[Half/Time 01] Half Upon a Time (17 page)

And then the realization of the knight’s identity suddenly hit him, almost as if the knowledge had come from somewhere else, somewhere outside Jack’s head. “Wait a second,” Jack said slowly. “You’re the one who—”

“I
was
,” the knight corrected, his eyes twinkling again, though there was also a hint of sadness. “But now all I am is a shadow of my former self, a hint of what was. Or for some,” the knight said, a small grin sneaking onto his lips, “a hint of what might come?”

At that moment the girl in the image slowly held the end of her chain up to a small space at the top of the mirror, then pushed it into place.

An ear-splitting scream filled the air, and the floating image began pulling at Jack, yanking him bodily into it and away from the field, the sunshine, and the knight, straight back into his waking body and the cottage.

The scream had come from a tall, thin woman who now stood in the doorway wearing a vibrant blue dress, full, platinum-colored hair framing her long face. Phillip stood behind her, and both he and the woman looked completely shocked; the woman’s mouth was still hanging open from her scream. Across the room, the wolf was also awake and glancing around with the same confusion that Jack felt.

With a sinking feeling, Jack quickly looked over to the wall, over to the Mirror.

And there was May, having placed the crown of her necklace into the Mirror’s frame.

“Princess!” Phillip screamed.

“You must not do that!” the woman in blue shouted.

“May, don’t!” Jack said, but he was far too late.

May smiled guiltily. “I know I wasn’t supposed to, but you gotta understand, I need to know if it will work! I
need
to know.” With that, she stepped away from the Mirror, bracing herself for what might happen, as they all did …

Except nothing did happen, and after a few more seconds of nothing, Jack, Phillip, and May all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Phillip reached May first, as Jack was farther away, but Jack wasn’t far behind.

“What were you thinking, Princess?!” Phillip asked her.

“May,” Jack said, pushing Phillip aside, “you have
no
idea what might have happened with the Mirror broken like that. We don’t even know what it would have done if it was still in one piece!”

“I … I needed to know,” May said, sounding almost confused. “I had to see what would happen. It might have been able to give us one last piece of information, even if it was broken!” As she spoke, her eyes began to moisten. “Don’t you guys get it?” she said. “How are we supposed to find her
without
this? We needed the Mirror! It can’t be broken! I won’t accept that!”

Jack and Phillip both reached out to touch her, but she jerked away from them and strode back over to the Mirror. She stared at it in despair for a moment, then reached up to take the necklace back.

“The damage has been done,” the woman in blue said from behind them, her voice sad. As if in response to her words, a small glow appeared behind the crack in the center of the Mirror. Slowly, the glow grew in intensity, filling the Mirror, shining forth at odd angles from every fracture in the glass.

Then an even stranger thing began to happen. The glow, the actual light in the Mirror, began to trickle out of the hole in the middle of the Mirror, just like smoke rising out of a chimney.

“Uh-oh,” May said, backing away from the Mirror.

“That pretty much covers it,” Jack agreed, yanking her back more quickly. Whatever was pouring out of the Mirror looked like some kind of bright, greenish-yellow smoke, though Jack hadn’t ever seen smoke that glowed.

“This way!” the prince yelled then gestured for Jack and May to get outside. Jack couldn’t really argue with that, so he pushed May toward the door, then ran to the bed; there was no way the wolf could move on his own. Jack put a shoulder under one of the animal’s injured legs and heaved … only, he didn’t move the animal an inch.

“Whoa!” Jack said. “He must weigh like a hundred stone!”

“You,” the woman in blue said, pointing at Jack, “out. I’ll take care of this … this creature.”

Jack started to object, then looked into the woman’s eyes, eyes that were completely white. The woman, whoever she was, had no irises or pupils whatsoever. “Right!” Jack said, knowing better than to argue with a woman with no eyes. He lowered the wolf’s leg back onto the bed, then ran for the door, leaping over a small cloud of whatever was coming from the Mirror.

It might have been his imagination, but the cloud almost looked like it grabbed for him as he jumped.

Phillip caught him on the other side and pulled him out the door, which slammed shut behind him. May was waiting a short distance away at entrance of the clearing, so the two joined her there.

“Who is that woman?” Jack asked the prince when they’d gotten a relatively comfortable distance away.

“We call her Merriweather,” Phillip said, watching the cottage, “though I do not know if that is her real name.”

“She’s not human, is she,” Jack said.

“No,” the prince said. “She is a queen of the fairy folk. My father saved her life when I was very young, and she has watched over me ever since. She called herself my godmother,
actually, when I was young.” He frowned. “I wonder what the delay is.”

“I am here,” said the fairy queen from directly behind them. All three spun around to find her standing calmly with the Wolf King lying in the grass at her feet. The wolf was breathing hard, but it wasn’t as labored as it had been. And he wasn’t bleeding; in fact, his fur had grown back, and he seemed to be completely healed.

Jack’s eyes went wide. “That’s amazing,” he said breathlessly.

The right side of Merriweather’s mouth turned up the slightest bit. “Hardly,” she said. “And I’d rather see the animal dead. Still, I did as my young prince requested. The animal will be fine … when it wakes.” She bent down and picked up the wolf’s chin, then let it drop back to the ground. The wolf never moved. “After healing the creature,” she said, “I enchanted it to sleep, so that I’d have time to change your minds.” She gave them all a hard look. “No good will come from this one, children. Its life has been one of hardship and lost love, and I do not know if it is capable of returning from such a dark place.”

Jack didn’t have any idea what to say to that, but before he could think of anything, Phillip grabbed his arm, spun him around, and pointed at the clearing. On Jack’s other side, May
gasped. As much as he knew he’d regret doing it, Jack reluctantly followed their gazes back to the cottage.

The greenish-yellow smoke was now visible through the windows, filling the entire cottage. Cracks appeared in the brick walls, and the wood in the roof began to crack, shrieking as if in pain.

The smoke continued to spread, the creaking growing louder and louder until finally the entire roof launched into the air, like a lid exploding off a pot of boiling water.

The roof spun as it shot into the air, rising in an arc that suddenly looked like it might land a bit too close to them for comfort. As the roof tumbled back down, heading straight for their group, Jack, May, and Phillip all jumped backward. Merriweather, however, didn’t move. The roof crashed down a few inches from her foot, and the fairy queen didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, she glanced down at it, then looked back up at the smoke and frowned. “Your Highness,” she said to Phillip. “You are not safe here.”

“She’s quick, huh?” May whispered to Jack.

“What is it?” Phillip asked the fairy queen. As they spoke, the smoke seemed to be coalescing into some sort of shape, almost like … almost like a body, a torso.

Merriweather never took her eyes off the smoke as the sheer magnitude of it began to block out the sunlight. “It is a devil, plain and true,” she said. “My people call them djinn, but I believe humans refer to them as genies.” She narrowed her eyes. “This one is known to me. It is an Ifrit, one of the elders.”

“You two have met?” May asked.

The fairy queen sighed. “I know the one who trapped it in the Mirror,” she said. “Her folly invites ruin upon us all.”

“An Ifrit,” Jack said. “Is that more powerful than other genies?”

The fairy queen turned her white eyes on him, making him regret asking. “You might say that,” she said. “The younger genies are close to being all-powerful, but are forced by their elders to learn humility through service to lesser beings, usually humans.”

“How nice,” May sniffed. “It’s good to know where we stand in the grand scheme of things.”

“Indeed,” Merriweather said. “The elders, the Ifrits, are even more powerful than their young, and controlling them is next to impossible once they are let loose. Fortunately for our world, there have only been two who made their way here during my lifetime. This is the second.”

“And the first?” Jack asked, watching as the genie’s torso
filled in completely, the smoke now building arms the size of storm clouds. At the very top, almost too high to see, it looked as if a head might be forming.

“The first?” Merriweather said with the barest hint of a smile. “It’s best that you not know, human. Your kind tends to react badly to their world almost being unmade. Fortunately, one of my fellow fairy queens tricked it into trapping itself within a kerosene lamp, then hid the lamp where no one will ever discover it.”

“Bet someone finds it,” May whispered to Jack.

Merriweather turned her gaze to the princess, her white eyes blazing in anger. Before May could say anything, though, Merriweather took a step back in surprise.
“You!”
the fairy queen shouted, her eyes wide.

May froze for a second, clearly just as surprised as the fairy queen. “Um, me?” she asked in a small voice. Jack inched between the two, not trusting this eyeless fairy queen at all.

“You!” Merriweather repeated, still in shock. “I
know
you! You were not where you were meant to be! I arrived at the appointed time, and you were not there!”

“Wha …?” May said.

Suddenly, the fairy in May’s hair sat up and waved her hands. Merriweather glanced at her.

“Little sister,” the fairy queen said in greeting, and the fairy in May’s hair began gesturing around, first at Jack, then at May, and back again. Somehow, Jack thought he heard her saying words, something about a “charmed one,” but it must have been his imagination.

Then they all jumped as one of the Ifrit’s expanding arms knocked a tree over on the other side of the clearing. “Can we talk about this later, whatever it is?” May said quickly. “’Cause, you know, I’d rather not get crushed by Mr. Smokey Pants here.”

Merriweather shook her head at May. “You do not act like a princess should,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Clearly, your manners have suffered from our missed appointment. Still, there are more important matters to attend to now. If left unchecked, the Ifrit will surely destroy us all, if not this entire world.”

“Merriweather,” Phillip said softly. He gently took her shoulder and turned her back toward the genie, where eyes the size of small lakes stared down at them, each delving into a shade of black that Jack wouldn’t have believed actually existed if he weren’t staring at it. It was like he could feel the genie’s eyes pulling at him, pulling at his very soul.

The face around the eyes resembled some kind of horned
mask, more than anything else, a mask that covered the front of the smoke head, while the rest of the head seemed to swirl around on its own. It reminded Jack uncomfortably of the witch with the broken eggshell for a face.

“I shouldn’t have put the crown in, should I,” May said. It wasn’t a question.

“Merriweather,” Phillip repeated, taking a few steps back, “I know that this creature is powerful, but are you able to … to fight it?” The perfect prince sounded nervous, and Jack wished they weren’t all about to die so he could have enjoyed it more.

Merriweather looked at Phillip, then sighed. “I am sorry, Phillip. You promised to release me from my service if I healed this … creature,” she said, pointing at the slumbering wolf. “And my debt to your father is paid. Still,” the fairy queen said, glancing at May, “I do owe
this
one. If she wishes it, I could try to defeat the Ifrit. But that would then fulfill any responsibility I have to you as well, Princess.”

Phillip glanced at May, looking for some kind of answer, despite it being clear that the prince had no idea what was going on. May didn’t seem to be following any better, and jumped as if she were surprised to be called on. “Oh! Right!” she said quickly. “Yeah, go ahead and save us, that’s great! You don’t need to help me any more—
saving our lives from the genie is enough. So … thank you?”

Merriweather smiled. “You obviously have no knowledge of what was meant for you, child. Someday, perhaps I shall tell you. However, if this is your wish, I shall grant it. Now, you three must flee while you can. I will make sure you have the chance.”

Phillip nodded, then pulled the other two back toward the wolf. All three grabbed the animal’s legs, and together they managed to pull him back a few feet into the dubious safety of the woods, as Merriweather boldly strode forward to stand on the fallen roof.

“Ifrit!”
her voice rang out, startling Jack with its force.
“One of my kind imprisoned you long ago, and now I am here to send you back where you came from! Face me, coward!”

And with that, she grew.

Her form grew slightly transparent as if she were also made of smoke, and she spread out more and more until she was the same size as the Ifrit. Then she solidified back into her normal, opaque body.

For its part, the Ifrit didn’t seem to care about Merriweather’s taunt.
“Little fairy,”
it said to her in a completely monotone yet booming voice,
“you do not know what you are attempting to do.”

“Oh, I do,”
Merriweather said.
“I realize that you may destroy me, and if that is my fate, I welcome it. Come now, let us see if the vaunted reputation of the djinn is well deserved!”

“Oh, what have I done!” Phillip said, fear filling his eyes as he looked at Jack and May. “She … I did not … I thought she could …”