by Shannon Hale
“Your power has grown,” says the Evil Queen, examining the hand she used to bat away Raven’s spell, as if checking for injury. “How delightful! I knew you’d take more after your majestic and awe-inspiring mother than that father of yours. The ‘Good’ King. Boooring! But, my sweet little Black Forest cake, you can’t win. I simply know more than you do. I’ve had more time. And with these books here, I’ve learned things no one else has known since ancient times.”
“Can you open a hole in her barrier, Raven?” Draculaura whispers. “Just big enough for a tiny bat to get through?”
“Maybe, but, Drac… I won’t be able to biggify you behind that shield. What would you do to stop her?”
Draculaura pulls the Skullette on its chain from under her shirt. “This is humming again. Your mom must have the Monster Mapalogue near, and maybe between that and being out of the fog, it’s recharged. If I get close enough to touch her, it could send us both back to Monster High.”
Yes, good idea. Draculaura has a good idea. Any idea is good, because if the Evil Queen succeeds with whatever she is attempting, the consequences will be apocalyptic.66
66 At least, that’s my guess. None of the other Narrators can stop panicking long enough to explain it to me!
Maddie raises her hand. “Mrs. Queen?”
The Evil Queen laughs. “I know it feels like you’re being taken to school, Ms. Hatter, but no need to raise hands. Show some pluck. Stand your ground and shout your demands at the world!”
“Okay!” says Maddie. “I am now shouting at the world! And at you specifically! So, uh, you wanted to know what the Narrators were saying, right? Well, one of them is saying whatever it is you’re doing is apoplectic.”
“Hexcuse me?”
“No, wait. Apologetic. It’s apologetic.”
“Ah. I think the word you’re looking for is apocalyptic,” says the dark sorceress. “As in, something that will cause the complete destruction of the world. And for the Narrators, I suppose what I’m doing is apocalyptic. Because once I reach Shadow High and claim the power of the Narrators, they will lose their power and won’t be able to rule us anymore. Honestly, Raven, who would you rather have controlling your life? Invisible beings who never show or name themselves, or your dear, beautiful, intelligent, powerful mother?”
Raven doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed, her forehead beaded with sweat; her lips mumble something, and then a fist-size hole opens in the shield.
Pop! Draculaura turns into a bat and swooshes through the hole, diving straight for the Evil Queen. But before she can change to her natural form, the Evil Queen grabs her by the Skullette pendant around her neck, yanks it off, and, with a brush of her hand, sends the Bat-Drac tumbling back through the hole. The shield seals shut.
“Aha! I thought a piece of my Mapalogue was missing,” says the Evil Queen. “So kind of you to have a winged rat deliver it to me.”
Pop! Draculaura sits on the ground and rubs the back of her neck. “Not cool. Not cool at all.”
The Evil Queen continues to mumble and pull on the rope of magic.
Raven touches the glowing surface of the shield. It feels like soft glass.
“What if you’re wrong?” Raven asks. “What if we need Narrators to tell our stories? What if we need Narrators to exist at all?”
The Evil Queen turns to look fully at her daughter, an inch of nearly transparent energy between them. They both appear to be looking into a mirror, one side showing the future, the other the past.
“That’s your fear talking,” the Evil Queen says. “This is my fight for control, control of our own destiny.”
“Then let me have my destiny, whatever it is. Don’t break the world before I can find my own path!”
“You can’t, my little semiprecious stone,” the Evil Queen coos. “You never could. I’m beginning to believe that the terrible secret of all this is that we have no real control at all—not as long as there are Narrators.”
That’s not true! That’s not true at all!67
67 It’s not true. I’m sure she read some really smart books and all, but the Evil Queen is totally misinterpreting them!
“Not true, not true!” says Maddie.
“The Narrators shape destiny, Raven,” says the Evil Queen, ignoring Maddie and still hauling in that magical tether. “They control us. We need to take that back. All I’ve ever wanted is to control my own destiny. They called me evil because I decided not to follow a script and instead make bold, magical, kingdom-shaking choices! Tell me, is it evil to simply try to control your own life?”
“No, Mom. But it is evil to want to control other people’s lives.”
“Yeah!” says Draculaura. “That’s right! You tell her, Raven.”
The Evil Queen shifts her gaze to Draculaura, who scoots backward.
“Draculaura, daughter of Dracula, cofounder of Monster High. I know you understand me.”
Draculaura gulps. “I do?”
“I’m fighting to bring the pieces of our world together,” she says. “Isn’t that what you are working toward with your school? To bring the monsters out of hiding? To first unify the monsters and then one day, hopefully, the monster and Normie worlds? Through my reading in this very library, I have learned that once upon a time, all our lands were unified. Your ancestors and mine were possibly friends! And then the Narrators broke us apart, out of fear. Fear of us. Fear that we would work together to defeat them. We’re all just characters in a story to them, Draculaura. It’s time for us to be people.”
“Oh,” says Draculaura, nodding as if she can’t help it.
Even Raven feels wooed by the words. Could it be her mother is speaking the truth?68
68 I… I don’t think this is true. But I’m not sure. Did the lands all used to be together? Were the Narrators responsible for breaking it apart?
“Is that true, Brooke?” Maddie asks. “Am I not a people? I always thought I was a people.”
Um… the Narrator needs to tell what’s happening in the story, not answer characters’ questions.
“Characters?” asks Maddie. “You mean us?”
Yes, but… but that’s who you are. You’re characters in the story of your lives. That doesn’t mean you’re not people, too. I think. The other Narrators here are still panicking too much to explain it to me, but some of what the Evil Queen said sounds kinda true.
“I’m so confusal in my noodle,” says Maddie.
“Mom, please,” says Raven.
Her mother sighs. “I want what’s best for you, Raven. Always.”
The Evil Queen puts one of her hands up and presses it to her daughter’s. The shield between them flickers and vanishes.
“Thanks, Mom,” says Raven.
The Evil Queen raises an arched eyebrow. “Whatever for?”
Raven stutters a laugh, gesturing around her. “For dropping the barrier. For stopping what you were doing. For seeing reason. For being on my side.”
From somewhere in the distance comes a rumble, low and trembly and growing louder.
“I hear a critter,” Maddie whispers. “A big critter that is hungry maybe for peachy cobbler with whipped cream.”
“That’s no critter.” The Evil Queen looks out. “Raven, I am always on your side, because we’re on the same side, my precious lump of coal. But I haven’t stopped. I’ve finished. That foggy wilderness you walked through is called the Margins. The place between stories. The space keeping all the lands apart. And the rumbling you hear is the Margins narrowing. It is the sound of the Narrators’ great secret being pulled toward us.”
“No,” Raven whispers.
“Now I just need the last piece.…”
Loosen the key,
free the key,
at last, at last the key to me!
The Evil Queen gives the magical rope a hard yank.
An object streaks out of the fog like an arrow, the end of the rope tied around its middle. Just before it strikes the queen in the face, she plucks it
easily from the air as if it weren’t moving at the speed of a falling star. She turns it over, her brow wrinkled.
“Hmm,” she says. “I’ll be honest. I’m a little surprised.” She speaks upward, as if to people in the sky. “And disappointed! This is the great key I read about in ancient books? The magical object you Narrators used to lock in place Shadow High’s island from the rest of the world? No flair for drama, you people! I hexpected the object would be a sword or an electric disk or, good heavens, an actual key!”
“What is it?” Raven asks.
The Evil Queen holds up the flat plank of iron, vaguely triangular and pockmarked with age.
“It’s a chisel,” Raven says.
“So it would seem,” says the Evil Queen, unimpressed. She begins to pace, closer to the edge of the island. Raven follows.
“Combined with some spell, this chisel is what locked Shadow High away for so long,” says the Evil Queen. “And kept the other lands away from it. Well, no longer is Shadow High stuck, pinned down by the ancient magic of this chisel. I don’t have to go to Shadow High. It is, even now, coming to me.”
And in the distance, the groaning of the critter that isn’t a critter grows louder. Hungrier. Nearer.69
69 A critter that eats peach cobbler would be so much better than what’s actually coming!
RAVEN STEPS OUT FROM BENEATH THE CRUMBLING roof of the library. She feels Maddie and Draculaura follow. They stare into the fog. Something is out there.
“What is that?” says Draculaura. “A mountain?”
The mountain—or whatever—is slowly advancing, sailing like a ship through the foggy Margins and directly toward them.
“Spooooky mountain,” says Maddie.
“I like spooky mountains,” says Draculaura, “but I do not like that.”
“I get you,” Raven says. “I mean, why am I scared?”
“Because you’re a smart girl,” Draculaura says, “and smart girls know to be scared of dark, mysterious mountains sailing like boats through foggy, mysterious places.”
“Oh, right,” says Raven.
“That is not a mountain,” says the Evil Queen. “That’s an island. And on that island is Shadow High. Forgive me, girls, but I must… I must… MWAHAHAHA!” She laughs a loud, mother-goosebump-y evil laugh. “Sorry, I know it’s a cliché, but it had to be done.”
The color of the air is changing. Raven looks up. Is a sun showing its face through the fog? No, the orangey glow is coming from below. As the Shadow High island nears, the trench between the two islands is narrowing, and the lava that bubbled down deep is slowly rising up.
The new island is so close now that a black structure is visible through the haze—a flat-topped mountain.70
70 Oh, I see—it’s a volcano.
The Evil Queen isn’t saying MWAHAHA anymore, but she can’t seem to stop herself from performing a very un-evil-like hoppity dance. Maddie nods approvingly. Of the hoppity dance, that is.
The Evil Queen is on the very edge of the island, looking over. She picks up the spray bottle she threw onto a pile of bricks and drops it off the island.
But whatever the Evil Queen sees happen to the spray bottle down below takes the smile right off her face and the hoppity out of her feet.
“Mother?” asks Raven. “What’s going on?”
“Oh bubble parties,” the Evil Queen says. “Bunny eyelashes and rainbow sprinkles. Hot chocolate and fish kites. Oh, skipping to Grandmother’s house!”71
71 Um… no idea what she’s saying here, TBH.
“Is she casting a spell?” Draculaura whispers.
“No, she’s… uh, she’s swearing,” says Raven. “The things most people consider nice are bad words to her.”72
72 Oh, okay. Weird, but okay.
A small wave of lava rises up and washes over the edge of the island, splashing on one of the fallen books. Raven expects the book to catch fire and scorch, but apparently this isn’t your normal superhot, melty-rock, run-of-the-mill volcano lava. Instead, when the lava touches it, the substance of the book itself is wiped away, leaving behind just a book skeleton made of words: S P I N E, C O V E R, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E…
When the small wave of lava recedes back over the edge of the island, all that remains is a jumble of words in the shape of what was once a book.
The Evil Queen bends over, and at the touch of her finger, the stacked letters crumble into a heap and blow away.
“No…” the Evil Queen whispers. “The Unmaking. That’s what that old book was talking about. Unmaking lava. I didn’t understand.…”
“What are you saying?” asks Raven.
There’s something in her mother’s eyes Raven has never seen before. Fear. The Evil Queen is actually afraid. Raven’s gut seems to turn to ice and fall into her shoes. And from down in her shoes, her gut assures her that if the Evil Queen is afraid, then everyone should be.
The Evil Queen is squinting at the island mountain moving slowly through the Margins. She takes a deep breath and pushes her hands out in front of her. Two beams of purple magic shoot from her hands, pierce the fog, and strike the oncoming island.
“I… I was wrong,” says the Evil Queen. “The power of Shadow High. This situation. It’s not… not what I… what I thought.”
“Push the land back, Mother!” Raven shouts.
“I’m trying!”
Raven joins her, hands out, both of them shooting streams of magic. The island slows only slightly.
The Evil Queen shouts and then falls back, her face damp with sweat. When her magic beams cease, the island jolts forward.
“Nothing!” she says. “That did nothing! No force of magic can stop it.”
“Is she going to start ‘swearing’ again?” whispers Maddie. “’Cause that was funny.”
“Um, it did something,” says Draculaura. “Look.”
When the island jolted forward, a second shape rose up in the fog, even closer to them than the volcano on the island.
“Another mountain?” guesses Draculaura.
“That’s no mountain,” the Evil Queen says. “That’s a wave.”
“Of lava?” asks Raven. “A wave of lava? Of that same lava that just took apart a book?”
“I have always wanted to try surfing,” Maddie says. “But that does not look like a beginner wave. I think we need to dash like rabbits who are running late.”
“Yes,” the Evil Queen agrees. “Run.”
Raven grabs Maddie’s hand and turns back toward the library. “C’mon, Drac!” she yells. Ahead of them, Raven’s mother has picked up her skirts and is vaulting over fallen stones and threading through the labyrinth of bookcases. Raven can’t help looking back as she runs. The wave is closer.
“The approach of Shadow High is pushing the lava up toward us,” says Raven. “You have to stop that island, Mother!”
“These lands were once all part of the same continent,” her mother yells back. “When I pulled loose the magic chisel from Shadow High’s island, it freed the island’s power. It’s the center of the world. All the lands, including this one, are being pulled toward Shadow High like metal filings to a magnet.”
“So put the chisel back!” shouts Raven. “Redo the spell that turned off its magnet power or whatever, and keep the lands apart!”
“Oh, okay, I’ll just do that, then. Why didn’t I think of that genius plan first? Oh yes, because it’s impossible!”
They clear the library and run across the island toward the bridge, where Frankie and Apple appear to be battling the remaining Zomboyz and Moanica with an army of flying dolls.
“Apple!” Raven yells. “Frankie!”
Just as the girls turn to look at Raven, some lava bubbles up over the shore, a stream of orange-gold that cuts off the edge of the bridge from the island. Apple yelps and leaps off the bridge and over the stream of lava to the island. The sparkly armor she was wearing disappears. Frankie follows, but she leaps a little farther. When Apple lands, o
ne of her shoes touches the lava. It breaks down into words: H E E L, A R C H, B U C K L E, S O L E…
“Eep!” squeaks Apple, stepping out of the shoe that is now just a stack of letters. “That is not my story,” she says disapprovingly to her lost shoe. “But… how did that happen?”
“Hexplain later!” says Raven. “Now we run.… Um, where do we run?”
The enormous wave of lava is so close they can feel the oncoming breeze of its speed.
“Oh my corpse,” says Moanica, backing away from the pooling lava that now separates the bridge from the gathered group of girls on the land. “Come on, Zomboyz. Let’s get back to Monster High!”
The undead crew runs/shambles up the arching bridge and deeper into the fog of the Margins.
“Frankie, that bridge could take us back to Monster High,” says Draculaura.
Frankie glances at Apple. “You go, Drac. Follow the bridge and fly home. I’m going to stay and try to help fix this. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Frankie,” says Draculaura. But she doesn’t change into a bat and fly away.
Another slosh of lava rises up on the shore, forming a wide pool between them and the bridge to Monster High.
“We’re trapped,” Raven says.
“There’s another bridge,” declares the Evil Queen. “Follow me or perish!”
“Sheesh, Mother, do you always have to be so dramatic?” says Raven.
“Uh, Raven?” Apple pipes up, running beside her with a lopsided gait, one foot bare. “When we’re fleeing a wave of lava on an island in the middle of a foggy wilderness where imagination takes form, saying dramatic things isn’t entirely out of place.”
“Okay, good point,” says Raven.
Up ahead, another bridge arches away from the island. The Evil Queen reaches it first. The girls follow; Raven is the last to enter the fog of the Margins.
Or almost last. She looks back to see that Apple has tripped on her remaining shoe. The wave of lava has begun to roll over the island, a hundred feet of bright orange and gold. Before it falls, Raven leaps from the bridge back onto the island.
“Raven, no!” shouts the Evil Queen.
But Raven knows she must be on the island to use her magic. She lifts her hands, creating a shield, a purple wall to stop the tide of lava.
