Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (31 page)

"No." Rapunzel met her eyes. "Not at all like this. We can change things." Hand grasping Cinderella's, she implored her to believe. "We can save Snow
White."

"Thank you," Stace's grandmother stepped forward to say, casting a warning gaze upon the girl.

"Yes, thank you," Stace mumbled past her pride.

Taking a step forward, Cinderella's approach drew the girl's head up. "You do not happen to go by Red Riding Hood, do you?" she asked, and Stace looked
astounded.

"Yes," she replied. "My gram calls me that."

Another weak burst of laughter escaping, Cinderella did not even try to make sense of it. She simply reached for Rapunzel's hand, trusting in that which
she knew was hers to hold.

"We must be leaving," she said.

"Do you need protection?" Gurr queried.

"Protect them." Cinderella nodded to Stace and her grandmother.

"But you are Snow White's friends," Gurr argued. "I owe it to her to see you safely on your way."

"As Snow White's friends," Rapunzel declared. "We would not feel safe with you."

Tugging Cinderella's arm, she pulled her down the path, and Norco and Togo fluttered after them.

"Hey!" The call stopped Cinderella and Rapunzel's retreat, and they looked back to find the storied Red Riding Hood looking surprisingly contrite. "If you
are still looking for a young man," she said quietly. "I may know someone of that persuasion. About your age or so, he lives no more than a league off the
path that way. I knew I was not to go so far off the path, but I did."

From the look of reproval on the face of Stace's grandmother, Cinderella knew she had just gotten herself in trouble with the admission, and trusted the
help was real.

"Thanks, Red," she smiled, and exchanging looks of utter uncertainty with Rapunzel, they wandered off the path.

A
wind-battered Juniper tree sat in a grand, well-tended clearing in what might have been mistaken for the furthest edge of the kingdom by Red Riding Hood,
but that Rapunzel was certain was the next kingdom by the sharp drop in temperature that had them huddling close together as they made their approach.

The tree had grown up on an incline that sloped toward a rocky cliff only steps away, and the wind must have blown only one direction, up the cliff wall,
for the branches and foliage of the Juniper grew only on the side away from the cliff and curved upward toward the sky as if in praise of something far
beyond them.

It was here that they found the young man Red Riding Hood had told them about.

Kneeling at the base of the side of the Juniper with greenery, he stared forlornly at the branches above. His legs, clad in dull black trousers, mixed so
well with the gray roots coming up from the proximate soil that it was impossible to tell where exactly they were in the jumble, or if he had legs at all.
For, as he sat, he could just as easily have sprouted from the tree.

The young man's skin and hair were exceptionally fair, the latter strewn about his head as if it had not been properly trimmed in years, and his profile
was soft, his expression temperate. Long arms folded neatly against his body, he appeared lost inside the sweater he wore, making him look almost a boy,
though Rapunzel thought Red Riding Hood was likely correct and he was around their age, perhaps a little older. He was not unattractive and, sitting as he
was, it was clear his demeanor was as far from that of the royal majority as it could possibly be.

"Excuse me," Cinderella called softly to him.

Intent as he was in his study of the branches above, he had not noticed their approach, or at least had shown no indication he noticed. When Cinderella
spoke, though, the quiet young man lowered his gaze in their direction, not expecting strangers, but not frightened at their presence either.

"Hello," Cinderella greeted, her voice losing volume across the clearing until it was no more than a whisper by the time it reached him. "I am Cinderella,
and this is Rapunzel and Norco and Togo."

"Hello," the young man replied simply, faintly, though he looked on the two maidens and two creatures with obvious intrigue.

"Red told us we would find you here," Cinderella explained.

"Red?" the young man returned.

"Stace," Rapunzel said.

"Ah," he said. "You mean the girl with the funny hat. Yes, we have met a time or two in the wood."

Rolling weakly onto his feet, the young man exceeded the stature of Rapunzel by a good six inches, and, as he came closer, his age was more certain. He had
looked so very young sitting before the tree.

"I am Christophe," he said with a polite nod. "Welcome to my home."

Glancing about the vacant clearing, as Norco and Togo landed at her feet, Rapunzel wondered if he meant the tree.

"Your home is invisible," Norco deduced.

"No," Christophe shook his head, looking to an empty spot in the clearing with the weight of sadness. "It was my home. I returned from a walk a time ago to
find only the Juniper tree still stood."

"Your house disappeared?" Cinderella asked.

"Along with my father and sister," Christophe whispered, looking off above their heads and fighting back tears. "Just gone."

"I am so sorry," Rapunzel murmured, clutching the air for Cinderella's hand, breathing in relief when her fingers closed around it.

With a sigh, Christophe allowed a few tears to fall as he turned back to the Juniper tree. "I should have been here," he whispered. "I was supposed to be
here. But I got distracted on my walk. There was a frog, and it was singing, and I stopped to watch it, only for a moment, but it must have been long. And
when I came back..." He shook his head as if he could not explain it. "I came to the tree to see if the gods would send them back to me, as they once sent
me back."

"You disappeared too?" Togo asked.

"No, I did not disappear," Christophe responded. "I died once."

"What do you mean, you died?" Cinderella hesitantly questioned.

"Ten years ago," Christophe replied. "I returned from school one day and my stepmother offered me an apple from the heavy trunk in our kitchen. When I
leaned in for it, she dropped the lid and I lost my head. Quite literally."

Stomach going queasy in an instant, Rapunzel also felt oddly fascinated, and she took a step closer to prevent any loss of the story to the wind.

"My sister, Marlinchen, who was actually the daughter of my stepmother and father, she saw it with her own eyes, and she laid my bones beneath this tree to
bring life back to me."

"How helpful!" Togo declared, smiling, and Norco bobbed his head in agreement.

"Ah, she was lovely, my sister." Christophe sounded wistful. "Nothing at all like her mother."

"What happened to your stepmother?" Cinderella asked.

"Well, before I could be laid bones-bare beneath the tree, I had to be stripped of meat, of course. My stepmother, to hide her transgression, stewed me up
and told my father I had gone off to live with my uncle across the kingdom. That night, my father ate me for dinner, calling for more until I was
completely gone. Evidently, my original human form made for quite the delightful meal."

"It was the scraps from beneath the table that Marlinchen recovered," Christophe went on. "When the tree brought me to life, it did so as a songbird. So, I
flew to the mill and sang for a millstone, which I brought back with me. Then, when my stepmother came outside... Blam!" he shouted, and they all jumped as
one. "I dropped the stone upon her head, and, as she lay there dying, I turned back into a boy, reuniting with Marlinchen and my father, and we had lived
happily ever since." Good humor at the memory fading, he looked back to the Juniper tree. "Until they were gone, that is."

As Christophe stood staring up at the branches, as if trying to will his father and sister back into existence, Cinderella's hand slid up Rapunzel's arm to
tug at her elbow. "Just a moment," Cinderella excused them, hauling Rapunzel out of hearing range, and let out a puff of air as she glanced back toward the
Juniper tree. "So, what do you think?"

The story of Christophe's life and death, and his gleeful murder of his stepmother, still vivid in her mind, Rapunzel tried to withhold her snap thoughts.
"I think we may not be ones to judge considering our own pasts."

"Yes," Cinderella said, a small smirk coming to her lips. "But what do you think?"

"I think he is demented!" Rapunzel admitted, glancing to Christophe when her voice squeaked louder than intended. Settled back at the tree's base, though,
he only continued to stare at the branches with Norco and Togo at his sides, trying to figure out what he saw up there.

"And it does not seem much better down the family line," Rapunzel declared. "His stepmother killing him? His father eating him? It seems the only one who
was not stark mad was the girl. But then..." she sighed. "I do feel sorry for him."

"As do I," Cinderella admitted. "And he and Snow White do have something in common, seeing as both their stepmothers tried to kill them."

Reluctantly agreeing with the legitimacy of that, Rapunzel nodded.

"Plus..." Cinderella uttered, taking a deep breath as she met Rapunzel's eyes. "It is only a story."

The statement pushing a small laugh past Rapunzel's lips, she wondered when exactly Cinderella became a true believer. "Yes," she replied. "It is only a
story."

"But he, he is real," Cinderella said.

"Our stories do affect us, though," Rapunzel returned. "I still lack the knowledge of the world that was withheld from me in my life, and, you..." She took
Cinderella's hand, the one upon which she had first noticed the marks of Cinderella's pained past, intangible as they were. "You still wear the scars of
yours."

Hand rising to Rapunzel's cheek, a gentle thumb stroked softly over her skin as Cinderella looked toward the cliff wall. "He is alone," Cinderella uttered
at last, eyes returning to Rapunzel's. "Which I cannot help but think may be my fault. As you said, I have changed things."

"You did not do this," Rapunzel responded, feeling the ache in Cinderella's soft, disbelieving smile.

"Perhaps not," Cinderella said, glancing back to Christophe. "If he would like, though, perhaps he could come with us. He does seem pleasant enough when
you have not tried to kill him."

"All right," Rapunzel agreed. "But we keep looking."

"Of course," Cinderella uttered. "We do have two days, after all, and I am told much can happen in two days time."

Smiling at the response, Rapunzel stepped into Cinderella, arms sliding around her waist. "We can change Snow White's fate," she whispered.

"I guess we shall see," Cinderella returned.

Getting Christophe to join them on the remainder of their journey required little persuasion, for father and sister gone, and not even a house in which for
him to live, he had nothing to hold him there.

"Are we truly in another kingdom?" he questioned, his sad, quiet tone filling with underlying excitement as they passed into warmer weather and he removed
his sweater, revealing shorter sleeves and long thin arms beneath.

"Truly." Rapunzel smiled at him.

"We should take the road on the other side of this knoll," Cinderella interrupted. "There is a village. We can replenish our food supply, and find whomever
else we might find." Exchanging a glance with Rapunzel, she rolled the map up and returned it to her sack, as they topped the knoll and the foretold road
crossed their path.

Starting down it, they came upon the village so quickly, it took them all by surprise. For, along the way, there had been no signs of life, not even just
beyond the perimeter of town. Many hours from nightfall, there was no reason for such desolation as they passed the wooden sign into 'Hemptown Square,' but
the typical noises of community did not meet them. The soft falls of three sets of feet and the flutter of two sets of wings were the only sounds, and they
seemed abnormally loud in the eerily silent setting.

Walking past shops and stalls, devoid of life or commerce, Cinderella came to a stop in the center of the thoroughfare, her eyes roaming the vacant spaces.

"There is no one here," she said, voice carrying in the stillness, and reached out to catch Christophe when he tripped beside her.

"Thank you," he uttered, glancing at the ground behind him. "The ground is uneven," he said, and Cinderella and Rapunzel looked too.

Taking a few steps back, Rapunzel's head tilted to the side as she studied the carved terrain. "It is a letter," she declared. "An 'A'. There are more of
them."

Gaze traveling along the thoroughfare, Cinderella could see them too, the letters, so tall they could not be easily made out from the ground. Pressing up
and in at her, they felt most important, as if they might explain that for which there was no explanation, and she turned to the nearest shop, that of a
shoemaker with a roof awning at just the right height. Grabbing onto the support, she heaved herself onto it.

Once atop it, Cinderella still found the letters too tall, and she pushed off the pane of a glass-enclosed window, catching the eave and pulling herself up
to the roof, the clays slick beneath her feet as she turned back to the thoroughfare.

"Can you read it?" Rapunzel called up to her, hand resting over her heart in visible concern.

Her gaze turning to the letters, Cinderella could see them all, pressed tall and bold into the dirt.

"If you cannot read it," Rapunzel added gently. "You can tell me the letters, and I will help you."

But Cinderella did not respond, not because she could not read the letters, but because she could. For though there were words with which she should have
struggled, she understood the message with perfect clarity.

And, due to Cinderella,
it read,
the citizens of Hemptown Square were no more.

Trampling back and forth over crackling leaves, Cinderella glanced at Rapunzel on every pass, surprised each time she was still there. From the side of her
eye, she could see Christophe follow her back-and-forth movement along with Norco and Togo, and imagined she looked the mad one now.