“Vhat do ve have here, my cousin Gus?” asked a high-pitched voice.
From an alcove opposite Grimm’s office strode Helga Crumb. Her blond hair was in curly pigtails, her red lips puckered. She wore a green dress embroidered with white flowers, knee-high socks, and hiking boots. The daughter of Hansel was never seen without practical footwear. One never knew when one might get lost in a forest.
“I do not know, my cousin Helga. Vhat do ve have here?”
Beside Helga stepped Gus, son of Gretel, wearing green leather shorts with suspenders and, of course, hiking boots. Besides different clothes and shorter hair, he looked identical to Helga. Their voices even sounded identical, with heavy vowels and w’s changed to v’s, th’s to d’s. Raven was never sure if that was their natural accent or if they just liked the way it sounded.
“Hm, it appears ve have a leetle lost birdie schnooping around,” said Helga.
“If ve report leetle birdies schnooping where dey do not belong, Headmaster Grimm gives us a lollipop, no?” said Gus.
“Ja, he does, Cousin Gus. A strawberry lollipop.”
Gus and Helga began to smack their lips as if imagining sucking on a lollipop. A strawberry lollipop.
“Hey, I’m not doing anything, so don’t go tattle, okay?” said Raven.
“Hm, and vhat vill de leetle birdie give us not to tell, I wonder, Cousin Helga?”
“Ja, I wonder, too, Cousin Gus. Vhat vill de birdie give us?”
They both held out a sticky hand, palm up.
Raven leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowing. Gus and Helga leaned back slightly. Their eyes began to widen.
Raven lifted her hands as if she would cast a magic spell. Gus and Helga held their breath.
“Run,” she whispered.
“Aah!” they said, running away.
Raven laughed.
“Ve are not afraid of de leetle birdie!” Helga called from down the hall. “Ve are destined to cook vitches like her! Maybe ve vill practice on de birdie first!”
But for now, they kept running.
Still, it was too risky to break into Grimm’s office when those candy-mad identical cousins might come back at any moment. Raven would have to wait for the right time. And the right distraction.
She was determined to see her story before committing to it on Legacy Day. Maybe her own story wasn’t exactly like her mother’s. Maybe she could play out her part without being truly evil. That was what she hoped, anyway.
When Raven was young, her mother had filled the castle with her own servants and allies. The Good King hadn’t been comfortable rubbing elbows with fiery-eyed warriors and scrabbling goblin hordes, dripping slime and chittering about the hexcellent flavor of people meat. Eventually the king and queen split the castle down the middle—his side and her side. The king lived in the smaller portion with the servants, and Raven spent half of each week with him.
On her sixth birthday, Raven’s father gave her a puppy with curly white hair. Raven named him Prince. The next day, when Raven returned to her mother’s part of the castle, the queen scowled at the dog.
“A puppy? What was your father thinking? A dark sorceress can’t be expected to take care of a puppy.”
“I’ll take care of him, Mother,” young Raven promised.
“You? But surely you’re like me—allergic to all things cute and fluffy. Hm, I know what we need to do. Come, let’s make a puppy potion.”
Raven skipped after her mother to the dungeon workshop, wondering what a puppy potion might do. Make a puppy bigger? Enchant a puppy to help him fly or speak?
After mixing, stirring, boiling, and muttering, the vial of black potion was complete. The queen told Raven to tip it over the dog.
“Here you go, boy,” Raven said, pouring without hesitation.
The instant the black liquid touched the puppy, the bouncy, wagging creature transformed into a bone rat. Bone rats were five times the size of normal rats, with spiky black fur and glowing red eyes, and lived on a diet of bones.
“There, isn’t that better?” the queen said triumphantly. “Powerful dark sorceresses like us are so much more comfortable with a bone rat for a pet.”
“But…” Raven said.
“Raven, don’t sulk,” said the queen, her hands on her hips. “I’m doing what’s best for you. Don’t you want to grow up to be powerful and command an army of dark creatures? Of course you do. A puppy is only fit for one of those simpering, ballad-screeching, weak princesses who always do good and sit around waiting for a prince.”
But… but I liked the puppy, Raven thought. And the bone rat scares me.
But Raven did not dare speak up.
The bone rat ran from Raven toward the queen, its claws clicking against the stone floor. It wrapped its long, hairless tail around the queen’s ankle and made a horrible, raspy grunt.
“What should we name him?” the queen had asked. “How about Bubonick? Come on, Bubo!”
The queen had started up the stairs, Bubonick following. Raven had just stood there, staring after them, the empty vial still in her hand.
Her mother was always saying, “Someday you’ll grow up to be just like me!” Watching her puppy change into a bone rat had been the first time that Raven had thought, But I don’t want to be like you, Mother.
From that day on, Raven was absolutely certain about one thing: She didn’t want to be evil.
FOR THE FIRST DAMSEL-IN-DISTRESSING class, Apple and the other princesses met in the back meadow, where four-story practice towers awaited. They were made of glass. Each had one window at the top. And no door.
Apple thought their teacher, Madam Maid Marian, looked impeccable in a baby-blue satin dress with blue netting hanging from a tall cone hat. Not just anyone could pull off a cone hat.
“Translocation app!” Madam Maid Marian said cheerily, pointing her MirrorPhone at Apple with no warning and pushing a button.
Apple felt as if someone was shaking her by her bones, and then suddenly she was high inside a tower. She paced on the cold glass floor of the fourth and only story, wondering how she was going to get out. Translocation apps only sent people in one direction, and couldn’t be reversed. She watched as other princesses began disappearing from the meadow and reappearing in the other high tower rooms.
“There are so many princesses this year!” Madam Maid Marian shouted into a megaphone from the ground below. “You’ll need to double up.”
There was a glittery flash, and Briar Beauty appeared beside Apple.
“Yay!” said Briar, giving Apple two cheek kisses. “Being imprisoned with you will be such a Ball.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Briar. I have to talk to someone. I am fairy, fairy worried about Raven.”
“No chitchat, princesses, if you please,” Madam Maid Marian said through her megaphone. “Now, how does one keep from getting bored in a tower? Yes, Holly?”
“An active imagination is every princess’s friend,” long-haired Holly called back from her tower.
“Well done, Holly! A girl can keep happy for years on end, so long as she has her own imagination to entertain her. As you, especially, will find out.”
Holly’s smile stiffened. She was Rapunzel’s daughter, fated for a lengthy tower stay. Apple was relieved not to have a tower in her story. There would be a glass coffin, of course, but at least she’d be unconscious for that part.
“Now, everyone, please take a few minutes using your imagination to entertain yourselves,” Madam Maid Marian called out.
Briar and Apple sat cross-legged on the floor. They closed their eyes to appear to concentrate. There was nowhere to hide in a glass tower.
“What’s up with Raven?” Briar whispered, barely moving her lips.
“This morning Headmaster Grimm called me to his office,” Apple whispered back. “He was glad I’d asked to be Raven’s roommate. After her strange behavior at the Legacy Day practice, he’s afraid that she might be doubting her destiny, and he fears what she m
ight do next.”
“She couldn’t do anything worse than what she will do when she becomes the Evil Queen.”
“Well, she could not become the Evil Queen at all,” Apple whispered.
Briar opened her eyes and gasped. “No! Has she flipped her crown?”
“Hocus focus, Briar!” Madam Maid Marian called out.
Briar shut her mouth and her eyes. After a moment she whispered to Apple, “That’s impossible. Queenness and evilness are her destiny. I mean, she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.”
“You’re right. I just need to find out what she’s thinking. She’s not very talkative with me, but Headmaster Grimm said I might be her only hope.”
Apple heard the unmistakable twang of an arrow hitting wood. She took a peek. Madam Maid Marian pulled an arrow out of a nearby fence post and unwrapped a parchment from its shaft. There was a loud beep as she turned the megaphone back on.
“I have received an arrow message from Dr. King Charming. His Heroics 101 class spent the morning tracking swamp trolls. Prince Hopper Croakington got nervous, changed into a toad, and was promptly taken by a swamp witch for some undoubtably evil spell. Dr. Charming’s prince pupils will be spending the morning rescuing Hopper and won’t make it back to assist us here. This is quite unconventional, but”—Madam Maid Marian smiled—“it would appear you must escape from the towers yourselves. Surprise me.”
Ashlynn Ella didn’t hesitate. She leaned out on her glass windowsill and made a musical screech: “Weee-aaaaaaa! Weee-aaaaaa!”
A large golden eagle flapped to her tower, seized her shoulders with its talons, and flew her to the ground. Ashlynn landed delicately on the grass. After a few more Wee-aaaas, the eagle went back for Ashlynn’s tower-mate, Darling Charming, the Charming family’s only daughter.
At the same time, Duchess Swan poofed into swan form and flew herself out of her tower.
“Oh, toadstools, now the bird thing has been way overdone,” said Apple. She’d been about to whistle for a lift from her songbird friends, but she didn’t want to be a copycat.
Holly was lowering Lizzie Hearts down from their tower with her own long hair.
“Can you go find a ladder for me?” Holly called down when Lizzie hit the grass.
“I shall return with an army!” Lizzie said, shaking her scepter in the air.
Apple was pretty certain Lizzie wouldn’t be returning with an army, as the army of her mother, the Queen of Hearts, was trapped in Wonderland. A ladder would have been more helpful.
“Madam Maid Marian challenged us to surprise her,” said Apple. “We need to do something unexpected.…”
“I have an idea!” said Briar. “We could… we could…”
Briar’s eyes rolled up, and she fell down, her head landing perfectly on her pillow purse. She began to snore sweetly.
Apple sighed. That girl slept more than Rip Van Winkle. How could she rescue herself and a sleeping Briar?
Apple began to pace, muttering to herself.
“Woodland creatures and gallant princes cannot be my only options. Think like a queen, Apple. Solve this first and then solve whatever is Raven’s problem. Headmaster Grimm says those who reject their stories cease to exist, and he’s never wrong. Hocus focus, Apple! First you’ve got to get out of this tower!”
“Who are you talking to?” Briar asked, her eyelids half open.
“Myself. No one. I don’t know! You fell asleep before telling me your non-bird-related escape idea.”
“Falling asleep was my idea,” Briar said, yawning discreetly behind the back of her hand. “Trying to eavesdrop.”
Briar had lots of inconvenient naps, but the naps came with an advantage. While sleeping, she absorbed gossip spoken beyond the normal hearing range.
“Did you catch anything useful?” asked Apple.
“Madam Maid Marian whispered to Duchess that there’s a secret way out of this candy jar.”
Apple looked around. Glass roof. Glass walls. Glass floor. And nothing for four stories down. “What were Madam Maid Marian’s words, exactly?”
Briar rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “She said, ‘I wonder if someone will discover the secret escape. It was the architect’s crowning achievement.’ ”
Apple got on her knees, running her fingers over the glass, investigating each crack, every divot. She discovered an imperfection in the glass that resembled a crown and pressed it with her thumb. With a loud, grating noise, a section of the wall began to separate from the tower. Its bottom slid farther out into the meadow, the whole section sloping down at an angle.
“Briar Beauty, you are brilliant!”
The girls squealed as they slid down the glass slide and into the grass.
“Well done, Your Highnesses,” said Madam Maid Marian. “You are the mirror images of your talented mothers.”
“Thank you,” said Apple.
Mirror images… Apple was getting an idea of how to know what Raven was up to.
“Did you do the Princessology homework?” Briar asked as they walked back to the castle.
“No,” said Apple.
Briar grabbed Apple by her shoulders and lightly shook her. “Who are you, you foul beast? And what have you done with my adorable friend? I demand answers!”
Apple laughed. “I was kidding! Of course I did my homework. I am Apple White.”
Briar patted Apple’s cheeks. “I take everything back. Except the adorable part. I thought I did the homework, too, but…” She pulled the assignment out of her backpack. The only marks on the paper were her name at the top and a dried pool of drool across the middle. It appeared she’d only managed to write her name before falling asleep on it.
“You can find the answers on page twenty-three of the Princessology hextbook.”
“Thank you, Apple darling!” Briar shouted as she bounded off to the library. “I promise to name my first daughter after you!”
She was probably kidding, but Apple Beauty did have a lovely ring to it.
Apple had a few minutes before Princessology. The sooner she started on Project Raven the better. She needed to practice being the queen she would one day become. The Snow White story was like her kingdom. Would a queen sit back while her subjects rebelled and tore the kingdom apart? No! She would meet with the subjects, figure out what troubled them, and resolve their problems before any harm was done. So she would treat Raven like one of her subjects.
She’d already tried talking to Raven about the Legacy Day practice. But Raven avoided the topic like blind mice avoided a farmer’s wife.
So… well… it might require just a wee bending of the rules… but she was president of the Royal Student Council, after all… and solving Raven’s problem was an urgent and vital mission. Since Raven wouldn’t talk about it, Apple had to find out what she was up to another way.
By spying.
Now, how to get to the Mirror Lab without much fuss? She didn’t have any practice in sneaking around. The moment she walked into the Great Hall of the castle, the whispering began.
“Look, it’s Apple White.”
“Isn’t she beautiful?”
“She smiled at me. She really did. She smiled right at me.”
How, exactly, did one go about trying to avoid notice? She thought of Cerise Hood and sort of folded inward, rounding her shoulders and looking down at her feet.
Immediately she was surrounded.
“What’s the matter, Apple?”
“Are you sick? Are you hurt?”
“I’ll save you!”
A flock of birds chirped and flapped around her head, and a friendly mouse squeaked at her toes.
“I’m fine, everyone, I’m fine! Thank you for your concern—truly.”
Apple hurried away. It took several minutes, but she managed to lose her anxious groupies by hiding in a broom closet.
She creaked open the door, looked both ways, and ducked into the Mirror Lab. She was looking for an egghead to help her out. As luck would have i
t, Humphrey Dumpty was alone.
Humphrey’s thin arms and legs sprouted from his smooth white eggshell body. He wore striped pants, a fetching tie, and round glasses. A prince among animate eggs, Humphrey always wore the famous crown that would break when he fell on his peaked head. All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men hadn’t been able to put his father, Humpty, back together again. Fortunately for Humpty, All the King’s Women hadn’t had much trouble. Apple hoped for Humphrey’s sake that his The End would have the same luck as his father’s.
“Hello, Humphrey,” said Apple.
“Just a sec,” said Humphrey. He was busy playing the video game Call of Beauty on the Mirror Network. He finished a level, paused the game, and looked up into Apple’s clear blue eyes. He sprang to his tiny feet. The top of his head reached Apple’s shoulder.
“Oh! Apple Wh-wh-white! Hi! Hey. I mean”—his voice lowered—“hey there.”
“I need someone who is a wiz on the Mirror Network to help me out. And I thought, Humphrey Dumpty is exactly the prince who can save the day.”
“Sh-sh-sure, Apple. Whatever you need.” He put one foot up on the chair, fists on his round middle, taking up a heroic pose as if he couldn’t help it in her presence.
Apple smiled. She could play the damsel-in-distress like a cow could jump over a moon. The male species couldn’t resist wanting to help her.
“I need you to hack into the Mirror Network and track Raven Queen, giving me access on my Compact Mirror so I can keep an eye on her wherever she is. And I need this to stay between you and me. Okay?”
A moment of doubt seemed to cross Humphrey’s eyes. Hacking into the Mirror Network was a big no-no. Apple needed to really sell this.
So she sang a little song. At the sound, a bird flew in through the open window and landed on her finger. Apple accepted a gentle peck on her cheek, then let the bird fly away.
“Can you help me? Please?” she said, tilting her head.
Then she brought out her big weapon. She batted her eyelashes.
“Y-y-yes. Yes! Of course! Whatever you need, Apple.”
Apple almost leaned in to kiss his smooth white forehead but decided that might be overkill. She didn’t want him falling to pieces.