The Thirteenth Fairy Page 11

  This book isn’t the one she’s read before. It’s not even close. For one, it’s kind of plodding. And the story seems to center on a mean little witch who’s horrid to everyone.

  But what she doesn’t know, or understand, is how it’s possible.

  This book is the same one she bought years ago. This is exactly the same copy—dog-eared, with her name written in ink on the front page. How is this happening?

  She almost can’t bear to read any further.

  But along the way, she notices something else that’s peculiar.

  New characters are introduced in this version. And they sound like they resemble a certain Macaroni Mob a little too closely for her liking. The mean little witch has a group of trolls who do her bidding. These are the villains of the story in the original book. But now they’re presented as the heroes.

  What is going on here?

  Filomena removes all the other Never After books from her shelf. Sure enough, there’s nothing about Jack, or Alistair, or Zera, or any of the characters she knows and loves. They’re nowhere to be found.

  She turns back to the first book. Wait! Now even the title has changed! It used to be called Never After: Giant Stalker. But now the title splashed across the front cover reads: Never After: Rise of the Trolls.

  Something’s happened.

  Something terrible!

  Something, she is sure, that has to do with her leaving Never After and denying the fairy mark on her forehead.

  There’s only one thing left to do.

  She has to go back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NEVER SAY NEVER

  There’s no time to waste! What else could have changed in the books? Filomena decides she can’t sit around waiting to find out. She’s got to get back there! She has to make sure they’re all still there. She hurriedly empties her backpack, removing her schoolbooks, and crams in as many Never After books as she can.

  What if they’re all gone? What if Never After is completely under the ogres’ control? Why did she want to leave in the first place? She was scared, for sure. And she was worried about her parents, of course. But there was something else—something she can’t admit.

  It was easier to run away.

  Much easier to run away than face the truth of who she is. And who is she? She’ll never know if she doesn’t go back.

  And now, faced with the consequences of her actions, something terrible has happened. Jack is dead! What about Alistair? What’s happened to him? And Zera? Did the sultan … Goodness, what if the sultan killed her?

  Anyway, the longer she imagines these scenarios, the more she’s convinced that something terrible is happening back there. She hopes she can return some of the story to its rightful shape. Already she can see the titles of the other books changing.

  Never After, Book Two: The Ogre’s Victory

  Never After, Book Seven: The End of Westphalia

  Never After, Book Eleven: The Reign of the Evil Queen

  It just gets worse and worse …

  She debates telling her parents everything. Maybe it’s time to be honest about what’s going on. She can trust them; they’re her parents. They love her no matter who—or what—she is.

  Besides, she can’t just leave without explaining where she’s gone.

  Except she can’t tell them the whole truth, either: that she’s off to fight a war in another world. No. That would worry them too much.

  She runs downstairs and sees her parents sitting together on the couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn, their legs entwined while they watch their favorite show: Handsome Romantic Detective.

  “Hey, honey, what’s up? Where are you going?” asks Mum.

  “Oh … ah … I was thinking of going to the library,” she says. She can’t do it. She can’t tell them.

  “What for?” asks Dad.

  “I was going to try to find some books about adopted kids, and adoption, you know, um, about people like me.” Playing with their guilt. Oh, she is a terrible child!

  Her parents exchange worried glances, and it breaks her heart a little. Her father turns off the television. She’s not allowed to walk anywhere alone, so of course her dad offers to take her there.

  “It’s so late,” Mum says. “It’s a school night.”

  “It’s okay,” Dad says, disentangling his feet from his wife’s.

  “Actually, I don’t have to go to the library.” Filomena takes a deep breath. She’s going to do it. She’s going to tell them. The whole truth. Haven’t her parents always assured her they’d love her no matter what? That she can tell them anything and they won’t be mad?

  Here goes …

  “Mum. Dad. I know this sounds crazy, but I went to Never After. The books are real. I found out I have this!” She takes off her beanie, and the light from the crescent moon and thirteen stars shines all around the room. “It’s the mark of Carabosse. She’s one of the thirteen fairies of the Great Forest. Anyway, I went there, and now I have to go back because when I left, I think it changed things. It changed the stories in the books. And now I think my friends—I have friends there, Jack and Alistair and Zera—are in danger. So I have to go through the portal again—it’s in the Hollywood Hills—and you can’t stop me. I have to go. I have to help them.” She takes a deep breath. She looks at her parents. She expects them to argue, to say that she’s babbling. That she’s caught up in those books and needs to go outside for some fresh air, maybe, and stop reading so much. (Okay, they’d never say that, but something like it?)

  She meets her parents’ eyes for the first time since starting her rambling speech. But instead of looking shocked, her parents are looking at her thoughtfully.

  Her dad stands up. “Okay, then.”

  “Keys?” Mum asks.

  “Got them.”

  “Let’s go. Betty, you coming?”

  “Yes. Let me grab my coat,” her mother replies.

  What’s going on? Why are they taking this news so calmly?

  “Well?” asks Dad. “You said you had to go. So we’ll drive you. To the Hollywood Hills, you said?”

  “To the Hollywood sign,” says Filomena, mystified.

  “Okay, we’ll take you there, come on,” says Mum. “Pick it up, will you? You said your friends are in danger.”

  “But—but—but—you believe me?” asks Filomena.

  Her mother and father look at each other with just the tiniest smidge of guilt on their faces. “It’s a long story,” says Mum with a sigh.

  “We’ll explain when you get back,” says Dad.

  “Or in the car, maybe,” says Mum. “It’s a long drive.”

  “Right,” says Dad.

  Filomena is flabbergasted. Were her parents abducted by fairies and replaced with changelings? These people who won’t let her walk a block unchaperoned are allowing her to go somewhere that doesn’t exist on any map except the kind on the very front pages of a fantasy book?

  “Well, are you coming or not, darling?” asks Mum, waiting at the open door.

  Filomena snaps out of her daze, and she runs to the car’s back seat. She just hopes the Heart Tree portal is still there.

  PROLOGUE

  THE UNDAUNTED

  Carabosse would not let this ogre queen feast on her niece. Twelve fairies had given their blessing. There was only one more to give.

  Hers.

  And so, out of love, Carabosse cursed the princess right then and there. A dark gift to save Eliana’s life. A hex to prevent impending horror and strife. A spell of misfortune to come on her sixteenth birthday—Eliana destined to prick her finger and fall into an enchanted sleep to keep her safe from her cruel fate.

  But alas, alas, all had not gone according to plan.

  Eliana’s betrothed, Prince Stefan, found her hidden in thorns and woke her with a kiss. The princess awoke from her enchanted sleep, and her safety was no longer her aunt’s to keep.

  The curse of Carabosse was broken, the gift undone.

  Elian
a’s marriage to Prince Stefan would next come.

  And just as the thirteenth fairy had feared, Olga’s fangs were then bared.

  The vile queen revealed her true face, and of the flesh of her stepdaughter and step-grandchildren she had a taste.

  Whom did Olga blame? When the blood was discovered and the deaths uncovered? None other than poor Prince Stefan.

  The prince, she cried, the prince killed his babes and his wife! And now the prince must die! The villain blamed the savior. The king became mad in his behavior.

  The kingdom fell to ruin.

  All was lost.

  … Or was it?

  * * *

  For Carabosse was still standing at the christening, holding the baby princess in her arms. And she had yet to cast her spell …

  Carabosse laid the babe again in the cradle, raised her hands to the sky, and cut her palm with a dagger. As her blood dripped to the ground, she spoke in a clear and solemn voice for all of Westphalia to hear.

  “This is my gift to the princess and the kingdom—

  When the night falls and the moon shows its face

  I curse you to thousands upon thousands of nights of sleep—

  Until one carrying my mark arrives—

  Until the dragons rise—

  And the wolves return—

  To wake you all from nightmares deep.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE RETURN

  Falling through the portal again is just as nauseating and gravity-defying as it was the first time. Filomena wonders if anyone ever gets used to interworld travel. She didn’t have the Pied Pipe to unlock it this time, but she did remember the melody that unlocked the heart in the tree and did a reasonable job of whistling it.

  Just as before, another tree vomits her out into Never After. She looks around. Yup. She’s back on the familiar hillside that looks over almost all of the kingdoms. Except this time there’s a darkness in the sky, the flowers look muted and limp, and even the air around her feels tense, as if something is just about to happen. She hopes she hasn’t arrived too late.

  She finds the marked trail that leads to Vineland, and as she journeys back toward Zera’s cottage—which she hopes is still standing—she thinks about what her parents told her on the drive to the portal.

  “You see, honey, we didn’t adopt you through the normal channels,” Dad began.

  “Darling, we found you under a tree!” said Mum.

  “A tree?”

  “In a little basket.”

  “There was a letter,” said Dad.

  “Shoot—I forgot to grab it.”

  “A letter?”

  “From whoever left you there. It said that … well … it said that we had to take care of you. You were a gift to us. But that we had to keep you safe, because there were evil creatures that would come looking for you.”

  “Like what kind of evil creatures?”

  “Ogres, wasn’t it?” asked Dad.

  “Witches, too. And trolls?” added Mum, tapping her chin.

  “And you believed this letter?”

  “Well, better safe than sorry, yes?” said Mum. “And, well, also if we believed what it said, it meant we could keep you. And we wanted to keep you so badly.”

  So that was why. It explained their neuroses, their overprotectiveness, their suffocating, overwhelming love and fear. They’d been warned. They’d been given a task.

  “Oh, and that thing on your forehead? That was on the letter, too,” said Mum. “I knew I’d seen it somewhere.”

  “And you’re okay with all of this?”

  Dad turned around when they reached a stoplight. “It’s not a question of whether we’re okay with it or not. We trust you.”

  Her parents walked her all the way to the Heart Tree. Mum was trying not to cry, and Dad was frowning.

  “Group hug!” said Filomena. They embraced fiercely, in a tight circle that no one wanted to break. At last, they let her go.

  “Just—be safe, kid, okay?” said Mum. “We don’t know where you’re going or what you have to do, but know that we love you. Be brave. You are more than you seem, and you know more than you know.”

  “And come back to us,” added Dad.

  “I promise I will,” said Filomena fervently.

  One last smile, one last hug, and she was gone.

  * * *

  She forgot that Zera’s cottage is glamoured and that she isn’t immune to it. Is it just through those trees, or is she standing right in front of it? It’s hard to tell—everything looks so different. Many cottages are still charred from the ogre attack. Some are no longer standing. Everything in Vineland looks different, sadder, uglier, and ruined. It also looks mostly deserted.

  A few villagers trudge by, but no one can tell her if Jack and Alistair are still around, or where Zera’s cottage is. Most of them eye her suspiciously as they hurry away.

  Finally, the Cheshire Cat on his mushroom takes pity on her. “It’s over there. Right in front of you. Just knock,” the cat says, blowing a smoke ring.

  She thanks him, and he gives her an enigmatic smile before disappearing.

  She’s standing in front of nothing, but she forces herself to knock. She raps against a solid door; she just can’t see it.

  She knocks again, louder this time.

  From inside, someone yells, “I’m coming, already! Hold your hairs!” just before the door swings open, revealing a stunned Alistair. “Filomena?”

  “Alistair!”

  “You came back!”

  “I had to!”

  Alistair gives her a huge hug and doesn’t let go for a while. Filomena is grateful for his kindness. “Where’s everybody?” she asks when Alistair breaks the embrace.

  “Zera went to find her sisters,” says Alistair. “But Jack’s…”

  “Here,” says Jack, who’s leaning against a wall and regarding her with a cool expression on his face. “So. The prodigal daughter returns.”

  “Hey to you, too,” she says, just as aloof as he is.

  Alistair looks from one to the other. “Now, now, let’s not fight. Filomena’s back, and that’s a good thing!”

  Jack shrugs as if he doesn’t care either way. Filomena decides to ignore him. “Look, I have a lot to tell you guys. First, my parents know I’m from here. There was some kind of letter from the person who left me under a tree in front of their house. It said ogres and trolls would be looking for me. Second, something went wrong with the books when I left. The story changed.”

  “In what way?” asks Jack, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, um, you died,” says Filomena. “You didn’t become you.”

  Alistair claps his hands over his mouth. “I knew it!”

  “What?” asks Filomena as Jack glowers.

  “When you left—something happened to all of us,” Alistair tells her. “We all went dark.”

  “Huh?”

  “Popped out of existence, I think. When you left, when you rejected the mark. It’s like we were never here.”

  “Really?”

  “Remember how I told you Never Afters can perish, but there are rules that govern our existence? That our demise is not something we’ve come close to experiencing yet?”

  She nods.

  “Well, we’ve experienced it now. One day we were here, and then—poof!—we weren’t. We just popped back right before you arrived.”

  “If you guys are back, maybe the book’s back, too.” She removes the first volume and feels such a huge wash of relief over her. “It’s okay. Look. You’re still on the cover.”

  Jack finally snaps out of his gloom and picks up the book with a wry smile. “Is that what they think I look like?”

  The books are back to the original version, at least for now. Returning to Never After changed things for the better.

  “Remember how I told you we’re in the thirteenth book? We’re all part of the story. We have to figure out how it ends,” she says.

  “Happily, I hop
e,” quips Alistair.

  “I’ve read all the books,” Filomena tells them. “I think I know what to do to defeat the ogre queen and her army. We need to be prepared. We’ll each need armor, a helm, and weapons. Dragon’s Tooth swords that can cut through anything, like the one Zera had that killed the ogre general.”

  “Where are we going to get all that stuff?” asks Alistair.

  “The books say that the most powerful weapons are forged and made in the Deep.”

  “You mean, where the dragons live?” asks Jack.

  “Yes.”

  “Um…” Alistair seems reluctant.

  She looks at both of them, exasperated. “What are you guys waiting for? Let’s go! We’ve got kingdoms to save.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  INTO THE DEEP

  “The thing is, dragons aren’t one for visitors,” Jack explains. “They keep to themselves, hoarding their gold and treasure.”

  “And you know what happens to those who seek to take it from them,” adds Alistair. “Burnt to a crisp.”

  “The dragons came to pay their fealty to the princess at the christening. Historically, they are supposed to be Westphalia’s allies,” Filomena reminds them.

  “That was in the past,” says Jack. “It’s been thousands of years, and no one has seen them since. After Carabosse cursed everyone, they kept away. And they know what’s been happening up here. As Westphalia fell and the ogres took everything west of the Vale, they did nothing. They buried themselves deeper underground.”

  “The Deep is way, way down below,” agrees Alistair. “We might never find them and just get lost down there forever.”

  “Don’t be such a Sour Skittle,” Filomena says.

  His eyebrows shoot up in confusion. “What’s a Skittle?”

  “Never mind,” Filomena replies with a smile. “When all of this is over, I’m going to bring you some candy from my world.”