by Chris Colfer
“I must say I’m impressed,” Morina said. “I figured you might follow us, but I never expected you to make it inside the building.”
“We know what you’re doing here!” Bree said. “We know all about the bridge between worlds and the witches’ plan to cross through it and conquer the Otherworld!”
“But you won’t get away with it!” Conner said. “You and the witches won’t stand a chance against this world!”
“Well, of course not,” Morina said. “That’s why we cursed your sister. Now that we’re in control of her powers, dominating the Otherworld will be much easier. By the way, Alex, it’s time to wake up now. Our guests will be arriving soon.”
Alex levitated off the floor and onto her feet. She opened her eyes and they began to glow like lightning. Her hair rose above her head and flickered like the flames of a slow-motion fire. Once she was awake, all the books floating through the air suddenly dropped and rained down on the reading room.
“What have you done to her?” Conner yelled.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Morina asked. “We cursed her just like we cursed the Enchantress.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Ezmia wasn’t cursed! She became the Enchantress because she was greedy, selfish, and evil!”
“Every woman has an evil enchantress inside her—all it takes is a little curse to bring it out,” Morina said. “Your sister is no exception.”
“I don’t believe you,” Conner said. “What kind of magic could do such a thing?”
“Actually, it’s an interesting story,” Morina said. “You see, years and years ago, the Snow Queen and the Sea Witch discovered the Otherworld around the same time as the fairies. While the late Fairy Godmother and the Fairy Council traveled back and forth spreading stories and granting wishes in the Otherworld, the witches got together and formed a plan to conquer it. The Snow Queen and the Sea Witch weren’t powerful enough to do it on their own, so they cursed little Ezmia with dust made from the glass of an evil magic mirror. It got in Ezmia’s eyes and lungs and cursed her to feel anger, sorrow, and jealousy tenfold—turning her into the Enchantress we remember today. The Snow Queen and the Sea Witch were planning to use Ezmia as a weapon against the Otherworld—but sadly, Ezmia perished before they had the chance. Once the Enchantress was dead, the Snow Queen and the Sea Witch set their sights on Alex. After a couple of attempts to curse her, they realized how much stronger she was than Ezmia. It took over ten times the amount of dust for the curse to even stick.”
“That’s why Alex destroyed the Witches’ Brew and attacked the Fairy Council!” Conner said, understanding for the first time. “She wasn’t having difficulty controlling her powers because she was overwhelmed—she was being cursed!”
“Such a good little detective,” the witch said. “Luckily, the Snow Queen and the Sea Witch learned from their mistakes with Ezmia. This time, they hexed the dust so they’d have total control over whoever ingested it. Now your sister, one of the most powerful fairies ever to grace the known worlds, is a creature of rage, torment, and despair.”
Conner and his friends were livid. They fought against the metal bars restraining them, but it was no use.
“You still won’t win!” he shouted. “It’s going to take much more than my sister and a bunch of witches to take over the Otherworld! We have armies and weapons you can’t even dream of! They’ll wipe you out the moment you step outside this library!”
Morina rolled her eyes as if she had heard this spiel multiple times.
“Oh yes, I know all about those,” she said. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve planned accordingly. You see, the other witches have no idea what kind of world they’re about to walk into. The Otherworld was vastly different when the Snow Queen and the Sea Witch first discovered it—they don’t realize how advanced it’s become. The witches and your sister are merely pawns in my plan to weaken the armies of this world. Once they’ve been wounded, my own army will arrive and finish them off.”
“What army?” Conner asked.
The witch threw her head back and roared with laughter. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured that part out yet,” she said.
Goldilocks gasped. “Conner, she’s talking about the Literary Army! She’s going to bring them through the bridge, too! That’s why they were lingering around the Northern Palace—it wasn’t a scare tactic, they were waiting for her!”
Of all the possibilities Conner had predicted over the last week, this outcome had completely escaped him. Apparently, they wouldn’t need to travel into the fairy-tale world after all—the Literary Army was coming to them.
“It’s still not enough to defeat the Otherworld!” Conner said. “Both sides will just keep fighting until there’s nothing left!”
“And perhaps that’s been my plan all along,” Morina said. “The fairies have been turned into stone, soon all the witches will be slaughtered, the armies of the Otherworld will be defeated, and the Literary Army will be destroyed in the process. That leaves both worlds entirely defenseless and ready for new leadership—leadership from someone like me.”
Conner glared at her with the most hateful gaze he had ever sent anyone in his life. He couldn’t believe one person was capable of so much manipulation.
“Millions of innocent people are going to die because of you, and there won’t be a drop of blood on your hands,” he said. “I’d say you’re a monster, but that’s not fair to monsters.”
Morina was tickled by that notion, and a sinister smile spread across her face. “I may not be the most powerful enemy you’ve made, but I’m certainly the smartest—and that makes me the scariest of them all,” she said.
A small clock over the entryway struck midnight, and the Rose Main Reading Room began to vibrate.
“Well, it’s been such a thrill catching up, but I’m afraid you’ll all have to be quiet now,” Morina said. “I don’t want you spilling any secrets to our guests.”
The witch snapped her fingers, and the metal bars confining them snaked around their mouths. Conner and his friends looked at one another in panic, but there was nothing they could do. Whether they liked it or not, the bridge between worlds was about to appear.
What started off as a light rumbling sensation quickly escalated into a thunderous tremor. The room shook so violently that the windows shattered and the walls began to crack. The chandeliers swung like wrecking balls before crashing to the floor. The tables slid and slammed into one another like bumper cars, and many of the bookshelves collapsed.
Suddenly, an enormous ghostly orb descended from the ceiling. It glided through the air and landed at the far end of the room. The orb stretched into a wide oval and gained color and depth, as if invisible paintbrushes were painting it. With every passing second, the image of a vast forest became clearer and clearer. Soon the image was so vibrant it didn’t look like a painting of a forest, but a doorway to one.
The witches of the fairy-tale world peered through the opening and took their first steps into the Otherworld. Arboris, Tarantulene, Serpentina, Charcoaline, and Rat Mary led the charge and were followed by hundreds of other grotesque women. Some flew into the library on broomsticks, some galloped with hooved feet, and some crawled inside on all fours.
A wave of salty seawater spilled into the library and swirled around the room like a living serpent. The Sea Witch rode the wave into the Otherworld perched on her coral sleigh, which was pulled by a school of sharks. A sudden chill filled the air, and the Snow Queen emerged through the bridge aboard a sleigh pulled by two ferocious polar bears.
“Your Excellencies,” Morina said with a shallow bow. “I’m so glad you’ve both successfully made it through the bridge. Just as promised, I have found the Bailey girl and cursed her with the dust from the magic mirror. With her power at our disposal, the Otherworld will be ours in no time.”
The Snow Queen and the Sea Witch were shocked that Morina had pulled it off.
“Well done, Morina,” the Sea Witch said. �
�I have to admit, we’re pleasantly surprised by your competence.”
The witches were so excited to finally be in the Otherworld that they didn’t even notice the people tangled in the railing above them. Conner and his friends tried to warn the witches that they were walking into a trap, but they couldn’t form words with the metal bars around their mouths.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” the Snow Queen screeched. “We have a world to conquer!”
CHAPTER TEN
THE WITCHES ARRIVE
By midnight, over a thousand US Marines had joined General Wilson on Fifth Avenue. The soldiers surrounded the New York Public Library on all four sides, but it was impossible to get close. Whenever a Marine came within ten feet of the building, he or she was quickly knocked back by one of the lion statues. Even if a soldier was on the opposite side of the structure, a lion would crawl over the building and swat the soldier away before he or she could enter.
The general watched the statues from behind a wall of sandbags in the middle of Fifth Avenue. He took a long drag from his twelfth cigar of the night and decided it was time to take action.
“All right, enough cat games!” he said to his soldiers. “I want both those lions blown to bits! Open fire on the count of three… One… Two… Three!”
The Marines unleashed tremendous firepower on the national landmarks. Bullets came from soldiers on all sides of the library and from snipers stationed on the rooftops nearby. The statues were shot until they crumbled into pieces and the front steps of the library were covered in their stony debris.
“Hold your fire!” the general ordered, and the shooting ceased. “Inspect the damage!”
A soldier ran up the front steps of the library and examined the debris.
“All clear, sir,” he called out.
“Good,” the general said. “Now send in the platoon to find the girl. If she resists arrest or retaliates with an assault, you are to terminate her immediately. That is an order, do you copy?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the soldiers responded.
As the platoon charged up the library’s front steps, they came to a sudden halt. As if the destruction of the statues were being rewound before their eyes, the debris magically reassembled piece by piece until both lion statues were fully formed again—and the felines weren’t happy. The lions roared with such gusto that many of the soldiers’ helmets flew off. With one powerful blow, the platoon was knocked down the library’s steps and the soldiers rolled into the street.
“Holy reincarnation!” the general said, and the cigar fell from his mouth.
In over six decades serving in the United States Armed Forces, General Wilson had never encountered anything like this. The stone felines were putting up the greatest defense he had ever witnessed.
Suddenly, all three double doors at the library’s entrance were blasted open from inside. Alex and the witches emerged and stood on the front steps with the lions. The witches looked around Fifth Avenue in wonder. The Otherworld was so much bigger and brighter than they’d thought. They’d expected a world similar to their own, but instead were standing in a metropolis of lights and concrete beyond their wildest dreams.
The soldiers looked at one another with the same dumbfounded expression: Where did they all come from? General Wilson picked up a megaphone to speak to the mysterious women.
“This is United States Marine Corps General Gunther Wilson,” he said. “Whoever you are and wherever you came from, you are interfering in a matter of national security. Put your hands up and come quietly or you’ll be taken by force.”
The witches shared a cackle—unaware of who the soldiers were or what they were capable of.
“You heard the man, sisters,” the Snow Queen screeched. “It’s time to put our hands up.”
The witch raised her hands into the air, and hundreds of enormous icicles shot up from the ground. They were so sharp that they flattened the tires of all the Hummers on the street and nearly impaled many of the soldiers.
“Attack!” the Snow Queen screeched. “The Otherworld is ours!”
The witches squealed in celebration and their invasion began.
The Sea Witch rode her rogue wave around the library and threw pieces of coral at the nearby soldiers. The coral latched on to their uniforms and grew rapidly around their bodies, binding their arms and legs.
Rat Mary placed open palms on the ground, closed her eyes, and whispered a spell to summon all the rats in the area. To her surprise, thousands of rodents crawled out of the sewers and drains, the trash cans and subways, and joined her on the front steps of the library. She directed them toward the soldiers, and the rats pounced on them like a plague of locusts.
Arboris pointed to the trees beside the library’s steps. All the leaves flew from the branches into the air and rained down on the soldiers. The leaves poked and stung the soldiers like swarms of killer bees.
Smoke steamed out of Charcoaline’s ears, and the cracks of her ashy skin filled with magma. A fiery geyser erupted from her mouth like a volcano, and she aimed the blast at the general. He and his soldiers dived out of the way, and their wall of sandbags exploded.
The Marines had never been trained for such attacks. They were so shocked by the witches’ magic, they were practically paralyzed and didn’t know how to retaliate.
“Sir? What do we do?” a soldier asked the general.
“Shoot them!” the general ordered. “Shoot them all!”
The witches didn’t recognize the weapons the Marines were aiming in their direction. By the time they realized the objects were firearms, the soldiers had already started firing. A split second before the witches would have been shot and slaughtered on the steps of the library, Alex raised a hand, and the bullets bounced off a magical force field.
When the general realized the soldiers were wasting their bullets, he motioned for them to hold their fire. The Marines lowered their weapons and stared at Alex’s magic in amazement. The Sea Witch picked a steaming bullet off the ground with her claw and examined it with her large black eyes.
“The Otherworld is not the same place it was when we discovered it,” she said with a nasty scowl.
The Sea Witch held the bullet to the Snow Queen’s nose. The blind witch smelled it and her brow tightened.
“They’ve evolved,” she screeched. “Where is Morina? Why didn’t she warn us about their development?”
The witches looked around the front steps and the entrance hall of the library, but Morina was nowhere to be found.
“She’s tricked us!” Rat Mary yelled.
“Morina’s sent us to our death!” Charcoaline moaned.
“How could ssshe betray usss like thisss?” Serpentina hissed.
“Silence, you fools!” the Snow Queen ordered. “We will not perish because of Morina or any human of the Otherworld! We aren’t prepared for this battle—but mark my words, by sundown we will be ready for the war! All we need is a place to retreat until we gain our strength!”
The Sea Witch looked up Fifth Avenue and pointed to the southeast corner of Central Park in the distance.
“Look, up there!” she said. “It’s a forest! I say we take cover in the woods until we are ready!”
“Yes, perfect!” the Snow Queen screeched, and turned to Alex. “Lead the way!”
At the witch’s command, Alex clapped her hands and all the remaining soldiers went flying out of their way. She snapped her fingers and all the Hummers, the police vehicles, the lampposts, the street signs, the trash cans, and everything else in their path disintegrated into piles of ash. In one swift procession, the witches, the lion statues, and Alex marched up Fifth Avenue toward Central Park.
Once they arrived, Alex waved her hand through the air and a massive force field surrounded the entire park like a shimmering, rippling dome. The Marines tried to follow the witches into the park, but Alex’s shield electrocuted anyone who got near it: No one was going in or out.
Alex, the lion statues, and all the
witches continued their march into the heart of Central Park and disappeared from the Marines’ sight. The soldiers had thought they’d seen just about everything with the moving statues, but clearly, the spectacles had only begun.
“Your orders, sir?” a soldier asked the general.
General Wilson didn’t respond. He was just as stunned by the night’s events as the rest of the Marines. He was going to need help with the situation, and there was only one person he could get it from.
“Sir? Your orders?”
“I’m thinking, Sergeant, I’m thinking!” the general snapped, and paced as he thought. “The whole island of Manhattan needs to be evacuated at once! Call the Pentagon and tell them we need backup! We need as many boots on the ground as possible!”
“Yes, sir!” the soldier responded.
“Oh, and Sergeant?” the general said. “One more thing—and this is the most important order of the night: Find Cornelia Grimm—immediately!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A MIRRORED ESCAPE
After a thorough inspection of all the mirrors in the Center Kingdom castle, Froggy and his mysterious young companion discovered that the castle was as empty as the mirror dimension itself. Judging by all the damaged furniture and broken artwork, the Literary Army had swept the castle and taken all the servants to the Northern Kingdom during their invasion. Most concerning of all, however, was how little Froggy recognized his former home. They peered into the chambers where he used to sleep, the dining room where he used to eat, and the library where he’d spent hours each day reading—but nothing sparked the tiniest inkling of familiarity.
“I know I used to live here, but no matter how many times I remind myself, it still seems like the home of a stranger,” Froggy said.
“Where else could your friends be hiding?” the little girl asked.
Froggy tried to think of an alternative hiding spot, but he had a difficult time remembering the names of other locations altogether.