to know what came first: how they treated me or how my birds pecked out their eyes. Now, this time, my new stepsisters will have lost even more than their eyes. Do you know how awful it is to realize that the best-case scenario is that we all forget?”
Julie didn’t know how to answer that. What could she say? Flighty, perky Cindy. Julie had never seen her so . . . so defeated.
“The birds tell me that most of us have already forgotten. Mary. Harp. Gretel.” Cindy wilted with each name. At what point would her mother’s name join that list? Julie wondered. Sometime soon, a witch would visit Mom in the tower and then a prince . . . Julie had a horrible thought: was another prince going to displace her father?
“Goldie!” Cindy said. Her eyes brightened as if she had a cartoon lightbulb over her head. “Goldie hasn’t lost herself yet,” Cindy said, excitement in her voice. “She hasn’t found three bears to finish her story. Some Pied Piper trumpeter has all the bears dancing. Goldie can help you!” Leaning on the carriage window, Cindy whistled.
Goldie was all that was left? Julie couldn’t imagine Goldie helping anyone, except herself, of course. And anyway, what was Goldilocks going to do against the essence of fairy tales?
Julie heard twittering. Sparrows ducked into the carriage. Cindy whistled at them. They sang back. “The birds will find Goldie,” Cindy said to Julie. “She can take you the last three miles.” Cindy seemed so pleased with herself that Julie could say nothing but “Thanks.”
Cindy beamed. “You know, I gave your father a ride like this once upon a time.”
Dad? Her heart lurched—the word father had caught her off guard. “You did?” Rapunzel’s prince was in a pumpkin carriage?
“He never said why.” With a faint frown, Cindy added, “You know, I think that was the last time I saw him.”
The last time . . . ? Could Cindy have seen him right before he and Mom stopped the Wild? Julie opened her mouth to ask more, but the carriage ground to a stop. The coachman opened the door and held out a gloved hand to Julie. “I’m sorry I can’t take you farther,” Cindy said. “Watch out for the seed,” she added as Julie stood. “It’s a little loose.”
Julie looked up. Above her, a three-foot pod hung from an orange thread. “That’s a seed?” Ducking under it, Julie climbed out of the carriage.
Cindy leaned on the window. “Joo-lie?” she called.
Julie looked back. “Yes?”
“Hurry,” Cinderella said. “Please, hurry.”
With a snap of the coachman’s whip, the carriage was off, bouncing over roots and moss to disappear between the trees.
Cindy had let her off in the center of Northboro. Walking quickly, Julie passed the CVS Apothecary, Bank of America Moneylenders, and Dunkin’ Donuts (unchanged except for the addition of horse troughs). Rapunzel’s Hair Salon had become an old-fashioned barbershop. Refusing to look at it, she walked faster. Where was Goldie?
Hurrying now, she continued down the road, past Shattuck’s Pharmacy, which advertised leeches and boil lancers, and past a flower shop that had transformed into a garden with rows of rapunzel greens. Only a few more blocks and she’d be out of the downtown. She passed Northboro House of Pizza, now a medieval bakery.
The street erupted in front of her, and a green sprout burst out of the ground. Leaves peeled off it as the beanstalk thickened. It soared into the clouds. Its top disappeared into white fluff. Julie stumbled backward. When she caught her balance, she moved to go around it. Instead, she found her hand on a leaf.
“Don’t climb it!” a voice shouted.
Climb it? She didn’t want to climb it. But she lifted her foot onto the base. Someone pulled her by the waist of her jeans, and she lost her grip.
“Ooh, now you’ve done it.” Hands on her hips, Goldie was scowling fiercely—an expression at odds with her curly pigtails and checkerboard frock. Julie shrank back from her scowl. “I bother to come all the way over here on the say-so of Cindy’s ridiculous birds, and you’re already in trouble,” Goldie said.
Crushed, Julie didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t her fault that the stalk had burst through the sidewalk. “I’m sorry.”
Tossing her ringlets, Goldie humphed and turned her glare on the beanstalk. “It’s a waste of my time. You’ll never make it. You’ll never be able to get me out of the Wild,” she said. “I’ll probably break a nail, and the whole town will see up my skirt. Do you at least know how to stop it?”
It had just sprouted. Julie didn’t know where it came from or how to stop it. She looked miserably up at the stalk. She’d have to climb it, and she would never make it to the motel. The Wild was right. Goldie was right.
Goldie pinched her. “Pay attention. Do you know how to stop the Wild?”
“Ow,” Julie said. “Yes. Mom told me . . .”
“Then you’re our best hope,” Goldie said. She put her hands on the beanstalk leaves. “Rapunzel owes me one. Cindy too. All of them, in fact.” She stepped onto the base and started to climb the stalk. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I could fall. I could meet a giant . . .”
Julie couldn’t believe it either. Goldie was sacrificing herself for Julie? No, Goldie was doing it for herself. She wanted out of the Wild, and Julie was her best hope. Julie didn’t want to be anyone’s best hope. So many people were depending on her, and she was still nearly three miles from the Wishing Well Motel. “Get going, you nitwit!” Goldie called down to her. “Whatever secret Zel told you, use it!”
Julie started to run. Rounding the beanstalk, she raced down the cobblestones past the moss-covered library, past the overgrown Shell station, and past a downed helicopter. Leaving downtown, Julie plunged back into the thick of the woods as Goldilocks climbed high into the clouds.
Chapter Twenty
The Apple
Candy (lemon drops, Swedish fish, gummy bears, and Jolly Ranchers) dotted the roof, crystallized sugar coated the windows, and lollipops lined the shutters. The picnic tables were carved from Hostess cupcakes. Slowing, Julie stared at the candy cane fence and the Mallomar shrubbery of the former Dairy Hut. Without thinking, she licked her lips. She hadn’t eaten since—
She felt claws on her ankle. “Yow!”
“You can’t stop here,” Boots hissed.
Boots? How . . .
“Move! Move! If you stop, the story will start!”
She hurried past the gingerbread house. Had the witch seen them? She glanced back over her shoulder. Smoke curled out of the gumdrop chimney, but the door stayed shut. With no one nibbling, the witch had no cue to come outside.
As soon as the gingerbread house was behind them, Julie bent down and studied Boots. Was it him or the Wild? He didn’t seem to have the same puppet stiffness, and his eyes weren’t as flat black. He twitched his ears in annoyance. “What? Did I sprout an extra tail or something?”
Certainly sounded like Boots. But how had he found her so fast if the Wild hadn’t magicked him here? If the Wild had arranged for her to find Boots with the bikes, how did she know it wasn’t arranging this reunion now? “How did you catch up with me?”
He displayed his claws. “Hitched a ride on a mobile pumpkin.”
Certainly acted like Boots.
“Quit looking at me like I’m possessed,” Boots said. “It’s just me.”
No way could the Wild imitate that tone. It was pure Boots. Tears popping into her eyes, she scooped him up. “Thought I’d lost you for a minute there. Only have one brother, you know.”
He squirmed. “Ack, don’t ruffle the fur.” She released him, and he leapt to the ground. “Your fault if you’d lost me. You ditched me back there.” She heard a note of real hurt in his voice.
She hadn’t meant to abandon him, not like he
’d left her when he first went into the woods. “You were possessed,” she said. Maybe she should feel encouraged that the Wild had talked through Boots. The Wild clearly felt threatened—and that meant they were on the right track.
“Yeah, well, I’m feeling much better now.” He licked his fur flat. “Much better.” He called into the bushes: “Precious, you can come out.”
A cat, a white longhair, emerged from the bushes behind him. The cat was carrying a paper bag in her mouth.
Julie looked from Boots to “Precious” and back again. Had he done it? Had he found himself a girlfriend? Precious sat down and curled her tail around herself. “Hello,” the new cat said.
“Precious, this is Julie. Julie, meet the love of my life,” Boots said, nuzzling the white cat with his whiskers. “I found her in town while you were talking with Goldie.”
Wow, that was . . . fast. Love of his life? She must have been extremely charming to win him in the three minutes that Julie was talking to Goldie. Or was this how love worked in the Wild? Love at first sight is traditional in fairy tales, she thought. And Boots had desperately wanted to find love. The fact that Precious could talk was probably enough to win him.
“Nice to meet you,” Julie said. She tried to sound enthusiastic. Boots had finally gotten himself a girlfriend. Everything was working out—she had found Mom, Boots had found his girl-cat, and now they were on their way out of “happily”-ever-after land. “She can come with us,” Julie said. “Let’s go.”
The white cat nudged Boots. “Don’t be shy,” she said. “You said you wanted to give it to her.”
“Give me what?” Julie asked. How much did Boots know about Precious? Could they trust her? What if she was part of a story? Julie had never heard of a story with two talking cats, though.
He cleared his throat. “We brought you lunch.”
Oh. That was sweet. But she couldn’t stop for lunch. They were almost there! Her stomach rumbled in protest. She hadn’t eaten since she’d entered the woods. “We have to reach the motel . . .”
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