Out of the Wild Page 11

  As the dragon’s fire faded, it vanished again into shadows.

  “My master waits for you!” the dragon cried in the darkness. “She holds your Rapunzel! If you want to save your love, you must complete your quest! Come to the castle!” Julie heard the whoosh of wings, and she saw the shadow of the dragon rise out of the canyon toward the deep blue sky. Stars pierced through the blue, and the dragon was nothing more than a black shadow in the distance.

  “Dad?” Julie called. Where was he? She heard Henry and Rumpelstiltskin both shouting from far away, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  “Do not worry!” Dad called to Julie. “I will save her! I will save them all!”

  Oh, no, he couldn’t be planning to chase after them! “Dad, it’s a trap!” Julie yelled. She saw his silhouette against the blue sky as he flew upward. No, no, no, he had to rescue Julie first! “Take me with you! Dad, no!”

  She couldn’t chase him. She’d lost the bath mat. She didn’t have any tricks up her sleeve . . . Wait, yes, she did. Jack’s magic beans! She still had the bottle from Jack’s medicine cabinet. If it grew fast enough, she could climb the beanstalk and meet Dad in the sky! Julie yanked the bottle out, pulled off the cover, and shook out a single bean. The bean fell through the branches of the tree.

  For one endless second, there was silence.

  Julie heard rumbling. Looking down, she saw one of the shadows move. In seconds, it fired past her, a thickening stalk. Leaves burst from its sides. Julie took a deep breath and jumped from her nest of branches onto the beanstalk. She wrapped her arms and legs around it and held on, riding the beanstalk up as it blasted faster and faster skyward from the floor of the Grand Canyon.

  “Dad!” she called as the beanstalk cleared the rim. In the distance, she saw the small shadow that was Dad, chasing the dragon. “Dad, come back!”

  He didn’t slow, and the beanstalk kept growing. With Julie clinging to its top, the beanstalk plunged up into the dark blue night.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Closet

  Coughing and hacking, Zel woke. She lay cheek-down in a puddle of drool. She recoiled from it. What had—

  Linda. Apple. Poison.

  In her tale, Snow White had woken up after the poisoned apple was dislodged from her throat; a similar thing must have happened to Zel. Her stomach must have rejected the poison, causing her to wake.

  She took a deep, long breath and sat up. Wiping her cheek and grimacing, Zel looked around her. No dwarves this time. She was alone in what looked like a closet. Empty shelves lined the walls. On one end was a small stained glass window (odd choice for a closet window, she thought) and on the other was a door.

  Zel went to the door and laid her ear against it. She heard voices. Linda, maybe? The sounds were too muffled for her to be certain. Quietly, she tried the doorknob. Locked, of course. She’d need to find another way out—and then make her way home, find Julie, and stop the Wild.

  Zel was not, not, not going to think about Julie in the Wild. She had to be somewhere else. She had to be safe. Prince had to be looking out for her. All Zel needed to do was escape and join them.

  Prince would look after Julie, wouldn’t he? He was her father. Not that he’d had any practice being a father. He was, in fact, a stranger to Julie. As much as she hated to admit it, he was a stranger to Zel too. It had been five hundred years since she’d seen him or spoken with him. She was trusting her daughter’s safety to a man she remembered more as a dream than as a reality.

  Zel crossed to the window. The stained glass depicted a ruby red rose against a deep blue sky. Stepping on a shelf, she tried to see outside. The red glass obscured the view. Where had Linda taken her? Zel squinted and tried a different angle. Through a pane of blue glass, she thought she saw the shape of horses, frozen in mid-step. As she watched, the horses began to move . . . A carousel? Could this be some kind of amusement park?

  That meant there had to be people outside. Zel could call for help! If she could pop a pane of glass out, then maybe she could shout loud enough for someone to hear before her captors could stop her. Yes! She had a plan!

  Zel began to push at one of the panes. Why would Linda bring her to an amusement park, of all places? Why would Linda bring her anywhere? Who was Linda?

  As she worked on the window pane, Zel ran through the list of possible fairy-tale villains. Clearly, Linda couldn’t be Snow White’s evil stepmother. She had mentioned that the queen had provided her disguise; Linda wouldn’t have said that if she actually was the queen. She also couldn’t be Cinderella’s stepmother—Zel had met her, and there was no way she could have hidden her ego for so many years. Linda wasn’t likely to be any of the stepsisters either—they had both moved on and now had lives of their own. Zel would have heard if any of them had suddenly left their homes and families. Linda had to be someone that Zel had lost track of . . . like Sleeping Beauty’s evil fairy.

  The more she thought about it, the more obvious the answer became. Of course! Linda had to be the evil fairy from Sleeping Beauty’s tale. The evil fairy was the only villain with a personal connection to Rose. Plus, Zel hadn’t run into her in at least a century.

  Zel wished now that she had kept better track of all the other fairy-tale characters. She knew the ones who visited or lived in Northboro, but there were scores of characters that had drifted away. She wished she’d made the effort to keep in touch with everyone. Maybe then Linda wouldn’t have been able to surprise her.

  Zel replayed the events on top of the car. She should never have turned her back on Linda. You don’t turn your back on an enemy. But she hadn’t ever imagined that Linda could be dangerous. She’d known Linda as the children’s room librarian for years! She’d helped four-year-old Julie get her first library card. She’d come into the salon for a trim every two months. She’d always been a little excitable, a little more passionate about books than your average person, but she was supposed to be—she was a librarian, after all. Zel had long ago placed her in the “harmless” category in her mind. How could she have been so wrong? How could she not have guessed that Linda was a fairy-tale character too? Yes, Linda had disguised herself, but there must have been clues. No one could change all their mannerisms. No one could hide who they really were all the time. But Linda had faked normal well. She’d fooled everyone.

  And she was still fooling people. So far, only Zel knew that Linda was the evil fairy. I have to get out, Zel thought. I have to warn everyone!

  With one final push, a chunk of blue glass popped out of the window, tumbled down toward the moat, and splashed into the water. She heard a squawk and more splashing as ducks scattered below. Pressing her face against the hole, Zel shouted, “Help! Call 911! I’ve been kidnapped! I’m trapped in a closet! Please help!”

  She heard a soft pop behind her.

  Oh, no.

  Zel glanced around quickly for something, anything, to defend herself with but saw nothing. She turned. Glitter hung in the air around Cinderella’s fairy godmother. Bobbi’s pink poofed skirt filled half the closet. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a storybook illustration. Zel felt queasy; she hadn’t seen Bobbi look like that in centuries. Zel had a bad, bad feeling about this.

  “So sorry, Zel,” Bobbi said. “Your prince isn’t here to rescue you. Yet.” She waved a roll of duct tape in the air. “Until then, I’ve been instructed to keep you quiet.”

  Yet? What did she mean “yet”? “Where is he?” Zel demanded. “And where’s Julie? What have you done with them?”

  “Oh, we haven’t done anything.” Bobbi smirked. “Your prince has done it all of his own free will.” She giggled. “He fit a glass slipper on a Cinderella wannabe, he cut a girl out of the belly of a wolf, he fought a dragon who had kidnapped a princess . . .”

  With each word, Zel’s heart sank lower. “What are you doing?” she whispered. Those were major fairy-tale moments!

  Bobbi waved her wand, and a chair and a coil of rope appeared in front of her. �
��I’m tying you up,” she said matter-of-factly, “so that you aren’t tempted to pull the duct tape off or do something else unspeakably clever.”

  Zel felt sick. This was worse than a pumpkin spell, worse than being poisoned, worse than anything she could imagine. “You’re helping the Wild,” she said flatly. “You want the Wild to return.”

  Bobbi reached forward and tweaked Zel’s nose. “Bingo! Now sit in this chair and put your arms behind your back so I can tie you up like in the movies.” She giggled, and her wings fluttered. “Alternately, I could turn you into a pumpkin again. Or maybe you’d prefer to be a frog?” She’d do it, Zel thought. She could see it in the fairy godmother’s dancing eyes. Bobbi wanted to do it.

  Still looking for something, anything, that could be a weapon, Zel moved slowly over into the chair. “Fine. I’ll sit.” Don’t antagonize the crazy woman with the magic wand. Was she crazy? Was the answer as simple as that? But if she was crazy, how had Bobbi hidden it so well? She’d seemed so helpful after the Wild. She’d stuck around instead of returning to Florida and helped gather up the leftover fairy-tale items strewn all over town. She’d disenchanted frogs and swan-men. She’d helped to muddy the trail that led to any real fairy-tale character. It had to be because of Linda. She wants it back, the third blind mouse had said. Linda was behind this. Linda was the boss. “Why are you doing this?” Zel asked. “You can’t have forgotten what the Wild was like. Is Linda forcing you? What hold does she have over you?”

  Bobbi wrapped the rope around Zel’s wrists. “Oh, I had forgotten,” she said, “and then for the first time in five hundred years, I had a taste once more of what it means to be the fairy godmother.” She yanked the ropes, and Zel bit back a yelp. “Linda promised that I could have that again. She had a plan, you see, a beautiful plan. And it’s working perfectly, despite all of your daughter’s attempts to interfere. I told Linda that she should let me pumpkinify her. Your daughter’s a persistent little brat. A lot like you, actually. Both of you, so sure you know what’s best for everyone. News flash: we’re not all happy here.”

  Julie! What was Julie doing? Was she all right? “You’re still the fairy godmother outside of the Wild,” Zel said, trying to reason with Bobbi. She fought to keep her voice even. Maybe she could talk her way out of this. She had to focus, to think of a strategy. Her brain kept shouting: Julie, Julie, Julie!

  Bobbi laughed without a shred of humor in her voice. “Outside the Wild, I’m retired. I hide my magic. I pretend that I am no one of import.” She knotted the rope.

  “But in the Wild, you’ll forget your past,” Zel said. I’ll forget my past, Zel thought. I’ll forget Julie. I can’t, can’t, can’t. “You’ll forget everything you’ve gained in the last five hundred years!”

  Bobbi secured the final knot, and then she picked up the roll of duct tape.

  “You’ll forget you!” Zel cried.

  “Oh, no, Zel, you’re wrong,” Bobbi said with a happy smile. “I’ll finally be me.” She tore off a strip of duct tape.

  “Don’t—” Zel began.

  Bobbi placed the duct tape over Zel’s mouth firmly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll make sure your prince comes. And if your darling Julie tries to interfere again . . . Linda has plans for her too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Beanstalks

  The beanstalk pierced the clouds. Mist dampened Julie’s cheeks, and everything disappeared into foggy gray. She couldn’t hear anything but wind and . . . wait! Were those voices?

  “Dad?” she called.

  No answer. It couldn’t be Dad. She’d seen him fly away, leaving her behind again. Julie swallowed a lump in her throat. She’d thought they’d grown closer. When he saved her from the wolf, she’d thought he really cared. How could he leave her, stranded in a tree at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with night approaching? What kind of father did that? What kind of hero? Her eyes blurred, and she felt a tear slip down her cheek. Fiercely, Julie wiped it away. Crying wouldn’t make him come back. And it wouldn’t keep him from flying into a trap or prevent the Wild from growing one leaf larger.

  She heard more voices. They sounded as if they were coming from above her. How was that possible? She was at least a mile, maybe two, above the Grand Canyon. How did they get up here?

  “Hello? Help!” she called. Gripping the leaves, she climbed higher until she poked through the clouds at the very top of the beanstalk. The tip curled into an S, crowned with a leaf. She clung to the tip and looked around her.

  Low, across a field of soft clouds, Julie saw the moon, a crescent that bathed the sky and clouds in a blue-ivory glow. The sky was a rich dark blue speckled with stars. Behind her was a castle.

  “Whoa,” Julie breathed. A castle. Here. In the clouds.

  She told herself that she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, if Grandma’s broomstick could fly in the real world, if Bobbi’s wand could change people into pumpkins, and if the wishing well could grant wishes, then why shouldn’t magic beans work too? And no matter where they were, magic beans always grew into beanstalks that reached the giant’s castle in the clouds. But still, a castle over Arizona . . . wow.

  The castle loomed over the skyscape like the shadow of a monster. Dark stone, it blotted out the stars. Blue-gray mist swirled around the base. Coming in and out of the castle, Julie saw the silhouettes of creatures from fairy tales: bears, lions, unicorns, fairies, elves, a girl with a goat’s head, a woman with a snake’s tail.

  Maybe they could help Julie find her parents! Maybe they’d have another enchanted bath mat. Or even just an enchanted towel . . .

  “Hello!” Julie called. “Over here! Help!”

  Wind whisked her words away. She was too far away for them to hear. Julie reached out a foot, expecting to feel something solid that she could stand on, but she felt nothing except slightly damp air. She wiggled her foot in the cloud. Still nothing. But . . . but . . . there was a castle! An enormous, very heavy stone castle! If the clouds could hold a castle, they had to be able to support her. Leaning away from the beanstalk, she reached her foot out as far as she could . . .

  ... and her toes touched softness. Yes! It felt like the soft wet ooze at the bottom of a pond. Gripping a leaf with one hand, she leaned. The cloud held. Taking a deep breath, she released the beanstalk and walked onto the clouds.

  Julie grinned. Oh, wow, she was walking on clouds. Wait until she told Gillian. This was exactly the kind of thing that Gillian would love—the kind of thing that made her wear fairy-tale T-shirts and write stories about a nice, even fun version of the Wild. Julie’s smile faded. After Dad fought the dragon, the Wild had to have grown even more. If Gillian hadn’t fled far enough away . . . Or worse, if she hadn’t fled at all . . .

  By now, Gillian was probably experiencing how very not nice the Wild was. Which tale had she been trapped in? Had she already forgotten who she was? Did she think she was a stepsister or a neglected orphan or a young girl lost in the woods?

  The moon lit Julie’s way across the clouds as she walked toward the castle. She hoped some of the creatures were friendly. So far, she hadn’t seen any that she knew, though it was hard to tell at this distance. She did recognize some (the half-dragon woman, the hedgehog boy, the trolls) from their stories, but she’d never met them—which was strange, she thought, since as Gillian’s T-shirt said, her hometown was the fairy-tale capital of the world, whether people knew it or not. Who were they and why hadn’t they ever come to Northboro? Had they ever left these clouds? Why were they here? She imagined finding another prince, one who could catch Dad, rescue Mom and the others, and defeat the kidnappers. And, of course, stop the Wild and free Gillian, Boots, Grandma, and the rest of Massachusetts. On the other hand, judging from Dad, the only thing princes knew how to do was chase after princesses. Maybe she’d find a different kind of hero.

  As Julie got closer, the castle filled the sky. It was a mountain of stone turrets and parapets. Arrow slits scarred the towers, and the gargo
yles guarded the battlements. She halted. It looked exactly like an evil castle from a storybook illustration.

  Of course it did, she told herself. It was the evil castle from storybook illustrations. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find help here.

  A shadow crossed over her, and Julie looked up to see an emerald green dragon disappear into one of the castle turrets. A few seconds later, the giant door creaked open, and she saw a half-dozen figures pour onto the drawbridge.

  Julie’s first impulse was to run back to the beanstalk, but she forced herself to stand still. She wanted to meet these people, she reminded herself. “Hello!” she called, and waved. “Help! I need help!”

  As they ran across the drawbridge and onto the clouds, Julie saw that they weren’t people. Not exactly. She counted three goblins, two trolls, and one woman with a sheep’s head. Each of the goblins had an ax strapped to his back, and the trolls and the woman each held a coil of rope. Without pausing, without even glancing at Julie, they barreled past her. “Hey, come back!” she called.

  Reaching Julie’s beanstalk, the goblins tied the ropes to their waists and then scurried down the stalk. The trolls and the woman encircled the beanstalk and uncoiled the ropes with practiced ease. From below the clouds, Julie heard smack-thunk-smack. The beanstalk tip trembled, and then it swayed.

  “My beanstalk!” she shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Pull!” a goblin shouted from below.

  The ropes went taut, and the trolls and the woman braced themselves and pulled back on the ropes. As the beanstalk tipped and fell through the clouds, the three goblins with their axes were lifted back up to safety.

  A deep voice said behind her, “You do not look like Jack.”