Letters to Zell (23 page)

She Lost Herself in Starlight

F
rom the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming

Crystal Palace

North Road, Grimmland

Dear Zell,

Surely this is some sort of horrible, tasteless joke. A prank by thoughtless children. Kidnappers. Sprites. Pirates. Rory wouldn’t leave us. Not like this. Would she? Did we really not see this coming? We were just at the wedding, and she wasn’t fine yet, but she was closer than she had been in a while. Or maybe I’ve been blind all along.

We’ll figure this out. Malice will undo it. Or we’ll take her Outside. The doctors there can save her, I’m sure of it. Solace can help me get her there, slow time or something. Or Figgy can rewrite things again.

All morning, Edmund kept telling me to slow down and talk to him, but there isn’t any time. I have to get back to Rory’s. Her parents aren’t accepting visitors, but maybe I can slip through the kitchens.

Come back as soon as you can. Rory will need all of our help once she wakes up. I’ve sent a note to the Council on your behalf. I’ll send an express pigeon when I get a reply.

CeCi

I
mportant Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White

Onyx Manor

West Road, Grimmland

Z,

I’m swearing these oaths to you as my witness.

I swear I won’t go Outside. I’ll stay here. I’ll wear a crown and wave a scepter. I’ll be the queenliest queen ever. I’ll never leave my goddamned castle. I’ll sleep on my fucking throne.

I’ll stop swearing. I’ll stop drinking. I’ll be nicer. I won’t make fun of unicorn figurines. I’ll wear whatever dress Rory says I should. Even pink ones. And purple ones. At the same time. I’ll read
The Cake and the Damned
every night. I’ll preach True Love. We can have a cellist every day. Following us around. In a cart. And we’ll beat him if he plays Pachelbel.

I won’t eat ketchup ever again. I won’t sign anyone up for classes. I won’t order oysters. I won’t rock the boat. I won’t petition the Council. I’ll keep my opinions to myself. In fact, I won’t even have opinions anymore.

This can’t be happening. Can’t we go back to the wedding? I’ll throw Maro into the cake myself. I’ll stay by Rory’s side all night. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen. We’ll figure it out. Won’t we?

Won’t we, Zell? Please, for Grimm’s sake, answer me.

B

F
rom the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming

Crystal Palace

North Road, Grimmland

Dear Zell,

William has agreed to sedate Bianca for a bit. I’ve never seen her like this before. Right now, she’s babbling all sorts of nonsense, saying she’s sorry, that she wants to be a queen, saying she won’t leave. It’s almost as if she believes some magical combination of words will undo what’s happened, or wake us all up from this abysmal dream.

Under the circumstances, your mother-in-law was amenable to my proposal for a temporary rescinding of your ban. You’ll find it detailed on the pink page at the back of this letter. Let me know when you’ll be arriving, and I’ll meet you at the Clock Shop. I believe the nearest portal is at the Wizard’s old shop in Oz, though I’m unsure who’s running it these days. Most likely the Tin Man, but it doesn’t really matter. I know it will take you some time to get there, but please hurry.

As much as I refused to believe the news about Rory at first, the same sorrow has been replaced with a searing sort of anger. Anger at myself. Anger at Henry and Maro. Anger at the Godmothers. Anger at Rory herself.

How could she have been so terribly shortsighted? Didn’t she know things would change for the better? If she just could have waited one more day, we could have told her about Maro and Swan Lake and the missing jewels and how Maro’d be in prison soon. Rory could have started over. Not with Henry, just again.

Bianca was still in no state to accompany me this morning, reportedly having broken every piece of unanchored glass in her chambers. I slipped out of the kitchens without Edmund or the girls fussing over me. I had a few things to say to our Fairy Godmonsters, and I didn’t want any valiance or pity.

Malice met me at her door and I went straight for her throat. Unfortunately, Figgy and Solace were there, too. I yelled and thrashed, but they held me back, murmuring soothing words. I told them I’d had enough of their comfort. I wanted our friend back. I wanted revenge.

“Let go of me. Do something. Don’t tell me that you can’t do anything. Solace, take us back in time. We can rescue her.”

“Time can slow or quicken, Cecilia. But we cannot turn it back completely,” said Solace.

“What good is being Fairy Godmother of Time, then?” I screamed. “What good are you?”

“Indeed, what good are any of us?” asked Malice, looking sunken and dull, her scales as tattered as Figgy’s feathers. The three sisters exchanged dark glares.

“Then let me take her Outside,” I said. “They can help her there. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Figgy, not sounding as sorry as she should have. “But Outside isn’t an option.”

My heart skipped a slow beat. I did this. We did this. They’d warned us, and we’d gone anyway. I had somehow forgotten, in all the chaos, the highs and lows, the wedding, and the café, and Rory, what we had wrought. “Still?” I asked.

“I used a fair bit of my power minimizing the damage from the storm that started,” Solace said, cringing. “I wish there were another way.”

“You said I could help. Tell me what to do. Can’t these two help you repair the portal?”

“Time is not our specialty,” said Figgy.

“Oh, quit the sanctimonious bullshit, Figgy.” I shook my head. “Just admit you won’t help because you want to say
I told you so
.”

“We thought we had a solution that would involve the three of you. But now—” Malice started.

“You could have prevented all this.” A new wave of anger hit my chest. “You gave her the weapon. Why?”

“I did not have the power to refuse her request.”

“Twice. Twice in her life you’ve put her to sleep! How is it even possible? How can you look yourself in the eye? I should declare war on you. Make your life a living hell.”

“Do you think I wanted to be painted a monster? Briar Rose slept through her first life, true. But it was the only way I could avoid killing her outright.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. All this time, we’d believed Malice to be a shadowy villain with a chip on her shoulder. Her motivations weren’t something any of us knew much about.

“I had to renege on a threat I’d made in anger. The threat I’d made because my pride demanded that I be as important as my sisters. Would that I knew how little being important would matter to me later in life. I
don’t
look myself in the eye, Cecilia. My life is already a living hell, locked away here so I can minimize the damage I cause. Do you think it’s any kind of life? Bring on your war. I welcome it.”

“A war with us will not heal your pain,” said Solace. “Besides, if Malice hadn’t put Briar Rose to sleep the first time, she wouldn’t have been in your lives at all.”

“We’re in mourning, too, Cecilia,” said Figgy.

“You have no right.” I let myself drop onto a wobbling stool. “No right at all. You just stood by and watched. Grimm help all three of you when Bianca gets herself under control.”

“I know you don’t want to hear such things,” Figgy began, “but Briar Rose made this decision for herself. We did not make it for her. Nor did you or Bianca or Henry or even Maro.”

“Don’t say her name in the same breath as Rory’s. If you want to do anything to honor Rory you’ll get rid of her right now. Harlot. Thief. Send her to jail, back to her home. Anywhere.”

“That is not our purview, Cecilia,” said Solace.

“Trying to hurt Maro is what got us to here in the first place,” Malice said, her voice low.

I lost steam. “The lot of you. I don’t know why I even bothered. I thought you were supposed to know things.”

Figgy shook her head. “There are many things we are able to see and twice as many we cannot even begin to guess at. This is one of the latter.”

“Briar Rose sought temporary solutions to long-term problems,” said Malice. “Time cannot heal everything. Sometimes, it just causes you to live with a wound for longer.” She and Solace both shot scowls at Figgy.

“I did what I thought was best for her,” said Figgy. “After her first sleep, I thought she might thrive amidst the Pages of a romantic sort of Fairy Tale. How can you say it’s not better than the alternative? She’d always had Pages before. How could she be expected to live without them? How was I to know she’d one day turn inward?”

“Ridiculous,” said Malice. “Had you not forced my hand in the first place by publicly mocking my exclusion, demanding to know what I was going to do about it
 . . .
You were and always will be drunk with power.”

Figgy ruffled her feathers. “I was testing you. And you took the bait.”

“You two and your pride,” said Solace. “If either of you had tried to be gracious to each other instead of acting like children, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“We
were
children,” Malice said, turning away. “Besides,
I
saved Rory by putting her to sleep.”

“
I
saved her by slowing the storm,” said Solace.

“
I
saved her by writing new Pages,” said Figgy.

“All of you saved her. None of you saved her.” I was shaking, marveling at how quickly it seemed we had all moved from grief to blame. “I didn’t save her, either.”

“Cecilia—”

“The only way this works is if you’re together,” I said. “Look at the mess you made trying to prove each other wrong.”

“Over a hundred years we’ve been fighting,” said Malice.

“I wasn’t wrong,” said Figgy.

“Nonsense,” said Solace.

“Answer me one question, Figgy,” I said. “Was Henry necessary to Rory’s Pages?”

Figgy’s gaze fell to the floor, her wings wrapped loosely around her body. “Don’t you think I’ve been trying to find a solution to the Henry problem this whole time? Of all the eligible men who could have landed on her doorstep when she awoke, it had to be him.”

Solace threw a beseeching gesture at Figgy. “Will you never cease your meddling, Figueroa?”

“Once it became clear that he had a wandering sort of eye, I gave him a potion, you know, to ensure there wouldn’t be any lasting consequences.”

“You what?” Malice drew herself out of her chair to her terrifyingly full height.

“It was supposed to last longer, you see. There must have been a mistake, old bottle of feverfew, maybe. It wore off. Or perhaps Maro found a way to counteract it. I’m still not sure.”

I didn’t think it was possible to be any angrier at Figgy than I already was. “That’s why you wouldn’t help us. You had already interfered. And worst of all, you let her think it was her fault she couldn’t have a baby.”

“I was protecting her. All you were doing was confusing her with all that Human nonsense. Therapists and coffee and makeovers.”

“You tried to make us think we’d made some sort of mistake going Outside. You even told us you’d help if we stopped traveling!”

“I still maintain I was in the right.” Figgy stamped the cold floor, but it was a hollow gesture.

I thought of how confident Rory had become Outside, and I almost felt sorry for Figgy. “Hide out in your tree all you want, but studying Humans—getting to know them—enriches our lives, helps us to understand what we are, successes, failures, mistakes, love, hate, sex, war. We’re more than stories, more than characters, more than a set of Pages. Rory was—is—more than those things.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Figgy asked.

“Obviously you don’t think any of us are more than ink and paper.” I dissolved into tears again.

This time it was Malice who handed me a steaming mug, and I took it, gratefully. When I came to, I was at home. Darling and Sweetie were stationed in high-backed chairs at the foot of my bed.

“I think I heard her wake up,” whispered Darling.

“Get the tea,” said Sweetie. “And a cold compress.”

“What time is it?” I asked. My eyes were gritty, as if I’d trekked through a dust storm, and my throat felt as if I’d swallowed a farrier’s rasp.

Sweetie felt her way to the head of the bed and patted the cloth to my forehead. “It’s evening, now. And you’re safe. Solace brought you. Are you hungry, thirsty?”

And then I remembered, again—the memory a visceral convulsion that rolled up my body from my toes to my throat. Rory was gone. Rory would always be gone. It felt as painful as it did when I first read her letter. And from somewhere, the desiccated well of tears deep within found a new source of water.

How many days will I wake up and learn it all over? How many nights will I dream of us together and whole and happy and wake up to a reality that’s as broken as Valborg’s old mirror? How will we ever be okay again?

“I just want her back,” I told Sweetie. “I want things to go back to the way they used to be.”

“We can’t go back,” she said, sweeping the hair from my eyes. “The only way out is through.”

Darling joined us, and the three of us held hands and cried for a very long time.

Love,

CeCi

I
mportant Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White

Onyx Manor

West Road, Grimmland

Z,

I apologize for this pathetic scrawl. They’re keeping me on a lot of potions lately. One minute I’m a raging storm and the next I feel like I’m floating away on a nice fluffy cloud. I’m told I caused quite a scene after I opened Rory’s letter. I can’t remember doing it, but it seems a lot of things are broken that, sadly, can’t be magicked back together.

I remember before the letter, when I was happy. Drunk and toasting William with impossibly thin champagne glasses. On the beach racing the tide in our formal wear, collapsing in giggles, and doing it all over again.

And then there’s now. I feel almost nothing at all—a fucking giant, gaping, soul-sucking emptiness. I can’t remember anything in between.

This morning, William creeps in with Snoozer on his ridiculous rhinestone leash. I don’t know whether to be cheered up or more miserable than I was when I awoke. I order him a rare filet mignon from the kitchen. He doesn’t eat it. The dog may be many things, but he’s not stupid. I asked William to retrieve some of Rory’s old slippers so that Snoozer won’t feel so alone. As if that will help. I am the embodiment of uselessness.

There’s an expression Outside when something unexpected happens. They say “the rug’s been pulled out from under you.” That’s the exact fucking feeling. I can’t even process what I want for breakfast, let alone navigate a whole day, a whole week, a whole lifetime without Rory. I know that I meant to leave, but that was when I knew she’d be here living her life, she and CeCi visiting me all the time. I didn’t mean for everything to end. Now nothing makes sense.

CeCi says she went to see the Godmothers, but they weren’t particularly helpful. She’s angry and wants me to be angry, too—angry at Maro, at Malice, at Rory even. I just can’t. And I don’t feel like trying to feel, either.

William keeps asking me to talk to him. I’m just not sure what to say except for “How can this be happening?” which is getting repetitive, even to me. It’s the only question that matters, and one I don’t know the answer to.

I can’t think. I can’t move. I can’t get out of bed. I’m pretty sure this is all my fault, and I have no idea how to undo it. You know how much Rory and I pushed one another. If I had only known that it wasn’t making us both stronger. I don’t know, Zell. I want to think I’d have done things better. Differently, at least.

Rory wrote in her letter that I should follow through with my plan to go Outside. CeCi and William say I should be ready for when the portal is fixed—but how can I? How can I pretend everything doesn’t look completely different than it did yesterday?

William puts things in trunks, and I take them out. Because of the broken portal, I can’t even write Rachel to tell her what happened. Even if I could, how would I explain why we haven’t been back and that I might need her more than ever now that I can’t have her at all? Thinking about her makes everything even worse. So I try not to. I try to act normal when there is no normal.

Maybe the best I can hope for is some new version of normal. A normal where the hurt doesn’t ever go completely away, but where each day doesn’t stab quite as deeply as the one before.

B