Once Upon a Beanstalk (8 page)

“How’d she get it open?” One of the guards muttered aloud, and together they stepped inside the cell to investigate.

The door slammed behind them, and when they turned in outrage a smirking, yellow-haired young man was laughing at them. In his hands were the keys to the cell.

“It’s like taking wishes from a fairy godmother,” he said with a grin.

“Come on, Hansel,” someone called, and the guards saw a dark-haired fellow and girl dragging the princess towards the stairs. They grabbed the bars and shook them, but it was no use.

They were trapped.

~

The Grimms and Jack ran up the stairs, Princess Alana dragging along. Gretel glanced over her shoulder in time to see Hansel kick the door shut against the guards’ yells of outrage and sweep Alana up in his arms. Alana hugged his neck, her own face hidden. She looked about to faint—probably from lack of food and water.

Jack and Gretel reached the hall and ran across it for the stairs to the turret. The staircase twisted around and around, and the running was making her dizzy. Jack grabbed her hand to help her climb.

“Come on!”

They reached top of the turret, catching the guard by surprise. Jack’s swift uppercut made him drop like a sack of rocks.

“All right,” he gasped. “The beans.”

As Gretel fumbled with the packet, Jack helped Hansel carry Alana to the windowsill. Gretel reached into the bag, and found far less than she’d anticipated. Where were the rest of them?

Horror drenched her with sudden coldness. She’d probably dropped them along the way without thinking.

There was no time to regret it. No time to hate herself for the stupid, stupid habit she’d cultivated. She thrust the magic beans at Jack.

“Are there any more?” He asked when he saw she held only two.

Gretel bit her lip. “That’s it.”

Their eyes met.

If this didn’t work ... they’d be dead.

“Hurry, will you?” Hansel lowered Alana to the ground but kept one arm around her so she wouldn’t fall. His face was taut with terror. The sound of the guards beating against the door on the floor below reverberated through the tower.

Jack took one bean in each hand, rolling them between his fingers. He dropped them carefully over the sill, and everyone leaned forward to watch them fall.

Just before the beans reached the ground, a massive crocodile burst from the water and snapped them up with a snarl.

The wind whistled around the thieves and the half-rescued princess as they stared in shock at the crocodile, which devoured their only way of escape before slipping back into the water and sinking into the depths.

“Dragon dung,” Princess Alana whispered, leaning against Hansel’s arm. Her face was very white. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

No more beans. No more escape routes. It was her fault.

They were going to die and it was her fault.

“We’re not giving up yet,” Jack muttered, as if he could hear her thoughts. “There’s got to be another way out. Back downstairs, everyone.”

The thieves and the princess stumbled back down the stairs at a run, reaching the hallway where they’d played their instruments for the steward. Gretel’s breath burned in her lungs from so much castle-climbing, and her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. Any moment now the guards could be breaking free from the dungeon, or the steward could be waking up in the closet and banging on the door for someone to hear. Any moment now Agathar Black could be remembering where he’d seen Jack’s face—

The door to the hall exploded open, and Agathar Black himself burst into the room, blocking their exit. Jack skidded to a stop, Hansel, Gretel, and Princess Alana behind him.

“Leaving so soon?” The giant’s voice made the windowpanes shiver. “You’ll miss the ceremony.” His eyes moved to Princess Alana. “My dear ... I didn’t give you permission to leave your cell.”

She didn’t reply.

“Jack,” the giant said, planting his massive legs in front of their way out and crossing his tree-sized arms. The smile that slid across his face made Gretel’s skin crawl. “I’ve been hoping you would come back to visit me. You disappeared like a little rabbit down its hole before we’d even finished our conversation.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve said all we need to.” Jack’s voice was steady, but his face had drained of all color.

“Oh yes,” the giant growled. “We’ve
said
enough. But I haven’t had the pleasure of grinding you up to bake in my bread.” He took a step forward.

Gretel’s fingers itched for a knife to throw. She glanced at Hansel, who looked as if he felt the same.

The door to the dungeon groaned. Gretel glanced at it. The guards? But no.

Wait, was that a tendril of green poking through—?

Agathar hadn’t seen the straining door. He took another step, pulling a club from his belt and smacking it against his palm as he approached them. “It will only take a moment to kill you all. So let’s do this quickly, because I have a wedding that I can’t be late for—”

A beanstalk the size of a tree shot through the door to the dungeon, shattering it as the tendrils launched across the room as if released from a slingshot. Agathar jerked back in surprise as Gretel shouted, “The beanstalk!”

Everything happened at once. Gretel grabbed Alana and tumbled left, while Jack and Hansel ran right. Agathar stumbled as leafy tendrils shot up to the ceiling and stretched down to the doors. The beanstalk’s head, searching for sun, went straight for the window.

“I think I dropped some magic beans in the basement,” she yelled to Jack over the sound of shattering glass. “My stupid habit, remember? One of them must have fallen in the dirt and grown until it reached a breaking point. It’s looking for the sun!”

The tree-sized stalk writhed across the floor like a giant snake. Hansel reached Gretel and the princess. He pointed to the window, which the beanstalk had already broken. “Quick, get to the beanstalk and grab on.”

They stumbled for the windowsill together. Hansel put both arms around Alana and the beanstalk. Gretel put both arms around him. “Where’s Jack?” Gretel screamed in his ear over the sound of cracking and snapping.

They looked back. Agathar was running towards them, pushing the beanstalk leaves out of his eyes and swatting at growing stalks. He didn’t see Jack grab the beanstalk and tug it in front of him like a tripwire. The giant’s boots caught. He tumbled, eyes widening, and he hit the ground with a shuddering crash.

Jack dropped the vine and sprinted towards them just as the beanstalk lifted them out of the window. Gretel reached back and caught Jack’s hand, pulling him behind her on the vine as if it were a horse. His arms tightened around her waist as the beanstalk pushed out over the moat like the tentacle of a living thing, swirling toward the sun.

“We’re going to have to jump,” Jack panted, twisting to look down at the rapidly-shrinking ground. “Ready?”

Below, they could see the worried faces of Brellek and his men.

“Ready.” Hansel looked back at them, the wind whipping his hair.

“Ready.” Gretel shut her eyes and let go.

They tumbled into the grass as the beanstalk shot up higher and higher, disappearing into the clouds.

~

The TV in the corner of the hotel room blared cheerfully, airing clip after clip of the peace treaty signing. Gretel lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan and listening to the reporter babble on.

“In other news, the fast-growing vine that emerged from a window in Agathar Black’s house and quickly shot up to record-breaking size has been identified as a beanstalk, magic in origin. No word yet on what might have caused this massive growth, but scientists are speculating that the soil in the basement of Black’s house, which was imported from his native country, might contain special enzymes which interacted with the magic bean and caused it to mutate to massive proportions—”

A knock on the door drew her attention. Jack stuck his head in, and he smiled when he saw the news about the beanstalk on the screen.

“We’re the biggest anonymous celebrities in the kingdom for causing that,” he said.

“Yeah. But that’s nothing new to us, is it?”

He shrugged and grinned. “Come on, we’re celebrating downstairs in the hotel restaurant.”

“Celebrating?” She flipped off the TV and stood. “What for?”

“The king has issued you both a full pardon for rescuing Alana.” He shut the door behind her, and she took a moment to catch her breath following his news.
Pardoned.
She’d been expecting as much, what with their success and the resulting good news about the peace treaty, but now ... now it was official.

“What, you have nothing to say to that?” Jack teased.

“Hansel and Alana will be glad to hear it.” They stopped at the elevator, and Jack pushed the down button. The doors opened.

“
I’m
glad to hear it,” Jack said.

In response, Gretel grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. Her brother wasn’t the only one to find love in the recent death-defying situation.

When Jack and Gretel stepped off the elevator, Alana and Hansel glanced up from where they were whispering together at a table. They waved the second couple over, their faces beaming.

“Did you hear the good news?” Alana demanded. Once she’d recovered from her ordeal at the giant’s castle—and had a few good meals—she’d turned out to be quite spunky, princess or not. She was proving more than capable of handling Hansel’s bad temper. “My father has pardoned all of you!”

“Which means we’re going to have to go legit,” Jack warned Hansel.

“Can you believe it?” Hansel leaned back and wrapped one arm around Alana’s shoulders. “I think I’ve even found a job—apprentice to the palace locksmith. They were very pleased with my entrance exam.”

“What about you?” Jack asked Gretel. “Any idea what you’re going to do now?”

Of course they weren’t desperate for work, since the king had also given them a nice amount of money to get them started. But she wanted to have something to keep her busy.

She thought about it. “I have been dying to write down some of our exploits.”

“You mean, reveal our secrets to the public?” Hansel was aghast.

“No, silly. I’ll tell the stories all scrambled up, with some of the details changed, of course, so nobody can figure out exactly who wrote them. I thought I’d keep our old name as a pseudonym, too. The Grimm Brothers.”

“Just promise me you won’t write my story,” Alana said with a grimace. “I’d hate the publicity.”

“I promise,” Gretel said.

(And her collections, which became famous around the world, never did include the story of Princess Alana.)

“Is there going to be a story about me in there?” Jack teased, kissing her hair.

Gretel elbowed him playfully. “Of course. I think I’m going to call it ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.'”

The waiter brought a plate of fruit, and Gretel inspected the peaches. They were bruised.

“Why is it impossible to get good fruit around here?” She asked, pushing them aside with her fork.

“That’s a perfectly good peach!” Jack protested.

Some things never changed.

My father drove me through the woods in his truck, the wheels shuddering over the dirt road while the air hummed with all the unspoken words between us. The tears wriggled down his wrinkled cheeks only to get lost in his beard. The mark on his wrist burned at the edge of my peripheral vision, as if it were glowing.

I sat silent and immobile, a statue, a paper doll, a frozen thing of stone.

When we reached the gate I drew one shuddering breath and let it out, and my father put his hand on my shoulder. His fingers dug into my skin.

“He promised he wouldn’t hurt you, Bee. He
promised
.”

I shifted. His hand fell limply on the seat between us. He didn’t try to touch me again.

Dad turned off the engine and we sat wrapped in the silence. I heard him swallow hard. I slid my fingers up and down the strap of my backpack. My mouth tasted like dust. The car smelled like old leather and fresh terror.

Nobody knew if the legends were lies, myth, or truth. But they all talked about the Beast that lived in the house. Some said he ate human children, some said he turned into a vicious creature in the night, some said he looked like a demon, with flames for eyes.

A trickle of sweat slipped down my spine.

“You don’t—” My father started to say, but he hesitated. Maybe he’d been hoping I would cut him off, but I didn’t. I just sat, holding my backpack, feeling the crush of responsibility slip over my shoulders and twine around my neck like a noose.

Through the gate I could see the house, watching us with dead eyes. Trees pressed close to the bone-white walls like huddled hags with flowing green hair, and everything was covered with a mist of grayish moss. I’d heard the stories my whole life—we all had—but I’d never been close enough to see the cracks in the windowsills, the dead vines clinging to the roof.

Magic hung in the air like the lingering traces of a memory. I could almost taste it. Voices whispered faintly in the wind, or was that just the trees? The knot in my stomach stirred in response.

My father tried again, and this time he got the whole sentence out. “You don’t have to do this.”

Of course I did. Of course I must. I wasn’t doing this for him. I was doing it because I had no choice. With the mark on his wrist, he was a dead man. Our whole family was doomed. He knew it and I knew it, and he was playing a game of lame pretend because he wanted to sooth his own guilt. Because he wanted to be able to look back at this moment every time it crossed his mind in the future and feel that he had offered me a way out. That he’d been willing to rescue me, but I’d refused.

Instead of responding, I opened the door and climbed out. The gravel crunched under my shoes as I stepped to the ground. I shouldered my backpack and took a deep breath.

The gate squeaked beneath my hand. I crossed the lawn and climbed the steps to the house, feeling the stone shudder beneath my shoes like the house lived and breathed. The door didn’t open on its own, which I had half-expected, but when I put my hand on the knob I could feel the energy humming inside it like a heartbeat.