Story's End (2 page)

Sam’s whiskers twitched, and Una scratched the spot under his chin, coaxing forth a deep, throaty purr. Everything had seemed like the continuation of some awful nightmare since she and Indy had returned. Their breathless escape out of the examination. The chaos in the Tale station. The man who stood on a bench and kept saying, over and over, “Crisis Code. Please proceed to the exits in an orderly fashion,” until the masses surged around him, and his warning was drowned by the flow of people.

Una and Indy had lost Horace right away. Indy had taken his belt and bound Horace’s wrists with it before they left the exam, but in the mass of characters, Horace had easily slipped out of Indy’s grasp and disappeared into the crowd. It had been a stroke of luck that Indy’s father and Peter had found them at all in the midst of the panic. Together they had traveled to Bramble Cottage, but after that had come the endless rounds of questions. The Resistance wanted to know every detail about the Red Enchantress and what she had said to Alethia. The Sacred Order of the Servants of the King kept making Una retell the bit where the Enemy gulped down the ink. And the kids wanted to know about the fight with Tale Master Elton. Una was tired of trying to keep her story straight. She had the distinct impression that if anyone questioned her too much, she might crack like an egg, spilling her secret all over the place.

What would they all say if they knew that the Enemy was Una’s father? And Duessa her mother?
No one can know
. Whenever she told the story of what had happened in Alethia’s garden, she edited out the part about someone of Fidelus’s blood releasing him. Her listeners assumed that the Enemy was free simply because Duessa had finally found and captured the Muse Alethia.

“Were the beasts
this
big?” Rufus was on his feet, his arms spread wide.

“How tall?” Bastian sounded skeptical. “As tall as me?”

“
Twice
the size of you,” Peter said as he jumped up to reenact Sam’s heroic leap onto the beast Magog’s back. “He came flying through the air just like this.” Peter grabbed a sheaf of broadsides and ruffled them in front of the boys’ wide-eyed faces.

Una shifted into a more comfortable position and cut several lengths of twine. Her body ached. Her neck was spotted with ugly purple bruises where Elton had held her, and her jaw still hurt from the gag. She had thought she would feel safe again once she was at Bramble Cottage. But she was wrong. No matter how many friendly faces she saw, no matter how clean she scrubbed her skin, no matter how much tasty food filled her belly, the thought of what she had done gnawed at her.
I released the Enemy. Me. His daughter.

She tied a tight little knot around the next scroll. One of the reasons she couldn’t fool herself into completely forgetting about the truth sat across from her, leaning against the barn wall. Indy was doing a better job on his assignment than Peter. He was to sort through all the ink and then separate the spoiled from the good. Indy reached into his carton and pulled out a glass jar, carefully unstopped it, and dipped a quill into the bluish liquid. He made a mark on a discarded sheet of old paper and rubbed his finger over it. As if he could feel Una watching him, he glanced up.

Una quickly looked away.
How much does he know?
Ever since they had returned, he had been giving her complicated looks that she did her best to ignore. It could be that Indy was being his usual quiet self. Despite the Resistance members’ persistence, Indy had very little to say, and the details remained unchanged: he had been in an enchanted sleep, waking only in time to free Una from Elton. Indy claimed that everything after that was hazy and that his thinking didn’t clear completely until they were back in the Tale station, but it still made Una uneasy.

Una reached for the roll of twine and dropped it again just as quickly when Wilfred Truepenny, Indy’s dad, burst into the barn.

“Heart’s Place”—his usually intense voice made a broken little sound—“it’s gone.”

“Gone?” Griselda said. “What do you mean,
gone
?” The dryad looked up from the tiny wood letters she was sorting into neat piles.

Ordinarily, Indy’s dad was intimidating, with his authoritative way of talking and his criticism of Talekeeper rule. In the days since Una’s return, he had become a whirlwind of activity, relaying reports from the other members of the Sacred Order of the Servants of the King and going out on endless rounds of meetings in the different districts. But now he stood very still, leaning against the edge of the old printing press. “Demolished,” he said. “There’s nothing there. The buildings that haven’t been burned are empty. No one seems to know where the characters have gone. The few Romantics I found cowering in the back of a shop say they were beset by a shadow army.” He crumpled up one of the freshly printed notices. “I think we can guess what happened.”

Una’s stomach turned to ice. The broadsides with the coded message telling interested characters to go to Heart’s Place had only been posted that morning.

“Elton’s not taking any chances,” Peter’s father said from his spot on the other side of the barn. “He means to squash any opposition before we’ve even begun.”

“No trace of those missing?” Peter’s mother’s forehead was creased with worry. “A whole district can’t just up and disappear.”

“It’s happened before,” Trix said as she twisted the old cloth she had been using to wipe down the press in her gnarled hands. “During the Unbinding.”

The silence that followed sat heavy on Una’s shoulders. The Unbinding was the darkest period in Story’s history. Characters had gone missing, never to be heard from again. Families had starved in the wilderness once they were driven from their towns. When she first learned about the Unbinding, she hadn’t thought to wonder why it was that characters had left their homes. Now she didn’t have to wonder. She knew. Her father’s book had let her glimpse the past, and she had seen him kill all those characters with one wave of his hand. She had seen how ruthless her mother had been. And now they were together again, and the thought of what they might do next sent prickles of fear up her spine.

“And so it has begun.” Wilfred finally said what they all surely had been thinking. “The Enemy has returned.”

His words seemed to snap the little group to attention.

“We need to stay focused,” Mr. Merriweather said as he ran his hands over the steel screw that supported the whole printing press. “Have there been any Sacred Order messages from Heart’s Place, Wilfred?”

“No word from any of our informants.” Indy’s dad shook his head sadly. “Any survivors would have known to gather at the Swan Clock—Adelaide Thornhill was clever enough to institute emergency plans in all the districts—but the clock is gone, just like Adelaide.”

Hearing Professor Thornhill’s name made Una think of Snow. Where was she? What had happened to her? Hot tears stung the backs of Una’s eyes. Was she responsible for that as well? All the horrible things that were happening had something to do with her parents, and her secret made her feel like she was all alone, despite the cluster of people around her. For the first time ever, Una wished she didn’t have to stay at Bramble Cottage.
I don’t belong here anymore.
She couldn’t bear to know that because of what she had done, a whole district was missing. Or worse. She blinked back the tears that were threatening to escape and willed them to stop.

“I brought the Romantics here,” Indy’s dad was saying. “Nine, maybe ten. They had nowhere else to go.”

“Where are they?” Peter’s mother gave a little cry of alarm. “Poor dears, after all they’ve been through, and with no one to welcome them.”

“Foolish man,” Trix said as she brushed by Indy’s dad. “Never has a visitor gone ignored at Bramble Cottage. You should have come to me straightaway.” Trix and Mrs. Merriweather were already out the door to greet the refugees from Heart’s Place when the others began discussing what to do next.

“Our informants at the Ranch might be better equipped to handle Elton’s counterattacks.” Mr. Merriweather squatted next to Griselda and began pawing through the letters. “If we put ‘the free find courage in the face of fear’ as our code on the new broadsides, characters will go to the Ranch, and those who prove trustworthy will be sent here,” Mr. Merriweather said. “But the Westerns must know that it will be dangerous. Once we post the notices, the Ranch might face the same fate that befell Heart’s Place.” He began loading parchment into the press. “Whatever this shadow army is, I have no doubt we’re seeing a repeat of what happened at the Unbinding. Elton is eliminating any sizable gathering that could stop him, and, while he’s at it, setting the whole countryside ablaze with fear.”

Griselda rolled the little lettered tiles around in her long fingers as she spoke. “Story will look to the Tale Master to rescue them. They’ll believe anything Elton says.”

A sour taste rose in the back of Una’s throat as she thought of Elton’s sweaty hands around her neck. “And Elton will say exactly what Duessa and Fidelus tell him to say,” Una said.

The remaining grown-ups looked at Una like they had forgotten she and the other children were even there.

“Una’s right,” Mr. Merriweather said. “Last time the Tale Master tricked Story into believing lies. But they’re forgetting one thing.” He waved half a printed broadsheet. “This time we know the truth.”

Chapter 2

S
now Wotton tore another strip from the mud-spattered lace front of her petticoat. She wadded it into a ball and ladled a stream of water over it. Her mother lay in a limp heap on the stone floor. Snow squeezed the rag, and foul liquid puddled next to the tray of suspicious-looking food that had been wordlessly delivered through the bars by a cloaked guard. The air smelled of mildew, like a pile of wet clothes that needed airing. Snow pressed the cloth gently onto her mother’s forehead. Nothing happened.

Snow had been alone in the cell at first. Then, two of the hooded guards had shuffled in, her mother’s form sagging between their unnatural clawed hands. Without a word, they dumped her on the floor, and their booted footsteps echoed out in the corridor long after the door clanged shut. Since then, Snow had tried to rouse her mother with little success. A few moans, a leg twitch, and the rise and fall of her chest were the only reasons Snow knew she was still alive.

Half her petticoat had gone to her mother’s feet. Snow had cried out when she first saw them. Raw and blistered, they looked like meat freshly skinned for the cook pot. The splotches of dirt and small stones embedded in the exposed flesh couldn’t be good. For the better part of the afternoon, Snow had tended these wounds. Gently digging the pebbles out of the open sores. Trickling the precious water over the worst of the soiled parts. Binding her mother’s feet as best she could.

Snow arched her lower back to stretch the cramping muscles. Her mother stirred. She groaned and lifted one hand to her forehead. A moment later, Professor Adelaide Thornhill opened her eyes and looked straight up at Snow.

Snow leaned forward. “How are you feeling?”

Her mother squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. “Snow?” she said in a hoarse voice.

Snow took a dipperful of water in one hand and moved close enough to cradle her mother’s head in her lap. Her mother drank at the water as Snow tipped the ladle forward. A trail of wetness ran down the corner of her mouth, leaving a muddy path in its wake. Snow wiped it away with the rag. Her mother reached up and laid her hand over Snow’s. Snow didn’t push her away. Her usual antagonism toward her mother had been dampened by the awfulness of their predicament. Tale Master Elton had betrayed them to the Red Lady, and no one else in the world knew where they were.

“How long has it been?” her mother asked. Despite the water, her voice was raspy.

“Two days. Maybe three?” Snow looked up at the tiny window at the top of their wretched cell. Twilight was fading to dark, and she could see the edge of a silver moon. “It will be night soon.”

“They took you away.” Snow’s mother braced herself on a trembling wrist and then pushed up into a seated position. She looked at Snow, her eyes pleading for the right answer. “They did take you away.” It was more of a statement than a question, and Snow knew what she meant.

“Yes,” she said. “I had already left the clearing when you began to scream.” Snow couldn’t read her mother’s expression. Was she embarrassed that she had screamed? Or was it that she had something to hide? “What were they looking for?”

The green eyes were steady, her mother’s composure returning with her strength. “The less you know, Snow, the better off you are.”

Snow dropped the dipper into the bucket with a thump. “Really? After all that happened, you’re still not going to tell me what’s going on?” Snow shouldn’t have been surprised. Her mother was the queen of secrets. “I’m in this awful place
because of you
, and you aren’t even going to tell me why?” Snow wouldn’t let herself cry. Not in front of her mother. She stood up and paced over to the wall with the window.

Her mother shifted behind her. “It’s for your own good—” She didn’t finish the sentence, because she cried out in pain.

Snow turned around. Her mother had one foot under her hips as if she was going to stand. She froze in that position, pressing hard into the ground and breathing deeply.

“They ripped open your feet,” Snow said in a hard voice. “And you won’t even tell me why.”

Her mother set her lips into a thin line and shook her head, and Snow felt like shaking her until she told her the truth.
My feet could be next!
Shouldn’t she know what was going on before the guards came for her?

Her mother’s fingers trembled as she unwrapped the makeshift bandages. She stared in silence at the angry wounded flesh, her hand hovering over the stripes along one sole. Then, she took the damp cloths and matter-of-factly rewrapped her feet. She looked up at the window, her gaze marking the corners where the walls met the ceiling, and finally took in the entirety of the cell’s interior in a swift searching glance.