“We’re actually going in there?” Conner said.
“Let’s put on our shells,” Alex said.
They each tied a shell necklace around their necks and slowly walked to the edge of the pit. The vines and thornbush shot straight toward them like a frog’s tongue to a fly, but then jolted back, repelled by the magic shells.
“Looks like they work,” Conner said.
They began to climb down into the pit. They used the dead thornbush on the side of the pit as a ladder, scratching themselves and drawing blood on different parts of their bodies every few feet. The thornbush and vines that were alive moved away from the twins as they passed. They watched them like hungry serpents, ready to strike at any second.
Alex and Conner climbed as low as they could go. The pit floor was covered in rubbish, like a giant junkyard. The smell was unbearable, and the twins had to cover their noses as they searched.
“Whoa,” Conner said. “This is like a massive trash bin. Can you imagine all the secrets we could discover just by going through this place?”
“Remember what we’re here for,” Alex said, and then suddenly screamed.
“What is it?” Conner asked.
She had almost stepped on the hand of a skeleton.
“Who is that?” Conner said. “Or should I say who was that?”
“I don’t want to know,” said Alex, shaken up by the discovery. “I’ve never seen a skeleton before.”
It was only the first of dozens. There were skeletons and parts of skeletons everywhere. Each one was harder to look at than the one before; some had been down here longer than others. Alex had to take deep breaths to prevent herself from getting sick.
They found countless knives and daggers and swords scattered across the pit.
“Is this it?” Conner asked, holding up one for his sister to see.
“No, that’s wooden,” Alex said.
“What about this?” he asked, holding up another.
“No, that’s made of steel,” Alex said. “Remember, it was made in the ocean.”
“Oh,” Conner said. “Like this!”
He held up a knife that matched his sister’s description perfectly. It had a curved handle that was made of coral and bits of shell, and a long blade made of bright sea glass.
“That has to be it!” Alex said gleefully. “Conner, we did it! We found the last Wishing Spell item!”
She gave her brother a huge bear hug and kissed him on the cheek. They were so incredibly happy, tears formed in their eyes. They were going home!
“Let’s get out of this pit as fast as possible,” Conner said. “It gives me the creeps.”
The twins went back to the dead thornbush and began climbing up the side of the pit.
When they were about two thirds of the way up, a branch caught hold of Conner’s necklace and ripped it off his neck. As if it were happening in slow motion, Conner saw the shell begin to fall away from him toward the bottom of the pit. He reached for it, but it was too late. It was gone. The shell hit the bottom of the pit floor and shattered.
Alex and Conner looked down at the broken shell and then looked at each other with the same horrified expression.
“Oops,” Conner whispered.
The living vines and thornbush vibrated with excitement. The shells were useless now. Vines began shooting toward the twins.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Alex yelled, and the twins rushed up the side of the pit faster than they had ever climbed anything before.
Their fingertips were just about to reach the top of the pit when vines wrapped themselves around Alex’s and Conner’s feet and dragged them downward. Conner stabbed the saber into the ground outside the mouth of the pit, and he and his sister held on to it while they were being pulled, determined not to end up like the other victims of the vines.
More vines wrapped themselves around the twins, increasing the fight. Alex and Conner were nearly completely covered in plants. Alex lost her grip around the knife and began to fall back into the pit, but Conner grabbed hold of her just in time. He couldn’t hold on to both for much longer. One by one his fingers began slipping from the knife’s handle.
Conner’s hand lost its grip on the knife, and he and his sister were both dragged away. But right as his hand slipped away, he felt a cold, clammy hand grab on to his and try to pull him and his sister out of the pit. It was a struggle; the plants weren’t giving up. Alex and Conner felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war.
“Damn you, miserable plants!” said a very proper voice that the twins recognized. “Let them go, you overly advanced shrubbery!”
With one final tug, most of the vines broke, and Alex and Conner were saved. Their momentum piled them on top of whoever had just saved them.
“Froggy!” Alex declared, and gave their old friend a tremendous embrace.
“It’s you!” Conner said. Although he had had trouble shaking Froggy’s hand when they’d first met him, Conner was now hugging him like he was a long-lost relative.
“Hello, Conner, Alex,” Froggy said. He was almost suffocated by their affection.
“You saved our lives!” Alex said.
“How did you know we were here?” Conner asked.
Froggy got to his feet, straightened the tie of his suit, and helped the twins up.
“I’ve been looking for you two for days!” Froggy said. “The amount of ground you’ve covered is remarkable! Thank goodness I crossed paths with those mermaids, or I would never have found you!”
“I’m so proud of you,” Alex said. “You’re out of your house! You’re out in the world!”
“What made you come out of your hole in the ground?” Conner said.
“The Fairy Godmother is looking for you two,” Froggy said.
The twins were very surprised and confused to hear this.
“What?” Conner said. “What does she want with us?”
“Oh no,” Alex said. “The glass slipper! She must know I broke it and is furious!”
“Glass slipper?” Froggy said with a raised eyebrow equivalent.
Alex shyly looked around. “Well, yes,” she said. “We’ve been busy collecting.” She opened her bag and let Froggy peer into it.
“You’ve collected all the Wishing Spell items? Already?” Froggy asked. He wasn’t sure whether to be proud or shocked.
“Yup,” Conner said, pulling the knife out of the ground. “And believe me, it wasn’t easy.”
“We’ve got the very last item!” Alex said happily. “We can go home!”
Froggy was speechless. These two children had done something he had only dreamed about doing for years.
“That’s extraordinary, children,” Froggy said, but his happy expression deflated to a worried one. “But you can’t go home yet.”
“Why not?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Conner said. “Why not?”
Froggy was the one who had introduced them to the Wishing Spell in the first place. Why was he saying they couldn’t use it now?
“I promised the Fairy Godmother that I would bring you to her,” Froggy said. “And in exchange, she said that she would turn me back into my human form. Please, you must let me take you to her.”
The twins could tell that he didn’t want to ask this of them but was desperately hoping they would agree.
“Froggy, you have no idea what we’ve been through to get all these items,” Alex said.
“We want to go home,” Conner added. “Now.”
“We want to help,” Alex said. “But what if the Fairy Godmother takes away some of the items that we’ve—how do I say this?—forcefully borrowed?”
“Then we’d be stuck here again for who knows how long,” Conner said.
Froggy looked ashamed of himself. “I understand, children. Forgive me; I wasn’t expecting you to have assembled all the Wishing Spell items so soon.” He tried to cover his disappointment with a fake smile. “Can I help you assemble the Wishing Spell, then?”
&nb
sp; Alex and Conner each looked to the other, feeling incredible guilty. They wanted to get home more than anything, but how could they tell him no? He had done so much for them.
“I suppose sticking around for another day wouldn’t be so bad,” Conner said, knowing his sister was thinking the exact same thing.
“It would be a shame to end our journey here,” Alex said.
“Children, you can’t stay for me,” Froggy said. “You’ve got everything you need. Please don’t let me stop you!”
“We’d still be lost somewhere in the Dwarf Forests without you, Froggy,” Alex said.
“And if the Fairy Godmother tries to take our stuff, we’ll just run like crazy away from her,” Conner said. “We’ve gotten so good at it! You’ve got to see us in action!”
Froggy’s big round eyes became more watery than usual. “Children, you are the kindest souls I have ever been fortunate enough to meet.”
The twins smiled at him. Doing this for him made them feel better than they had felt in their entire stay in the Land of Stories.
“Where to?” Alex asked him.
Suddenly, a piercing scream sounded across the land. All three of them jerked their heads toward it.
“Let me go!” a woman screamed.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
Soon they heard a galloping horse approaching and felt the thumps of its hooves through the ground. Coming toward them at full speed from the distance was a familiar cream-colored horse.
“It’s Porridge!” Conner said. “And Goldilocks!”
Goldilocks and Porridge were charging toward the Thornbush Pit—and they were dragging Queen Red Riding Hood behind them!
The twins and Froggy all stood motionless at the sight of it. They thought their eyes were playing tricks on their brains.
“Do you see this, too? Or am I imagining it?” Conner asked.
“I order you to release me at once!” Red Riding Hood said. Her dress was so big and layered that she wasn’t harmed from being dragged, but she was extremely aggravated. “Do you have any idea what my soldiers are going to do to you once they catch you?”
“Oh, shut up, you red-hooded harlot!” Goldilocks said.
She and Porridge stopped a short distance from the twins and Froggy. Goldilocks hopped down and then dragged Red Riding Hood past them to the Thornbush Pit. She vaguely recognized the twins.
“I remember you,” Goldilocks said.
“Hi there,” Alex said.
“Do you need a hand?” Conner asked.
“Nope,” Goldilocks said. “Just taking out the trash.”
“What are you three doing just standing there?” Red screamed. “Help me!”
“I said silence, you basket-carrying bimbo!” Goldilocks said, and dragged her closer to the pit.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked, and she, Conner, and Froggy followed them, not sure how or who to help.
“This lunatic broke down one of my kingdom’s gates and rode her horse all the way into my throne room, lassoed me, and has dragged me all the way here!” Red said. “And now she’s going to kill me!”
“Yes, I am!” Goldilocks said.
“Wait, why are you going to kill Queen Red Riding Hood?” Froggy asked.
“Because she’s mental!” said Red.
“She knows why!” Goldilocks said.
They reached the edge of the pit, and the twins grew very nervous that they were about to witness a murder.
“They’ll hang you for this!” Red shouted.
“They won’t be able to prove anything,” Goldilocks said. “They’ll never find your body!”
Goldilocks stood Red up on her own two feet. She was still tied up, and Goldilocks began aggressively pushing her toward the pit’s edge.
“Please don’t do this!” Red pleaded. “It was such a long time ago! We were all just kids.”
“We haven’t been kids for years,” Goldilocks said. “You have had plenty of chances for redemption.”
“I love him, too! I was just doing what I thought I had to!” Red said.
“You just couldn’t stand that I had something you didn’t!” Goldilocks yelled.
Goldilocks went in for the final push, but Red dodged it, and Goldilocks almost fell into the pit herself. Red ran away from her as fast as possible, running along the edge of the pit. The plants below moved with excitement; they knew one of them was bound to fall in.
“Come here!” Goldilocks yelled.
“Get away from me, you fugitive floozy!” Red said.
They did an entire lap around the pit, and Red ran into the castle ruins. Goldilocks took out her sword and began swinging it at her, barely missing her by inches.
“This is awful!” Alex said with her hands covering her cheeks.
“This is awesome!” Conner said. “Five bucks says Goldilocks wins!”
The twins wanted to help, but there was nothing they could do without getting into harm’s way.
“We used to be such good friends!” Red said, constantly ducking Goldilocks’s sword.
“You don’t know what a friend is!” Goldilocks said, her swing coming much closer each time. “You could have cleared my name the day you became queen of that pathetic kingdom!”
“I never even wanted to be queen in the first place! I just wanted to impress him!” Red confessed. “Keeping you an outlaw kept you away from him! It wasn’t anything personal!”
“Personal?” Goldilocks said, absolutely infuriated. “Forcing me to live a life of running and committing crimes to survive because you wanted to steal my boyfriend wasn’t personal?” She swung her sword hard at Red and knocked a big chunk out of the ruins’ stone wall.
Red ran up the decaying staircase; it was the only place left to go. Goldilocks ran up after her, and Red was cornered. The only way to escape was to jump into the pit.
“If you let me go I’ll clear you name!” Red begged.
“Liar!” Goldilocks said.
“I’ll give you my castle! Half of it is being rebuilt because of a fire! It looks wonderful!” Red said.
“I don’t want your castle! I want revenge!” Goldilocks said, and pushed Red off the staircase.
Red screamed and fell down toward the pit. The vines reached toward her, happy to finally be fed. Suddenly, a rope came out of nowhere and lassoed Red around the waist just as she fell into the pit and was swallowed up by the vines and thornbush.
“What the—?” Goldilocks said.
The twins and Froggy turned to see a woman riding a black horse on the other side of the pit holding the other end of the rope.
“It’s the Huntsman’s daughter!” Conner yelled and pointed at her.
Red screamed as the vines pulled her down toward the bottom of the pit. The Huntsman’s daughter tied the rope to the horse and took off. Red was yanked out of the pit and dragged behind her.
“Not again!” Red screamed. She was dragged off into the horizon, now a captive of the Huntress.
“Son of a witch!” Goldilocks said, watching a stranger ride off with her chance at revenge. She hopped down from the staircase, and Porridge joined her by the ruins.
“What just happened?” Conner asked, completely overwhelmed by all the excitement.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “But after seeing the Huntsman’s daughter, I have a bad feeling.”
“Who was that woman?” Goldilocks asked.
“The Huntsman’s daughter,” Conner said. “She’s working for the Evil Queen.”
“The Evil Queen?” said Goldilocks, growing even angrier.
“We have to get as far away from this place as possible,” Alex instructed.
“Oh no,” Froggy said softly. He looked more frightened than the twins had ever seen him.
Out of the distance, the Big Bad Wolf Pack crept toward them. The wolves were all growling, more irritated and vicious than ever before. Steam was practically coming out of their nostrils. They surrounded the twins, Froggy, Goldilocks, and Porridge
.
Goldilocks stood in front of the twins. Even she was scared. Normally she wouldn’t have considered the wolves to be more than she could handle, but the way they stared at their group, hungry and irritated, she knew this wasn’t going to be a sporting encounter in the forest.
“After what you’ve put us through, we ought to claw your hearts out!” Malumclaw growled through gritted teeth at the twins. “And look who’s decided to join them! I guess we get Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks tonight!”
The rest of the wolves howled their excitement.
“Just to let you know, you just missed Red Riding Hood,” Conner said.
“Nice try,” Malumclaw said.
“What do you want with children and an overgrown frog?” Goldilocks asked.
“We’re taking the children to the Evil Queen,” Malumclaw said. “We have no interest in the frog…. Dig in, boys!”
Froggy’s face turned a pale green. The wolves moved toward him, snapping their massive jaws in his direction. Froggy turned to the twins.
“I’m going to get help, children,” Froggy whispered to the petrified twins. A wolf leaped toward him, but Froggy jumped twice as high into the air, and the wolf missed him. Froggy landed on the other side of the circle the wolves had formed around them and took off running. A few wolves chased after him as he disappeared into the distance.
“Froggy!” Alex yelled after him. All they could do was pray he would be all right.
“Porridge,” Goldilocks said, “I want you to get out of here, you understand? This is one battle we won’t be able to win.”
The horse was hesitant to leave her at first, but then nodded. She took off in the same direction Froggy had leaped. A wolf tried to attack the horse as she left, but Porridge kicked the wolf with her hind legs, and the wolf landed in the Thornbush Pit. He whimpered the entire way to the bottom as the vines wrapped themselves around the wolf and dragged him down to the bottom forever.
The rest of the wolves weren’t going to allow any more escapes.
“We’re going to see the queen,” Malumclaw growled. “And if anyone else tries to run off, it’ll be the last thing you do.”