Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The)

by Bach, Shelby

  Chase scowled fiercely, clearly waiting for Jack to move on to another subject, but he was still standing exactly like his dad—leaning against the courtyard wall, arms crossed, and a hand over his chin. I smirked. Chase noticed and dropped his arms sheepishly.

  “Or you could be an Aladdin!” Jack cried happily. “There hasn’t been one in years. I’ll see if I can’t find the magic lamp. The Director keeps hiding it—”

  Chase didn’t take his eyes off his father, but he leaned slightly back to whisper, “Refreshment table in ten minutes. Come get me if I can’t get away.”

  “Ditto.” I spotted my mom running toward me in her business suit, her arms spread wide.

  A bunch of the other parents and some EASers did a double take, recognizing her as she passed them. That secret was definitely out. It didn’t bother me as much as it used to.

  We had invited Dad, too, but he said he had a bunch of meetings that day. (Privately, I thought he was still smarting from the talking-to I had given him a couple weeks before.)

  Amy followed Mom slowly, throwing wary glances right and left. She gave a particularly sharp look to an older Character with hair down to her knees, leading a line of seven huge white birds. She hadn’t liked EAS much ever since I had come back from a field trip to the capital with a camera full of pictures I didn’t remember taking. Which made me think that maybe Gretel had only enchanted Mom, not Amy.

  “My little actress.” Mom hugged me. “You were so good!”

  Even Amy mustered a real smile. “Perfect comic timing.”

  “Thanks,” I said, embarrassed but pleased.

  “Really, they should’ve given you the lead,” Mom said.

  “Mom!” I shot a significant glance toward Lena and her family, just a few feet away.

  “It’s in your blood,” Amy pointed out.

  “And I’m your mother. I’m supposed to say stuff like that. I could tell embarrassing stories about you as a baby instead. This one time—”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said hurriedly. Chase was looking our way, definitely listening.

  “Is that your sword?” Amy said, eyeing it with distaste.

  It had been a prop too. I had used it to cut a giant-size roll during the performance.

  “I didn’t expect it to look so real,” Mom said, surprised. “Can I hold it?”

  I hesitated. It was a magic sword after all, but when Mom took it from me, she didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Instead, she started to swing it, making lightsaber sounds.

  “Mom,” I said in a pained voice.

  “I know that look.” Mom sighed and passed the sword back. “That’s the look that tells me you’re going to be a teenager soon.”

  “You ready to go?” Amy asked, obviously hopeful.

  A few weeks ago, I would’ve hesitated to mention it. “Chase and Lena and I were going to grab some food.”

  Mom’s face fell. “Rory, you’ve made such good friends here. That’s wonderful.”

  “Uh-oh.” I knew this day was coming. I’d been expecting it. “We’re moving,” I said flatly. I sheathed the sword and wondered if I had to give it back, if this would be the last time I would ever hold it.

  “The shoot finished yesterday,” Amy said, “and we have to be in Colorado for another one on Tuesday.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Mom said. “I know you were really happy here.”

  I nodded, numbly. I had been happy. I had been scared for my life and so mad at Chase that I wanted to hit him and sometimes really confused, but I had also been happy.

  “Rory!” Chase waved to me, halfway to the refreshment table. Lena stood just behind him, waiting. “Chow time?”

  They didn’t know I was leaving. I hadn’t told them yet. I hadn’t meant to keep it from them, but with all the excitement of Lena’s Tale, and the upcoming skit, the right time hadn’t arrived.

  “Go say good-bye,” my mom said. “And get their e-mails! Maybe we can ask them to come on vacation with us.”

  I trudged off. It wouldn’t be the same as seeing each other every day and going on adventures together.

  As I crossed the courtyard, a few EASers pointed me out to their parents. Like with their fingers, so I noticed. Those parents must have known about magic, because as I passed them, I caught a few bits of their conversation: “the golden harp” and “the Snow Queen,” Lena’s name, Chase’s, and mine.

  Even though I didn’t turn to look, my face heated, but there had been a lot of talk like this in the past couple weeks.

  This was why it didn’t bother me so much when EASers found out about my famous parents.

  The Director had asked us to not talk about it at all. So, at first, I’d assumed that Chase couldn’t resist bragging. But he had been insulted at the thought. “It wasn’t me. Not all the fainters stayed fainted.” And once the story was out, everyone knew.

  When I was close enough, Lena grabbed my arm. I smiled a little when I noticed Melodie in the bag hanging over her shoulder. I hadn’t seen Lena without the harp since we’d come down the beanstalk. I was pretty sure Melodie even went to school with her.

  “Did you have to bring her with you?” Chase asked Lena.

  “I’m not taking any chances,” Lena said stoutly.

  “I may just be a musical instrument,” Melodie said in a wounded voice, “but I still have feelings, you know.”

  “He’s teasing me, not you,” Lena told her harp absently.

  I smiled again, and a wave of sadness hit me. I would even miss the bickering.

  “You’re a thousand years old,” Chase said. “Shouldn’t you grow a thicker skin?”

  “There are plenty of Fey even older than me,” Melodie told Chase. “They’re still touchy.”

  “Oh, Rory. They have Fey fudge!” Lena cried happily. “We couldn’t use the Table of Never Ending Refills, because the refill part might freak out the parents. So, Gretel buys most of the food, and she always gets this big tub of Fey fudge.”

  I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I let Lena hand me a plate and load it up with fudge.

  Searching for a place to sit, we passed Adelaide and Daisy, the new sixth grader who’d joined EAS while we’d been up the beanstalk—and Adelaide’s new fan club. She had a chubby face on top of a really skinny body, which made me think of a chipmunk every time I looked at her.

  Adelaide watched Chase as we walked by. I was pretty sure she still missed him.

  I hadn’t known what to expect after the Beanstalk, as far as Chase went. But that Monday, he had slid into a seat at Lena’s regular table and stuffed himself with snacks, like it was something he did every day.

  When he’d noticed me and Lena staring at him, he’d said, “What? Adelaide and Daisy won’t stop talking about what color they should paint their toenails. You really can’t expect me to suffer through that.” He looked at me and Lena fearfully, like girl talk was a contagious disease, and he was worried it would spread across the courtyard.

  “What about the triplets?” Lena asked, flabbergasted.

  “Geez, Lena—way to make him feel unwanted,” I said, mainly because I was afraid he would leave if he felt that way.

  Chase just shrugged. “They’re brothers. They spend all their time together. They don’t really have room for a fourth wheel.”

  Then Rapunzel had been right. Chase did need more friends.

  I’d once overheard Kevin talking about how the three of us were all buddy-buddy now (at least until Kyle noticed me and punched his brother in the shoulder to shut him up). But nobody really questioned it. Apparently, jumping off a beanstalk together did that to old enemies.

  When we neared the Tree of Hope, some fifth graders stopped talking and scurried away, looking over their shoulders at us anxiously. They tended to do this a lot when they saw me, Chase, and Lena together—as if now that we’d escaped the Glass Mountain and slayed some dragonets, we were on the prowl to bully younger kids. It was kind of annoying, actually.

  Chase l
oved the attention. Grinning, he dropped into a cross-legged position. “Starstruck. We’re famous, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I sat down on the roots with my plate in my lap.

  “I’m not sure everyone’s getting their facts right, though,” Lena said.

  “Rumors abound,” Melodie said solemnly.

  “It’s awesome. You know what I heard last week?” Chase asked me. “That you mortally wounded the Snow Queen in a duel. Also, you smashed all her magic mirrors, and my personal favorite: you threw a cream pie in her face.”

  “I heard you started that last one,” Lena said to Chase.

  I rolled my eyes. “What are they saying you did?”

  “The story is too violent for your tender ears . . . ,” Chase said.

  “They say he got bitten,” Melodie said.

  Chase grimaced, so I knew it was true. Then he abruptly changed the subject, which he was good at doing when he didn’t like where the conversation was headed. “I talked to my dad about the Snow Queen.”

  I wondered if it had been the kind of talk that involved yelling.

  “Solange. I never liked her,” Melodie said in a confiding tone.

  Chase licked some fudge off his fingers. “He said that she had more visitors than she was allowed to have. It was the only thing he knew for sure was a no-no.”

  “We’ve been spending a lot of time in the Shoemaker’s workshop,” Melodie said.

  “I asked the elves about the lists,” Lena said. “They said they only recovered three names so far.”

  “And I asked Rapunzel about the Snow Queen breaking out of prison,” Chase said, sounding a lot more serious. “‘Inevitable’ was her exact word.”

  I sighed deeply. As much as the idea had freaked me out, I would kind of miss the chance at having a Destiny. I hadn’t even found out what my Tale was.

  “Rory, are you okay?” Lena asked.

  “Yeah, you’ve been sighing a lot.” Chase was so concerned he even put down his fudge. “Do you have a crush on me too?”

  I stared at him incredulously, not sure I had heard him right, and Melodie said, “You are remarkably self-involved.”

  Chase looked insulted. “Adelaide sighed a lot right before she said she had a crush on me.”

  “She had to tell you?” Lena said, surprised.

  I snorted. “That’s totally it. It was the paint on your face. ‘My heart awakens in sight of your green skin/as clean and warty as a toad’s has ever been—’” I said in my best reciting voice, and we all laughed.

  Even laughing hurt. I already knew that I would miss Chase and Lena the most.

  “I’m moving,” I said.

  Chase and Lena waited for me to say more.

  “Oh,” Lena said, realizing that I wanted sympathy. “That sucks.”

  “As in with boxes and moving vans and stuff? I’ve always wanted to try that.” Chase took another bite of his fudge.

  “As in leaving North Carolina?” I couldn’t believe they were taking this so well. “As in I can’t ever come back to Ever After School.”

  That shocked them.

  Chase’s chocolate fell out of his hand into the grass. “Why?”

  “Did your mom find out about the giants?” Lena asked worriedly.

  “Oh, yeah, some parents have a hard time with magic.” Chase made it sound like that was really difficult to understand.

  “You need to find a way to come anyway,” Lena said earnestly. “Your Tale will come no matter what, and they’re much more dangerous without support.”

  That wasn’t good news. Thinking about facing the Snow Queen alone gave me chills, but I did feel slightly better now that they seemed upset. “How can I? I’ll be in Colorado.”

  Chase and Lena blinked at me, not getting it.

  “So?” said Chase.

  “Wait. Rory, where do you think Lena lives?” Melodie asked.

  That was a weird question. “North Carolina.”

  “Oh,” Lena and Chase said together, like they understood something I didn’t.

  “I live in Milwaukee,” Lena told me.

  “I didn’t know there was a Milwaukee in North Carolina.” Then I realized what she meant.

  “Rory, this is the North American Chapter of Ever After School,” Chase said. “We’ve got a whole continent’s worth of Characters here.”

  I blinked, stunned. “That’s a long commute.”

  “The doors.” Lena pointed to the different-colored doors that lined the courtyard. “They’re our own Door-Trek system.”

  “Some of them go places here like Rumpy’s library,” Chase said. (Both Lena and Melodie gave him a dirty look for using that nickname.) “But most of them go to different cities in the US and Canada.”

  “The one to Milwaukee is striped green and white,” Melodie said.

  Ellie had told me that I would always go through the ruby door like it was important. “Ooooh.”

  “Usually, when Characters move, we just pretend EAS is a day-care chain,” Lena explained.

  “In a week, the Director or Ellie or somebody will send your mom a brochure with the new location on it,” Chase said. “You can act all excited and be right back here.”

  I wouldn’t have to start all over every time we moved anymore. I wasn’t going to lose my friends. For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

  I concentrated on not crying. It would freak Chase out.

  Lena giggled. “Maybe the Director shouldn’t let Sarah Thumb do the orientation anymore. She leaves a lot of important stuff out.”

  “Well, now that the disaster has been averted, I’m going to finish eating.” Chase picked up his fudge and flicked the grass off it.

  “Jacqueline!” shouted someone.

  Lena turned reluctantly.

  Her grandmother waved a handbag at her, gesturing her forward and looking very stern. The first thing Lena had bought with her gold coins—besides repairs for Jack’s truck—was a new wardrobe for her grandmother, who couldn’t stop showing it off. She looked very dressed up in a suit of eggplant-colored silk.

  “I better go.” Lena stood up hastily.

  “Lena’s grounded,” Melodie told us, and Lena gave her harp a harsh look, like she hadn’t wanted this information shared.

  “Again?” I said. “Didn’t she let you off the hook for the grocery-money deal?”

  “Well, she kind of caught me experimenting in the middle of the night,” Lena said uncomfortably.

  “The upstairs bathroom currently shows the main terminal of Grand Central Station,” Melodie told us. “We haven’t been able to fix it yet. I think we used too much rosemary in the formula.”

  “Wow, Lena—you’re practically a mad scientist,” Chase said, and Lena looked flattered.

  “Jacqueline!” Lena’s grandmother called again.

  Lena trotted away. “See you in a few weeks, Rory.”

  “You’re going to have to go soon too,” Chase said, sounding a little unhappy about it. “The woman who’s not your mother keeps looking at us.”

  I nodded. “Her name’s Amy.”

  The weekend was coming. It would be lonely for Chase—stuck at EAS without any other kids, and without his dad. I knew how hard that was.

  “Whose Tale do you think will be next? Yours or mine?” Chase said.

  “Couldn’t tell you.” Of course, feeling sorry for him didn’t stop me from getting annoyed. He always had to be competitive. I guessed I was stuck with it, now that I was coming back.

  “Normally, I would say yours, but I don’t know. You’ve got that Destiny to worry about.” Chase stuck another piece of chocolate in his mouth. “It would help if we knew what it was. Your Tale could be part of your Destiny, or it could be separate, or they might even interfere with each other. Hard to tell.”

  For a second, I saw ice-blue eyes again. “How am I supposed to know?”

  Chase sighed deeply. “I asked Rapunzel that too, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  I didn’t mind if my
Tale didn’t come for years. I wanted a chance to grow up a little. To get better at whatever might help me. I looked at the sword in my lap. Before seeing the Snow Queen, it would’ve been a huge relief to know it was magic, but now I wondered if it would be enough.

  “Don’t worry, though,” Chase said. “I’ll help you. Lena too.”

  I smiled. That did make me feel better. “Chase, I’ve been thinking—could you make my sword heavy again?”

  Chase’s mouth fell open. He had chocolate on his chin.

  “If the Snow Queen really is coming back, I’m going to need all the extra help I can get, right?” I held out the sword. “I’ll practice while I’m gone.”

  “Right.” Chase brushed the chocolate off his hands and drew the sword. He turned it end over end three times and said something in Fey that made the hair on my arms stand up. He handed it back, looking pleased with himself.

  “Rory!” Amy called. “Time to go!”

  Chase scowled. I was touched that he cared.

  “Want my fudge?” I offered, knowing it would cheer him up.

  Chase grinned and reached for the plate. “I’ll take it off your hands. You might have a good Tale in you after all. Almost as good as mine.”

  I grinned, ridiculously happy for a second. “You’re only saying that because I gave you candy.” I waved and headed off to where Mom and Amy were waiting for me, still smiling. For once, I didn’t have to pretend to be happier than I actually was. “Onward! To bubble wrap and packing boxes!”

  “Are you allowed to take that sword with you?” Amy clearly hoped the answer was no.

  “I’m allowed to have a memento.” I was already lying to them again. Colorado wouldn’t be perfect either. I would have to be careful not to talk about Chase and Lena like I had just seen them, and inviting Lena over for another sleepover would be complicated.

  Mom threw an arm around my shoulder, like she always did when she suspected I was putting on a brave face. “You’ll see them again, honey,” she said, as we went off in search of the right door.

  “I know,” I said absentmindedly, thinking of my next adventure with my friends. It didn’t matter whose Tale it was.

  • • •

  I had been wrong. At EAS, everyone talks like your life gets started at about the same time as your Tale. But it’s not like that.