My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending

by Anna Staniszewski

  Luken turned to me. “I shall return at dawn, and we will explore the lower levels.” Then he disappeared into the closet.

  My heart was still beating at twice its usual rate. I didn’t think I could fall asleep anytime soon. Instead, I sat on my bed, staring out the window at the shimmering haze that glowed even in the middle of the night.

  Bing! I got ready for another one of the chipper announcements. Apparently, the fairies liked to make them at all hours. But the voice that chimed in over the intercom wasn’t the one I’d been expecting.

  “Hey there, Fairy Land folks!” Anthony’s voice rang out from the speakers. “Just a reminder that tomorrow is Official Candy Day, so make sure to bring candy with you to work!”

  Then the intercom fell silent. What was Anthony doing? At least he’d sounded okay, but was he actually on the queen’s side now? I couldn’t imagine there was enough candy in the universe to convince him to help her.

  As I spread out on the bed, the queen’s ultimatum kept bouncing around in my head. I had less than two days to decide whether or not to reveal the Committee’s location. Less than two days to find my parents, get home, and put this entire glittering nightmare behind me.

  •••

  Just as light was starting to come through the window, voices erupted in the hallway right outside my room.

  I pressed my ear to the door and heard shouts, grunts, and marching footsteps fill the corridor.

  “What are you doing?” I heard a fairy ask.

  “Tell the queen we will not work until our demands are met,” a leprechaun answered. “She must return our pots of gold, pay us real wages, and let us return to our land whenever we like. Until then we will not gold back to our posts.”

  The strike had officially begun.

  A minute later, Luken appeared in my room. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I nodded and followed him toward the tunnels. Instead of using the same tunnel as the night before, we darted past the elevators to a tunnel entrance on the other side of the building. This time, as we climbed onto the slide, I made sure to wrap my full skirt around my legs so it would stay in place. We whooshed down until we were spit out onto a cold floor in the lower levels.

  Luken took my hand with his thin fingers and pulled me toward a dark hallway as if he thought we didn’t have time to waste. And he was right. Even if the fairies were distracted by the leprechaun strike, who knew how long it would be before they realized we weren’t in our rooms. We had to find out what the fairies were hiding before they discovered we were gone.

  Finally, we came to the same mysterious, guarded door I’d seen earlier. This time, there were no heavily armed fairies in front of it. They were probably off trying to force the leprechauns back to work. Not surprisingly, though, the door was locked.

  “Now what?” I whispered.

  Luken smiled and took out a homemade device that looked like a multipronged toothpick. He pushed it into the lock and gave it a few twists. A minute later, the door clicked open.

  “One of my father’s designs,” he whispered, slipping the lock pick back into his pocket.

  We crept into a dimly lit hallway with rows and rows of small, glass cells on either side. It was cold and deafeningly quiet. Something about the hushed atmosphere made me think of a hospital ward, but no hospital would ever be humming with this much magic. I could feel the hair on my head trying to stick up on end from the static pull of all that power.

  “Where are we?” I whispered.

  “I have heard my mother refer to a lab,” said Luken. “She must have meant this place.”

  As we crept down the hallway, I realized that all of the cells were occupied. In each one, a prisoner lay on a small cot, perfectly still except for the steady rhythm of his or her breathing.

  “Are they all asleep?” I said as we went from one pane of glass to the next.

  “Their breathing is synchronized,” Luken said. “It seems too unnatural to be regular sleep.”

  He was right. Everyone we passed was inhaling and exhaling at the exact same time. If we’d been in a cartoon, I would’ve expected them to be snoring in unison too. But this wasn’t a cartoon. This was something much, much weirder.

  Suddenly, the hallway filled with the sound of laughter.

  Luken and I both whirled around, ready to run. Then I realized that the laughter had come from inside the cells. All the sleeping people had laughed at exactly the same time. What was going on here?

  “Perhaps they are all having the same dream,” said Luken as the laughter died down.

  That was impossible, wasn’t it? The prisoners weren’t hooked up to any wires or tubes that I could see. Then again, if the fairies could see into people’s dreams, maybe they could control them too. I shuddered, remembering how strange my dreams had been the past couple nights.

  The hall filled with echoes again, but this time the sleeping figures weren’t laughing. They were whimpering.

  “We have to get everyone out of here,” I said.

  Luken shook his head. “There is nothing we can do, Jenny. This place is secured with the strongest kind of magic. We must keep exploring, before we are discovered. Perhaps we can find something that will help them.”

  I hated to admit that he was right. There was no way we could compete with the amount of magic that was coursing through this place. The cell doors were sealed with so much magic that they were actually glowing. If we so much as touched them, we’d become two deep-fried mozzarella sticks.

  Leaving all these prisoners behind felt wrong, but we didn’t have a choice.

  We hurried down the hallway, passing more and more cells. They were mostly filled with fairies and leprechauns, but I spotted a few gnomes, sprites, and humans. What had these creatures done to get themselves locked up here? Could they be the adventurers who’d gone missing?

  Then we came to a cell that was twice the size of the others. Inside, two cots were set up next to each other. On one cot, a small woman was spread out, her long hair pooled like a halo around her head. On the other was a thin man with a short beard covering his angular cheeks.

  I stared at the two people. And stared and stared.

  “Jenny,” I vaguely heard Luken whisper, “we must keep moving.”

  I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t. My legs felt like they’d been stapled to the floor.

  After all this time, after all these years, I had finally found my mom and dad.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Jenny, what are you doing?” said Luken, tugging on my arm. “We must go.”

  “It’s them,” I whispered. “I found them.” I started to put my hand on the glowing glass of the cell, my fingers shaking, but Luken grabbed my wrist and yanked it away.

  “Are you mad?” he said. “That amount of magic could kill you!” Then the anger on Luken’s face melted away as he glanced inside the cell. “These are your parents.”

  I nodded. My parents. They were really here. The image the queen had shown me was real.

  “Mom!” I cried, finding my voice. “Dad!”

  “Jenny, stop!” Luken hissed. “Someone will hear you. We must go.”

  I ignored him. I had to get to them. I had to make sure they were okay.

  Frantic, I ripped off my sneaker and chucked it at the cell door. It hit the glass with a dzzzz that sounded like a fly in a bug zapper. The shoe fell onto the floor, every part of it glowing. When the light faded, my formerly white sneaker was black and charred.

  I grabbed the shoe again, ready to throw it as many times as it took to get some of the magic to wear off. If that didn’t work, I’d start throwing my whole body against the cell door.

  Luken grabbed my shoulders. “Jenny, please. The fairies will find us, and then you will be able to do nothing to help your parents.”

  I wanted to scream at him to leav
e me alone, that I wasn’t going anywhere until my parents were free, but he was right. I couldn’t break into the cell, and the last thing we needed was to get caught. Then I’d never have a chance to come back here.

  As I took a step away from the glass, my head was spinning like I’d been holding my breath for too long. Even as I pulled my burned shoe back onto my foot, I couldn’t stop looking at my parents. Before I knew it, tears were trickling down my face.

  “Are you unwell?” said Luken, like he’d never seen tears before. It wouldn’t surprise me if fairies never cried.

  “No, I’m…I’m…” I didn’t know what I was. “We have to get them out of there.”

  Luken nodded. “And we will, but the guards could return at any moment.”

  He was right, but as I wiped away my tears, I still couldn’t move. Now that I’d found my parents, I didn’t want to let them out of my sight. What if I never saw them again?

  I wished I could at least make sure they were okay.

  “Wait,” I said, an idea blooming in my brain. “You’re a fairy, which means you can do the creepy dream thing.”

  Luken let out a long sigh. “Technically yes, fairies are able to access dreams. But it is nothing I approve of. Our dreams should be our own.”

  “Please, I need to know if my parents are okay. Can you look into their dreams and see what’s being done to them?” I glanced down the long corridor. “To everyone? Why are they all having the exact same dream?”

  “But—”

  “I’m not going anywhere unless I know they’re not being hurt!”

  Luken sighed again. “All right, I will do it. Then we must return to our rooms.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  He nodded and closed his eyes, a look of intense concentration sweeping over his face. Then he got totally still, like a statue, and stopped breathing for a moment. I stopped breathing too as I watched him.

  After a couple minutes, his eyes opened again. “I have never felt anything like it before,” he said. “They are there, and yet they are not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It is…hard to explain. Their thoughts are active, but their dreams are being controlled by an outside force.”

  “But they’re all right?”

  “Yes,” said Luken. He shook his head. “I do not understand. Fairies are able to see dreams, but they should never control them. To do so is barbaric!”

  “Well, then you obviously don’t know your people very well. Look around. Everyone here is having their dreams controlled.”

  “Why?” said Luken. “To what end?”

  “You tell me,” I said.

  A voice boomed down the hallway, interrupting our conversation: “He shall do no such thing.”

  I spun around to see Mahlia and several fairy guards standing in the doorway. We’d been caught.

  “Run!” I cried, grabbing Luken’s hand.

  With one last glance at my parents’ motionless forms, I dragged Luken down the hallway away from Mahlia. I heard footsteps echo behind us, but that only made me run faster. I didn’t know where we were going. We couldn’t exactly sneak back into our rooms now and pretend nothing had happened. But I’d found my parents. That was the most important thing.

  “Luken,” I said, panting. “Are there any of your tunnels around here?”

  “Yes,” he said. “On the other side of the building. If we can just—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. As we zipped around a corner, several figures appeared a few steps ahead of us. The Queen’s Guard.

  I put on the brakes and whirled around, hoping we could run back in the other direction. Unfortunately, another group of fairies was right behind us. Mahlia stood in the center, her long arms folded in front of her chest. For once, she wasn’t smiling.

  Instead, she held up her star-shaped wand and—

  Zap!

  A wave of energy hit my body, knocking me backward onto the stone floor. I tried to scramble to my feet, but for some reason they weren’t working like they should. They were too short. And there were four of them. And there was something else attached to me, something that didn’t feel right at all.

  When I glanced over my shoulder, I realized it was a tail. A long, thin, disgusting rodent tail.

  I’d been moused.

  PART II

  Chapter Nineteen

  I stared down at my mouse body in horror. Four legs. Light brown fur. And a tail! My poufy pink dress had shrunk along with me, which meant I looked like a little rodent ballerina. Perfect.

  Once the initial shock wore off, I realized I needed to get out of here and fast. I tried to scamper away, unsteady on my short legs, but Mahlia cut me off and scooped me up in her pale hand. I spotted Luken towering nearby. Lucky for him, he’d avoided getting moused.

  “Let me go!” I cried, my voice like a tiny, garbled harmonica.

  As Mahlia cupped me in her hand, I ran my mouse tongue over my sharp mouse teeth. Then I opened my mouth and chomped down on her thumb, goblin-style.

  “Ouch!” she cried, but she didn’t let me go. Instead, she waved her wand again, and a tiny, gold cage materialized around me.

  All at once, I noticed how incredibly itchy my nose was. I kept twitching it, but that didn’t do any good. I guess that’s what happened when you had whiskers sprouting out of your face.

  “Let Jenny go,” I heard Luken say.

  “Impossible,” Mahlia answered. “The queen will already be displeased that she was able to run off. We cannot have her escaping before her majesty has gotten what she wants.”

  “And what does she want, Mother? Why is she keeping Jenny and her parents here?”

  My mouse ears perked up. Maybe I’d finally get some answers!

  Mahlia just shook her head, sending white powder flying from her hair, and said, “It is not your concern.” She waved her wand, and a new cuff materialized around Luken’s wrist to replace the one he’d deactivated. “Now return to your room and do not let me catch you sneaking around again, or I will have no choice but to punish you.”

  “I thought you were doing all this to keep me safe,” said Luken. “And now you are threatening me?”

  “I am keeping you safe!” Mahlia cried. “The only way to make certain nothing happens to you is to do what the queen wants.”

  Luken was obviously done listening. He turned and stalked off, followed by two fairy guards.

  I watched in amazement as Mahlia dabbed at tears in her eyes. I guess she really did care about her son, even if she was going about protecting him in the worst way possible.

  As Mahlia took off down the hall, I struggled to find a way out of the tiny cage. I’d heard that mice could squeeze through impossibly small spaces, but when I tried to stick my head through the bars, it almost got stuck. So much for that idea. Worst of all, every time I moved around, my tail kept almost tripping me. How did real mice do it?

  Finally, we got to a door that was just around the corner from the lab where I’d seen my parents. One of the fairy guards opened the door, and Mahlia brought me into what looked like a dimly lit storage room but smelled like a pet store. The gray walls were lined with gold cages, all filled with prisoners who’d been turned into mice and birds. I couldn’t imagine what they’d all done to wind up here.

  I expected Mahlia to put me into one of the bigger cages with some of the other mice. Instead, she placed my small cage by itself in the corner. She probably didn’t want to take any chances that I’d find a way to escape.

  Just before she left, Mahlia turned back to me and sighed. “I am sorry,” she said softly. Then she strode out of the room and locked the door behind her.

  Okay. Now what?

  “Anthony?” I called out. I was willing to bet the queen had quickly realized the gnome was not her true prince and had sent hi
m here. I kept calling his name, but when I finally got an answer, it wasn’t from Anthony.

  “Jenny,” a squeaky voice said from somewhere nearby.

  I turned to see a mouse peering back at me from the next cage over, her gray nose twitching. Thanks to the mouse’s sparkly, purple sweater, I knew right away that she was Ilda.

  Perfect. The fairies had put me next to one of the most manipulative people I’d ever met on my adventures. Those aliens sure knew how to push my buttons.

  “What do you want?” I squeaked back, hating the sound of my tiny voice.

  “I was waiting for you to end up here,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve finally come. I have something important to tell you.”

  “Something important, huh?” I was in no mood for Ilda’s mind games. “Let me guess. You’re going to tell me my parents are here.”

  The witch let out a chirping laugh. “That was part of it, but you seem to already know that.”

  “Then what?” I couldn’t help being curious, despite myself. Even if Ilda had done nothing but lie to me when I’d first met her, she was also the reason I’d finally found out where to look for my mom and dad.

  “Your parents,” she said in a dramatic whisper, “are here in Fairy Land willingly.”

  I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “They agreed to be kept here and used as part of the Queen Fairy’s plan.”

  “No way. They would never help her.”

  “It’s the truth, Jenny. The queen told me herself. After she snatched your parents from my land, she threatened to kidnap you too, if they refused to help her. They agreed to do whatever it took to keep you safe, even if it meant never seeing you again.”

  I wanted to tell myself she was lying. After all, Ilda loved saying things that upset me. Then again, she had no reason to lie now. She was trapped here just like I was.

  Could it be true? Had my parents spent all these years trapped in Fairy Land because they’d been trying to protect me from that glowing psycho fairy? If they’d been willing to make that kind of deal with her, then they’d obviously had no idea how to defeat the queen.