She perked up, not because of the cider or the catchy song but because, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Evie through the floor-to-ceiling window in the foyer. She was coming down the road in a brand-new rickshaw, her pretty V-braid gleaming in the moonlight. She thinks she is so special. Well, I’ll show her, Mal thought. Her eyes wandered over the room and rested upon a familiar-looking door.
It was the door that led to Cruella De Vil’s storage closet. Mal only knew it was there because she and Carlos had once accidentally come across it when they were working on a skit about evil family trees in sixth grade, and Mal had been bored and had decided to go poking around Hell Hall. Cruella’s closet was not for the faint of heart.
Mal would never forget that day. It was the kind of closet that would get the best of anyone. Especially a princess who was making her way up the steps to the front door and would appear at any moment now.
“Jay,” she said, motioning to the front door. “Let me know when Evie arrives.”
“Huh? What? Why?”
“You’ll see,” she told him.
“All part of the evil scheme, huh?” he said, happy to do her bidding. Jay was always up for a good prank.
But Carlos went white-faced when he saw where Mal was heading. “Don’t—” he shouted. He shook off his sheet, almost tripping over the fabric in an attempt to get to the door before Mal could open it all the way.
It slammed shut. Just in time.
But Mal crossed her arms. She wasn’t backing down from this one. It was just too perfect. She glanced out the window again. Princess-Oh-So-Fashionably-Late was at the front door now.
Mal raised her voice. “New game! Seven Minutes in Heaven! And you’ve never played Seven Minutes if you haven’t played it in a De Vil closet.”
The words were barely out of Mal’s mouth before most of the evil step-granddaughters practically trampled her to get to the door. They loved playing Seven Minutes and were enthusiastically wondering with whom they would end up inside. A few of them puckered their lips and powdered their noses while fluttering their eyelashes at Jay, who was stationed by the front door like a sentry.
“Who wants to go first?” Mal asked.
“Me! Me! Me!” yelped the step-granddaughters.
“She does,” Jay called, holding a very recognizable blue cape.
“I do? What do I want to do?” asked the cape’s owner.
Mal smiled.
Evie had arrived.
“Evie, sweetie! So glad you could make it!” Mal said, throwing her arms theatrically around the girl and giving her a giant and fake embrace. “We’re playing Seven Minutes in Heaven! Want to play?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” said Evie, looking around the party nervously.
“It’ll be a scream,” said Mal. “Come on, you want to be my friend, don’t you?”
Evie stared at Mal. “You want me to be your friend?”
“Sure—why not?” Mal led her to the closet door and opened it.
“But doesn’t a boy go in here with me?” Evie asked as Mal shoved her inside the storage room. For someone castle-schooled, Evie sure knew her kissing games.
“Did I say Seven Minutes in Heaven? No, you’re playing Seven Minutes in Hell!” Mal cackled; she couldn’t help it. This was going to be so much fun.
The crowd around the hallway had scattered in fear after it was clear Mal had no interest in having other people join the game—or Evie—inside the locked room.
But Carlos remained standing, his face as white as the tips of his hair. “Mal, what are you doing?”
“Playing a dirty trick—what does it look like I’m doing?”
“You can’t leave her in there! Remember what happened to us?” he asked, motioning angrily to his leg, which had two distinct white scars on the calf.
“I do!” Mal said gleefully. She wondered why Carlos was so concerned about Evie. It wasn’t as if they’d been taught to care about other people.
But Carlos soon made clear that he wasn’t being altruistic. “If she’s not able to get out on her own, I’m going to have to clean up the mess! And my mother will freak out! You can’t leave her in there!” he whispered fiercely, anxiety about Cruella’s punishment written all over his face.
“Fine, go get her,” said Mal with a sly smile on her face, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.
Carlos quaked in his scuffed loafers. Mal knew there was nothing he wanted to do less than go back in there again. He remembered all too well what had happened to him and Mal in sixth grade.
There was a scream from behind the door.
Mal wiped her hands. “You want her out? You get her out.” Her job was done.
Her evil scheme had worked. This was going to be a real howler.
The first thing Evie thought when the door unceremoniously closed with a bang behind her was that she had worn her prettiest dress for nothing. She had been looking forward to the party all day, had run home to go through every outfit in her closet, holding up dress after dress to see which shade of blue looked best. Azure? Periwinkle? Turquoise? She had settled on a dark midnight-blue lace mini-dress and matching high-heeled boots. She’d been extremely late to the party, as her mother had insisted on giving her a three-hour makeover.
Not that it mattered, because she was now locked in a closet alone. She wasn’t just imagining it—Mal really was out to get her, most likely for not having been invited to Evie’s birthday party when they were six years old. But it wasn’t as if it was her fault! Evie’d been just a kid. It had been her mother who hadn’t wanted Mal at the party for some reason. Mal couldn’t hold it against her, could she? Evie sighed. Of course she could. Evie still remembered the hurt and anger on six-year-old Mal’s face, looking down from the balcony. Evie supposed that she’d probably feel the same way—not that she could see it from Mal’s point of view, or anything. There’s no me in empathy, as Mother Gothel liked to say.
In the end, Evil Queen probably should have dropped her grudge against Maleficent and invited her daughter to the celebration. It certainly hadn’t been fun being cooped up in their castle for ten years. Evie wasn’t even sure why her mother had decided that now was a safe time to leave; but so far, other than Evie being locked in this closet at the moment, nothing too bad had happened. Yet.
Besides, the darkness of the closet didn’t bother her. Evie was her mother’s daughter, after all, and used to the horrors of the night—to dark, hidden things with yellow eyes glittering in the shadows, to candles dripping over skull candleholders, to the flash of lightning and the fury of thunder as they rolled across the sky. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared in the least bit.
Except…
Except…her foot just struck something hard and cold…and the quiet of the closet was broken by the loud, echoing snap of steel meeting steel.
She screamed. What was that?! When her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw fur traps littered all over the floor, lying in wait for the next animal to wander through. There were so many of them that one wrong step would mean a trap would snap her leg in two. She turned back to the door and tried to open it, but it was no use. She was locked in there.
“Help! Help! Let me out!” she yelled.
But there was no answer, and the band was playing so loudly, Evie knew no one would hear her, nor care.
It was hard to see, so Evie felt her way tentatively in the darkness, sliding her left foot on the floor first. How many were there? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? And how big was this room, anyway?
Her foot came in contact with something cold and heavy, so she retreated. How was she going to get out of this place without losing a limb? Was there another door on the other side, maybe? She squinted. Yes, that was another door. There was a way out.
She headed slowly to the far end, the floorboards creaking ominously under her feet.
Evie shifted to her right, hoping to avoid the trap, to move around it, but her foot struck another, and she jumped back as it too snapped shut
with a bang, springing into the air and barely grazing her knee. Her heart thundered in her chest as she slid around the next trap, careful not to strike the metal for fear that it might close around her ankle. As long as she missed the trap’s center, she would be good.
She could do this. All she had to do was move slowly, carefully. She edged around another one. She was getting better at this; she could find her way to the back of the room and possibly another door. She cleared one and then another, moving more quickly, sliding one foot in front of the other, searching for and avoiding the traps. Faster. A little faster. The door must be close, then—
She struck a trap and it suddenly popped up with a snap. She jumped away, and as the trap fell on the floor, it hit another trap, which sprang up and hit the one next to it, all in succession—and this time, Evie saw that she couldn’t move slowly but that she had to run.
The chorus of snapping metal jaws rang through the darkness, steel blades against steel blades, as she ran screaming toward the back door. The traps slammed shut, BAM BAM BAM, one after another, one a hairbreadth away from her stocking while another almost caught her heel as she turned the door handle, left the room, and shut the door behind her.
But just as she thought she was safe, she realized she had plunged right into a dark, furry presence.
Was it a bear? A horrible shaggy monster? Had she gotten out of the frying pan only to fall into the fire? Evie twisted and turned, but only succeeded in wrapping herself deeper in fur—dense, thick, woolly fur—with two armholes?
This was no bear…no monster. She was trapped in a fur coat! Evie tried to shake it off, tried to shrug it off her shoulders, but she was smack-dab in the middle of dozens of coats, all of them black or white or black and white, made of the thickest, lushest hides—there was spotted ocelot and dip-dyed mink, silky sable and shiny skunk, all of them packed in like sardines, so full, so fluffy, so thick. This was Cruella De Vil’s fur closet, her wondrous collection, her obsession, her greatest weakness.
And those fur traps back there were her security system, just in case anyone got too close to the stuff.
Evie finally managed to untangle herself and push aside the wall of fur, just as a hand grasped her wrist and pulled her through to the other side.
“You okay?” It was Carlos.
Evie took a deep breath. “Yes. I think so. Do I win the game?” she asked drily.
Carlos laughed. “Mal’s going to be annoyed you survived.”
“Where are we?” Evie looked around. There was a lumpy mattress on the floor next to an ironing board and a washbasin, along with a vanity table that held dozens of white-and-black wigs.
When Carlos looked embarrassed, she realized it was his bedroom. Cruella’s fur closet opened onto a dressing room, where her son slept.
“Oh.”
Carlos shrugged. “It’s home.”
Even if her mother annoyed her sometimes, at least Evil Queen was obsessed with Evie’s good looks; and even when she wasn’t worried that perhaps Evie might not be the fairest of them all, she treated her daughter like the princess she was. Evie’s room might be dark and musty, but she had a real bed, not a makeshift one, with a thick blanket and relatively soft pillows.
“It’s not so bad in here, really!” Evie said. “I’m sure it’s cozy and, hey…you’ll never catch a cold. You can just use one of her fur coats for a blanket, right?” It was awfully drafty in the room: like her own home, Hell Hall wasn’t insulated for winter.
Carlos shook his head. “I’m not allowed to touch them,” he said, trying to put the furs back in order. They were so heavy, and there were so many of them. “I’ll fix them later. She doesn’t come back till Sunday.”
Evie nodded. “This is all my mother’s fault. If she hadn’t tried to challenge Maleficent’s leadership when they first came to the Isle, none of this would have happened.”
“Your mother actually challenged Maleficent?” Carlos goggled. It was unheard of.
“Well, she is a queen, after all,” Evie pointed out. “Yeah, she was angry that everyone on the island decided to follow Maleficent instead of her.” She walked over to the vanity and began to fix her makeup, delicately powdering her nose and applying pink gloss to her full rosebud lips. “And now here we are.”
“Mal will get over it,” he said hopefully.
“Are you kidding? A grudge is a grudge is a grudge. She’ll never forgive me. Didn’t you listen in Selfie class? I thought you were so smart.” Evie smiled wryly. “Oh well, I should just face it. Go back to our castle and never come out.”
“But you’re not, right?”
“No, I guess not.” Evie put away her compact. “Hey,” she said softly. “I have an old comforter I never use…I mean, if you get cold and you can’t…Oh, never mind.” She’d never had any siblings, so she had no idea what having a little brother would be like. But if Evil Queen had ever stopped looking at herself in the mirror long enough to have another kid, Evie thought it would be tolerable to have a little brother like Carlos.
Carlos looked as if he didn’t know what to say.
“Forget I said anything,” said Evie in a rush.
“No, no, bring it. I mean, no one’s ever cared whether I’m warm or not,” he said, blushing red as his voice trailed off. “Not that you care, of course.”
“I certainly don’t!” agreed Evie. Caring was definitely against the rules at Dragon Hall and could turn anyone into a laughingstock. “We were going to throw it out.”
“Excellent, just consider my home your Dumpster.”
“Er, okay.”
“Do you think you might have a pillow you were going to toss out too? I’ve never had a pillow.” Carlos turned red again. “I mean, I’ve had tons of pillows, of course. So many! We have to keep throwing them away. I get so many pillows. I mean, who’s never had a pillow in their life? That’s preposterous.”
“Yeah, I think we were going to throw away a pillow,” Evie said, turning just as red as Carlos, even as a warm, sunny sensation had taken over her chest. She changed the subject. “Still working on that machine of yours?”
“Yeah, wanna see?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Evie replied, following Carlos out of the room toward the back of the house, away from the party. Carlos slipped outside, holding the door open for Evie.
“Where are we going?”
“To my lab,” Carlos replied, pulling out a matchbook and lighting a candle to lead the way into the weedy backyard.
“Your what?”
“My science lab. Don’t worry, I don’t, like, sacrifice toads or something.”
Evie let out a hesitant laugh.
They approached a huge, gnarled tree with a rope ladder. Carlos started climbing up it. “I have to keep it all in my tree house. I’m afraid my mom is going to get some big ideas and turn my chemicals into makeup and hair products.”
Evie scrambled up the ladder behind him. The tree house was more elaborate than any she’d ever seen, with miniature turrets and a tiny balcony that looked out onto the dark forest below. Inside, Evie spun around, gaping. The walls were lined with shelves of glass beakers, vials, and jars containing various neon-colored liquids. In the corner sat a small, old television with about fifteen different antennas strapped to it.
“What is all this?” Evie asked, picking up a jar of something white and snowy.
“Oh, that’s from Chem Lab. It’s sodium polyacrylate—I was trying to see if I could use it as a sponge when mixed with water,” Carlos said. “But here, this is what I wanted to show you.” He pulled out the wire-box contraption he’d been working on in class. “I think I got the battery to work.”
Carlos fiddled with a few buttons and flicked a few switches. It sputtered to life, then died. His face fell. He tried again. This time, it emitted a high-pitched squeal before dying.
He looked up at Evie sheepishly. “Sorry, I thought I had it.”
Evie looked at the black box. “Maybe try connecting this wire t
o that one?” she suggested.
Carlos peered at the wires. “You’re right, they’re in the wrong place.” He switched the wires and hit the switch.
A powerful electric burst shot out of the box, sending Carlos and Evie flying back against the wall and falling to the floor. The beam of light burst up toward the plywood ceiling, blasting a hole in the tree-house roof and up to the sky.
“Maleficent!” Carlos cursed.
“Oh my goblins!” Evie screamed. “What just happened?”
They both scrambled out onto the tree-house balcony and stared up at the sky, where the light was streaking all the way up, through the clouds, up, up, up, all to the way to the dome!
The light seared through the barrier as easily as it had burned a hole in the tree-house roof.
Lightning flashed, and the very earth shook with a supersonic rumble. For a second they could see through the dome and directly into the night sky. The black box began to emit a strange beeping noise.
Carlos and Evie scrambled back inside, and Carlos picked up the box. It was making a sound neither of them had ever heard before.
And for a brief moment, there was something on the television in the room, which had burst to life all of a sudden.
“Look!” Evie cried.
The screen was flashing with so many different scenes it was dizzying. For a moment they saw a talking dog (Carlos screamed at the sight); then it switched to a pair of twins who were nothing alike (one was boyish and athletic and the other was sort of a diva, and they both sort of looked like Mal, except with yellow hair); then it switched again to two teenage boys who seemed to be running a hospital for superheroes.
“Look at all these different television shows!” Carlos said. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew there had to be other kinds!”
Evie laughed. Then the screen flickered and went dark again, and the box in Carlos’s hands went dead. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe it worked? It penetrated the dome for a second, didn’t it?” he asked, approaching the box fearfully and touching it with the end of one finger. It was hot to the touch, and he pulled his hand away quickly.