“Enough. Enough! ENOUGH!!!! The chaos is overwhelming. I can’t keep up. You have to stop this assault on the Book right now.”
“There’s a very simple way to get us to stop,” Granny Relda said. “Let us into Snow White’s story.”
The Editor scowled. “Don’t you understand? It’s off-limits for a reason! It is unstable.”
“Don’t you understand? I don’t care,” the old woman said. “My name is Relda Grimm. I am the wife of Basil Grimm. The mother of Henry and Jacob Grimm and mother-in-law of Veronica Grimm. I’m the grandmother of Sabrina and Daphne, and adopted grandma to Puck. I am also the grandmother of the little boy Mirror has kidnapped. Now that we have been properly introduced, you should know one more thing about me—I will do anything to protect my family. I don’t care what falls apart. I don’t care if the whole world falls apart.”
“Mirror is already there,” Sabrina said. “It will have to be revised anyway. What difference does it make now if we go there too?”
“All the difference in the world.” The Editor’s voice dropped to a murmur. “He is there too.”
“He who?” Henry asked.
“I’ve told you of the great calamity that struck this book when a member of the Everafter community manipulated the magic that fuels it. I’ve also told you that a character was completely deleted—wiped from existence like he had never existed, not only in the Book but also in the real world. But what I have discovered since then is you can’t completely delete anything. You can only hide it. So I put him in the margins of the story where he couldn’t escape. He’s hidden between the lines and he’s still there and if you and Mirror and whoever walk in and start making big changes, you might tear history apart and let him out. And trust me—you do not want to let him out.”
“We have to take the chance,” Veronica said. “We won’t stop until we find our boy.”
If the Editor did not believe the family’s commitment up to that point, he seemed to understand it now. His resolve collapsed, like a boxer who has finally run out of gas in the ring. He looked toward the ceiling.
“Might I have your attention?” he called. A moment later, hundreds, if not thousands, of fat, hungry revisers climbed down the walls. They gathered at his feet, turning their blank faces up to him.
“There is a man invading Snow White’s tale,” he said, which caused the little creatures to erupt into nervous chatter. “He may cause a great deal of problems for the real world. I wish to remove him from our book and to do whatever we need to do to undo some of the barriers that prevent others from entering.”
The creatures let out some excited twittering that sent a chill up Sabrina’s back.
“No, you cannot revise him. You won’t recognize him because he is walking through events he experienced himself. Normally, I would send you to completely revise the tale, but there is another visitor from the real world—a small child—an innocent. This child must not be revised.”
There were more squeaks. These seemed to Sabrina like arguments.
“No, the child must be spared. You are not to revise him. We are attempting to rescue him.”
There was more chatter, and the Editor frowned. He turned to the family.
“They understand, but whether they will obey me is another story. They have their roles as I have mine. The best I can do is give you a head start.”
“What about me?” Pinocchio called. “You’re not sending me back into that book, are you?”
The Editor shot him an angry look. “You’re staying here. I think you’ve caused enough trouble, little boy.”
The thin man stepped over to a door that materialized by the fireplace. He opened it and gestured into the emptiness beyond. The family rushed through.
“Find him,” the Editor begged. “Find Mirror and the boy and leave my book as quickly as you can.”
When the raging wind in their ears died away and the flickering lights stopped blinding Sabrina, she looked around. She and her family were standing in the middle of a crude cabin. A group of seven very short men were standing around watching a beautiful woman sweep the rough, wooden floor.
“Well, who’s hungry?” the woman said, setting down her broom. She turned and flashed everyone a smile as bright as a spotlight. She was a collection of perfect features—a delicate button nose, bright red lips, skin like cream, hair as black as night, and bright blue eyes that sparkled like jewels.
“Ms. White!” Sabrina said.
Snow White looked confused. “Have we met?”
“She’s not our Ms. White,” Granny Relda said. “She’s just walking history.”
Sabrina eyed the beautiful woman closely. Since stepping into the Book of Everafter, they had met many fairy-tale versions of people they knew in the real world, but most had been nothing more than acquaintances (or, in the case of the Queen of Hearts, bitter enemies). Snow White was a very good friend of her family. Sabrina had spoken to her hundreds of times, and now, with this copy right before her eyes, her brain was having a difficult time separating the two.
“Snow, you can’t let anyone into this house,” one of the little men said, completely butting into the conversation. Sabrina turned and realized the speaker was another good friend, Mr. Seven. He was carrying a mug of something that turned his face red every time he took a sip.
“Your mother is trying to kill you,” another dwarf said.
“I know, I know,” Snow said as if it were nothing to worry about.
“She’s already disguised herself as a peddler and choked you with a strand of lace,” a bearded dwarf complained.
“Then you stuck that poisoned comb in your hair. Luckily we came home from the mine before it killed you,” a bald dwarf added.
“You need to be on guard and not let anyone in when we are not with you,” Mr. Seven said.
Snow White smiled as if she was thinking of something else and went back to sweeping the floor. “I’ll do my best. I guess I’m just so gullible.”
“Well, we better get back to work,” Mr. Seven said as he took a long, deep drink. His breath smelled like fruit and alcohol. “Keep the doors locked.”
“Will do!” Snow said, but it was clear she wasn’t listening.
The dwarfs shuffled out of the house, leaving the family alone with the beauty. She turned to face them, confused.
“Still here?”
“You haven’t noticed a magic mirror running around here with a little boy, have you?” Henry asked.
Snow White set her broom down. Her expression shifted from ditzy to deadly serious. “Have you come to change history again? These events have been revised already.” She rushed to the window and peered out as if concerned that she might be overheard. “The Editor worked on it himself. Is he unhappy with how it’s going?”
Suddenly, there was a rap at the door.
“That’s the Wicked Queen,” Snow said. “You should hide. We shouldn’t alter anything more. It was hard getting it to make sense after all the changes.”
Everyone argued, but eventually Snow convinced them all to hide under beds and listen as the story unfolded. Once everyone was out of sight, Snow went to an open window.
“I am not allowed to let anyone in. The dwarfs have forbidden me to do so.”
An old woman’s voice croaked from the other side of the window. “That is all right with me. I’ll easily get rid of my apples. Here, I’ll give you one of them.”
“Don’t do it,” Daphne whispered.
“Hey, marshmallow, your knee is in my back,” Puck groaned.
“Hush!” Sabrina ordered, and then turned back to Snow and the witch.
“No, I can’t accept anything,” Snow replied to her visitor.
“Are you afraid of poison? Look, I’ll cut the apple in two. You can eat the red half, and I shall eat the white half.”
Sabrina heard someone take a bite from the apple. A moment later, Snow White collapsed onto the floor. Sabrina watched the old woman stand over her.
&n
bsp; “White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony wood. This time the dwarfs cannot awaken you.”
When the old woman was gone, the family climbed out from under the bed and hovered over Snow White.
“The people in these stories are nuts,” Sabrina said. “She knew the witch was coming, but she went through with the whole thing anyway.”
Puck shook Snow. “Wakey-wakey, sleepyhead.”
“She’s enchanted,” Sabrina explained. “She won’t wake up until someone who truly loves her kisses her on the lips.”
“So this fairy tale is a horror story,” Puck said.
“The prince will be along to wake her up soon,” Granny said as Veronica helped her out from beneath the bed. “We should get back to looking for Mirror and the baby. Whatever he plans on doing to your son is going to happen soon.”
In the silence after Granny finished speaking, Sabrina heard the unmistakable sound of someone taking another crunchy bite of the apple. She turned to find Puck with a mouthful of fruit. “Can’t we stop and get something to eat? This puberty thing is making me all kinds of hungry. Oh!” He looked down at the apple sheepishly and then fell to the floor in a heap.
“No way,” Henry said.
“I can’t believe you!!!” Sabrina shouted at the unconscious boy. If he had been awake she might have kicked him. “Where is your brain?”
“In his defense, I don’t think he knows this story,” Daphne said. “His parents probably didn’t read him too many fairy tales when he was little . . . four thousand years ago.”
“Aaargh!” Sabrina growled. “We have to find Mirror and stop him—not carry Sleepy Steven around. What do you think we should do?”
“We’ll put Puck into one of these beds,” Henry suggested. “He’ll be safe here. When it’s all said and done, we’ll come back and get him.”
“What about the revisers?” Sabrina said as her father hauled Puck’s limp body to the nearest cot. “What if they come before we get back?”
“We’ll watch him,” the dwarfs said as they entered the room. Mr. Seven was in the lead. “The Editor filled us in. Hopefully you can stop the magic mirror from unleashing that madman. Follow the path to the castle. That’s where you’ll find Mirror.”
“What madman?” Veronica asked.
“It’s not important,” Mr. Three said. “Just go!”
Sabrina nodded, glancing once more at the boy fairy. She had never seen him look so vulnerable. She had gotten used to his bravado, and she realized his confidence gave her a sense of assurance that everything would be OK in the end. Now she had to admit she preferred his sneering and jokes to his silence and helplessness.
“C’mon, lieblings,” Granny Relda said as she pushed the cottage door open.
“There it is,” Daphne said, pointing up the road to a castle sitting high on a hill. It was enormous and built from black stones. Its two towers bore black flags that fluttered in the wind.
“Great,” Sabrina grumbled. “Nothing like a spooky castle for an ultimate showdown.”
They ran up the hill to the imposing castle. With their legs aching and their lungs tight, they raced across the castle’s drawbridge. Below them the waters were filled with horrible leathery crocodiles and spiked beasts. Sabrina shook off a chill and ran through the open doors of the castle. The main room was filled with paintings of an elegant woman with dark hair dressed in royal robes. In one depiction, her hand rested on the head of a cheetah. Sabrina recognized her at once; she was Bunny Lancaster—also known as the Wicked Queen—also known as Snow White’s mother. But there was no sign of Mirror or any other characters in the room.
Sabrina took a deep breath and helped her grandmother scale the stairs at the back of the entrance hall. When they reached the top, they huffed and puffed their way down a long, empty hallway, only to face another completely different flight of stairs.
“Can’t anyone do their evil on the first floor?” Henry complained.
“Or at least put in an elevator,” Daphne said.
They climbed the second flight and were stopped in their tracks by a heavy wooden door. Through it the girls heard a terrified scream followed by a jarring crash of broken glass.
“Stay close,” Henry whispered to the family, and he pushed the door. When it swung open, the family witnessed a horrible scene. Mirror had his hands wrapped around the slender throat of the Wicked Queen. Despite his tiny frame, the man had hoisted her off the floor. Her face was turning blue and her feet were kicking wildly in vain for the solid ground.
“Hello, everyone,” Mirror said without tearing his attention away from the Queen. “If you would just give me a moment here with my mother, I will soon give you my undivided attention.”
Mirror tossed the woman into a corner. She stared at him apprehensively as she struggled to breathe. “You look bewildered, Mommy. Are you surprised your son is angry? Of all the people in the world, you should know why! You locked me inside that prison! Then you gave me away!”
His shouts, full of a terrifying rage, echoed off the walls and rang in Sabrina’s ears. She was well aware of Mirror’s magical abilities, but at that moment it was his tone that scared her the most. It seemed to have an effect on the others, too. In the far corner of the room a small child let out a whimpering cry. It was her baby brother!
Henry spotted him too, and raced to him, but a blast of lightning from Mirror’s hands stopped him in his tracks.
“Not so fast, Hank,” Mirror said.
“You have to stop this,” the Wicked Queen choked. “You’re messing with very fragile history.”
“I’ve been abused and mistreated for centuries,” Mirror continued, ignoring her pleas. “Then you turned your back on me as if I were property. What kind of mother are you?”
“I am not your mother,” the Wicked Queen said. “If you’ve come for revenge, you should have stayed in the real world.”
Mirror’s eyes glowed and the air crackled. He stuck out an angry finger at the woman. “As always, you deny me.”
The reflection in a full-length mirror leaning against the wall swirled and bubbled. The frame was familiar to Sabrina. It was identical to the one they had in Granny Relda’s home. Soon, a bulbous and intimidating face appeared. It was the storybook version of Mirror himself, and his expression was panicked.
“You must stop this,” the man in the mirror said. “The story will collapse.”
Mirror approached the enchanted glass. “So, this is what I look like on the other side? I’m really quite impressive.”
“There is no need for this violence,” the fake magic mirror said.
Mirror thrust his hand into the reflection. He wrapped his fingers around his doppelgänger’s throat and squeezed.
“What do you want?” the Wicked Queen said as she climbed to her feet.
After a long and painful moment, Mirror released him and stalked back to the Wicked Queen. “I want you to use your considerable magical talents to make me real. I want—”
Suddenly, there was a tremendous rocking sensation. Everything was shaking—the ground, the air, even the colors of objects scattered around the room. Sabrina felt like she was inside a snow globe in the hands of a hyperactive child.
“What was that?” Mirror said.
“I told you this story is unstable,” the Queen said. “It can’t take any more revision. It’s all going to fall apart.”
“Then we better get crackin’,” Mirror said, pulling the Queen across the room.
“I can’t make you real,” the Queen stammered.
“Tsk tsk,” he said. “You are the Wicked Queen, or at least a version of her. You possess her magic and her knowledge. If the real Queen knew how to create me, then so do you. This task should be effortless.”
While they were arguing, Henry ran forward again. This time Mirror hit him with a blast of electricity and he flew across the room, crumpling to the ground against a stone wall. Veronica and Daphne rushed to his side.
“Bunny, we??
?re all waiting,” Mirror said.
The Wicked Queen looked around as if hoping a hero on a white horse might charge through the door and save her, but then her shoulders slumped in surrender. She crossed the room to where a dozen empty frames leaned against a table covered in a tarp. She removed the covering to reveal several jars filled with slithering blobs of black glop. Whatever it was, it seemed to be alive. “You don’t understand, Mirror. When I create a magical looking glass, I’m not creating a life. You are an enchantment, a spell—nothing more than a few rare ingredients and an ancient incantation. Once you appeared, I placed you into an empty vessel and then shaped you into whatever form I needed. I’ll show you.”
The Wicked Queen opened one of the jars and removed the black glob. It slithered around her arm like a snake but she wrangled it back into her palms. At once her hand turned a bright, hot red and the creature shimmied and twisted like melting glass.
She spoke a few unintelligible words and one of the empty picture frames began to brighten like a television screen. Once it was bright white, she introduced the blob onto its surface. It sank in like she had dropped it into a bathtub. Then she placed her hand over the reflection. She uttered a few more words in an ancient language and then removed her hand. A scarlet handprint remained on the surface.
Mirror smiled. “That red handprint was the first thing I saw when I was born. I’ve seen it in my dreams ever since. It’s quite a unique symbol—intimidating, powerful. Don’t you agree, Relda? You must have seen it popping up all over Ferryport Landing.”
Granny shook her head in disgust.
The red print faded and a face appeared in the frame. It was that of a burly man with short gray hair, a full beard, and a sweater. “Awaiting your instructions,” it said in a gruff, almost salty tone.
Mirror gestured to the jars. “If you can put that energy into something you can take it out, correct?” Mirror said. “You could take it out of my body?”
The Queen’s eyes grew wide. “I suppose I could, but I would need a vessel to place it into. I don’t see the point of just putting you back into a mirror.”