Полная версия:
The Last Ever After
Sophie didn’t follow, her breath stoppered.
Don’t go, whispered a soft voice inside her.
Agatha’s voice.
This isn’t you, Sophie.
This isn’t real love.
Sophie felt her back sweating, the gold ring on her finger suddenly scalding hot.
He’s using you.
Light flooded through her and Sophie couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes, the ring boiling on her skin as if about to eat through her—as if she had to destroy it right now—
“Sophie.”
Her lids opened.
“No one loves you but me,” said Rafal, his voice like a dagger. “No one will ever love you but me.”
Sophie stared into his pupils and saw her own reflection. The ring went cold on her finger. Agatha’s voice quieted inside of her.
Rafal took her by the waist and this time, Sophie didn’t resist. As he guided her ahead towards the Leaders staircase, she heard his voice echoing inside her … No one but me … echoing deeper, echoing deeper, like a pebble down a well until it settled at the bottom, an undeniable truth. Looking up at Rafal, she nestled tighter into his side, afraid to let him go—
She stopped cold.
A raven-haired boy was standing ahead, at the edge of the foyer. Tight chest and stomach muscles pressed against his black uniform shirt, and his breeches revealed smooth, chiseled calves. His dark bangs draped over his forehead and his long nose was the only feature out of proportion on his small, heart-shaped face. Sophie drew a breath, taken by his cool, erect stance, and for a moment she thought him the strange man from her dream. But he was too young, clearly a student. Only she didn’t recognize him from either school—
But then Sophie saw his eyes.
Scorching her with hate.
His beady, weaselly eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be somewhere, Hort?” the School Master said, glowering at him.
Hort’s glare slashed deeper into Sophie, honing in on her hand in Rafal’s, before he finally glanced up. “I was throwing hammers in the gym, Master,” he said, flat and hard. “Earned extra time.”
“Right. You’ve been racking up the first ranks, I hear,” said the School Master, pulling Sophie tighter and making sure Hort saw it. “Keep up the good work, Captain.”
Hort gave Sophie a last deadly look before he walked into the wings.
Sophie didn’t move, her heart thundering. First ranks? … gym? … Captain? Hort?
“Shall we?”
She looked up at Rafal, who was staring blackly at where Hort had just been.
“I don’t want you to miss your first class,” he said, slipping a small scroll of paper into her hand, before he glided up the stairs in front of her.
Sophie lagged behind, still dazed by Hort’s reappearance and the weird looks between him and Rafal—
Then her eyes bulged wide.
“My first what?”
“Class?” Sophie fluttered after the School Master, frantically scanning the parchment. “Advanced Uglification … Advanced Henchmen Training—this is a schedule! You said I was a queen! A queen doesn’t go to class—”
“A queen has responsibilities,” said Rafal, calmly stepping off the first-floor landing.
“Oh I’m sorry, did Cinderella go to class for her happy ending? Did Snow White find true love and then go do homework?” Sophie squawked. “A queen’s life should be a cornucopia of servant briefings, bodice fittings, court meetings, caviar tastings, attaché dinners, ball planning, and sea-salt massages by scantily clad boys. Not a return to plebeian students and insipid class—”
Sophie stopped short, noticing her surroundings. The entrance hallway to sea-themed Honor Tower, whose walls and ceiling once mimicked a princely blue tidal wave, now had its surging waters painted the same slime green as the fog tipping the two castles. For a moment, she was confused by the change, until she looked out a porthole window and saw Halfway Bay in the melted sunlight. For the first time in two years, there was no dividing line between the waters, no halves to the bay at all. Its entire body was the same slime green as the painted tides on the walls around her.
“One dip and it’ll rip the flesh right off your bones,” said Rafal, posed against a column. “Good deterrent against anyone who might try to swim into the school or swim … out.”
Sophie heard the warning in his voice, for she’d tried to escape through the bay each of the past two years. Clearly Rafal was still testing her new allegiance to him. Where had the crogs gone? she distracted herself, searching for the stymph-eating white crocodiles that once protected the moat. Then she glimpsed a flesh-eaten, disembodied snout floating along the bright green surface. The crogs had lasted about as long as the stymphs.
Sophie followed Rafal across the seashell floor, now artistically smattered with bloody splashes, while an old statue of a smiling, barechested merman, trident on his lap, had been rechiseled with a gnashed scowl, curled fists, and a trident poised to kill. Turning the corner, Sophie took in epic murals along the walls, once visions of Good’s most honorable victories, now flaunting different endings: a wolf biting into Red Riding Hood’s neck … a giant atop a beanstalk snapping Jack like a twig … Snow White and her dwarves facedown in blood … Captain Hook plunging his hook into Peter Pan’s heart …
Sophie knew she should be sickened by what she was seeing, but instead felt a mutinous thrill at the sight of Evil winning so defiantly, so matter-of-factly, as if Good was never supposed to win at all. How could she not take secret pleasure in the thought? Her whole life she’d tried to be Good. She’d tried to join their school where she thought she belonged. Only Good had rejected her, again and again until here she was, Queen of Evil … queen of the same school she once thought a mistake. Soaking in the last mural—Sleeping Beauty and her prince, lashed to a spinning wheel, set aflame by a black-caped witch—Sophie started to feel disoriented, as if she couldn’t remember the real endings anymore.
What if I’d learned these stories as a child? Would I have ever wanted to be Good?
Doesn’t matter, Sophie thought, breaking from her trance. “An inspired bit of redecorating, Rafal. But it still doesn’t make any of it true.”
“Says who?” he called back.
Sophie frowned at the murals. “Says the storybooks, obviously. I can paint an ending where I bask on a tropical island, serviced by well-muscled slaves. But it’s just a fantasy. All of these are fantasies. They don’t mean anything. The real endings already happened.”
Rafal turned. “And what about your kiss with Agatha? Or Agatha’s kiss with Tedros? Weren’t those real endings too? And yet here we are, back in your story, as if those endings never happened. Endings can change, my queen.”
He gazed out a window at the School for Old. “And change they must.”
Sophie could have sworn she heard a roar from deep within the Old castle, like a monster breaking out of its cage.
“The Deans are eager to meet you,” he said, heading towards the rear staircase. “They’ll take you to your class.”
Sophie didn’t move, hands on hips. “You said it yourself. Agatha and Tedros are on their way to kill you. I can’t be in class! I have to protect you … I’ll fight with you—”
“And who do you think will be your army against Agatha and Tedros, if not your class?” he said, not looking back.
“What? No one at this school even likes me—they’ll never listen to me—”
“On the contrary, they have to listen to you,” Rafal said, fading up the stairs.
Standing alone in the hallway, Sophie watched his shadow spiral up the banister. She groaned, glancing quickly at her schedule.
Sophie snorted, confused. “There’s a mistake on here—has my name for—”
“Your class.”
Your class.
No.
Not possible.
Sophie dropped the schedule like a stone.
“I’m a teacher?”
“Stop checking on me,” Agatha finally snapped.
“Oh, no, it’s just … I didn’t remember our glows matching so much,” Tedros fumbled and quickly turned around.
Agatha didn’t answer. For one thing, she was sick of his worried glances and sugar-sweet conversation, as if she was about to have a nervous breakdown or drown herself in the nearest pond. For another, she didn’t feel like talking to anyone (least of all about inane color symmetries), anxious the conversation might drift back to her mother. But most of all, she was preoccupied with wresting Sophie away from the School Master, rehearsing again and again what she’d say to her best friend when they finally made it to school.
Tell her how much you miss her … or should I apologize first? … How do you apologize for ruining someone’s life? “Sorry I tried to banish you forever” … “Sorry I thought you were a witch” … “Sorry I never asked your mother’s name and I’m a crap friend …”
Agatha gulped. Oh, why drudge up the past? Just get her to destroy the ring and then focus on the future. The three of us at Camelot—a clean slate—
Agatha smiled, trying to be confident … and slowly deflated.
Apologize first.
Agatha tensed again. But suppose she won’t destroy the ring? she thought, remembering how handsome the young School Master was. She thinks he’s her true love, Uma had said, and Agatha knew from experience that Sophie wasn’t one to give up on love once she thought she’d found it. What if she’s happy without me? What if she doesn’t want me anymore?
“I’ll rescue Sophie when we find her,” Tedros broke in, as if he’d decoded her silence. “Not sure she’ll want you there, to be honest. Let me talk to her alone.”
Agatha looked up, aghast.
“For one thing, you’ve been through enough already, my love,” her prince added, hopping over a log. “Second, you tend to faint at crucial moments. And third, Sophie and I have our own special bond.”
Agatha followed him, stumbling over the log. “First of all, I’m fine. Second, I fainted once—”
“Twice: waltz class and by the lake—”
“And third, she’s my best friend—I’ll rescue her—”
“Look, it’s best if I do it,” Tedros said, walking faster. “You two seem to have serious communication issues.”
“And you two don’t?” Agatha said, chasing him.
“All you and Sophie ever do is fight—”
“Because it always involves you!”
“Well, without you, she and I get along just swell,” puffed Tedros.
“When have you two even had a conversation?” said Agatha.
“We were roommates last year—”
“When she was a boy!”
“What does that have to do with anything—”
“A boy you tried to kiss!”
Tedros whirled, beet red. “So? You’re allowed to kiss her and I’m not?”
“Not when she’s a boy!” Agatha barked.
“You kissed her when she was a girl!” roared Tedros—
“I like you two better when you’re quiet,” Princess Uma hissed, glaring from the path.
Tedros mumbled something about “females” and “hypocrites” and stamped ahead, no longer checking back on his princess.
For the next three hours, Uma, Tedros, and Agatha slogged and shivered single file through the Endless Woods, stopping only when Agatha collided with a tree (often) or Tedros needed to pee (even more often). (“What’s wrong with you?!” Agatha growled. “It’s cold!” Tedros yelled.) Agatha tried to ask her teacher about her mother’s past—had Callis been in a storybook? How did she end up in Gavaldon?—but Uma said there’d be time for questions once they made it to League Headquarters.
“League Headquarters?” frowned Tedros. “I thought we were going to school—”
“And who do you think will get you into school?” said Uma. “The School Master has turned the castles into a fortress of Evil. Try and enter alone and you will be dead before you breach the gates. Your mother knew the League of Thirteen is your only hope to get to Sophie alive.” Uma glanced worriedly at the sun. “Besides, you’ll be safe at Headquarters tonight. Won’t last a minute in the Woods after dark on your own.”
“Have you seen any other undead villains? Besides the wolf and giant?” Agatha said, trying to keep their teacher talking.
“Not yet.” Uma looked back at her. “Another reason to be quiet.”
Dawn blossomed to a crisp, windy morning, and the students no longer needed their fingerglows to see. As Agatha and Tedros moved deeper into the Woods, huddled in their cloaks, Agatha noticed an eerie green haze thicken the air, sour smelling and cold. It reminded her of the jellied mildew on her front porch, where Reaper collected his headless birds. Her stomach turned, thinking of her bald little cat, all alone in her house. She wrenched her focus back to the present, to the tree branches passing over her head, spindly and jointed … like a skeleton’s hands … ticking on her mother’s clock …
Agatha’s gut twisted deeper.
“When will it w-w-warm up?” Tedros asked, teeth chattering. “Sun’s acting like it’s half asleep.”
Indeed, Agatha had been waiting for the sun to brighten too, but with each hour, it stayed sickly pale, even as it rose higher in the sky. She began to notice cankered tree trunks and fragile ferns, a skeletal chipmunk quailed in mulch, and the corpses of a few malnourished crows. Agatha fingered a single flowering plum, quivering on a bare tree; it withered under her fingers and rotted to black.
“Agatha, look,” Tedros said.
She followed his eyes to a titanic wreckage of vines, trees, and glass thirty yards off the path, glittering in sun mist like an imploded greenhouse. Tedros deviated off the trail to get a closer look, Agatha tailing behind him. As she neared the colossal ruins, at least fifteen feet high, she glimpsed petals and leaves flaking off the tree trunks, catching the light like new blossoms in spring. But drawing closer, Agatha saw all these petals and leaves were dead, sprinkling the dirt between decaying blue frogs. Agatha ran her hands along one of the fallen trunks, her fingers tracing letters etched into the wood: HIBISCUS LINE.
“It’s a Flowerground train,” said Tedros, inspecting a dead vine. “Whole Forest seems to be dying. Maybe the sun’s too weak to keep any of the plants alive?”
Agatha didn’t answer, still riled up from their earlier spat.
“But why would the sun be any weaker than before?” Tedros prodded.
Silence hung awkwardly.
They both mumbled about getting on and spun from each other, as if to follow Princess Uma, but she was far ahead on the path, a miniature shadow, and they had to run after her when they realized she wasn’t going to stop.
They followed her through Willow Walk, Thicket Tumble, and Pumpkin Point, as rickety wooden signs named these parts, which all mirrored portions of the Blue Forest back at school, only bigger and drearier. Occasionally Uma stopped to let them eat a few sludgy meerworms from her pockets (Uma herself abstained, saying it’d be rude to eat her “friends”) or to ask a sparrow or chipmunk to guide them to the nearest pond, where they’d inhale palmfuls of brackish water. Still, for all the menace of the Woods, they didn’t come across anything that resembled a human being, let alone a zombie villain, and Agatha started to wonder if she’d imagined everything that had happened on Necro Ridge.
As if reflecting her easing mind, the tangled forest opened up the farther they went, with more air between trees and the thorny brush turning into a green carpet of grass, though Agatha could see slivers of yellow starting to creep in. When they passed a gilded plaque that said FOXWOOD, Uma’s shoulders noticeably relaxed, and soon the dirt path widened so that they could all walk together, breathing in clearer air and a tangibly safe feeling, as if they’d entered a protected realm.
“The oldest Ever kingdom,” Uma said, finally at ease.
Over the trees to the west, Agatha could see the thin spires of a golden castle shimmering like organ pipes, but her teacher was already steering them to the east, down denser paths.
“We’ll avoid the thoroughfares and go through the glens. Best to avoid you meeting any Evers for the time being.”
“Why’s that?” Agatha asked, but Uma was too busy gibbering to a passing bee.
By the late afternoon, they came upon a large stone well, its wooden roof draped in browning white roses, while a dove pecked at the dry bucket. Agatha brushed away the roses to read white words painted on the roof:
“League Headquarters is only an hour’s walk from here, so we’ll easily make it by sunset,” said Princess Uma, slipping a meerworm in front of the dove. The dove perked up at the sight of Uma and chirped back brightly. “He says that with the School Master’s return, Evers have been keeping out of the Woods. But he knew I’d still come to check on my friends.”
The dove peered at Agatha and Tedros and let out a few inquisitive tweets.
“Yes, sweetie, they’re the ones,” nodded Uma, stroking the dove, and the bird gave the young couple nervous glances, adding a few whispered peeps. “He hears you’re the Evers destined to vanquish the School Master.” Uma held in a grin. “And he thinks your children will look very … interesting.”
Tedros laughed. Agatha didn’t.
“Might as well show you Snow’s house along the way,” Uma said, forging up the trail. “Princes occupied it after the Boy Eviction, until the School Master returned and the girls begged all the boys to come back and help protect the kingdoms. Turns out all it takes to bring enemies to peace is a bigger enemy. Probably hasn’t been anyone here in weeks, then. I used to have sooo many friends at Cottage White, you know—sheep, pigs, even horses! Always wanted to bring my classes here to talk to them, but Clarissa said the animals in the Blue Forest were perfectly adequate for lessons. She’s never liked field trips. Thinks the students spend all their time kissing behind trees.” Uma fluttered ahead. “A bit true, I suppose.”
As Agatha watched her go, Tedros slid next to his princess. “Just hear me out. I don’t mean to say you’re not as good friends with Sophie as I am—”
“You barely know her,” Agatha fired.
“Can you listen for two seconds without trying to eat me?” Tedros shot back.
Agatha fumed quietly.
“Look, both of us know you’re her best friend. That you’re the one who’s spent the most time with her,” said Tedros. “But you don’t understand why Sophie took his ring in the first place. Sophie just wants to be loved, okay? She’s willing to embrace the darkest Evil, all so that she doesn’t end up alone. I know how much pain is inside her, because she told me. Pain she would never confess to you, because she doesn’t want you to see it.”
“You think Sophie’s more honest with you than with me?” asked Agatha.
“It’s more complicated than that. Sophie thought I loved her once, Agatha. She thought I was her prince. You told me yourself: all Sophie ever wanted was a happy ending that looked just like ours. If you talk to her, she’ll never destroy that ring. She’ll compare herself to you and all those feelings will come up. She’ll feel like a third wheel to you and me. She’ll feel alone.”
“And let me guess: only you can make her destroy his ring,” Agatha needled.
“Yes,” Tedros said fervently. “Because I can make her see that if she comes with us, she’ll still have a chance at true love one day, even if it isn’t with him. I can make her see how beautiful and vibrant and alive she is … how soft and clever and fun and …” He smiled, lost in his memory of her. “I can make her feel loved in a way you can’t.”
Agatha took in her prince’s glazed smile as he stared off in space. He used to look at her the same way once. Now he was talking about another girl with that very same look.
Tedros blinked out of his trance and saw Agatha burning pink.
“I rescue her alone. Got it?” she said, shoving past him and trundling up the path, before she stopped and glowered back. “And if you ever dare faint anywhere near me, I’m not catching you!”
Tedros snorted. “Princes don’t faint!”
Agatha gritted her teeth and stormed ahead, until she caught up with her teacher.
Princess Uma gave her a look and glanced at Tedros, muttering to himself a ways behind. “Ever Afters always look so easy in storybooks, don’t they?”
“Sometimes I feel like he needs a real princess,” murmured Agatha.
“Have you been a ghost all this time and I haven’t known it?”
“You know what I mean. I feel like deep down, he wants someone pretty and bubbly and who treats him like a prince.” Agatha peeked up at her teacher. “Someone whose kids won’t look so interesting.”
“I had a prince with shiny hair and a small nose like me and who I always put first,” Uma replied. “Ever After wasn’t any easier.”
“You had a prince?”
“Kaveen, Prince of Shazabah. Aladdin’s great-grandson. Saved me from a hive of bloodsucking bees during the Trial by Tale my first year. The bees nearly killed him and Kaveen lost his chance to win Captain … but in the end, he’d won me. Clarissa used to catch us hiding in the library after curfew. That tortoise was always asleep and there’s this cushy little nook behind the Love Spells shelf. Our initials are still carved into the wood.” She smiled, reminiscing. “After we were married, I was kidnapped by a warlock from Netherwood, intent on ransoming me back to my prince. Part of me knew I should wait for Kaveen to come and rescue me. But I couldn’t risk my prince’s life! Suppose Kaveen got hurt? Suppose the warlock killed him?” Uma’s caramel eyes glistened. “A white stag from the Woods answered my call for help. He ripped the warlock through his heart with his horns and battled his henchmen while I escaped. By the time Kaveen arrived, I was already free.”
“I remember seeing it in a painting,” Agatha said, for Uma had presented her storybook the first day of school. “It was your happy ending.”
“Looks like it on a page, doesn’t it?” her teacher said softly. “The Storian wrote the triumph of Princess Uma for all to hear—only my prince wasn’t a part of it. I became legendary for my deep friendship with the animals, while Kaveen was endlessly taunted for arriving to save his princess too late. A princess famous for all time and her prince, a failure. No one sees that in a storybook, do they?” She paused. “He never said he blamed me, of course. But the stress slowly takes its toll, day after day, until one day you realize you’re always fighting or ignoring each other and you can’t go back to the way it was before. Your happy ending no longer feels happy at all.”
A hot rash rose on Agatha’s neck. “What happens then?”
“Then you’re both better off with someone else, aren’t you? Or even alone …” Uma’s voice cracked. “Like me.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Once happiness is gone between two people, I don’t think it ever comes back.”
“But … but it has to come back!” Agatha fought. “That’s why Tedros and I came back—to be happy together—”
Uma smiled sadly. “Then you’ll have to prove me wrong, won’t you?”
Agatha shook her head. “But you’re a real princess! If you couldn’t keep your prince, then how can—”
“Does Snow White still live in the cottage?” Tedros piped, busting in between them.
Agatha cleared her throat. Uma dabbed at her eyes with her pink sleeve. “A queen in a cottage? Don’t be silly,” she pooh-poohed, walking quicker. “Snow lives in the king’s castle, the one you saw before. She’s on her own now, since the king died of a snakebite five years back and her dwarf friends are scattered in other kingdoms, rich and well taken care of. When the School Master returned, the League offered to shelter Snow at Headquarters, but she said she was quite happy in her new life and had no intention of revisiting the old.”
