“Let’s search the village outside the castle,” he said. “Perhaps they’re hiding somewhere less conspicuous, like one of the shops or farms.”
“What are their names? I forgot to ask.”
Froggy opened his mouth to respond, but the right words never emerged.
“I suppose I forgot,” he said with a deep sigh. “But I’ll recognize them the moment we see them. They’ve got strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and freckles. The boy has chubby cheeks and the girl always wears her hair neatly behind a headband—or at least that’s how they looked when they were twelve. I know they’ve matured since then, but I can’t picture it.”
“It’s all right,” the little girl reassured him. “How many twins can there be who match that description? We’ll find them soon enough.”
A new cluster of mirrors manifested in the distance, and they hurried to inspect them. Froggy and the little girl checked all the homes, shops, bakeries, taverns, and barns in the Center Kingdom village, but they were just as empty as the castle. They were certain the Literary Army had rounded up all the villagers, too—but an unexpected noise told them otherwise.
Froggy and the little girl followed the sound of sniffling to a mirror hung inside a small cottage. They peered inside and found a short, frumpy woman with curly red hair and a large nose. She looked at her reflection in the mirror like it was someone she despised. The woman tried smoothing the wrinkles on her forehead, flattening the bags under her eyes, and stretching her double chin as if the skin on her face were made of clay. Naturally, the adjustments never lasted, and the woman cried harder after each failed attempt.
Froggy stayed out of sight so he wouldn’t frighten the woman, but the little girl was drawn to her like a magnet—desperate to help.
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
The woman screamed at the strange little girl appearing in the mirror. She quickly turned to look over her shoulder, expecting to find the little girl standing behind her. When she realized that the girl was only a reflection, the woman screamed again.
“How did you get inside there?” she asked. “Are you a ghost?”
“No, just cursed,” the little girl replied. “I’ve been trapped inside the mirror for a very long time. And from the looks of it, so have you.”
“But… but… but what is that supposed to mean?” the woman asked.
“I saw the way you were looking into the mirror just now,” the little girl said. “You looked at your own face with such hatred and heartbreak. You nearly hurt yourself trying to change your appearance with your hands. If you dislike your looks to the point of hating and harming yourself, I’d say you’re just as cursed and trapped in the mirror as I am.”
The woman was still shocked to be speaking with a reflection, but even more overwhelmed to be analyzed by one. Tears formed in her eyes again, but this time from embarrassment.
“You’ve caught me in a very vulnerable moment, my dear,” the woman said. “What is your name?”
“I don’t know,” the little girl said. “All I know is what I see, and someone should never be so distraught over something they can’t control.”
“I agree, but it isn’t right to make judgments over one moment of weakness, either,” the woman said. “My appearance has always given me grief, but that isn’t the only reason I’m unhappy. My whole family was recently captured by that terrible army and taken to the Northern Kingdom. I was crying because I miss them dearly and am worried sick.”
“Then why were you trying to change your looks?” the little girl asked.
“Because I desperately want to save them, but my looks are holding me back,” the woman confessed. “I’m the only one in our village who escaped the army, but there are others like me in the towns nearby. I believe if we joined together we could create a plan to rescue our loved ones. However, I’m afraid no one will take me seriously because of my appearance—and I have a lifetime of experiences to validate that fear.”
Froggy was certain the woman’s situation would be far too complicated for the little girl’s expertise, but even in this dilemma, the girl knew the exact advice to give.
“No one ever changed the world by being beautiful,” she said. “If you want to make a difference, you can’t let something as trivial as appearance get in your way. A daisy doesn’t need the roses’ permission to bloom—and neither do you.”
“I may not need permission, but I do need support,” the woman argued. “I can’t fight an army on my own—I’ll need others to join me. But I’m afraid they’ll only see my looks and won’t listen to my words. I’m afraid they’ll only laugh at my hopes of rescuing my loved ones.”
The little girl placed her hands on her hips and stared at the woman with the confidence of someone twice her age.
“Only idiots listen with their eyes,” she said. “If people don’t hear your words, then shout them. If people silence you, then write your message with fire. Demanding respect is never easy, but if something you love is at stake, then I’d say it’s worth the price. Besides, if you can’t get villagers to take you seriously, you’ll never defeat an army! Sometimes we’re meant to face the demons at home so we know how to fight the demons abroad.”
The little girl had waited years to give someone that advice, and it appeared to do the trick. As if a sudden electric charge had run through the woman’s body, she stood taller and straighter, and her eyes beamed with determination.
“You’re right, child,” she said. “With all the energy I’ve wasted moping in front of the mirror, I could have accomplished great things by now. Well, I’m going to stop moping at once and get to work.”
The woman was so reenergized that her hands trembled as she gathered her coat and her hat. She was so eager to begin that she completely forgot she wasn’t alone. Only when the woman had one foot out the door did she remember that the little girl was still standing in the mirror.
“Thank you for the encouragement,” the woman said. “Whatever curse you’re under, I hope someone can free you from the mirror. You’ve certainly freed me.”
The woman left her cottage and hurried to the next village at a determined pace. Froggy was floored by the little girl’s counseling abilities. He applauded her and they journeyed away from the cottage mirror.
“That was quite the motivational speech,” he said. “With just a few words, you may have changed that woman’s life forever. Boy, I sure wish our paths had crossed when I was younger. I could have used that same inspirational—”
Suddenly, the cottage mirror behind them started to glow. It became brighter and brighter until it shined with the power of the sun. Froggy and the little girl both shielded their eyes from the strange phenomenon.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen a mirror do that before!”
Rays of light shot out from the mirror like ribbons and wrapped around the little girl’s wrists, ankles, and waist. The light pulled her closer and closer to the mirror until her body was pressed against the glass. Just when Froggy didn’t think she could go any farther, the little girl passed through the plate of glass as if it were a sheet of water. She collapsed on the cottage floor, and all the light faded. Froggy tried to follow her, but the glass between worlds became solid again.
“You’re on the other side!” Froggy exclaimed. “You’ve been freed!”
“But how?” she asked in disbelief. “What broke the spell?”
Froggy thought about it, but it was a mystery to him, too. There was only one possible conclusion he could come up with.
“Maybe it’s just like the woman said,” he suggested. “Perhaps the key to freeing yourself from the mirror is freeing someone else first.”
The little girl got to her feet, but when she turned back to the mirror, she wasn’t a little girl anymore. A beautiful middle-aged woman with long raven hair was now standing before Froggy.
“I’m so old,” she said. “Why have I aged
so much?”
“This must be the age you were when you went inside the mirror,” Froggy said. “The longer you were trapped, the more you faded into a little girl.”
The woman stared at her reflection, and after a moment, it astonished her. She looked into her own eyes as if she were seeing a long-lost friend. Suddenly, a wave of memories illuminated her mind like a swarm of fireflies flying into a dark cave.
“I remember,” she said. “I remember where I was born, I remember where I grew up, I remember all the places I lived, I remember the faces of my loved ones… and I remember my name.”
“What is it?” Froggy asked.
“Evly,” she gasped.
Her face quickly filled with shame upon the discovery. It was so overwhelming that she had to take a seat on a small stool.
“Why the long face? This should be a happy moment for you.”
“Because it wasn’t the only name I had,” Evly said.
She walked around the cottage and recited her memories as they came to her, as if she were narrating a film she saw behind her eyelids.
“When I was very young, I was kidnapped by an evil enchantress and forced to work as her slave. I was deeply in love with a young man named Mira, who tried to rescue me. The Enchantress caught Mira and imprisoned him inside a magic mirror as punishment. I was devastated and quickly planned my own escape from her. I poisoned the Enchantress and ran far away, dragging Mira’s mirror into the forest beside me. And then I made a decision that turned me into a monster….”
Froggy laughed. “I have a hard time believing that.”
“No, I mean it,” Evly said. “I was so heartbroken over Mira, I had a witch cut out my heart and turn it into stone. It made all the pain go away, but it also turned me into an irrational, unsympathetic, and cruel woman. I devoted the rest of my heartless life to freeing Mira from the mirror. I married a king in hopes of using his resources, and I tried killing my stepdaughter. The world found out and hated me for it, and I became known throughout the kingdoms as the Evil Queen….”
The name should have sent shivers down Froggy’s spine, but he remained completely unaffected. He listened to Evly’s memories as if they were a story he had never been told, completely unaware that the two of them shared some of these memories.
“Years later, I tried freeing Mira using the Wishing Spell. By the time I collected all the items the spell needed, Mira had faded into nothing but a reflection. He died in my arms just a few moments after being freed. There was a big battle at the time. Soldiers had found me in an abandoned castle, cannons were being blasted outside, the castle began to crumble. The magic mirror crashed over me and I’ve been trapped inside ever since.”
Evly covered her eyes and cried as if the story she had been watching had come to a tragic ending.
“And what about your heart?” Froggy asked. “Is it still made of stone?”
Evly placed a hand over her chest and gasped.
“No, I can feel it beating!” she said. “How is this possible? What sort of magic could restore someone’s heart?”
“I understand completely,” Froggy said with a smile. “It’s called a second chance. After a lifetime of sorrow, the mirror dimension has granted you an opportunity to start over.”
“I don’t deserve a second chance,” Evly said. “After all the pain I’ve caused over the years, I deserve to spend eternity inside a prison cell.”
“Then perhaps it’s a chance for redemption,” he suggested. “You were too late to free Mira, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for everyone else. There are plenty of people who feel trapped in the mirror and could use all the advice you’ve been storing.”
“But why me?” Evly asked. “Surely there are much more suitable candidates than an evil queen.”
“Well, maybe not,” Froggy said. “Maybe you were meant to go through all that pain and heartbreak so you could save others from their own. Maybe the Evil Queen is just a chapter in your life and not the whole story. Maybe the world has dreamed bigger plans for you than you’ve dreamed for yourself.”
Tears filled Evly’s eyes as she thought it over. It was difficult to accept kindness from a world she thought so cruel.
“I should take my own advice and stop feeling sorry over the things I can’t control,” she said. “Thank you for guiding me through it. As much as I’d like to continue looking for your friends, I suppose I’m quite useless to you from this side of the glass. Good luck to you, whoever you are.”
Evly kissed the mirror near Froggy’s cheek and left the cottage, taking her first steps toward a new beginning. Once she was gone, Froggy left the mirror and wandered into the darkness of the mirror dimension.
“What a nice lady,” he said to himself. “I wonder which friends she was talking about….”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE UNEXPECTED RESCUERS
Conner and his friends could hear the commotion between the witches and the Marines as if it were happening right in front of them. It was terrifying knowing his sister was outside in the line of gunfire, and pure torture knowing there was nothing he could do to help her. Conner fought against the metal bars wrapped around his body until his skin bruised, but the railing never budged.
Just as a thunderous round of gunfire commenced, Morina reappeared in the Rose Main Reading Room. She sauntered through the room to the bridge between worlds without even looking at the captives twisted in the railing above her. Conner and the others called her every foul name they could think of as she passed by, but the metal bars across their mouths muffled their words.
“Save your strength—you’re going to be up there for a very long time,” Morina said with a laugh. “Now that my pawns are in place, it’s time to secure a checkmate. Enjoy these moments while you can—it’ll be the last time the Otherworld belongs to you.”
Morina blew them each a kiss and the metal bars wrapped around their bodies even more tightly. The witch stepped into the fairy-tale world and disappeared in the forest on the other side.
Conner and his friends squirmed in their painful constraints. They were pinned so tightly they could barely breathe and were starting to lose feeling in their limbs. Hero was woken by his mother’s frantic twisting and began to cry—but the infant’s crying was drowned out by Red’s high-pitched weeping.
There hadn’t been many moments in Conner’s life when he’d felt completely out of luck, but this was one of them. With his sister under a terrible curse, his friends imprisoned around him, and no way to contact anyone outside the library, Conner thought the Otherworld might be doomed.
Suddenly, the conflict outside went dead silent and Conner feared the worst. Either the Marines had exterminated the witches and his sister, or the battle had moved. Footsteps entered the Rose Main Reading Room, and Conner worried that the witches were retreating into the library. Since his head was stuck facing forward, he looked out of the corners of his eyes until the muscles in his sockets were strained. He saw the shapes of four familiar young women—and they were the last people on earth he was expecting to find.
“As I live and breathe,” said a familiar voice. “If it isn’t Conner Bailey… and he’s exactly where I’ve always wanted him—vulnerable and in need of a favor!”
Mindy, Cindy, Lindy, and Wendy walked farther into the Rose Main Reading Room and stood where Conner and the others could see them clearly. The Book Huggers stared up at him and his friends with matching smirks, crossed arms, and devious expressions. The teenage girls looked like vultures surrounding a pack of injured animals.
“Hmm hmmhmhm?” Bree mumbled in disbelief.
“Oh, look, girls!” Cindy said. “Bree Campbell and Conner are in a suspicious circumstance together! What a surprise—NOT!”
“Hmmmm hmm hm hmm hmmm!” Conner grunted.
“What’s that, Conner? After all these years you finally have something to say?” Mindy asked. “Wish I could hear you through the all lies and trickery you’ve planted in my head!”
> “HMMM HMM HMMM!” Conner grunted angrily.
“Lindy, go back to the abandoned subway tunnel,” Mindy ordered. “I believe there was a handsaw on the platform. That should help Conner loosen his lips.”
Lindy followed the command and promptly left the reading room. Conner wasn’t sure if the Book Huggers’ plan was to free him or torture him with the saw, and judging by their questionable behavior in the past, either was possible. A few minutes later Lindy returned carrying a foot-long handsaw like it was a poisonous snake.
“Great work. Now remove the bar covering his mouth,” Mindy instructed.
Lindy paused nervously. “Maybe Wendy should do this? She was the only one of us who didn’t fail woodshop.”
Wendy nodded confidently and took the tool from her friend. The quietest Book Hugger placed the handsaw between her teeth and climbed a bookshelf toward Conner like a pirate ascending the side of a ship. With two quick strikes on each side, the metal bar across Conner’s face fell to the floor.
“What the HECK are you guys doing here?” he asked.
“We’re on vacation with our families,” Cindy said. “That was, until we saw you in a taxi outside Cheesy Street! Then pleasure quickly turned into business.”
“We’ve been following you ever since,” Lindy said. “We told our parents the pizza bagels gave us diarrhea. They still think we’re in the bathroom.”
“The homeless janitor didn’t want to tell us where you went, but his friends weren’t so loyal,” Mindy said. “They sang like canaries for a couple of granola bars and a box of Tic Tacs.”
Conner had never thought he’d be so grateful for his eccentric stalkers. Usually he found just the mention of the Book Huggers quite repulsive, but now he looked upon the girls as if they were each wearing a superhero’s cape. They were his only hope of rescuing Alex and saving the Otherworld.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m genuinely happy to see you guys,” Conner said with a thankful smile. “Now you’ve got to saw off the rest of these bars and let me down! It’s kind of an emergency!”