by Shannon Hale
“So beautiful,” said a manservant. “The perfect Snow White.”
“Well, except for the hair. A shame she was born blond.”
Apple winced.
“I think her blond hair is even lovelier than her mother’s black hair.”
“How can you? The fairytale specifies ‘hair like ebony’—”
“Listen, the hair doesn’t matter. Her eyes, her nose, those lips, that profile! She is the definition of beauty.”
Apple turned her face to the window as the Hybrid Carriage started on its way. Was that all everyone saw in her? A perfect profile? A beauty like her mother? Surely being Snow White meant more than just looking pretty and having black hair.
Legacy Year would be her year. The beginning to her story. But she didn’t just want to prove that she was pretty enough to be a queen, black hair or blond. She wanted to prove she could rule like one.
RAVEN HUGGED HER FATHER ONE LAST time, stepped into a Travel Mirror in the front room, and fell out of a Travel Mirror on a high balcony of Ever After High.
Raven peeled herself off the ground, her head swimming, her limbs shaking. She grabbed a banister to keep from falling again. Journey by mirror felt like being rolled into a blanket and tossed into a cold bath. But when your home is a faraway castle clinging to a craggy cliff over a wind-tossed sea, no travel options were convenient.
Ever After High held court on a hill in the center of a valley, its tower-set banners fluttering in the wind like birthday-candle flames. Below her, Raven could see the Village of Book End, and beyond that, pastures, forests, and mountains ranged out to all the fairytale kingdoms.
She took an uneasy step and almost squished a mouse, which scurried out of her way.
“Excuse me,” said Raven.
It turned around, shaking a little gray fist at her, then, seeming to recognize her, squeaked and ran off.
Raven frowned.
Her trunk pushed through the mirror after her, landing with a thunk on the floor. She pulled on the strap, making slow, grating progress toward the castle door.
The Three Little Pigs were passing by, carrying their clothes tied up in handkerchiefs on the end of poles.
“Hey, would you mind helping me get this trunk up to the dorms?” she asked.
The Pigs turned around with smiles on their round faces, but when they saw Raven, the smiles disappeared. They squealed and hurried away, their trotters clacking on the tiles.
Raven frowned again. All through nursery-rhyme school, other kids had made fun of her for being the Evil Queen’s daughter, but she wasn’t used to causing fear. Her mother had warned her that would happen as she grew older. Well, from her mother it hadn’t been phrased as a warning so much as a delightful promise: “Why, one day, the very sight of you will cause all living creatures to shake in terror!”
Ugh.
With her eyes closed and fingers crossed, Raven tried a levitation spell on her trunk. It worked! Sort of. She climbed the stairs to the dorms, her trunk bumping and scraping along behind her, leaving a shiny trail like a snail’s slime. She’d have to clean that up later. A couple of times the trunk nudged her in the back, knocking her onto her knees.
She found a door marked RAVEN QUEEN & MADELINE HATTER and would have shouted with delight if she hadn’t been so mirror-sick. Rooming with her best friend forever after. What a spell of fortune!
Dizzy, chilly, and beat, Raven collapsed on her bed. She rolled over, sensing a pea under the mattress. Typical Orientation Week prank. She dug around, found the pea, and tossed it across the room.
A knock at the door. Probably Maddie. She could just walk in, but the girl loved to knock.
Raven pulled herself up and stumbled to the door.
“Mirror travel,” she moaned. “I feel like a grape squeezed for juice. Please make me laugh.”
She opened the door.
“Laugh?” said a melodious voice that belonged to Apple White, not Madeline Hatter. “I need to work on my humor studies. A queen should be skilled in all subjects.”
“Oh! Hey, Apple,” she said. “Sorry, I thought you were Maddie.”
Apple smiled kindly, her round cheeks pressing with dimples. She was wearing a white top with a flouncy red skirt that celebrated her curvy figure and high-heeled sandals with apple buckles.
The pale princess’s presence made Raven aware of her own slouching shoulders and scuffed boots and the way her hairs refused to lie in the same direction. She tried to stand up straight but, by comparison, felt too tall and a bit gaunt.
Stop comparing yourself to her, Raven scolded herself. That’s probably what turned Mother evil in the first place.
“Hello, Raven! As president of the Royal Student Council, I am personally welcoming every student back to Ever After High.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Apple stood there as if waiting to be invited in. Raven hesitated. Though they’d never been close, Apple had always been kind to Raven, even back in nursery-rhyme school. Really, Apple was kind to everyone. But hanging out with the girl Raven was destined to poison was a bit awkward.
“So, Legacy Year, huh?” said Raven. Best. Conversation. Starter. Ever. Raven sighed at herself.
“Yes, it should be memorable,” said Apple.
Raven still had her purse over her shoulder. “Oh, hey, are you hungry? Cook always packs me enough travel snacks for a quest through the Dark Forest.” Raven pulled out granola bars, an entire wheel of wax-coated cheese, bread still hot, fruit—
“Ooh, are you going to eat that Golden Delicious?” asked Apple.
“No, it’s yours.” Raven held out the yellow fruit.
Apple raised one eyebrow. “Jumping ahead in our story a bit, aren’t we?”
Raven pulled back the apple, sputtering, “Whoa, it’s not—I mean—it’s just—”
Apple grinned, and they both laughed.
Raven tossed her the apple. “It’s not poisoned, I swear.”
“Sure, that’s what they all say.” Apple rubbed her namesake fruit on her red quilted skirt and bit in, her eyes closing as she crunched. Juice dripped down her perfect chin. “Soooo good.” She smiled at Raven, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m not afraid, you know. Of what you’ll do. What we’ll do.”
“I know,” Raven said. But I am, she thought. I’m terrified.
“Apple!” Briar Beauty rushed down the hall and gave Apple a bouncing hug. Despite already being one of the tallest girls in their class, Briar always wore super-high heels. Today she wore calf-high boots, a hot-pink minidress, chunky jewelry made of rough-cut stones, as well as her ever-present crownglasses—sunglasses that worked as a crown and held back her long brown hair. Next to Briar’s elegant brown skin, Apple seemed even paler.
“You look mesmerizing!” Briar said to Apple. “I love those clever little bows on your sleeves. Summer was so long, wasn’t it? But now you’re here and we’re going to have a Ball! Literally. After the headmaster’s orientation stuff in the Charmitorium, we should totally hit the Village Mall and shop for my Book-to-School party. Oh. Hi, Raven.”
“Hi, Briar,” said Raven.
With another “squee!” Briar pulled Apple away.
Raven shut the door and lay back down on her bed.
There was a crack and a puff of dust, and Madeline Hatter came tumbling straight through the wall. She landed with splayed legs on Raven’s bed.
“Maddie! What—how did you do that?”
“Well, it started as a somersault toward the wall, and I guess I went right through, though I’m not sure I could do that again. But I wish I could because doors can be so boring, can’t they? But going through the wall is just so… so… much!” Maddie brushed off her striped dress and her mint-green-and-lavender hair. Puffs of stone-wall dust billowed around her.
Raven nodded. “I have some serious magic envy. My dark sorcery is…” She shuddered. “But your Wonderland madness is… is—”
“Wonderlandiful! Everyone should be mad, mad, mad.”
<
br /> Raven laughed. “Maddie, you did it. You made me laugh. Thank you!”
“I don’t know what I did,” Maddie said, “but I suppose that’s what comes from always doing—which I am always doing—because when one is always doing, one can’t help having done, can one?”
Raven helped Maddie bring in her things from the hall—using the door this time. Her “things” consisted of a snake charmer’s basket full of clothes, sixteen hatboxes, and a tea table already set with cloth, teacups, scones and jam, and a steaming pot of rose hip tea.
Maddie poured Raven a cup and asked, “So, how was your day?”
Raven blew air out of her lips.
“Mirror travel?” Maddie asked, puffing her cheeks as if pretending to be sick to her stomach.
Raven nodded. “And a mouse and some pigs were afraid of me.”
“How extremely silly of them.”
“I thought so, too.”
“No gloomy glooms. Let’s see, what would cheer you up?” Maddie scrunched her nose thoughtfully. “I know, let’s play If I Didn’t.”
“Hexcellent,” said Raven. She loved Wonderland games. “I’ll start. Um, if I didn’t sleep in a bed…”
Maddie shut her eyes tight, then opened them wide. “Then I’d nap in nice, warm bread!”
“Ooh, nailed it.”
“I have a good one for you.” Maddie smiled, and her blue-green eyes sparkled. “If I didn’t have to be the Evil Queen…”
Raven felt her mouth open but had no words to speak. What would she be? It was a pointless question because she didn’t have any choice in the matter.
“I don’t know.…” she whispered, feeling hollow.
“Silly, that doesn’t rhyme,” said Maddie. “I win!”
Raven felt stunned. Not from losing the game, of course. No one could beat Maddie at a Wonderland game. But Raven had never allowed that question to enter her before: If I didn’t have to be the Evil Queen…
Maddie poured Raven another big cup of rose hip tea and plopped in three sugar pebbles.
“A tea party makes everything better,” Maddie said.
Raven drank her tea and had to agree. Nothing could be truly horrible as long as she had a friend like Maddie.
That’s what Raven thought, anyway. It wasn’t the first time Raven would be wrong.
“Why would Raven be wrong?” asked Maddie.
“Huh? What do you mean?” said Raven.
“Well, I just heard a voice say that you thought nothing could be truly horrible but that you were wrong.”
“Aah…” Raven looked Maddie over. “I forget that the wild magic of Wonderland madness has some side effects. Like hearing voices. Hey, how about we find Cedar and go together to the Charmitorium?”
“Tea-riffic! Shall we somersault or walk?”
AND SO OUR CHARACTERS’ LEGACY YEAR at Ever After High began.
Wait, who are you, Voice?
Oh! You really can hear me?
Of course I can.
Well, I’m the Narrator.
Hi, Narrator. I’m Madeline Hatter, and I’m really enjoying all your clever observations and helpful information.
Why, thank you! No one’s ever noticed before.
I’m pretty good at noticing things. I’m also good at standing on my head, eating three things at once, talking without taking a breath for a long long long long long long time, picking out a good watermelon, and thinking up riddles—though I can’t always solve them, at least not my own. Other people’s riddles are easier to solve, don’t you agree?
I hadn’t thought about it before, but I shall try to observe. That’s what I do best. And I’d best get back to it.
Okay! I’ll be listening!
RAVEN TOOK HER TRAY TO THE LAST TABLE in the Castleteria, her back to one of the trees that grew from the floor to the skylights six stories up. A leaf drifted down, plopping onto the surface of Raven’s soup. She stuck her spoon into the bowl to flick the leaf out, but her spoon clinked against something unexpectedly hard amid the stewed carrots and potatoes.
“Heads up. It’s stone soup again,” said Raven as Maddie and Cedar Wood set their trays down beside hers.
Cedar groaned and picked up her spoon with her bright blue fingers. While the rest of her was the fiery brown of the cedar wood she’d been carved from, her fingers were covered in blue paint up to her knuckles. You could tell a lot about Cedar’s current art projects by the color of her fingers. She didn’t mind getting messy. She just sanded the paint off.
Raven fished the stone out of her soup and dumped it on her napkin. Cedar did the same.
Raven heard a crunch.
“Maddie!” said Raven. “You’re not supposed to eat the stone.”
“Why not?” said Maddie. “It’s delightfully crunchy.”
“How do you even do that?” Raven asked. “I mean, it’s a rock.”
Maddie shrugged. “Sometimes things aren’t impossible the first time I try, because I don’t know they’re impossible yet. I probably couldn’t do it again, though.”
“Chewing rocks is just creepy and weird,” Cedar said. She blushed, her wooden cheeks a deep orange brown. “Sorry! I can’t tell a lie! But I like you! A lot! Whew, I’m glad that’s true.”
Maddie smiled, her teeth stuck with stone dust. “A pod for peas wears hearts on a sleeve.”
“Riddlish alert,” said Cedar and Raven at once.
“Whoops!” said Maddie. “I meant to say I like you, too!”
As a first-year student, Raven had been alarmed by her new friend Maddie’s habit of suddenly speaking nonsense. But she quickly got used to her random bursts of Riddlish, one of the native languages of Wonderland. It still sounded like nonsense to Raven, but Maddie swore it made sense.
There were shouts of surprise around the Castleteria. Raven looked up to see fairy-godmothers-in-training poofing in, handing out class schedules, and poofing away again, appearing and disappearing in clouds of pink smoke.
A fairy-godmother-in-training handed Cedar a paper just before she poofed away.
“Oh no,” Cedar said quietly, reading her schedule. “This year I have… Woodshop. All those saws…” She shuddered.
Another fairy-godmother-in-training poofed amid pink smoke in front of Raven. She held out the class schedule with a smile. Then, seeming to recognize Raven Queen, she shrieked and disappeared. With Raven’s class schedule.
Raven groaned. “Is it getting worse?” she asked Cedar, because her friend would always tell her the truth. She had no choice. She had been cursed with absolute honesty from the moment the Blue-Haired Fairy’s wand touched the wooden puppet Pinocchio had carved to be his daughter.
“Yeah, it is getting worse,” Cedar said reluctantly. “I think people have always been a little cautious around you. I know I was last year. It was kind of overwhelming, leaving Dad and our warm, cozy carving shop, coming to this massive castle of a boarding school with hundreds of new faces, and then, on top of it all, realizing that I was rooming next door to the daughter of the Greatest Evil There Ever Was.” Cedar smiled and nudged Raven with her elbow. “Fortunately, it didn’t take me too long to realize how unbelievably awesome you are. But this year—maybe because Legacy Day’s coming up? Everyone’s seeing one another not just for who we are but who we’ll become.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Raven dropped her spoon, no longer hungry. All the poofing had stopped. Everyone was looking over their schedules. Maddie read hers aloud: “Chemythstry, Riddling, Storytelling 101…”
“Hey, wait!” said Raven. “I didn’t get my schedule!”
Cedar looked around, concerned. Each time she changed expressions, her wooden face made a hushed creak.
“You’ll probably have to get it from your advisor,” said Cedar. “Who is it again?”
Raven sighed. “Baba Yaga.”
Cedar shivered. “Sorry, Raven.”
“Oh well,” said Raven. “That’s what I get for being a dark sorceress.”
Before going to see her advisor, Raven stopped in her dorm room to change out of her spiky-heeled sandals. A visit to Baba Yaga’s office required running shoes.
Raven spent half an hour walking outside the castle before she found the round, thatch-roofed cottage lurking in a stone courtyard. She stopped cold.
It hadn’t seen her yet. On her tiptoes, she crept forward. She held her breath. Her sneakers squeaked.
The cottage turned slightly. Its two front windows seemed to look at her. The curtains lowered and rose again, as if blinking.
Raven smiled, trying to look harmless.
The cottage rose up on chicken legs and ran.
“No!” Raven darted after the cottage, leaping over hay bales and dodging carts and carriages.
“Not the pig field… not the pig field…” Raven muttered.
The cottage darted into the pig field. This was going to get messy.
Raven chased, mud and muddy-looking stuff that smelled worse than mud coating her black sneakers. She squelch-squelched. The cottage veered to the left. Raven leaped, scrambling for a hold on the front steps. There were several jarring bounces, and then the caught cottage stopped, settling on the ground with a sigh.
Raven wiped the sweat off her forehead. She scrambled to her feet on the front step and knocked. From inside came the sound of an indignant sniff.
“I smell evil,” Baba Yaga yelled through the door. “Come in, Raven Queen.”
The door swung in as if the cottage had inhaled it open. Raven stooped under the low threshold and entered.
The room was smoky, lit from firelight, candles, and a hole in the center of the roof. The front windows, apparently, were just for show. The walls dripped with drapes; tasseled carpets swayed from ceiling hooks. Cages dangled everywhere, housing birds and lizards and creatures Raven couldn’t name.
Baba Yaga sat cross-legged on a stool that appeared to hover slightly above the floor. Her long gray hair was knotted with feathers, snarls, braids, and small bones. Her skirt, shirt, and vest were drab, but her hands, neck, and ears sparkled with enough jewelry to please a sultan.
