Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time)

by James Riley

  Unfortunately, the plan needed someone to act as bait.

  Phillip watched as the giant reached down for him, and he remembered the past few months, wondering when he would sacrifice himself for May, protecting her from the Wicked Queen or some other imagined evil.

  But instead he had chosen his people. And for his people, he would make the ultimate sacrifice.

  This time Phillip didn’t jump. This time he let the giant grab him, lift him hundreds of feet into the air, and swallow him whole.

  CHAPTER 35

  This was it. The Huntsman had come, and everything was happening exactly like the Story Book pages said. Jack watched and listened, glancing at the pages every few minutes even though he had them memorized now.

  “Mmph!” the old man said from behind him, not really able to say much with the cloth tied around his mouth.

  Jack sighed. “I really am sorry about this. I’ll cut you free right before I go, okay? There’s just a lot going on here, and I couldn’t have you telling people I was here.”

  “Mmph,” the old man said, making Jack feel even worse.

  “You know, this house is about to be very abandoned,” Jack told him. “Well, after it’s searched by seven dwarfs. Whatever you want in it, you should take. You know, to say sorry. In fact, just take the whole house!”

  The old man stared at him suspiciously.

  “No, seriously!” Jack whispered as he heard the Wicked Queen hurry down the stairs. He quickly checked his pages and realized that right about now, May would be getting surprised by the seven dwarfs. Part of him had to fight the urge to run up and help her. A big part.

  Then, something exploded, rocking the entire house, and he knew May would be down soon either way.

  “That the best you’ve got, Your Majesty?” shouted a man’s voice. “How long have you been saving that one up?” Jack glanced out the gap in the door leading to the living room and could see the Huntsman grinning at the Wicked Queen.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing, Sebastian,” the Wicked Queen said. “This is beyond your understanding. You must leave me here!”

  “Funny,” the Huntsman said. “I remember you ordering me to bring you Snow White’s heart, and I didn’t do that, either. But my family is already cursed, my lady. What else could you possibly punish a betrayal with now?”

  “I was not . . . the same person,” the Queen said. “If you take me back there, the shadows will return, and I can’t be held responsible for what I do.”

  “Too bad you broke the Mirror, my lady,” the Huntsman said. “Otherwise, the Wicked Queen would have seen me coming, wouldn’t she?”

  “I tell you truthfully, that person no longer exists,” the Queen said quietly. “But there’s enough of her left to deal with you if you don’t leave now!” Tiny, pathetic little sparks of lightning passed between her fingers, intimidating no one.

  Jack glanced at the old man, whose eyes were about as big as dinner plates. Jack just nodded with understanding. “You think that’s all weird, I should tell you about a witch and her house of candy sometime,” he whispered.

  Upstairs, the dwarfs attacked May, and her shouts distracted the Queen long enough for the Huntsman to slap huge iron chains on her wrists. The sad sparks of lightning immediately disappeared, and the Huntsman smiled. “Looks like you’re all out,” he said, and fastened chains around her legs as well, then to her neck.

  From upstairs, seven familiar-looking dwarfs carried down a struggling May, presenting her to the Huntsman like a gift.

  “And who might you be, girlie?” the Huntsman said, a combination of confusion and amusement playing over his face.

  May proceeded to share some names with the Huntsman, but none of them were hers, and none of them bore repeating.

  The Huntsman gave her a look of admiration, then shouted at the dwarfs. “Get her back to the palace, or I’ll have your axes! Then find that crown; we need it to use the Mirror!”

  The Queen struggled, but the Huntsman just picked her up and threw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. He said something Jack couldn’t hear that sounded suspiciously like magic, and a blue fire portal opened on the wall behind the Huntsman. Through the portal lay a tunnel, just like Jack had seen in the Story Book, at the end of which waited a woman.

  Rapunzel. It was Rapunzel at the end of the tunnel.

  Knowing that six months ago would have changed so much.

  “Leave her behind, she’s no one important!” the Queen shouted.

  The Huntsman laughed. “If you care that much, the girl’s definitely coming along.” He started off into the portal, followed closely behind by the dwarfs carrying May.

  The dwarfs would be coming back, so the portal would stay open. Jack waited in the house, knowing what was coming next.

  One of the dwarfs tripped a bit in the fire tunnel, and May kicked out, throwing the lot of dwarfs right off balance. One tipped into the next, and May fell to the portal floor. She seemed confused, but the dwarfs leapt for her, so May backed away, then dove through the side of the fire tunnel, disappearing.

  “You worthless axe-grinders!” the Huntsman yelled. “Can’t you do anything right?!”

  The dwarfs looked from one to the other, then shrugged. “Who cares?” one said, this one a bit grumpier than the others. “She was just a girl. The Mirror is all that matters. Without it, we’ll never find a way to save Snow.” The grumpy dwarf turned around and walked back toward Jack. “Come, brothers. We need the crown, not some human girl.”

  The Huntsman swore, then sprinted down the tunnel with the Queen, who watched everything without a word. Jack hid so the dwarfs could pass by, but he couldn’t stay long . . . their search would eventually lead them to him and the old man, given that they weren’t going to find the crown, currently hidden in May’s pocket in a note from her grandmoth—from the Wicked Queen.

  “I’m going to let you go,” Jack told the old man. “Just run out the front door and don’t come back for at least a day or two. By then, the dwarfs will be back at the Palace of the Snow Queen, where we’ll find them later, and the Wolf King will fight them as we . . . well, that’s not really important.”

  The man just stared at him.

  “Right,” Jack said, cutting through the old man’s bonds but leaving the cloth over his mouth. “Now let’s go!”

  With that, the two ran out of the small closet they’d been hiding in, and Jack whipped the front door open and gave the old man a friendly shove out it, then went for the blue fire tunnel—

  Only to immediately jump back into the closet as the Huntsman strode purposefully back toward the point in the tunnel May had escaped through. The enormous man stopped, examining the area carefully, then nodded and stepped through at the same point May had.

  Jack gave the Huntsman as much time as he could, then, hearing at least one dwarf heading back his way, sprinted into the tunnel and dove through in the exact same spot May had fallen.

  He hit the ground hard and, for a moment, wondered if he would have to kiss himself awake. The moment passed, and Jack picked himself up off a road he hadn’t seen for half a year.

  “Another one?” said a gruff voice behind him, then whoever it was gasped. “Jack?!”

  Jack turned around to find his grandfather staring at him. “But . . . you just left!” the old man said. “And you look so . . . different!” And then his grandfather’s mouth dropped. “NO. An Eye? NO!” He shook his head, his beard tossing around wildly. “I kept you hidden from all that! You were never meant to follow your mother’s path!”

  “Just forget I was ever here, Grandpa,” Jack told the man, struggling not to hug him. It had been so long!

  “But . . . how?”

  “I can’t say,” Jack told him. “But you said I just left? With the princess, right?”

  Jack looked at the ground beside him to find Robert, the boy who’d bullied him his entire life, still lying unconscious, first from Jack’s knee in his face, then from Jack�
�s grandfather hitting the boy over the head with a food tray. The food still littered the ground, and Jack couldn’t help but smile. “I really did just leave, didn’t I.”

  A clicking noise made him turn back to his grandfather, who was holding what looked to be a dagger-size sword that slowly grew into a full-size weapon. “I promised myself you’d never join her, Jack,” the old man said, aiming his weapon at Jack. “I promised. Your sister was a lost cause, but you . . . you were different.” He sniffed loudly, and Jack realized the old man was crying. “I thought you could redeem our whole family, boy! I thought you were better than this!”

  And with that, his grandfather swung his sword, and Jack had no choice but to block it with his own sword, which once more glowed eerily in the dying light. The glow lit the tears on his grandfather’s cheeks, and Jack sighed, then put his sword back in its sheath.

  “Sit down, Grandpa,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  And with that, he showed the old man what was in the Queen’s wooden box.

  CHAPTER 36

  Quite the inspiring speech,” said a man in a large black cloak as the goblins led May back to her cell. The goblins froze in place as the Wolf King stepped in front of May, then ran off as he dismissed them.

  “Oh yeah?” May said. “Inspiring enough for you to change sides?”

  The Wolf King laughed his low growly laugh. “What did you hope to accomplish?”

  May glared at him, then sighed. “I have no idea. But I couldn’t just join her. I couldn’t.”

  “Better than you have tried before,” the wolf told her. “And it almost worked. But sometimes it’s even worse when you get that close, only to fail.”

  Behind them, screams echoed in the throne room, and swords clashed against swords. The goblins had pulled her out as everything had descended into chaos, but it wouldn’t last long, she knew. Not long—

  And then the Queen’s voice rose above all others, and everything went absolutely silent. “Perhaps I should get you to your cell,” the Wolf King said, and gestured for May to follow him.

  “Give me back my weapon,” May pleaded with him. “The one you took, back at Malevolent’s castle. She was convinced it would help take the Queen down!”

  The wolf just looked at her. “You have no idea what you had there.”

  “I had the Fairest, whatever that meant.”

  “Do not speak of her!” the Wolf King growled. “You know nothing of what you speak!”

  “. . . Her?”

  The Wolf King pushed her against one of the hallway’s stone walls, flashing his teeth at her, despite still being in human form. “That was no weapon—that was a dream and nothing more!”

  May glared right back. “Are we talking about metaphors here? Because you’re really going to have to be specific. I can’t tell what’s literal and what’s not with you people.”

  The wolf growled again and pushed her back into the hallway. “Never speak of her again.”

  “You keep saying ‘her,’” May said, stopping in place. “The Fairest . . . she’s a person? The fairest one of all . . . oh wow, that’s not the name, that’s a title. The most beautiful person in the world . . . we’re talking about Beauty, like in ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ aren’t we?”

  “Do not speak of this further!”

  May’s eyes widened. “You’re the Beast!”

  The wolf bared his teeth again. “What I am is none of your concern!”

  He pushed her through a door and into a more brightly lit room, surprising two goblin guards who’d been sleeping in their chairs. The Wolf King growled at both, then pulled one of the five cell doors open and pushed May inside.

  “I rescued your Beauty, didn’t I?” May shouted at him.

  “She was never real!” the Wolf King roared. “She was only a dream! The only way someone could love me was in a dream!”

  “A dream you loved too?” May asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “And what do you think the Queen would do if she knew?” the wolf sneered. “My dream love was taken from me once. What lengths do you think the Queen would go to in order to hold Beauty over me once more?”

  “Whatever it took,” May said softly.

  The wolf just glared at her.

  “It’d still be worth it, though,” May said. “You know, if you really did love her. Dream or not.”

  The Wolf King roared, banging a fist against the cell, then turned and walked toward the door.

  “You’re welcome for saving her!” May yelled after him. “See you at my execution!”

  “QUIET!” one of the goblin guards yelled at her, suddenly a lot braver now that the wolf was gone.

  “Oh yeah?” May said, spreading her arms. “Come over here and say that!”

  The other goblin stood up and smacked his sword against the bars. “He said quiet!”

  May grabbed his arm and yanked it hard, bashing the goblin’s head into the bars. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back against the door while the monster squealed and the other guard just laughed. A minute later, the second goblin’s sword poked through the bars right at May’s head, and she released the first one, who straightened up and stumbled out of reach.

  “I wouldn’t try that again,” the second goblin said, grinning still.

  “I think she was trying for the keys!” the first goblin said. “I felt her reach for them!”

  “Well?” the second goblin said, pointing at the keys on the first one’s belt. “Looks like she didn’t get them, doesn’t it? Maybe next time you’ll be even stupider and just hand them over to her.”

  “Maybe if you’d been doing your job and watching my back, I wouldn’t have been attacked!”

  The goblins continued arguing while May slowly moved the knife she’d just stolen off the goblin up into her sleeve, then settled back into the corner of the cell, waiting for her execution.

  CHAPTER 37

  Jill watched from the castle walls as the biggest giant she’d ever seen picked up a tiny Prince Phillip and swallowed him. She frowned. “That seems like an odd plan.”

  “You’re back just in time,” her father told her as he came up behind her. “After all the hard work is done.”

  “I’m pretty terrible at sewing,” she told him, still concentrating on the last remaining giant, who now resumed his onward march toward the castle, all because he could smell her father, and probably her, honestly. Stupid blood. “What exactly was Phillip’s plan there? To give the giant indigestion?”

  “I’m not spoiling anything,” her father told her, putting a hand over his eyes to cover the now-visible sun giant once again. “Though I reserve the right to say it wasn’t my idea if it doesn’t work.”

  “LIAN!” shouted a voice, and Jill turned to find Penelope sprinting up the stairs to the wall. “What just happened to Phillip? The guards said he was eaten?!” The girl’s eyes were wider than Jill had ever seen, and she seemed about as awake as a normal person for once.

  Several responses swam through Jill’s head, ranging from the blunt (“Yup, swallowed all up!”) to the kind (“I’m sure his death will be quick, and he won’t feel the stomach acid for very long”) to her default response (a shrug).

  She shrugged, going with the classic. “Apparently he’s got a plan.”

  “Plans don’t do much from inside a stomach,” Penelope said, pushing as far as she could over the wall to see better.

  “He’s not even slowing down,” Jill’s father said. “This might end badly.”

  “We could always run away from the castle, and he’d probably follow,” Jill pointed out.

  “That’d be admitting defeat, wouldn’t it?” her father asked.

  “I’m pretty sure the giant eating us both will also be admitting defeat.”

  “Maybe he’ll eat you first and give me a chance to escape.”

  “Spoken like a loving father.”

  “Be quiet, both of you!” Penelope shouted. “How can you be so . . . callous? Phillip
might be dead!”

  “Probably,” Jill said. “But we have to look at the big picture. And they don’t get much bigger than that giant out there. What do we do now?”

  “We wait until the last moment,” her father said. “Phillip might still come through.”

  The giant sniffed loudly in the distance. “I can smell you, little thief! I’m coming for you!”

  “Maybe not the last moment,” her father admitted.

  The giant was less than a mile away now, and even if he did fall, he’d still almost reach the city. This was getting far too close, especially at the rate he was going. Yes, running would mean abandoning the city, but what had the city ever done for Jill? Also, the giant would probably follow them. Probably. She wasn’t sure which side of that she came down on. Neither side was particularly encouraging.

  And then, the giant paused right in midstep. His foot swayed in the air, then fell back to the earth with a huge shudder. The giant’s face contorted into a very uncomfortable expression, and he grabbed his stomach as he seemed to be dealing with a loose morsel of food in his teeth, picking at it with his tongue.

  “What . . .” the giant said, then stopped as his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward.

  “He’s too close!” Jill yelled as guards all around them began to panic and run from the walls.

  “No, he’s not,” her father said, grabbing her arm. “Just wait.”

  The giant collapsed toward them, his mountain-high head getting closer and closer as he fell. His knees hit first, the jolt almost knocking them off the wall as the monster’s chest and head hurtled straight at them.

  Well, they were going to be crushed, that was it. Jill’s last thought was that she really, really wished she’d been able to take the Wicked Queen with her.

  Her father’s last thought, though, seemed to involve throwing a rope over the city wall in the direction of the descending giant’s head.