فصل 6

6

A Forest No Longer Blue

Rafal never slept in his chamber, so when the pen finally began to write, in the first hours of dawn, it was Sophie who was there to see it.

She’d been ill for six nights, ever since she took his ring—so ill, with a scorching fever and bone-numbing chills that she’d yet to leave her bed. Curled up in blankets, she imagined Tedros and Agatha gallivanting about town, snacking on Battersby’s cupcakes (maybe he’ll get fat, she hoped) and watching the sunset by the lake (maybe he’ll drown), while here she was cooped in a sooty tower, sniffling and shivering like a snotty Rapunzel, and no one liked Rapunzel because she was boring.

“You said—I could—see the—school,” she’d babbled to Rafal in a sweaty fit this morning. “I want to see—Hester—Anadil—” “And infect them with whatever plague you’re carrying?” he teased, wrapping her in a fresh blanket.

She’d have pressed her case, if only he hadn’t been taking such good care of her. He barely left her side during the day: sponging her forehead, feeding her bone-marrow soup, bringing her baggy, black nightdresses that she could hibernate inside, and enduring her inane blathering about Tedros and Agatha and how little or much fun they must be having, depending on whether her jealousy was at a peak or a valley in any given moment. Soon Sophie began to dread the nights, when Rafal would go away, just as she once dreaded those first mornings when she was afraid he’d come. In her delirious haze, she began to crave the marble cradle of his arms . . . his fresh, teenage scent . . . his cold touch on her burning skin . . . his silvery voice pulling her out of nightmares . . .

“I bet you . . . made me sick . . . so I’d need you . . . ,” Sophie slurred as he’d left.

The young School Master looked back and smiled.

As her fever deepened, Sophie’s nightmares grew clearer. Tonight she’d been dreaming of a pitch-black tunnel with a halo of light at its end. Floating in the dark tunnel was a giant gold ring, lined with razor-sharp teeth, spinning in midair and blocking her path. As she moved towards it, the ring spun faster, until she could see her reflection in the mirrored blur of teeth. Only, as she drew towards the ring, Sophie realized the reflection wasn’t hers at all. It was a face she’d never seen before—a strange man’s, with wild brown hair, dark, leathery skin, and a fat, hooked nose. Confused, Sophie leaned in to see him . . . closer . . . closer . . . until the man lifted black, bloodshot eyes, with a dangerous grin— Then he stabbed out his hands and slammed Sophie into the guillotine of teeth.

Sophie gasped awake, scared out of her wits—

She froze dead still. Someone was in the chamber. Scratching and rustling, like a black cat sharpening its nails.

Chest hammering, she squinted into the early morning. No one there. Slowly she turned her head and to her relief, saw it wasn’t a person making the sounds, but a whirring gleam of steel. Still half-asleep, she first thought it a spindle, before she remembered spindles were for Sleeping Beauty, the lamest princess of all time and surely dead by now since she was old and old people die and Sophie wasn’t old or dead . . . and well, that finally got her out of bed.

She had to blink a few times to make sure what she was seeing was indeed there: the Storian itself doing all that scratching and rustling—the pen that had dimmed the Endless Woods by refusing to write, now . . . writing.

But how? she thought. The Storian had been stalled over the last page of her and Agatha’s storybook for weeks. It hadn’t moved an inch when she took the School Master’s ring. Which meant it wasn’t her ending the pen had been doubting, but rather— Sophie’s heart skittered. Impossible . . .

Pulling her blankets around her, she tiptoed forward in her saggy black nightdress, afraid the slightest sound might disrupt it. But as Sophie grew closer, she saw the pen wasn’t writing at all, but chipping at her storybook like a bricklayer removing bricks, scraping off the last line, letter by letter, until “THE END” was fully gone. With a red-hot glow, the Storian twirled into the air, like a butterfly freed from its cocoon, and dove back down to the book, continuing the story right where it left off. The steel nib spilled ink onto brand-new pages, filled by dozens of flurried paintings Sophie could hardly follow: walls of emerald flames . . . guards in black masks . . . swan-marked tombs . . . a cadaverous wolf and giant . . . until swirls of forest green streaked across a blank sheet.

Two lean bodies came into view, framed by the high, twisting trees of the Woods. Sophie watched the pen fill in the blankness of their faces . . . a boy’s slate-blue eyes and juicy lips . . . a girl’s flat brows and sunken cheeks. . . . It can’t be, she thought, waiting for the Storian to slash an errant line. But every stroke made the scene more and more real, as if birthed from her own memory, until Sophie was sure this was all still a dream, for the pen was drawing two people in the Woods—two people who couldn’t be in the Woods, because they’d found a happy ending somewhere else. She pinched her arm hard, expecting to wake up in bed, but they only grew clearer: Agatha and Tedros, alive on the page, gazing at her with wide eyes, inviting her in.

They’re . . . back? Sophie gasped, heart swelling. Jealousy and betrayal and pain broke away like a soft eggshell and a warm wave of hope flooded through her before she could keep it down. She caressed her two best friends, looking out of her storybook, and let herself feel what she’d been ashamed of all this time.

I miss you, Aggie.

I miss you, Teddy.

Tears rising, she imagined herself in the empty space on the page between them— Until the Storian drew Agatha and Tedros’ hands intertwined across the gap, the two Evers following a shadow into the darkness of the Woods.

Sophie studied their clasped fingers, no longer any room for her.

“They’re coming for you,” said a voice behind her.

Sophie turned to Rafal, gorgeously posed against the window like a teen rebel, clad in a lace-up black shirt and black leather pants. His ice-blue stare lingered on the storybook, but carried no surprise, as if he’d been waiting for the prince and princess to return.

“I told you it wasn’t our ending the Storian questioned,” he said. “Turns out your friends aren’t happy without you. They think you need to be rescued from me. That your ending is with them.” Sophie looked back at the Storian, writing beneath the painting of Agatha and Tedros in fresh ink: “Love wasn’t enough for them anymore. They needed their best friend.”

Sophie gaped at the storybook. Here she’d been, berating herself for thinking of Aggie and Tedros every spare second . . . when they’d been thinking of her too? She smiled at the thought, touched. Then her smile evaporated.

“How can three people have a happy ending?” Sophie asked.

Rafal watched her carefully. “If one person is happy alone, of course.”

“While two get each other?” Sophie asked, frowning.

“Oh you’d get used to it. Watching them kiss by the fireplace . . . sitting alone during supper while they nuzzle each other . . . trailing behind them on garden strolls like a puppy on a leash . . . settling year by year into your role as the third wheel . . .” Rafal glided towards her, half of his face still in shadow. “Then again, you could always meet a boy in Camelot. Not much of a kingdom anymore, but plenty of peasant boys to choose from. Sunburnt cheeks, yellow teeth, chubby backsides, not a coin in their pockets. But a nice, normal boy and isn’t that what matters?” He drew her into his arms. “A boy who lives with his old, wrinkled mother in her ramshackle house, raising goats and pigs. A boy who will give you an ordinary life, where you fry his meat and bathe old Mummy and raise sunburnt, chubby little sons . . .” Sophie was tensing so much she couldn’t breathe. “That will never happen,” she whispered and her muscles relaxed in his grip.

“Didn’t think so,” Rafal whispered back. He touched her shoulder, his long, milky fingers tracing up her neck. Sophie’s skin quivered. She’d never had a boy hold her that she hadn’t manipulated. She’d never had a boy touch her that didn’t mind the storms and rages of her heart. She’d never had a boy love her for everything she was, warts and all.

Sophie looked up and saw him in the light—pearly, angelic skin, powder-blue eyes, luscious pink mouth, like a young Jack Frost—so white-hot and handsome that she suddenly felt the uglier of the two. “You might like me now, but what happens when I get old?” she asked. “Will you still want me then?” Rafal smiled. “My brother and I stayed young as long as we loved each other. When I broke our bond, I was destined to age and die like every other villain who proved they couldn’t love. But your kiss restored my youth, Sophie. Your love will let me live forever, just like my brother’s love once did. Just like my love once kept him alive too. Which means as long as you wear my ring, neither you nor I will ever grow old.” Sophie turned to him. “I’ll live forever?”

Rafal pulled her in once more. “We will. Together.”

Live forever? Sophie thought in a fog. Old but young . . . young but old . . . just like the beautiful boy holding her. What would it be like to love someone forever? Could love even last that long? She thought of Agatha on the lakeshore, vowing to be her friend forever . . . Tedros on a moonlit bridge, promising to be her prince forever . . . Agatha and Tedros kissing, swearing to each other . . . “Forever . . .” Only Forever never seemed to last.

Sophie lay against Rafal’s firm chest, studying the gold ring on his finger, matching the one on hers. All this time she’d been so hurt by her two best friends who deserted her, so sure they’d forgotten her and gone on to perfect happiness. Instead they’d come back to redo their Ever After, wanting her, needing her to be happy. Sophie waited to feel the same feeling, to choose her best friends even it meant she ended up alone . . .

But all Sophie could feel were the arms of a boy who’d stayed loyal to her from the beginning, a Forever that finally sounded like the truth.

She spun and kissed Rafal, his mouth cold against hers, holding it long and slow, waiting for something in her heart to stop her. Nothing did. As their lips parted, she saw the Storian conjure a new page, capturing their kiss in brilliant colors, before adding a closing line: “But friendship wasn’t enough for Sophie anymore. She needed love.”

Sophie looked up at Rafal, her forehead beaded with sweat. He put his hand to it.

“Look at that. Fever’s broken.”

Together, they watched the sun slide out from behind a cloud, Sophie expecting its return to brilliant life . . . only to see the sun still yolky and anemic against a cold blue morning, even weaker than before. Only it wasn’t just weaker, it was leaking small gobs of yellow light into the sky, drip, drip, drip, like an icicle in summer. Sophie stepped closer to the window ledge, eyes wide. There was no question about it.

The sun was melting.

She whirled to the School Master. “But you said if the Storian wrote—”

“A new story. And ours still needs an end,” said Rafal soberly. “Our storybook can’t close now that your friends have come back. Not as long as they have a new ending in mind. An ending where Good wins and Evil dies . . .” He paused, locking into her emerald eyes.

“They’re coming to kill me, Sophie.”

Sophie held his stare, stunned, and looked down at Agatha and Tedros, on their way through the Woods to rescue her. In their version of the story, they would save her from an Evil School Master. But to Sophie, her Good friends were about to slay the only boy who’d ever loved her, so she could be a sidekick to someone else’s Ever After.

Sidekick. That’s the ending they thought she deserved.

Sophie burned, glaring at her gold ring. She was a queen.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” she seethed.

“You’d do that for me?” The School Master’s boyish face contorted with emotion. “You’d fight your own friends?” Sophie tensed. “F-f-fight Agatha and Ted—? But I thought—”

“That they’ll leave us in peace and go on their way if you tell them to?” Rafal asked sweetly.

“But I can’t fight her. Surely there’s another way—” Sophie pressed.

His eyes hardened. “War is the only way.”

Sophie bristled at the change in his tone. But she knew he was right. After the young School Master nearly killed Tedros with Tedros’ own sword, the prince was coming for his blood, and Agatha would be behind him. War was on the horizon and Sophie had to take a side.

Sophie thought of all the times Agatha had allied with Tedros against her: during the Circus of Talents and Evil Ball, then in her secret plan to kiss Tedros and banish her home during the Boy-Girl War. Sophie’s blood simmered to a boil. Agatha had even believed she was turning into a witch in the Blue Forest, believing Tedros over her, when it was Dean Sader’s magic all along. “I’m not this!” she’d cried, begging her friend to see the truth. But Agatha had stayed firmly by her prince’s side.

Sophie too had a side to take—even if it meant fighting her best friend. Just like Agatha would protect her prince, she would protect her one true love.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she whispered, watching the melting sun. “Either they die . . . or we do. Good versus Evil. That’s the way all fairy tales end.” She saw Rafal’s chest rise on a breath, as if at last they were on the same page. “Your friends think they can stop our book from closing, my love,” he said, sweet once again. “They think they can stop the future. But they’re too late.” He watched the fading sun, as if studying an hourglass. “The war against Good has already begun.” Sophie saw him look back at her with a snakelike grin and she began to sense there was more to his return than kisses and rings. “But Good always wins in the end—” she started, only to see the School Master grinning wider.

“You’ve forgotten the one thing I have on my side that they no longer do.” Rafal moved towards her, slowly, smoothly . . .

“You.”

Sophie met his gaze, breathless.

“Come my queen,” he said, fingers slipping into hers. “Your kingdom awaits.”

Sophie’s heart pumped faster. Kingdom. . . . Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl in a pink princess dress, waiting by her window to be kidnapped, convinced that one day she’d be the ruler of a faraway land . . .

She looked up at Rafal, the old glint back in her eye. “So much for Camelot.”

Sophie smiled, her ring brushing his, and she followed her love hand in hand to fight for their happy ending—just like a prince and princess on the page she’d left behind.

“Shouldn’t I change first? I can’t go gadding about in this,” Sophie huffed, trying to pin down her nightdress, battered by the wind.

Her glass slippers wobbled on the window ledge, sending silver pebbles cascading into the abyss of green fog. She wrenched back against the tower wall, clutching Rafal’s bicep. They were so high in the sky she couldn’t see the ground. “Surely there are stairs we can take. Only a half-wit would build a tower without stairs or a rope or a suitable fire escape—” “Do you trust me?”

Sophie looked into Rafal’s eyes, hot with adrenaline, not a trace of fear in them.

“Yes,” Sophie whispered.

“Then don’t let go.” He seized her by the waist and dove off the tower.

Green mist gobbled them as they plunged at bullet speed into arctic cold. Any instinct for Sophie to scream vanished because of how tightly Rafal held her, muscles sealing her to his chest. Safe in his arms, she let herself go, gasping as Rafal slip-turned like a hawk with dangerous speed, their entwined limbs spinning towards earth. With a full somersault, he rocketed back up and Sophie howled with abandon, closing her eyes and holding out her arms against him like wings. They soared in and out of shadows, amber sunrays flickering on her eyelids, the taste of clouds in her mouth. If only Agatha could see her now, she thought—happy, in love, and recklessly alive, like a princess riding a dragon instead of fighting it. Rafal shot across the bay like a fireball and she pressed her cheek into his neck, electrified by his skin on hers, his steaming breaths faster and faster, his hands tighter and tighter . . . until his feet gently touched down without a sound and Sophie felt herself suspended in space like the Storian over her book.

She nestled into him, scarlet and hot.

“Do it again,” she whispered.

Rafal chuckled, touching her face, and slowly Sophie opened her eyes to the world.

The first thing she noticed is that the Blue Forest was no longer blue.

She pulled away from Rafal, windswept and dizzy, and staggered forward from the tower, anchored in the middle of the forest.

The Blue Willows had rotted to black husks. The once-weatherproof blue grass was now urine yellow, cracking and breaking under her feet. Bracing from the wintry breeze, Sophie crawled through diseased, fallen trunks in the Turquoise Thicket, her nightgown catching on cancerous fungus and mold. Worst of all was the stench: an acrid, acid reek that made her eyes water and grew stronger the deeper she went into the Forest. By the time she reached the Tulip Garden, a stinking ashpit of amber and brown, she’d covered her face with both hands, barely able to stand straight. She looked back for Rafal, but couldn’t see him.

Sophie gasped a shallow breath and plowed forward. She had to get out of here.

She shambled into the Fernfield, desperate to find the North Gates and stopped short. The ferns, once thigh-high with lush, cobalt fronds, was a wasteland of dead animals, swarming with roaches and flies. Under the jaundiced sun, carcasses of emaciated rabbits, storks, squirrels, and deer littered the dirt in front of the sealed gates, as if they’d all tried to flee and failed.

Then she heard a familiar hissing.

She raised her eyes to dozens of black spiricks, coiled around the gates, flicking red tongues. Sophie shrank from the flat-headed snakes with deadly barbs through every scale, that once prevented anything from getting into the School for Boys, and now prevented all the animals from getting out. Sophie slowly looked up at the School Master’s tower in the distance, looming over the Blue Forest like a landmark in a demented park.

Sophie’s heart sagged. The Blue Forest had once been the school’s kitschy backyard, a safeguarded replica of the deadly Woods. She smiled, reliving her liveliest moments here: running circles around a rabid stymph in the Blueberry Fields while Agatha berated her; seducing Tedros in the Thicket with couture Evil uniforms; her heart pattering as the prince leaned in to kiss her over the Blue Brook. . . . Then her smile slowly dissipated as other moments from the Forest came back too. Tedros rejecting her in the Shrubs when she didn’t save him in a Trial; Tedros in the Blue Willows, looking so betrayed as she reverted from Filip’s body; Agatha and Tedros recoiling from her in the Pine Glen, before they’d tried to send her home. . . . Soon the bad memories overwhelmed the good and as Sophie looked up at the Forest, it turned a shade blacker and bleaker before her eyes.

“It likes you,” Rafal drolled, coming up behind her.

Sophie spun. “What? I did that?”

“You did all of this,” he said, scanning the whole dead Forest. “You and me together.” “I-I-I don’t understand,” Sophie stammered. “I don’t want the Forest like this—” “It doesn’t matter what you think you want. It only matters what’s truly inside you,” said Rafal. “The Schools mirror back their Masters’ souls, as does the Storian they both protect. When my brother ruled with me, the castles reflected the balance between us: one light for Good, one dark for Evil. Last year, with Evelyn Sader and Tedros at war, the castles reflected the balance between Boys and Girls.” He caressed Sophie’s ring. “But now with you by my side, there’s a new balance . . . beyond Good and Evil . . . beyond Boys and Girls . . .” Sophie tracked his gaze up to the two black castles lording over the Forest, tipped with alien-green fog. At first glance, both castles appeared indistinguishable . . . but then Sophie peered closer. The old Evil castle had turned to jagged stone, resembling the jaws of a monster, while the once bloodred creepers coiling its three towers were the same eerie green as the fog. The old Good castle was black too, circled with the same green mist, but its four towers had sharpened turrets and smooth, shiny walls that looked wet, as if the entire school was made out of polished obsidian. Linked by the foggy bridge in the distance, the two schools seemed like a Before and After: one castle a fiendish, saw-toothed crumble; one castle a cold, sleek fortress.

Confused, Sophie inched closer towards the Forest gates, trying to get a better view of the schools . . . when the spiricks’ eyes all darted to her. Sophie stumbled back, expecting them to spit their noxious poison—instead, they all bowed their heads like slaves and the golden gates parted, offering a clear path into the Clearing.

Spooked, Sophie scampered out of the Forest. Thankfully there were no surprises in the Clearing. Just as before, there were two Tunnels of Trees diverging out of the field, one into each castle. During the war between Boys and Girls, the tunnels had been sealed with giant rocks, but now they were wide open like they were first year. Only as Sophie drew closer, she saw that both tunnels were labeled with wooden boards, nailed over the entrances. Crooked black letters slashed across each one.

The tunnel leading into the jagged, pockmarked castle said:

OLD

The tunnel leading into the smooth, shiny castle said:

NEW

A hand took hers and Sophie jumped. She looked up at Rafal, grinning sharp teeth.

“A time-tested Master. A fresh, young queen,” he said. “And a School for Evil reborn.” Sophie smiled weakly, shoving down the sinking feeling in her stomach.

He led her into the tunnel marked NEW and Sophie hurried to catch up, reminding herself that she’d finally found love, real love, and it was worth anything she had to do to keep it.