The Enchantress Returns

  “Of course she is!” Red said without a sliver of doubt. “She and the Little Old Woman who manages the Shoe Inn will be here later to work on it. They were delighted by the request. Granny’s been making my clothes since I was a toddler. Trust me—if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s her.”

  Within the hour, Red’s granny and the Little Old Woman arrived at the castle with their needles and thread ready. Unlike Mother Goose, these ladies were exactly how the twins had always pictured them. They both had gray hair wrapped into tight buns on the top of their heads and reading glasses placed on the tips of their noses. The Little Old Woman walked with a cane and Granny carried a large purse full of yarn and thread.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Granny!” Red said and hugged her grandmother.

  “No problem at all, sweetheart,” Granny said. Her voice was soft, slow, and soothing. “It’s rather nice to take a break from retirement. We can only play cards and watch the grass grow for so many hours in a day before it gets tiresome.”

  “What?!” the Little Old Woman asked loudly. Obviously, she was a little hard of hearing. And if the way she was squinting was any indication, she was also hard of seeing.

  Granny spoke directly in her ear. “I was telling Red that we’re happy to be out of the Shoe Inn.”

  “Who’s dead?!” the Little Old Woman asked.

  “Not dead—Red, my granddaughter,” Granny said.

  “Your granddaughter’s dead?!” the Little Old Woman said, aghast.

  Granny turned back to Red. “Don’t mind her, sweetheart. She has more than two hundred grandchildren—her ears aren’t what they used to be.”

  Froggy, Goldilocks, Jack, and the twins were growing more pessimistic by the second. Could these elderly hands be given such a daunting task?

  “This is what we’re trying to build,” Red said and showed the old women the blueprints on the board. “Do you think you’ll be able to make it?”

  “Let’s see,” Granny said and pushed up her glasses for a better look. “Looks like you got a balloon and sails of some kind, huh? Are you kids going on an adventure?”

  “It just so happens we are!” Red said with her head raised high. “We’re going to save the world!”

  “That’s very nice, sweetheart,” Granny said and patted her on the back. She didn’t seem too invested in what Red had to say, as if a little girl had told her she was going to the moon. “Do you have fabric or should I run to the shop?”

  “We should have everything we need here,” Red said and gestured to the mountain of her dresses piled in the corner.

  “Well, look at you, being thrifty,” Granny said. She took one last glance at the board and at the pile of dresses and nodded. “Yes, I think we’ll manage just fine.”

  Red jumped and clapped. The others looked more skeptical than ever.

  “Are you positive you can manage?” Jack asked. Before he could get an answer the old women had sat themselves on stools near the pile of dresses and begun ripping their seams apart.

  “Oh, this is nothing,” Granny said. “Remember that summer you ballooned, Red? Poor dear, you gained so much weight I had to make you new clothes every week.”

  The twins had to bite their fists to keep from laughing. Goldilocks didn’t even try to shield her chuckle.

  “You don’t say?” Goldilocks said with a sly smile.

  Red blushed a deep shade of her name. “Granny, I don’t think this is an appropriate time to—”

  “That’s why I made her the red cloak she’s so famous for,” Granny said, oblivious to her granddaughter’s embarrassment. “It was the only thing that fit her longer than a week! She used to show up to my house with empty baskets every time I fell ill. I never understood why her mother was sending them to me; then I figured out Red was eating all the baked goods inside them on her way to my house.”

  No one in the courtyard could hide their laughter after hearing this. Even Froggy let a snicker escape.

  “I was an emotional eater!” Red declared in her own defense. “I had a lot of things on my mind at the time.” She unintentionally glanced toward Jack. “Thankfully, like all my clothes, I grew out of that phase.”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Granny said. “We all were thankful for that—except for the fabric store.”

  Granny and the Little Old Woman both ripped impressively long seams at the same time. The sound made Red cringe even more. Although it had been her idea, Red couldn’t bear to watch her dresses be torn apart—or to stick around for her granny to share any more embarrassing memories.

  “If you all will please excuse me,” Red said and headed out of the courtyard. “I think I’m going to lie down for a minute. My life has suddenly become a Shakeyfruit play.”

  Word must have spread through the kingdom, because by noon the courtyard was filled with dozens of builders and carpenters alike, eager to help their young queen. The third Little Pig was the last to arrive, pulling a toolbox half his size behind him.

  “I huffed and I puffed and I dragged this all the way from home,” he told the others. “Serves me right for being in the red with Queen Red.”

  Jack stood on one of the larger baskets to address the room. “Welcome, and thank you all so much for coming! I’m afraid the task is large and our time is short, so forgive me for speaking hastily. The queen has put together a small mission in hopes of salvaging what’s left after the Enchantress’s return. The mission involves a special ship, designed to sail across the clouds rather than the sea, and it must be built in record time.”

  Jack walked across the room to the blueprints.

  “If you could all gather round and take a look,” Jack instructed. “Our supplies are scarce but I believe if we follow these plans precisely we could build this in a matter of days. I won’t lecture you with the reasons this project must remain an absolute secret, I’ll only repeat that your involvement may finally free the world from the Enchantress’s grip. So if you all could be so kind as to lend us your labor, your strength, and your devotion, we can get started immediately and put a stop to this madness once and for all.”

  None of the carpenters objected—his words had encouraged them past the point of questioning. Half of them began stripping the baskets into usable pieces while the others aligned them and started crafting them together to form the ship’s bow.

  Jack was beaming. For the first time in a long time, he was taking charge of something productive—and he was a great leader.

  “He’s really good at this sort of thing,” Alex said to Goldilocks.

  “Quite good,” Goldilocks said with a bittersweet smile. “He doesn’t get many opportunities to be a hero anymore.”

  Her face was full of pride, but as she watched him command the carpenters, the pride was replaced with guilt. Jack had been such a respected and valued member of the Hoodian society—he had thrown it all away in his decision to go on the run with her. Although Goldilocks knew it had been his own choice, she couldn’t help but feel a bit responsible.

  “Ouch!” Conner shrieked. He had joined the carpenters and kept getting splinters as he stripped the baskets apart. “How are you doing this so easily?”

  The third Little Pig stayed silent and simply showed him his hooves.

  “Gotcha,” Conner said. “I’ve always thought thumbs were overrated.”

  The day flew by as the carpenters worked tirelessly on the ship. Jack was growing anxious, knowing he still had to track down the Traveling Tradesman. He left Froggy and the third Little Pig in charge of overseeing the construction after carefully going over his blueprints inch by inch.

  “This is going to be better than I imagined!” Froggy said with a happy hop. “What do you call this contraption?”

  The third Little Pig rolled his eyes. “That’s a hammer,” he said.

  “So this is a hammer! Interesting,” Froggy said and carefully examined it. Despite all that he had been through, he was still a prince at heart.

  “On second thought
, maybe I shouldn’t leave,” Jack said.

  “They’ll be fine,” Goldilocks said and started to drag Jack away from the carpenters. “You’re a terrific instructor.”

  Goldilocks and Jack were stopped before they could leave the courtyard.

  “You two!” Red called down from an open window. She was holding a freshly opened white envelope in her hand. “Take the twins with you! I just received word that fairies are coming to inspect our missing wall and I don’t want those two hanging around when they do!”

  “Ah, man,” Conner said. “I was hoping to help with the ship!”

  “Then you should definitely leave,” the third Little Pig said and yanked a piece of basket out of his hands.

  “Very well,” Goldilocks said. “They can help us track down the Traveling Tradesman.”

  Alex and Conner had to admit they were a bit excited to go on the hunt.

  “What am I supposed to tell the fairies when they see all of this construction going on?” Red asked.

  Alex was quick to answer. “Tell them you decided to combine all your baskets into one big basket,” she said.

  Red scrunched her forehead. “Would anyone believe I’d do something like that?”

  “Yes,” the entire courtyard said in unison. Even the carpenters and the old women were in agreement.

  Red grunted. “Fine,” she said and promptly shut the window behind her.

  “We’re going to need another horse if the twins are traveling with us,” Goldilocks said.

  “Not to worry,” Froggy said. “We have plenty of horses in the stables. You can have your pick of the lot.”

  The twins eagerly ran up to their rooms and collected the things they thought they’d need searching for the Traveling Tradesman. They met Jack and Goldilocks in the castle stables, where they were busy packing supplies onto Goldilocks’s infamous cream-colored horse, Porridge.

  Porridge glanced uneasily at all the other horses. Goldilocks hadn’t been exaggerating; her horse really didn’t care for other horses. And as the twins also glanced around at the perfectly groomed ponies, it wasn’t hard to understand why. While Porridge had been out in the world running from the law with her mistress, all these horses had spent their days in their comfortable stalls—no wonder they didn’t get along.

  “Which horse should we take?” Alex asked.

  “Um… that one,” Conner said and pointed to a large brown stallion in the very back of the stables.

  “Why that one?” Alex asked.

  “Because he’s the only one that doesn’t have bows in his mane,” Conner said.

  “That’s Buckle,” a stable hand told the twins. “Are you sure you want that one? He can be a tad aggressive.”

  Conner did a lap around the stable to make sure. “Positive,” he said. “All the other ones look like they belong in the doll aisle at a toy store.”

  “Suit yourself,” the stable hand said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He threw a saddle with the largest silver buckles the twins had ever seen over the horse.

  “Is that why you call him Buckle?” Alex asked.

  “Partially,” the stable hand said. “You’ll see.”

  A few minutes later Jack, Goldilocks, and the twins were off. Jack and Goldilocks led the way on Porridge while Alex and Conner rode on Buckle a few yards behind them. It didn’t take long to figure out why the horse had been given his name—he bucked aggressively every few feet and neighed loudly as he did. Clearly, the silver buckles on the saddle were the only fasteners strong enough to keep the saddle on the horse.

  “How do you turn this thing off?!” Conner yelled, clutching the reins as hard as he could.

  “I think I’m going to be sick!” Alex said. Her arms were wrapped around her brother’s ribs as tightly as possible without crushing them.

  Goldilocks steered Porridge around to face Buckle.

  “Porridge, tell the show-off to stop,” Goldilocks said to her horse. Porridge neighed disapprovingly at Buckle, and he stopped bucking immediately.

  Porridge rolled her eyes at Buckle. Buckle snorted at Porridge almost flirtatiously. It made the twins a little uncomfortable—obviously there was a history with the horses, a history they weren’t interested in learning.

  The twins followed Porridge out of the Red Riding Hood Kingdom and into a forest that rested along the Charming Kingdom and Fairy Kingdom border. Jack and Goldilocks were extra wary—the Enchantress had turned the entire world into the Dwarf Forests.

  Before they knew it, nightfall was upon them, and they set up a small camp to the side of the path. Alex and Conner laid out some blankets on the ground to sleep on.

  “This discomfort is almost comforting,” Conner said once he stretched out on the hard ground. “I think I actually missed sleeping in strange forests.”

  “Get used to it,” Alex told him. “We’ve got a lot of adventure ahead of us.”

  “True,” Conner said. “But at least this time we’ll have friends.”

  Unlike her brother, Alex couldn’t sleep. After tossing and turning, she got up and had a seat next to Goldilocks, who was sharpening her sword by a tiny campfire. She kept an eye out while the others slept.

  “You’re not like any other woman I’ve ever met,” Alex told her.

  “Why is that?” Goldilocks asked.

  “You’re just so confident and self-sufficient,” Alex said. “So many girls—especially in my world—are so insecure and jealous. We rely so much on one another, but we’re so mean to each other at the same time. We could use more women like you to look up to.”

  Goldilocks was sad to hear it. “I was all those things once,” she said. “But after being on the run I’ve learned a life spent creating enemies isn’t worth leading. Having allies is the best advantage in the world. Jealousy is just a reminder of the frustrations you have with yourself. Who has time to only concentrate on that?”

  Alex smiled. “That’s powerful,” she said. “I wish the girls at school could hear that.”

  “Bring a sword to school. Trust me—those girls will leave you alone,” Goldilocks said.

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Alex said. “Violence is frowned upon in my world. It’s not like it is here; it’s not needed.”

  Goldilocks liked the sound of that. “Then find out what your sword is—find your own advantage—and wear it proudly. Beat those girls at their own game by seeming perfectly content in your own life,” she said. “Then again, I’m a wanted fugitive. I may not be the best person to give advice.”

  Alex laughed. It was some of the best advice she had ever been given, even if it was by a crook.

  Everyone was up by sunrise the following morning. To pass the time as they searched, Jack and Goldilocks told the twins all about their escapades over the last year on the lam.

  “I knew Goldie could fight, but I had no idea what a warrior she was,” Jack said. “There I was in the Corner Kingdom, surrounded by twenty soldiers. I had just been caught stealing a loaf of bread from a bakery. I didn’t have my axe, a sword, or anything! I was helpless! Then, like a cannonball, Goldie and Porridge burst through the doors and Goldie fought off all of the soldiers single-handedly!”

  “No way!” Conner said.

  “He’s embellishing; there were only a dozen soldiers,” Goldilocks said with a modest shrug.

  “Where did you learn to fight, Goldilocks?” Conner asked. “And could you teach me? I’ve always wanted to be a good swordsman.”

  “When I was younger I realized no one was going to fight for me, so I picked up a sword and taught myself,” Goldilocks said. “I can show you a few tricks if you’d like.”

  “Awesome!” Conner said. “I’ve got really good hand-eye coordination! I have the second highest score on Pac-Man at the arcade.”

  Jack and Goldilocks had no idea if this was supposed to be impressive.

  “Jack isn’t so bad himself, you know,” Goldilocks boasted. “Once he saved me from a trio of ogres! I was tied above a l
arge boiling cauldron—they would have made a soup out of me if Jack hadn’t gotten there in time!”

  Jack let out an indifferent laugh. “I only distracted them long enough for you to untie the knots,” he said. “She took care of them once she was free.”

  “But it’s the thought that counts,” Goldilocks said and hugged his neck.

  The Tradesman-bound group traveled up and down every path they found, looking everywhere for any sign of him.

  “He should be in this area,” Jack said. “It’s where I found him as a kid. They call him the Traveling Tradesman, but he never goes far.”

  “Wait a second,” Goldilocks said. She hopped off Porridge and scanned the dirt path. There were two sets of identical bird tracks on the ground that stretched a good distance behind and ahead of them.

  “What kind of birds walk for this long?” Goldilocks asked.

  Jack’s eyes lit up. The twins didn’t know what they were on to but knew they were making progress. Goldilocks remounted Porridge and their group charged down the path as fast as the horses could gallop, following the tracks into the forest ahead.

  The group eventually discovered an old covered wagon parked to the side of the path. A small chimney poked out of the wagon’s roof. The wagon’s mule was resting and tied to a nearby tree.

  “Look at the tracks!” Alex said and pointed to the ground. The bird tracks led right up to the back of the wagon. It had bird foot–shaped spurs around its wheels—the wagon was leaving bird prints as it traveled down the path! It was an incredibly clever way to cover one’s tracks.

  “Tradesman?” Jack called out. “Is that you in there?”

  All was silent at first. Then a hurried shuffle came from inside the wagon and it rocked from side to side. The top half of the wagon’s door burst open and the Traveling Tradesman peeked outside.

  “Are you a friend or a foe?” the Tradesman asked. He was an elderly man with a long gray beard, tattered clothing, and a wandering eye. He had aged a bit since the last time the twins saw him, but he was just as kooky as ever.

  “Friends!” Conner happily exclaimed. “Old friends, actually! Do you remember us?”