Ash & Bramble (27 page)

I nod, and so does Shoe.

“Takes her memories. Puts her in a little room in a tower like a pretty doll,” Templeton goes on. She braces her hands on her hips and I notice again the strength of her arms. “So the Godmother's got a prince all picked out. He'll climb up the tower, rescue her, true love, the end. Doesn't matter what the prince really wants, or the pretty doll really wants. This is Story at work, you see?”

Cor and I nod. Shoe, I think, has already guessed how it comes out.

Templeton reaches out and takes Zel's hand; Zel's beautiful mouth quirks into a smile. “But I got there first. I'd been visiting her every night. Zel grew her hair out long as a rope.” She gives her arm muscles a proud flex. “We fell in love, and we wanted to be together, no matter Story's intentions. So I became a storybreaker. I climbed up, cut off her hair, and we used it to escape. Had a bit of a tussle with the prince first.” She draws a finger along the scar that slashes across her
cheek, and it makes me realize why she doesn't like Cor very much—all princes are the same, to her. “The forest led us here, and here we've been, ever since.”

“Not exactly a happily-ever-after,” I say.

“Oh, we're happy,” Templeton says. “But it's not Story's ending, either.”

Cor is shaking his head. “You call yourself a storybreaker. But Story is not actually broken, is it?”

“Zel's is,” Templeton puts in. “But there are lots of stories within Story. It grinds on, even when one story falls out of the pattern.”

“What about me?” I ask, and hold up the thimble, reminding her.

“You,” Templeton says, nodding. “It's most likely that you are something else altogether. Where did you get that thimble?”

“It was my mother's,” I tell her.

The Huntsman nods. “That's what we figured. Your mother worked inside Story. Trying to change it from within.”

Shoe's head jerks up, and he stares at me as if something has clicked into place. He's smart, I realize. Always thinking one step ahead.

“That's right,” Templeton says. “The Godmother works inside Story too, but her purpose is to make the right endings happen. Your mother opposed her.”

“Pen's mother was the Witch?” Shoe interrupts.

Templeton cocks her head. “You've heard of her?”

Shoe nods. “From Natters and his Missus. They're friends of mine in the city. They told me how Story works and about the Godmother and the Witch.”

My head whirls. “What does . . .” My voice shakes. “What does that mean, that she was a witch?”

“Not
a
witch,” Templeton corrects. “
The
Witch. Your mother worked inside the stories, trying to prevent Story from gaining too much power. She did it by turning the Godmother's strengths against her. The Godmother likes thorny brambles—so your mother became the bad fairy, and used brambles to hide the sleeping girl in a tower, to protect her from any man passing by.” Across the fire from me, the woman in the low-cut dress nods. So she was the sleeping girl? Templeton goes on. “The Godmother likes turning people into animals, so your mother used her thimble to turn a prince into a frog, to hide him from Story's intentions so that he could find out who truly loved him.”

“And it wasn't a princess, either,” puts in the man across the fire, the ordinary one who is sitting next to the man with the ugly, flat face. Had
he
been the frog?

“She was the Witch who gave the drugged apple to the girl in the glass coffin, in order to save her from the prince,” the Huntsman adds. Then he adds in a low voice, “But that girl's storybreaker failed her, and she ended up with the prince, even though she was in love with someone else.”

“She was brave, your mother,” Templeton finishes.

“Did you know her?” I ask.

“Well, I did say that she worked
inside
Story,” Templeton answers. “All of us here”—she waves her hand to include all the people gathered around the fire—“all of us managed to get ourselves
outside
of Story.” She shrugs. “Some of us met her, when she was the witch in our stories, or the bad fairy or whatever, but she wasn't one of us.”

But she'd had a daughter. She must have had some kind of life outside of Story. Where did we live? Did she spend much time with me, or was she always away, being the Witch, fighting against the Godmother?

Did she love me?

“Your mother fought inside Story for a long time,” Templeton says, “though she usually lost. And in the end she lost her life, too.”

“When?” I interrupt. “How long ago did it happen?”

“What do you think?” Templeton asks the Huntsman. “Last winter, maybe?”

“About that, I'd say,” he answers.

My heart shivers with a sudden sense of loss. One year, that's all. One year ago I had a mother and a name and a place in the world, and now it's gone. The only memory I have of her is when she gave me the thimble. “The Godmother must have taken me then,” I realize. “She worked her memory spell with the thimble and turned me into one of her seamstresses.”

“That's likely what happened,” Templeton says. “Since your mother was killed, the Godmother has prevailed. No one has escaped their story's ending and come here to hide. Many storybreakers have died. Story has grown stronger. There's none who can stop it now.”

S
HOE STARES DOWN AT THE SANDY FLOOR OF THE CAVE
listening to Templeton talking to Pen, his thoughts spinning, trying to parse the possibilities of what will happen next.

By the fire, the Huntsman clears his throat. “You are welcome to stay, Prince Cor, Shoe, and Pen. The forest used to be the Godmother's. Stories used to happen in the forest, but it grew too wild, too unmanageable, so she had to build her city.”

“The forest is a rebel, too,” Templeton puts in.

“That's right,” the Huntsman goes on. “It hides us. The trackers will give up eventually, and you will be safe here.”

Listening, Shoe gives a tiny shake of his head. As Templeton says, he is a storybreaker, and he knows how much the Godmother hates him and wants him crushed beneath the
wheels of Story. And she wants Pen even more. This story—Pen's story—is crucial; Pen has a thimble and is the daughter of the Witch, so she is far more important to Story than she realizes. The Godmother is not going to give up her hunt this easily. If she has to, she will cover the entire forest with ice and snow until he and Pen and the rest of them are frozen and waiting for her footmen to find them.

“While I thank you for your offer,” Cor says formally, “I must go to East Oria. And Pen, you should come with me.”

“No,” Shoe interrupts. “I don't think you should leave, either of you.” This is not going to be good, but he has to say it. “Not yet, I mean,” he adds.

“Explain, Shoe,” Cor orders.

He nods, trying to think it through.

There's none who can stop Story now
, Templeton had said. Circles within circles, he'd told Pen, and no escape except into another prison.

“Shoe?” the Huntsman prompts.

Shoe nods. What if there really is another way? He is a storybreaker. And Pen—with her thimble and the strength that is so much a part of her that she doesn't even realize it—she's even more powerful. “The Godmother's fortress,” he says slowly. “It isn't far from here?”

“We're practically under her nose,” Templeton says.

“Pen, I know you don't remember,” Shoe says to her. “But the fortress is full of people like us. Like Marya.” He nods at Tobias, who nods back. “The Godmother's thimble took
away our memories, our pasts, and we were put to work.” He gazes intently at Pen, willing her to understand. “You were a Seamstress. I was a Shoemaker.” He remembers when he first met Pin in the fortress, when she'd whispered this in his ear, the soft caress of her cheek against his. “We didn't touch, or talk, or . . . or kiss, or fall in love. We were slaves to Story, that's all.”

Pen is standing close beside Cor. She is staring at Shoe with her eyebrows raised; she doesn't remember any of this, of course.

She doesn't remember that moment during their escape when she'd promised aloud to go back to the fortress and rescue the Jacks who had helped them, and free the Godmother's other slaves, too. She doesn't remember the other Seamstress, Marya, who had died on the wall, impaled by thorns.

Marya, who had been loved by Tobias before she'd been turned into a Seamstress. Early that morning, Tobias had found Shoe in a corner of the cave where he'd been sleeping. “Come on,” the other man had said, shaking him awake. “We'll go have a look around outside.”

The snow had been blue with the shadows of the night as they climbed out of the cave and scouted for signs of the Godmother's trackers. The air had been bitterly cold; they'd tramped silently along, their breath puffing out as clouds of steam. The snow had turned pink as the sun rose, and then sparkling white, but the air didn't warm. They reached a high
place and stopped to look out. The valley below them was absolutely still, the pines cloaked with snow.

Tobias pulled down the scarf covering his mouth. “You were there,” he said, his broad farmer's face expressionless. “In the Godmother's fortress.”

“Yes,” Shoe said.

“I wandered into the forest from outside when I was searching for her. My girl, Marya. Was she there, in the fortress? The Godmother took her, for a seamstress most likely.”

Shoe knew exactly who Tobias was talking about. He nodded.

Tobias looked steadily over the quiet valley. “She's still there?”

Shoe made the blow quick. “No. She's dead.”

Tobias's face is grim. “Badly?”

“Yes,” Shoe said. “I'm sorry.”

There was a long silence. “Nothing you could have done about it, is there?” Tobias had said at last, not expecting an answer. “We'd best be getting back.”

As they'd hiked back to the cave, Shoe had realized exactly what they needed to do to strike at the very heart of Story so that people like Marya and Tobias would never be hurt again.

Cor is staring at him impatiently. “Well, Shoe? We know already that you were a slave in the fortress.”

Shoe nods. “Pin and I escaped from the Godmother's fortress, but we left people behind,” he says. “We need to help
her slaves escape, just like we did.”

“Wait a moment,” Templeton interrupts. “What are you talking about exactly here, Shoe?”

Shoe looks at her, then at the others gathered around the campfire. “I'm talking about invading the Godmother's fortress.”

“
What?
” Templeton squawks. Beside her, Zel breaks into a silent laugh.

“For one thing,” Shoe goes on stubbornly, “if we do it, we'll free her slaves. For another, it'll jam up the wheels of Story, taking away all the dresses and shoes and candles, and things—”

“And straw to be spun into gold,” puts in the wizened little man across the fire unexpectedly.

“And dancing slippers,” adds one of the four redheaded sisters; the other three nod.

“And glass coffins,” finishes the Huntsman. “All of those things make Story turn.”

“Right,” Shoe goes on. Before anybody can object, he continues. “We should do it fast. We know the Godmother's in the city, not at the fortress. Her guards and footmen are all out searching. We've got Pen and her thimble. There are enough of us; together we might be able to invade the fortress, disarm the few guards and overseers left behind, and rescue her slaves.”

The others are staring in disbelief.

Deciding to risk it all, he tells them the rest of the plan
he's been turning over in his head. “From there, we'd have enough people to go after the Godmother.”

“You mean attack the city?” Cor asks, his voice strained.

Shoe nods. “Not just the city. Story itself.”

They are all still staring as if he is crazy. Shoe feels a flush prickling his cheeks. He can see the shape of things now, and he knows the plan he's suggesting is the only way to truly escape the ending that is coming for all of them.

“You're not just
a
storybreaker,” Templeton says at last. “You are
the
storybreaker.”

“It would stir up a lot of trouble,” says the Huntsman. His eyes are gleaming in the firelight.

“I think it's a terrible idea,” Cor says, his voice deep and authoritative. “We should let my mother, the queen, deal with the Godmother, and with Story.”

“No.” Shoe shakes his head. “She never has before. People from East Oria must have been disappearing for years, but you didn't even know that Story existed, did you, hidden away in its city in the middle of the forest?”

“No,” Cor admits.

“Then we can't wait any longer,” Shoe says. “The time to do it is now.”

There is a long silence. Shoe sneaks a glance at Pen, but she is staring down at her fingers, which are turning the thimble over and over.

“All right,” Templeton says at last. She glances aside at Zel, who gives a decided nod. “We're in.”

“As am I,” the Huntsman says.

“I'm for it, too,” Tobias says.

To Shoe's surprise, Pen looks up and gives a sudden laugh. “Oh, I think it's a wonderful idea,” she says.

“Pen!” Cor protests.

“Cor, we'll never be free of Story unless we try to break it,” she says. “I think it's brilliant. The Godmother will think we're running like scared rabbits. She'll never expect an attack. Well done, Shoe.” She gives him a clean, clear smile, her gray eyes shining.

He finds himself smiling back at her.

Her eyes widen, and then she frowns. “I've never seen you do that before.”

“Do what?” he asks, nervous. It's as if they're suddenly alone together, not in a cave crowded with other people.

“Smile, of course,” she says.

“Oh.” He thinks back. “I don't remember ever doing it before.”