Story's End (27 page)
Authors: Marissa Burt
“You know his Tale?” Una asked.
“I know every word of every Tale,” Kai said. He was looking at Elton sadly. “Even if I wish they turned out differently. Perhaps especially those.”
Una watched the Tale Master. He was nearly awake. She thought of the way he had hurt her in the exam. How he had betrayed many others in Story. “What should we do with him?”
“Must we do anything?” Kai asked, running the feather over his chin. When he saw that this answer didn’t satisfy Una, he said, “What would you suggest, Una? Kill him? Lock him up for ever and ever? You know his beginning, what he once was and what made him the man he is today.”
Una thought of the boy who had been Written In. She wished his Tale would have turned out differently, too. “But if we let him go, won’t he just keep doing bad things?”
“Perhaps.” Kai shrugged. “But keeping bad things away will not fill the world with more good. Busy yourself with filling the world with goodness, Una, and you will find it a much better Story.”
Una started to walk away, but she couldn’t just leave Elton there. Maybe demanding justice wasn’t the answer, but there might be something else she could do. With Kai’s help, could she finally send that lost little boy back home? “Do you think a Tale like his can have a happy ending?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Kai said, as he handed her a blank piece of paper. “What did you have in mind?”
S
now leaned against her mother. The salve the Muses had rubbed on her wounds tingled as she and her mother watched the joyful reunions from under the shelter of a tree. After the battle, Indy had brought the freed prisoners to meet the others. Characters who had been locked up in Duessa’s castle found family members they hadn’t seen in ages. Some of the very old ones had been imprisoned since the days following the Unbinding. A stick-thin old woman half carried the old man Snow had rescued.
“I’ve got you now, Da,” she said as they limped along.
“No place I’d rather be than with my Trix,” the old man said, tears streaming down his face.
Some characters sat in little groups eating the healing soup the Muses were serving. Others were following the legendary immortals around with worshipful eyes, hanging on their every word. A few still looked up toward the castle wall that had exploded with black flame some time before.
Snow’s mother cleared her throat. “You did well, Snow,” she said.
There it was: the formal mask back in place. But then her mother leaned in and gave her a hug. “I’m so proud of you.”
Snow hid her smile. The whole thing was still awkward. But she didn’t care. That’s how her mother was. “Thanks,” Snow said. “Mother.” And if Snow was truly honest, she was pretty awkward herself. Just like her mother.
They sat in silence for a few moments until her mother nudged her gently in the elbow. “Do you know why I finally came back after thirteen years?” she asked.
Snow watched two boys swipe at each other with short swords. “Why?” she asked in a low voice.
“I watched my friend die,” her mother said. “A common cold took the great Warlock Amaranth.” She let out a sad little laugh. “Not the end you’d imagine for a brilliant man, but there he was. And I was the only one with him. No one who loved him. No family or friends. Just his apprentice.” She cleared her throat. “And in that moment, I knew. It didn’t matter who your father had been. It didn’t matter what he had done to me. I couldn’t leave you alone anymore. You are my daughter.” She laid her arm lightly across Snow’s shoulders. “And I love you.”
Peter sat with his back against a tree trunk. Indy was next to him, sharpening his dagger with a stone. A little ways away, someone had lit a fire, and the cats crowded around it.
“Would you like some soup?” the Muse who had come up to their campfire asked.
Peter’s mouth went dry. She was lovely, and her long red hair flowed in the wind. Her eyes were as gray as the sea.
“Well, would you?” Indy jabbed an elbow into Peter’s ribs.
“Um . . . yes.” Peter finally found his voice. “Thanks.” The Muses were all over the place, some bending down and pouring a silvery liquid on the wounded, others handing out steaming mugs of soup. Peter didn’t know where they had gotten the food, and he didn’t care. It was delicious.
The animals were restless now that the battle was over. Sam was sitting on the back of the unicorn, next to the Siamese, who was cleaning Sam’s fur.
“Quite the cat, isn’t he?” Indy asked Peter.
“He’s a fierce one.” Peter nodded. “You didn’t do so bad yourself,” he added. “Rescuing all those prisoners.”
Indy didn’t say anything, but he gave Peter a nod, like he would to another man, and Peter knew that from that moment on, he could count Indy as a friend.
A tall Muse stood at the edge of the clearing, a sheaf of arrows strapped over his back, and he carried a plate of something green and leafy. It looked different, but even from where Peter sat, he could smell the mint.
“The King has sent fresh leaves from his tree,” the Muse said in a low voice. “For the healing of Story.”
Peter held the sprig in his hands for a moment before eating it. The coldness of a mountain stream filled his mouth, and a strange tingling began in his fingers and toes and then filled up his whole body. Peter felt as though he could run up to the castle walls and back again.
Dawn was breaking, and the worst of the battle felt like a distant memory. Little reunions sprang up all over the place. Peter watched a woman with familiar clothes embrace a soot-covered man. When they pulled apart, he realized he knew who they were and leaped to his feet.
His mother wrapped one arm around him, and his father swallowed them both up in a bear hug.
“Good job, Peter.” One lens in his father’s glasses was missing, and his mother’s face was covered with dirt.
Peter stepped aside as his mother was ambushed by Rufus and Bastian. “My boys! What in the world are you doing here?”
“Some leprechauns came to Fairy Village after you left.” Bastian rubbed a filthy sleeve across his even filthier glasses. “They had a message for the Resistance.
“One was only this high!” Bastian pointed to the top of his boot.
“And Trix was going to come alone.” Rufus’s hair was sticking up all over his head. “But we wanted to help save Story—” Rufus pulled out his practice sword. “It was so cool. Just like we were knights and stuff.”
“And then we went through the Enchanted Forest—”
“And there was this huge battle—”
“And Trix found her dad, did you know?”
“And I fought a beast, Peter, I really did!”
But Peter wasn’t listening anymore. A small figure was making her way out of the ruined castle. A girl with a long black braid.
It can’t be
. . . and then Peter knew it was.
“I want to hear all about it, really I do,” Peter told his brothers. “But give me a minute.” He sped over to the drawbridge. Indy and Snow must have seen her at the same time, for the next moment they were by his side. There, limping across the empty drawbridge and onto the battlefield, was Una Fairchild.
Una sat near the crackling campfire. Alethia had brought her a mug of something hot that tasted like berries and smelled of wild roses. With every sip, she felt the aching in her muscles disappear. The Enemy and his lies were gone, defeated forever. Story would rebuild itself, and the characters were stronger for what they had endured. Already Duessa’s hold on the land was waning, the power of her enchantments fading with her memory. Una was sad for her parents, and something inside still hurt when she thought of the family they could have been. But the end of that part of her Tale had come, whether she was ready for it or not, and, as she saw the faces of her friends, she knew she had a different kind of family now. The kind that would last.
What was it Kai had said about filling the world with goodness? That it would make a fine Tale? She looked around at all her friends. Peter, who had clapped her on the back and called her a true Hero when he heard what had happened in the ballroom. Snow, sitting next to her mother, for once looking relaxed and happy. Indy, leaning lazily up against the trunk of a tree with two cats curled near his feet. Horace, lying flat on the ground and snoring softly. And Sam, sprawled delightfully across her own lap, purring loudly. She gave a great sigh of contentment. She couldn’t have written a better ending herself.
L
aura Langlie, you’ll never know how often I’ve marveled at my good fortune in having you as an agent. Thank you for your unfailing encouragement, for your belief in this project, and for all your hard work.
Erica Sussman, I cannot express how much I feel that these books are such a product of your creative investment as well as mine! Without your dedication, enthusiasm, and efforts, these stories would be the poorer. Thank you.
Tyler Infinger, Alison Klapthor, and the many others at HarperCollins who make the magic happen and transform a fat stack of printed pages into the lovely book readers hold in their hands, I so appreciate your hard work that has sent this story out into the Readers’ World!
Brandon Dorman, your skill and imagination have brought these stories to life. Thank you for your fabulous illustrations!
All the bloggers, reviewers, librarians, teachers, and early readers of
Storybound
and
Story’s End
, thank you for doing what you do, for sharing your love of reading with the world, and for making space for debut authors.
The Apocalypsies & Harbingers, how glad I am we’ve shared this journey together! Thank you for your companionship, moral support, encouragement, and friendship.
My lovely friends and family who have been so gracious and interested in my writing journey, your cheerleading and support have meant the world to me.
Mom, Dad, Ben, Jon, Kim, and Casey, your ongoing love, enthusiasm, and help have made the thought of writing a reality for me. Thank you for loving me well and for sharing life with me.
Aaron and my boys, thank you for our family. I’m so glad to be yours. I love you.
Marissa Burt
was forever getting notes sent home from teachers about reading novels during class. She grew up in Oregon and now lives in the Seattle area with her husband and three sons. Marissa is also the author of
STORYBOUND
. You can visit her online at www.marissaburt.com.
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Cover art © 2013 by Brandon Dorman
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Story’s End
Copyright © 2013 by Marissa Burt
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burt, Marissa.
Story’s end / Marissa Burt. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A deadly Enemy has threatened the future of Story—and twelve-year-old Una Fairchild is the only one who can stop his plans and save the character world from destruction.
ISBN 978-0-06-202054-3
EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062203021
[1. Fantasy. 2. Books and reading—Fiction. 3. Characters in literature—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.B94558Sue 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012011519
CIP
AC
13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
