“Everyone relax!” Cinderella laughed. “No one stole anything! I invited them here. My Fairy Godmother wanted to have a word with them.”
“What does she want with them, dear?” King Chance asked his wife.
“I’m not sure,” Cinderella said.
Alex and Conner exchanged looks of dread. This must be even more serious than the broken slipper.
“We may have accidentally broken one of your shoes,” Alex said. Conner had never seen her look so ashamed.
“It wasn’t really our fault,” Conner said. “I mean, it was, but it was a really complicated situation and would never have happened unless it absolutely had to—”
“Oh, that’s no trouble at all,” Cinderella said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve broken them myself. The Fairy Godmother always fixes them when she visits. That’s probably all she wants. She’ll be here soon.”
The twins sighed with such relief that they shrank a few inches. Conner patted his sister on the shoulder, as he knew she had been stressing about it. If there was ever a group of people she wanted to leave a good impression with, it was this one.
Snow White, Red, Alex, and Conner joined the women huddled around the baby. King Chandler dragged Froggy over to where the men were in the corner and introduced them to him. Froggy awkwardly shook their hands; he was the first frog man ever to be inside the palace.
“Look at her!” Snow White said, looking down at the baby princess. “She’s beautiful.”
“She looks just like you, Cinderella!” Red said. “I was a beautiful baby myself.”
The princess was indeed beautiful. She was only a few days old but looked just like her mother, with auburn hair and bright eyes.
“I’m so glad to see you two are all right!” Sleeping Beauty said to the twins. “Did everything work out for you?” She winked at them.
The twins looked down at their feet. “Not so great, unfortunately,” Alex said. She reached into her bag and pulled out the spindle. “Thank you for letting us borrow this, though.”
“My pleasure,” Sleeping Beauty said, and took the spindle from her. “And Conner, I have to thank you for your—what did you call it again? Oh yes, the rubber band trick. We’ve been trying it on a few citizens, and it appears to be helping quite a bit!”
Conner was beaming. “I told you so!” he said, a rare thing for him to say.
“Snow White, I heard they finally found your stepmother,” Cinderella said. “Congratulations! That must be such a relief.”
The other queens and fairies added their congratulations on the subject. However, Snow White didn’t seem happy about it.
“Is everything all right, Snow?” Sleeping Beauty asked.
“Yes, of course,” Snow White said. “It’s all very bittersweet.”
“Bittersweet?” Emerelda asked.
“It’s a long story,” Snow White said.
“Wonderful! I love stories,” Rapunzel said, and made herself more comfortable sitting on the floor.
Snow White looked at the twins. They smiled very supportively at her, encouraging her to tell the others everything they already knew.
Snow White told the queens and fairies all about her stepmother’s past. She explained to them about the Enchantress taking her away from her family, how her fiancé was cursed into the mirror, and about the heart of stone. She left out the part about helping her escape, however, because just as the twins had kept details from Red Riding Hood, Snow White knew her audience.
Many of the women looked as if they were on the verge of tears. Some held their hands over their mouths. Others just shook their heads in disbelief.
“I can’t believe it!” Rosette said.
“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard,” said Coral, petting the Walking Fish, who rested peacefully in her lap.
“And even when the whole world hated her, she still never quit trying to free the man she loved,” Sleeping Beauty said.
“She never gave up hope,” Skylene said.
Cinderella sat straight up in her throne. “Hope. That’s it,” she said, looking down at her daughter. “That’s what I’m going to name her. Princess Hope Charming, the future queen.”
“It’s beautiful!” King Chance said, and kissed his newborn daughter on the forehead.
Everyone awwed and clapped their approval.
“Then I believe it’s time we christened Princess Hope with a few gifts,” Emerelda said, and gestured to the fairies to get on their feet.
One by one, the fairies each blessed the princess with a christening spell. They gave her gifts of wisdom and health, of compassion and wealth, of pride and discipline, and lastly of beauty, although she already had plenty to spare.
“Would you like to hold her?” Cinderella asked Alex.
“Me?” Alex asked, pointing to herself. “Yes. I would be honored.”
Cinderella gently placed her daughter into Alex’s arms.
Alex wondered if the baby had any idea where or who it was. Did she know how special she already was just by having been born? Did she know she was a future queen of a kingdom in the Land of Stories? The baby yawned; perhaps she did know and was exhausted just thinking about it.
The doors of the ballroom opened and the twins saw a familiar face coming toward them; it was Sir Lampton, and he had an enormous grin on his face.
“Your Majesty, the Fairy Godmother has arrived,” Sir Lampton said.
“Oh, splendid, Lampton,” Cinderella said. “Would you let her know where we are?”
“Certainly, Your Highness,” Lampton said. “But before she joins you, she would like to have a word with the children. Alone.”
All the heads in the room turned to Alex and Conner, who gulped in unison.
“She’s waiting in the clock tower,” Lampton said.
The twins slowly walked out of the ballroom with Lampton. He guided them through the palace, staircase after staircase, up to the clock tower.
“It’s great to see you two again,” Lampton told the twins. “The Fairy Godmother has been looking for you two for quite some time now.”
“That can’t be good,” Conner said. “Are we in trouble?”
Lampton didn’t answer. The twins grew very worried by his silence. Alex pulled out the map and the journal from her bag along with a piece of the glass slipper.
“If she’s upset about something, we’ll just explain ourselves from the very beginning,” Alex said. “We haven’t done anything wrong. Have we?”
“Of course not,” Conner said. “Our intentions were always very good with everything we did. Right?”
The twins and Lampton ran out of stairs to climb and found a round door that led inside the clock tower. Lampton knocked lightly on the door.
“Come in,” said a voice from inside.
“Here we go,” Alex said to Conner. “Fingers crossed.”
Lampton led the twins inside. The clock tower was gigantic. The twins felt like they were in the inside of an enormous antique clock as there were giant, turning gears and mechanisms everywhere you looked. They could see the entire kingdom through the clock face.
A short woman was standing with her back to the door, looking out over the kingdom. She wore a long, hooded, light blue overcoat that sparkled like the night sky.
“I’ll leave you alone now,” Lampton said. He promptly shut the door behind him and left the twins alone with the Fairy Godmother.
The twins cautiously tiptoed closer to the woman.
“Excuse me?” Conner asked. “Miss Fairy Godmother? You wanted to see us?”
The Fairy Godmother turned to face the children. She was a beautiful older woman with kind eyes and a radiant smile. Her hair was a light brown and was worn up in a gorgeous hairdo.
The twins froze.
“Grandma?” Alex gasped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A FAIRY’S TALE
I’m so glad you’re all right!” their grandmother said, and rushed over to the twins. She
gave them the biggest and longest hug they had ever received from her. “Your mother and I have been so worried!”
The twins didn’t hug her back; they couldn’t. They could barely breathe. They were surprised they were still standing, because neither of them could feel their legs.
“How are you?” their grandma asked. “Are you hurt? Are you hungry? Do you need anything?”
“Grandma?” Alex asked softly. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m really here.”
“You’re the Fairy Godmother?” Conner asked.
She smiled at them. “I am,” she said, with sadness in her voice. “I’m so sorry, I never meant for you to find out this way—”
Their grandmother stopped speaking. Her gaze had landed on the object Alex was holding.
“Good heavens—what on earth are you doing with your father’s old journal?” she asked.
Alex and Conner felt like they had swallowed their own hearts.
“This is Dad’s journal?” Alex asked with big, bewildered eyes.
“We’ve been following Dad’s journal this whole time?” Conner asked.
“I think I’m going to faint,” Alex said.
Their grandmother pulled out a long crystal wand from inside her overcoat. She waved it, and a sofa magically appeared in the clock tower. She took the twins by the hands and sat them down on the sofa and let them catch their breath.
It took the twins by surprise. Even though she was the Fairy Godmother, Alex and Conner weren’t expecting their grandmother to be capable of such magic.
Grandma took the journal from Alex and flipped through the pages, amazed that it had somehow found its way into their possession.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“It was given to us by our friend Froggy,” Alex said. “We’ve been following it since we got here.”
“We’ve been hunting down all the items for the Wishing Spell,” Conner said.
“The Wishing Spell?” their grandma asked anxiously. “No wonder it was impossible to find you!”
“You and Dad are actually from here, then?” Alex asked. “I wasn’t making it all up in my head?”
“And Dad wrote that journal?” Conner asked, his mind still stuck on the subject.
“Yes, yes, yes,” their grandmother said. “It’s all true. I gave this journal to him when he was a boy. I’m glad it was useful.”
The twins had gotten used to their heads spinning with questions, but now they were spinning out of control. They didn’t know which questions to ask first.
“So Dad wanted the Wishing Spell so he could travel into our world?” Conner asked.
“He wrote that he fell in love with a woman in our world,” Alex said. “Was it… Could it be…?”
“Your mother, yes,” their grandma said.
Alex and Conner exchanged a look, each seeing how the other was processing the information. Neither looked less shocked than the other.
“How long have you been a Fairy Godmother?” Alex asked.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell us any of this?” Conner asked.
“I know you probably have a hundred questions,” their grandma said. “But before you worry yourselves too much, let me explain.”
“Please,” Conner said.
Their grandma took a deep breath. She didn’t know where or how to start.
“We always planned on telling you when you were older,” she said. “Your father was counting down the days until he could bring you here and show you around. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to. After he passed away, you two were going through so much already, your mother and I didn’t want to overwhelm you, so we decided to hold off.”
“So Mom knows about this place?” Alex asked.
“She’s never been here, but she knows enough,” their grandma said. “Your father and I, on the other hand, were both born and raised in this world. Before your father was born, and when I was just a young fairy in training, I accidentally discovered your world.”
“So, your cabin in the woods? Your blue car? It was all just for show?” Conner asked.
“Certainly not,” Grandma said. “I stay at that cabin during my travels, and I love that blue car. I wish people in this world knew about automobiles.”
“So how did you end up in our world to begin with?” Alex asked.
“It happened by total accident,” she said. “I had recently just finished a tour of the kingdoms, traveling to those who needed a helping hand, and I was anxious to help more. I waved my wand around me, I closed my eyes, and thought with all my heart, ‘I wish to go someplace where people need me the most,’ thinking I would just end up in a small village in the Northern Kingdom. When I opened my eyes, I knew I wasn’t in the kingdoms anymore.
“I kept it to myself for years before telling any of the other fairies about it. I met a group of children there who showed me around. I was fascinated by their world, but they were even more fascinated with stories about mine. They didn’t know anything about magic or fairies before I came along. Their world was so consumed with war and famine and disease… it was all they knew. They would sit for hours and listen to my stories about the world I came from. It seemed to take them away from all their troubles.
“I saw how the stories inspired them, how they gave them hope, how they gave them courage and strength, and how they learned lessons from them. It made children without families learn to love and trust a little more than they had before, and it put the sparkle back in the eyes of the children who were ill and had had their childhoods taken from them. I decided from then on that I would do as much as I could to make our stories, our history, as known as possible.
“To date, I am the only one who has had the gift to move between worlds, and I found it to be a great responsibility. I recruited Mother Goose and a few of the fairies to go with me into your world and spread these stories of ours. We found the children who needed to hear them the most, the ones who were down on their luck and needed a little magic, and the term fairy tales was born. Your world was moving so fast and growing so large, we couldn’t do it by ourselves anymore, so we asked people like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and a few others to help us over the years.”
“So, there is a time difference?” Alex said.
“Your world moves so much faster than ours,” Grandma said. “I visited once a week, and every time I returned it seemed as if decades and decades had gone by.”
“That’s why the stories have been in our world for so long!” Conner said.
“Oh no!” Alex exclaimed. “Mom! Does that mean she’s grown into an old woman while we’ve been here?”
“No,” their grandmother said. “You see, children, there was a time difference. But then something truly magical happened that changed all of that.”
“What?” Conner asked.
“You two were born,” Grandma said with a smile.
The twins looked at each other, amazed.
“Why are we so special?” Conner asked.
“Because, sometimes magic has a mind of its own,” she said.
Grandma looked down at her hands and at her wedding ring.
“Your grandfather loved your world and traveled with me whenever I went. He was the love of my life, but he unfortunately died shortly before your father was born. I raised your father here on my own, but I continued to visit the other world from time to time, although it was painful, because it reminded me of your grandfather.
“Your father was always an adventurous boy. From an early age, he was constantly running off and exploring different lands throughout the kingdoms. He was always very curious about the other world, and I promised to take him one day when he was an adult. Many years later, he came with us to a children’s hospital to read stories to the sick children. Your mother had just started nursing there, and I knew from the minute he laid eyes on her that his heart didn’t belong to himself anymore.
“Naturally,
I forbid him from staying or ever coming back with the fairies and myself again. It was selfish of me, but I was scared he would get lost in the time difference of the worlds and would live the rest of his life without me; I couldn’t lose my son after losing your grandfather. But his love for your mother was too strong, and he found his own way back by using the Wishing Spell. I had no choice but to give him my blessing and let him go. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do as a mother.
“However, as soon as you two were born, the most peculiar thing happened: Your world and this world slowly started to move at similar speeds. It’s the greatest magic I have seen in my lifetime.
“Being your father’s children means that you have part of this world inside of you; you always have. You two are the first children of both worlds; you’re the bridge that connects them.”
The twins were so relieved to know that their mother would be the same age when they returned.
“You mean,” Alex began to ask, but paused because it almost seemed too good to be true, “that Conner and I are part fairy?”
“I suppose so, if you put it that way,” she said.
Alex placed both of her hands over her heart and tears came to her eyes. Conner rolled his eyes and sighed.
“That’s wonderful!” Alex said.
“Oh, great,” Conner said sarcastically. “The guys at school can never hear about this.”
“How else did you think you set off my old storybook?” Grandma said.
Alex sat straight up in her seat. She remembered the night in bed when she was holding The Land of Stories and wishing with all her heart to travel inside it, the first night she discovered it wasn’t an average book.
“You mean, I did that?” she asked. “I made The Land of Stories bring us here?”
“Yes,” Grandma said. A proud smile filled her face.
Alex couldn’t believe it. She was magic. She’d made it happen.
“It all makes so much sense now!” Alex said. “In the castle the Evil Queen was hiding in, my tear activated the Wishing Spell! And I saw my reflection in one of her magic mirrors! I had wings! I thought I was just seeing things!”