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STANDING in his throne room, alone, without even the company of his page, King Willis thinks. And when King Willis thinks, at least when he thinks without the help of the magic mirror propped a few paces from the throne and, now, covered with its scarlet curtain, he sometimes gets ideas. But the ideas of King Willis do not always make sense, as is the case with this one that has popped quite forcibly into our king’s brain.
He will ride to the village.
Yes, he will ride to the village.
He will command the people to let his son go. Surely that will work. Surely, once they see their king making an effort, they will know that they should not dare cross him. He is their king, after all. He is their ruler.
So though King Willis has never saddled a horse himself, though he has never, in truth, ridden a horse at all, he pulls one from the stables, buckles the saddle as best he can figure and climbs on. It takes him five tries, dear reader, to swing one leg over the horse, and he nearly gives up before that final time. But then the leg catches, and King Willis is able to slide himself atop the back of the horse, who is none too pleased, truth be told.
King Willis flicks the reins, as he has seen Sir Greyson do, and the horse begins forward, groaning with every step, for King Willis, remember, is a quite heavy man. He is not so heavy as he was days ago, since Cook has disappeared, but he is heavy all the same.
The village people have never seen King Willis on a horse. They have never seen him in the village, either. They hear the horse’s steady steps, from their place beneath the ground, but what they hear more is the groan of his horse. And this is what causes them to grow silent and turn their eyes upon Sir Greyson, who has only just told them about the Huntsman.
They do not emerge from their secret hiding, however, for they want nothing of what waits for them outside this magical door. And, besides, this place must remain secret.
Were it Queen Clarion who had traveled this road, it might, perhaps, have written a quite different story. The people might have eased her heart a bit. They might have made their demands in a gentler, kinder way. But Queen Clarion has taken to her bed, much like many of these parents took to theirs after their own children were stolen from them. She will not remain there, of course, but we must, for now, allow a mother her grief.
“Someone is coming,” Sir Greyson says.
The people suck in their breaths. “Who?” Cora says.
Sir Greyson shakes his head. “I do not know,” he says. “But I will go.”
“I shall go with you,” Cora says. She turns to the people. “Stay here. Remain as quiet as you can.” The people nod, and Sir Greyson and Cora emerge through the secret door before the rider, who travels slower than any rider they have ever seen, can draw close enough to see them.
Sir Greyson meets his king in the middle of the village, his face a study in confusion. “Sire?” he says, and the word comes out as a question. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” Sir Greyson looks behind him, but Cora is not there, though she followed him out.
“I come to take back my son,” the king says.
Sir Greyson thinks that the king has, perhaps, gone mad. Why would the people hand over the prince simply because the king came for a visit? It is plain to see that the king cannot do much in the way of defending himself. He would not be able to dismount from the horse without an extra hand.
The captain shakes his head as much to clear the confusion as to understand this rash and foolish plan of the king’s. “But you have their children,” he says.
“Yes, yes, I know,” King Willis says. “But I am the king.” He lifts his head and squares his shoulders but cries out in pain. It is not so easy to ride a horse when one is so large. He shifts again. “I demand that they let my son go. I demand that they help me find their children.”
“Help you find their children?” Sir Greyson says. “But you have the Huntsman.”
“I would like to speak to the people,” the king says. His eyes do not look so sad anymore. They look more confident, more resolved, perhaps, with a side of anger flickering deep. “I would like to lay out my plan.”
“You shall speak to me,” says a voice behind Sir Greyson. He knows without turning that it is Cora. “I speak for the people of this village.”
“You,” the king says, and he chuckles a little. “But you are a woman. Women do not lead villages.”
The king is dismissive, as if he cannot fathom a world in which a woman could possibly speak for an entire village. Sir Greyson turns his eyes on Cora. Hers flash with anger, that same green he saw years ago when he told her he would join the king’s army as commander and chief. Captain. He had betrayed her then. He would not betray her now.
“I speak for the people,” Cora says once more. “You speak to me.”
“Very well, then,” King Willis says. “I do not expect you to understand plans as involved as these.”
“I understand more than you know,” Cora says.
“Unhand my son,” the king says.
“No,” Cora says. She folds her arms over her chest, the neck of her peasant dress puckering a bit. And even with all the dirt that marks her face and the dress that flows in tatters around her and the tangled hair lifted by the wind—perhaps because of it—she still appears formidable. Frightening, even. Intimidating. The king does not dismount from his horse, for he does not quite know how. But he has always enjoyed looking down on people, and the top of a horse’s back provides him the surest opportunity of that.
“We shall not give you your son until you give us our children,” Cora says.
“Then you shall lose your lives,” the king says.
“And who will do that work for you, pray tell?” Cora says. Her eyes flash and churn.
“My captain,” King Willis says. “He knows precisely what I intend to do.” The king looks at Sir Greyson and then points at Cora. “Seize her, Captain.”
Sir Greyson stands for a moment, caught in the middle of both. He looks from Cora to King Willis and back again. Cora’s eyes hold a challenge. Will you do what he says? hers say. Will you betray me again?
The king expects that his captain will do what he says, for this is nothing less than what Sir Greyson has always done.
“Run,” Sir Greyson murmurs to Cora, for this would make it easier. “Run.”
“No,” she says. “I will not run.”
He should have known she would put him in such a position as this. After all, she did the very same thing fifteen years ago, when he loved her and she might have loved him and then he signed up for the king’s guard because his father had left it in his hands. Sir Greyson looks from Cora, this woman he still loves, back to his king, and he does not know what to do.
Poor Sir Greyson. He does not know what to do, for he is an honorable man, and though he made a decision hours ago, to help the people, he is now in the presence of his king, this man he has served for fifteen years. Could there be some good left in the king? Could it be Sir Greyson who discovers it? Might King Willis deserve another chance, and another, and another? Sir Greyson knows that power can turn men into beasts. He knew King Willis when he was younger, when he was different. And this memory, today, is what makes it so difficult to decide what it is he should do. The people deserve their children. The king might very well deserve another chance. But who might draw out the good in King Willis?
“Sire,” Sir Greyson says. “Sire, please. Let her go.”
“This woman will not hand over my son,” the king says. “She dares defy her king.” The king’s eyes darken, like black marbles in a puffy face. “Why else are you here?”
Sir Greyson, of course, cannot answer that very loaded question. He cannot explain that he has just exited the villagers’ secret hiding place, where he tended to his mother and shared news about the Huntsman and drew up some plans for rescuing the children in the dungeons beneath the dungeons. The king would not understand. Of course he would not. He is driven by another concern: to find his son and the missing children.
King Willis shouts his orders again. “Seize her, Captain!” In truth, the look on Cora’s face summons rage from the pit of his stomach. That woman—a woman!—dares defy his orders. She will pay. She will sit in the dungeons beneath the dungeons along with all the rest. Or perhaps another dungeon entirely, for he would not want her unintentionally reunited with her child, if she has one. King Willis looks into the hard, cold eyes of the woman and feels his chest grow hot with hate. Why is Sir Greyson hesitating? Why does he not grab her while she is near him?
“We can work this out, sire,” Sir Greyson says, holding one hand up, looking from Cora to King Willis. “We do not need violence.”
King Willis looks closely at Sir Greyson. His eyesight is not so keen, but it is plain to even him that his captain loves this maddening woman. His man’s face is creased and tortured. Love has made the captain weak, and King Willis will not stand for it.
We know, dear reader, that love does not, in fact, make a person weak but much, much stronger, for it stretches and swells and opens a heart wide enough to see all the good in a world. But King Willis was taught otherwise in his earliest days, and so it is that he does not allow himself to love a single person. Can you imagine a life without love? It is a wretched one, to be sure. King Willis is only beginning to feel the smallest bit of love for his son, which is what has brought him here, to this exact place in time.
“You,” King Willis says. “You love her.”
Sir Greyson looks behind him, back at Cora. Then he meets the eyes of his king.
“No,” Sir Greyson says. He would try to deny it, but his king has already seen all he needs to see. He brings his horse closer to the man who is no longer his man, and he speaks his words so the woman may hear as well. “You will both pay,” he says. “You will pay with your lives for this betrayal. I shall not forget.” He turns and gallops as fast as his horse can gallop, which is more like a rapid walk for the poor horse carrying far too much weight. The horse’s legs buckle at every step, and it is quite comical to see, though Cora and Sir Greyson notice nothing.
When he is gone from their hearing, Cora says, “Well. At least you are done with that.”
But Sir Greyson knows he is not done with that at all. He will not be done with it until the king has repaid him for what he has done.
Cora takes his hand. Hers is cold in his, and he feels no warmth left in his body.
Honor used to be his warmth. And he has just given away his honor for the woman and the village he loves.
But perhaps it is not as black and white as he believes.
At this point in our story, you might be wondering what has happened to Prince Virgil. I shall tell you straight away. Our prince lies on a cot, beneath the village fountains, guarded by the people inside, in the case that someone who was not invited down here steps through these secret doors. The people wait for Cora and Sir Greyson to return. The prince sleeps.
And what might come as quite some surprise is that our prince does not sleep as he would in his bed. The prince, you see, wears feathers now. He would be horrified, perhaps, to see himself in a mirror, for he has become the very bird said to have killed his grandfather. He has become a blackbird. A blackbird who sleeps.
Who has done such magic in this village?
Well, now, that is quite a mystery. If you remember, parents give up their gift of magic for children, and all the people gathered beneath this ground are parents.
But there is one who defies all the rules.
Wait. No. There are two.
One in the village and one in the castle, waiting for her time to come.
Maude tells the children about the Huntsman over dinner. She tells them that they must leave soon, separate. She tells them that they have all the provisions they could need, that the Enchantress has worked everything out so that they might live. But still the children cry. Still they shake. Still they worry.
It is true that some of their sadness can be found in leaving this home that is a shoe. You see, they have never had full bellies as they have had in the days since walking in this door with a knob like the knot of a shoelace. They have never slept as well, either. Their beds are soft and warm, and now Maude tells them they must give it all up? That they will not carry on together?
“I do not want to go,” says a boy named Jasper.
“We must,” Maude says. “It is the only way.”
“I will not leave,” says a girl named Ruby.
Maude touches the girl’s dark red hair. “Hazel did not sacrifice so that we could be found, my dear,” she says. She is surprised that her voice does not break. “Go. Pack your things. Dress warm.”
“But what will we do?” Ursula says. Maude has waved them out of the kitchen, bid them go pack so they might be ready for the call that will come soon.
“The Enchantress has promised to take care of everything,” Maude says.
And so the children begin their preparations, packing everything they might carry in knapsacks Maude made out of old towels she found in the kitchen, left for her by the Enchantress, and some out of old clothes the children had worn until they were only rags.
They are finished before Maude expects, and they gather in the great room.
“Why must we separate?” Jasper says. “Why must we go alone?”
“It is what the Enchantress says is best,” Maude says. “She has seen it in her looking ball.”
“We cannot separate,” says a boy named Chester, who looks exactly like his twin brother, Charles. “We are brothers.”
“You must separate,” Maude says. “That is the most important instruction the Enchantress gave me.” She looks at the two boys.
“No,” Chester says, grabbing his brother’s hands.
Maude kneels before them. “I know it is difficult,” she says. “I know love does not make leaving one another easy. But if you truly love one another, you must go your separate ways. It is for your safety. Sometimes love asks you to leave, because it is what is best. It is what keeps you both alive.” She is thinking, of course, about her family, separated at every turn.
The two boys look at one another. Tears well in their eyes. “We have never been apart,” Chester says.
“We will find each other again,” Charles says. “We always do.”
And it is true. The boys have always found each other. When they were younger and enjoyed wandering in the fields that lie to the north of Fairendale, between the village and the woods, they always wound up back at each other’s side.
“We will know where others have gone?” Ursula says.
Maude shakes her head. “No,” she says. “You must not.”
“But how will we get where we are going?” Jasper says.
“The Enchantress,” Maude says.
Truth be told, she does not entirely know how it is the children will escape this time. She knows only that the Enchantress has asked for her trust. And Maude will readily give it, for it is the only way she may ever see her daughter again.
The children grow silent. Ursula notices that Maude does not have a knapsack. “Where is your bag, Mother Maude?” Ursula says. “Why do you have none?”
All eyes turn to Maude. She looks at her feet. “I need nothing,” she says. “For I am not going.”
“You are not going?” Ruby says. Her voice sounds like a wail, except it is soft.
“No,” Maude says. She looks up now, beyond the faces of all these children, toward the place where she knows the house of the Enchantress to be, though there is no window through which she could see it. “I will stay with my daughter.”
“But they will find you,” says the girl called Thumbelina. “And then what will they do?”
It is not something Maude has let herself consider, for she is concerned only with staying near to her daughter. She shakes her head. “It matters not. I must be here.” Maude claps her hands. “Now, children. It is time to go.”
The Enchantress, on a late morning visit, laid out her plans for this evening in quite intricate detail, which is precisely the kind of plans Maude prefers. The Enchantress, however, did not tell everything, for she said magic must keep its secrets. The woman reviewed the children’s time of departure many times, for it is the most important part.
Maude herds the children out the door. The girls carry their staffs in one hand and their knapsacks in another. The boys carry only their sacks. “Not too far,” Maude says. “We must wait for the Enchantress.” It is a powerful spell that hides this house, but if they venture too far, they walk outside the spell and will be seen clearly by anyone passing. They have not seen many pass these woods, but now with a Huntsman on the loose, they do not know what waits behind even a tree or a blade of grass. They have never seen a Huntsman. They do not know what a Huntsman looks like.
Fortunately, our Huntsman is not anywhere near the invisible houses just yet.
“What do we do?” Ursula says.
“Now we must wait,” Maude says, though she cannot remember how long they must wait before she is to take them back inside and hide them all as well as she can. She does not remember how many minutes would pass before she could deem the plan of the Enchantress a failure. She watches the woods. The children fan out around her.
Ursula grabs Maude’s hand. “I do not want you to stay here,” Ursula says. “It is too dangerous.”
Maude looks down at the child. Her thick black hair does not move, for there is no wind today. “I will be safe,” Maude says.
“They will find you,” Chester says. “They will take you away.”
“They will never find me,” Maude says. “The Enchantress has powerful magic.”
“Then why must we leave?” Ursula says. “If her magic is so powerful.”
“The Huntsman is not searching for me,” Maude says. “He is searching for all of you.”
“And a Huntsman only finds what he is looking for,” Charles says.
“So he will not find you,” Chester says.
“No,” Maude says. “He will not find me.”
We can never truly know what may happen in our futures, dear reader. Whether someone will be able to find us or whether they will miss our presence entirely. I believe you may have learned this truth in a game played in your time. Hide and Seek, is it? One hides, another seeks, but the one hiding cannot know whether the one seeking will find them or walk on by. It is part of the thrill, perhaps. But for Maude, it is not a thrill at all. It is only a cold terror that she tries to ignore.
Maude kisses all the children in turn.
“I will let you know when it is safe to return to this land,” Maude says. This promise is not a promise she can make, in truth. But she does so anyway, for sometimes terrifying circumstances call for rash promises.
“And we will able to find you again,” Jasper says. “We will be able to find you again when you call us home?”
Maude touches his long nose and looks in his sharp eyes. “Yes,” she says. “Of course.”
Though what she wants to say is that this silly shoe is not a home. It was never intended to be a home. Their home is back in the village, and they may never, ever see their homes again.
But she remains silent, for she does not want the children to worry more than they already do.
When she has finished saying goodbye to all the children in the line, Maude turns back to the woods and says, “Now. We must wait.”
No one says another word. They all simply turn toward the east and wait for the Enchantress to come shimmering out of the woods with news of what comes next in this story.
They wait for far too long.
Arthur did not expect Zorag today. But the dragon drops from the sky with a thunderous shake before him, along with all the rest.
“It is time?” Arthur says.
Zorag’s voice rumbles the ground. “No,” he says. “It will be some time before we can do all that we have planned to do.”
“Yes,” Arthur says. “I understand.” He looks out across the dragon lands, caught in twilight yet again. It is a quite magical time, when shadows might not be shadows at all and a sky glows with the last light of day. “I understand it takes time for a thing like this to come about.”
“It could very well be months,” Zorag says.
“I believe we have months,” Arthur says. “I believe it will not be too late.”
“And the rest of the children?” Zorag says. “What of them?”
“My wife will keep them safe,” Arthur says. “She is a wise woman.” He hesitates. “But perhaps I might visit.”
“No,” Zorag says. “There is no time. We must get started immediately.”
“Yes. Very well,” Arthur says, though he is, in truth, disappointed. He would like nothing more than to see his wife again, to reassure himself that the children are, in fact, safe. Mostly he would like Hazel and Maude to know that he did not die. But he cannot ask the dragons for this favor.
Zorag crouches before Arthur and bends his head to touch the ground. Arthur climbs on his back, marveling at the feel of Zorag’s scales on the palms of his hands. He knew this once, a very long time ago. He was just a boy when he felt the smooth, dry coolness of scales beneath his hands. When he knew what it was to fly.
Larus and Malera and Blindell watch the man and the dragon before them.
“Fly fast, Cousin,” Blindell says. His black eyes flash. “Fly safe. I will tend to the land while you are gone.”
“We will tend to the land,” Larus says.
Zorag looks at Larus. “I know you will,” he says. “And I will return with a greater army than you have ever seen take to the sky.”
Arthur pats the dragon’s back, a signal that he is ready, and Zorag lifts into the sky. His wings beat quickly, taking them up, up, up, but not quite so far up that Arthur does not see another shadow emerge from the dragons below. It appears to be a person. How is it that another person might live in the dragon lands, in his very own cave, and he, Arthur, missed it? He shakes his head, clearing his vision, and when he looks down again, the shadows have all vanished.
Arthur holds on with every muscle he has in his body. He is not used to flying, but comfort will come in time. Arthur lies flat on the dragon’s back and closes his eyes so as not to look on the abandoned woods and its cracked trees that have, in fact, begun to revive themselves after the dragon’s fire. But Arthur does not see it. He only sees black and the memory of another flight, made in a twilight long ago.
Had he looked, dear reader, he might have seen a line of children outside a patch of wood. He might have seen a man headed straight for that line, as if he, too, could see right through the invisible spell. He might have seen his daughter rush from another home.
Then again, the scene is cloaked behind a spell. So perhaps he would have seen nothing at all.