by Bach, Shelby
Chase looked down and snorted. Half his shirt was already red. “Liar.”
Lena moved much faster, even with the harp in her hands and the hen and gold coins in her backpack. She kept yelling encouragement up to us—“You can do it!” and “Only seven more stories to go!”—but her voice became fainter and fainter.
Finally, the beanstalk shook under us, so violently that Chase almost fell off again. I had to grab his bad arm to catch him.
Chase winced. “Looks like Jimmy found us.”
The beanstalk shook again, under Jimmy’s second foot.
I made sure I had a good grip on two separate leaves and looked down, all the way to the ground. Dizziness hovered close by, but I ignored it.
“Lena’s almost there,” I said, relieved.
“Good for Lena,” Chase said sarcastically.
I didn’t answer. I noticed squares moving across the green grass of the courtyard below—the T-shirts of the other students.
Falling is the fastest way down, Rapunzel had said.
The Tree of Hope was just a circle of darker green. A flicker of violet looped right above it, and suddenly, I knew what it was.
I couldn’t believe what I was planning to do.
“Rory, this is not the time to freeze again.” Chase looked up. “Feet! I see huge feet!”
“Were you lying about the magic carpet?” I grabbed a handful of Chase’s shirt.
“What?” Chase said, staring.
I let go of the beanstalk and threw myself backward, taking him with me.
hase screamed, his voice cracking. “I can’t save us now!”
The wind stole all the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, let alone tell him off for thinking I didn’t have it under control, but I didn’t let him go. I twisted, turning us both and bending my legs under me.
The little bit of color that had been circling raced up to meet us. It hit my knees so hard I got rugburn.
We were fifty feet from the ground.
Chase stopped yelling. “Oh,” he said breathlessly.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Carpet,” I said, voice shaking.
Chase nuzzled the carpet with his cheek. “You’re my new best friend.”
“I’m going to have nightmares for years.”
“You?” Chase said. “I think I just developed a new phobia.”
Hovering motionless, the carpet rippled a little in a questioning way.
“Take us to the base of the beanstalk, please,” I said.
The carpet swooped down, whipping past dozens of students, who watched us go by. At least seven mouths hung open. When it stopped abruptly, I tumbled off and got to my feet shakily.
“Thanks again, Mr. Carpet,” I said, as it flew off. Lena was nowhere in sight. “Never leaving the ground again.”
Row after row of faces turned to us, but I couldn’t make out anyone’s features. All the dizziness hit me at once, and the whole scene spun.
“Is that Chase and Rory?”
“They look so different.”
“Older.”
“Maybe it’s the blood.”
All the tension in my body drained away, and my arms and legs felt loose and floppy.
We were back. We were safe. No one here would try to kill us. After the last few days, it was kind of a weird feeling.
Chase drew his sword and marched to the beanstalk. He held the sword in both hands and swung. When it struck the plant, he grunted, gritting his teeth at the pain.
Green chips fell into the lake, creating tiny ripples.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Chase! You’re hurt!” It was his friend, the mean one. I couldn’t remember her name for a second, and I wondered if it was shock or my own bad memory.
“Not now, Adelaide,” Chase said.
He glanced up, and I looked too.
Jimmy’s hairy shins were visible, hanging from the clouds. I dashed over and swung my sword too. We took turns, but we only managed to cut out a wedge about a foot deep. Jimmy’s body was visible up to his waist. At this pace, we wouldn’t even cut halfway through in time.
“Incoming!” shouted one of the students behind us.
A silver truck rattled around the Tree of Hope, scattering students. The glare on the windshield vanished in the shade, and I saw Lena behind the wheel. She accelerated straight for us. Obviously, she was still in her reckless mood.
I grabbed Chase’s good arm and ran out of the way.
The truck hit the beanstalk with a large crack and the crunch of crushed metal. A jolt ran up the plant. One of Jimmy’s feet slipped. Then the stalk began to topple, whistling as it fell. When it struck the lake, it threw up at least twenty feet of water clear to the other side.
I didn’t dodge fast enough and got soaked.
“Well, that was quite dramatic.” The Director opened the truck door on the driver’s side and punctured the air bag with a small knife. Lena peered out, stunned but unhurt. The Director turned to the audience of students. “Everyone, clear the area, please. We don’t want anyone to be crushed if the giant falls.”
Students backed up hastily. Puss-in-Dress was a little faster than everyone else, lashing her white tail.
I tilted my head back, watching Jimmy’s legs dangle from the clouds and ready to grab Chase again if I needed to. Finally, one leg disappeared and then the other. Matilda must’ve been there to help him. I wondered if she would ever tell her husband about the three questers she had let into the house and hid in the bread box.
Lena unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the truck, leaning on the door for support, a little wobbly now that it was all over. I grinned at her, and she smiled back sheepishly. Definitely not a Failed Tale. Somewhere across the courtyard, a student clapped, and the applause spread out, growing into a roar.
No one whistled louder than George. Jenny ran out of the crowd, crying, and hugged her sister tightly.
“You get to tell my dad that you crashed his truck.” Chase’s voice slurred, and he swayed. I caught him before he fell over. “Not fainting,” he told me, his eyes a little glazed.
“Of course not.” I put his good arm across my shoulders again and shouted over the clapping. “Gretel! We need a nurse! Got a kid with a dragon bite here.”
“Dragon bite?” Adelaide repeated hesitantly, hovering close to Chase’s other elbow. And she did faint.
• • •
In the infirmary, Gretel gave Chase something to drink, telling us it would increase his blood production. Then she cut his shirt away carefully and wiped the blood off his skinny chest with steady, practiced strokes. When her cloth brushed over teeth punctures, Chase grimaced but made no sound.
Each cut was a lot deeper than I had thought. He hadn’t been exaggerating that much.
Instead of watching the blood well up around each tooth-mark, I spread my fingers and examined my hands. They shook, which didn’t surprise me much.
It did surprise me to see Chase watching.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and glowered at him, waiting for whatever insult he came up with.
But he just said softly, “It’s okay, Rory. We made it.”
My voice caught in my throat. I didn’t know how to respond when Chase was being nice.
“Your hands? I noticed that before you came in.” Gretel unrolled a strip of bandage. “It’s nothing. Your body is just letting off some of today’s stress.”
That actually did comfort me a little. “He’s going to be okay, right?” I asked, because he wasn’t acting very normal.
“I told you, Rory. Fit as a fiddle.” Chase raised himself slightly.
Gretel held him down with a firm hand on his good shoulder. “He’ll be fine. Rapunzel will be here in a few minutes. She’s got an ointment that’ll heal up this bite in a jiffy, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for the broken collarbone, except give him a sling.” At the word “collarbone,” Chase made a face, and Gretel added, “But you’ll have plenty of sc
ars to brag about.”
That cheered Chase up considerably, and I laughed a little.
The door banged open, and a man stormed in, so dusty that his hair stuck together in clumps.
“Jack,” Gretel said in a dry, scolding way. “I understand your concern for your son, but my other patients need their rest. And I’m sure the infirmary door would like to stay on its hinges.”
Chase and I both drew back warily. Maybe seeing us hadn’t been enough. Maybe the Snow Queen had won him over.
Chest heaving, like he had been running, Jack stared at his son. “Were you or were you not in the Glass Mountain two days ago?”
Gretel’s face looked stuck halfway between laughter and concern. She obviously thought the idea was so ridiculous that Jack needed to stay in the infirmary for a mental checkup.
“I told you to stay away from honey mead,” Chase said with the same fierce scowl he’d made on the glass ledge, and Gretel’s mouth dropped open.
Jack fell heavily in a chair next to Chase’s bed. His hands were in his hair, and his shoulders shuddered. He looked so much like Chase had after he accidentally locked us in the giants’ desk that I felt a little sorry for him.
There was a knock, and Rapunzel stood in the doorway, looking at Gretel. “You asked for me?”
“You already know what I want.” Gretel reached for the ointment in Rapunzel’s hands. “You don’t need to ask.”
“I’m just being polite,” Rapunzel said, pulling her long silver braid over her shoulder, but she was looking at me. Her eyes were very dark—so black that you couldn’t see the pupils. They were the oldest feature in her face and the saddest.
“You have seen terrible things,” she said with a tiny smile.
I saw glacier-pale eyes in a slush-colored face. It shouldn’t have seemed terrible, but it did. Mainly because I knew I would see it again. “She had your picture,” I told Rapunzel softly.
“Not pinned to the wall to throw darts at,” Chase added suspiciously, as Gretel dabbed yellowish ointment on his dragon bite and gestured that Chase should flip onto his stomach so that she could get his back. He turned carefully, favoring his collarbone. “In a frame.”
Rapunzel only shrugged. “It is an old habit. She is heartless.”
Heartless seemed like the right word, but that still didn’t explain why the Snow Queen had Rapunzel’s picture in the first place. Had they known each other once?
Then Rapunzel looked pointedly from Chase to Jack, who had curled so far forward that his head almost touched his knees.
Chase’s fierce expression faded, and he reached his good hand out to touch Jack’s shoulder. Jack clasped it slowly, but he didn’t lift his head. They looked more like brothers than father and son.
It made me want to see my own mom. Even if she grounded me immediately. After I told her where I had been this week. If I told her.
The door squeaked open again. “Chase, you have another visitor,” the Director said smoothly.
In the doorway, Lena and the harp in her hands raised their eyebrows anxiously. She walked halfway to the hospital bed but then stopped, eyes wide. “There’s not blood, is there?”
“Hold on. Let me clear this away.” Gretel gathered up the bowl of water and all the sponges she had used to clean Chase’s shoulder. Everything was the same dark pink, just a shade away from red. “I don’t think we have room for another fainter.”
Gretel shot a sharp look over to the curtained area where Adelaide, two other girls, and one fifth-grade boy were recovering.
The harp sniffed expertly. “The ointment of the witch whose power is in her hair. A good choice. It heals all ills. I can make it, Mistress,” she added, and I got the distinct impression that she was trying to impress Lena. Lena just looked a little queasy.
Chase sat up so fast that he winced and touched his collarbone. “She told you, right, Director? About the Snow Queen?”
“Don’t tell me Lena went to the Glass Mountain too!” Gretel said, a sling dangling in her hands.
“No, just Rory and Chase,” Lena said.
“Yes, I know she was after the harp, but I shall expect a full report from you later,” the Director said. “After I speak with your father.”
If it was possible, Jack sank even lower in his chair. Then I really did feel sorry for him.
“We had to fight dragons, and Ferdinand, and this guy with a sack,” Chase said proudly. Lena and I gave him a look. “Okay, so Rory fought the dragons, and Lena basically turned Ferdinand into stone, but I had pretty much beaten them.”
Lena and I both rolled our eyes.
“Ferdinand the Unfaithful?” Jack repeated, suddenly interested. “The guy who studied under Malistair the Vengeful and slew Binio the Brave?”
Chase grinned, despite the pain in his collarbone as Gretel started working the sling on his arm.
“The lists,” Rapunzel reminded me softly.
I had completely forgotten about them. Hurriedly, I fished in my pocket and found the papers. “I don’t know if Lena told you, Director, but in the Snow Queen’s office, we found these— Oh, no!”
The blackened paper crumbled at the edges as if they’d been charred. I tried to remember how close I had gotten to the baby dragon that could breathe fire.
The Director nodded, as if she expected this. “I imagined that Solange would have a safeguard in place in case the lists were removed. Don’t fret. The elves might still be able to extract some information from them. Gretel, if you’ll provide the bag . . .”
Gretel pulled a Ziploc out of the cabinet and held it out to me. I dropped the paper into the bag and watched black bits flake off, feeling cheated.
“The only thing that remains to be seen is why Solange would want this particular harp,” the Director said.
Everyone thought. The harp twiddled her thumbs.
“Has anybody tried asking the harp?” I asked.
The harp beamed at me, but when everyone else looked at her, she ducked her head bashfully. “Oh, me?” Lena set the harp down on a shelf with clean bandages so that we could all see her better. “I am but a lowly harp, not fit to sing babies to sleep—”
Chase rolled his eyes. “Don’t be modest. It just wastes time.”
“Just ’cause you’ve never been modest a day in your life,” I muttered, and both Chase and his dad turned to me with identical scowls.
The harp batted her eyelashes at her audience. “My name is Melodie.”
That didn’t mean anything to me, but Lena staggered suddenly. Chase and I both reached out to steady her.
Melodie’s smile changed. She met Lena’s eyes like they were old friends. “Madame Benne was my maker.”
“Oh, my gumdrops,” Lena said, half-gasping. “Oh, my gumdrops.”
I looked between Lena and the Director’s stunned face. Jack looked around blankly. Even Gretel’s eyes were wide. Chase and Rapunzel were the only ones who didn’t look surprised.
“I think I missed something,” I said.
“They’ve been searching for Madame Benne’s harp for centuries,” Gretel said.
“I told you,” Lena said. “Madame Benne invented the singing harp early in her career to help with her experiments.”
“I was her assistant,” Melodie said primly.
“So, you were there when she invented the Table of Plenty?” Lena asked her new harp. “And magic mirrors? And the cloak of invisibility? And perfected the magic ring?”
“Plus the stairless tower,” Melodie said, pleased with herself, “and the Glass Mountain, but who’s counting?”
“If Madame Benne invented the Glass Mountain, her harp would know all its secrets,” the Director mused.
“She wanted you to help her break out,” I told Melodie, horrified, which made even the golden harp seem very solemn.
“I bet Jimmy didn’t know,” Chase said.
“He wasn’t the brightest mirror on the wall,” the harp agreed. “But General Searcaster knew.”
“Extraordinary.” The Director folded her hands. “That a counterfeit book would lead us to Madame Benne’s harp.”
“But the boy Chase said that Lena was in possession of Madame Benne’s cookbook,” said the harp. “He described it exactly. Bound with wood covers, painted gold, and her symbol on the bottom corner of the first page.”
Lena opened her mouth to explain, but then Chase said, in a pained voice, “Was being the operative term.”
It took me a second to figure out why he would say that, and then I turned to Chase slowly, scowling. “You said it was just a Fey cookbook.”
“Well, it was written in Fey,” Chase said uncomfortably.
“You lied to Lena?”
“Remember, Rory. I’m injured.” Chase lay back on his pillows, trying to look pathetic. “And I already apologized.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell anyone the book was real.”
“How was I supposed to know she’d burn it? Lena practically lives in the library. I thought she’d never hurt a book in a million years.”
I took a step toward him, furious, but Rapunzel rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Rory, you two are friends now. Even the Snow Queen knows it.”
Lena had to sit down. “I burned Madame Benne’s spellbook.”
“You burned it?” the harp said. “Are we talking a singe on the corner, or burnt to cinders? Just a singe, right?”
“Oh, no!” Lena covered her face. “Were there secrets?”
“Of course there were,” Melodie said. “I’ve been craving her mushroom-chive scones for nine hundred years.”
Chase snorted, but when I shot him a dirty look, he didn’t say anything.
“Lena has already made a fresh copy,” Rapunzel said. “Last weekend, when she was grounded.”
“Good,” Chase and Melodie said together, looking very relieved.
“Oh. You’re the one with the photographic memory, aren’t you?” Gretel asked Lena.
“The binding!” Lena turned to the harp. “The covers! Were there spells?”
“No, no, Madame Benne hated enchanting books. She only created the spell for the fairy tale collections—the same one that your librarian uses—as a special favor,” Melodie said. “If you have the text, we’re fine. You can cook, can’t you?”
