by Lotus Rose
“A magnet, perhaps,” the Storyteller says.
“I don’t have a magnet,” Malice says woefully.
Cinderella suggests, “Perhaps I could cut your heart out with my shoe?”
“I’d rather not,” Malice replies.
“Well, then how about a couple cartwheels to jostle it about, and then a few slaps on top of that?” she suggests.
“It’s worth a try.” So Malice does a couple cartwheels upon the grass, then adds a couple of spins in the air, then some chest slaps.
She feels a coldness in her chest as empathy and kindness cease running through her thoughts—her ticktock heart has stopped ticking. “I can feel it’s stopped working,” she says. “I am now heartless, though I don’t know for how long. My heart will often get going on its own again after awhile.”
Cinderella says, “Ha! I may not be the purest of heart, but at least I have one. A working one.”
“Yes,” Malice says, “I could now snap your neck with no remorse whatsoever. Well, I’d feel remorse once my heart started working again.”
“Well, I can see how it might be convenient to be able to turn one’s heart on and off,” Cinderella says politely.
Malice shrugs.
The Storyteller says, “Now, repeat these words, ‘Oh Black Rose, direct this heartless queen to where you reside.’”
As soon as Malice completes the phrase, she is struck with a sudden sense. A lonely flower calls out to her, seeking the presence of a human nose to appreciate her.
Malice points. “There. She is close.” She begins walking and Cinderella accompanies her. To the Storyteller, Malice says, “Are you coming?”
“No. It is only you two who could possibly complete this task. I await your return.”
Chapter 9
They come upon it quickly, within ten minutes of walking. Malice wonders if that’s coincidence, or more likely, the result of some magical “assistance”. In any case, her feet are glad for the proximity.
The ground in front of them ends abruptly. They stand at the top of a sheer cliff. In front of them is a cavern so deep, they cannot see the bottom through the misty air. In the far distance is a mountain range.
Ten feet away from the cliff’s edge, is a column of stone rising up to the same level as the top of the cliff. The top of the column is a flat and circular area of about ten feet in diameter.
On the top of the column of stone, they see a throne with a skeleton in a royal gown seated on it. Next to the throne is a pedestal atop which the Black Rose sits in its flower pot. A glass dome shields the flower.
They stare at the taut rope that spans the chasm between the edge of the cliff and the column of rock.
“It looks like a tightrope,” Malice remarks.
“Yes,” Cinderella says with a tremble in her voice.
They had talked some during their journey. Malice says, “So could you walk on it with your magic shoes, do you think?”
Cinderella bites her lip. “Seems like I might. But I’d hate to be wrong. Perhaps we should go back.”
“What? Poppycock! I’ve got to save the Hatter and you shall not back out!”
Cinderella rolls her eyes. “Yes, you’ve got to do this for your boyfriend.”
Malice squirms. “Well, he’s not my boyfriend. Our ages are too far apart.”
“But what if they weren’t?”
“Well, since the citizens of Wonderland don’t tend to age, but I do, if I wait long enough, we’ll catch up.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. Ask me when my heart is working and maybe I’ll care more about lovey dovey hoochie coochie stuff.”
“He is pretty cute, isn’t he?” Cinderella says.
Malice whirls upon her with a furious expression. “Hands off him, blondy!”
Cinderella is taken aback for a moment, before she chuckles. “He’s old enough to make his own choices. And I’m closer to his age than you…”
Malice says, “He would never choose you.”
“Well, before he chooses anyone, he must be saved. Do you think you can go across the rope by hanging on?”
“I would most likely fall. I think you should go ahead and walk across with your magic shoes.”
“What of you?” Cinderella says. “The Storyteller seemed to think we would both be necessary to get the rose.”
Malice sighs. “I believe that must be true.”
Cinderella muses, “Of course, we could try…”
“What?”
“Well, perhaps you could sit atop my shoulders.”
Malice’s eyes widen. “Then we shall fall for certain.”
“Don’t jinx it. There’s a good chance my shoes will guide us safely across.”
“I don’t like it.”
But Cinderella persists in the idea, urging Malice to try some “practice” walking.
Malice climbs atop Cinderella’s shoulders and together they test it out.
It is obvious that Malice cannot in any dignified manner sit atop shoulders in her dress. And she thinks to herself, It’s a good thing it’s just us two girls.
Soon they find that, because of the shoes, Cinderella is able to balance with absolutely no trouble at all. She even does a little dance just to make doubly sure. Then she walks in a perfectly straight line.
Of course, it’s still vastly different from walking upon a tightrope.
But they decide to give it a go. Malice closes her eyes and stays rigid as they venture out onto the rope. She has to remember to force herself to breathe.
“There we are!” Cinderella exclaims. “This shall be no problem at all! One foot after the other. We’re halfway there already! It seems I have discovered another magical ability of my slippers! Why, this is a piece of cake! Almost there… Almost… Ah! And here we are! You may open your eyes again.”
Malice sees that they are atop that column of stone. It is a circular area of only about ten feet in diameter, but at least it is flat solid ground. Malice carefully gets down from her piggyback ride.
Malice finds herself staring at the skeleton in the royal gown. “Do you think she just sat there and died, like that? She could have just jumped.”
“Perhaps she was simply enthralled with smelling the rose. Maybe she didn’t even notice she was dying until, she did.” Cinderella shrugs.
“Well if that’s the case, then that must be one wallop of a flower!”
“Yes, which is why we must bring it to the Storyteller.” Cinderella points. “Look, there is a plaque on the side of the pedestal there. Can you read it?”
Malice bends to get a better view of the bronze sign engraved with the words that she reads out loud: “Only a heartless queen may grasp this flower.”
Cinderella gives a mocking clap. “Oh how very delightful! You just so happen to be a queen with a malfunctioning flip-flop heart, so for all intents and purposes, you are heartless, yeah?”
Malice grinds her teeth. “Ticktock,” she corrects. “And the sign seems perfectly suited to me, but just out of curiousity, why don’t you attempt to grab the rose? You’re neither a queen nor heartless, yeah?”
Cinderella scowls. “I shan’t risk it. You need me to get back across that rope, unless you want to try hanging on by your fingertips all that way. Oh, and I’ll try not to drop you when I’m carrying you back over the rope. And now, you know what you’ve got to do, so go on then.” She gestures at the rose and smirks.
Malice lets out a grunt, but chooses not to argue further. “Very well,” she mutters. “There’s nothing more to it, but to do it. And here we go!” Malice juts her hand out to lift the glass dome off the flower plant. But what she had assumed was a glass dome turns out to be some sort of magical field that crackles and sends tingling sensations like static electricity through her arms, then throughout her body. And she can sense that it is searching out for the existence of a heart. She hopes the fact that her heart isn’t working will be enough to satisfy it.
As her h
ands clasp around the flower pot, she assumes she has passed the test. She lifts the pot up, and now stands holding it.
“Very good,” Cinderella says, only mildly encouragingly.
“Now let’s see what all the fuss is about.” Malice lowers her head and deeply inhales the flower’s scent.
It is like inhaling darkness itself.
Malice glares down at the skeleton of the “queen” upon the throne. “You impostor,” she mutters.
“Hey, are you okay?” she hears Cinderella say, but Malice pays no heed to that blond munter.
After delicately setting the flower pot upon the ground, Malice pulls the impostor skeleton from the chair. “I usurp you!” she says and giggles.
Next to her, Cinderella says, “What are you doing?”
Malice sits in the throne with a smug grin. “I am overthrowing her, for there is a new queen, Queen Malice.” She rests the flowerpot in her lap and inhales deeply. “I now reign in the Queendom of the Black Rose.” She feels the skin of her face stretching into a wide grin and her eyes widen. She feels the scent of the rose seducing her, filling her mind with deliciously dark thoughts and it causes her to giggle.
“Queendom of the Black Rose? What are you on about?”
“Yes! I shall rule over it for eternity! Even beyond my death!” Malice holds her arms wide. “Behold the Queendom of the Black Rose!” Malice sweeps her arms forward in a gesture to display the boundaries of her realm.
“Wait…are you talking about this platform? This little itty bitty circle?”
Malice inhales deeply and feels the rapturous delight of its scent. “Yes! My realm! I shall rule over it with an iron fist! It shall be a realm of darkness and devotion to one pursuit…partaking of the scent of the Black Rose!”
Cinderella kneels in front of Malice, eye to eye. “But we have to cross back over the tightrope. We can’t stay here.”
“I will rule here for eternity!” Malice cackles.
“You’ll die here, without food or water. Like the other queen.” She points at the bones.
“Death means nothing! She knew of the pleasures of the Black Rose. Now it is my turn to reign!”
“Oh, crikey. You’re delusional. You’re letting that rose control you. Oh, dear…” Cinderella mutters to herself. “But its scent is not affecting me. Why?”
Malice answers the question for her. “Because you are weak.”
“Praytell, what do you mean?”
“You have a heart, still. But don’t worry. The Black Rose shall twist it to its will, just give it time. I, however, am not impeded by a heart. I can revel in the full majesty of the rose!” She raises her arms wide, feeling the surge of power the scent has given her.
Cinderella says, “It’s because you’re heartless? Perhaps if you turn your tippy top heart on again?”
Malice gives her a mocking expression. “It’s ticktock. And why would I turn the stupid thing back on? So I can be like you? I pity you. I pray the Black Rose twists your heart soon, so that you too may know its pleasures.”
“Oh, fine, fine. Listen, let’s just go back across the tightrope. Then we can talk more about how great the flower is.”
“No! I shall rule over my queendom for eternity!”
Cinderella sighs. She lowers her chin to her chest for a few moments. She puts her hands to Malice’s shoulders and begins shaking. “Snap out of it!”
Malice looks at her and laughs.
Cinderella slaps her face. “Stop it!”
Malice feels the darkly delicious pain of the slap and grins. “You’re so jealous.”
Cinderella slaps at Malice’s chest, sending more delicious pain. Once, twice.
After the third slap, Malice feels a movement in her chest. She can sense the ticking in her chest again. All the dark vicious thoughts in her mind become overruled by the kindness programs. “Ow! Wait, please stop!”
“Is your heart working again?” Cinderella asks.
“Yes! Crikey, what’s going on? How did I get in this throne?”
“What do you remember?”
“I remember getting the rose, inhaling its scent. And next thing I know, I’m here. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you after we get back across the tightrope.”
Malice is agreeable to the idea. She wants to get off this terrifyingly small column of rock as soon as possible.
Chapter 10
When Malice and Cinderella return to the fairy tale castle, Malice asks that the Hatter be released, but is disappointed when they instead handcuff one of her hands to one of the Hatter’s, then chain her foot to the Mad Hatter’s, for good measure.
She realizes now, as she stands in Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom, that it was foolish to trust them, but the kindness programs of her ticktock heart had mistakenly led her to. Sometimes kindness is no different than being a sucker, Malice is mulling to herself, as she watches the grin widen on the Storyteller’s face as he holds the flower pot with the Black Rose.
“Thank you, my dear, for bringing this delightful botanical specimen back to us.”
Malice snarls. “You told me if I brought you the flower, you’d let Hatter free.”
“Indeed, I did. And I still might. It all depends on how good of a story it makes.”
“Is that all we are to you, then?” Malice blurts. “A jolly good fun time tale?”
“Well, frankly, for the most part, yes. Why is a life worth living if you do not leave behind a good tale, my dear!”
Malice merely scowls.
The Storyteller continues, “Don’t get me wrong. Over the years, I’ve found the stories of Wonderland to be quite entertaining. But I think you have to admit, its cast of characters is rather…limited. So that is why I want to unleash the fairy tale beings into Wonderland once Alice gets to believing in them enough. And then, if I can somehow get them through the Looking Glass, the next step is to unleash them into the other realm! Imagine all the beautiful stories that will come from them running amok amongst the uptight non-magicals.”
Jacob says, “Easy there, Storyteller. One step at a time. Even if you manage to send the fairy tales through the Looking Glass, they’ll still have to contend with the slayer.”
“Who’s the slayer?” Malice asks.
The Storyteller says, “It is foretold that if the twisted versions of the fairy tales ever enter the outside world, there shall be one amongst them, known as the Fairy Tale Slayer, chosen for her special abilities, who will attempt to defeat the fairy tales. We think that slayer will be Alice.”
Malice gasps. “But she’s the one you’re using to call the fairy tales to her world, right?”
“Yes,” the Storyteller says. “But she doesn’t know we intend to twist the fairy tales. We’re tricking her to call forth the very fairy tales who shall attempt to kill her! Irony!” He tries to hand her a card.
Malice says, “Bollocks to your card. Alice is only 13! She’ll have no chance against all the fairy tales!”
The Storyteller says, “Due to your tinkering with time, it’s hard to know what age she’ll be when the fairy tales come out on her side. And according to the Rules of Story, the fairy tales can only fight her one at a time.”
“I hope to be the one who ends her, once I get twisted enough,” Cinderella chimes in.
“Twisted how?” the Hatter says.
The Storyteller says, “That’s what this Black Rose is for, my boy. Once Sleeping Beauty inhales its corrupting scent, it will twist the versions of the fairy tales she’s keeping alive with her dream energy.”
“Wait,” Malice says. “So you mean the fairy tales are inside her head? Like some kind of dream?”
“Not quite,” the Storyteller says. “When the Queen of Hearts here, cracked down on the fairy tales and imprisoned the Brothers Grimm here, I needed a way to hide the fairy tales away until I could bring them back. I put my daughter to sleep and read her the fairy tales to keep them existing, using her dream energy. But they don’t actually exist in
her mind. It is kind of like they’re hibernating. They exist in their own realm I made for them to live in, Fairy Tale Land…and it is in that drawer.” He’s pointing at the wooden nightstand next to the bed.
The Queen of Hearts huffs. “Seems a rather small world. I’m a bit peeved you hid the fairy tales from me, but I suppose it’s now to my advantage if it means I can rule over both worlds.”
“Let me show you…” The Storyteller sets the flower pot on the ground. He opens the drawer and pulls out a dome of glass affixed to a piece of wood. “It’s in there.”
The Hatter exclaims, “Fairy Tale Land is a wee snowglobe!” He giggles and giggles.
The Storyteller is showing it to everyone in the room. Malice sees a little tree and the bits of fake snow on the ground. The glass is filled with water, so that if one turns it upside down, the fake snow will seem to drift down.
The Storyteller is explaining as he shows everyone. “It is small, but looks can be deceiving. A whole world is inside here, though you can’t see it from the outside. You know, magic.” He shrugs. “I gave it to my daughter on her birthday, and she cherished it, which made it very convenient to use as a place to hold Fairy Tale Land, since there’s such a strong emotional connection with my daughter. It is inside here that all the beloved fairy tales have stayed safe all these years, except for Cinderella here. She was one of the earliest ones, who actually got released into Wonderland. Soon, though, I hope that Alice’s belief will set all the fairy tales loose in Wonderland!”
Jacob claps delightedly.
Cinderella says, “But first you’re going to twist us, right?”
The Storyteller says, “Yes my dear, with the Black Rose. Are you looking forward to it?”
“Oh yes,” Cinderella purrs. “I look forward to being so very naughty and bad, without things like a conscience getting in the way. Why, I imagine it will be just as liberating as when Malice here gets to turn off her heart.” She points at Malice, causing the Storyteller to look at her.