The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (29 page)

“Who are you?” Malumclaw barked. The woman before him, less than half his size, was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“You don’t know me, but you know of me,” the Evil Queen said. “Everyone does.”

“It’s the Evil Queen,” a wolf snarled.

Malumclaw began shifting his weight on his front paws. He was intimidated, and he didn’t like it.

“You have a lot of nerve approaching my pack,” he said. “I should have one of my wolves rip your throat out.”

“I dare you,” the Evil Queen said. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in her body. She walked closer to them, and the wolves cowered back, Malumclaw included.

“What do you want from us?” he demanded.

“I’ve come to make a deal,” she said.

“We don’t make deals,” Malumclaw growled.

“You will once you know what I have to offer,” the Evil Queen said.

This intrigued the wolf. “What kind of
deal
?” he asked.

“A trade,” the Evil Queen said. “There are two children traveling through the kingdoms, one boy and one girl—twins. I want you to find them and bring them to me unscathed.”

“You want
children
?” Malumclaw mocked.

“They have something—several things, actually—that I need,” the Evil Queen said. “I would do it myself, but I’m indisposed at the moment.”

“And if we bring them to you, what will you give us in return?” he asked.

“
When
you bring them to me, I shall give you the one thing you want more than anything else in the world,” the Evil Queen said.

Malumclaw laughed. “Wolves
want
for nothing,” he said.

The Evil Queen stared at him as if she were looking into his soul.

“Is that so?” she asked. “Then why do you and your pack crusade around the lands terrorizing everything in your path? What are you trying to prove? Whose revenge are you seeking?”

Malumclaw was silent. He couldn’t deny it.

“I will give you the one thing that will avenge your father’s death wholly,” the Evil Queen said. “I will give you Queen Red Riding Hood in exchange for the twins.”

All the wolves, including Malumclaw, growled their doubts, but the idea was intriguing to him.

“And how could you possibly do that?” he said.

The Evil Queen looked at him so sternly that his heart began to race. “Do not question me. I will have the young queen in my possession by the end of the week. Bring me the children, and I will hand her over to you. Do we have a deal or not?”

Malumclaw looked at the frightened members of his pack. They nodded at him; they didn’t want to upset the queen.

“Deal,” Malumclaw said. “But let me warn you, if you fail to keep your end of the bargain, we’ll snap your neck like a twig.”

The Evil Queen walked up to the wolf and stood inches from his face, looking him forcefully in the eye.

“Let
me
warn
you
,” she said. “Fail to keep your part, and I’ll have you all turned into rugs, just as Red Riding Hood did to your father. And if you ever threaten me again, I’ll skin you myself.”

Malumclaw froze. The Evil Queen knew she had him exactly where she wanted him.

“See you soon,” she said. She put her hood back over her head and disappeared into the trees in the direction she had come from.

All the wolves stood still for a moment, afraid to move.

“What are we waiting for?” Malumclaw shouted, his pride bruised. “We have twins to find!”

They charged into the horizon, howling in unison. The sound was deafening.

T
rix insisted that Alex and Conner stay with her the night after her trial. Of course, that meant the twins slept on the ground underneath her birdhouse-size home hanging from a tree branch, but it was a kind gesture nonetheless.

Alex and Conner couldn’t sleep after seeing the Walking Fish in person. They laid under the stars of the Fairy Kingdom—most of which were actually just fairies sleeping in midair—and let their thoughts wander.

“I always thought that the Walking Fish was one of
Dad’s stories, one that he made up himself,” Alex said. “I wonder how he heard it.”

“Probably the same way he heard about all the other stories that come from this place,” Conner said.

“But then why wasn’t it as well known as Cinderella’s or Snow White’s stories? Why wasn’t it written in
The Land of Stories
?” Alex said, and then asked a question that had been on her mind for a while: “Do you think Dad or Grandma were ever here? Do you think they ever traveled into the Land of Stories and just never told us?”

Conner had to think about it. The idea had crossed his mind once or twice before, considering that
The Land of Stories
had been in their grandma and dad’s possession before their grandma had passed it on. Could they just as easily have been transported into this world as Alex and Conner had? And if they had, how had their dad and grandma managed to find a way home?

“I don’t think so,” Conner ultimately decided. “They loved fairy tales so much. If they ever got here and saw everything we’ve seen, I doubt they would have left.”

The next morning, Trix generously thanked them again and again, and after they shared good-byes the twins started their journey into the next kingdom.

“Sleeping Kingdom, here we come!” Alex said.

“Why do I have a feeling that the spindle is going to be the most difficult item to get?” Conner said.

Alex opened the journal to see if her brother’s prediction was true.

“Well, that’s lucky!” Conner said. “I wonder what sleeping for a hundred years does to you. Every morning when I wake up for school, after about the fourth or fifth time I hit the snooze button, I always think I can sleep for a hundred years. I wonder if you’d wake up super refreshed, or if you’d still be drowsy afterward.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Alex said. “I wonder if she dreamed about anything. I assume it would have been a very long dream.”

The twins had no money left but, claiming to have been separated from their parents, they managed to convince two drivers transporting a cart of goats to let them ride along into the Sleeping Kingdom. The twins didn’t mind sitting in the back with the goats, but the goats weren’t thrilled about sharing with the twins.

“What are you looking at?” Conner said to one of them after it had stared at him for a good half hour.

The road ran alongside a great sparkling ocean with water that was as blue as the sky. It was like an ocean from their world, except a thousand times more vibrant.

“Look how beautiful the ocean is here!” Alex said. “And look over there, it’s Mermaid Bay!”

She was referring to a large bay just ahead that curved into the shoreline.

“It’s pretty neat to know that, right now, as we sit in this cart, there are actual mermaids swimming down there,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Conner said. “Too bad we didn’t bring any snorkel gear.”

Alex was flipping through the journal, making a list in her head.

“We have five items collected,” she said. “All we need are the spindle, jewels from Snow White’s coffin, and the ‘saber from the deepest sea.’ ”

“Whatever that might be,” Conner said.

Alex longingly stared out at the water. What could the ‘saber from the deepest sea’ be? With all her fairy-tale knowledge, she still couldn’t figure it out, and it was starting to get to her. She was hoping that at any minute it would just appear in the middle of the ocean.

“We’ll figure it out,” Conner said. “Or I should say,
you’ll
figure it out, and I’ll pretend I helped.”

After they had been on the road a bit, the twins couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation the drivers were having.

“Did you hear about the news from the Charming Kingdom?” one of the drivers asked the other.

“No,” he said.

“Both of Queen Cinderella’s glass slippers have been stolen!” the driver said.

“Stolen? By who?”

“I don’t know, but I reckon there’s a reward for anyone with information,” he said.

The twins didn’t know how to react to this news. If the kingdom was claiming the slippers had been stolen, had Cinderella or Sir Lampton
not
put the slipper in their bag? Was there a warrant out for their arrest? And then, the most troubling question of all: If they had one of the slippers, who had the other one?

“
Both
were stolen?” Alex whispered to her brother.

“It has to be that woman we saw in Red Riding Hood’s castle,” Conner said. “She must be collecting for the Wishing Spell, too! I knew it!”

“Let’s just hope we get to the spindle before she does,” Alex said.

The road turned away from the ocean, and the cart headed north into the Sleeping Kingdom.

It was a very hilly place surrounded by towering mountain ranges. It was a surprisingly dismal land, although the twins weren’t sure what they had expected. All the fields were dry, and all the trees were bare. Everything seemed like it hadn’t been alive for a very long time.

“Why is everything dead?” Conner asked.

“I don’t think they’re dead,” Alex said. “I think they’re
sleeping
.”

Sleeping Beauty’s castle was located in the center of a village called Sleepy Valley, and once the twins arrived there and hopped off the cart, they understood how it had gotten its name. The entire village surrounding the castle looked deserted.

The twins found a man standing behind the open window of a bakery. He was resting his head on his hand and his elbow on the windowsill. He was sleeping standing up.

“Excuse me?” Alex said, not wanting to be rude and wake him up.

“Yes?” the man asked with his eyes still closed.

“Where is everyone?” Alex asked.

“Resting,” the man said with a yawn, and then began to snore.

Sure enough, as the twins walked through the village, they could see many other shopkeepers and servants drowsily moving about inside the shops, slowly getting their work done. They all looked as if they were about to fall asleep at any second.

“I thought the curse on the kingdom had been broken,” Conner said.

“They don’t seem to be sleeping because they
have
to, it looks like they’re sleeping because they
want
to,” Alex said.

Alex and Conner walked through the sluggish town and found Sleeping Beauty’s castle. The castle was a spectacular sight. It was the tallest structure the twins had ever seen.
It was made from peach-colored stones and its many tall towers soared into the sky with the tallest in the very center. When the twins looked closely, they saw the residue left from the vines that had once grown up the castle walls.

There were many vast gardens surrounding the castle, or at least there would have been if anything were alive. Gardeners slept in the garden, still clasping their tools. Every few minutes they would wake up and continue working, but they would fall back asleep almost immediately.

There were guards everywhere, but the twins effortlessly walked past them. Every once in a while a guard would open an eye and consider saying something to them but then decide to go back to sleep instead.

They found the main entrance to the castle and entered. They walked down a long hall with a soaring ceiling that led to the throne room. It had white pillars and a checkered floor. The ceiling was painted the colors of dusk, with vivid pinks and oranges. Guards lined the entire room, and they were all entirely unconscious.

Sitting on the throne ahead of them was a beautiful woman. She was speaking with two men; one was tall and handsome, and the other was short and old with a white beard.