The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (22 page)

“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 farmland as 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 shack 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.”

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 a large throne was Queen Red Riding Hood.

“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.

“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?”