by Chris Colfer
The resemblance was so blatant they didn’t have to think twice; Cinderella was the spitting image of her father.
“Ella has always looked just like her father,” Lady Iris said. “Her father nicknamed her Cinderella when she was a toddler because she loved playing in the fireplace—she would cover herself in so much soot and ash she was unrecognizable. When her father died I found it unbearable to look at her face. I forced her to do countless filthy chores around the house, covering her appearance so she wasn’t a constant reminder of what I had lost. Now the face I had spent so many years trying to hide is one of the most recognizable faces in the world.”
The stepmother slowly caressed the wedding ring she still wore on her left hand. Red looked at the twins out of the corner of her eye. They were all three thinking the same thing: They had found her most prized possession.
“So you don’t hate her, then,” Alex thought out loud. “It wasn’t jealousy, it was heartache.”
Lady Iris lowered her head. “I’m twice the widow but half the woman Cinderella is,” she said. “When the way I treated her was revealed to the rest of the kingdom and my daughters and I became hated across the land, Cinderella had the fence built and had the guards placed around our home so we’d be protected. She visited and apologized to us. Can you believe that? After all we had done to her, she felt guilty about what her marriage to Prince Chance had done to us.”
“In your defense, it seems like the story has been exaggerated a bit,” Conner said. “Your daughters aren’t ugly, for example; they’re just average looking.”
The stepmother sat back down across from them. “Indeed,” she said. “The kingdom has always loved mocking us. I heard a rumor that after the ball when the prince visited, my girls tried cutting off parts of their feet to get them to fit inside the glass slipper. Such nonsense!”
Lady Iris looked at them vacantly—she had nothing else to tell them.
“Well, is that all you were after, then? An old woman’s useless confession?” she asked.
“Not to add salt to the wound, but that hatred is actually why we’re here,” Conner said. “This is going to sound crazy, but we’re on a bit of a quest—”
“Conner, I don’t think it’s smart to tell—” Alex tried to say.
“Why not? It’s not like we’ve got anything to lose at this point,” he said and continued with his explanation. “We think we’ve found a way to defeat the Enchantress. It requires us to go on a bit of a treasure hunt. Your ring is one of the items we need.”
“Excuse me?” the stepmother asked, appalled by the request.
“Your granddaughter’s life is in danger,” Alex said. “Don’t you want to help her?”
Lady Iris looked away to hide the shame in her eyes. This was evidently a sore subject for her. “Grandmother is not a title I consider myself worthy of,” she said. “A grandmother is the mother of a child’s mother—and I have never been a mother to Cinderella.”
The room went quiet. The stepmother had to calm herself down from the emotional declaration.
“Well, it’s not too late,” Red said. “Giving us your ring would be quite the noble act. It’d be the most Cinderellian thing you could do. Your status in the community may change when people find out you helped us.”
With this said, the twins could see a spark ignite in Lady Iris’s eyes. They knew if they could speak with her for a little while longer they might be able to convince her. Unfortunately, the kitchen door swung open and Rosemary brought a tray of her mushroom biscuits into the room, bringing the conversation to a halt.
“Who wants mushroom biscuits?!” Rosemary asked happily. The energy had completely changed in the room since she left it and she couldn’t figure out why.
Lady Iris stood again. “You’ll have to wrap them up, Rosemary,” she said. “Our guests were just leaving.”
“Leaving?” said Petunia, walking into the room with several rolled-up portraits under her arms. “But I just found my best paintings.”
Red and the twins rose to their feet, too.
“No, your mother is right. We better get going,” Red said. “After further consideration, I think I may be getting rid of my dog—I have a suspicion he may be a wolf. It’s a long story. We’ll be in touch about the portrait if I should acquire another pet.”
The stepsisters’ faces clouded over with disappointment. Petunia threw her portraits to the floor. Rosemary went back to the kitchen and dumped the biscuits into a brown sack for them to take.
“Here,” Rosemary said through an enormous frown as she shoved the sack into Conner’s chest. “Eat them soon. They spoil after the first hour.”
Lady Iris walked Red and the twins back through the entrance hall to the front door. The twins kept glancing at each other, waiting for the other to do something. Alex thought her brother’s method of tackling her might be their only option.
Lady Iris opened the door for her visitors but blocked them from leaving. “Wait,” she said to the twins as they passed her. She slipped her wedding ring off her hand and placed it into Alex’s. “Make sure to tell Cinderella I gave it to you.”
Red and the twins couldn’t believe their eyes, but their spirits soared.
“We will!” Alex promised her.
“Thank you!” Conner said.
“I’m going to personally issue a statement to let people know you aren’t the mean old tart everyone thinks you are!” Red said and hugged her.
The stepmother forced a smile. “Unfortunately, some sins are forgiven and others are never forgotten,” she said. “I’m afraid the only place we could live free of judgment would be another world completely. But one day, long after I am gone, I hope Cinderella can tell her daughter I did something to help her.”
“She will,” Alex said. “Thank you.”
Lady Iris gave a shallow bow, not completely sure she had made a good decision. She shut the door behind them and the twins jumped with joy. Red and the twins passed the guards, who didn’t understand why the three of them looked so happy after spending an afternoon in that house.
Red and the twins walked down the path and found Froggy waiting for them at the Royal Pumpkin Remains exhibit.
“Well?” he asked. “How did it go?”
Alex opened her hand and showed him the ring.
“We got it! We got it! We got it!” Conner shouted. “We got the ring!”
An incredibly wide smile lit up Froggy’s face. He picked them both up and swung them around. “Well done, children!” he said and Conner shot him a look. “Forgive me, young adults.”
Red was quietly waiting for praise of her own but none came. “I wasn’t too bad myself!” she said.
“Of course you weren’t, my darling,” Froggy said and air-kissed her cheek. “Now let’s get back to the Granny and share the victory with the others.”
Froggy led the way back through the countryside to their flying ship. Goldilocks was thrilled to hear of their success, but Jack was nowhere to be found.
“He went into town to pick up some supplies,” Goldilocks said. “He’ll be back soon. But in the meantime let’s see if the Wand of Wonderment is all it’s cracked up to be.”
They placed the Snow Queen’s ice scepter in the center of the lower-deck floor. Alex was still gripping the stepmother’s ring so tightly it dug into her palm.
“How is this supposed to work?” Alex asked. “Is it like the Wishing Spell? Do we need all the items together for anything to happen?”
Conner shrugged. “Let’s find out,” he said.
Alex carefully placed the ring on the floor beside the scepter. The five of them waited impatiently for something—anything—to occur. Anticipation was even getting the best of Clawdius, who was curled up in the corner watching from afar.
“Well?” Red said.
“Shhhh!” Goldilocks silenced her.
The ring started to quiver. The scepter began to move as well. Suddenly, the ring magically attached itself to the tip of the scepter as if it h
ad been magnetically pulled.
The room cheered. Alex and Conner hugged each other. Clawdius barked up at them happily, although he wasn’t sure what the celebration was about. It was a small occurrence, but it was the most meaningful part of their journey so far. All their efforts hadn’t been a waste—they were building the Wand!
Jack emerged down the steps to the lower deck a second later. He had just returned from his trip into town and carried a bag full of vegetables and bread.
“Jack! The wand is working!” Conner said. “Wait—what’s wrong?”
They had been so immersed in celebration they hadn’t noticed Jack’s long face.
“Jack, what’s happened?” Goldilocks asked him.
“While I was in town I heard some troubling news,” he said. The room grew very quiet.
“What is it?” Froggy asked.
“The Enchantress has attacked the Corner Kingdom,” Jack said. “She’s knocked down Rapunzel’s tower.”
Alex and Red gasped. Froggy’s large mouth fell open. Conner was still listening, expecting to hear more.
“So?” Conner asked. “It’s just a tower—what’s the big deal?”
He glanced over to his sister and saw tears running down her face.
“Am I missing something?” Conner asked. “It could have been so much worse. Thankfully, no one is dead.”
Froggy cleared his throat, emotion building up inside of him. “Much like the Hoodians’ wall, the tower is very sacred to the people of the Corner Kingdom,” he explained. “It represents their queen and the beginning of their country. It symbolizes their history and their spirit.”
Alex dried her tears and thought to herself: Of all the awful things to do, why was Ezmia picking off things that were symbolically valuable to the kingdoms? Why was she attacking people’s spirit, of all things?
“I just realized something,” Alex said. “Everything Ezmia has done—the tower, the wall, the plants, the kidnappings—it’s all been an attack on people’s spirits. It’s not casualties the Enchantress wants, it’s souls.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CASTLE IN THE SKY
The Granny sailed across the night sky over the Charming Kingdom, determined to beat the sun into the Red Riding Hood Kingdom. The news of Rapunzel’s tower had left everyone in a somber mood, but the fact that they were successfully building the Wand of Wonderment kept them moving.
Jack and Froggy rolled a barrel of oil across the deck and loaded it under the ship’s flame. Goldilocks was manning the steering wheel and carefully piloting the Granny between the clouds. Red was avoiding Clawdius as much as possible.
The twins were at the front of the ship watching the ground move below them. They wondered if they had flown over the place their mother was being kept.
“It’s amazing how different the world looks from up here,” Jack said cheerfully, walking up behind the twins. “I remember thinking that when I climbed the beanstalk. Very few people get a chance to see the world from a different point of view.”
Red was eavesdropping and snuck into the conversation. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “Once you start looking down on people it’s hard to look at them any other way again.”
The twins and Jack rolled their eyes. Red had shown great potential for rejoining the real world over the course of their trip, but she still had a long way to go.
“No, Red,” Jack said. “I meant it really puts the world into perspective. Your whole life may exist between two streets, but then you realize those streets are just tiny veins in the body of the world. It makes you feel very small.”
Red’s head bobbed up and down as she followed along with what he was saying. For a second the twins thought she had understood what Jack meant.
“Oh dear,” Red said and shook her head. “I don’t believe anything could ever make me feel like that.”
Jack and the twins weren’t shy about their exasperation with the young queen and slowly walked away. Red leaned on the rail and let out a sigh, not understanding why it was so challenging to identify with them.
Froggy joined Red at the front of the ship, not wanting her to feel completely isolated after the exchange. While the others were constantly annoyed by Red’s vain statements and lack of empathy, it just made Froggy love her even more. He had lived in hiding for years because he was afraid of how the world would treat a prince-turned-frog, but Red was the kind of person who would never lose confidence no matter what anyone or anything said to her. It was the trait he admired most about her.
“Are you all right, my love?” Froggy asked her.
“Yes, thank you,” Red said and wearily looked down at the land beneath them.
Although he knew better, Froggy took her remoteness personally. “Are we all right, darling?” he asked. “I know having Jack and Goldilocks around is distressing for you, but if there was ever anything besides their company bothering you, you would tell me, right?”
Red still hadn’t figured out what exactly was bothering her yet. It had been a thorn in her side since they left.
“Yes, of course, darling,” Red said simply, although neither of them believed it.
Froggy’s mouth smiled but his eyes remained blank. “Very well,” he said and let her be.
Although she had insisted she could handle the situation, Froggy knew having Jack around would weigh heavily on her. Red wasn’t hard to read—and the long stares at Jack from across the ship, her lengthy sighs when no one was looking, the way she ignored Froggy more and more as they traveled didn’t go unnoticed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Red was so conflicted about.
Unfortunately for Froggy, his human-turned-amphibian heart belonged wholly to Red, and he hoped hers still belonged to him underneath all her uneasiness. Until she told him otherwise, he would remain true to his affections for her.
“Look ahead!” Red called out to the others. “It’s my kingdom! Oh my, how adorable it looks from up here! It’s unfortunate the weather is so gloomy.”
“I don’t think that’s just gloomy weather,” Goldilocks said from the steering wheel. Thick clouds were circling the kingdom like a whirlpool. As they sailed closer, they could make out a tall beanstalk penetrating the cloud’s vortex.
No one had ever seen such a thing… except for Jack.
“What’s all that about?” Froggy asked.
“It means the beanstalk is ready,” Jack said with an eager smile.
Conner placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. So were they.
The crew began to descend the Granny toward the beanstalk. The sun started to rise and both of Jack’s old houses came into view. Only one thing was wrong—the Granny was going way too fast.
“Steady… steady…” Jack told Goldilocks. “Charlie, shut all the sails! Everyone else, brace yourselves! This is going to be a bumpy landing!”
Froggy yanked the ship’s ropes and securely shut the sails. Alex and Conner held on to Clawdius and the banister, Jack and Goldilocks held on to the steering wheel, and Red held on to Froggy.
“Everyone bend your knees!” Jack said, and they all followed his advice. The Granny glided down, headed straight for Jack’s manor. The front windows of the manor opened and the twins saw the magic harp blissfully welcoming the new day, unaware of the flying ship headed straight toward her.
“Oh the day is here and so am I,
To wistfully dream of birds that fly,
Soon I will be moved far far away,
And Queen Red Riding Hood’s castle is where I shall—AAAAAAH!”
The Granny crashed into the ground and bumped across the grassy earth. Chunks of dirt flew into the air, and the ship left a large furrow in the land as it came to an overdue stop feet away from the manor.
The harp’s mouth and eyes were wide open, and although she was made of solid gold, the twins could have sworn she went pale.
“Good morning, Harper!” Jack called down with an apologetic laugh.
The harp was so stu
nned one of the strings on her back snapped. The twins couldn’t blame her. After years of looking outside at nothing, she had just witnessed a flying ship crash in her front yard.
“What in the name of Mother Goose is going on?” the harp yelled.
“We’ve been traveling, just like I told you,” Jack said and climbed down from the Granny. “Did I mention we were traveling by flying ship?”
“You left out that minor detail,” the harp said, starting to recover feeling in her golden body.
“Thank you for keeping an eye on the beanstalk. It looks terrific!” Jack said.
“You’re very welcome,” the harp said. “You’ll be pleased to know I have thought it over and will accept your offer to be moved to Red’s castle. Although I hope you give me a few days for my strings to recover from the fright you just gave me. I don’t want my first ballad in the castle to be pitchy.”
“What? What did you say?” Red asked from the ship. “Did I hear you say something about being moved to my castle?”
Alex and Conner looked to each other—this was going to be awkward.
“Yes. Jack promised I would be moved in exchange for watching the beanstalk,” the harp said.
“Did he?!” Red said through her teeth. “This trip keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes, I’ve been practicing for days! It’s been so long since I had a proper audience to perform for!” the harp said. “After spending more than a century with that awful giant, it’ll be such a treat to sing songs that aren’t about eating sheep and stepping on villages.”
The others climbed down from the ship and joined Jack at the front of the manor.
“Hey, Harper,” Conner said. “When you were up there, did you ever notice if the giant had a favorite item?”
“Not that I can recall,” the harp said. “I have no idea why you’d want to go back to that awful place.”
Jack inspected the beanstalk. He circled around the base and scanned it from top to bottom, kicking it in different places as he went.
“It’s ready!” he called to the others. “I’m going to climb it and return as quickly as I can.”
