by Bach, Shelby
“I don’t think it’s a golden iPod,” I whispered.
Chase shook his head, and all the tension left his shoulders. My heartbeat slowed down too, but as soon as the music faded, it started hammering again.
“They’ve fallen asleep,” Lena said.
“All of them?” I asked, surprised.
Lena shook her head. “Jimmy and Searcaster. Maybe Matilda put slumberwort in the wine herself.”
“It was the harp’s lullaby,” Chase said. “My mom used to sing it to me.”
I wondered if maybe the music sounded different to each person. I hadn’t even heard any words in the song.
Matilda’s deep sigh sounded like wind whistling past the bread box. “And before I’ve even served dessert. How rude.”
We heard two thumps. “Matilda’s carrying both of them,” Lena said, amazed. “She’s helping them to bed.”
“Great. Now we can get out of here,” Chase said, jumping to his feet, and I agreed wholeheartedly.
“Matilda said she would let us out,” Lena reminded him.
“Who knows when that’ll be?” I said. “And I, for one, am not spending the night with a bunch of skeletons.”
Chase gave us both a scathing look. “Do you really think she’s going to let us go? After everything we’ve heard?”
“I see your point.” Lena laid both hands on the door of the bread box. “Do you think it’s true? Do you really think that the Snow Queen is starting to move?”
“Probably. Even the Canon’s worried about it, remember?” I asked Chase.
“They sent Dad to the Glass Mountain,” Chase said softly. “If I could get a message to him . . .” He was concerned, and I couldn’t blame him. I worried about my dad whenever he had a shoot. I would freak out if he went off to visit a master villain.
Lena pushed so hard that her voice sounded strained. “He’s probably halfway across Atlantis by now. There’s no way anyone could reach him.”
“I know that,” Chase snapped.
“Well, don’t bite my head off. Right now, we need to worry about our own problems,” Lena said. “Like this door. It’s stuck.” She pushed harder. “No, it’s locked,” she said, looking at us with horror.
“That’s okay.” Chase pulled something out of his pocket and picked the lock. The door unlocked with a click. He started to slide the door open, but I heard a thump.
“Wait!” I said.
Lena and Chase both looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but then they heard it too—the unmistakable thuds of a giant’s approaching footsteps.
“What do we do?” Lena whispered to Chase.
“Hope they’re just coming back for warm milk before bedtime,” Chase whispered back, but he put his hand on his sword.
I wrapped a hand around my hilt too. I didn’t know how I could possibly fight someone over ten times my size, but Chase and I could probably distract Matilda long enough for Lena to get away. That was what Companions were for, right?
The footsteps stopped at the counter, directly in front of the bread box. The door slid open.
We looked up at Matilda’s humongous, frowning face.
orry about that,” said Matilda. “I meant to get you three outside well before they got here, and it took forever to get them to fall asleep.”
None of us moved. We all expected a trick. The giantess glanced behind us.
“I know this wasn’t the most cheerful place to put you, but don’t worry,” she said. “Most of those bones aren’t even human. Jimmy has a special liking for Fey-bone bread.”
Chase retched and slapped a hand over his mouth.
“Come on out,” said Matilda. I looked at Lena. I would do whatever she did. Back in fearless leader mode, she climbed stiffly over the ledge and hopped onto the counter. Chase and I followed apprehensively.
Once we were close enough, Matilda grabbed all of us at once, pinning us together, and walked briskly down the hall. I grabbed frantically at whatever was nearest.
“Ow.” Chase looked pointedly at my hands gripping his arm. I scowled back, but I wasn’t embarrassed enough to let go.
“Don’t fight,” Lena hissed, too low for the giantess to hear. “We’re not out of this yet. We might have to run.”
But Matilda went straight to the front door and opened it. Even the moon looked bigger than normal. Its reflection filled the whole swimming pool. When my feet hit the front step, I stumbled and fell, hard enough to bruise my knees.
“Great getaway,” Chase said, but he offered a hand to help me up.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Matilda pulled something out of her pocket—a roll as big as an armchair. She set it down between Lena and Chase. “Your payment. This should be big enough to feed the three of you.”
“Thank you,” Lena said quickly, and Chase and I echoed her.
“No, thank you,” Matilda said. “I would’ve never finished in time without you three. Even if no one ate dessert.” She turned back inside.
Lena, Chase, and I glanced at each other. There was no way we could get off so easy.
When the door was halfway closed, Matilda spoke again. “You know, I like humans.”
Chase and I grabbed our sword hilts again, and Lena fell back a startled step.
“Not to eat! I didn’t have Jimmy’s upbringing,” Matilda said hastily. “I think humans are adorable. So cute and small, especially little girls.” She smiled at me and Lena so warmly that I started to return it hesitantly. Then she added in a completely different tone, “But I don’t think anyone can be blamed for defending her own.”
She did suspect us. She wasn’t an idiot.
On the balls of my feet, ready to dash away if we needed to, I nodded once, slowly, to show that I understood.
Another smile—a sadder one—filled Matilda’s face. “Good night, children. Good luck on your quest.” Then, slowly, she shut the door behind her, and we listened to Matilda’s footsteps fade down the hall.
Sometimes, the bad guys didn’t seem so bad. The stories always skimmed over that part.
“That was incredibly decent of her,” I said quietly.
“Almost stupid, actually,” Chase said. “Especially if there really is a war coming.”
“She seems very nice,” said Lena uncertainly, and I knew she felt guilty too.
Chase stared at her hard. “So nice that we shouldn’t go back in there and grab the gold?”
I could go either way. I didn’t want to Fail the first Tale I’d ever been a Companion on, but stealing from Matilda didn’t seem like much fun.
“No,” said Lena stoutly. “That part’s too easy. They left the safe open on the kitchen table. And now we’ll also need to learn what the Snow Queen wants. That’ll help the Canon stop her. If we have any luck, we’ll also figure out what they’re saying about Rory.”
I started to feel defensive before Lena even finished saying my name. “Who’s talking about me?”
“Searcaster, the Snow Queen, everyone,” Lena said.
“My name wasn’t mentioned anywhere in that conversation,” I said icily.
“Of course they mean you, Rory.” Lena bent down to pick up the bottom of the roll. “Help me carry this.”
Chase crossed his arms. “There’s no way we’re eating that.”
“Waste not, want not,” Lena said lightly.
“You do remember what they use to make the bread here, right?” Chase said. “Matilda’s trying to tell us what she’ll do if she catches us stealing.”
Lena dropped the roll. “Oh.”
“It can’t be me they’re talking about.” I knew that I was trying to convince myself even more than Chase and Lena, but that didn’t make me any less desperate. “Miriam is newer than I am. And Philip. And that fifth grader I haven’t met yet.”
“Nobody talks about Miriam, though,” Chase said. “They talk about you.”
It got harder to keep denying it at that point. Chase wouldn’t agree with Lena if he didn’t believe it. The problem w
as that I didn’t want to believe it.
Lena inspected the roll thoughtfully. “Well, we can’t leave it here. That would be rude. Help me push it into the bushes.”
“Rude. They want to eat us, and we’re worried about rude.” Chase snorted, but he put his shoulder to the roll and shoved with me and Lena. The roll bounced off the front step, behind the bushes, and then out of sight.
“Where’s this mousehole?” Lena asked, a little out of breath.
I had no idea, but Chase pointed left.
I lowered myself carefully from the front step to the ground and changed tactics. “Besides, how the heck could Searcaster have heard of me?”
“The Canon meeting during the Fairie Market. They were talking about you right before you came,” Chase said, and I remembered how everyone in the Canon had stared at me after I’d introduced myself.
Lena looked up at me, wide-eyed. “You never told me you went to the Canon meeting.”
“Me and Rory eavesdropped,” said Chase proudly. “A pair of troublemakers.”
Lena looked between me and Chase, raising her eyebrows as if to suggest that I did have a crush I hadn’t told her about.
“I went to yell at him. We also got caught.” Things were already complicated enough. Lena didn’t need to make weird assumptions on top of everything else.
“What did they say about Rory?” Lena said.
“If I had known that, I would’ve already told you,” Chase said impatiently.
Who else was out there, talking about me? And were they saying the same thing as Searcaster? That they hadn’t seen any Character like me since the Snow Queen herself, the worst villain the world had ever seen? Were they all saying that my arrival meant another war?
I didn’t want people to think of me like that. What a terrible reason to be famous—even worse than having celebrities for parents.
Could I really be like the Snow Queen? Could I really be evil without knowing it?
I raised a hand to rub my eyes. It was shaking. I stuffed both hands into my pockets, glancing at Lena and Chase to see if they had noticed.
They hadn’t.
Chase’s stomach rumbled, and then he moaned, just for extra emphasis. “Whose pack has the food? I’m so hungry my stomach hurts. I must be starving.”
“You don’t starve after missing one meal,” I told him, glad for the distraction, but Chase just wrapped his arms around his middle and whimpered dramatically.
Maybe it was just the moonlight playing tricks on my eyes, but he did look a lot paler than normal. The bread box incident had really freaked him out—even if he was covering it up by acting as idiotic as he normally did.
“Maybe we should eat. It’s been a really long time since lunch,” I said.
Chase gasped. “Did you just agree with me?”
I ignored him. “The packs are over here, right, Lena? I’ll get them.”
I ran under the bush, without waiting for an answer. I wanted a few minutes to calm down without being watched.
“We just need mine,” Lena called after me.
“No, it’s not possible,” Chase said. “Rory would never agree with me of her own free will.”
“Shh,” Lena said sternly.
“Excuse me. I’m savoring the moment. I don’t know if this will ever happen again.”
“Nothing will ever happen to you again if Jimmy or his mom hears you and wake up,” Lena pointed out. Chase stopped.
I breathed in and out slowly and curled my hands into tight fists, clenching them until they stopped shaking.
“You know, you could be a Destined One, Rory,” Lena said.
“What’s that?” It was a struggle to keep my voice from cracking. Being a Destined One sounded a lot easier to swallow than a villain-to-be.
“One with a Great Destiny,” Lena said. “There’s probably a prophecy about you doing something the Snow Queen doesn’t want.”
“Would it be in Rumpel’s book?” In Snow White’s mirror shard, I’d seen him say my name.
“In a book, maybe,” Lena said doubtfully. “Prophecies can turn up anywhere—on walls, in ancient ruins, in Fey nursery rhymes, on engraved crowns. There was even one, fifteen years ago, inscribed on a paper clip.”
“Rory, aren’t you supposed to be getting the food?” Chase said.
“I can’t see anything under here!” I searched hurriedly before Chase lost patience and came to find me. Then my foot found something squishy. “Wait. I think I stepped on it.”
“Two years ago,” Lena continued, “Tim Oakley fulfilled a prophecy to destroy the Glacier Amulet. That was a big deal. They said the Amulet caused the Ice Age. The Snow Queen looked everywhere for it, before and during the war. She broke things for days after she found out it was destroyed.”
Halfway out of the bushes, I stopped in my tracks. I didn’t want to know that there were amulets in the world powerful enough to bring on an Ice Age—that some people would want that kind of power.
“I never met a Tim Oakley. What happened to him?” I said slowly, not totally sure I wanted the answer.
“Nothing too terrible,” Chase said. “He went to college.”
I started to let out a relieved sigh, but then Lena spoke up again. “Or maybe you’re going to vanquish the Snow Queen. There’s a precedent for that.”
Vanquish the lady who wanted another Ice Age? Me?
Chase snorted. “That’ll be hard. She’s real scary stuck in prison.”
“Isn’t it a glass prison?” I pointed out, emerging from the bushes.
Lena had to be wrong about this. There had to be other Characters, better ones, who were more qualified than I was.
“Madame Benne made it with ancient magic.” Lena took the pack from me. “The structure was designed to temper and contain a sorcerer’s essence, and two decades ago, the Canon rigged it to imprison the Snow Queen.” I never understood Lena when she got technical like this, so I gave her a look until she added, “There’s no way for her to walk, blast, or magic her way out.”
“Let’s just eat, okay?” It had to be a big misunderstanding. We would clear it up after we finished Lena’s Tale.
“Sure,” Lena said, so softly that I knew she was worried about me. “We need to wait awhile anyway. Until Matilda falls asleep.”
I just needed to focus on getting us and the three items all down the beanstalk in one piece. The rest could wait.
We took a seat in a circle, and Lena handed me and Chase each a paper lunch bag.
Chase peered inside his with distaste. “Sandwiches? What about trail mix? Ellie always packs trail mix when I go on a Tale.”
Lena zipped up her pack firmly and began to unwrap her sandwich. “No way. George told me that you always eat all the M&M’s and leave the rest.”
Chase scowled, but instead of denying it, he chomped off a third of his sandwich in one bite.
“How many Tales have you been on?” I asked Chase.
Grinning, he held out a hand, fingers spread wide, and then an extra thumb.
“Six?” I said in disbelief.
“Counting this one,” said Chase happily through a mouthful of ham and bread.
“Is that even allowed?” I asked Lena. It certainly didn’t seem fair.
Lena shrugged. “Between his dad and those Tales, he’s got more experience than the rest of EAS put together.”
“And I’m the best with a sword,” Chase added.
Lena stuck out her chin stubbornly. “It’s a toss-up between you and George.”
“But you haven’t had your own Tale yet?” I asked Chase.
His expression turned sour. “I’m still special.”
I ate too quickly, finishing even before Chase. So, rather than waiting around and thinking, I cleared a campsite. I dragged away a dozen twigs as big as broom handles with so much gusto that I almost knocked Chase out.
“Watch it.” He’d gathered a pile of fallen geranium petals, all about the size of dinner plates, and he was trying to s
hove them into my nicely cleared site.
I stepped in his path. “What are you doing?”
“Trust me. We need these. If we spread them out under us, sleeping on the ground will suck a lot less.” I must have looked stunned, because he added, “I do have some good ideas every once in a while, you know.”
But that wasn’t it. It surprised me that Chase was helping—that he was trying to earn his keep as much as I was.
We finished spreading them out about the same time Lena finished her sandwich. “Okay, Matilda should be asleep by now.”
Chase led the way. When we reached the mousehole, Lena said breathlessly, “Oh, my gumdrops.”
I couldn’t blame her. It was twice as tall as we were. It looked a lot creepier now that the sun had set.
“It’s so big.” Lena drew her sword.
“What’s that for?” Chase asked.
“Do you see the size of this hole? The mice have to be huge.”
“I haven’t seen any.” But Chase pulled his sword out too. So did I. My palms started to sweat somewhere between the mousehole and the low space under the fridge, making my grip slippery.
Matilda had turned off the lights. The kitchen was dark except for the digital clock on the oven, blinking 11:41 in green numbers.
Lena shined her flashlight over the top of the table. “They’re still there.”
“Let’s hope they didn’t lock the safe,” Chase said.
“We just need a way up there.” The tabletop was at least thirty-five feet high, and even the chairs were too tall to climb.
Chase pulled Jack Attack off his shoulder. He twirled it, and when he let it go, the hook fell against the edge of the table and held.
I wasn’t sure if either Lena or I could climb a rope, but then Chase yanked on it. I blinked, and there was a second rope hanging a foot from the first. He shook them both. When Lena shone her flashlight up, the two ropes had transformed into a rope ladder.
“Cool,” said Lena, and even though I didn’t admit it, I was impressed too.
“After you,” Chase said with a grin and an elaborate bow. Lena stuck her flashlight in her mouth and climbed.
