“We were inside it,” Daphne said, hefting the big book into Charming’s lap. “It was kooky.”
“Inside it?” Charming said. He cracked it open and flipped through the pages.
“She said it was magic,” Puck said.
“Yes, a person can go into the stories if they want to—”
“And they can change them,” Bunny finished for Sabrina. “The nature of the book allows you to change the story the way you wish it would have happened. And if the change sticks—if the Editor doesn’t change it back—it becomes history, and the changes affect the real people those stories are based upon. It even changes how the world remembers the story. In order to save my daughter, I changed her story.”
“What does that have to do with us and that lunatic who killed Seven?” Charming asked.
“The world knows Snow’s story as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but the original tale was called The Murderous Blood Prince.”
Snow gasped. “I assume that didn’t have a happy ending.”
“How did you fix it, Bunny?” Charming asked. His voice was stern and furious.
“I erased Atticus from the story—entirely.”
“Well, erased isn’t the right word,” Sabrina said. “More like edited.”
“Yes, that’s right. I rewrote him—or at least I tried. I went through his story and tried to write events that would destroy the evil in him and make him a hero instead, but nothing I did worked. I wrote a mentor into the story that he could learn great things from, but he slit the man’s throat. I gave him a loving fairy godmother who looked after him, and he pulled her wings off and threw her into a fire. Nothing I did could change the darkness inside him and nothing I did stopped him from murdering my daughter, so I did what writers call a page-one rewrite. I got rid of the original story and started over.”
“Well, if you got rid of him, then who was that man out there?” Charming demanded.
“Billy, please calm down,” Snow said.
“I will not calm down. My best friend was just murdered and your mother has something to do with it. Haven’t you brought enough pain on us, Bunny? First the poisoned apples and now this!”
“I deserve some of your condemnation, but I ask you to just let me finish before you throw any more insults at me.”
Charming snarled and roughly sank back into his chair.
“So I started my daughter’s story all over again, but even that was difficult. What happened to Snow with Atticus was so intense that echoes of it invaded the new story. I tried a variety of approaches. I wrote a version with your sister, Rose, where you spent the entire story dancing on flowers. I gave you a kingdom made of starlight. I even tried to make it simple and have you be a maiden on a sea voyage. But each change I made still ended in tragedy. No matter what I did, the book would not allow it to work. Each time, something horrible and unexpected would happen to you. It was as if the book were demanding that you experience pain. And then I realized what you needed was a defender—someone to rescue you from these problems—so I took Atticus’s brother, William, and made him into a proper suitor for my daughter.”
“Made me?” Charming said.
“Yes. I had to edit you, as well. You weren’t what anyone would call princely at the time,” Bunny said.
Charming looked at her incredulously.
“Actually, you were a bit of a playboy, and you had a tendency to spend too much money and drink a little too much wine, but you had a good heart. You were someone I could work with. So with a few simple words, I wrote you into the story and made you into a dashing hero on a white horse. I wrote you so that you were regal and dignified, romantic and strong. I turned you into the perfect man for my daughter, and yet that was still not enough. Tragedy happened again and again and again until I figured out what the problem was—Atticus was still in the story—no more than a hint, an echo—but he was there, hovering in the margins, subtly influencing the outcome.
“And the answer came to me as clear as day. The story demanded a villain. It wanted something to replace Atticus. I don’t pretend to understand how it works. I just know that’s what it needed. But I needed a villain I could control—someone who wasn’t bent on killing my daughter—so I did what any mother who loved her child would do to save her life. I wrote myself into the book as the Wicked Queen. As the story’s dark enchantress, I could manage the tragedy and control the pain. And it worked! The book was satisfied—even when my inventions were ridiculous. I mean, what kind of witch gets upset because her daughter is better looking? And that ridiculous poisoned apple—ha! Putting you to sleep so that you could be woken by a handsome prince and live happily ever after—how diabolical! But it didn’t matter. The story had its villain, its dashing hero, and a main character that experienced tragedy, and I thought the horror of Atticus Charming was behind us.”
“Except you lost your daughter,” Snow said. “I have hated you for hundreds of years.”
Bunny nodded. “A small price to pay to keep you safe.”
Snow’s eyes were distant, as if she were looking back over the course of her entire life. She reached out and took her mother’s hand.
Charming, however, was clearly not ready for a family reunion. “What am I?” he whispered.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” Bunny said.
“I’m not real. I’m your creation. You twisted me into whatever suited your needs. Nothing that I am is me. I’m—I’m . . . I’m a fairy tale!”
“Billy, that’s not true,” Snow said.
“And how does Seven play into this?” Charming demanded.
“For some reason, the dwarfs knew the world had changed. They confronted me and demanded that I change it back. Mr. Seven was the only one who saw my point of view. He realized what I had done was for the better. It created a terrible rift between him and the others, but he stood his ground. He agreed to look after you and Snow and make sure our secret remained that way. He was also there to keep an eye out for Atticus, in case he found a way to return. And lastly, he was there to keep you on the path of being a good person, especially when my daughter refused to marry you. I was worried how you might react when life got in the way of the qualities I wanted you to have.”
“Do I even love your daughter?” Charming said. “Or is that one of your inventions?”
“William—”
“It explains an awful lot, woman! Why I couldn’t get over Snow after hundreds of years apart, my failed marriages, my obsession with rebuilding a kingdom for us to live in. I made this castle because of that desire. Tell me if it’s real or not!”
Bunny looked to the floor. “I can’t say whether it’s real or not, William. All I can say is it’s what I wanted.”
Charming got up from his chair and stormed out of the cabin.
“Billy!” Snow chased after him, and Sabrina and Daphne followed. They watched him stomp across the courtyard toward the front gate. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He turned to look at the castle he had built. There was disgust in his eyes.
“You can’t leave,” Sabrina said. “These people need you. You’re their leader.”
“They’ll find another!”
“And what about me?” Snow said.
While the drawbridge lowered, Charming turned to her. “Your mother invented me to be the perfect man for you, Snow. She made me love you. She made me heroic. She made me up. I can’t trust my feelings for you. I can’t trust why I’m here. I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re William Charming!” Snow said.
“And who is he?”
“He’s the man I love!” she said.
“You’re in love with a person who doesn’t exist. In a town full of people who aren’t supposed to be real, I’m the one that’s a fantasy.” Charming walked through the iron gate and across the bridge. Everyone followed him, but he was soon swallowed by the forest and vanished.
Snow raced to the edge of the woods and begged
him to return, but he was gone.
• • •
The cold misty dampness returned with the morning. The gray sky hung low and felt binding, like an outgrown jacket. It was the kind of weather that made bones ache, and it was the absolute wrong weather for a group of people suffering from death and insecurity.
The Pied Piper slouched on a bench sipping from a mug of coffee. Nurse Sprat was too tired to say good morning. Everyone moved slowly, as if each step were painful. Even Daphne looked puffy-eyed and tired, and she could usually sleep through anything.
If there was any good news, it was that Mordred and the Pigs had finished the castle, and aside from a few evil doors that slammed in people’s faces, it was ready for everyone to move in. Finding rooms to fit everyone’s tastes kept people busy and their minds off of Seven’s death and Charming’s departure, but as soon as everyone had gathered in the castle’s dining hall, the sour mood returned.
Gepetto stood. “I’ve decided to dismantle the cabins,” he announced to the crowd. “This is a big castle, and we’re going to need wood to keep it warm, especially since cold weather is coming. Right after breakfast we can get started.”
“We can’t stay here, Gepetto,” the Pied Piper said. “We need to find a place to hide.”
“Hide?” the Three Blind Mice cried.
“You said we would be safe here if we joined you,” the Frog Prince said.
“And you would have been if there were a few hundred more of you,” the Scarecrow said. “Our plan didn’t work. We don’t have the numbers to go up against Mirror or that Atticus lunatic.”
“Even Charming has left, and he’s the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,” Nurse Sprat said. “This was his plan—this whole army—and now he’s gone. Now we’re being led by a couple of little girls.”
Mallobarb agreed. “Maybe Charming has the right idea. Maybe we should just get lost.”
“He’ll come back,” Goldi said.
“And what if he doesn’t?” the Cowardly Lion growled. “I took a big risk turning my back on the Hand. When they find us, they will be especially hard on those who betrayed the Master.”
Puck kicked Sabrina’s leg under the table. “Say something,” he muttered under his breath.
Sabrina shrugged. “What am I going to say?”
“They need a pep talk,” he shot back. “You’re their leader.”
“I think they’re right.”
Puck slammed his hand down on the tabletop and it rattled as if it had been struck with a sledgehammer. Everyone turned their attention to him as he leaped from his chair. “It doesn’t matter if he comes back. We don’t need him. Most of you were there when the mirrors spoke. Sabrina and Daphne are going to fix this, so stop your bellyaching.”
The crowd rolled their eyes and muttered amongst themselves. Puck looked ready to continue his speech, until they heard a commotion from outside the wall. Everyone raced outside as the drawbridge descended and a crowd of Everafters marched into the courtyard, led by Uncle Jake.
“More Scarlet Hand members have joined the cause,” Uncle Jake crowed. “It seems as if the plan is working.”
But Sabrina and the others were hardly excited by the new recruits. Jake had brought Cinderella and her husband Tom, both quite elderly, as well as their three mice servants. Behind them was Chicken Little, a potbellied robot from Oz named Tik-Tok, a gigantic caterpillar, and the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland, followed by the incredibly thin Ichabod Crane, Rapunzel, fewer than a dozen Munchkins—all well on in years—the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and a hundred dirty-faced, shoeless children. As the drawbridge began to close, Rip Van Winkle hobbled in on his cane, nearly tripping over his beard. Sabrina’s heart sank. Looking at them, she felt the pressure of the prophecy even more.
“We need to prepare for war. Who’s with me?” Puck continued, but no one responded. They were just as disheartened as Sabrina.
“This army gets more and more pathetic by the second,” Pinocchio grumbled.
While the new recruits were welcomed, Puck pulled Sabrina and Daphne aside.
“It’s time to tell everyone your plan,” Puck said.
“We don’t have a plan,” Sabrina said.
“Duh! But they don’t need to know that. Just fake it until you make it! That’s what I do. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, but if I told everyone, they wouldn’t put their faith in me.”
“Actually, we are all pretty sure you never know what you’re doing,” Daphne said.
“Listen, these people need heroes, and whether it makes any sense or not, you’re it,” Puck preached. “As a ruthless villain I have had my fair share of run-ins with do-gooders and I’ve noticed a thing or two about them. They aren’t confused or unsure of themselves. You have to be confident. If someone asks you a question, answer them—even if you don’t know what you are talking about! The secret is to sound sure! If they say, ‘Hey, losers, is the moon made out of cheese?’ The two of you say, ‘It is! I’ve been there! I ate part of the Sea of Tranquillity and it was delicious.’”
“So being a hero is being a good liar?” Daphne said.
Puck nodded. “Now you’re getting it!”
“I’m not going to lie. Let one of the grown-ups speak,” Sabrina said. “They don’t want to hear from us.”
Puck looked angry enough to pull out his own hair. “I can’t believe you. You know what? I’m seriously reconsidering marrying you.” His wings popped out of his back and he was in the air and gone before Sabrina could once again inform him that they were never getting married.
Gepetto joined Pinocchio near Sabrina. “We should prepare some rooms for them, son.”
Pinocchio rolled his eyes. “Papa, now that the army is growing, maybe we can assign them my chores. Many of them can split wood and heat water for washing.”
“Everyone works,” the old man said, looking at his son with disappointment. “That’s what being a grown-up is about. You want to become a man, correct?”
“But are there not many different types of work?” Pinocchio argued, his words getting shriller with each passing second. “Should those with a genius-level intellect dig ditches alongside the ancient and feeble-minded? I should be working on things that take advantage of my learning and world experience. Mr. Canis is really quite useless in the fight. He could make beds and—”
Gepetto snatched his son by one of his ears and dragged him toward the castle.
Unfortunately, Mr. Canis and Red had heard every insulting word.
“Come along, little one,” Mr. Canis said to the little girl with a sigh of surrender. “There are beds to make.”
Red slipped her hand into his. He looked down at it but did not pull away. Together they wandered toward the castle.
• • •
As the day passed, more recruits trickled in to join the cause. Among the most welcome were Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, which included Will Scarlet, Little John, and Friar Tuck. King Arthur and his knights soon followed, with news that the Scarlet Hand was suffering from a wave of paranoia. Both the Merry Men and the knights were concerned that they would soon be exposed as spies. Making a break for the castle seemed to be the best strategy.
As the recruits were initiated into the camp and given rooms in the castle, the Scarecrow came to find Sabrina and Daphne. “Ready for your next class?”
Sabrina groaned. “You’re not going to teach us how to fight, are you?”
The Scarecrow shook his head. “Not at all. I’m going to teach you military strategy. You may not know this, but I was once the emperor of Oz. I had to defend the city from attacks.”
“How did that go?” Daphne asked.
“I was overthrown by an army of little girls with knitting needles,” the Scarecrow admitted. “But right now, I’m the best you’ve got.”
They went into the Hall of Wonders and then into the mirror room. Inside, the guardians were waiting.
“All right, girls, take a seat. I’ve go
t to give you ten thousand years of war in an afternoon,” the Scarecrow said. He turned to the mirrors and smiled. “I’m going to give you guys a little bit of a mental workout.”
Sabrina and Daphne listened as the straw man used the mirrors to illustrate important military campaigns throughout the history of the world. Each mirror became an audiovisual display, showing portraits of battlefields and grand paintings of military leaders.
Sabrina learned of Gustavus Adolphus’s brilliant invasion of Northern Germany in 1630 and how his combination of artillery, soldiers, and horses became the template for most modern war strategies. He even turned Sweden into one of the most powerful nations in the world. The Scarecrow talked about Caesar’s invasion of Gaul in 58 BC, which was the first domino to fall in Rome’s conquest of the globe. A painting of Genghis Khan appeared in the mirrors as the Scarecrow lectured about the Mongol Invasion of China in 1218. Sabrina learned the strategies of leaders like Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Hannibal, and Napoleon.
Then the Scarecrow discussed how small groups of soldiers had managed to defeat huge armies. He pointed out that three hundred Spartans beat back thousands during the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC by bottlenecking the army into a small space. He showed how Custer’s army was brought down at the Battle of the Little Bighorn by a small number of Indians who drove them into a canyon. He finished his lecture for the night with the American Revolutionary War, in which the military fought off a much bigger invading force by using the terrain to their advantage. By the time he was finished Sabrina’s head was so filled with facts she thought her brain was at war with itself.
“Any questions?” the Scarecrow asked.
Just then, the door flew open and a group of men pushed their way inside. The first was King Arthur, followed by Sir Galahad, then Sir Lancelot, Sir Kay, Sir Gawain, and a dozen other sirs. Then Robin Hood, Little John, and Will Scarlet made their way in. They argued noisily as they jockeyed to be at the front of the parade.