[Half/Time 01] Half Upon a Time

by James Riley

  Eudora smiled again. “It wouldn’t be the first time Snow’s late husband served me. Let this make up for his subsequent betrayal.”

  She took the sword from the wolf and gently waved it through the air, almost contemplatively, before pointing it at Jack. “Still,” she said, “he gave his sword to another.” With that, she tossed the sword handle-first to Jack, who caught it without thinking.

  The Wicked Queen winked at him. “I’m sure you’ll live up to his wasted potential,” she said. “Tell him I said hello, next time you see him.”

  Jack held the sword out away from him, wanting desperately to throw it across the room in disgust, knowing he should … but instead he slid it back into its scabbard.

  Eudora nodded. “I thought as much,” she said. “Now, I believe it is far past time we made our exit.” She whispered a few words, and a circle of red flame seared through the back wall of the palace, cutting a tunnel just like the one the Huntsman had used to kidnap May and her grandmother in the first place.

  Eudora now turned to May, her face a mask of confidence, her eyes pleading with her granddaughter. “May?” she said, putting a thousand questions into that one word.

  “Grandma,” May replied, then stepped forward between the Wolf King and the Wicked Queen. “Tell me one thing,” she said, strangely calm—much too calm for all that was happening. “Are you really my grandmother?”

  Eudora smiled sadly. “I can’t believe you would even ask such a question. You must never doubt my love for you, May. With you, I have everything I could ever want.”

  May took a step toward her. “Grandma,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Oh, May,” Eudora said, then held our her arms to hug her granddaughter. May hesitated, then stepped forward.

  The Wolf King was the first to see it. “The knife!” the wolf shouted, lunging forward.

  And then Jack saw it too, saw May pull the witch’s knife from her back pocket. Too fast for the wolf to catch her, May plunged the knife into the Mirror, straight through the glass and out the other side.

  May took a step back, her face completely expressionless. “I guess you don’t have everything you thought you did.”

  Chapter 43

  As May stepped away from the Mirror, a hideous shriek erupted from the broken glass. The genie’s voice had always been very monotone, even during its battle with Merriweather, but now, pain and terror fought against fury as the creature howled in absolute agony.

  The glass from the Mirror’s frame crashed to the floor as the same green fog they’d seen at the Red Hood’s cottage burst out in every direction, quickly filling the room to capacity. Just as it reached the walls, the fog pulled in on itself, swirling into the center of the room like a tornado.

  For a moment Jack thought they’d all be sucked into the genie’s vortex, but as quickly as it started, the swirling fog exploded straight up into the snow ceiling. With as much effort as a child punching water, the genie blew through the palace’s roof, sending large snow blocks crumbling down into the room. As it flew up and out the genie’s scream echoed back at them, gradually fading into the blowing wind and snow.

  And then there was silence.

  The Wolf King broke it. “Betrayer!” he growled, leaping at May. Before she could move, the wolf grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air.

  “May!” Eudora said, shaking her head in shock while her granddaughter struggled to breathe. “How could you do such a thing?!”

  “Shall I punish her for you, Your Majesty?” the Wolf King asked the Wicked Queen eagerly.

  “May!” Jack yelled, and leapt forward—only to stop abruptly as the Wicked Queen pointed one long, fiery finger at him.

  “Interfere, young man,” the Wicked Queen said almost absently, “and you’ll regret it. Now, May, I asked you a question. Why did you do that?”

  Rapunzel, meanwhile, began to hum beneath her breath, her eyes closed. Behind them, Eudora’s fire in the doorway began to flicker, and Jack could see the castle guards behind it, trying to break through.

  The Wicked Queen glanced at Rapunzel for an instant, and suddenly every hair on the woman’s head began to wrap itself around her body. Rapunzel’s eyes flew open, and she struggled to slice away the hair with her sword, but she was too slow. Within seconds, she was fully encased in blond hair, unable to move or talk. She fell to the floor with a muffled bump, her hair at least cushioning the blow.

  Jack turned back to the Queen, his entire body frozen in fear.

  “I don’t … know who … you are,” May said, struggling to speak through the wolf’s grasp, “but you’re … not … my grandmother!”

  Eudora sighed. “You have no idea how much you’re hurting me, my darling. Destroying my Mirror? Siding with these people over me?! You have no idea what I’ve seen, child! What the Mirror has told me about you!” She glanced from Jack to Phillip. “Do you want to know what will happen, May? I’m happy to tell you. One of these boys will betray you … and the other will die.”

  “No!” May screamed, kicking at the wolf. The animal just smiled at her, licking his lips.

  “It’s true, child,” the Queen said, almost sadly. “I’ve seen it in my Mirror. But I will never betray you, and I certainly won’t let harm come to you … after you’ve been punished, that is.”

  At this, Jack fought through his terror and stepped forward. “Eudora …,” he started, though he wasn’t really sure what to say next.

  “What did I tell you, Jack?” the Queen said, shaking her head.

  And with that, a ray of bright red fire shot from the Queen’s index finger, cutting right through Jack’s shoulder. He couldn’t even scream as pain completely overwhelmed him, knocking him backward off his feet.

  “No!” Phillip yelled, but an unseen hand knocked him against one of the snow walls, and his dazed body slid to the floor.

  “Now, May,” the Queen said. “You hurt me in a very deep way today.”

  “N-no,” Jack said, struggling to speak as he used his one good arm to push himself to his feet. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt before, but he couldn’t let it stop him. “You’re … you’re not going to touch her.”

  The Queen sighed and raised her finger again. “Jack,” she said, her voice cold as ice, “be a dear and sit back down, or I’ll cut out that stubborn little heart of yours and eat it myself. Are we clear?”

  Jack paused, barely able to stand, then looked from the Queen to the wolf to May and back. He nodded. “We’re … we’re clear.”

  And with that, Jack dove straight at the Wolf King.

  “No, Jack!” May yelled, struggling with the growling wolf.

  “I warned you, boy!” the Queen yelled.

  And a dagger of red fire exploded from the Wicked Queen’s finger, flying straight for Jack’s heart.

  Only … the Queen hadn’t realized that something was in her way.

  Instead of hitting Jack, the dagger of fire struck the ice coffin, shattering it into a thousand pieces. And there, in the center of the stone table, lay the perfectly preserved body of a woman with skin as white as snow.

  Jack crashed into the Wolf King’s legs, toppling the wolf and May to the ground. Instantly, the wolf was back on his feet, but even through his pain, Jack was faster. He grabbed his sword and thrust it up, right at the wolf’s chest—but the wolf managed to slap his hands on either side of the blade and toss it aside.

  Unfortunately for the wolf, he’d forgotten about May. The princess used the confusion to grab one of the ice coffin shards and drive it into the wolf’s leg. The animal let out a deathly howl and clawed at the wound, only to go silent as a large piece of the crumbled snow ceiling hit the wolf on the forehead. The animal collapsed to the floor as Phillip picked up a second brick of snow, ready for another attack.

  For a second, Jack actually began to hope that they might make it out alive.

  And then that second passed.

  “Children?” the Wicked Queen
said softly. And suddenly Jack, May, and Phillip hung in midair, surrounded by glowing red fire. Eudora strode gracefully over to the wolf and gestured to the stone table. The animal nodded, got up, and moved out of Jack’s range of vision, while the Queen glided over to the three of them, shaking her head.

  “I have had this problem before,” she said sadly. “It’s one of the perils of knowing the future, you understand. I learned that with Snow—the Mirror told me that she would eventually be a problem, so I tried to remove her from the equation. But that backfired, and I quickly learned that you cannot change destiny.” She smiled. “Fortunately for you, that means I can’t kill any of you now. Not when one of you will later realize the error of his ways and join me.”

  The Queen reached down to stroke May’s face, but the princess shied away. This didn’t seem to surprise the Queen, though her eyes hardened a bit. “Caring for you was the one thing I never saw coming, May,” she said. “But even you cannot change your fate. You too will join me, in time.” With that, she turned to walk back toward the red fire circle in the wall.

  As the wolf entered the circle before her, carrying something, the Queen stopped and turned to look at them one last time. “Children, I shall see you all soon enough,” she said, lifting a hand to wave. Then she smiled a very sweet, motherly smile. “Until then, I hope you live happily—for one of you, it will be your last chance to ever do so.”

  As the Wicked Queen turned to leave she glanced up at the hole in the ceiling that the genie had made. Her eyes glowed briefly with red fire, and the entire palace began to shake like a tree in the genie’s tornado. “Now might be a good time to leave,” she told them, then stepped through the portal, which burned itself out as the Palace of the Snow Queen began to collapse.

  Chapter 44

  A moment after the Wicked Queen disappeared, her spells broke, and Jack, May, and Phillip all dropped to the ground. As they all groaned through the pain Rapunzel pushed herself out of her mass of hair, desperately sucking in air. Her guards, now free of the Queen’s spell as well, hurried into the room, far too late to do anything.

  “No!” Rapunzel shouted, searching the room. “The Queen, where did she—”

  And then she went deadly silent as her eyes fixed on the stone table in the center of the room. Jack followed her gaze, and noticed something chilling.

  Snow White’s body was gone.

  Rapunzel shouted something at the guards, but was interrupted by a crack from the ceiling above them, as the rest of the palace began to shake even harder. Snow began to rain down as half the ceiling started to cave in, falling almost a foot before halting, barely holding itself together.

  Another crack sent a block of stone snow crashing right through the floor of the room an inch from Jack’s hand. “May!” Jack shouted, pushing himself to his feet and helping her up. “We have to get out of here!”

  May looked up, and for a moment, the princess barely seemed to recognize him. Finally, though, she nodded. Before she could straighten up completely, Jack yanked her out of the path of a block of snow, which crashed down right where she’d been standing.

  Phillip caught her before she hit the ground, and together, Jack and the prince pulled May past Rapunzel’s guards and out of the room, Jack’s shoulder screaming in pain with every movement. He glanced back into the chamber at Rapunzel, who seemed to be casting some kind of spell, but falling snow quickly obscured his view. Her guards could take care of their queen—right now Jack had enough to worry about just getting the three of them out.

  The hallway back to the courtyard felt at least three times longer than it had before, with huge gaps cracking open in the floor in some places, the ceiling and walls collapsing in others. Jack and Phillip didn’t bother letting May walk; instead, they carried her as fast as they could toward the end of the hall. Snow as hard as stone rained down on them the whole way, and Jack heard Phillip grunt as one large clump hit him on the shoulder. Despite the pain he must have felt, the prince never paused.

  Finally, the three of them burst through the door at the end of the hallway, into the room with three doors. There, they skidded to an immediate halt.

  There was nowhere to go. The entire ceiling had fallen in, blocking the way out to the courtyard.

  Fortunately, some of the crumbled rock had actually formed a makeshift ramp to the roof. After a shrug between them, Jack and Phillip carried their princess up the ramp and out of the castle.

  From the outside, the palace’s destruction was almost awe inspiring. Most of the towers had completely tumbled down, crushing the castle below, while the beautiful spirals of ice had crumbled in several places, parts of them whipping through the air, carried by the biting wind. Only one of the palace’s towers still stood, and even that one looked to be on the edge of collapse.

  “We do not have time to watch!” Phillip screamed over the wind at Jack, then began moving on, forcing Jack to keep up. The ramp they were climbing sloped up to one of the ramparts, which they quickly carried May along, desperately looking for a way back down to the courtyard.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t one … at least, none that was still standing. They found a few crumbled stairways, but nothing that even came close to the rampart. Jack threw one look over the outer wall, only to shake his head. The rampart had to be at least fifty feet up. There was no way they could jump.

  “What do we do?!” Jack yelled in frustration. Phillip just stared at him helplessly, knowing as well as Jack did that there was no way out. Jack whipped his head around, desperately searching for something, anything, that would save them, but the only way out was to go back down into the palace, suicide even if the way was still open.

  Already Jack’s hands and feet were going numb. Soon they’d all freeze to death if the collapsing palace didn’t kill them first. “It can’t end like this!” he screamed into the wind.

  “It won’t,” said a voice from behind him.

  Jack spun around—only, there was no one there. “Who said that!” he shouted.

  Two hands appeared out of nowhere. They reached up and pulled back on something invisible—a hood. Behind it was a woman’s face, her black hair dashed white with snow and red with blood.

  “I bet you never saw this coming,” said the Red Hood.

  Chapter 45

  Jack glanced at the picture of Rose Red revealing herself to the three of them, and once again, he was impressed. The Story Book’s magic really was amazing.

  “So I take it she didn’t kill you,” Jack’s grandfather said to him.

  “Good guess,” Jack replied as he settled back in his chair, staring at the fire. For some reason, his cottage seemed different now, smaller than before they had left.

  “So what happened?” Jack’s grandfather asked him, puffing on a new pipe made of solid gold. Apparently, the old man had found time for an adventure during Jack’s absence.

  “Even after all we did to her,” Jack said, “the Red Hood … sorry, Rose Red … tracked us down to make sure we made it out of the palace. She cast a travel spell that let us escape, even healed my shoulder. Thanks to her and Rapunzel, everyone made it out of the palace all right.”

  Jack’s grandfather shook his head. “I still can’t believe you mistook the Wicked Queen for Snow White! I mean, what were you thinking?!” He paged back through the Story Book—which was even now recording everything Jack said—to May’s story of the original kidnapping. “I mean, look at her! How did you not recognize the Wicked Queen?! I knew who she was instantly!”

  Jack sighed. “It’s not like I’d seen her picture before. All I knew from the legends was that the Huntsman tried to kill Snow White. Who knew he couldn’t do it, so he switched sides?”

  Jack’s grandfather puffed on his pipe for a few moments, then leaned in close. “What does May think of all this?” he asked. “Knowing about her grandmother now, I mean?”

  “I’m not sure she knows what to think, really,” Jack said. “I doubt any of us could handle what she
just went through. Rose offered to send her home, back to wherever it is that she’s from, but May refused. She wants to stay here and figure out where she came from, how she ended up with the Wicked Queen … maybe even find her real family, if they’re alive. The only clue we have is that Merriweather, the fairy queen, said she owed May something. So that’s the first step: Find Merriweather, and find out exactly how she knows May.”

  “Are you going with her?”

  Jack shook his head. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “After the way this all turned out? We set free the worst evil our world has ever known, and it was my fault, Grandpa. I can’t keep doing this. I’m no hero. I’m just done.”

  “Really,” his grandfather said, raising an eyebrow. “I see you’re not done with that sword you found. Keeping that, are you?”

  Jack looked almost embarrassed. “I told Rose Red how I found it,” he said, “how I spoke to the knight in the giant’s mouth. I offered to give it back to her, since it was her brother-in-law’s. But she got all strange and said I should keep it, that he wanted me to have it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the Wicked Queen said too, so who knows?”

  “And the dreams?” Jack’s grandfather asked quietly.

  “I, um, didn’t mention those to Rose,” Jack replied.

  “Maybe for the best, for now. So what are you going to do with it?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, everyone says that the swords of the Eyes are cursed, but it’s only been a help so far. Still, I don’t know about the dreams. Is Snow White’s dead husband really talking to me? And how did Snow White even end up married to one of the Wicked Queen’s Eyes?”

  “You’ve got my sense of curiosity in you,” his grandfather said with a smile. “That might just get you into some trouble someday.”

  “Someday?”

  This time, his grandfather laughed. “Either way, you’ve got a heck of a story to tell. I’m glad you saw it through to the end, even if it goes no further from here.”