Cerise started in on her sausages, making growling sounds as she wolfed them down. She froze and looked up, part of a sausage hanging out of her mouth. Raven realized that she, Cedar, and Maddie were all staring.
“Sorry,” Cerise mumbled with a mouth full of food.
“No, no, you’re fine,” Raven said.
Cerise held up her napkin to hide behind and went back to snarfing sausages. Raven looked away, pretending not to notice.
“It’s okay to notice things, Raven,” said Maddie. “You don’t have to pretend not to.”
“What?” said Raven.
“The Narrator said you were pretending not to notice something,” said Maddie. “But noticing is wonderful! The Narrator’s job is to notice, and I’m finding it a very helpful exercise for myself. We should play a noticing game!”
“I’m game for any Maddie game,” said Raven.
“How many things can you notice that you haven’t before?”
They all began to look around.
“There are twelve pillar trees in here,” said Cedar. “Ooh, look at the star shapes the light makes between the leaves.”
While Cedar, Cerise, and Maddie leaned back to look up, Raven noticed Cerise put a hand to her hood to keep it in place. Was she just shy? Or was she hiding something? She was set to inherit a nice fairytale, but that knowledge didn’t seem to make her content. She acted as if she was an outcast.
Raven began noticing other things: the way Cerise gobbled up those sausages, her strength and speed, how pigs were afraid of her. In the same way they were afraid of wolves.
Cerise’s story had a wolf, but he was her mother’s villain. What could have happened—
“Does Hunter always wear that leather band on his wrist?” said Cerise.
“I’d never noticed before,” said Cedar. “This game really works!”
“He’s not a royal, but he always sits by them,” said Cerise. “Ready to serve, I think.”
Raven wondered, was it more than that? Hunter was sitting at a table beside the royals, his back to Ashlynn’s. And now that Raven thought about it, he seemed to always be near Ashlynn. Raven recalled bumping into them in the Enchanted Forest, and the night both Ashlynn and Hunter were outside the school at the same time. Meeting each other?
“Whoa,” said Raven. Ashlynn and Hunter were—
“Did you notice something?” said Maddie.
“Yeah,” said Raven, but she didn’t want to expose Ashlynn and Hunter. Any out-of-story romance was strictly forbidden and could get them expelled. “Um… look at how Duchess Swan walks. It’s almost like she’s dancing.”
“Or gliding,” said Cedar. “So graceful!”
Duchess put her tray down at the royals’ table, but Raven noticed she was the only princess there who wasn’t promised a Happily Ever After. Though she was the heroine and not the villain, her story ended in tragedy. Perhaps her lifted chin, her dark-eyed glare, hid sadness or fear.
Raven’s attention went from face to face in the Castleteria, and she noticed for the first time just how many students at Ever After High weren’t looking forward to their stories. Only no one talked about it. And the one who had dared to rebel—Bella Sister—had done so in private, running away.
So many things worth noticing. Raven could barely keep it all in her head.
When brunch was over, Maddie and Raven looked at each other. Maddie inclined her head, and Raven nodded. Both smiled. And then, at the same time, they ran.
They ran through the Castleteria, leaping over the last bench, up the central spiral stairs, through the Hall of Armor, weaving through knightly mannequins, up the secret stairs, and into Raven’s room. They both collapsed, Raven on the floor and Maddie on Apple’s bed.
“I won that time,” said Raven. “Finally!”
“Yay for the Raven bird, watch how she flies!” Maddie laughed and started jumping on Apple’s bed, the silk comforter bunching and dozens of stuffed birds and squirrels colliding into a kind of wildlife stew.
“Apple’s not going to like that,” said Raven.
“What a silly idea. I mean, how could Apple or anyone really mind one tiny ounce when it’s fun? You might as well say Apple wouldn’t like to be dunked in a giant cup of tea while a bluebird tap-danced on her foot and a crowd of adoring mice sang ‘Mermaids Just Wanna Have Fun.’ ”
“Maddie, I’ve missed you!” said Raven. “I’m sorry I’ve been distracted and gone, and I’ve been keeping a secret from you.” And she told her about her quest to uncover the fate of a character who hadn’t signed. “I thought I should do it on my own so I wouldn’t get anyone into trouble, and I was afraid if you or Cedar knew you might accidentally tell someone. But you’re my best friend, Maddie. I should have told you from the beginning.”
“It’s okay.” They were sitting cross-legged across from each other on Apple’s bed. Maddie put her hand on Raven’s knee. “I knew you’d been worried, and the Narrator told me all about it—”
I did not!
“—so I’ve been figuring out how to help.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think anyone can help. It’s all over.”
“But don’t you want to know about the fate of Bella Sister?”
“What? How did you—when—how do you know her name?”
“Oh, well, I knew you were looking for something that was lost, and then I overheard the Narrator mention Bella Sister, so when I was in the Vault of Lost Tales, I thought, This is the sort of place where one could find a tale that is lost, right? So while everyone was asleep, I spent the past two days looking for a book about Bella Sister. And I think I found it! But you have to see. Come on!”
Raven thought of the time Maddie had taken Raven out of Poison Fruit Theory for an emergency that turned out to be a rock that looked like a potato.
But Maddie was standing there, her hand out, inviting, her eyes sparkling.
“Okay,” said Raven.
And she ran off with her friend.
MADDIE HAD TAKEN RAVEN TO THE VAULT of Lost Tales once before—a labyrinth under the library inhabited by dusty books and an odd man who spoke only Riddlish. Maddie claimed he was Milton Grimm’s missing brother, Giles Grimm, but Raven had a hard time believing it. Why would Headmaster Grimm’s brother speak only a Wonderlandian language?
“Did you check out the book about Bella Sister?” Raven asked.
“Oh, no, there’s no card catalog for the Lost Tales and no librarian to check them out. Besides, they don’t like to be taken. They’re like a bunch of grandpas and grandmas who would rather just stay in, thank you kindly.”
They entered the library, the narrow, high room like a giant’s closet.
“I heard faint knocking for weeks before I was able to follow the sound here,” said Maddie, pulling Raven to the dark, back side of the library. “The problem is, the entrance to the vault is always changing.”
Maddie pressed her ear to a wall and knocked three times. She tried the same on a bookcase, on the floor, on a book called How to Raise Evil Cucumbers and another called The History of Spitting. She crawled on her hands and knees, knocking, then stood on chairs to knock high on walls. Raven began knocking, too, though she had no idea what she was doing.
“Maybe it’s not—” Raven started to say, when the wall Maddie just knocked on suddenly swung in like a door. The two girls tumbled through.
The wall shut behind them.
Mushrooms glowed high on the walls, twinkling illumination into the dark corridor. They walked along, the way sloping down, twisting, and doubling back, a maze of hallways. The path ended at a large, heavy door with a great brass doorknob.
“This wasn’t here last time,” said Raven.
“The way is always different,” said Maddie.
The door was locked.
“We could go get Blondie Lockes,” said Raven. “That girl can unlock any door. But… I used her unlocking talent once already. I don’t want her to get suspicious and tell Headmaster Grimm.”
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“Let me check my hat,” said Maddie. She removed her Hat of Many Things and began to dig through it. “Look!”
“What?” said Raven.
“A stick!”
“Um, how does a stick help us unlock a door?”
“It doesn’t. But look! A stick!” Maddie threw the stick over her shoulder and rummaged some more. “A dead fish! No, wait, it’s alive—better put it back. Um… a five-leaf clover, a bowling ball, Shrinking Potion, a stunned starfish—”
“Stop!”
“You want the starfish? It is kind of cute, though a bit damp and not very entertaining, being stunned and all—”
“No, the potion. Would it shrink us?”
“Probably undoubtably! I made it in Chemythstry class.”
“Maddie, you’re a genius! But we’ll also need a potion that will make us big again.”
Maddie trolled through her hat, pulling out a pink vial of Embiggen Potion. She cocked her ear. “Yep, the Narrator said this pink vial is Embiggen Potion, so it must be. Thank you, Narrator!”
Argh! I did it again!
“Ah, so helpful, this Narrator. Yes, you are the sweeties.”
Raven unthreaded a fiber from her skirt and tied it to the doorknob, letting it fall to the floor. Once they shrank, the thread would serve as a rope.
Raven grimaced at the slurpy liquid. Potions reminded her too much of her mother. But she crossed her fingers and took a sip.
The tingles started in her belly and shot outward, reaching her fingertips and toes and rising up in her nose with a smell of hot, buttered toast.
“Here, quick,” Raven said, managing to shove the vial into Maddie’s hand before the shrinking started. It felt like jumping off the castle roof into a pile of hay. Even though her feet never left the ground, she seemed to fall a long, long way through freezing air.
She fell down on her backside, her entire body fitting neatly inside the knothole of a floorboard. She was relieved to see her clothes had shrunk with her.
“Aww,” said Giant Maddie, leaning over. Her huge face peered at Tiny Raven. Her nose was the perfect size if Tiny Raven was looking for a dance partner. “You are so adorable I just want to put you in my pocket and give you kisses and dress you in little dolly clothes and feed you minimarshmallows in thimble bowls.”
“You’re HUGE!” squeaked Tiny Raven. “Come join me!”
Maddie drank, squeeeeeeing as she shrank down beside Raven.
As Raven had suspected, there wasn’t enough room beneath the door to crawl through. They’d have to go through the keyhole.
In her wee-bitty hands, the thread felt like thick rope. She clung to it, climbing the door with pushes from her wee-bitty feet. She’d had a lot of practice climbing the ivy up to her dorm-room window. But still, the muscles in her arms burned.
“This is fun!” squeaked a teeny-weeny Maddie.
At the top, Raven scrambled onto the doorknob. When Maddie was up, Raven pulled the thread up from the floor and shoved it through the brass arch of the keyhole before clambering through herself. On the other side, she let the thread fall, and she and Maddie climbed back down.
The Embiggen Potion tasted like melted peppermint ice cream. With a whoosh, Raven shot back up to her natural height.
“Wahoo!” said Maddie, big again, too. “Again!”
“First the book?” Raven said.
“Book, right!”
The Vault of Lost Tales was a narrow room that zigged and zagged, every wall covered in bookshelves, and nearly every bit of floor stacked with teetering book towers. The room was lit by dozens of smoky candles. Cobwebs on the ceiling twitched in a draft.
At a cluttered desk near the end of the room sat the odd, little man Maddie called Giles Grimm, hunched over a book and muttering to himself. If he really was Milton Grimm’s brother, there was little family resemblance. Where the headmaster was tall and well kept, Giles was short and disheveled. His white-streaked gray hair was long and thick like a lion’s mane, his beard rested on his chest, and his jacket was patched and spilling loose threads at the cuffs and hem.
“Maddie, where’s the book about Bella Sister?” Raven whispered, not wanting to disturb the man.
Maddie browsed a shelf, plucked a book as if picking a flower, and handed it to Raven.
Raven turned the book over in her hands. The green leather cover was cracked and chipping, the pages yellow with age. She opened to the page marked with a ribbon. Her breath caught. “The Two Sisters.” Maddie had found the lost fairytale!
Raven read about the Beautiful Sister who was so cruel, flies were drawn to her and constantly buzzed around her head. The Ugly Sister was so kind, butterflies followed her everywhere and curled up in her hair like jeweled pins. One day at the well, the Beautiful Sister had the Ugly Sister lower her into the water in order to drown the buzzing flies. After coming out, she was grumpy to be so cold and wet. She wanted the Ugly Sister to suffer, too, so she forced her into the water. The Ugly Sister wept that the butterflies in her hair were drowning.
The Ugly Sister begged her sister to pull her out, but the Beautiful Sister, distracted by her lovely shadow, dropped the rope.
The Ugly Sister almost slipped under the water, but was able to climb out with the help of her butterflies. They flew her out, and with a flash of butterfly magic, she became as beautiful in face as she was of heart. Her cruel sister became hideous to behold and was chased far away by the ghosts of the flies.
Raven read the tale aloud to Maddie. And then she read the messages two people had jotted down in the margins of the pages.
I don’t want to be the mean Beautiful Sister, and I don’t want to drown my awesome little sister, Brutta, so I am not going to do it! Besides, she’s not ugly and that’s just mean to call someone that hateful word. We found a spell that will change our well into a portal. By the time anyone finds this note, we’ll be long gone into another world where we’re not forced to relive stupid stories.
That’s right! Besides, like I’d ever let my sister drown my pet butterflies. I regularly whip her butt in Grimmnastics class.
You wish! I’ll race you to the well!
“But… but I found Bella Sister’s skeleton,” said Raven. “And her note in the tree. If this is true, then all that wasn’t, and if all that was true—”
“Feathers and friends, together alone, the count of two, on a MirrorPhone,” said a deep voice at her elbow.
Raven startled. The odd, little man stood there with a distracted smile, his mismatched socks pulled up over his pant legs.
“Excuse me?” Raven asked.
“Giles Grimm only speaks Riddlish, remember?” said Maddie. “He’s just saying that it’s nice to have us here again.”
“Oh, right.” Raven showed him the Two Sisters tale. “Is this true? Did Bella and Brutta choose to not sign the Storybook of Legends? Did they survive?”
Maddie translated Raven’s questions into Riddlish.
Giles Grimm nodded. “Never, forever, tomorrow, today. Apart of together ever after away.”
“He said they lived happily far away,” said Maddie. “At least, I think he did. Either that or they died sadly far away. Riddlish isn’t an exact language, you know.”
“Which do you think he meant?” Raven asked.
“The first,” said Maddie. “I think. Almost probably.”
Raven took a deep breath. If Giles Grimm was right, then everything she’d found on the quest—the Lost and Crowned box, the letter in the tree, the skeleton and message in red paint—was fake. But who would fake all that and why? Raven’s dream of escaping her mother’s legacy had been squashed like a pumpkin. But the seeds of that pumpkin were slowly starting to sprout in her again.
She and Giles Grimm sat on the floor and talked for hours, Maddie’s bubbly voice translating back and forth. Some of what he said, Maddie just couldn’t understand.
“Riddlish is riddled with riddles, after all,” said Maddie. “If it were clear, it wouldn??
?t be Riddlish!”
“Two tools,” Giles said, “one for weeds, one for woods, none with ease. A day is not destined, a lock needs no keys.”
“He said, ‘Legacy Day is a hoax, and the Storybook of Legends holds no real power!’ ” said Maddie. “Or maybe he said, ‘Legacy Day is hilarious, and the Storybook of Legends is a monster.’ ”
“On a wing with a rose, on a chair if it chose, with a puppy and pig in its pocket.”
“I know this one! He’s said it to me before. It means ‘Raven can change her path, as well as the path of others like her, by claiming her own Happily Ever After,’ ” said Maddie.
“If that is true… it changes everything!” Raven paused. She tilted her head at Maddie. “Or maybe it means…”
Maddie stuck out her bottom lip and blew a strand of lavender-colored hair out of her eyes. “Or maybe it means ‘Raven can change her height and the heights of others like her by wearing high heels.’ ”
Giles Grimm stared at Raven, his eyes intense and intelligent. He couldn’t really be talking about wearing high heels, could he? No, she believed Maddie’s first translation, though she knew what Apple would say: You believe it because you want to believe it, not because it’s true.
If what Maddie translated was accurate, and if Giles Grimm knew what he was talking about, then Raven could choose not to sign without dooming herself or Apple.
That was a lot of ifs.
Raven wished she knew for sure which story of Bella and Brutta was true. Whatever they’d done, they’d done it quietly, fleeing in secret and only speaking of their rebellion in the quiet margins of a long-lost book. If they had rebelled, no one knew. Except three oddballs on the floor of an underground library.
LEGACY DAY DAWNED WEAK AS WATERY porridge. Outside Raven and Apple’s window, Night Briars blocked the sunlight.
The mirror on the wall blinked on. Milton Grimm’s smiling face appeared.
“Good morning, students,” he said. “Forgive this unscheduled Mirrorcast. You may have noticed that the Night Briars are still standing. I decided to allow the briars to remain throughout this crucial day, an added protection for all of you. Nothing can be allowed to interrupt today’s Legacy Day ceremony.”