Ever After High

by Shannon Hale

  “Hey, Lizzie!” Madeline Hatter hopped up on one foot. Maddie was dressed in layers of turquoise and purple, which matched her hair colors. Her striped and polka-dotted skirts flounced with each hop. “Hop with me!”

  Maddie held out her hand. Lizzie’s hand twitched, almost reaching back. But readily her mind called up her mother’s advice:

  A ship is only as floaty as its leakiest timber,

  and friends are the leakiest timber of all.

  Sail not on the Friend Ship, Lizzie,

  lest you drown in an ocean of tears!

  “A princess of Wonderland never hops,” said Lizzie.

  She walked through the forests of the mountain path alone.

  No blue-skinned North Wind (in swimming trunks or otherwise) waited at the top of the mountain. Instead an amphitheater of log benches faced a small stage.

  “Ooh, are we watching a play?” said Maddie. “Tea-riffic!”

  “This is just right,” said Blondie Lockes, settling onto a bench alongside other Royals, including Briar Beauty and Holly O’Hair.

  Lizzie started for the backstage. Behind the curtain, Apple and Daring were slipping on costumes over their clothes.

  “Break an egg,” Lizzie said to Apple.

  “Excuse me?” Humphrey Dumpty squeaked as he passed by, his white-pale cheeks turning so pink he seemed to be dyed.

  “It’s leg,” Apple whispered. “Break a leg.”

  “Oh,” said Lizzie. “That’s actually much better.”

  “Now, students, quiet down, please,” Headmaster Grimm was saying on the other side of the curtain. “You’re probably wondering, ‘Where is the North Wind, and what is this beautiful forest amphitheater?’ And perhaps even, ‘I bet Headmaster Grimm is skilled in the theater arts, and when will we see an example of his genius?’ ”

  Someone in the audience shouted something Lizzie couldn’t make out.

  “No, Mr. Hood, you will not be able to meet and speak with the North Wind, as you did last year with the West Wind—or the beach dude, as you call him. The Winds are part of the magnificent heritage and history in Ever After. But the reason why you can’t speak with the North Wind herself is a tragedy, one I fear you all need to hear, especially now.”

  Lizzie straightened her crown. It wasn’t her tall gold one with ruby red hearts that just screamed “Wonderland” (sometimes literally). This was the costume crown of Princess Aquilona, and while a shoddy representation of true royalty, it was still a crown and should be respectably oriented.

  “To best communicate why the North Wind, though present, can no longer speak with humans, I have written a play,” said the headmaster. “Behold, The Tragedy of Aquilona, performed by the Ever After High Royal Players!”

  The curtain rose to thunderous applause. Faybelle Thorn shouted “Boo!” so loudly and brightly it sounded like a cheer. Lizzie, flustered, yelled the first line of the play that Apple had written for her, and the crowd silenced.

  Grimm lifted his arm up grandly and intoned, “Long ago, Boreas, the great North Wind, ruled the mountaintops.”

  The headmaster’s voice was suddenly high-pitched and trembly, like someone trying to sing soprano who really shouldn’t.

  “Why is he talking like that?” Lizzie heard Maddie whisper loudly from the audience. “Is someone choking him?”

  Daring marched forward with his typical easygoing yet kingly demeanor. He was dressed in a white billowy wind costume that didn’t completely cover his muscles. Some of the girls in the audience squealed.

  “I, Boreas, rule the winds of the North!” Daring announced.

  “The nature of wind is to be wild,” Grimm said.

  Apple rushed onstage in a fringed blue cloak. The audience applauded, several shouting, “Apple White! It’s Apple White!”

  “I am the wild wind,” Apple howled. A few birds in the surrounding forest sang out in happy response.

  “Shh, she’s not talking to you,” Maddie whispered at the birds.

  “But Boreas was the shepherd of all the winds of the North, directing them hither and yon,” Grimm continued in a tight, squeaky voice.

  “I shepherd you,” Daring said, pointing at Apple. “Go hither! And yon!”

  Someone in the audience actually did yawn at this point. Lizzie had to admit the lines Grimm had written were a little flat.

  “Boreas’s companion in his great work was his daughter, Princess Aquilona,” Grimm said.

  “I am Princess Aquilona,” Lizzie said, her fists on her hips.

  The line was longer, but Lizzie deemed it too boring to finish. The headmaster waited for the rest, but Lizzie just folded her arms.

  Grimm cleared his throat. “Princess Aquilona was destined to take on her father’s responsibilities, but she refused.”

  “I will not take on your responsibilities,” Lizzie said, pointing at Daring.

  Daring opened his mouth in a parody of shock. “Ridiculous! It is your destiny! To deny your destiny would destroy everything!”

  “Then I shall leave forever and go where the North winds cannot travel!”

  The audience gasped. Lizzie smiled. Maybe this strutting-about-a-stage business wasn’t so bad. She glanced at the anxious face of Headmaster Grimm for inspiration and decided to make up a few more lines. “I will not be the daughter who does nothing but watch her wrinkled father writhe with the agony of age and death, your voice slowly becoming more nasal and oddly high-pitched, as if you were being strangled by a possum or a really weak octopus or something.”

  Daring pressed his lips together, valiantly attempting to hold back a laugh, and ultimately failing.

  He covered his face with his hands, and Lizzie knew she must do something to save the play.

  “Do not blubber so, Father. When you stop weeping, I will be gone,” Lizzie said.

  Headmaster Grimm cleared his throat and lowered his voice to its natural pitch.

  “And so, Aquilona ran away to be selfish, ignoring her great destiny so she could do whatever selfish things she wanted. Selfishly.” Headmaster Grimm looked significantly at Raven Queen, who was sitting in the back row of the amphitheater. Raven rolled her eyes.

  “Meanwhile,” Grimm continued, “Boreas got old.”

  Daring pulled a white beard from his pocket, stuck it to his face, and began to shuffle around.

  “And died,” said the headmaster.

  “I die!” Daring collapsed to the floor in a heap.

  “Without a shepherd, the winds tore up trees and hassled hills.”

  Apple, her wind cloak flapping, danced around, spinning and leaping across the stage, shouting “Whoosh” and “Boom” and “Rustle rustle rustle.”

  “The winds, wanting a shepherd, blew all the way to Aquilona. But Aquilona was too selfish to claim her destiny, as previously mentioned.”

  Apple and Lizzie spun in the circles they had practiced, but Lizzie was not as good at remembering steps as words, and the choreographed dance turned into a sprawling slap-fight. From the floor, “dead” Boreas started to chuckle.

  Lizzie shrugged into a ragged blue cloak like Apple’s.

  “In her struggle against the wind, Aquilona was stripped of her body, becoming wind herself,” said Grimm. “She had no body after that, and without a mouth, you can’t talk. And that is sad. And it was her own fault. So be warned: Those who run from their own destiny just might be chased down and turned into wind.” He cleared his throat again and added grandly, “Or something! The end.”

  The headmaster began to applaud, and about half the audience followed his lead. The other half just silently glared, so Lizzie glared back until the curtain fell.

  Daring laughed, his fake beard wiggling. “ ‘A really weak octopus?’ I just about lost it out there!”

  “You did lose it,” Lizzie said.

  “Great job improvising, Lizzie,” Apple said. “Turning his laughter into tears was perfect.”

  “Yes, turning laughter into tears is a skill I learned from my mother.
”

  “I think your mother would have loved your performance,” Apple said, patting Lizzie on the shoulder and heading off the stage. Lizzie held her breath, surprised by a knot of emotion in her throat.

  Daring followed Apple. Lizzie heard him mutter “strangled by a possum” under his breath, letting out another chuckle.

  Lizzie stayed in the quiet behind the curtain, fingering her ragged blue cloak. She was a princess separated from her kingdom, just like Aquilona. All portals between Ever After and Wonderland had been magically sealed ever since Raven’s mother, the Evil Queen, went royally off script and infected it with some magical contagion. If the greedy witch hadn’t rebelled and tried to take over everyone else’s story, Lizzie would be home right now.

  Unlike Aquilona, Lizzie yearned for her destiny. But cut off as she was, how could she become like her magnificent mother? If only she could be so scary and large and… and loud! If only she could live with Mother at home, where everything made its own kind of wonderlandiful sense, and rabbits talked and people didn’t unless they were offering you cake and tea, Your Highness.

  What if she was trapped in Ever After forever after? One day her mother would need Lizzie to take over, and if she couldn’t get back… would a pack of wild playing cards worm their way into Ever After and steal away her body, just like the winds did to Aquilona? Would they carry Lizzie back, bodiless and mouthless, as insubstantial as a wind? The thought was terrifying.

  She wished she had brought her hedgehog, Shuffle, with her. Even if it was unqueenly, just then Lizzie really needed a cuddle.

  WHEN THE CURTAIN LOWERED, CEDAR WAS holding her wooden hands before her, though she couldn’t bring herself to clap.

  “Um, that was a bit obvious, and I can’t lie,” Cedar said.

  “Yep,” said Raven Queen, her shoulders slumped.

  Cedar dropped her hands. “Headmaster Grimm might as well have called the play This Story Is a Warning to All Rebels about the Evil Consequences of Not Fulfilling Your Destiny—I’m Looking at You, Raven Queen.”

  Raven nodded. But she un-slumped her shoulders. “I’m not going to let him get me down anymore. I am okay with myself and my destiny-less future, and I’m ninety percent sure that I won’t be turned into wind if I don’t turn evil and try to poison Apple. Even so, I could really use a laugh about now. I’m going to go find Maddie. Be right back.”

  Raven sprang away.

  On the bench in front of Cedar, Blondie Lockes whispered something to Briar Beauty. Briar snorted, bending at the waist and wiping laugh tears from under her pink crownglasses. Blondie giggled, hiccuping. Just hearing her friends laugh brought a creaky smile to Cedar’s face.

  “Hey, what are you guys laughing about?” Cedar asked, plopping down beside them, her legs clicking against the hard bench.

  “Well, Blondie was just telling me—” Briar began, but Blondie elbowed her. “Oof! Blondie, what are you…”

  Blondie nodded in Cedar’s direction, opening her eyes wide in warning.

  “Oh, right,” said Briar. “Um, nothing, Cedar. Never mind. I just… sorry, girl, I’d better not repeat it to you. You understand.”

  “Sure, I understand.” Whatever it was, it was a secret. “Although I get why no one wants to share secrets with me, when you do that, I still feel whittled to my heartwood. Sorry! I couldn’t help saying that. And also, Blondie, there’s a huge black cricket stuck in your curls. Sorry, couldn’t help that, either! Never mind. I’m going.”

  Cedar ran off, Blondie’s horrified shrieks fading behind her.

  A few minutes later, Raven found Cedar knee-deep in the scratchiest, meanest, most villainous blackberry bramble Cedar had ever found.

  “What’s up, Cedar?” Raven asked.

  Cedar wiped her dry wooden cheeks. She felt like she was crying. A knot of sadness tightened in her chest where her heart would be, running up into her head with a burning, uncomfortable heat. But no tears fell from her carved eyes. It was just her magic-enhanced imagination.

  “Oh, you know,” Cedar said, shrugging as if it were unimportant. “Puppet girl is cursed to blab, so real girls can’t confide in puppet girl, yadda yadda yadda.”

  “I’m sorry, Cedar,” said Raven. “But… hey, why are you in the middle of a blackberry bush?”

  Cedar held up a handful of dark purple berries. “For paints, remember? I like to make my own. The colors are rich and natural and uneven and unexpected and just luscious! I found some black walnuts—their shells make beautiful black paint—and I even found some turmeric for yellow.”

  She reached into the thicket for a fat berry, so ripe it was black. Thorns big as shark teeth scratched at her brown arms, but Cedar didn’t feel a thing. She didn’t even feel a thing as something lurking inside the bramble took offense at her probing arm and attacked. When she lifted her hand up again, the something was stuck to her. Furry and fat, like a dog-sized guinea pig, the thing’s two rows of teeth-big-as-thorns were now clamped to her forearm.

  “Oh,” said Cedar.

  “Whoa!” Raven stumbled back with her hands out, as if ready to cast a spell. “What is that?”

  Cedar shook her arm, but the beastie didn’t budge. A pale green gas leaked from its nether end, and the girls turned their heads and gagged.

  “That… smells… like a very bad ending!” said Raven.

  Cedar nodded. She could smell things (unfortunately, at the moment)—or at least, the magic that made her alive enhanced her ability to imagine smells, just as it allowed her to imagine joy and sadness, fear and excitement. But the magical imagination didn’t allow her to experience sickness or pain—not even from the bite of the toothy creature clamped to her wooden arm. Still, that didn’t mean she wanted to keep it there.

  She fought her way out of the blackberry bramble, and they ran back toward the amphitheater.

  “Headmaster Grimm! Madam Baba Yaga! Help!” Raven called out.

  “Um… something appears to be biting my arm,” Cedar said softly. “I didn’t want to make a fuss, but…”

  “What is that creature?” the headmaster said, his normally robust voice a mere whisper.

  Baba Yaga floated forward, sitting cross-legged on her levitating stool. Her fierce eyes and determined nose and chin made her seem formidable. She pushed her tangled gray hair out of her face and squinted. “It looks like a bandersnatch, but that’s impossible. There are no bandersnatches in Ever After.”

  Baba Yaga took a deep sniff of the pale green gas and then smacked her lips as if trying to identify a peculiar taste. Cedar winced. She heard Raven behind her trying not to gag too loudly.

  “It smells like a bandersnatch,” said Baba Yaga. “Or perhaps a thing wearing bandersnatch perfume.”

  “Yeah, that’s sure to be the hot new scent this spring,” said Briar, her nose plugged. “Bandersnatch perfume—for those special occasions when you want everyone to run away screaming.”

  “Um… could you maybe pry it off my arm?” Cedar asked.

  “Hold your piglets, Ms. Wood. I’m still investigating,” said the old sorceress.

  Cedar nodded. And considered maybe lying down and dying on the spot. All her classmates were staring at her. And she had a smelly, sticky beastie clamped on her arm. Cedar imagined the warm prickle of a blush in her cheeks, but she knew her cheeks remained the same shade of warm brown.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” she heard someone whisper.

  “Those teeth are, like, an inch long,” someone else whispered.

  “Yeah, but she’s, you know, made of wood.”

  “I never realized she was that weird.”

  “No kidding.”

  Cedar closed her eyes. Maybe if she tried really hard, she could grow into a tree and disappear behind a wall of leaves. Or maybe if she tried even harder, she could wish herself real like everyone else.

  Please, please, please, Blue-Haired Fairy, please make me real now. Please don’t make me wait any longer or follow a choiceless destiny to get my H
appily Ever After. I just want to be normal. Please…

  “Aha!” Baba Yaga shouted, startling Cedar’s eyes open. The old sorceress mumbled a spell, then shot mustard-yellow light from her hands, and the bandersnatch began to vibrate. With a noise like a soufflé popping in the oven, the bandersnatch transformed.

  “Oh!” said Ashlynn Ella. “A fuzzy, cuddly bear cub! Look at you, sweetie pie!”

  She pranced forward and began to pet the cub. Which was still clamped to Cedar’s arm.

  “The question is,” said Baba Yaga, “why was a bear cub transformed into a baby bandersnatch?”

  “It’s so cute!” said Ashlynn. “What are you saying, cutie sweetie-bear? I can’t hear you when you’ve got an arm in your mouth.”

  “Uh…” said Cedar.

  “But… isn’t a bear cub, I don’t know, dangerous or something?” Raven asked.

  “Not nearly so dangerous as your basic fire-breathing dragon,” said Daring, “of which I’ve battled dozens.”

  Several girls sighed dreamily.

  “Who’s scared of a teddy bear?” said Faybelle Thorn.

  “I am and not embarrassed to admit it,” said Hunter Huntsman, putting his fists on his hips. His hair—styled in a sort of relaxed Mohawk—rippled in the breeze. “A bear cub is extremely dangerous not for itself but for who is nearby.”

  “Like it’s mother?” Apple squeaked, staring at something in the distance.

  “Exactly, Apple, like the cub’s mother,” said Hunter. “Um… Ash, you should probably leave it alone. If its mother is nearby, she might misunderstand and fear we’re harming her cub.”

  “Nonsense,” said Ashlynn, scratching behind the cub’s ears. “I’d just explain to her the situation.”

  “In my experience,” Daring said, sharpening his sword on a rock, “a mother bear mauls first and listens to lengthy explanations second.”

  “Uh…” said Cedar again. Baby bear/bandersnatch drool had covered her arm and was dripping into a puddle at her feet.

  “Hey, bear,” whispered Blondie, crouching down and whispering in its ear. “Where’s the porridge? You and your folks have an unsupervised porridge-filled cabin stashed nearby? Come on, talk.”