Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time)

by James Riley

  “It’s very true, I’m afraid,” the Queen said, still smiling. “And I’m afraid there’s no one but you to blame, my little May.”

  May could barely hear her, like her voice was coming from miles away. He . . . he couldn’t be . . . she would know, somehow. She would know! “You . . . liar,” May heard herself saying.

  The smile disappeared. “You should remember what lack of respect gets you, my dear.”

  May felt an invisible hand latch itself around her body and slam her up against the bars, crushing her into the metal until she could barely breath.

  She didn’t care.

  “YOU. LIAR. He’s . . . alive!”

  “I would shut your mouth if I were you,” the Queen said, her eyes on fire with shadowy flames.

  The hand squeezed, and May gasped.

  “HE . . . IS . . . ALIV—”

  The hand threw her across the room.

  “Do I need to show you his body?!” the Queen shouted. “What will it take to show?!”

  “There’s . . . nothing,” May said, every breath shooting pain through her chest. “You . . . couldn’t . . . show me . . . anything. He’s . . . alive.”

  “I never thought you stupid,” the Queen said, dragging May back into the air. “But this inability to see reality—”

  “REALITY!?” May shouted, and kicked out. Her foot slammed into the Queen’s hand, and whether from pain or surprise, the magic disappeared. May collapsed back to the floor, but was on her feet instantly.

  A sword. She needed a sword.

  “You struck me!” the Queen said, her eyes wide.

  May dove for a goblin sword on the ground, then aimed it at the Queen. “I’m about to do more than that.”

  Lightning played over the Queen’s fingers. “You will have to suffer for that, of course.”

  May launched herself forward, swinging the sword straight at the Queen, only to have it slide off something that wasn’t there. She struck again and again, never getting within a foot of the Queen.

  And then a tiny bolt of lightning leapt from the Queen’s fingers to May’s chest, and May found herself on the floor, not sure how she’d gotten there.

  “I could kill you right now,” the Queen said from somewhere above her. “It would be easy. But I wonder if you might still serve some use?”

  May just looked up at her, barely comprehending her words.

  “Your friends are all gone,” the Queen said, smiling slightly. “You have no one left but me.”

  “You’re happy,” May said, almost not understanding the word.

  “Happy?” the Queen asked her, and she looked confused for a moment. “Of course not. Why would you suggest such a thing?”

  “You took . . . everything from me.” Her voice cracked left and right, but she just pushed through it, slowly sitting up. “Everything I had, you destroyed. My home. My family. My friends. You took everything from me and everything from them. It must have made you happy. . . .”

  The Queen paused, then nodded. “I suppose I should be, shouldn’t I? But like you, I wish it hadn’t come to this. I knew it would, of course. I knew from the moment I first saw you in the Mirror, when I asked it to show me . . . well, there’s time for that later. I knew when I stole you from your father and stepmother and brought you here as barely more than a baby. And I knew when Jack freed me from Rapunzel’s jail. And I warned you.”

  “You lied,” May said, her entire body screaming in pain as she pushed to her feet then picked up her sword again. “He’s not dead.”

  “You can’t kill me, child,” the Queen told her. “Though you are welcome to wish me harm all you’d like. You can’t hurt me, of course. Not physically.” She frowned. “I’m beginning to forget what it feels like, caring for you. But I know that I did once, and strongly.”

  “You could never have cared and done ANY of this!” May shouted.

  The Queen smiled. “We lived in that other world for so many years, and you still don’t see how there’s more to life than good and evil, May? Of course I cared for you. I loved you. Dearly. It was not always that way, of course. When I first found you, I knew that caring for you would lead us here, and I would be far safer just killing you as a child.”

  “You should have,” May said, pointing her sword at the woman’s heart again.

  “Perhaps,” the Queen said. “I have made mistakes. And the worst part is, I knew that I would. I saw them ahead of time yet was doomed to follow through on them if I wanted to ultimately triumph. After all, you can’t take the good without the bad, can you? Everything I saw, all my mistakes, they will lead me to ruling over this entire world. You, here, now . . . it all leads to my victory.”

  “Trust me,” May said, running the back of her hand over her wet face, “me being here right now doesn’t lead you anywhere good.”

  The Queen’s eyes flashed with anger. “I warned you, child! I warned you! I gave you the same knowledge I had about those two boys. If you had joined me, Jack would still live, and Phillip’s kingdom would not be in danger. At least not until my armies descended upon it.”

  May shook her head in disbelief and advanced on the Queen, the sword shaking in her hand. “You . . . you can’t be . . . this thing! The woman I thought was my . . . she wouldn’t have hurt anyone!”

  The Queen smiled. “I had hurt many, many people at that point, May. But that other world . . . it did strange things to me. Things I never would have expected. But I can see you don’t care, do you?”

  May shook her head, feeling a million miles away, looking down on herself and the woman she used to love, the woman she used to think she could save, could bring back from whatever she’d become. “You couldn’t have just been a horrible monster? You had to destroy us all along with the rest of the world?! WHY! WHY did we have to suffer too! You said you cared about me, but all you’ve done since returning is try to hurt me! WHY!”

  “Why?” the Queen said, then shrugged slightly. “Because I was curious to see if I could. After all, you speak the truth . . . if I did truly care, how could I hurt you? I had to be sure. And now I am.” She reached out a hand, and lightning slammed into May, throwing her across the room, her sword landing far from her hand. “You see? I can hurt you with no qualms, May. That is what I needed to know. In the past, I’ve had . . . difficulty with certain people. I couldn’t kill Snow, not completely. Part of me held back, and now she hovers between life and death forever. But returning to this world, I’ve purged myself of any weakness I previously had. And now I am worthy to truly rule.”

  May groaned, her entire head throbbing, while her heart seemed to be skipping beats from the electrical charge. She smelled something burning and suspected it might be her singed hair.

  She pushed herself to her feet, only to fall back to the ground. A second time, and she fell again. The third time she managed to hold herself up, then stagger over to where her sword had fallen.

  “You really won’t give up until you’ve had your chance, will you?” the Queen asked her, watching May like a cat watches a mouse trying to run this way or that, away from the predator.

  “You took me . . . for a reason,” May said, just trying to make it to the sword. “You were . . . afraid. There’s got to be . . . a reason. The Mirror must have . . . told you so.” She reached the weapon but fell against the wall.

  “Malevolent used the Mirror to find out how she would die,” the Queen said, still watching her closely. “She was shortsighted, clearly. I had far more important questions for the Mirror than how I would leave this Earth.” She tilted her head. “Though leaving this Earth did come up. And for a few years there, I wasn’t quite sure if we would come back.”

  “You should have kept us moving,” May told her, picking the weapon up, not believing how heavy it suddenly felt. “If the Huntsman hadn’t found us, you wouldn’t die right here.”

  “Oh, but it wasn’t he who first found us, don’t you remember?” the Queen said. “Someone stole something very special to m
e that morning. I believed it to be the Huntsman, but he was only after the crown, to fix the Mirror. He had no idea what else had been hidden in our house or that it had disappeared.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” May said, dragging the sword step by step toward the woman whom she finally, finally no longer saw as her grandmother. “Not to you. Not anymore.”

  “Very well,” the Queen said. “If it will move things along, then by all means, kill me.” With that, she opened her arms and waited.

  May paused, wondering if this was a trick of some kind.

  Then she decided she didn’t care and stabbed the Wicked Queen in the heart.

  The Queen looked down at the sword in her chest, then smiled. “Now, I hope that makes you feel at least a little better, dear.” Then she pulled the sword out without even a mark. “This must be a bit surprising, I’m sure. But sometimes death isn’t quite as final as we might think.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Portal,” he heard himself say. “Get me through the portal.”

  It was like a dream, slipping in and out.

  “You had this all planned?” a girl’s voice said. “From the start?”

  Who was talking?

  “One of us was going to die. The Queen saw it. I just took the choice out of her hands.”

  The other voice seemed to be angry. “You’re trying to be a hero again?!”

  “Nope. I learned my lesson. But she can’t know what I’m doing. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can get away with a lot more if no one knows what you’re up to.”

  “I’ll get you through the portal.”

  “Just make sure I have the Story Book. I’m going to need it.”

  And then the scene swirled away like it never existed.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” This time it was a male voice.

  “Of course not. Have I ever been?”

  “There’s no turning back from this. You make one mistake, and you won’t get a second chance. Not with her. If you even make it back.”

  “I’ll make it back. I know exactly when my portal home is going to show up.”

  “If you even want to return.”

  And then just like the first one, that scene disappeared into a cloud, and there was nothing, just darkness, nothing more. No dreams, no voices, just nothing . . .

  Jack gasped, and sprang up to a sitting position, frantically feeling all around his chest.

  Instead of a wound, all he felt was a scar.

  He let out a huge breath, then looked around. This wasn’t the Wicked Queen’s castle. In fact, it didn’t look like anywhere he’d ever seen before. The woods around him weren’t quite the same color green, like they were a bit duller than the ones he’d seen all his life. The sun overhead, while just as bright, shone in a sky that was a bit off the normal blue, and the clouds didn’t look as stony as the ones he’d walked on earlier that same day.

  Jill had done what he’d asked and gotten him through the portal. He panicked for a second, then felt his grandfather’s Story Book at his side, along with his sword. Before he could forget, he opened the Story Book to the correct page and tore out an entire tale, adding the pages to the folded ones Gwentell had returned to him after confirming their accuracy with the Queen’s raven.

  The world around him seemed so quiet, which was good. He’d just died, after all, so quiet was a good thing. He pulled the empty potion bottle out of his pocket and smiled. It’d taken a few minutes, but the healing potion on the sword’s blade had repaired the wound the sword itself had caused. Which was good, since he hadn’t had a chance to test it, other than on the giant, or had much of a backup plan if the Wicked Queen decided to lightning him to death. Thankfully, she’d fallen for him throwing his sword at her exactly as he’d hoped, and things had gone as planned.

  That was the benefit of people telling you what their magic mirrors had seen. Jack only wished she’d tell him more next time.

  If there was a next time. Where was he? The Queen had opened this portal, so presumably she knew where it led, but where would she send Jack? She wouldn’t have lied, not outright . . . he must be in Punk. But there were far too many ways to deceive someone without lying than he cared to think about.

  One of those ways being to drop him right into a life-threatening situation. Or, as he usually called it, a Tuesday.

  Other than the lack of a sun giant and the colors being a bit muted, this world looked enough like his home that he could have easily mistaken the two. Here, though, there’d be no magic. Or would there?

  He picked up his sword and concentrated, trying to slow time. There was . . . something, like a bit of a jump, then another one, like trying to walk on ice. The magic was there, but he just couldn’t . . . hold on to it, almost.

  He slid the sword back into the scabbard on his back as a small tinkling, like a tiny bell, began to ring. Another one soon joined it, and another, each one a bit farther away. Was someone there?

  “Hello?” he said, but the bells just continued, blissfully unaware of the confusion they were causing. He stepped toward the closest one, bending down to find a tiny bell attached to the tiptop of a bright red hat. The bell kept ringing even as he picked the hat up.

  Why did this seem so familiar?

  And then it hit him.

  Malevolent’s castle. The dungeon.

  Picking up the imp by his hat and stealing it as leverage.

  Uh-oh.

  “I totally expected to see you here,” said a voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. “I was just saying how much I thought you’d show up out of nowhere, like the greatest present ever. It just seemed so likely.”

  Uh-oh uh-oh.

  Jack pulled his sword out and turned around in a circle, far too aware that the sword was basically powerless, given that it’d instantly heal up anything he cut. “Who’s there?”

  “Did I make so little an impression?” said the voice, and something invisibly grabbed Jack and pulled him into the air. “I’m sure this doesn’t bring back any memories.”

  A foot off the ground, then two in the air, and Jack struggled as hard as he could. Just like before, though, it accomplished nothing . . . whatever held him, he wasn’t going to escape it.

  So apparently magic was possible here. But how powerful was it? After all, he wasn’t flying hundreds of feet into the air . . . he was barely a few feet off the ground, and even that seemed slow, like it’d been difficult to get him that far.

  A tiny man dressed in a goldenrod tunic, his beard tucked into his bright blue pants, smiled widely, almost wider than seemed possible on his little face.

  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, another imp stepped out next to him. The new one wore a golden shirt and pants and was clean-shaven and hatless.

  “What did you find here, cousin?” the new imp said.

  “A present for me, just like the Queen promised,” the first imp said. “The only human to humiliate me. Him and the girl with him.” The imp checked around. “You’re probably too smart to have brought her here too, huh?”

  “Okay, just so you know, I’m catching the sarcasm,” Jack said, glaring at the imp. “What are you even doing here? I didn’t think magic could work on this world.”

  “Every spell is a struggle,” the second, unfamiliar imp said with a sigh. “But when your name has power, and some horrible princess tells everyone in the world what that name is, sometimes you don’t have much choice.”

  Something May said jumped into his head. “. . . Stiltskin?” Jack asked.

  Mr. Stiltskin turned to the imp that had tortured Jack back in Malevolent’s castle, and smacked his head. “You brought a human here who knows our NAME?!”

  “I didn’t bring him here!” the first imp said indignantly. “She did, as a payment on a debt, after I hid some big hairy guy’s long lost love in the dream world. And I forgot that they knew! I was a bit more worried about revenge!”

  “If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream y
our name as loud as I can!” Jack said.

  “No one will hear you,” the first imp said darkly.

  “YOU, let me handle this,” the second one said. He turned to Jack. “Your kind just won’t leave me in peace, will you? I leave you horrible humans behind, only to find thousands of your kind here. And they don’t even know what to call me, so keep calling me a leopard-con or something. What does that even mean?”

  “Maybe we can make a bargain?” Jack said, and the golden-clothed imp’s nose began to twitch.

  “Bargain?” he said. “And what could you possibly have that I want?”

  Jack didn’t exactly have a lot on him, and the last thing he was going to do was offer up his sense of sarcasm. He couldn’t give up his sword, either. He’d need it if he ever made it back home. And all that left him was—

  “A Story Book!” he shouted. “A Story Book filled with tales of pirates in love with mermaids, wolves hunting down girls in red hoods, and man-eating horses!”

  “A Story Book?” the imp said, raising an eyebrow. “How would you ever find one of those? They’re pretty rare. . . .”

  “I’m pretty amazing,” Jack told him.

  The imp with May’s sarcasm snorted. “What good would that do us? What use would we have for a magic book that won’t work here?”

  “The stories won’t disappear, even if the magic does,” Jack told him. “And a storyteller is always in high demand, if I know, uh, the humans here.”

  “There are those two German brothers offering to pay gold for stories,” the golden imp said. “And there’s a human in France who is looking for the same thing. And one in Denmark.”

  “This thing is filled with stories,” the red-hatted imp said, flipping through the Story Book. “We could make more gold than we’d know what to do with!”

  “We’d have to hide it in pots, we’d have so much!” the golden imp said, his voice rising in excitement.

  “Below rainbows!” the red-hatted imp said.