فصل 8

8

Wish Fish

An hour before, Tedros had decided on a swim.

By now, the ranks for the first two classes were up on the Groom Room doors, with the prince and Beatrix tied for first and Agatha’s name so low on the board that a pile of mouse droppings obscured it. Inside, the girls’ Groom Room resembled a medieval spa, with three aromatic bath pools (“Hot,” “Cold,” and “Just Right”), a Little Match Girl sauna, three Rose Red makeup stations, a Cinderella-themed pedicure corner, and a waterfall shower built into a Little Mermaid lagoon. The boys’ Groom Rooms focused more on fitness, with a Midas Gold sweat lodge, a peasant-themed tanning room, and a gymnasium with Norse hammers, mud wrestling pit, saltwater lap pool, and full array of Turkish baths.

After Chivalry and Grooming, Tedros took advantage of the break before Swordplay to test out the pool. But just as he swam his last lap, he noticed Beatrix—and the seven girls who now followed her incessantly—peering wide-eyed through cracks in the wooden door.

Tedros was used to girls watching him. But when would he find one who saw more than his looks? Who saw more than King Arthur’s son? Who cared about his thoughts, his hopes, his fears? And yet here he was, pivoted purposely as he toweled so the girls could have a perfect view. His mother was right. He could pretend all he wanted, but he was just like his father, for better and worse.

With a sigh, he threw open the door to greet his fan club, breeches dripping, swan glittering on bare chest. But they were gone, victims of the fairy patrol. Tedros felt a twinge of disappointment as he turned the corner, only to smash into something, knocking it flat to the ground.

“I’m wet. Again.” Agatha frowned and looked up. “You should watch where you’re—” It was the boy who had warped Sophie’s mind. The boy who had hijacked Sophie’s heart. The boy who had stolen her only friend.

“I’m Tedros,” he said, and held out his hand.

Agatha didn’t take it. She was hopelessly lost and needed directions, but this Tedros was the enemy. She pulled herself up, gave him a lethal glare, and shoved past his chest. That’s when she noticed, in addition to everything else she hated about this boy, he smelled like one too. She stormed to the end of the hall, clumps thunking ogreishly on glass, and with a last venomous sneer, snatched at the door.

It was locked.

“It’s this way.” Tedros pointed to the stairwell behind him.

Agatha huffed past him, holding her nose.

“Nice to meet you!” the prince called.

He heard her snort in disgust before she trundled down the steps, casting shadows all the way.

Tedros grimaced. Girls loved him. They always loved him. But this freakish girl looked at him like he was nothing. For a moment, he felt his confidence crack, then remembered what his father once said.

The best villains make you doubt.

Tedros thought he could face down any monster, any witch, any force Evil could conjure. But this girl was different. This girl was scary.

Dread pricked his spine.

So why is she in my school?

Animal Communication, taught by Princess Uma, took place on the lakeside banks of Halfway Bay. For the third time that day, Agatha arrived to find a class was Girls Only. Surely the School for Evil didn’t see the need to decide what was a “Boy” skill or “Girl” skill. But here in the Good Towers, the boys went off to fight with swords while girls had to learn dog barks and owl hoots. No wonder princesses were so impotent in fairy tales, she thought. If all they could do was smile, stand straight, and speak to squirrels, then what choice did they have but to wait for a boy to rescue them?

Princess Uma looked far too young to be a teacher. Nestled in prim grass, backlit by lake shimmer, she sat very still, hands folded in her pink dress, with black hair to her waist, olive skin, almond-shaped eyes, and crimson lips pursed in a tight O. When she did speak, it was in a giggly whisper, but she couldn’t make it through a full sentence. Every few words, she’d stop to listen to a distant fox or dove and respond with her own giddy howl or chirp. When she realized she had a whole class staring at her, she cupped her hands over her face.

“Oops!” she tee-heed. “I have too many friends!”

Agatha couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just an idiot.

“Evil has many weapons on its side,” said Princess Uma, finally settling down. “Poisons, plagues, curses, hexes, henchmen, and black, black magic. But you have animals!” Agatha snickered. When faced with an axe-wielding henchman, she would be sure to bring a butterfly. Judging by the others’ faces, she wasn’t the only one unconvinced. Princess Uma noticed. The teacher unleashed a piercing whistle and a barrage of barks, bays, neighs, and roars blasted from the Woods beyond the schools. The girls plugged their ears in shock.

“See!” Uma chuckled. “Every animal can talk to you if you know how to talk to them. Some even remember when they were human!” With a chill, Agatha thought of the stuffed animals in the gallery. All former students, just like them.

“I know everyone wants to be a princess,” said Uma, “but those of you with low ranks won’t make good princesses. You’d end up shot or stabbed or eaten and that’s not very useful. But as a sidekick fox or spying sparrow or friendly pig, you might find a much happier ending!” She squeaked through her teeth, and on cue, an otter bobbed to shore from the lake, balancing a jeweled storybook on its nose. “You might keep a captive maiden company or lead her to safety,” Uma said, holding out her hands. The nervous otter bumped the book on his nose to find the right page— “Or you might help make a ball gown,” Uma said, eyeing the bumbling creature. “Or you might deliver an urgent message or—ahem!” With a yip, the otter found the page, slid the book into her hands, and collapsed from stress.

“You might even save a life,” said Uma, holding up a brilliant painting of a princess cowering as a stag speared a warlock. The princess looked just like her.

“Once upon a time, an animal saved mine and in return, it received the happiest ending of all.” From narrowed suspicion, Agatha saw all the girls’ eyes widen to worship. This wasn’t just a teacher. This was a living, breathing princess.

“So if you want to be like me, you need to do well in today’s challenge!” chirped their new idol, summoning the girls to the lake. Agatha felt herself shiver, despite the balmy fall sun. If she placed last this time, she’d never see Sophie or home again. As she followed the girls to the bank, sick to her stomach, Agatha noticed Uma’s storybook, open in the grass.

“Animals love to help princesses for so many reasons!” said Princess Uma, stopping at the water’s edge. “Because we sing pretty songs, because we give them shelter in the scary Woods, because they only wish they could be as beautiful and beloved as—” “Wait.”

Uma and the girls turned. Agatha held up the storybook’s last page—a painting of the stag ripped to pieces by monsters as the princess escaped.

“How is that a happy ending?”

“If you aren’t good enough to be a princess, then you’re honored to die for one, of course,” Uma smiled, as if she would learn this lesson soon enough.

Agatha looked to the others in disbelief, but they were all nodding like sheep. It didn’t matter if only a third of them would graduate as princesses. Each was completely convinced she’d be one. No, those stuffed, mounted creatures in the museum weren’t once girls like them. They were just animals. Slaves to the Greater Good.

“But if animals are going to help us, first we have to tell them what we want!” Uma said, kneeling before the gleaming blue lake. “So today’s challenge is . . .” She swirled her finger in the water and a thousand tiny fish surfaced, white as snow.

“Wish Fish!” Uma beamed. “They dig inside your soul and find your greatest wish! (Very helpful if you’ve lost your tongue or voice and need to tell a prince to kiss you.) Now all you do is put your finger in the water and the fish will read your soul. The girl with the strongest, clearest wish wins!” Agatha wondered what these girls’ souls would wish for. Depth, perhaps.

Millicent went first. She put her finger in the water, closed her eyes . . . When she opened them, the fish had all turned different colors and were gaping at her, confused.

“What happened?” said Millicent.

“Foggy mind,” Uma sighed.

Then Kiko, the adorable girl who had gifted Agatha lipstick, put her finger in the water. The fish turned red, orange, and peach and started assembling into some kind of picture.

What do Good souls wish for? Agatha wondered, watching the fish jumble into place. Peace for their kingdoms? Health for their families? Destruction of Evil?

The fish drew a boy instead.

“Tristan!” Kiko chimed, recognizing his ginger hair. “I caught his rose at the Welcoming.” Agatha groaned. She should have known.

Then Reena dipped her finger and the fish changed colors, gliding into a mosaic of a burly, gray-eyed boy pulling an arrow into his bow.

“Chaddick,” blushed Reena. “Honor Tower, Room ten.”

Giselle’s fish drew dark-skinned Nicholas, Flavia wished for Oliver, Sahara’s painted Oliver’s bunk mate Bastian. . . . At first Agatha found it dumb, but now it was scary. This was what Good souls craved? Boys they didn’t even know? Based on what!

“Love at first sight,” Uma gushed. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world!” Agatha gagged. Who could ever love boys? Preening, useless thugs who thought the world belonged to them. She thought of Tedros and her skin burned. Hate at first sight. Now that was believable.

With the fish pooped from drawing so many chiseled jaws, Beatrix provided the grand climax, sending her Wish Fish into a spectacular rainbow vision of her fairy-tale wedding to Tedros, complete with castle, crowns, and fireworks. All around girls’ eyes welled with tears, either because the scene was so beautiful or because they knew they could never compete.

“Now you must hunt him, Beatrix!” Uma said. “You must make this Tedros your mission! Your obsession! Because when a true princess wants something enough . . .” She swirled her fingers in the lake— “Your friends unite for you . . .” The fish turned bright pink— “Fight for you . . .” The fish clustered tight—

“And make your wish come true . . .” Uma reached her arm into the water and pulled it right out. The fish transformed into her soul’s greatest desire.

“What is it?” Reena asked, confused.

“A suitcase,” whispered Princess Uma, and hugged it to her chest.

She looked up at twenty befuddled girls. “Oh. Should I give you your ranks?” “But she didn’t go yet,” said Beatrix, pointing at Agatha. Agatha would have clobbered her, but there was no menace in Beatrix’s voice. This girl wasn’t troubled that a lakeful of fish had just been turned into luggage. Instead, she was worried Agatha didn’t have her turn. Perhaps she wasn’t so bad after all.

“So Reena can have her room when she fails,” Beatrix smiled.

Agatha took it back.

“Oh dear. One left?” said Uma, staring at Agatha. She gazed at the lake, empty of Wish Fish, then at her precious pink suitcase. “It happens every time,” she mourned. With a sigh, she dropped it back into the lake, and watched it sink and bob up as a thousand white fish.

Agatha leaned over the water to see the fish glaring up at her with droopy eyes. For a moment, they had found heaven in a suitcase. But here they were again, genies stolen from the safety of the lamp. They didn’t care that her life was on the line. They just wanted to be left alone. Agatha sympathized.

Mine’s easy, she thought. I wish not to fail. That’s it. Don’t fail.

She stuck her finger in the water.

The fish started trembling like tulips in the wind. Agatha could hear wishes wrestle in her head— Don’t fail—Home in bed—Don’t fail—Sophie safe—Don’t fail—Tedros dead— The fish turned blue, then yellow, then red. Wishes swept into a cyclone— New face—Same face—Blond hair—I hate blond hair!—More friends—No friends— “Not just foggy,” murmured Princess Uma. “Completely confused!” The fish, red as blood, started to quake, as if about to explode. Alarmed, Agatha tried to pull out her finger, but the water clamped it like a fist.

“What the—”

The fish turned black as night and flew to Agatha like magnets to metal, pooling her hand in a shivering mass. Girls fled the shore in horror; Uma stood anchored in shock. Frantic, Agatha tried to wrench her hand but her head exploded with pain— Home School Mom Dad Good Bad Boys Girls Ever Never—

Gripping Agatha’s hand, the fish shook harder and harder, faster and faster, until she couldn’t tell one from the other. Eyes popped off like buttons, beating fins shattered to bits, bellies engorged with veins and vessels until the fish let out a thousand tortured screams. Agatha felt her head split in two— FailWinTruthLiesLostFoundStrongWeakFriendFoe

The fish swelled into a ballooning black mass, creeping up her hand. Agatha thrashed to free her finger until she heard her bone break and yowled in agony as the screaming fish sucked her whole arm into their ebony cocoon.

“Help! Somebody help me!”

The cocoon billowed into her face, suffocating her cries. With a high, sickening shriek, the deathly womb swallowed her. Agatha flailed for breath, tried to kick herself out, but pain seared through her head and forced her into a fetal crouch.

HateLovePunishRewardHunterHuntedLiveDieKillKissTake

Screaming with vengeance, the black cocoon sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to— Give.

The screaming stopped. The cocoon sloughed away.

Agatha fell back in shock.

In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend.

“A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.” Gasping softly, like a fish on land, she pressed her hand to Agatha’s cheek.

“Thank you.”

She closed her eyes and her body went limp in Agatha’s arms. Inch by inch, the girl started to glow the color of hot gold, and with a burst of white light, she splintered to sunbeams and disappeared.

Agatha gawked at the lake, empty of fish, and listened to her fraying heartbeat. It felt like her insides had been beaten and wrung out. She held up her finger, healed like new. “Um, was all that . . .” She took a deep breath and turned.

“NORMAL?”

The entire class was dispersed behind trees, including Princess Uma, whose expression answered her question.

Loud squawks pealed from above. Agatha looked up at the friendly dove her teacher had greeted earlier. Only the dove’s calls weren’t friendly anymore, but wild, frantic. From the Endless Woods came a fox’s growl, guttural and disturbed. Then more howls and wails from all around, nothing like the earlier welcome. The animals were in a frenzy now. They screamed louder, louder, building with fever— “What’s happening!” Agatha cried, hands over ears.

As soon as she saw Princess Uma’s face, she knew.

They want it too.

Before Agatha could move, the stampede came from every direction. Squirrels, rats, dogs, moles, deer, birds, cats, rabbits, the bumbling otter—every animal on the school grounds, every animal that could squeeze through the gates charged towards their savior. . . .

Make us human! they demanded.

Agatha blanched. Since when could she understand animals?

Save us, Princess! they cried.

Since when could she understand delusional animals?

“What do I do!” Agatha shouted.

Uma took one glance at these animals, her faithful puppets, her bosom friends . . .

“RUN!”

For the first time, someone at this school gave Agatha advice she could use. She dashed for the towers as magpies pecked her hands, mice clung to her clumps, frogs hopped up her dress. Batting at the mob, she stumbled up the hill, shielding her head, hurdling hogs, hawks, hares. But just as she had the white swan doors in sight, a moose charged out of the trees and sprang—she ducked and the moose crashed, skewering the swans. Agatha bolted through the glass stair room, past Pollux on goat legs, who glimpsed the onslaught behind her.

“What in the devil’s—”

“A little help!” she yelled—

“DON’T MOVE!” Pollux shrieked—

But Agatha was already charging up the Honor stairs. When she looked back, she saw Pollux deflecting animals right and left, before a thousand butterflies crashed through the sunroof and knocked his head off his goat legs, leaving the herd to chase her up the steps.

“NOT INTO THE TOWERS!” Pollux’s head screeched as it rolled out the door— But Agatha blew through the corridors into the full classrooms of Hansel’s Haven. As boys and teachers tackled porcupines (ill-advised) and screaming girls hopped desks in high heels (extremely ill-advised), she tried to escape the three-ring hubbub, but animals just snatched mouthfuls of candy and kept chase. Still, she managed just enough of a lead to sprint up the stairs, slide through the frosted door, and kick it shut before the first weasel popped through.

Agatha doubled over, shadowed by towering hedges of King Arthur. The glacial rooftop breeze bit into her bare arms. She wouldn’t last long up here. As she squinted through the clouded door for a teacher or nymph to rescue her, she noticed something reflected in it.

Agatha turned to a muscled silhouette hulking through sun mist. She wilted with relief. For once she was grateful for boys and ran towards her faceless prince— She jolted back. The horned gargoyle ripped through mist and blasted the door aflame. Agatha dove to avoid a second firebomb that ignited the hedge of Arthur marrying Guinevere. She tried to crawl to the next hedge, but the gargoyle just burnt them one by one until the king’s story was a storm of ash. Stranded in flames, Agatha looked up at the smoldering demon as he pinned her chest to the ground with his cold stone foot. There was no escape from him this time. She went limp and closed her eyes.

Nothing came.

She opened her eyes and found the gargoyle kneeling before her, so close she could see the reflections in his glowing red eyes. Reflections of a scared little boy.

“You want my help?” she breathed.

The gargoyle blinked back hopeful tears.

“But—but—I don’t know how I did it,” she stuttered. “It was . . . an accident.” The gargoyle gazed into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth. It slumped to the ground, scattering ash around them.

Looking down at the monster, just another lost child, Agatha thought of all the creatures in this world. They didn’t follow orders because they were loyal. They didn’t help princesses because they were loving. They did it because someday, maybe loyalty and love would be repaid with a second chance at being human. Only through a fairy tale could they find their way back. To their imperfect selves. To their storyless lives. She too was one of these animals now, searching for the way out.

Agatha bent down and took the gargoyle’s hand in hers.

“I wish I could help you,” she said. “I wish I could help us all go home.” The gargoyle lay its head in her lap. As the burning menagerie closed in, a monster and child wept in each other’s arms.

Agatha felt its stone touch soften.

The gargoyle lurched back in shock. As it stumbled to its feet, its rock shell cracked . . . its claws smoothed to hands . . . its eyes lightened with innocence. Stunned, Agatha ran to it, dodging ricocheting flames, just as the monster’s face began to melt into a little boy’s. With a gasp of joy, she reached for him— A sword impaled his heart. The gargoyle instantly reverted to stone and let out a betrayed cry.

Agatha spun in horror.

Tedros leapt through a wall of fire onto the gargoyle’s horned skull, Excalibur in hand.

“Wait!” she shouted—

But the prince was staring at his father’s memory in flames. “Filthy, evil beast!” he choked— “No!”

Tedros slammed down his sword on the gargoyle’s neck and sliced off its head.

“He was a boy! A little boy!” Agatha screamed. “He was Good!” Tedros landed in her face. “Now I know you’re a witch.”

She punched him in the eye. Before she could punch him in the other one, fairies, wolves, and teachers of both schools burst into the menagerie, just in time to see a furious wave crash over the burning roof, lashing the foes apart.