فصل 3

3

The Great Mistake

Sophie opened her eyes to find herself floating in a foul-smelling moat, filled to the brim with thick black sludge. A gloomy wall of fog flanked her on all sides. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t find bottom and she sank; sludge flooded her nose and burnt her throat. Choking for breath, she found something to grasp, and saw it was the carcass of a half-eaten goat. She gasped and tried to swim away but couldn’t see an inch in front of her face. Screams echoed above and Sophie looked up.

Streaks of motion—then a dozen bony birds crashed through the fog and dropped shrieking children into the moat. When their screams turned to splashes, another wave of birds came, then another, until every inch of sky was filled with falling children. Sophie glimpsed a bird dive straight for her and she swerved, just in time to get a cannonball splash of slime in her face.

She wiped the glop out of her eye and came face-to-face with a boy. The first thing she noticed was he had no shirt. His chest was puny and pale, without the hope of muscle. From his small head jutted a long nose, spiky teeth, and black hair that drooped over beady eyes. He looked like a sinister little weasel.

“The bird ate my shirt,” he said. “Can I touch your hair?”

Sophie backed up.

“They don’t usually make villains with princess hair,” he said, dog-paddling towards her.

Sophie searched desperately for a weapon—a stick, a stone, a dead goat— “Maybe we could be bunk mates or best mates or some kind of mates,” he said, inches from her now. It was like Radley had turned into a rodent and developed courage. He reached out his scrawny hand to touch her and Sophie readied a punch to the eye, when a screaming child dropped between them. Sophie took off in the opposite direction and by the time she glanced back, Weasel Boy was gone.

Through the fog, Sophie could see shadows of children treading through floating bags and trunks, hunting for their luggage. Those that managed to find them continued downstream, towards ominous howls in the distance. Sophie followed these floating silhouettes until the fog cleared to reveal the shore, where a pack of wolves, standing on two feet in bloodred soldier jackets and black leather breeches, snapped riding whips to herd students into line.

Sophie grasped the bank to pull herself out but froze when she caught her reflection in the moat. Her dress was buried beneath sludge and yolk, her face shined with stinky black grime, and her hair was home to a family of earthworms. She choked for breath— “Help! I’m in the wrong sch—”

A wolf yanked her out and kicked her into line. She opened her mouth to protest, but saw Weasel Boy swimming towards her, yelping, “Wait for me!” Quickly, Sophie joined the line of shadowed children, dragging their trunks through the fog. If any dawdled, a wolf delivered a swift crack, so she kept anxious pace, all the while wiping her dress, picking out worms, and mourning her perfectly packed bags far, far away.

The tower gates were made of iron spikes, crisscrossed with barbed wire. Nearing them, she saw it wasn’t wire at all but a sea of black vipers that darted and hissed in her direction. With a squeak, Sophie scampered through and looked back at rusted words over the gates, held between two carved black swans: THE SCHOOL FOR EVIL EDIFICATION AND PROPAGATION OF SIN

Ahead the school tower rose like a winged demon. The main tower, built of pockmarked black stone, unfurled through smoky clouds like a hulking torso. From the sides of the main tower jutted two thick, crooked spires, dripping with veiny red creepers like bleeding wings.

The wolves drove the children towards the mouth of the main tower, a long serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. Sophie felt chills as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower until she could barely see the child in front of her. She squeezed between two jagged stones and found herself in a leaky foyer that smelled of rotten fish. Demonic gargoyles pitched down from stone rafters, lit torches in their jaws. An iron statue of a bald, toothless hag brandishing an apple smoldered in the menacing firelight. Along the wall, a crumbly column had an enormous black letter N painted on it, decorated with wicked-faced imps, trolls, and Harpies climbing up and down it like a tree. There was a bloodred E on the next column, embellished with swinging giants and goblins. Creeping along in the interminable line, Sophie worked out what the columns spelled out—N-E-V-E-R—then suddenly found herself far enough into the room to see the line snake in front of her. For the first time, she had a clear view of the other students and almost fainted.

One girl had a hideous overbite, wispy patches of hair, and one eye instead of two, right in the middle of her forehead. Another boy was like a mound of dough, with his bulging belly, bald head, and swollen limbs. A tall, sneering girl trudged ahead with sickly green skin. The boy in front of her had so much hair all over him he could have been an ape. They all looked about her age, but the similarities ended there. Here was a mass of the miserable, with misshapen bodies, repulsive faces, and the cruelest expressions she’d ever seen, as if looking for something to hate. One by one their eyes fell on Sophie and they found what they were looking for. The petrified princess in glass slippers and golden curls.

The red rose among thorns.

On the other side of the moat, Agatha had nearly killed a fairy.

She had woken under red and yellow lilies that appeared to be having an animated conversation. Agatha was sure she was the subject, for the lilies gestured brusquely at her with their leaves and buds. But then the matter seemed settled and the flowers hunched like fussing grandmothers and wrapped their stems around her wrists. With a tug, they yanked her to her feet and Agatha gazed out at a field of girls, blooming gloriously around a shimmering lake.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The girls grew right from the earth. First heads poked through soft dirt, then necks, then chests, then up and up until they stretched their arms into fluffy blue sky and planted delicate slippers upon the ground. But it wasn’t the sight of sprouting girls that unnerved Agatha most. It was that these girls looked nothing like her.

Their faces, some fair, some dark, were flawless and glowed with health. They had shiny waterfalls of hair, ironed and curled like dolls’, and they wore downy dresses of peach, yellow, and white, like a fresh batch of Easter eggs. Some fell on the shorter side, others were willowy and tall, but all flaunted tiny waists, slim legs, and slight shoulders. As the field flourished with new students, a team of three glitter-winged fairies awaited each one. Chiming and chinkling, they dusted the girls of dirt, poured them cups of honeybush tea, and tended to their trunks, which had sprung from the ground with their owners.

Where exactly these beauties were coming from, Agatha hadn’t the faintest idea. All she wanted was a dour or disheveled one to poke through so she wouldn’t feel so out of place. But it was an endless bloom of Sophies who had everything she didn’t. A familiar shame clawed at her stomach. She needed a hole to climb down, a graveyard to hide in, something to make them all go away— That’s when the fairy bit her.

“What the—”

Agatha tried to shake the jingling thing off her hand, but it flew and bit her neck, then her bottom. Other fairies tried to subdue the rogue as she yowled, but it bit them too and attacked Agatha again. Incensed, she tried to catch the fairy, but it moved lightning quick, so she hopped around uselessly while it bit her over and over until the fairy mistakenly flew into her mouth and she swallowed it. Agatha sighed in relief and looked up.

Sixty beautiful girls gaped at her. The cat in a nightingale’s nest.

Agatha felt a pinch in her throat and coughed out the fairy. To her surprise, it was a boy.

In the distance, sweet bells rang out from the spectacular pink and blue glass castle across the lake. The teams of fairies all grabbed their girls by the shoulders, hoisted them into the air, and flew them across the lake towards the towers. Agatha saw her chance to escape, but before she could make a run for it, she felt herself lifted into the air by two girl fairies. As she flew away, she glanced back at the third, the fairy boy that had bitten her, who stayed firmly on the ground. He crossed his arms and shook his head, as if to say in no uncertain terms there’d been a terrible mistake.

When the fairies brought the girls down in front of the glass castle, they let go of their shoulders and let them proceed freely. But Agatha’s two fairies held on and dragged her forward like a prisoner. Agatha looked back across the lake. Where’s Sophie?

The crystal water turned to slimy moat halfway across the lake; gray fog obscured whatever lay on the opposite banks. If Agatha was to rescue her friend, she had to find a way to cross that moat. But first she needed to get away from these winged pests. She needed a diversion.

Mirrored words arched over golden gates ahead:

THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD ENLIGHTENMENT AND ENCHANTMENT

Agatha caught her reflection in the letters and turned away. She hated mirrors and avoided them at all costs. (Pigs and dogs don’t sit around looking at themselves, she thought.) Moving forward, Agatha glanced up at the frosted castle doors, emblazoned with two white swans. But as the doors opened and fairies herded the girls into a tight, mirrored corridor, the line came to a halt and a group of girls circled her like sharks.

They stared at her for a moment, as if expecting her to whip off her mask and reveal a princess underneath. Agatha tried to meet their stares, but instead met her own face reflected in the mirrors a thousand times and instantly glued her eyes to the marble floor. A few fairies buzzed to get the mass moving, but most just perched on the girls’ shoulders and watched. Finally, one of the girls stepped forward, with waist-length gold hair, succulent lips, and topaz eyes. She was so beautiful she didn’t look real.

“Hello, I’m Beatrix,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t catch your name.” “That’s because I never said it,” said Agatha, eyes pinned to the ground.

“Are you sure you’re in the right place?” Beatrix said, even sweeter now.

Agatha felt a word swim into her mind—a word she needed, but was still too foggy to see.

“Um, I uh—”

“Perhaps you just swam to the wrong school,” smiled Beatrix.

The word lit up in Agatha’s head. Diversion.

Agatha looked up into Beatrix’s dazzling eyes. “This is the School for Good, isn’t it? The legendary school for beautiful and worthy girls destined to be princesses?” “Oh,” said Beatrix, lips pursed. “So you’re not lost?”

“Or confused?” said another with Arabian skin and jet-black hair.

“Or blind?” said a third with deep ruby curls.

“In that case, I’m sure you have your Flowerground Pass,” Beatrix said.

Agatha blinked. “My what?”

“Your ticket into the Flowerground,” said Beatrix. “You know, the way we all got here. Only officially accepted students have tickets into the Flowerground.” All the girls held up large golden tickets, flaunting their names in regal calligraphy, stamped with the School Master’s black-and-white swan seal.

“Ohhh, that Flowerground Pass,” Agatha scoffed. She dug her hands in her pockets. “Come close and I’ll show you.” The girls gathered suspiciously. Meanwhile Agatha’s hands fumbled for a diversion—matches . . . coins . . . dried leaves . . .

“Um, closer.”

Murmuring girls huddled in. “It shouldn’t be this small,” Beatrix huffed.

“Shrunk in the wash,” said Agatha, scraping through more matches, melted chocolate, a headless bird (Reaper hid them in her clothes). “It’s in here somewhere—” “Perhaps you lost it,” said Beatrix.

Mothballs . . . peanut shells . . . another dead bird . . .

“Or misplaced it,” said Beatrix.

The bird? The match? Light the bird with the match?

“Or lied about having one at all.”

“Oh, I feel it now—”

But all Agatha felt was a nervous rash across her neck—

“You know what happens to intruders, don’t you,” Beatrix said.

“Here it is—” Do something!

Girls crowded her ominously.

Do something now!

She did the first thing she thought of and delivered a swift, loud fart.

An effective diversion creates both chaos and panic. Agatha delivered on both counts. Vile fumes ripped through the tight corridor as squealing girls stampeded for cover and fairies swooned at first smell, leaving her a clear path to the door. Only Beatrix stood in her way, too shocked to move. Agatha took a step towards her and leaned in like a wolf.

“Boo.”

Beatrix fled for her life.

As Agatha sprinted for the door, she looked back with pride as girls collided into walls and trampled each other to escape. Fixed on rescuing Sophie, she lunged through the frosted doors, ran for the lake, but just as she got to it, the waters rose up in a giant wave and with a tidal crash, slammed her back through the doors, through screeching girls, until she landed on her stomach in a puddle.

She staggered to her feet and froze.

“Welcome, New Princess,” said a floating, seven-foot nymph. It moved aside to reveal a foyer so magnificent Agatha lost her breath. “Welcome to the School for Good.” Sophie couldn’t get over the smell of the place. As she lurched along with the line, she gagged on the mix of unwashed bodies, mildewed stone, and stinking wolf. Sophie stood on her tiptoes to see where the line was headed, but all she could see was an endless parade of freaks. The other students threw her dirty looks but she responded with her kindest smile, in case this was all a test. It had to be a test or glitch or joke or something.

She turned to a gray wolf. “Not that I question your authority, but might I see the School Master? I think he—” The wolf roared, soaking her with spit. Sophie didn’t press the point.

She slumped with the line into a sunken anteroom, where three black crooked staircases twisted up in a perfect row. One carved with monsters said MALICE along the banister, the second, etched with spiders, said MISCHIEF, and the third with snakes read VICE. Around the three staircases, Sophie noticed the walls covered with different-colored frames. In each frame there was a portrait of a child, next to a storybook painting of what the student became upon graduation. A gold frame had a portrait of an elfish little girl, and beside it, a magnificent drawing of her as a revolting witch, standing over a comatose maiden. A gold plaque stretched under the two illustrations: CATHERINE OF FOXWOOD

Little Snow White (Villain)

In the next gold frame there was a portrait of a smirking boy with a thick unibrow, alongside a painting of him all grown up, brandishing a knife to a woman’s throat: DROGAN OF MURMURING MOUNTAINS

Bluebeard (Villain)

Beneath Drogan there was a silver frame of a skinny boy with shock blond hair, turned into one of a dozen ogres savaging a village: KEIR OF NETHERWOOD

Tom Thumb (Henchman)

Then Sophie noticed a decayed bronze frame near the bottom with a tiny, bald boy, eyes scared wide. A boy she knew. Bane was his name. He used to bite all the pretty girls in Gavaldon until he was kidnapped four years before. But there was no drawing next to Bane. Just a rusted plaque that read: FAILED

Sophie looked at Bane’s terrified face and felt her stomach churn. What happened to him? She gazed up at thousands of gold, silver, and bronze frames cramming every inch of the hall: witches slaying princes, giants devouring men, demons igniting children, heinous ogres, grotesque gorgons, headless horsemen, merciless sea monsters. Once awkward adolescents. Now portraits of absolute evil. Even the villains that had died gruesome deaths—Rumpelstiltskin, the Beanstalk Giant, the Wolf from Red Riding Hood—were drawn in their greatest moments, as if they had emerged triumphant from their tales. Sophie’s gut took another twist when she noticed the other children gazing up at the portraits in awed worship. It hit her with sick clarity. She was in line with future murderers and monsters.

Her face broke out in a cold sweat. She needed to find a faculty member. Someone who could search the list of enrolled students and see she was in the wrong school. But so far, all she could find were wolves that couldn’t speak, let alone read a list.

Turning the corner into a wider corridor, Sophie saw a red-skinned, horned dwarf ahead on a towering stepladder, hammering more portraits into a bare wall. Her teeth clenched with hope as she inched towards him in line. As she plotted to get his attention, Sophie suddenly noticed the frames on this wall held familiar faces. There was the hoggish dough boy she had seen earlier, labeled BRONE OF ROCH BRIAR. Next to him was a painting of the one-eyed, wispy-haired girl: ARACHNE OF FOXWOOD. Sophie scanned the portraits of her classmates, awaiting their villainous transformations. Her eyes stopped on Weasel Boy’s. HORT OF BLOODBROOK. Hort. Sounds like a disease. She moved ahead in line, ready to cry to the dwarf— Then she saw the frame under his hammer.

Her own face smiled back at her.

With a shriek, Sophie bolted out of line, fumbled up the ladder, and snatched the portrait from the stunned dwarf’s fingers. “No! I’m in Good!” she shouted, but the dwarf snatched it back and the two tussled over the portrait, kicking and clawing until Sophie had enough and gave him a slap. The dwarf screamed like a little girl and swung at her with his hammer. Sophie dodged it but lost her balance, and the stepladder teetered and crashed between the walls. Splayed out on rungs in midair, she looked down at snarling wolves and goggling students—“I need the School Master!”—then lost her grip, slid across the ladder, and landed in a heap at the front of the line.

A dark-skinned hag with a massive boil on her cheek thrust a sheet of parchment into her hands.

Sophie looked up, dumbstruck. “See you in class, Witch of Woods Beyond,” the hag croaked. Before Sophie could respond, an ogre dumped a ribbon-tied stack of books in her hands.

Best Villainous Monologues, 2nd ed.

Spells for Suffering, Year 1

The Novice’s Guide to Kidnapping & Murder

Embracing Ugliness Inside & Out

How to Cook Children (with New Recipes!)

The books were bad enough, but then Sophie saw the ribbon tying them was a live eel. She screamed and dropped the books, before a spotted satyr foisted musty black fabric at her. Unfurling it, Sophie shrank from a dumpy, tattered tunic that sagged like shredded curtains.

She gaped at the other girls, gleefully putting on the putrid uniform, combing through their books, comparing schedules. Sophie slowly looked down at her own foul black robes. Then at her eel-slimed books and schedule. Then at her smiling, sweet portrait, back on the wall.

She ran for her life.

Agatha knew she was in the wrong place because even the faculty gave her confused looks. Together they lined the four spiral staircases of the cavernous glass foyer, two of them pink, two blue, showering confetti upon the new students. The female professors wore different-colored versions of the same slim, high-necked dress, with a glittering silver swan crest over the heart. Each had added a personal touch to the dress, whether inlaid crystals, beaded flowers, or even a tulle bow. The male professors, meanwhile, all wore bright slim suits in a rainbow of hues, paired with matching vests, narrow ties, and colorful kerchiefs tucked into pockets embroidered with the same silver swan.

Agatha noticed immediately they were all more attractive than any adults she had ever seen. Even the older faculty was elegant to the point of intimidation. Agatha had always tried to convince herself beauty was pointless because it was temporary. Here was proof it lasted forever.

The teachers tried to disguise their nudges and whispers upon seeing the dripping-wet, misplaced student, but Agatha was used to catching these things. Then she noticed one who wasn’t like the rest. Haloed against a stained glass window with a shamrock green suit, silver hair, and shiny hazel eyes, he beamed down at her as if she completely belonged. Agatha reddened. Anyone who thought she belonged here was a loon. Turning away, she took comfort in the glowering girls around her, who clearly hadn’t forgiven her for the incident in the hall.

“Where are the boys?” Agatha heard one ask another, as the girls filed in in front of three enormous, floating nymphs with neon hair and lips, who handed out their schedules, books, and robes.

As Agatha followed the line behind them, she had a better look at the majestic stair room. The wall opposite her had an enormous pink-painted E, with lovingly drawn angels and sylphs fluttering around its edges. The other three walls had painted letters too, spelling out the word E-V-E-R in pink and blue. The four spiral staircases were arranged symmetrically at the corners of each wall, lit by high stained glass windows. One of the two blue flights had HONOR tattooed upon its baluster, along with glass etchings of knights and kings, while the other read VALOR, decorated with blue reliefs of hunters and archers. The two pink glass staircases had PURITY and CHARITY emblazoned in gold, along with delicate friezes of sculpted maidens, princesses, and kindly animals.

In the center of the room, alumni portraits blanketed a soaring crystal obelisk that reached from milky marble floor to domed sunroof. Higher up on the obelisk were gold-framed portraits of students who became princes and queens after graduation. In the middle were silver frames, for those who found lesser fates as jaunty sidekicks, dutiful housewives, and fairy godmothers. And near the bottom of the pillar, flecked with dust, were bronze-framed underachievers who had ended up footmen and servants. But regardless of whether they became a Snow Queen or a chimney sweep, Agatha saw the students shared the same beautiful faces, kind smiles, and soulful eyes. Here in a glass palace in the middle of the woods, the best of life had gathered in service of Good. And here she was, Miss Miserable, in service of graveyards and farts.

Agatha waited with bated breath, until she finally reached a pink-haired nymph. “There’s been a mix-up!” she panted, dripping water and sweat. “It’s my friend Sophie who’s supposed to be here.” The nymph smiled.

“I tried to stop her from coming,” Agatha said, voice quickening with hope, “but I confused the bird and now I’m here and she’s in the other tower but she’s pretty and likes pink and I’m . . . well, look at me. I know you need students but Sophie’s my best friend and if she stays then I have to stay and we can’t stay, so please help me find her so we can go home.” The nymph handed her a piece of parchment.

Agatha stared at it, stupefied. “But—”

A green-haired nymph thrust her a basket of books, some peeking out: The Privilege of Beauty

Winning Your Prince

The Recipe Book for Good Looks

Princess with a Purpose

Animal Speech 1: Barks, Neighs, & Chirps

Then a blue-haired nymph held up her uniform: an appallingly short pink pinafore, sleeves poofed with carnations, worn over a white lace blouse that seemed to be missing three buttons.

Stunned, Agatha looked at future princesses around her, tightening their pink dresses. She looked at books that told her beauty was a privilege, that she could win a chiseled prince, that she could talk to birds. She looked at a schedule meant for someone beautiful, graceful, and kind. Then she looked up at a handsome teacher, still smiling at her, as if expecting the greatest things from Agatha of Gavaldon.

Agatha did the only thing she knew how to do when faced with expectations.

Up the blue Honor staircase, through sea-green halls, she ran, fairies jangling furiously behind. Hurtling through halls, scrambling up stairs, she had no time to take in what she was seeing—floors made of jade, classrooms made of candy, a library made of gold—until she reached the last staircase and surged through a frosted glass door onto the tower roof. In front of her, the sun lit up a breathtaking open-air topiary of sculptured hedges. Before Agatha could even see what the sculptures were of, fairies smashed through the door, shooting sticky golden webs from their mouths to catch her. She dove to elude them, crawling like a bug through the colossal hedges. Finding her feet, she sprinted and leapt onto the tallest sculpture of a muscular prince raising a sword high above a pond. She scaled the leafy sword to its prickling tip, kicking away swarming fairies. But soon there were too many and just as they spat their glittering nets, Agatha lost her grip and crashed into the water.

When she opened her eyes, she was completely dry.

The pond must have been a portal, because she was outside now in a crystal blue archway. Agatha looked up and froze. She was at the end of a narrow stone bridge that stretched through thick fog into the rotted tower across the lake. A bridge between the two schools.

Tears stung her eyes. Sophie! She could save Sophie!

“Agatha!”

Agatha squinted and saw Sophie running out of the fog. “Sophie!” Arms outstretched, the two girls dashed across the bridge, crying each other’s name— They slammed into an invisible barrier and ricocheted to the ground.

Dazed by pain, Agatha watched in horror as wolves dragged Sophie by the hair back to Evil.

“You don’t understand,” Sophie screamed, watching fairies snare Agatha. “It’s all a mistake!” “There are no mistakes,” a wolf growled.

They could speak after all.