by Holly Hook
Our driver sat there, catching her breath, as our horses panted with exhaustion. We were out in the middle of the boondocks.
I searched behind me. Maybe I hit my head, and I was just now waking up. We must have been on some trail behind Tate’s Farm.
But the trees here were too green. There were no traces of the yellows and oranges that were there before. It was supposed to be early fall. This place looked like summer. Okay. Maybe I got in an accident and landed in a coma, and I was just now coming out of it.
But if that were true, I’d be in a hospital bed.
A fox, complete with a puffy red tail, darted across the road and disappeared into the trees. I felt as if I’d landed in a world of soft magic.
"Brie, thank you. We wouldn't have made it if you hadn't done that."
I turned to Stilt. The guy was still there, straightening himself out on the bench. And yes. His ears were both pointed, and his inner glow was bright as ever. I was growing more and more convinced that I hadn't landed in some larping act. "Done what?" I managed. I caught my breath, and something started to replace my shock and growing terror.
"Showed us that shortcut." Stilt smiled. He had perfect teeth. The guy didn’t even look human, and not just because of those pointed ears.
For the first time, I wondered if he was something else.
After all, I could spin gold. Now we seemed to be in some other part of the world or a new world altogether. The carriage—no, it was a wagon—drew closer and the driver drove the horses to the side of the road to make room.
It was something about Stilt’s eyes. They were bright, the bluest I had ever seen. He didn’t even have any clogged pores or blackheads. How was that possible for a sixteen-year-old? Color rushed to my neck, and I looked away.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. As okay as I can be after that.” I swallowed, keeping my gaze on the approaching wagon out front. Stilt made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t describe. He seemed perfect and familiar at the same time.
He'd saved my life. But what got me into this mess?
"Okay," I said. Worry fluttered up inside of me. Mom and Dad might have been home by then, finding me missing. If this whole thing were something that Hardy had planned, I'd kill him. "This all started when you met me on the street and offered me that ride."
Stilt frowned. "I heard that King Henrik had found you. I had to take the risk and appear in the street like that. There was no time."
"Thank you for helping me get away from those knights. Really," I said. "I appreciate it. Why were they--and this King Henrik--after me, and why is it daytime all of a sudden? It's like Plan Nine From Outer Space."
Stilt looked at me as if I had antlers growing out of my head. I felt to make sure that I didn't, with the kind of night--or day--I was having. Check.
"What's Plan Nine From Outer Space?"
"A horrible movie," I explained. "It switched between night and day about eight times in every scene--wait. We were discussing this. What's going on?" I tried to lower my voice. I didn't know who was listening. "I need to get home."
Stilt ran his fingers through his hair. It had the texture of a baby duck. I wanted to touch it. "You are home. Welcome back to Fable."
"To what?" I exploded. "Welcome back?"
"Fable. This world." Stilt sat down on the bench and motioned for me to sit with him. I did. I felt dizzy. Could it be true? My parents never told me where I came from originally. The hospital I got left at when I was a baby didn't know who my birth parents even were. And I could spin gold. Maybe this was another world.
“So…” I said. “This isn’t larping.”
“What’s larping?” Stilt asked.
I checked to make sure the black carriage wasn’t behind us. “Larping,” I explain, “is short for live action role-playing. It’s this thing where people get together and dress up as fantasy characters, like elves and fairies and knights and act out a role-playing game. Hardy liked to do that before he got into the video games.” I never went, even though I thought about it for a while.
“Video games?” Stilt asked. “Oh. It’s something from the other world."
“Correct," I said. I shook my head. I was in another world. Period. I glanced down at my dragon leggings and my hoodie. The wire of my iPod still stuck out from the pocket. I was going to fit in here like a Goth at a cheerleader meet.
Stilt checked the road behind us. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This is the light part of Fable. We Legends come to the side the resonates best with us whenever we come through portals. King Henrik’s men must have ended up in the dark region when they went through. It always works that way. We’re safe for now.”
“King Henrik?” I was a newborn here. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know anything about this place. And Legends?"
Stilt glowed as much as ever as if there was magic stuffed into every one of his cells. He smiled at me. I was getting dizzy. “This world's called Fable," he told me as if I were a two-year-old. It was super irritating. "This is the home of humankind's fairy tales and stories. Their imaginations feed this place. And we're Legends, the characters in those stories. We've all been here for a long time. We live out our stories, die, and get reborn again, over and over. I have. And you have. We just don't remember it under normal circumstances." Stilt nodded, begging me to get it.
"We're...characters in stories?" I managed. Wow. Stupid question.
"Most of us are minor characters," he continued. "Extras, you might say, or from more obscure tales. Just the Grimms collection of tales has two hundred stories alone. I'm an elf, one of many, many elves here. But you, Brie, are a major character in a very famous fairy tale."
My pulse raced, trying to escape.
This. Wasn't. Happening.
If what Stilt was telling me were right, it explained way too much.
He checked out my pants. "I see that you like fairy tales. Your story always follows you. It doesn't matter how far you go."
I stood up in the carriage, about smacking my head on the ceiling. "I want off."
Stilt stood, too. We faced each other. I had to tilt my head down to look him in the eyes.
"You can't," he said. "Not until you find something to wear that won't draw attention to you. Henrik is bent on finding you, and he has Watchers everywhere, even in the other world. They're his eyes, and they alwayss wear his coat of arms. One must have spotted you a short time ago."
I let out a breath.
Mr. Crinkle.
He had a coat of arms tattoo.
I cursed and sat back down. I put my face in my hands. This whole thing had to be a dream. A nightmare. But this place did seem familiar, like a faint memory tickling at the edge of my mind, one I couldn't quite catch before it flew away again. It was something about the sky. The flowers. Even the way the carriage bench felt under me. It felt right, and that scared me.
I was sitting next to an elf. And I hadn't even seen the driver's face yet. She hunched over, keeping the horses on the road. Another driver approached. I recognized a bunch of eggs in the back of his wagon.
I took one more breath and sat back up. Stilt still sat next to me, and he was close. Maybe elves didn't have a sense of personal space. My skin tingled at his proximity. "So this is the land of happily ever afters and glass slippers and poison apples? All the fairy tales are here, playing out over and over again? So if I kiss a frog here, I get a prince?”
"Yes. Well, if it's the right frog."
I bit in a scream. My mother asked me to do that on the day my life changed for the worse. It’s about time you’re good at something.
Stilt continued. "Sometimes, there are no happily ever afters. Some of the tales are dark. Most of those have gathered in the dark region. Even the lighter tales have their dark sides." Stilt stared straight ahead, and his inner glow died down a bit. A heavy thought seemed to be plaguing him.
The driver flinched. I could tell even through her black robe. What was she hiding, anywa
y?
"And others just seem to have happily ever afters," Stilt finished. "Your story is one of them."
The other cart rolled past us. The man driving it looked tired and saggy. His hat hung over his face, and I found myself checking his arms to see if he had a red coat of arms tattooed on him. He didn't, at least not on his exposed skin.
I could spin gold.
A King was after me.
I must be--
"The girl who's supposed to spin straw into gold," I said. "That's me, right?" I laughed. I was losing it. "And this Henrik guy is the one who's heard about me and plans to lock me in a room and make me do it."
Stilt swallowed. "You're right."
My stomach wound up in knots, and I leaned over. "Man." It was the understatement of the year.
Stilt shifted on the bench and watched the grasses and flowers roll past as if he couldn't stand to look at me.
"Wait," I said. "If I'm that girl, I'm not supposed to be able to spin straw into gold." I remembered the story a little bit. Mom never read to me much, so I must have heard about it at school. "This ugly dwarf guy had to come in and do it for her. Or me. Then he asked for her--or my--firstborn when she'd given him everything she had."
Then he faced me. His eyes were big. Scared. "That's how it's always gone for you, Brie. Every single life. Henrik sent for you and ordered you to spin gold or die. And you never could. But for some reason, things are different for you this life. You can spin gold now, and it looks like King Henrik knows. It's only made him want to find you more than ever."
A long pause hung heavy between us.
"King Henrik?" I asked at last.
Stilt turned away from me again. "He's the most powerful and most evil King in the dark region. Greedy. Selfish, and always seeking more power. You know the gold he got by kidnapping you? The stuff that the little guy spun?"
"Yeah." I wanted to jump out of the carriage and run into the trees. Hide. Stick my head under a rock. But at the same time, I couldn't stop listening to Stilt.
"Gold is full of magic here. In Fable, it's almost the same thing." Stilt glanced down at my hands like he wanted to hold them. I didn't want him to, but at the same time, I did. I wondered what it would feel like to have such a being intertwine his fingers with mine. "Like all the rest of us, King Henrik used to die and be reborn so he could act out his story over and over. But each time he died, his gold never disappeared, and it's been accumulating for a long time in his keep. His stores of it got larger each time he kidnapped you, and now he has so much gold and magic that he's stopped aging and dying as he should."
"So he's like, immortal?" I asked. The carriage rolled over a small bump. "And now he's cheating the system?"
"Almost," Stilt said. "He's become more powerful than any of the magic users in Fable. And it was he who discovered that how life in Fable works. Since he stopped aging, he was able to witness us other Legends being reborn again and again. That gave him an advantage. He could learn our stories. Learn all the secrets of them. He could start to play God. He's getting so powerful that soon, he might rule all of Fable and bring it to darkness."
A shudder raced through me.
And then Stilt finished with the worst possible thing.
"And he's also your husband."
Chapter Five
"What?" I exploded, rising again. I reached for the door and pushed it open.
"Don't go!" Stilt grabbed my wrist and the tingling shot up my arm again.
"Let go of me." I pulled against him, but he kept his grip. I had to run from this.
"I'm sorry," Stilt said. "He was your husband before you died last time. But he will be again if he finds you. He wants his Queen back more than ever now that you have the ability your father always bragged that you had."
I stopped pulling and whirled around to face him again. "I am not his Queen."
"You have been, more than once. Many times. And every time, it ends the same way."
I remembered him saying something about how some fairy tales seemed to have a good ending. "So my story...didn't end well." I made myself sit down again. Stilt was trying to help me, after all. He'd proven that, even if I didn't know who he was yet. I had to at least listen to him.
I took a deep breath. Calm down, Brie.
"Yes."
"How does it end? My story, anyway?" My mouth was dry. My throat, painful.
Stilt studied his leather boots. “Do you think that Henrik never once asked you to spin more gold for him after you had married? Your secret never stayed safe from him, Brie. He asked you to repeat your feat some time after you had gotten rid of that little man, and you couldn’t."
“And then?” I asked. I knew I shouldn't ask this question. I really, really shouldn't.
“He had you beheaded. That’s the part of the story that no one ever tells. That no one ever thinks about.”
I jumped in my seat. I couldn’t say anything. Ice stabbed through my veins, and a scream rose in my throat.
“Well, now you know the truth,” Stilt said. He went silent like he was waiting for me to say something else. "And now everyone else knows, too. Henrik was happy to tell your story to others once he learned the truth about all of us. His subjects all know, and word has spread through Fable that you were the girl who deceived him. And now, for some reason, you've been born again with the ability to spin gold. You can't tell anyone who you are or what you can do."
"I wasn't planning on it." My words came out in a croak. "How did I get this curse, and how did I end up in the other world, anyway? Did Henrik give me this ability so I could be his good little wife and make him richer when he found me again?" He must have. It made sense. But it still didn't answer the question of how I got in the other world if I was born here.
"It does sound like something he would have liked to do," Stilt said. "He knows you can spin gold. He must. Otherwise, he wouldn't have sent for you again, knowing that you tricked him in all your past lives."
"And if he finds me, he gets enough gold and gets more powerful and takes down this world," I said. "Great. I need to get back. Hide." I searched around the landscape for any buildings. Any magical gateways that led back. There was nothing but lush green forest. An occasional field.
"Your story is hard to escape," Stilt said. "Now that I know that we all live the same lives over and over, it just seems...pointless." He let his hand slap to his trousers. "We've got to fight back. Somehow." His glow faded a bit, and he sat back, saddened. He didn't have much hope. That made me feel a lot better.
"I agree." At least I had someone on my side here. "And the little guy who spun gold for me? Shouldn't the King just go after him if he knows how the story goes?"
"That would make sense," Stilt said. "A lot of sense. But he wants a Queen."
"He can look somewhere else," I said. My stomach turned. I imagined what Henrik could look like and I shuddered. "Someone can tell him how dating sites work. I do not have anything to do with a guy who's had me killed in all of my past lives, even if he wants to keep me alive in this one. It sounds like Hardy all over again, times ten."
And I pushed the door open and jumped out this time.
"Brie!" Stilt yelled. "You don't remember anything about this world. You can't just go wandering out there by yourself."
"Sure, I can," I snapped. "I'm going home. If I walk back that way, I'll come out in that pumpkin patch, right?"
The carriage stopped, and one of the horses snorted like it was impatient.
"It's not that simple," Stilt said. "There are places back in the other world that can lead to Fable, yes, but only at the stroke of midnight. They're always places that make people think of magic and fairytales, which connect them to the old stories. It might be an old cottage in a forest, or a castle, or--"
"Disney World?" I asked. I took another step away from Stilt, who leaned out of the open door.
He made a face. "Maybe."
I laugh. "That would be hilarious. Disney World employee gets sucked i
nto a magical realm. That would be a headline. Anyway, how do these things work?" I meant to say, how do I get back? "If what you're saying is true, I must have found a way out of here before. Maybe my parents thought I was cursed and wanted to get me away from Henrik."
"They might have." Stilt waved me back into the carriage, but I refused to budge. "But it's not easy getting back to the other world. You need some magical artifact capable of transporting you. Like a magic mirror. I had to sneak into Henrik's castle and use his to get over."
My heart sank. I wondered how Stilt had done that. "Does anyone else have one?"
Stilt shook his head. "Henrik has been gathering magical items for a long time. He wants to have them all eventually. The mirror came from an evil queen in the dark region. He had his knights steal it from her." Stilt held out his perfect hand. Well, it was almost blemish-free. I caught a glimpse of a reddish line on the top of his wrist, almost like a scar, but he shook out his arm a bit, and the sleeve fell over it again.
"So why did you bring me here? To where King Henrik lives?" I asked.
"He was right behind us. We had no choice at the time." Stilt glanced at the driver, who kept her black hood lowered over her eyes. How could she see what she was doing? "You must have been miserable in the other world. I'm sorry."
I flinched.
Stilt had hit it right on the head.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"It's your story. It always follows you and catches up," Stilt said. "People used you, didn't they?"
"Can we talk about something else?"
"So does that mean you're getting back in the carriage?" Stilt asked.
I turn away and stare at the green glow underneath all the trees. The forest went on forever, with rays of sun poking down through openings and illuminating wildflowers of every color. This place was beautiful, way more magical than the park I used to play in with Hannah before my parents moved me away and never let me talk to her again.
