The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (42 page)

Suddenly, a pair of footsteps echoed through the dungeon as someone from the palace above made their way down the spiral staircase and past the rows of cells. A young woman in a long hooded cloak slowly made her way to Goldilocks’s cell.

“Gross! Eww! Yuck!”
the woman said after each step.

Goldilocks recognized the prissy voice.

“Hello,” Red Riding Hood whispered awkwardly.

“What are you doing down here?” Goldilocks asked. “Have you come to personally escort me to my execution?”

“Please keep your voice down,” Red said. “The guards don’t know I’m in here.”

“What do you want?” Goldilocks asked her.

“I’ve come to let you out,” Red said.

“What?” Goldilocks said, completely shocked. “Why?”

“Because I’ve decided to make things right,” Red said very haughtily.

“Go ahead, then, let me out,” Goldilocks said, almost
daring her. She didn’t get her hopes up. She knew there had to be a catch.

“I will, but first, I wrote you a letter,” Red said, and pulled out a piece of parchment from inside of her cloak.

“You want me to read your letter first?” Goldilocks said, not even attempting to disguise the annoyance in her voice.

“Of course not. I know you probably can’t read,” Red said sincerely.

Goldilocks raised her eyebrows. “You’re so lucky these bars are between us right now—”

“That was just a joke; lighten up, Goldie. I’ve been working on this all night and thought it was best if I came down here and read it to you myself,” Red said.

“I’m listening,” Goldilocks said, and crossed her arms.

Red cleared her throat.

“ ‘Dear Goldilocks,’ ” Red began reading. “ ‘I’m sorry I ruined your life.’ Wow, I feel better already after saying that part! ‘Looking back on it, I know sending you that letter when we were kids wasn’t the right thing to do. I never meant to force you into being a fugitive. I thought the bears would scratch you up or eat one of your arms at most.’ ”

“Is this letter supposed to make me want to kill you
less
?” Goldilocks asked.

“Let me finish first,” Red said. “ ‘I’ve loved Jack for just as long as you have, but he has chosen to love a less attractive, less intelligent, and less wealthy girl instead. He loves you, not me, and this is the hardest thing I will ever have to
realize. I hope that by freeing you from the dungeon tonight you can forgive me. Love, Your friend, Her Majesty the Great Queen Red Riding Hood.’ ”

Goldilocks had never been so annoyed in her entire life. “It took you all night to write
that
?” she asked.

“Yes, and I meant every word,” Red said. “What do you say? Am I forgiven? Are we even?”

“Open the door first,” Goldilocks said. She would have rather spent the rest of her life in the cell than spend another five minutes with Red Riding Hood.

Red fussed with a pair of golden keys and eventually found the right one to unlock the cell door. Goldilocks stepped out of her cell, looked Red directly in the eye, and slapped her hard across the face.

“Ouch!”
Red yelled.

“There.
Now
we’re even,” Goldilocks said.

“I know I deserved that,” Red said, holding her hand against the side of her face. “Now put this on before we get caught and both end up behind these bars.”

Red threw her cloak over Goldilocks, and the two women hurried out of the dungeon.

They crept through the halls of the palace and made their way past the front lawns. They walked through a forest for a little ways and came to Ugly Duckling Pond. Porridge was waiting for Goldilocks by the edge of the pond. At first, Goldilocks could not see, but behind the horse, impatiently waiting, was Jack.

Goldilocks stopped dead in her tracks. “What are you
doing here?” she asked him, although she already knew the answer.

“I did it, Jack! I told you I could!” Red said with a big smile.

“I’m coming with you,” Jack said.

“Jack, we’ve been through this. You can’t come with me. Especially now—I’ll be wanted more than ever before once they discover I’m missing,” Goldilocks said.

“Every day without you is ruined,” Jack said. “I won’t spend any more of my life wondering if the woman I love is dead or alive or rotting in some prison. I thought I lost you back at the castle, and I refuse to ever feel that way again. I’m coming with you, even if it means that I have to chase you on foot.”

Tears filled the eyes of both women for different reasons. Both of their hearts belonged to the same man. Red would have given everything she owned to have heard him say that to her.

“Are you really willing to spend every minute of every day running from the law for the rest of your life just to be with me?” Goldilocks asked.

“I would give up anything to spend every minute of every day with you,” Jack said. He hopped onto Porridge’s back and reached his hand down to help her up.

Goldilocks’s head was filled with reasons and excuses not to let him do this. She wanted to convince him to stay and live his life, but this time her heart wouldn’t let her. She took Jack’s hand and jumped onto Porridge with him.

Together they took the reins and charged into the night. By sunrise they would be the most wanted fugitives in the world, but, at last, they were in each other’s arms.

“You’re welcome! No need to thank me! I’ll be fine!” Red called out after them as they disappeared into the forest.
“I’ll be fine.”

Red fell to her knees and sobbed. Tears poured down her face, and her makeup ran with them. She had never cried this hard in her entire life.

“That was a very noble thing you did,” said a voice behind her.

She turned and saw Froggy leaning down by the pond, collecting flies into a large glass jar.

“How much longer until this feeling goes away?” Red asked.

“I’m afraid traces of that feeling may be with you the rest of your life,” Froggy said. “But it’ll get better over time.”

“I thought helping her escape would help the pain, but it only made it worse,” Red said.

Froggy leaned down beside her. “It doesn’t matter how greatly you’ve been hurt or how much you’re hurting, it’s what you do with the pain that counts,” he said. “You could cry for years, and rightfully so, or you could choose to learn and grow from it. Take it from me: I spent years hiding in a hole, afraid to come out because of what people would think of me. But one day I decided to leave, and I ended up saving lives!”

Red dried her tears on his coat. He hadn’t offered it, but he didn’t mind.

“You’re very smart for a frog,” Red said with a big smile. “Perhaps now, with all of my dreams crushed, I can devote all that empty head space and energy to my kingdom. I am queen, after all.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Froggy said. He offered his arm to her and helped the saddened queen to her feet. They escorted each other back to the palace.

“What is your name, by the way?” Red asked him. “I never learned it.”

He hesitated. “Froggy,” he said. “Just call me Froggy.”

A
lex and Conner were both given their own chambers in the palace. It had been the first time since their stay at the Shoe Inn that they had slept in a bed, and it was the first night since they had arrived in the Land of Stories that they had gotten a full night’s rest. They were so exhausted that they slept until mid-afternoon the next day.

It was strange for them to sleep apart from each other. Alex and Conner both woke up every hour or so, each looking
for the other, and had to remind themselves where they were and that they were finally safe.

The palace servants had taken their T-shirts and jeans to wash, and the twins were given clothes to wear in the meantime. Alex was given a beautiful scarlet dress with fur around the cuffs and neck. Conner, against his will, wore a buttoned-up shirt with a collar far too ruffled for his taste and a pair of bloomers. For the first time in two weeks, they were dressed like they belonged there.

The entire palace had been buzzing with the news of Goldilocks’s escape and Jack’s disappearance. The twins couldn’t help but smile behind the backs of the frantic soldiers they passed in the halls; they knew that, wherever Jack and Goldilocks were, they were together.

The twins offered to go meet the Fairy Godmother with Froggy, but he wouldn’t allow it just yet.

“After the journey you’ve had, I insist you stay a day or two and catch your breath!” Froggy said.

And so they stayed for the next couple of days. They ate every meal with Queen Snow White and King Chandler in the massive dining hall. Snow White told the twins amazing stories as they ate, about growing up in the palace, living with the dwarfs, and the different reactions she’d encountered when people had thought she had come back from the dead.

Snow White invited the seven dwarfs over for dinner one night. The twins had wondered why one half of the
table in the dining hall was significantly lower than the other, until the dwarfs marched in and took their places around it. Alex and Conner laughed and laughed until their stomachs hurt at the stories they told. Conner beat all seven of the dwarfs and Froggy in a game of cards and took all their gold coins.

It was the most fun the twins had had since they’d arrived in the fairy-tale world, but things became awkward once Conner asked King Chandler, “Why were you so interested in a dead girl, anyway?”

The twins spent their days in the enormous palace library. Alex scanned through every book on every shelf, looking for anything that could put them on a path to finding a new way home. It took her three days to go through all the books, but she found nothing. Conner watched her from a sofa every day while enjoying dessert after dessert from the kitchen.

“I think it’s time we left this place,” Alex told Conner.

“You want to leave?” Conner asked. “Why? This place is great!”

“I don’t want to overstay our welcome,” Alex said. “We’re not going to find a way home sitting around a palace. Froggy said he would help us look; the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be home. Besides, despite what she may do to us, we promised Froggy we would let him take us to the Fairy Godmother. Maybe if she isn’t too mad at us for breaking the glass slipper, she could give us a tip on how to get home.”

“I guess,” Conner said, sorrowfully looking down at the
cake he was enjoying. His eyes suddenly lit up. “You know, there’s something we haven’t tried.”

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

He stood up, closed his eyes, and began knocking his heels together.

“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,” Conner shouted. He opened one eye and was disappointed to see that he was still in the same place. “Just thought I would try it.”

The next day, the twins packed up all their things and dressed in their own clothes. They tossed the saber from the deepest sea into the fireplace of Alex’s room, destroying it, just as they promised the Sea Foam Spirit. They had just arranged to leave with Froggy after noon that day, when Sir Grant found them with some news.

“We’ve received a message for you,” Sir Grant said.

Curious, the twins quickly followed him to the dining hall, where Snow White, Red Riding Hood, and Froggy stood around excitedly. The queens were each holding bright envelopes. A messenger from another kingdom blew his horn upon seeing the twins and presented them with an identical envelope.

“Cinderella had her baby!” Snow White told the twins. “It’s a girl!”

The twins eagerly opened the envelope. It was white and addressed to “Alex and Conner Wishington.” A golden wax seal on the back was in the shape of a glass slipper. The invitation said:

H
IS
H
IGHNESS
K
ING
C
HANCE
C
HARMING AND
H
ER
R
OYAL
M
AJESTY
Q
UEEN
C
INDERELLA CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO AN EXCLUSIVE CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH OF THEIR CHILD, THE
U
NNAMED
P
RINCESS, AT THEIR PALACE TOMORROW AFTERNOON.