My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending (9 page)

“Welcome back, Doc!” Anthony called out. “Where have you been hiding all this time?”

Dr. Bradley didn't answer. Instead, he hobbled toward the Queen Fairy. “Release them,” he hissed. I'd never heard him sound so threatening.

Not surprisingly, the Queen Fairy ignored him. She whispered some sort of command, and instantly I heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

“Get us out of here!” I cried to Dr. Bradley. If he'd managed to transport himself here, that meant he could pop us back out. Once we regrouped, we'd figure out how to get my parents out too.

Dr. Bradley raised his cane just as the Queen Fairy started shooting waves of energy at him. He managed to deflect one—two—three waves and send them crashing into the floor. Meanwhile, I yanked Anthony off his throne and dragged him toward the doctor, so the three of us could get into world-jumping position.

“Hey, what are you doing?” said Anthony. He tried to grab handfuls of candy as I dragged him away.

As my fingers were about to wrap around the doctor's elbow, another beam of energy hit and knocked Dr. Bradley's cane across the room.

“No!” the doctor cried. He tried deflecting more of the queen's attacks with his own magic, but it was too weak. I watched, helpless, as the doctor fell to the ground.

Just then, a wave of energy slammed into me.
Zap!

And just like that, I was shrinking all over again and sprouting extra legs, a tail, and fur. This was ridiculous! How many times was I going to get moused and unmoused in the span of an hour? Beside me, the doctor and Anthony were also morphing into woodland creatures. I noticed that one of Dr. Bradley's small paws had an orange cuff around it. Now his magic was useless too.

Before any of us could scamper away, a cage appeared around all three of us. We were trapped.

“Take them away,” I heard the Queen Fairy say.

“Hey!” Anthony squeaked as a guard picked up our cage. “What are you doing? I'm the queen's future husband.”

“Do not worry, my dear,” said the queen. “I will retrieve you in time for the wedding. And after that, you will have your very own cage.”

Anthony's eyes bugged out. He seemed to be finally coming out of his sugar haze. Maybe learning that the queen intended to keep him as a pet was enough to sober him up.

“Wait!” I cried. “What about my parents? What about our deal?”

The Queen Fairy didn't answer. Instead, she disappeared behind one of the hanging tapestries, like the sun setting behind a cloud. I guess that meant any hope of making a deal was gone.

“I can't believe it,” said Anthony as the guards carried our cage down the hall. “She gave me all the candy I could ever want. She said I was the one she'd been waiting for and she'd do anything to make me happy. She even convinced me wear these uncomfortable shoes!” He kicked his tiny glass loafers off his furry feet so they landed on the floor of the cage. “And now she's turned me into a disgusting creature and locked me up?”

“What did you expect?” I said.

Anthony sighed. “I guess you're right. It was too good to be true. But the throne…it tasted so good!” His eyes started to glaze over again. “Maybe if I go apologize to the queen, she'll let me—”

I smacked him with my tail. “Snap out of it!”

Anthony's mouse eyes focused back on me. “You're right. It's over. The candy throne is gone.” He turned to Dr. Bradley. “Where have you been all this time, Doc? And why couldn't you find anyone to help break us out of here?”

“I pleaded with the Committee to organize an effort to rescue you,” said the doctor, peering down at his four legs. Just like when he was human, one of them was made out of metal. I wasn't sure how he'd be able to move around without his cane, but maybe having three good legs would help. “Alas,” he went on, “they deliberated for days about what to do, but in the end—”

“Let me guess,” I said. “They told you the mission was too dangerous and they'd have to study the matter further.”

He sighed. “Something like that.”

I wanted to laugh. It figured that I'd spent all this time trying to think of ways to keep the Committee safe from the fairies, and they didn't even care that the Queen Fairy had trapped us here forever. What was the point of staying loyal to those grumpy old ladies when they were willing to just let us rot here?

I twitched my whiskers. Well, it was too late now. Even if I decided to give up the Committee for real, the Queen Fairy wasn't interested in making a deal anymore.

The guards brought us into the elevator, and we shot down through what seemed like about a million levels. Anthony and I automatically put our front paws up and shrieked along with the guards. Dr. Bradley stared at both of us as if we'd gone totally insane. Maybe we had.

Finally, we emerged in the lower level where the other prisoners were being kept. And where my parents were probably still asleep in the lab. What would they think if they found out their daughter had been turned into a mouse, not once but twice? I suspected they'd be disappointed in me, and probably a little grossed out that their only child now had fur growing out of her ears.

The guards put our cage right next to Ilda's before leaving and closing the door behind them. The witch scurried over as if she was excited to see me.

“Back so soon? Did you make a deal with the queen?”

I sighed. “Nope. I guess it's time for Plan B.”

“What's Plan B?” said Anthony.

“I don't know yet, but we have to find some way to get out of here.”

A voice chimed in from the cage on the other side of us: “Don't bother. There's no escape.”

I glanced over to see a small mouse in a leprechaun outfit curled into a little ball in the corner. Something clicked in my head. “Are you Belthum?” I said.

The mouse blinked at me, obviously startled. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Your father's been so worried about you!” I said.

Before I could tell him about Karfum's plan to fight against the queen, the door to the chamber creaked open. Were the fairy guards coming back to turn us into snakes this time? Or worse, were they going to make us sing?

I peered through the bars of my cage and spotted someone tiptoeing toward us. It was Luken.

“Jenny?” he called softly. “Are you there?”

I squeaked and waved him over with my front paws. “What are you doing here?”

He crouched by our cage and whispered, “I came as soon as I could deactivate the new cuff. They made this one even more difficult than the last.”

“Luken?” said Belthum, his voice full of disbelief as he came to the bars of his cage. “Is that you?”

“Belthum, my friend,” said Luken, looking downright joyful. “I knew I would see you again. I just knew it!”

I hated to interrupt the happy reunion, but we had to get out of here as soon as possible. “Luken, can you use your magic to break us out of this cage?” Since there was no door or lock, magic had to be the only way.

He shook his head. “I cannot use the magic. I
will
not.”

“Why not? You deactivated your cuff, didn't you? That means they're not tracking your magic anymore.”

“I want to help you. Really.” Luken's thin shoulders sagged. “You must know, Jenny, that I have never agreed with what my people do. Even when I was a young child, I could not understand how they could teach me that stealing is immoral and yet do it themselves.”

“Stealing magic,” I said. “Yeah, the fairies like doing that. I don't know why they bother when they already have plenty.”

Luken's eyes were full of sadness. “You misunderstand. The fairies do not steal magic out of greed. They steal it out of necessity. If the fairies do not take magic, then they have none of their own. They are powerless.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Fairies have tons of magic. I mean, look at us! Do you think we turned
ourselves
into four-legged creatures?”

Luken shook his head. “Fairies can read dreams, but that is the extent of their natural magic. Before the Queen Fairy took over this land, my people used their abilities to make the amusement park exactly what visitors wanted. It was only when the Queen Fairy devised a way to take magic from others that she remade this land into her own fairy-tale kingdom.”

I thought of the Land of Tales and how its residents had lost their way of life because their magic was gone. The Queen Fairy had destroyed their world in order to keep her own running.

No wonder all that glowing magic was practically bursting out of her. She wasn't supposed to have it in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if she actually sweated magic. (Did fairies sweat? Something told me they probably didn't.)

“Okay, so fairies steal magic. What does that have to do with adventurers?” I said. “Why does the queen have them in that lab?”

Luken put his head in his hands. “You must believe that I did not know what she was doing to your parents until I finally got the truth out of my mother today.”

“What?” I said, sticking my long nose through the bars. “What is it?”

“The Queen Fairy discovered that adventurers are extremely valuable. They magnify and focus magic so it is more useful to her.”

“You mean my parents and the other adventurers are being used liked they're magnifying glasses? That doesn't make sense. My mom and dad aren't even magical.”

Luken shook his head. “Being magical does not matter. Adventurers spend their lives putting the magical worlds in order. That is why they are so effective in focusing magic once the Queen Fairy has taken it. After the magic is absorbed, they help send it out to the fairies through the red cuffs.”

That's
why the fairies had been so interested when they'd found out I was an adventurer. I thought of the way my dreams had been repeats of some of my missions. Maybe the fairies had been testing me to see if I was a good fit for their magic-channeling purposes. Hopefully, I'd been a miserable failure.

“So you won't use the magic, even if it'll help us?” I asked Luken.

“I cannot, Jenny. When I first decided to stand up to the queen, I swore I would not use stolen magic again. My father would have never approved.”

I was tempted to try to talk Luken into it anyway, but I couldn't force him to do something he thought was so wrong. “Okay, do you have any other ideas on how we can get out of here?”

Luken smiled. “In fact, I think I do,” he said. “The key is the lab. The queen is able to keep the city running because the adventurers focus the magic as it flows into the cuffs. But if all the adventurers were to wake up at once—”

“Instead of going into the cuffs, the magic would go all over the place!” I had to admit the plan was pretty brilliant. “And the magic keeping us in here would disappear too, right?”

Luken nodded. “Or at least be weakened significantly. Once the magic has been disrupted, you will be able to escape. You may even turn back to your regular forms.”

“What about me?” said Ilda, her eyes wide with panic. “You'll help me escape too, won't you?”

I sighed. As tempting as it was, I couldn't leave the old harpy behind. “Yeah, we'll take you with us. In fact, we'll make sure to get all the prisoners out.”
Somehow
, I added silently.

Dr. Bradley had been quietly listening until now, but he finally chimed in. “Do you know how you will wake up the adventurers?”

“I am still working out that part of the plan,” Luken admitted. “There must be some way to interrupt the magic that is keeping them asleep.”

My brain started churning. Luken was right. There had to be a way to get my parents and the other adventurers out of their comas. After all, I'd managed to wake myself up when the fairies were trying to control my dreams.

Ding!
That was it!

“I might have the answer,” I said. “When the fairies were messing with my dreams, I just had to say that I wanted to wake up, and somehow it worked.” I turned to Luken. “Once you sneak into the lab, you can go from person to person, tap into their dreams, and tell them to wake themselves up.”

“It will not be easy,” he said, rubbing his ear. “I imagine it will require quite a bit of my energy.”

“You'll be able to do it, right? If you can't, then I don't know if there's another way.”

Luken nodded, a determined look on his face. “Yes. I will do it. No matter what.”

“But, Luken,” said Belthum, not sounding convinced, “how will you get into the lab in the first place? It's always guarded.”

“I will persuade Karfum to help distract the fairy guards.”

Belthum shook his head. “You know my father won't help. He disapproves of our rebellion.”

“You might be surprised,” I said, remembering Karfum's tearful breakdown in the elevator. As I turned back to Luken, hope warmed my body like sunlight. Maybe we could really pull this off. “How soon can you get everything going?”

Luken sighed. “I wish we could do it now, but it will have to be tomorrow morning. That will give me time to make certain everything is ready. I only hope the queen does not change her mind and put you in the lab before then.”

I shuddered. “Why didn't she put me there in the first place? Doesn't she want to use my magic-magnifying skills?”

“I believe she still thinks she might be able to reason with you,” said Luken. “According to my mother, the Committee members are the only ones with enough power to stop the queen. I think the Queen Fairy is afraid of what might happen if they get to her first.”

Wow, the queen really had to be afraid of the Committee to want to try to make another deal with me. Maybe she wasn't as powerful as I'd thought. Or those annoying Committee members were more magical than I'd been giving them credit for.

“Okay, then it's settled,” I said. “Tomorrow, we finally get out of here.”