by Shannon Hale
“Yeah,” Raven agrees. “But before you say it, I can’t just make a magic cage to put them in and leave. It will disappear as soon as I go after my mom.”
“I thought about that,” Frankie says. “What we need to do is trade places with the Zomboyz.”
“I don’t want to be a zombie, thank you,” Apple objects.
“I get what you mean,” Drac says. “You want them on the bridge and us in the courtyard.”
“Right,” Frankie says. “If we can get them far enough down the bridge, Apple and I can just camp out on the edge of the fog and use our imaginations to block them while you deal with your mom.”
“What’s to stop them from imagining back at us?” Apple asks. “I don’t want to see in real life whatever a Zomboy is imagining.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Frankie says.
The Zomboy at the front of the advancing pack has stopped and is staring at his foot. He groans, as if only just noticing that he is missing a shoe.
The Zomboy behind him bumps into him, and the one behind him bumps into that one, and so on. Soon, they are all groaning in irritation.
“Uhhh?” A Zomboy groans from the back.
“UHHH!” The Zomboy in the front groans back. He grabs his ankle, attempting to lift his bare foot up to show the group, but he falls down.
“They aren’t the brightest torches in the dungeon,” Draculaura says. “As long as Moanica isn’t with them, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Okay,” Raven says, “but how are we going to get all of them onto the other side of the bridge from us without anyone accidentally falling into the, you know, dangerous depths below?”
Apple raises a finger. “I’d like to go on the record as preferring not to get knocked into the lava.”
Frankie pulls out the compass and flips it on. The glow forms, pointing in the direction of the library. “We’re in the fog,” Frankie says. She holds up the compass. “This is magic. Why is it still working?”
“It’s enchanted,” Raven says. “We did it back at Ever After High, remember?”
“Exactly! So enchant us! When we get to the courtyard, biggify us, just like you biggify your pet dragon. We’ll pick up the Zomboyz and carry them to the bridge.”
“Nevermore gets big by her own power,” Raven says. The imaginary dragon rubs against Raven’s ankles like a cat. “And it’s dangerous to biggify people. Magical animals take it the best. Baba Yaga said she tried it on a regular old beetle once, and the poor thing hexploded.”
“Oh.” Frankie sighs. She had been so certain her plan would work. But that was silly.
Draculaura popped into bat form. “Biggify me,” she squeaked. “Magical animal, at your service.”
“Ladies,” a familiar voice calls from the courtyard, “so… interesting to see you here.” Moanica D’Kay’s wedge heels clack as she walks across the stone ground. She bends to pick up a dirty sneaker and holds it between her thumb and forefinger as if it were someone else’s used tissue. “Zomboyz. Always losing things, amirite? Shoes. Limbs. Card games.”
“Moanica!” Draculaura calls out. “What are you doing? Why are you even part of this?”
Moanica smiles. “It’s fun,” she says, advancing through the crowd of Zomboyz.
“Fun?” Frankie shouts. “Your sorceress friend is going to destroy the world!”
“Not our world,” Moanica says. “I get to be empress of ours. She promised. Finally somebody who gets me!”
Moanica drops the dirty shoe by the barefoot Zomboy.
“Uhhh.” The Zomboy groans, grabbing at the sneaker.
Nevermore, hovering at the wall of fog, snaps at Moanica. She flinches, but Nevermore doesn’t go after her.
“Why can’t your little friend come any closer?” she asks. “Could it be that my friend’s magic is stronger than your friend’s magic?”
Moanica takes a step onto the bridge. Little Nevermore snaps again, but Moanica ignores her. She bumps into Moanica, and the zombie girl bats her away.
“Silly Zomboyz,” Moanica says. “They scare so easily.”
Nevermore enlarges to full size and roars. Moanica’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t run.
“That is scarier,” she says, and then takes another tentative step. The large dragon snaps at her, but Moanica pushes her muzzle away. The Zomboyz follow behind Moanica, groaning after everything she says, as if in agreement.
Nevermore sits angrily on the bridge, her bulk preventing Moanica from moving any closer. The zombie girl pushes at the dragon to no effect. “I wonder…” Moanica mutters. She takes a step, slipping on the bridge and careening over the edge.
“No!” Raven yells. Nevermore darts to the girl to catch her, but she has already caught the edge of the bridge and pulled herself up.
“So… you don’t want to hurt me,” Moanica says. “You don’t want to hurt any of us.”
“Of course not,” Apple says. “We’re not monsters.” She blushes, glancing sideways at Frankie and Draculaura. “Well, um, some of us are…”
Moanica waves her Zomboyz forward. “Come on, boys, climb over the dragon. If you fall, she’ll save you.”
“Uh-oh,” Frankie says.
Draculaura pops into bat form. “How long does it take you to cast the biggify spell?” she whispers to Raven.
“Not long,” she says. “Like a second. But I can’t do it in the fog.”
All the Zomboyz have crowded onto the bridge. One Zomboy, crawling over the dragon, slips and tips into the lava-bottomed fog. But the dragon catches the boy with a claw and places him back on the bridge.
Frankie takes a breath. She has an idea. She doesn’t like that she has this particular idea, but it’s there, pressing against the inside of her skull, falling onto her tongue.
“We could ride the dragon,” Frankie whispers.
“The imaginary dragon?” Apple asks.
“Everybody on the imaginary dragon!” Draculaura says.
“Wait… what if this isn’t a good plan?” says Frankie.
“It’s your plan,” says Draculaura. “How could it not be good?”
Apple, Frankie, and Raven pile on the imaginary dragon as Bat-Drac zips to the courtyard over the heads of the Zomb0yz.
As the dragon rises, Frankie can’t help looking down. Her stomach feels full of dust moths. If she tumbles off, she won’t just fall to pieces—she’ll fall into lava. Poof—no more Frankie.
“You can’t fool me,” Moanica calls from below. “I see my little bat-friend Draculaura headed toward the library, but I’m not worried about her. Your mother made it clear that you are the one I need to keep out, Raven Queen.”
“What are we going to do?” Apple asks.
The dragon flaps her imaginary wings, and they rise.
“We’re going in,” Raven says.
Moanica and the Zomboyz are so far below they look like miniature versions of themselves.
“I’m scared.” Frankie turns to Apple, who is clutching Nevermore’s saddle so tightly her hands are trembling. “Are you scared?”
Apple makes a little eep noise.
“Is Raven crazy?” Frankie whispers.
Apple shakes her head once to indicate no, and then the dragon speeds through the wall of fog and hovers high above the courtyard.
“Huh,” Apple says. “I thought Nevermore would disappear the second we passed through the fog. Maybe—”
Suddenly, they are sitting on nothing.
They fall. Frankie takes a deep breath. It is going to hurt when she hits stone, but at least it’s not lava. Apple has taken a deep breath, too, but she is using it to scream. Then Frankie realizes… Apple is a Normie. Or mostly a Normie. If she falls apart, she can’t be sewn together again. Frankie pinwheels her arms, reaching for Apple and pulls her into a hug. She closes her eyes, hoping her body will be enough of a cushion to save Apple.
She does not expect to be plucked from the air by a giant bat claw and placed
softly on the stones of the courtyard.
“Yes!” says Raven. “I did it! Speed magic! Good work, Draculaura!”
“Good work, Raven!” Draculaura’s embiggened bat form is at least as huge as Nevermore was. She lifts a massive wing and slaps it against Raven’s uplifted palm.
“Whoa,” Apple whispers, staring at the solid rock beneath her. “Frankie, were you trying to save my life?”
“Trying,” admits Frankie.
“Thanks,” says Apple. “That was fairy brave. And fairy nice.”
“Woo-hoo!” shouts Big Bat-Drac, doing a loop-the-loop and then diving at the Zomboyz. She plucks Zomboyz from the ground two by two, flies them a hundred feet back along the bridge, and drops them off. She gets Moanica last.
“Let me go, you giant leather-winged monster!” Moanica yells.
So Draculaura lets her go, far, far down the bridge.
Bat-Drac returns, landing beside Frankie with a rush of wind. “It will take them a minute or so to walk back,” she says.
“Hold on,” Raven says, tracing a pattern in the air. Bat-Drac is enveloped in a green glow and quickly shrinks to her normal size.
“Aw, man,” Draculaura squeaks, popping back into human form. “That was too fun.”
“I had to get you back to normal before you turned human,” Raven says. “Or vampire. Whatever. I’m just not sure what would have happened. Might have been dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Frankie asks. “Like flying us scary high before dropping us to our doom? I might have been okay, but poor Apple? She could have gotten hurt!”
“I’m really sorry,” Raven says. “I needed as much falling time as possible to make sure I could cast the biggify spell on Drac.”
“I wouldn’t have let you fall,” Draculaura says with a reassuring smile. “Let’s go, Raven. I’ll be your backup.” The two of them hurry toward the library.
“The Zomboyz are coming back,” Frankie says, peering at the bridge. “Moanica is faster than the rest of them.”
“What’s next, Frankie?” asks Apple.
“You’re asking me?” Frankie says. “Oh, right, this was my plan. We’ve switched places. Okay.” She gulps. “We need… to step into the fog and imagine a wall. A big wall they can’t climb, to keep them on the bridge.”
Apple takes another step into the Margins, and a beautiful picket fence springs up and then vanishes. “Wait,” she says. “Drac said we’d be okay as long as Moanica wasn’t here. She’s here.”
“Bolts!” Frankie says. “You’re right. She’ll figure out that she can do the imagination thing, too.”
“She didn’t know Nevermore was imaginary,” Apple says. “She thought it was Raven’s magic. Maybe we can—”
“You can’t do anything!” Moanica shouts at them, marching through the fog. “A sorceress and a vampire might have had a chance against us, but what are you? A science geek without a lab and a… whatever you are. What are you, anyway?”
A spark fires in Frankie’s brain. “Wait, you don’t know who she is?”
“She’s nobody,” Moanica says, though she doesn’t look sure. “Some goofy fairytale.”
“This is the Fairy Queen,” Frankie proclaims, gesturing grandly at Apple, who, after a moment of hesitation, curtsies.
“You’re making that up,” Moanica says. “You always talk a little louder than normal when you’re lying. Did you know that?”
“I was proclaiming,” Frankie says, louder still.
Apple prances forward, attempting to play her part. “Perhaps what you perceive, dear girl, is the hexcess of honor young Frankie gives me. For I am not yet the queen; I am but a princess.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Moanica says. “But who cares? My ’boyz can capture a fairy princess just as easily as a normal one.”
“What if,” Frankie says, gritting her teeth in concentration, “the princess commands a fairy army?”
Two small figures appear above Apple. They have buzzing dragonfly wings and barbarian warrior garb; each grips a two-inch ax.
Moanica starts at the sudden appearance and then laughs. “That is your fairy army, Princess? Two floating dolls?”
Apple looks at Frankie and nods. Frankie closes her eyes and tries to imagine as many fairy warriors as she can.
“Hardly,” Apple says, holding up her arms in a way she has seen the Evil Queen do. “This is my army!”
Nothing happens.
“Um…” Moanica says.
Frankie tries to forget she is on a bridge in the middle of nowhere. She tells herself a story about Apple as a true Fairy Queen going to battle against a vast evil army.
“Oh,” Apple says, and Frankie opens her eyes. Apple’s clothing has changed from her red-and-gold skirt and white blouse into a shining suit of crystal armor, and buzzing in from the sky on either side of the bridge are hundreds of warrior-fairies.
“Ha!” Apple shouts, getting back into character. “Charge! Drive them back, my brave soldiers!”
The imaginary fairy army dives at the Zomboyz. Half of them turn and run, and the other half, too slow to understand what is happening, begin getting poked and prodded by tiny weapons. Moanica shouts, swatting at fairies.
“Real fairies don’t look anything like that,” Apple whispers to Frankie.
“Hopefully, Moanica doesn’t know the difference,” Frankie says.
“Ow!” Moanica shouts, batting at a fairy poking her with a sharp stick. “Get back, you flying thumb!”
“I like your fairies better,” Apple whispers. “But don’t tell the real ones I said that.”
AND SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS… RAVEN AND Draculaura follow the compass into a cellar, Raven uses magical energy to move stones out of the way and release Maddie, and then Raven and Maddie hug and take the time to say how happy they are to see each other, even though they’re wasting precious seconds while the Evil Queen is upstairs doing something terrible that might destroy the world! Ahem!63
63 Sorry, I’m getting a little impatient. But why do characters take so long when there’s a crisis? Hurry up!
“Thanks for the rescuing,” says Maddie, “but our Narrator is insisting we hurry and deal with your mom quick-quick,” which isn’t technically true, because Narrators would never make someone do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.
“Drac, can you take Maddie and get her safe?” asks Raven. “I’ll stay and—”
“Wait, you want us to leave?” asks Draculaura.
“Maddie’s been locked up and needs—”
“I don’t need anything,” says Maddie. “I’m peachy. Peach cobblery, even. With whipped cream on top.”
So much talking, not enough hurrying!
“Sorry, Brooke,” says Maddie.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Raven,” Draculaura says. “Remember when we fought your imaginary mothers in the fog? We did it together.”
“Ooh, I’ve missed so much!” says Maddie.
“But this isn’t imaginary!” protests Raven. “This is the real thing! This is really her! And… and you don’t know her, Drac. She’s… she’s…”
“The Eee-vil Queen!” Maddie says ominously, wiggling her fingers in a spooky manner. “With a spray bottle!”
“Well, last time all we had was an imaginary Maddie to help us,” Draculaura says. “Now we’ve got the real thing!”
“Tarn dootin’!” Maddie says. “Real like fish and twice as slippery!”
Raven can’t help but smile.
Aaaand… now is the part when they start to hurry, probably. Aaaany second now. Ready, set—
“Go!” says Maddie. “We should go!”
The girls run up the stairs and through the library, climbing over piles of rubble, crossing floors of ancient tile mosaics, around tilty bookshelves—some empty, some with scattered tomes. They follow the sound of chanting.
At last they reach a room that’s only half a room, really. Part of a tiled roof balances above, and the three remaining walls are
lined with bookshelves. The missing wall is open to the outside, the huge hole like the gaping mouth of a whale, loose stones and dangling roof tiles like its teeth. The Evil Queen is standing in the mouth-that’s-not-really-a-mouth-just-a-hole-in-the-wall, facing the … basically the shore of the library’s island.64
64 Sorry, Reader, this is not my best sentence. It’s just all so tense!
She chants:
Draw back the key,
pluck out the pin,
pull forth that debris
feared by Brooke’s kin.
A rope of twined black and silver magic extends out of the fog, and as the Evil Queen chants, she tugs on the magic rope as if pulling something closer.
What is she pulling toward herself?65
65 I think my parents know, but they can’t tell me because they are seriously flipping out and can’t even talk coherently, and when they’re flipping out this badly, it makes me panic, too. Hey, Evil Queen, whatever you’re doing, I think it’s both literally and figuratively evil.
Raven tiptoes nearer and thrusts her hands out. A current of purple light zaps toward the Evil Queen. Without turning around, the queen waves her hand, knocking the purple zap away. Instantly, a dome of transparent silvery magic rolls down and around the Evil Queen, cutting her off from the girls.
“Oh no,” says Raven. “She had a shield spell ready, contingent on any magical attack.”
“Ooh, you should do that, too,” suggests Draculaura.
“That’s really advanced magic,” says Raven. “I’m still in high school.”
Raven sends bolts of purple magic at the shield, but they bounce off like balloons.
“Raven, sweetheart, my own little dumpling, you found your mama!” calls the Evil Queen from inside the magical dome shield.
After she speaks, the Evil Queen’s lips keep moving, as if she’s continuing the spell’s chant under her breath. And she keeps pulling on that magical rope, too, hand over hand, steady and determined.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Mother,” says Raven, “but—”
