The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (40 page)

“No!” Red screamed. “You can’t let them take me!” She looked all over the dungeon, unsure who she was talking to. She didn’t have any friends in here. “I’m ready for this day to be over!”

“Fine, you can take her!” the Huntsman said to the wolves. He unlocked her cell, and Red jumped up and pushed the door open, knocking the Huntsman back into the wolves. She ran as fast as she could down the other side of the dungeon and up the stone staircase the Huntress had climbed.

“After her!” Malumclaw ordered, and he and his pack ran after the young queen. She managed to get a head start as the wolves had trouble fitting into the staircase.

Moments later, Jack and Froggy emerged into the dungeon. Jack was wielding Goldilocks’s sword.

“Stand back!” Jack yelled at the Huntsman, who backed into a corner with his hands up.

“Jack!” Goldilocks said, clutching the bars of her cell. “What are you doing here?”

“Porridge found me!” Jack said. “I knew something must be wrong, because you weren’t with her. She led me here, and I met up with Snow White’s army on the way.”

They stared at each other so lovingly that it made Froggy uncomfortable.

“Splendid. I’ll find Queen Red Riding Hood and the twins while you reunite,” he said, and hopped back in the direction they’d come from.

The Huntsman pulled a crossbow out from under his fur coat.

“Jack! Watch out!”
Goldilocks screamed.

The Huntsman began shooting arrows at Jack. He ducked and dived, barely eluding them. Goldilocks had to dodge the arrows, too; they were ricocheting off the stone walls in every direction. The Huntsman moved like a machine, reloading his crossbow instantaneously each time he fired.

Goldilocks picked up an arrow that had landed near her and began picking the lock of her cell with the arrowhead.

Jack was trying to block the arrows with the sword. It was getting harder; the arrows were coming at him much faster. He hit one perfectly, and it flew behind the Huntsman. The Huntsman grunted and froze. His eyes bulged and he fell flat on his face. The arrow had bounced off the wall behind him and was now sticking out of his back. The Huntsman was dead.

“Jack! Behind you!”
Goldilocks yelled.

Jack turned around and the Huntress stabbed him in the arm with her dagger. She had seen the whole thing.

“Ahhh!”
Jack screamed.

He dropped the sword and fell to the ground. He crawled across the floor and sat himself up against the wall. He was clutching his arm. Blood was everywhere.

The Huntress walked toward him with her dagger raised. She didn’t speak, but she had pure rage in her eyes; as far as she was concerned, Jack had just killed her father. She swooped toward him for a fatal strike.

Goldilocks blocked the dagger with her sword. She had picked the lock of her cell and repossessed her sword just in time to save Jack’s life.

“I think it’s time you and I had a little girl talk,” Goldilocks said, and kicked the Huntress in the stomach. The Huntress rolled to the other side of the room and hopped back to her feet.

Goldilocks and the Huntress circled each other for a moment. They stared each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move. Goldilocks swung her sword at the Huntress and the duel began.

The Huntress only had a dagger half the size of Goldilocks’s sword, but she used it well; Goldilocks had finally found her match. They moved all around the dungeon, each shielding offensive strikes from the other.

The Huntress cornered Goldilocks. Goldilocks ran up the wall and flipped over the Huntress, cornering
her
now.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Jack asked.

“I’ll tell you later!” Goldilocks said.

The Huntress head-butted Goldilocks and ran out of the dungeon.

“Come back here!” Goldilocks called out, and chased after her.

They continued their fight throughout the castle, climbing higher and higher as they went….

Meanwhile, Red Riding Hood was being chased through the castle by the Big Bad Wolf Pack. She was running for her life, and tears were streaming down her face. She had
only been this scared once before, an infamous day when she’d visited her grandmother as a child.

Red wasn’t crying from fear alone, though; she was also upset that she was getting one of her favorite dresses ruined. Red also wished she had chosen shoes better equipped for running when she’d dressed herself earlier that day.

She reached one of the highest levels of the castle. Areas of the floor had rotted away and she had to be very careful not to fall through any of the large holes that would drop her several stories below. The wolves behind her were not being so cautious; they had a hard time getting traction on the smooth wooden floor and kept slipping into the holes, howling as they fell to their deaths.

Red ran up a wooden staircase. The upper half of the staircase crumbled away in front of her as she passed the landing.

“That’s not good,” Red said.

She looked back at the steps behind her and saw Malumclaw. She was trapped. The wolf made his way toward her one step at a time, enjoying the aggravation it caused her.

“I’ve waited for this moment for over a decade,” Malumclaw growled.

“Oh my, what big claws you have,” Red said, trembling.

“The better to maul you with, my dear,” Malumclaw said.

Red had never expected to die like this. She had always imagined it would be back in her castle with dozens of her and Jack’s children by her bedside.

“Oh my, what big teeth you have,” Red said.

“The better to bite you with, my dear,” Malumclaw said. He was just a few feet away. He arched his back, ready to pounce.

Suddenly, a quiet, whistling sound came from outside the castle. A cannonball crashed through the wall and directly into Malumclaw. The stairs collapsed, and the wolf was knocked into the next room. If he had survived it, he wouldn’t be in one piece.

“Oh my…” Red said. She grasped on to the banister of the stair landing as if her life depended on it. The steps on either side of her were gone; she was truly stuck now.

The landing started to teeter. The wood below it was slowly starting to crumble.

“Oh my… oh my… oh my!”
Red screamed. The banister collapsed, and Red fell. She screamed the entire way down.

Just a few seconds before Red was about to hit the floor, Froggy jumped into the air and caught the young queen. They both landed safely, courtesy of his strong frog legs.

“You saved my life!” Red said with big, thankful eyes.

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, Your Majesty,” Froggy said. “My name is—”

Froggy never got to finish. Red was repeatedly kissing his cheek. He turned dark green—who knew a frog could blush?

The castle began to shake as more cannons were fired.

“They’ve started the attack!” Froggy said. “We have to find Conner and Alex and get out of here!”

Alex and Conner didn’t know what was going on. All they could hear was the clanking of swords and the whimpering of wolves from outside the great hall, and the muffled announcements of the soldiers outside of the castle. They felt the castle shaking and falling apart around them.

Cannonballs began bursting through the walls of the great hall. Big stone chunks of the ceiling began to fall around them. They knew they had to get out of the castle as fast as possible.

“Your Majesty?” Alex asked the Evil Queen. “We have to get out of here! The castle is falling apart!”

The Evil Queen didn’t respond. All she could do was cry over the body of her former lover.

“If we don’t get out of here soon, we’re going to make Humpty Dumpty’s accident look like a scrape on the knee!” Conner said.

The Evil Queen wasn’t listening to them. She was so grief-stricken that she couldn’t hear. She didn’t even seem aware of what was happening to the castle.

“
Evly!
Please! You need to untie us!” Alex pleaded. “Just drop the stone and you won’t feel all this sadness!”

The doors into the great hall creaked open, and Froggy ran into the hall. Red watched from the doorway, panicked by all the destruction.

“Froggy!” Conner yelled. “Untie us before we’re crushed!”

“I’m coming, children!” Froggy said. He hopped across the room and quickly began untying them as fast as he could. It was difficult, though—the knots were tight. He untied Conner first, and then the two worked together to free Alex.

“Please hurry!” Red called out from the doorway. “My castle’s being remodeled, and I’d really like to see it before I die!”

Alex was finally freed. Conner and Froggy ran toward the door, but Alex went to the table and started putting all the Wishing Spell items back into her bag.

“What are you doing?” Conner yelled. “What part of
imploding castle
don’t you understand?”

“I’m not leaving without these!” Alex said. “We made promises to return and to destroy them, remember?”

The Wishing Spell was starting to wear off on the Magic Mirror; the glass was starting to
grow back.
A cannonball hit the wall closest to the mirrors. The golden mirror was knocked over by the blast and shattered across the ground. The Magic Mirror started rocking, about to fall at any moment.

“Evly!” Alex yelled. “Please, come with us!” But she was ignored.

The Magic Mirror fell on top of the Evil Queen and Mira and scattered into thousands of pieces on the ground. But the Evil Queen and Mira were nowhere to be found. The mirror had swallowed them just before it shattered.

Alex ran over and started searching for any trace of the Evil Queen or Mira, but there was nothing to find except
bits of broken glass. The only thing Alex managed to find was the Evil Queen’s heart of stone.

Alex put the heart of stone in her bag. She turned to run toward the door with her brother and Froggy, but something else caught her eye on the floor: It was her reflection in a piece of the golden mirror. It was so bright and colorful, and she saw herself smiling in it—and there was something behind her, something moving like
wings.

“Come on, Alex!” Conner yelled. “I don’t want to be an only child!”

“Coming!” Alex said. She ignored the glass and joined her brother, Froggy, and Red in the doorway of the crumbling great hall.

They found Jack in the corridor outside the great hall, still holding on to his wounded arm. Porridge was impatiently waiting here, too, not wanting to leave without her mistress.

“Jack!” Red said, and went to embrace him. “You came!”

“I didn’t come for you!” Jack said, and refused to let her touch him. “Where’s Goldilocks?”

Red put a hand on her chest and was short of breath. Pure heartbreak started to consume her like a delayed poison. He really was in love with Goldilocks.

“Let me get everyone to safety, and then I’ll go back for her!” Froggy said.

“I’ll go with you—
ahhh
!” Jack had begun to speak but screamed when he tried to move his arm.

“No, you won’t,” Froggy said.

One by one, Froggy took hold of Alex, Conner, Red, and Jack and leaped with them across the moat. Porridge took some convincing, but Jack coaxed her into hopping over the moat with them. They joined the soldiers, many of whom bowed upon seeing Queen Red Riding Hood.

“Forgive my hair, gentlemen,” Red said. “It’s been a rough day.”

“Where is the Evil Queen?” Sir Grant asked.

“She’s gone,” Alex said softly.

“Gone?” he asked.

“Yes,” Alex said sadly. “Trust me, you won’t have to worry about seeing her again.”

Sir Grant nodded. A huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders and the shoulders of his kingdom.

“Where was Goldilocks when you last saw her?” Froggy asked Jack.

“She was fighting that woman. I don’t know where they went,” Jack said.

“There she is!” Conner said, pointing upward.

Everyone raised their heads to look. Near the very top of the castle, Goldilocks and the Huntress were still dueling…
on the roof.

No one could do or say anything. They all just watched the fight with their mouths and eyes wide open. Neither of the women seemed to have an advantage over the other. It was going to be a fight to the finish. The castle was disintegrating around them, but they kept fighting, each determined to kill the other.

Their fight had turned into a battle. They swung their weapons toward each other more violently than ever.

Part of the roof near where they stood caved in, and Goldilocks lost her balance. She dropped her sword while trying to regain her footing. The Huntress saw this as an opportunity to strike; she raised her dagger high above her head. It was aimed for Goldilocks, and there was nothing she could do to defend herself.

“No!” Jack yelled. He ran over to a cannon and lit it. He wrenched it toward the Huntress’s direction, and it fired. A cannonball soared toward the women and blasted away the section of roof the Huntress was standing on. She fell the entire height of the castle and into the moat, silently screaming the entire way. There was no way she could have survived the fall.

Goldilocks found her balance and lovingly looked down at Jack. They shared a moment of blissful eye contact before disaster struck again. Dust rose as the castle began to collapse completely underneath Goldilocks.