Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The)

by Bach, Shelby

  I was so grateful to be back on solid ground that I felt a little light-headed. “Oh, you’re the Frog Prince.”

  He snorted. He also had hair in his nose. “These old bones don’t feel princely anymore. The name’s Henry. And who might you be?”

  “Rory. I’m new.”

  You know when all of a sudden, a whole room gets quiet, and everyone’s trying not to look at you in a weird way, and you realize that people have just been talking about you?

  That happened.

  It’s a lot more disturbing when it happens with a bunch of important grown-ups.

  My face grew hot, like always, but I found myself wondering why they would talk about a random sixth-grade Character. And why Chase was staring at me like that, eyes narrowed, arms crossed, looking kind of jealous.

  For the first time in my life, I didn’t think it had anything to do with my parents.

  “Exactly how long have you two been up there?” the Director asked, and I knew we were in trouble.

  “Chase came in right about the time we were voting on whether to tell them,” said Henry, “and Rory came in when you said the vote was unanimous.”

  “If you knew they were up there,” the Director said, exasperated, “why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I did tell you,” Rapunzel said, equally exasperated. “I said, ‘They hear our whispers.’ Is that unclear?”

  Several members of the Canon groaned. I couldn’t keep myself from giggling. It looked like understanding what Rapunzel said was a common problem.

  “They didn’t hear much,” Henry told the Director, patting my shoulder.

  “We heard enough,” Chase said. “What’s the Tale that you don’t want to tell us?”

  “Shut up. Let him get us out of trouble,” I whispered, and the Frog Prince chuckled.

  The Director stared at us for a long moment until we both started to squirm uncomfortably under her gaze. Even Chase had the sense to look like he felt guilty. Visions of punishments danced in my head.

  “You can’t blame the children for trying to find out what concerns them as much as us,” said the Frog Prince.

  The Director sighed. “I suppose so. It is up to their parents to find fitting punishments.”

  I grinned and then tried to hide it. That didn’t seem likely. There was no way I would tell my mom, and Jack gave Chase a thumbs-up. Chase grinned like he had won some sort of prize.

  “I trust that you won’t want to leave the same way you came in,” the Director said. “The door is there.”

  She pointed. Chase and I ran that way before she could change her mind. The Canon began whispering before we had even left the room.

  Outside, the Ivory Tower was gone, and so was the crowd. The tournament was over. I wondered who had won, and where Lena was, and what Jenny might have said to her.

  The doors closed behind us with an audible click, like we were being locked out, and Chase scowled at me. “Now look what you’ve done. Do you have any idea how long it took me to find a good place to eavesdrop?”

  “What I’ve done? You were the one who lost your temper.” Thinking about Lena and Jenny made me mad all over again. “I wouldn’t have come at all if you hadn’t said that about the book.”

  “What book?”

  “Lena’s book,” I said, furious that he could forget so quickly. “That was a dirty trick, hurting Lena to get to me. She never did anything to you.”

  Chase looked at me sharply. “I’ll leave Lena alone if you leave my dad alone.”

  “I never did anything to your dad. I never even saw him before tonight.”

  “You made fun of him.”

  “I made fun of you,” I said. “Your dad never even noticed. You got Lena in a lot of trouble. There’s a huge difference.” Chase glared at me without answering, and it made me even angrier that he didn’t look even a little sorry. “I don’t care how good you are with a sword, or what Tales your dad has. You’re just a dumb bully—”

  Chase looked smug again. “You think I’m good with a sword?”

  “You—” I stopped myself and took a deep breath. “I don’t have time for you right now. Jenny’s probably done talking to Lena.” Before I could accidentally compliment him again, I took off running.

  “Rory!” Chase called. He was really loud. A man so ugly he must have had troll blood turned to look, and three fairies with dark green wings stared as I rushed past.

  The courtyard was half-deserted. The dwarf was still at the game stall, tossing the golden ball to knock down a stack of goblets. He swayed on his feet, exhausted, eyelids drooping, while the goblin counted a huge pile of the dwarf’s silver.

  Most of the vendors were either packing up or already gone. The elves in their tuxedos stood at the base of the roller coaster, deconstructing it with wrenches. A tall old woman with a hunchback raised a wand. Her goods—bags of herbs, bottles of potion—flew into a trunk so small that looked like it belonged in Sarah and Tom Thumb’s house.

  I found Lena by the lake. Torches blazed atop bronze posts along the shore. Stars were coming out over the water, and half a moon glittered in the lake’s ripples. I knew we didn’t have much time before we were sent home.

  Lena sat on a low, flat boulder, her feet on the ground. The book was in her lap, angled toward the torch just above her head. She inspected each page carefully, her back to me, her head bent very low. Part of me got mad at Chase all over again, but mainly, I felt a lot like I did when I found my mom sitting alone in the middle of the night—helpless.

  My chest tight, I touched her shoulder to let her know that I was there. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

  She didn’t look up. Her voice was hoarse, and I knew she had been crying for a while. “He was gone by the time I came back.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The dwarf who sold me this book,” Lena said. “I couldn’t return it.”

  “Oh.” I wanted to do something—anything—to cheer her up. “Did George win the tournament?”

  Lena half-laughed, and her voice had a bitter note to it. “No. Not a great day for the LaMarelles all around. George will have to find some other way to pay for college.”

  I cringed and bit my tongue.

  “This cost a whole month’s grocery money.” Lena slowly turned page after page. “Jenny says she has some savings, so we won’t starve. But I’ve never seen her so mad. It’s just our grandmother at home, you know—raising us three. There isn’t much money.”

  Lena had never talked about her family like this before. Rather than say anything else idiotic, I just sat down beside her awkwardly. I didn’t know where to put my hands.

  “It was a big deal. Jenny letting me pick out the Table of Plenty.” The pages crackled faintly and smelled like dust. Even if it was fake, the book had to be a very old fake. “It was my idea to get one, and I did most of the research. But still, George said it means Jenny thinks I’m growing up.”

  Lena came to the last page. It had more Fey writing I couldn’t understand and an illustration of a golden harp. She stared at it for a moment. “And now Jenny says that this is the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done.”

  “It’s not that irresponsible,” I pointed out. “I mean, you bought a book. A really old book that looks like it belonged to your great-great-times-whatever grandmother. Most kids our age would buy, I don’t know—video games or a lot of candy or something selfish like that.”

  Shaking her head slowly, Lena closed the book and stared at the faded gold cover. “Ever since I heard about Madame Benne, I’ve wanted to be an inventor, the same way she was. We wouldn’t even have Tables of Plenty, if it weren’t for her. Or singing harps. Or seven-league boots. Who knows what we could get if someone continued her work? When I saw this book, I thought—”

  She sighed. “Well, I wanted that someone to be me. I thought it was destiny.” A small, sad smile flickered across her face. “But really, I was being selfish. Very selfish and very stupid. And Gran, Jenny, a
nd George all know it.”

  Her voice cracked on the last word. I put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I should just destroy it right now.” She thrust the book toward the torch, miming like she would burn it. “I can’t look at it ever again.”

  Her gaze was on the ground, and I was looking at her face. So neither of us was paying any attention to how close the book was to the flame.

  Then I heard a hiss and a crackle at the end of Lena’s arm and turned.

  “Lena!” I cried.

  Lena glanced up. “Oh, my gumdrops.”

  For a second, we were too stunned to move.

  The flames spread quickly. After all, it was only made of wood and paper. Before we could react, the only uncharred corner of the book was the one Lena held, her fingers just an inch from the flames.

  “Don’t burn yourself.” I knocked the book out of her hand. It fell to the sandy ground at our feet.

  The wood cover turned to glowing embers. The burning pages curled and flaked into black ash.

  “I’m going to be in so much trouble,” Lena murmured. “So much more trouble.”

  “It was an accident. I can tell them—” But I was worried too. It had to be worth something if it had been so expensive.

  Lena took a deep shaking breath. “No, I think I need to just take my lumps at this point.” She stood up and wiped her face. “I should go. No sense in letting Gran scold me for being late on top of everything else.”

  “Good luck,” I said with as much sympathy as I could muster. Lena’s grandmother was even tougher than her big sister.

  She smiled. “Thanks, Rory. See you Monday.”

  I stood too and almost went with her. If Lena’s grandmother were looking for her, Amy would probably be looking for me, too.

  The charred remains of the book were at my feet.

  You’ll have to bury the ashes when she’s gone, Rapunzel had said, hours ago. I had almost forgotten, but now goose bumps rose up on my arms.

  Chase was right. It was kind of creepy. But, I thought, as I started kicking wet silt from the lake’s edge over the last of the embers, it had to be much creepier for Rapunzel. There was no telling how much stuff she knew about beforehand without having any way to stop it.

  omething terrible happened that weekend.

  Friday night, I dreamed that I fell out of something very tall and very leafy, and I woke up with a scream still stuck in my throat. At first, I figured it was just a side effect of Chase and me falling through the attic floor, but the night after that, I dreamed the same dream again, except longer. I had time to notice that it wasn’t a tree I fell from. It didn’t have bark on the trunk. It was green and bumpy and covered with thin flexible spikes, like the stem of a sunflower.

  The next morning, my heart still beat too fast all through breakfast. I didn’t want to believe that the falling dream could become a Tale. It seemed like a nightmare, the kind where you hope to wake up before you hit the ground.

  But it could still be nothing. Sarah Thumb had said that you couldn’t be sure it was part of the future unless you dreamed it three times.

  “Where’s my favorite daughter?” Mom called from the next room.

  “Here!” I flipped through the phone book. I couldn’t find the LaMarelles, and I wondered if they were unlisted, or if I just wasn’t spelling their last name right. I wanted to call Lena—to find out how grounded she was. I didn’t look up when Mom and Amy walked into the kitchen. “And I’m your only daughter.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Mom said. “I have two offers on the table, and I need your help. Where would you rather go next—Colorado or New Mexico?”

  I let the pages of the phone book settle, jolted back to reality. If she was talking about leaving, then we probably only had three weeks left, just until the end of the school year.

  Mom didn’t notice. “I was kind of thinking Colorado, because it’s going to be summer soon. But then there’s the altitude, which creates a whole bunch of problems.”

  “I need to think about it.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  Mom and Amy knew what that meant, and they both turned to me—Amy, sad but sympathetic, and Mom, with horrified guilt.

  I looked at the floor so I wouldn’t have to look at their faces. I didn’t need to think about it. I didn’t want to go at all. I didn’t want to leave EAS, and I really didn’t want to leave Lena.

  Mom and Amy both knew it, but we would have to move anyway.

  “I’m going to do my homework,” I mumbled, heading for the staircase. Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t let myself do something as obvious as cry in front of them.

  Halfway up the stairs, I heard Mom run after me. “Rory.” She stood on the bottom step, and I couldn’t miss the pleading note in her voice. “It’s a chance to make a fresh start. Right?”

  She wanted me to agree with her. Even a little desperately.

  The thing is, you only want a chance to make a fresh start when you don’t like the start you’re currently working on. This wasn’t like the other places we had moved. Wherever we went next, I would just be Maggie Wright and Eric Landon’s daughter again.

  I smiled at Mom a little, until she smiled back, relieved. It was easier for her when I was optimistic. It was easier for her to keep pretending.

  But I stumbled into my room clumsily, my feet feeling unnaturally heavy. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up this act. I was afraid to find out what that would do to Mom.

  • • •

  When the dream came on Sunday night, I looked around. Above me, the clouds were close. Far below, I could see the tops of trees and people running around, looking like little squares of color moving across the grass. In the dream, I knew that we were in a hurry, but I couldn’t tell if we were climbing up or down. I also knew that Lena was climbing too and that she was way ahead. I moved faster. The leaves were wet. My hand slipped. I started to fall.

  I woke up that last night with my sheets drenched in sweat, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was the only dream that I had dreamed three times.

  If the dreams were trying to tell me my future, I definitely wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Then I remembered: It didn’t matter what dreams I had anymore, or what happened in them. We were moving soon. I wouldn’t be around long enough for them to come true.

  I lay back down, mouth twisting strangely. I couldn’t figure out if that thought made me feel better or worse.

  • • •

  I know I probably should have told Lena as soon as I found out, but it didn’t seem like a great idea. I mean, she had enough to deal with after the Fairie Market. I didn’t want to distract her with my problems. At least that was what I told myself when I walked to the red door on Monday. But really, I was nervous. Plenty of kids wouldn’t want to hang out anymore after discovering we would only have a few more weeks together.

  It was bad enough finding out that my Tale probably wouldn’t start before I had to leave. I couldn’t imagine losing Lena early too.

  But something else was happening at EAS that day—something so big that I even forgot my moving troubles and bad dreams for a while.

  The courtyard was deserted. I found everybody beside the lake. Some students had brought snacks from the Table of Never Ending Refills. They munched and looked around eagerly, like you do with popcorn at the movie theater.

  It was obvious what the excitement was. A beanstalk grew by the shore.

  “Whoa.” I went to stand by Lena and bent my head back, straining my neck to see the top.

  The beanstalk’s base was about as big around as a small car. Leaves curled off the trunk every couple feet, higher and higher until it disappeared into the clouds.

  “I know,” Lena said. I had expected her to start talking my ear off about the approximate height of the stalk, and what species of bean, and how many leaves it had, but she just sounded tired. It must have been a really long weekend for her, too.
/>   “How are you?” I asked.

  Lena shrugged. “I got off easy. I’m only grounded for two weeks. George and I were sure that it would be a whole month.” She pointed at the beanstalk, obviously changing the subject on purpose. “We don’t even have to guess which Tale this is. There hasn’t been a Beanstalk in thirteen years. It’s kind of a big deal.”

  I had a sudden, horrifying thought. “Please don’t tell me it’s Chase’s. I don’t think I can handle that.”

  Lena looked pointedly over my right shoulder. When I turned around, there Chase was, glaring at me. Adelaide and the triplets watched him too, waiting for an answer.

  “No, it’s not mine,” he said, irritated. “I haven’t had contact with any beans. I told my dad the same thing when we found it here this morning.”

  “Then whose is it?” asked Adelaide.

  “Nobody knows,” said Lena. “We’re waiting for the Director to come out and tell us.”

  It could be anyone’s. It could even be mine. That would be a miracle—my Tale starting the day after I found out I had to move.

  But probably not, I thought with a sigh. The beanstalk only grew after the Jacks’ “fake” magic beans had been thrown away. I hadn’t bought anything all weekend, not even at the Fairie Market. I didn’t get a chance between the tournament and Lena’s—

  Lena, I thought. Lena had definitely bought something.

  I examined the beanstalk’s base more carefully. It grew just a few feet from the water’s edge, and a small, familiar-looking boulder leaned against it.

  “Hey, isn’t that the same rock we were sitting on the other day?” I asked Lena, just to be sure.

  She looked at me suspiciously, as if I were trying to change the subject back. “I think so, but the beanstalk moved it a little.”

  “And isn’t that the spot where you burned that cookbook?”

  “Coincidence,” she said dismissively.

  I shook my head, beginning to smile. If I couldn’t have my Tale, at least Lena could have hers. That would definitely cheer her up. “I don’t think so.”

  “Wait, you burned it?” Chase said, alarmed.

  “So?” Lena said. “There are more Fey cookbooks.”