The subtle shakes of the pear cart finally rocked Alex and Conner to sleep. If they hadn't been so exhausted from the previous restless night and eventful day, the shock of discovering the glass slipper in their possession would have kept them up all night.
The next morning, they awoke just as the cart was arriving at the northern village it was destined for. The first thing Alex did when she awoke was to make sure the slipper was still in her tight grip as it had been when she'd fallen asleep. She couldn't let go of it; she was afraid that if it wasn't in her hands at all times, it might disappear just as easily as it appeared.
The mystery of how it had gotten into her bag was still the most prominent thing on their minds.
"Do you think it was magic?" Conner asked Alex. "Maybe the slipper knew we needed it and transported itself into your bag?"
"I've read enough fantasy books to know that that's a possibility," Alex said. "And after everything we've been through, I wouldn't be surprised. But the point is, we have it now. It's one less item we have to collect, so let's focus all our energy into getting ahold of Red Riding Hood's basket. "She wrapped a blanket around the slipper for safekeeping and stored it in her bag.
They didn't want any unwanted attention from carrying it around.
"I hope Cinderella or Lampton don't send soldiers after us once they realize it's gone," Conner said.
Alex hadn't thought about that. What if, as they were speaking, Lampton was putting together a band of soldiers to find them and take them into captivity?
"Then we'll tell him the truth and worry about it when it happens," Alex said. "But let's keep moving in the meantime."
There didn't appear to be any roads or paths on the map that went to the Red Riding Hood Kingdom, so the twins were forced to travel straight through a forest of elm trees to get there.
Alex read from the journal as they walked.
As everyone knows, the Red Riding Hood Kingdom is surrounded by a tall wall to keep out the wolves. There are guarded entrances into the kingdom along the perimeter of the wall.
''So we'll find the wall, find an entrance, and be inside the kingdom in no time," Alex said.
"What if they don't let us inside?" Conner asked.
"I can't imagine why they wouldn't let us in," Alex asked. "But if they don't, this time let me do the talking."
An hour or so of walking later, the twins could see the wall surrounding the kingdom in the distance. It was massive. It was thirty feet tall and made from enormous gray bricks. The same warning sign was posted on the wall every few feet or so:
WOLVES BEWAREBY C.R.A.W.L. DECREE AND APPROVED BY THEHAPPILY EVER AFTER ASSEMBLY,WOLVES OF ANY KIND, BREED, OR COLORARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED FROM ENTERINGTHE RED RIDING HOOD KINGDOM.ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE KILLEDAND TURNED INTO RUGS, COATS, OR DECORATION.YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.NOW BEGONE.
"Wow," Conner said. "The wolves are definitely not getting in there."
They walked beside the wall for another couple of hours but never found an entrance. Alex reread the journal and found a part that she had missed.
There is a north entrance, a south entrance, an east entrance, and a west entrance. Each has its own path that goes to the center of the kingdom, where the town is. There is only one town in the Red Riding Hood Kingdom; the rest is farmland.
"Oh no," Alex said. "I misread the journal. Apparently there are only four entrances into the kingdom."
"And how close are we to one of them?" Conner asked.
Alex looked closely at the map and her eyes widened a bit. Conner could tell it wasn't going to be good news.
"It looks like we're right in between the west entrance and the southern trance, which means—"
"More walking?" Conner said with a furrowed forehead and his hands on his hips.
"Yes..." Alex said, bearing the bad news. "About a day or two's worth."
Conner walked around in a circle, frustrated beyond belief.
"This is so annoying!" Conner yelled. "Why can't anything be easy?"
"Conner, everything's okay. It's just going to take a little longer to—"
"No, Alex, it's not okay!" Conner yelled. "We've been in this world for almost a week! I want to go home! I miss Mom! I miss my friends! I'm even starting to miss Mrs. Peters! There, I admitted it!"
Conner was so upset that he kicked a tree, but he ended up just hurting his foot. "Ouch!" he yelled.
"I miss home, too, but there's nothing I can do about it!" Alex said. "We'll get home when we get home, and that's that. But in the meantime, it doesn't do us any good to be angry. We just have to get through it!"
Conner crossed his arms and his shoulders slumped. He was aggravated almost to tears. Alex assumed they were closer to the southern entrance, and led the way toward it. Conner verbalized his frustrations the entire way.
"I miss pavement and sidewalks," Conner ranted. "I miss our crappy rental house. I miss our neighborhood. I miss that dog down the street that barks constantly through the night. I miss homework. I miss getting detention for not doing homework."
"Let it out, Conner," Alex said. "You'll feel better."
"I hate this place," Conner continued. "I hate the dirt paths. I hate the man-eating witches. I hate the mutant-size wolves. I hate sleeping outside. I hate bridge trolls. I hate all the trees... wait, that's it! The trees!" Conner searched their surroundings and ran ahead to a big tree next to the kingdom's wall.
"What are you doing?" Alex asked.
"I'm getting inside the kingdom! I'm going to climb this tree and hop over the wall!" Conner yelled back at her. He started climbing it at a very quick and determined pace.
"It's a thirty-foot drop on the other side at least!" Alex shouted at him.
"Come on, Alex!" Conner said and gestured for her to follow him. "I'm not climbing that tree!" she said. "You'll climb up Rapunzel's tower but a tree is out of the question?" he asked mockingly.
''He's got a point'', Bree said
"And I shouldn't have done that! I agree!" she said, but was ignored.
Conner was almost at the top of the tree. Alex ran over to the tree and climbed a little ways after him.
"Conner, please come down from there! I'd rather travel slowly and safely than quickly and dangerously!" she said.
Conner stood up on the tallest branch of the tree. The top of the wall was just a few feet away.
"I'm gonna jump to the wall and see if I can spot a way down," Conner said. "Conner! Don't be stupid! Climb down right now! You're going to hurt yourself!" Alex demanded.
"Wish me luck!" Conner said, and prepped himself for the jump. "One...two... three!"
Conner jumped off the tree branch and soared toward the wall.
"No!" Alex yelled.
He had jumped a little too hard. He missed the wall by a few inches and flew over it headfirst.
"Allleeeexxxx!" Conner bellowed as he fell.
She heard a large thump from the other side, but she couldn't see anything.
"Conner!" Alex screamed. "Conner, are you all right? Conner, are you alive?" She was hysterical.
Alex clambered up the tree faster than any animal she had ever seen in a documentary.
"Conner, answer me!" she pleaded. "Can you hear me? Are you hurt?"
Alex heard laughter just as she reached the top of the tree. On the other side of the wall, she saw Conner lying safely on a big stack of hay.
"Hi, Alex!" Conner said with a big smile on his face.
"Conner! You scared me to death!" Alex shouted.
"I know! It was so entertaining!" Conner said. "Do you really think I would have jumped if I didn't see something to land on?"
"I'm glad you're alive, so I can kill you myself," Alex said.
"Jump over! It's a soft landing, I promise!" he said.
"Fine!" Alex said. She carefully tossed him her bag before jumping over the fence.
Conner was right: The landing was soft. They were covered in hay, and they brushed it off each other.
"Take a look at this place," Alex said as she and Conner journeyed into the Red Riding Hood Kingdom. They felt as if they had entered another dimension all over again.
There were rolling hills of farmland for as far as they could see. Cows and sheep were grazing across the fields. Shepherds with curved staffs and shepherdesses in large bonnets attended to the animals with their dogs.
"Everything's so peaceful here!" Alex said. "I feel like I'm in a nursery rhyme."
"They must be bored out of their minds," Conner said.
"I wonder whose land this is?" Alex said. A few moments later, Alex got her answer.
They passed a big, wooden sign stuck into the ground that said:
BO PEEP FAMILY FARMS
The scenery was so pleasant that the time went by fairly fast. After they'd traveled a while longer, the peaked and pointed rooftops of the town came into view. They couldn't see much while looking at it from the outskirts, but once they were in the center of it, the town came to life.
"How adorable!" Alex squealed at first sight of the town.
It was so dainty and picturesque that they felt like they were in a theme park. It was filled with tiny cottage homes and shops made of bricks or stonewalls and hay roofs. A bell in the steeple of an old schoolhouse rang. Many staff-carrying men and bonnet-wearing women like the ones they had seen in the fields walked about the town pulling goats and sheep along with them.
Among the many stores and shops were the Henny Penny Bank, Jack Horner's Pie Shop, and the Pat-a-Cake Bakery. The Shoe Inn, just adjacent to the main town, was a boot of gigantic proportions turned into a working hotel.
In the very center of the town was a grassy park that hosted several memorials and monuments. Alex was doing mental backflips at the sight of each of them.
A small brick wall that stood by itself had a golden plaque on it that said:
SIR HUMPTY DUMPTY'S WALL YOU WERE A GOOD EGG AND SHALL BE MISSED BY MORE THAN JUST THE KING'S HORSES AND MEN. REST IN PIECES
Just past Humpty Dumpty's wall was a small hill with a well on top of it. A sign pointing to the hill said: JACK AND JILL HILL In the middle of the park was a circular fountain. A statue of a young shepherd boy stood in the center of it and water poured from the mouths of the sheep that were under him. The carved dedication of the fountain read:
IN MEMORY OF THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF YOU WERE A LIAR, BUT YOU WERE LOVED.
The twins were so enthralled by everything that they were getting strange looks from the villagers and townspeople.
"This place reminds me of that miniature golf course in town," Conner said. "Not the one by us, but the really legit one across town, where all the rich kids live.
''It actually does'', some random kid said
"At the edge of town, with the best view of the park, was Red Riding Hood's castle. The castle had four tall towers that could be seen from anywhere in town. It appropriately had red walls with dark red roofs. A moat circled the castle and had its own water mill.
The castle looked massive from far away. However, as the twins moved closer to it, they realized it wasn't very big at all; it was just built to look big. The moat around it was so small that one of the twins could have easily stepped over it.
"I bet you Red Riding Hood's basket is in there somewhere," Conner said.
Alex retrieved the journal from out of her bag and began reading the specifics of collecting the basket to Conner.
Unlike every other palace or castle, Red Riding Hood's isn't very difficult to break into. The castle was built so quickly after the C.R.A.W.L. Revolution that the builders forgot to add some basic necessities. The kitchen windows located in the back of the castle have no locks on them. The Red Riding Hood Kingdom is the safest and smallest of all the kingdoms; therefore, they're shorthanded on soldiers and guards. The halls of the castle are only patrolled until midnight, and the guards don't return until dawn. Sneak into the castle between midnight and dawn through the kitchen windows, stay away from the main halls, and you should be fine. Queen Red Riding Hood has a special room in her chambers devoted to all the baskets she's acquired and been given over the years. Find this room, and you'll find her very first basket, the one she took with her to her grandmother's house all those years ago. You don't need to collect the whole basket, just a small chunk of the tree bark that surrounds the rim. It should be easy to identify, as there is already a chunk of tree bark missing from when I collected it.
"And I was just hoping we could ring the doorbell and ask for it," Conner said.
Alex looked up at all the towers and windows. She wondered which window belonged to the room they would find the basket in. And as she looked up at the castle, something else entirely caught her eye.
"Look over there!" Alex said, and pointed to the sky.
Conner turned to look in the direction she was pointing. Sticking straight up into the air a hundred feet or so was an enormous beanstalk.
"That must be Jack's beanstalk!" Alex said. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"No, but I'm sure you want to go see the beanstalk—" Conner said, and before he could finish, Alex had taken off toward it.
The twins ran through the town and had to take a trail leading out of town to get to the beanstalk. They passed a few cottage homes and more farm landas they traveled; it was much farther than they had thought. Eventually, they saw the base of the beanstalk ahead.
It was thick and curly and had huge leaves. It grew right next to an old, decrepit shack that was only large enough to have one room inside of it. A little ways behind the beanstalk and the shack was a large, elegant manor with yellow bricks and enough chimneys and windows to hold a dozen rooms.
"Which one of those is Jack's house?" Conner asked as they approached the beanstalk.
Alex looked at it for a moment until she figured it out.
"That shack must be where Jack lived with his mother when they were poor, and then after he defeated the giant and became rich, they must have built a new home just behind it!" she said happily. "They're both his!"
Conner shrugged. He had no reason to doubt her guess.
"Look how tall it is!" Alex said once they had reached the base of the beanstalk. "It would take a lot of bravery to climb that!"
Just then they heard a door slam, and a man came out of the manor. He was young and tall with short hair and broad shoulders. He was very good looking, but he wore a subdued expression. He carried an axe and a log.
"Look, Alex!" Conner whispered. "Do you think that's Jack?"
"I don't know," she whispered back. "Let's ask him."
The man set the log on a chopping block in the front yard and began chopping the log into small pieces.
"Hi there!" said Alex, being extra friendly.
"Hello," said the man, never looking up from chopping.
"Are you Jack?" Conner asked him.
"Yup," the man said. "Do you need something?"
"No, we're just traveling around," Alex said. "We saw your beanstalk from all the way in town and wanted to get a closer look."
"Many people do," Jack said. "I have to chop it down once a week because it grows so fast."
His expression barely changed as he chopped the wood. Was he just accustomed to random people approaching his home and beanstalk, and he'd become numb to it?
"You have a lovely home," Alex said.
"Except for that eyesore in the front," Conner said, and nodded toward the hack behind him.
"Conner, be polite!" Alex said.
"I've turned it into a workshop," Jack told them. He finished chopping the wood, collected the pieces in his hands, went into the shack, and slammed the door behind him.
"Well, someone isn't much of a conversationalist," Conner said.
"I wonder what's wrong with him. He seems so different," Alex said.
"Have you met before?" Conner asked.
Sometimes he wondered if she had forgotten that they were from another world.
"No, I just mean from the way he's always been described," Alex said. "He was always so energetic and adventurous. I wonder what's troubling him."
"Maybe he doesn't like people coming up to his house," said Conner. "If I were him, I'd get really annoyed, too—"
Conner had another sarcastic comment to add, but he was distracted by a high-pitched sound coming from inside the manor.
"Do you hear that?" Conner asked Alex. "It sounds like singing."
They both turned to face the manor as a set of window shutters were pushed open. The twins wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't been so close, but standing behind the open window was a golden woman.
She happily sang a soprano ballad as loudly as she could. A set of strings played along with her, but the twins couldn't see where the music was coming from.
"Oh, the day is here, and so am I,
To wistfully dream of birds that fly.
If I had legs, I'd see the world and travel away,
But I'm only a harp, and this window is where I shall stay.''
(Goldie growling)
She turned to face the twins as she sang the final note, and they noticed a set of strings connected to her back.
The strings played magically along to her voice. She was a magic harp.
"Hello, children! I didn't see you there!" the harp said.
Alex jumped up and down. "Are you the magical harp?" she asked. "The one that Jack saved from the giant?"
"The one and only!" the harp said, and struck a dramatic pose. "And thank God he did, because giants have terrible taste in music! You wouldn't believe the numbers he used to force me to perform for him! All the lyrics were about eating sheep and stepping on villagers! Would you like me to sing for you?"
"No, thanks," Conner said. The harp took offense to this.
"I remember that day like it was yesterday!" the harp said. "There I was, minding my own business, being a slave for the giant, when suddenly this skinny peasant boy walks by, and I was like, 'Hey there! Why don't you rescue me? I could use some rescuing!' The next thing I know, we're zooming down a beanstalk, being chased by the giant! Jack chopped down the beanstalk and the giant fell to his death! Splat! Right on the Bo Peep farms! It was quite a day!"
"How terrifying!" Alex said.
"It was the most excitement I had had in a hundred years! Everything worked out just wonderfully, though. Jack and his mother became rich, I wasn't a slave anymore, and the Bo Peep family said the giant was the best fertilizer their farms had ever used!"
"That's so wrong," Conner said to himself. "What are you two doing here?" the harp asked them with a big smile.
Alex and Conner looked at each other, both afraid to answer. "We're just visiting," Alex said. "We've never been to the Red Riding Hood Kingdom before."
"We were in town and saw the beanstalk and wanted to see it up close," Conner said.
"Then, welcome!" the harp said. "Don't you just love it here? I know I do! I've been around the world, and I've never felt more comfortable! It's so safe here! The people are all friendly farmers, and the best part is, no wolves are allowed! Are you two thinking of moving? Wouldn't that be nice? I think you should move here and visit me every day!"
The harp was very chatty, and the twins could tell she was desperate for attention. Spending every day cooped in a house couldn't be easy.
"We're actually on our way home," Conner said. "We just have to make a stop at Red Riding Hood's castle, and then we'll be on our way. We've never been before—"
"You should have Jack take you!" the harp said. "He's headed there this afternoon to meet with Queen Red Riding Hood."
"He is?" Alex asked.
"Oh, yes," the harp said. "He visits her at the end of every week and brings her a handmade basket every time."
The harp looked side to side to make sure no one else was listening, but there was no one in sight.
"Now, you didn't hear this from me," the harp said excitedly, with gossip in her eyes.
"Queen Red Riding Hood calls him to the castle every week and proposes to him! Poor thing has been in love with him since they were kids!"
"Really?" Alex said. "Does that mean they're getting married?"
"Oh, heavens no," the harp said. "Jack can't stand her! He turns her down every time."
"Why would he do that? Doesn't he want to be king?" Conner asked.
"His heart belongs to someone else," the harp said sadly, and the strings on her back played a sad chord.
"Who does he love?" Alex asked.
"Let me guess," Conner said. "Little Miss Muffet?"
"Of course not," the harp said. "Miss Muffet married Georgie Porgie but, as everyone knows, he has had countless affairs, but that's another story—"
"Back to Jack," Alex said.
"Oh, right. Well, I'm not sure who he's in love with. I've never seen her, "the harp said. "All I know is, he's never been the same since she moved away."
Alex and Conner looked at each other with the same questioning expression. Who could it be? Was that the reason he had seemed so gloomy? The door of the shack opened, and Jack emerged with a basket made from the pieces of wood he had just chopped.
"Hey, Jack, I have a wonderful idea!" the harp called out. "Why don't you take these two with you to the castle? They've never been inside it before!"
Jack seemed hesitant.
"Please, Mr. Jack!" Alex pleaded. "We won't be any trouble!"
"Come on, Jack! Make their day!" the harp pleaded.
"All right," Jack said.
Jack turned and began traveling toward the town. The twins ran after him.
"Thanks so much," Alex called back to the harp.
"You're welcome!" the harp said. "Come back and visit me... please!"
Jack was a very fast walker. His legs were much longer than the twins', so they found it difficult to keep up with him.
"It's very kind of you to let us tag along," Alex said to Jack, but he never looked up from the ground.
"You're not much of a talker, are you?" Conner said.
"I don't have much to say," Jack said. Conner nodded at him; he understood completely. As they neared the town, Alex pulled Conner aside.
"How lucky is this?" she said. "If we get inside the castle and get ahold of the basket, we'll be out of this kingdom in no time!"
They traveled into the town and reached the castle. There was a set of large, wooden doors at the castle's entrance. Jack knocked on the door. A moment later, a small window in the middle of the door opened and a set of eyes appeared.
"Who goes there?" said a voice on the other side of the doors.
"It's Jack," Jack said. "Again."
"Who is that behind you?" the voice demanded, and the eyes looked over Jack's shoulder to Alex and Conner. They awkwardly waved.
"Oh... what are your names again?" Jack asked the twins.
"Alex and Conner," Alex told him, and gave him a thumbs-up.
"These are my friends, Alex and Conner. They're accompanying me to the castle today," Jack said.
The doors opened, and the twins followed Jack into the castle.
It felt like a condensed version of Cinderella's palace. The halls weren't quite as long, and the furniture wasn't quite as nice. There were many portraits hung on the walls, but they all were of Queen Red Riding Hood at various ages in different poses, each one more grand than the last.
The twins waited with Jack in a hall outside another set of doors. Jack knocked on the doors and immediately took a seat on a bench outside them.
"This always takes a moment," Jack said.
A series of footsteps and sounds of rushing about came from the other side of the doors.
"Wait, don't open the door. I'm not ready yet!" someone whispered . "Hand me that cape! No, not that one, the other one, with the hood! Hurry!"
Jack began to whistle as he waited.
"How do I look? What about my dress, does it seem all right to you?" the whispers continued. "All right, I'm ready. Let him in! Quickly!"
Jack stood up just as the doors were opened by a pink-faced and out- of breath handmaiden. She escorted Jack inside, and the twins followed.
They entered a long room with tall windows on both sides. The walls were covered in more portraits of the queen. Looking up from the floor was a giant wolf head with red eyes and a set of sharp teeth. It looked just like one of the wolves the twins had seen in the Dwarf Forests, and it alarmed them at first, before they discovered it was just a wolf-skin rug spread out on the floor. The twins knew without asking that the rug must have been the Big Bad Wolf himself at one point.
At the very end of the room, perched elegantly—almost too elegantly—on her throne.
"Hello, Jack!" Red Riding Hood said.
Red Riding Hood was a very pretty young woman around the same age as Jack. She had bright blue eyes and blonde hair that was done up glamorously behind her crown. She wore a long, red gown with a matching hooded cape and a pink corset. She wore a necklace with a massive diamond, her shoulders were completely bare, and she wore a pair of long gloves with a dozen sparkly rings on her fingers.
She was showing too much skin, wearing too much makeup, and was dressed too well for the middle of the day.
"Hello, Red," Jack said.
"What a surprise! I wasn't even expecting you!" she said.
"Uh-huh," Jack said.
"And I see you brought... guests?" Red asked. She was not happy to see that she and Jack were not alone.
''I was not, but who knew one day you two be saving by neck'', Red told everyone
"Yes, this is Alex and Conner," Jack said.
"Hello!" Alex said bashfully.
"What's up, Red?" Conner said, and was then elbowed by his sister.
"Helloooo," Red said behind a clenched and very fake smile. "Welcome to my castle. Please have a seat." Red clapped her hands, and two servants placed a large, cushy chair right next to her throne for Jack to sit on. They brought Alex and Conner each a small stool to sit on some distance away from Red and Jack.
Jack moved the chair back away from the throne a couple feet before sitting on it. He handed Red the basket he had made for her.
"Is this for me?" Red asked him. "Oh, how thoughtful of you! You are just too sweet for words! I'll cherish it!"
"You always do," Jack said.
"So, tell me, what's new with you?" Red asked Jack. She was leaning toward him as far as she possibly could without falling off of her throne.
"Nothing much," Jack said. "Same old, same old." His body language made it obvious that he was ready to leave from the minute he'd sat down. "How's the kingdom?"
"Oh, I never bother myself with all that talk of economy and security and peasant needs and blah blah blah," Red said. "My granny takes care of all that for me. She's much better at it than I would be, anyway." Red got tired of holding the basket. She snapped her fingers, and her handmaiden collected the basket from her. "Put it with the others," Red instructed.
The handmaiden collected it from her and headed out of the room.
The twins figured this was their chance.
"May we see the others?" Alex asked.
"The others?" Red asked.
"The other baskets," Alex said. Red was looking at her peculiarly. "My brother loves baskets."
Conner nodded, going along with it.
"I do! They're my most favorite thing ever!" Conner said. "You know what they say, life is better with baskets!
"Red was staring at them as if they were the strangest people she had ever met in her life.
"If you wish," she said, and shooed them off.
Alex and Conner jumped up and followed the handmaiden out of the room and down a hall.
"Where does Queen Red Riding Hood keep all of her baskets?" Alex asked the handmaiden, and then winked at Conner. She wasn't very good at playing dumb.
"She has a chamber dedicated entirely to baskets," the handmaiden said.
"So, she has a basket room?" Conner asked.
"Yes, and if you received as many as she did a year, you would, too," the handmaiden said.
"How many are we talking about?" Conner asked. "You'll see," she said.
The handmaiden opened a door, and the three of them walked inside. The room was twice the size of the room they had just been in and was filled from floor to ceiling with thousands and thousands of baskets.
Wow
Some were on shelves, some were stacked neatly, and others were just piled around the room. The handmaiden tossed the basket from Jack in a pile on one side of the room.
"The queen gets them for birthdays, holidays, and any special occasion," the handmaiden said. "Some are from villagers, some from friends, others are from the monarchs of neighboring kingdoms."
Alex and Conner stared around the room with their mouths open. How would they ever find the basket they were looking for in all of this?
"Do you mind if we have a look around?" Alex managed to say through her shock.
"I suppose," the handmaiden said. She looked at the twins curiously and then left them inside the basket room.
The twins could barely breathe. They both felt as if a dumbbell had suddenly been tied to their chests.
"I have never felt so overwhelmed in my life!" Conner declared. "This is like trying to do the whole summer break packet of homework the day before school starts again, but a thousand times worse. How are we going to look through all of these?"
"It's not that bad...." Alex tried convincing him, but she didn't even convince herself. "We just need to start. You take one side, and I'll take the other. Let's do this."
They split and rapidly began looking through the piles and piles of baskets for the one with the bark rim. They knew they didn't have much time and grew more anxious after each second. They had no idea there could be so many shapes and sizes and designs for baskets. Like snowflakes, each one was different from the next. Alex was paranoid that she had missed it. Conner kept getting splinters and kept shouting "Ah!" every time it happened.
They had been there for almost an hour and still hadn't covered even a fourth of the room. They were making a huge mess. The room was twice as disorganized now as it had been when they'd entered it. Even Alex wasn't hesitating, throwing around baskets that she had already examined.
"This is impossible!" Conner yelled, kicking a pile of baskets
.Just as he kicked the pile, the door swung open and the handmaiden returned. Alex and Conner froze. She was appalled by the chaos they had caused.
"I don't know what on earth you're doing, but I think it's time for you two to leave," she said. The handmaiden escorted them back to the throne room. This time, she watched them like a hawk as they sat on their stools. Queen Red Riding Hood was literally hanging off her throne and grabbing hold of Jack's chair as she talked to him. The twins had never seen Jack look so bored and lifeless.
Neither of them had noticed the twins return."
You know, Jack," Red said, circling his forearm with her finger. "The Red Riding Hood Kingdom isn't much of a kingdom without a king...."
"Perhaps you should change the name to the Red Riding Hood Queendom," Jack said. Red laughed much harder than she should have.
"You're so funny! But that's not what I meant. What I'm trying to tell you, Jack, is that I've never been more ready to get married. If someone asked me for my hand in marriage today, I would say yes! Do you know anyone who might be interested in marrying me? In being king? Anyone?"
A white dove suddenly flew by one of the windows outside and sat on the window ledge. As soon as Jack saw it, his entire face lit up. His eyes grew wide, and he smiled; for once, he looked happy. He turned to Red. Clearly she wasn't used to seeing him like this, either.
The twins could practically see her heart beating out of her chest as excitement filled her body. Was he going to propose? Was this the moment she had been waiting for for so long?
"Red," Jack said."
Yes, Jack?" Red said."
I have to go," Jack said, jumping up and heading out of the throne room. Red almost fell off of her throne.
"Go?" she said. "Go where?"
"Home," Jack called out, not even looking back at her. "I'll see you next week."
Red crossed her arms and pouted. He was the only thing preventing her from having everything. The twins felt it was best to leave with Jack, so they followed him out of the castle.
"It was wonderful meeting you, Alex, Conner," Jack said, and shook their hands.
"Likewise," Alex said. "Thanks again for taking us to the castle."
"My pleasure! I hope to run into you someday soon," Jack said, and then headed in the direction of his home with a new bounce in his step.
It was very strange. Jack was now acting like the person Alex had always thought he would be.
"What is that guy's deal? How does someone go from a zombie to a camp counselor in a matter of seconds?" Conner said.
"I don't know," Alex said, looking after him as he walked away. "He's a very odd man."
"Looks like we'll be sneaking into the castle after all," Conner said, and slumped to a seated position on the ground. "At least we know what to expect tonight, and we already went through a good portion of the baskets," Alex said. "We just have to wait until midnight."
"And in the meantime, I could really use a nap," Conner said.
The twins traveled up the street and booked a room at the Shoe Inn. Their room had a perfect view of Red Riding Hood's castle. It was somewhere near the shoe's tongue, because a set of laces crossed through one of their walls .The room also had a working bathtub, and they both took turns using it, since they hadn't been able to bathe in so long.
"That was the best bath I think I'll ever have," Conner said.
They both decided to rest for a little bit, and as soon as their bodies touched the bed, they both fell into a deep sleep. They slept for a few hours and woke up shortly before midnight.
"What's our game plan for tonight?" Conner said. "It'll be the first time we'll ever be breaking and entering anywhere, so I'm extra anxious."
"Let's take account of everything we have now," Alex said, and dumped all the contents of their bags onto the bed. "We have two blankets, a bag of gold coins, a dagger, a lock of Rapunzel's hair, a glass slipper, a map, a journal, and a satchel of food," Alex listed. "We can use the dagger to cut a chunk of wood out of the basket, but it's going to be dark. We'll need some light."
"Let's take these lanterns," Conner said, and gathered lanterns that were on the bed sides.
"Great," Alex said. "We should plan on leaving the kingdom right after, just in case we run into some trouble. We'll head to the east entrance of the kingdom, and that'll bring us close to the border of the Fairy Kingdom."
Conner lowered his head. "I was so looking forward to coming back to this bed."
At a quarter to midnight, Alex and Conner gathered all their things, lit their lanterns, and left the Shoe Inn. They walked across town to the castle. I twas so quiet at night; not even farm animals were up this late. They hid behind Humpty Dumpty's wall and watched through the castle windows as guards patrolled the halls.
"Just a few more minutes and they'll leave," Alex said.
A few minutes later, they saw fewer and fewer guards walk past the windows.
"Are they gone?" Conner asked.
"They must be!" Alex said. "Let's go."
They ran around to the back of the castle and saw a large kitchen through a set of windows. They hopped across the moat—they knew they'd be able to!—and pulled at the window. Like the journal had said, it didn't have a lock, and it opened easily. Alex crawled into the kitchen first. She was as quiet as possible; the only sound she made came from the intense beats of her heart. Conner climbed in after and knocked over a stack of pots and pans. Alex was mortified.
"I'm going to kill you!" she mouthed at him.
"Sorry!" he mouthed back at her.
They waited for a moment to see if anyone had heard the disturbance, but no one had.
The twins left the kitchen and found themselves in a hallway with, to no surprise, more portraits of Red Riding Hood.
"That Red Riding Hood sure loves having her portrait painted," Conner said.
"Maybe there are so many paintings of her because she's the first monarch the kingdom has ever had. It doesn't have the history the Charming Kingdom has," Alex said.
"Or she's just a self-obsessed twit," Conner said.
They traveled down the hall, then another one, then up a set of stairs and down another hall.
"Do you know where you're going?" Conner asked.
"I thought I was following you!" Alex said.
"What? Since when do you follow me?" Conner said.
A shadow was creeping toward them from down the hall. As it got closer, they could see it was the silhouette of a guard.
"A guard!" Alex whispered, and pointed at the shadow. They ran down the hall and entered the first room they found.
The room was pitch-black.
"Where are we now?" Conner asked.
"Why are you asking me questions you know I don't have the answers to?" Alex said.
Alex waited by the door and listened for the guard to pass by.
Conner moved around the room with his hands stretched out in the darkness so he wouldn't bump into anything. Their eyes began to adjust to the darkness.
"Alex, I think I can see something—" Conner walked right into what he thought was a doorway and suddenly saw a pale face staring back at him. He fell to the floor with fear.
He screamed as quietly as he could. "Alex! There's someone standing over there in the doorway! He's so creepy and ugly!" Conner said, pointing up.
Alex ran to his side and squinted her eyes to see what he was talking about.
"That's not a doorway; that's a mirror, you idiot!" Alex said.
"Oh," Conner said, and Alex helped him up to his feet.
"Oh my, what big claws you have," said a voice behind Alex and Conner, causing them both to jump five feet into the air.
They turned to see an enormous four-poster bed with silky red sheets and lacy white curtains around it. In the bed, talking in her sleep, was Queen Red Riding Hood.
"We're in the queen's bedroom!" Conner whispered to Alex.
"Oh my, what a big nose you have, Grandma," Red said, still very much asleep.
"Is she having a nightmare?" Conner asked.
"Oh my, what big sharp teeth you have—Woolf!" Red screamed, and sat straight up in her bed, awake.
Alex and Conner dropped to the floor, out of her view.
She was out of breath, and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. She finally caught her breath.
"Not again," she said, and then, frustrated, laid backdown to sleep. Alex and Conner were afraid to move.
"Did she go back to sleep yet?" Conner asked.
"How are we supposed to tell?" Alex asked.
They emerged back into the hall and traveled around the castle for a while longer. All the halls looked so familiar, it seemed impossible to find the basket room. Every time they thought they had found the right door, they found themselves in a drawing room or a dining room or a ballroom.
"Let's find the entrance and retrace our steps to the throne room—" Alex began, but Conner interrupted her.
"No need. The baskets are in there," he said, and pointed to a door beside them.
"How do you know?" Alex asked him.
"Because I remember that portrait of Red being next to the basket room, "Conner said, and pointed to a portrait where Red Riding Hood was barely clothed, with only a wolf-skin coat to cover her .
(Many people groaning or snickering)
Alex gave Conner a really dirty look.
"What?" Conner asked with a smirk. "It's memorable. "
They pushed the door open and found the room they had spent the entire afternoon in earlier.
"Let's take it from where we left off," Alex said. She and Conner split up and headed to the areas they had last searched. It had been hard during the day, but it was even harder at night, since they had only the light from their lanterns to go by. After a few hours of searching, their anxiety levels were as high as Jack's beanstalk.
Suddenly, the twins heard a loud clank!
"What was that?" Alex said.
"Alex, look up there!" Conner said, pointing to a window. On the window ledge was a shiny X-shaped object.
"What is that?" Alex asked.
"It's a grappling hook!" Conner said.
It jerked slightly in a consistent pattern.
"I think someone's climbing up! Hide! "
They left their lanterns on the ground and dove behind a pile of baskets.
A moment later, a figure appeared on the window ledge. It took out a sharp knife and cut out a large circle in the window and then quietly crawled into the room. It was a woman who the twins had never seen before. Her clothing was made out of plant leaves sewn together, and her hair was a shade of red so dark it almost seemed purple.
The woman scanned the room and looked cautiously at the two lanterns. Did she know the twins were in there? Like an animal, the woman began sniffing around the room. She searched through the baskets as she sniffed, discarding some by tossing them behind her.
She went around the room, using her nose as her guide, until finally she locked in on one direction. She climbed on top of a pile of baskets to reach the top of a shelf. She reached her hand to the back of the shelf and pulled outa basket. It had a rim made of tree bark.
Alex and Conner looked at each other. There it is!
The woman carved a big chunk of bark out of the basket and then tucked it safely into her belt. She put the basket back on the shelf and climbed down the pile of baskets and headed for the window.
She was just about to climb through the window when she heard an "Ah!" come from the other side of the room. Conner had given himself another splinter from hiding behind the baskets.
"Conner!" Alex mouthed.
"Sorry!" he mouthed back.
The woman walked toward where they were hiding. She squinted in their direction for a moment. Alex and Conner were both too frightened even to breathe. They knew she knew they were there. What was she going to do to them?
The woman looked to the ground at one of their lanterns, and a coy smile appeared on her face. She kicked it into a pile of baskets and disappeared through the window and back down the rope connected to the grappling hook.
"That was a close one!" Conner said. "Good thing she didn't find us, or we'd be in some—"
"Conner! Look!" Alex said. The pile of baskets the woman had kicked the lantern into was on fire.
"Oh boy," Conner said. "We've got to get out of here."
"Not until I get a piece of that basket," Alex said. She reached into her bag and pulled out the dagger. She ran up the pile of baskets to the top of the shelf just as she had seen the woman do.
She wasn't as tall as the woman, so she had to reach farther to get it.
"Alex, hurry!" Conner said.
The fire was growing and spreading around the room to the different piles and stacks of baskets. He tried blowing the fire out, but it didn't work. These were large flames, not birthday candles.
Alex had to climb up onto the shelf to reach the basket, but she finally wrapped her fingers around it.
"Gotcha!" Alex said, pulling it out.
The bark around the rim had two chunks missing, one from whoever had written the journal, and the other from whoever that woman was. Alex sank her dagger into the basket and began cutting out a piece of it.
"Alex! Unless you want to leave this place extra crispy, I suggest you hurry!" Conner yelled.
Half of the room was ablaze. It was becoming unbearably hot inside the room. Dark smoke was filling the air, making it hard to breathe.
"I got it," Alex said, and made her way down to Conner. The flames had covered the door they'd entered from.
"How do we get out of here?" Alex yelled.
The sound of running footsteps came from the hall outside the door. Through the flames, the twins could see the faces of several alarmed guards.
"Fire! Fire in the castle!" a guard yelled. "Get the queen to safety! Get some water!"
Another guard pointed directly at the twins. "You two! Stay where you are!"
"Not likely!" Conner yelled.
He picked up a particularly heavy basket and threw it at a window, causing it to shatter. He grabbed his sister's hand and pulled her toward it. They breathed in the fresh air from outside.
"Look, the water mill is right below us!" Conner said, and started climbing out of the window and down toward it. He helped his sister out of the window, and they climbed down the water mill together. Halfway down, flames burst through all the windows in the basket room; the entire room was an inferno.
The water mill began to turn from the twins' weight, and they fell straight into the moat, which wouldn't have been such a rough landing if the moat had been deeper than three feet.
The twins clambered out of the moat and began running as fast as they could away from the castle. No guards or soldiers were chasing them. They all must have been inside the castle trying to put out the fire.
Alex and Conner ran out of the town and were on their way toward the eastern gate of the Red Riding Hood Kingdom in a matter of minutes. They only looked back once and saw that almost half of the castle was now on fire. A thick trail of smoke filled the sky.
"Was that the fourth or fifth time we've narrowly escaped death this week?" Conner asked.
"Who was that woman?" Alex asked. "And why was she looking for the basket, too ?"
"Thank God she found it, otherwise we might never have," Conner said.
The most worrisome thought came to Alex's mind. "Conner, you don't think someone else is collecting items for the Wishing Spell, do you?
"He had to think about it, but she could see it was just as troubling for him to consider it as it was for her. "I doubt it," Conner said. "Think about all the trouble the man who wrote the journal went through to learn about it. I'd be shocked if someone else knew anything about it."
Alex nodded. They both knew it was very unlikely, but the possibility still lingered in their heads.
A few hours later, the twins could see the eastern gate of the Red Riding Hood Kingdom wall in the distance. The guards must have extinguished the fire in the castle, because there was no more smoke filling the air.
The night sky was at its darkest just before dawn. As they reached the gate, they could see something moving near it. Spooked from the events earlier, Alex and Conner dove behind a bush and watched from afar.
It was a man pacing near the gate. He was tall and seemed young. There was something oddly familiar about him.
"Is that Jack?" Alex asked.
Conner took a closer look. "It is! What is he doing all the way out here?"
Suddenly, a hooded figure came into view on the other side of the gate.
"Who is that?" Conner asked.
''Warning things are going to take a different turn'', Colton warned
Jack carefully approached the gate. There was so much tension between him and whoever was on the other side of the gate that even the twins could feel it. He had been waiting for whoever it was all night.
"Hello, Jack," said the hooded figure.
"Hello, Goldie," he said.
And then the twins realized who it was: Goldilocks. She was wearing the dark maroon coat they had seen her wear in the Dwarf Forests.
"How do they know each other?" Alex asked.
Conner shook his head. "No idea."
"I saw your dove," Jack said. "I knew you must have sent it."
"I did," Goldilocks said. "I knew you would recognize it. Doves are hard to train these days."
The twins could tell from the way they were standing that Goldilocks and Jack had much to say to each other, but they said very little. Instead, they just stared into each other's eyes with their bodies pressed against the bars between them.
"I hate these bars between us," Jack said.
"It's either the bars of this gate or the bars of a prison cell, I'm afraid," Goldilocks said.
"I worry about you constantly," Jack said."
I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself," Goldilocks said.
"I wish you would let me come with you," Jack said. "You know I'd pack my things and leave right now if you would let me."
"No sense in ruining two lives," Goldilocks said. "You'll find someone else someday."
"You've been saying that since you left, yet here I am, year after year, meeting you in the shadows," Jack said.
"She's the one he's in love with!" Alex said, putting the pieces together. "She's the reason Jack won't marry Red Riding Hood. She's the girl the harp was telling us about."
"Oh," Conner said. "This is like a soap opera!"
Jack placed his hands over Goldilocks's hands. "I swear, if I ever find the person who wrote you that letter, I'll kill them," Jack said. "They're the reason for this whole mess."
"What is done is done, and it can never be undone," Goldilocks said.
She and Jack were touching foreheads through the bars.
"One day, I'll clear your name," Jack said. "I promise. And then we can be together."
"Clear my name?" Goldilocks said, and backed away from him. "I'm a fugitive, Jack! I steal! I run! I even kill when I have to! No one can clear me of that; it's who I am. It's what I've become."
"It didn't start off as your fault, and you know it," Jack said.
Goldilocks grew silent.
"I love you," Jack said. "And I know you love me. You don't have to say it back. I just know."
"I'm a criminal, and you're a hero," Goldilocks said with teary eyes. "Aflame may love a snowflake, but they can never be together without each harming the other."
"Then let me melt," Jack said. He reached through the gate and pulled Goldilocks close to him, and they kissed. It was passionate, pure, and long overdue.
Alex became misty-eyed. Conner scrunched up his face as if he'd smelled something foul.
"Good thing those bars are between them," Conner said.
"Shut up, Conner," Alex said.
Goldilocks pushed herself away from Jack.
"I have to go," she said. "I have to be as far away from this place as I can get by sunrise."
"Let me come with you," Jack begged.
"No," Goldilocks said.
"When will I see you next? A week? A month? A year?" he asked.
Porridge walked up behind Goldilocks. She leaped up onto the horse's back and took hold of the reins.
"Just wait for the dove," she said, and rode off into the night on her cream-colored horse.
Jack watched her until she wasn't visible anymore. Suddenly, all the life in his body faded away, and he once again became the sad man the twins had met earlier. He sadly turned away from the gate and slowly headed home.
"I guess not every fairy-tale character gets a happily-ever-after," Alex said.
Alex and Conner ran up to the gate. It was locked, so they had to climb over it, finally making their way out of the Red Riding Hood Kingdom just as the sun started to rise.
''So adorable'' all the girls squealed