“Did you see that?” he asked, paranoid.
“You’re just seeing shadows,” Alex said.
“Oh,” Conner said. “I could have sworn it was… Never mind.”
The twins found a long, miniature table with a few dozen miniature chairs around it. It looked like an area where the dwarfs took breaks from working. A large portrait of Snow White hung on the dirt wall behind it, and a glass coffin with rubies and diamonds sat against the wall underneath it.
“Bingo,” Conner said. He used a pick that had been left on the table to pry a few of the jewels loose from the coffin and placed them in Alex’s bag. He could see where a few had already been taken by others before them.
“That was easy,” Conner said.
As soon as he turned around to face his sister, he wished he hadn’t just said that.
“Conner?” Alex said, looking at her brother, who was completely petrified.
Through the dim flames of their lanterns, the twins saw a dozen humongous black wolves circling them. They were surrounded by the Big Bad Wolf Pack. The wolves growled at the twins and gritted their teeth.
“Stay back!” Conner said, and swung the pick at them.
This didn’t affect them at all. A few of them snickered.
“Are these them?” one wolf said.
“Yes,” another wolf said. “We’ve been tracking their scent for days!”
“Hello, children,” said Malumclaw, creeping toward them. “I would say, ‘Nice to meet you,’ but I can tell from your smell that we have crossed paths before.”
“Please don’t hurt us!” Alex said. She was shaking with fear and clutching on to Conner.
“Can we eat their limbs at least?” another wolf said. “She doesn’t need their limbs? Does she?”
“She?” Alex asked. “Who is she?”
“We agreed we would bring them to her unharmed,” Malumclaw said regretfully, looking toward the twins. “You’re coming with us!”
“Conner,” Alex whispered to her brother. “What are we going to do?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Conner said. He placed his lantern on the ground and took a step closer to Malumclaw. “Bad dog! Very bad dog! Sit!”
The wolves and Alex all had the same exact expression on their faces. What was he doing?
“I said sit! That’s a very bad dog! Go to your basket!” continued Conner, shaking his index finger at Malumclaw. Whatever he thought he was doing was failing miserably, and it was just insulting the wolves.
“I changed my mind,” Malumclaw told his pack. “You can eat their limbs.”
“Well, I’m out of ideas,” Conner said, looking back at his sister.
“I’m not!” Alex said.
In one quick move, Alex kicked the lantern Conner had placed on the ground, and it soared across the tunnel and crashed into one of the wolves, setting him partially ablaze. The wolves rushed to help extinguish their friend. Alex grabbed Conner’s hand, and they ran farther down the tunnel, going deeper into the mines.
“After them!” Malumclaw commanded, and the remaining members of the pack chased after them.
The twins ran as fast as they could. They only had one lantern left, so they were practically in the dark. They could hear the wolves stampeding behind them. Their howls were unbearably loud as they echoed down the tunnel. The tunnel began to descend, making it nearly impossible for the twins to run.
“Jump in there!” Conner said, pointing to a mine cart on a track.
“No way!” Alex said, but Conner picked her up and plopped her inside. He jumped inside himself and pulled the brake lever, and the cart began traveling down the tunnel at a rapid speed.
A few of the wolves swiped at them with their claws. The twins ducked down as far as they could in the cart, but not before one of them reached Conner and left a bloody scratch on his forearm. Alex kicked another right in the snout, and it whimpered away. Another wolf barely missed the twins with his claws but knocked the brake lever right off the cart.
The cart gained speed, and soon they were outrunning the wolves.
“We’re doing it! We’re getting away!” said Conner, holding his hand over his wounded arm.
“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet if I were you!” Alex said. She pointed to a sign ahead that said:
“That’s not good!” Conner yelled, wishing for the lever to somehow grow back on their cart.
The cart began speeding faster down the tunnel as it descended at a steeper angle. They were going so fast—too fast! They could barely open their eyes with the air rushing by their faces. The track turned and dipped deeper into the mountain. The twins were afraid they were going to fly out of the cart if it didn’t fly right off the track first. It was the scariest roller coaster they had ever been on.
“This would be awesome if it weren’t for the fear of death!” Conner shouted. He was even tempted to put his hands up, but he knew it wasn’t an appropriate time.
The cart zoomed through the mines, showing no sign of slowing down. In a matter of seconds, the twins’ greatest fear had gone from being eaten alive by wolves to crashing in a dwarf mine. The track led them through a giant cave with stalactites pointing toward stalagmites and a large pool of water at the very bottom.
To the twins’ horror, they passed another sign, which said:
DEAD END
It appeared an avalanche of rocks had fallen on the track many years before, and now the twins were speeding toward the solid wall of rock that had formed there. The twins ducked as low as they could in the mine cart, bracing themselves for the traumatic injuries they were about to receive.
The cart slammed against the rocks. It violently rattled as it broke through the wall. A few rocks fell into the cart and onto the twins. Alex screamed, and Conner covered his head as much as possible with his arm. Just when they thought they were surely about to die, the cart slowly came to a stop.
The twins peeked around from inside the cart. They were outside, somewhere in the Dwarf Forests, on the other side of the mountain.
“I cannot believe we just survived that,” Conner said. They were pretty banged-up, but they climbed out of the cart not seriously injured for the most part.
They didn’t waste a minute questioning their luck. The twins ran from the cart into the trees.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Alex said. “It won’t be long before the wolves find us again!”
“Who were they talking about? Who were they going to bring us to?” Conner asked.
“I’m afraid to even say it—Aaaaaahhhh!” Alex screamed.
They hadn’t been in the forest for even a minute when they both felt brutal blows to the backs of their heads. They fell to the ground, slowly losing consciousness.
Right before they passed out completely, the twins saw the faces of Bobblewart the troll and Egghorn the goblin looking down at them, each holding a club in his hand.
The twins woke up with splitting headaches. They were bound together with rope in the back of a very familiar cart.
“Hey, Egghorn, look who’s waking up,” Bobblewart said.
“The little thieves have arisen,” Egghorn said.
The goblin and troll were driving the same exact cart, but it was being pulled by a different donkey; the previous one had most likely been used to death. They kept Alex’s bag between them as they traveled down the road. Alex and Conner fought against the ropes, but they were tied with triple knots around their hands and feet.
“Where are we?” Conner asked.
Alex strained her neck looking up out of the cart but managed to recognize some familiar trees.
“We’re back where they caught us the first time!” Alex said. “We must have been knocked out for an entire day!”
“Would you like us to make it two days?” asked Egghorn, raising his club.
“This can’t be happening again,” Conner said. “You can’t enslave us again! We told the fairies about you!”
“Oh, yes, we know,” Bobblew
art said.
“They came and gave us all very long lectures about it,” Egghorn said.
“And they shut off all of our tunnels, thanks to you!” Bobblewart said angrily. “Now we have to take the long way into our territory!”
“Then let us go!” Conner said.
“Not this time,” Egghorn said. “You stole our kings’ crown while in our kingdom. According to the Happily Ever After Assembly’s rules, we have every right to bring you back into our kingdom and charge you for your crime.”
“It’s gonna be one heck of a trial!” Bobblewart said. “Every troll and goblin will be there!”
“And we’ve already scheduled you for beatings after the trial is over! Everyone in the territory will get a turn!” Egghorn said, and he and the troll howled with laughter.
Conner stayed calm about the matter. He raised his tied hands just over the side of the cart. The scratch on his arm was still healing, and he stretched so a few drops of his blood fell from his wound and onto the ground as they traveled.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked him.
“I’m leaving a trail,” Conner said.
She didn’t know what to think of this, but she trusted him. Whatever he was doing, he had a plan.
A few hours later, the twins had managed to shift themselves up into a seated position. The troll and the goblin continued entertaining themselves by predicting the horrible things the twins would go through once they got back to the Troll and Goblin Territory.
Conner began seeing dark figures running between the trees in the distance like he had seen in the cave.
“Get ready,” Conner said. “They’re here.”
Alex mentally prepared herself for whatever was about to happen. “That was faster than I expected,” she said.
A small howl came from the trees. Egghorn and Bobblewart pulled on their donkey’s reins and ordered it to stop. The cart came to a halt.
“Did you hear that?” Egghorn asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Bobblewart said.
They both pulled out their clubs and hopped off the cart, circling it for a moment.
“Over there!” Bobblewart said. “I see something!”
The troll and the goblin took off into the trees.
“Help me get to my bag!” Alex said to her brother. They began inching toward the front of the cart. Alex got ahold of her school bag with her teeth and dragged it into the back with them. It landed right by her tied hands, and she managed to open it and pull out Cinderella’s glass slipper, almost spraining her wrist in the process.
“What are you doing?” Conner asked her.
“Something that is going to hurt my soul and make me hate myself for the rest of my life,” Alex said. She forcefully hit the slipper against the floor of the cart and broke it into three pieces. She used one of the shards to cut her and her brother loose.
“Whoa,” Conner said. “Never in a million years did I think you would do that! That was pretty gangster.”
“We can glue it back together, right?” Alex said, trying to frantically put the glass slipper back together like a puzzle.
“It’ll still work for the Wishing Spell, won’t it?” Conner asked.
“The spell never said it had to be in one piece,” Alex said.
They put the pieces of the slipper into Alex’s bag and jumped out of the cart. They ran into the forest in the opposite direction than the troll and the goblin had gone. A few moments later, they heard spine-chilling screams and howls as the troll and the goblin were attacked by the Big Bad Wolf Pack.
The horrible sounds made the twins run faster. They knew it would be only a matter of seconds before the wolves picked up on their scents and would be right behind them. They didn’t even know where they were going; they just knew they had to get somewhere safe as fast as possible.
Alex was eyeing the forest around them. There was a deep roar coming from close by. Could they be near the ocean?
“We’re farther south than I thought!” Alex said. “I think we may be back in the Fairy Kingdom!”
“Then let’s find a fairy who can turn these wolves into Chihuahuas!” Conner said. He turned back, and in the distance behind them he could see several wolves running toward them at full speed. A moment later, the twins saw the wolves running slightly ahead of them to both their right and their left, gaining ground and preparing for the attack.
The twins ran through a set of thick trees and then came to a sudden and jarring stop. They were standing on the edge of a very high cliff overlooking the ocean.
“How’d we get to the ocean so fast?” Conner yelled.
“Look,” Alex said. “It’s Mermaid Bay! We’re somewhere between the Fairy Kingdom and the Sleeping Kingdom.”
Conner looked behind them. The wolves were only a few feet away from pouncing on them.
“No, it looks like we’re somewhere between death and dying!” Conner said. “Alex, I’m really sorry about this!”
“Sorry about wha—ahhhhhh!” Alex screamed.
Conner pushed his sister and himself off of the cliff seconds before they would have been tackled by the wolves. They were falling so fast that they couldn’t breathe or hear each other’s screams. All they could hear was the air rushing past them.
The twins plummeted into the ocean. The wolves stayed on top of the cliff for a few minutes, waiting for them to surface in the water, but they saw nothing. The twins were gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GOLDILOCKS, WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
It was just before sundown, and soldiers from the Corner Kingdom were hot on Goldilocks’s trail. She had been spotted on the outskirts of Baker’s Village in the early afternoon, and had been on the run ever since. A group of twenty men were right behind her on their horses, determined to take her into custody by any means necessary. Lucky for her, Goldilocks had the fastest horse in all the kingdoms.
“Come on, Porridge,” Goldilocks said to her horse. “You can make it, girl. We’re almost to the border.”
They passed Rapunzel’s tower and crossed into the Dwarf Forests, but the soldiers kept chasing her. In doing so, they were breaking laws that the Happily Ever After Assembly had enacted, but then again, Goldilocks had broken so many laws she had lost count, so she doubted the soldiers would experience any repercussions for it.
Porridge had an advantage over the other horses, since she knew the Dwarf Forests by heart. She and Goldilocks gained a lot of ground from knowing what was behind every tree and which paths led where.
“Split up and find her!” Goldilocks heard one of the soldiers order from behind her.
Goldilocks could feel her horse getting tired. They had been running for hours, and she knew Porridge needed a break soon if they were going to stay on the run any longer.
They came across an abandoned barn that was partially hidden by trees. Goldilocks had often used this place to hide from anyone hot on her trail.
“Porridge, I’m going to hide in here and wait it out,” Goldilocks told her loyal horse. “Find someplace safe and rest. Meet me back here tomorrow at sunrise.”
Porridge nodded and galloped away. Goldilocks withdrew her sword and approached the barn. The door was off its hinges; it looked like someone or something had forced its way in recently.
The inside of the barn was a disaster. Stacks of hay were knocked over, stables were broken down into nothing but bits of broken wood, and there were bloodstains on the floor and walls. But thankfully, whatever had caused this damage wasn’t here anymore.
Goldilocks put away her sword. She wasn’t intimidated by the barn in the slightest; she had seen much worse, had been through much worse, and had caused much worse in her days on the run.
She took off her long coat and her sword, and began unlacing her tall boots, getting ready to settle in for the night. Something colorful caught her eye while she was doing so. A bright blue fabric was sticking out from the bottom of a stack of hay.
Goldilocks pulled it out from under th
e haystack and examined it. It was a beautiful bright blue gown with delicate stitching. It reminded Goldilocks of a dress she had owned when she was a girl. It had been so long since the last time she’d worn a dress.
She discovered a mirror hanging on the barn wall. It was slightly tilted and had cracks on the bottom half, but she could still see her reflection perfectly. She didn’t like what she saw. Goldilocks was young, but she had aged so much since the last time she had seen her reflection so clearly. She was a full-grown woman now.
Goldilocks undressed and put on the blue dress. She let her hair down and ruffled it up a bit. She wiped off all the dirt on her face with a handkerchief and looked in the mirror again. She stared at herself, completely awestruck; she had forgotten how beautiful she could be. She only wished Jack could see her looking like this.
“Such beauty, such a waste,” said a voice.
In the blink of an eye, Goldilocks had retrieved her sword and extended it in front of her.
“Who’s there?” Goldilocks demanded, but she didn’t see anyone else in the barn.
“If only the world could see what I see now: Goldilocks, a woman feared throughout all the kingdoms, standing vulnerably in a dress,” said the voice.
“Don’t be a coward. Show yourself!” Goldilocks said. She turned back to the mirror, but didn’t see her reflection. Another woman, with a pale face and in a dark, hooded cloak, was staring back at her.
“Hello, Goldilocks,” said the woman in the mirror.
“You!” Goldilocks said. There was only one woman in the world who could possibly have the ability to communicate from mirror to mirror. “I know you. You’re the queen everyone is looking for.”
“Yes,” the Evil Queen said. “We’re both women on the run.”
“What do you want with me?” Goldilocks said.
“Why do you assume I need something from you?” the Evil Queen said. “I’ve appeared to you simply to pass along some information I’ve recently acquired.”
“Nice try, but I’m not some ditzy maiden you can con,” said Goldilocks, getting closer to the mirror. “Try giving me a poisoned apple, and I’ll shove it down your throat.”