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IT happens in the sharpest instant. A flash. A pop. A single breath. And Yerin is left holding only air. He smiles a bit, though he feels the great sadness spreading inside, for he knows that he has just spent his last chance to hold his beloved. He has just spent his last look on her alive. And now he must begin to do his part.
But he is glad. He is so very glad for what she is doing. She will gift her power to another. Another will carry on her work. The land will be healed. It will take a great many days, of course, but this land will surely be healed.
Yerin falls into a light sleep.
The ground rumbles and shakes, for just a small moment in time, but it is enough for all the villagers to feel it. They gather, still, inside their secret place. They look around at each other, no one knowing just what the rumbling means but suspecting that it is something important. Something good? Well, that much is left to mystery, for now.
Cora emerges from the room. She moves to the middle of the village, looking off toward the woods. Sir Greyson comes up behind her.
“What is it?” he says.
Cora shakes her head, her eyes clouded. “Something is happening,” she says. “Magic.”
“But all the magic people are gone,” Sir Greyson says.
“So we have been told,” Cora says. “But who can really know for sure?” She looks off toward the woods, her eyes straining to see what no eye can see, for no eye has vision enough to look through obstacles like trees that have begun to green again and bushes that widen in the wind and all the debris left from the fire. She cannot see a thing, of course, but sometimes seeing is more than really seeing. Sometimes it is simply a knowing. And Cora can feel in her bones that something is happening, something that will change the course of their stories forever.
“So perhaps there is still magic left in Fairendale?” Sir Greyson says.
“There is always magic in Fairendale,” Cora says.
Sir Greyson stares at her, but Cora does not tear her eyes from the woods. “What does it mean?” Sir Greyson says.
“Perhaps it means we shall have more help than we thought,” Cora says.
“And perhaps we can win?” Sir Greyson says.
It is only then that Cora turns to him. She smiles at him as if he is nothing more than a child. It is the smile that used to madden him as a young boy, for though she is, in fact, older than him, it is not by much. “We were always going to win,” Cora says. “It is what good does.”
They watch the woods for what they cannot see.
The Huntsman clutches his chest where the wildest pain he has ever felt spears through him. He is momentarily blinded, unable to see a single bit of what lies before him. His knee hits the ground, and he breathes, in, out, in, out, but it is painful, so very painful. It lasts many moments. But at last it lets him loose, and he rises from the ground, only to find that the children have all vanished.
No. It cannot be.
He looks around the woods. He turns and turns and turns, but he finds nothing. Nothing. What will he tell the king? He was so very close.
No.
He makes his final turn, back toward the way he has come. It is with great disappointment that he begins to walk.
The Enchantress is on her way back from the castle. She hurries through the woods, for she knows she is hours late for her meeting with Maude and the children, and she is not one for such things as breaking her word. She is almost there when the wood explodes in a blinding wave of light, and an old, bent woman appears in front of her. The woman grabs her arm.
The Enchantress jumps back, but the woman comes with her, will not let her go, clings to her as though she is dying and is desperate for someone to help her live. The Enchantress is powerful, yes, but she cannot bring someone back from death, and it is quite plain to see that this woman is dying.
“I cannot help you,” the Enchantress says, trying to shake the old woman off. She is late, after all. She must hurry. There is no time for sympathy.
“It is not you who must help me,” the woman says, her voice scratchy. Only her eyes glow in the dark, for her skin is blacker than even the trees. The Enchantress can only see her if she looks away. “It is I who must help you.”
“I do not need your help,” the Enchantress says. Surely this woman is a vagabond. She appears hungry. The Enchantress can read the hunger in her eyes. “I can give you food,” she says. She lifts a pinecone and touches it to her staff. It becomes bread.
The old woman knocks the bread from her hands. Her dark skin is nearly indiscernible in the dark forest. Only her eyes and her teeth show themselves. “I need no bread,” the woman says. “I need nothing from you.”
“Surely you know you are dying,” the Enchantress says.
The old woman grins. Her teeth, in spite of her advanced age, are straight, with not a one missing. The Enchantress tilts her head. “Yes,” the old woman says. “I do know this. But before I die...”
“I cannot keep you from dying,” the Enchantress says. “Many have tried.”
“I do not ask you to keep me from dying,” the old woman says. “I do not mind dying so much. For this.” She looks around her. The Enchantress thinks that, perhaps, she is talking of the trees and the wood, and she does not understand how a woman would not mind dying for something as barren as the Weeping Woods. What kind of trick is this?
“For what?” the Enchantress says. “For what are you not afraid to die?”
“For this,” the old woman says, and the Enchantress feels a heat begin where the woman’s knobby fingers close around her arm. The warmth radiates all the way through the Enchantress. The Enchantress falls to her knees as blackbirds fly around her eyes, round and round and round. When the visions have finished, when the birds have ceased their flying, the old woman lies weak and moaning on the ground.
“What have you done?” the Enchantress says. Her voice is calm, though she feels quite near hysterical now, watching the old woman die. “What have you done to me?”
“I gifted you,” the old woman says. “Now use it well.” Her head falls back, and a final breath whooshes from her mouth. The Enchantress stands to her feet and looks around, for the first time unsure in which direction she should move.
A snap sounds behind her. She whirls around, but it is too dark to see who might be coming until he is upon her, a tall man with golden-white hair that swings against his shoulders. She cannot see his face, but she hears his grunt. He is as startled to see her as she is to see him.
She knows who he is, of course. She can tell by the concealing clothes he wears. “Huntsman,” she says. “What are you doing in the woods this time of night?”
“Collecting,” the Huntsman says. “Hunting.”
“And did you find that which you hunted?” the Enchantress says. “Did you find the children?”
“Yes,” the Huntsman says. “I found them.”
The Enchantress looks behind him, but there is no one. “And where are they?” she says.
“I lost them,” he says. “They vanished.”
The Enchantress glances toward the old woman, but her body is no longer there. “Vanished?” she says.
“Yes,” he says. “One minute there, the next gone.”
The Enchantress is sure she has misunderstood, for the children did not have magic powerful enough to vanish, unless...
Unless...
She must get back. She must return to her home, but here is this man before her. Might he follow her? She cannot risk it.
“You are returning to the castle now?” she says.
“Yes,” the Huntsman says. “I must deliver my news.”
“The king will not be happy,” the Enchantress says.
“No,” the Huntsman says. “He will not.”
“Perhaps I should accompany you,” the Enchantress says. She turns back toward the way she has just come. “I am in His Majesty’s services as well.”
“For what?” he says.
“For finding the children,” she says. “It appears that we shall work together on this hunt.” The Huntsman looks her up and down, as if he does not quite know for sure whether he can trust her. Or perhaps it is because he underestimates a woman of her beauty. Either way, she will show him just what she can do once they have begun their work. She is far more powerful than he is.
“I hope you like sleeping beneath the stars,” the Huntsman says. “It appears we shall be hunting after all, though I had hoped it would be simpler.”
“Stars,” the Enchantress says. “There are no stars anymore.”
They both look to the sky.
“Yes, well,” the Huntsman says. “Sleeping against the cold earth, then.”
“I have my ways,” the Enchantress says.
They fall into step, and it is not long before they have cleared the forest and begun their walk along the road to the castle. They do not say anything more until the boy, Garth, opens the castle doors and ushers them into the king’s throne room. The king is nearly asleep on his throne. He has not been sleeping well, our poor king, not since his son was stolen from him. He has not been sleeping because he is terrified that the people will come back for him. If his son is taken and if he is stolen, what hope is there for saving the kingdom? None.
King Willis looks up upon their arrival.
“Ah,” he says. “I did not expect you to return so soon.”
“We come with news, Your Majesty,” the Enchantress says.
“Yes,” the king says. “Very well.” He smiles, for he has been awaiting news but did not dare hope that it would come in the very same day he met these two. How fortunate.
The Enchantress glances at the Huntsman. His eyes watch her. She has seen those wild blue eyes somewhere. Does she know this man? Have they only just met or are there years that stretch between them? She looks away before she can answer that question.
“Enchantress,” the king says. “Tell me, what news do you bring?”
The Enchantress gestures toward the Huntsman and says, “He shall tell you, Your Majesty.”
The blue eyes grow dark now, as if they have shifted from a morning sky to evening. The Huntsman turns his gaze upon the king. It is sometimes easier to say what must be said quickly. So he says, “I have lost the children.”
“We have lost the children,” the Enchantress says.
“Lost the children?” the king says. He appears confused, as if he does not understand quite how this might have happened, yet again. “How have you lost the children? You said they were all in one place.”
“They vanished,” the Huntsman says. “Before my very eyes.”
“But no matter,” the Enchantress says. “We shall find them again. They cannot hide from my looking ball.”
“Disappeared? Before your very eyes?” the king says. “How can this be?”
“Powerful magic,” the Enchantress says. “Though not nearly as powerful as mine.”
“Your magic,” the king says. “How do we know it was not your magic that made the children disappear?” King Willis squints his eyes. The Enchantress tilts her head.
“Why, I was at the castle, sire,” the Enchantress says. “You had only just told me to gather the children.”
“It is true, sire,” the Huntsman says, extending his hand to the tall woman beside him. He is taller than she, but not by much. “This woman was not anywhere near the children.
The king roars. The Enchantress, though, does not even blink. She is not afraid of an angry king. She and the Huntsman wait for the king’s next move. He looks at both of them, from one to the other. “So, tell me,” he says. “What is it we shall do?”
“I know a way to find the children,” the Enchantress says. “All of them.” She smiles at her king, dazzling him in the glow. He feels the corners of his lips pull up as well, though he did not intend to smile. It is not the kind of circumstances that deserve a smile. These two have just lost the children, once again, when they were at the king’s fingertips.
“How?” King Willis says.
“It shall take time,” the Enchantress says. “I suspect they have separated.” She glances at the Huntsman, who is looking at her. “To make our hunt more difficult.”
“How long?” the king says.
“Months, perhaps,” the Enchantress says. “Might you be able to wait for months?”
The king roars again, and the sound of it bounces against the marble floor and up to the ornate ceiling and around on the white walls. “How will you find them?” the king says, when he has again calmed himself.
“We shall hunt them down, one by one,” the Enchantress says. The Huntsman nods, though no one is looking at him.
“Every one of them?” the king says.
“Every one of them,” the Enchantress says. The king looks at her, and after a space of three breaths, he nods his head.
“Very well,” he says. “You shall have another chance. Show me you can do this, and you will have a place in my kingdom.”
The Enchantress dips her head.
“And you,” the king says, pointing at the Huntsman, “shall go with her, to collect the children and bring them to me.”
“I have a plan for that as well,” the Enchantress says.
“Perhaps you do,” the Huntsman says. “But I shall accompany you.”
“Yes, he shall,” the king says. He narrows his eyes at the Enchantress. “Perhaps I cannot trust you alone, but together?” He seems to consider this question for a moment. “Yes, perhaps together.”
All is quiet in the hall as the Huntsman and the Enchantress wait to be dismissed. But the king has another question. “How is it that you will find them?” King Willis says. “When no one else could?”
The Enchantress smiles once more, but her lips do not reveal her white teeth this time. “I have a looking ball,” she says.
The king is silent. He has only heard of looking balls in stories. “And how is it your looking ball will find them?” he says, for he has always wanted to understand this magic.
“Because I touched them,” the Enchantress says.
This bit of information may seem strange to you, dear reader. But this is yet another of the mysterious rules of magic that Arthur so diligently taught the magical children during their magic lessons in the village, though none of them knew about the magic ball so close to their shoe-shaped home, for they had never seen it, and, in truth, never listened to a single word Arthur said when it did not seem to apply to them. What need did they have of the rules of magic looking balls? So even if they had known about the magic ball, they would not have known its significance. If, perhaps, Hazel could have seen her mother or any of the children after entering the house of the Enchantress, she might have warned them of this danger. The owner of a magic looking ball, you see, has only to touch a person to connect that person’s body to the ball, meaning that the owner will be able to see everything about that person—where she goes, what he does, how they might transform to remain hidden. On her last visit to Maude’s house, the Enchantress touched the head of every child before she left. Her ball holds them all.
“You have touched them?” the king says, for not many know about the rules of a looking ball.
“Yes,” the Enchantress says. “It is all I need to see them in my ball.”
“Brilliant,” the king says, and his voice holds all the excitement it can possibly contain. The children will surely be found this time, with the help of a ball that can see them all. “Absolutely brilliant.” He says the words over and over and over again, until the Enchantress and the Huntsman look at one another and wonder if, perhaps, they should leave of their own accord, for the king does not seem as well as he did when they first appeared in the throne room.
This is what one might call shock, dear reader. Sometimes an awful thing does not catch up to a person until many hours or days or even weeks later. The shock of losing a son, of losing the entire king’s guard, of failing in what seemed like a simple plan, can turn a man’s heart fragile and his mind a bit toward madness. Our poor king has had quite a few shocks already.
And there is another one coming. The king does not even know about this one.
Let us watch King Willis for a moment. Let us look on his squinty eyes and listen to his raucous laugh and the words that continue to stream from his mouth, “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant.” Let us think of all he has been through. He, a man who desires to keep his throne at all costs, has lost his son and his king’s guard, and he has failed to secure his throne. This is the kind of pressure that can make a man break once and for all. King Willis, dear reader, is breaking. But sometimes what has been broken can also be restored so it is much greater and truer than it was before. This, of course, is always the hope that comes with breaking. We may hope for him. We may hope that in his breaking, King Willis shall be put back together in a better, kinder, truer way.
The Enchantress speaks into the enormous void that is left when the king’s laughter has died out into tears. “The children shall be found. Do not worry, my king.”
She touches the Huntsman on his shoulder. He turns with her, and both of them leave the king’s presence.
At the doors of the castle, the Huntsman turns to the Enchantress. “Shall we begin straight away?” he says.
“Yes,” says the Enchantress. “Let us begin.”
Back in the throne room, the king hunches on his throne. The tears still fall, and there is nothing he can do to stop them. Does he grieve for his men? Does he grieve for his son? Does he grieve for a kingdom that cannot be secured until all the missing children have been found?
It is all of these. It is everything. It is...
Well, perhaps we should leave our king to his grief.
But wait. The curtain covering the long, slender mirror that stands fifteen feet from the throne billows and then, without even a hand touching it, pillows to the floor. King Willis looks up at its whisper of sound. He sees the mirror. He rises. He moves toward it.
The mirror will surely tell him what is next, as it has always done.
He stops when his reflection touches every border of the mirror. He is not as close to it as some might be if they wanted their form to touch every side, for he is, after all, a large man. He reaches out his hand, but he is too far away to touch the golden flourishes that line the mirror. He stares at his reflection, waiting for it to speak. This is how it has always happened.
But this time something is different. This time the form inside the mirror shakes and shifts. This time it becomes the form of his father.
And then his father speaks. King Willis stumbles back, tripping over his own feet and then a stair and then the leg of the throne, which has just—has it moved its golden leg? Could that even be possible? Could a throne come alive and trip a king?
King Willis falls to the ground with a heavy thud, and the world grows dark around him.
Surely not. Surely that was not his father. Surely he is going mad.
These thoughts join a host of troubled dreams. Our king sleeps. But do not worry, dear reader. It is not forever. There is still much King Willis will do in our story.
For now, we shall leave him, crumpled up on the floor, where it will take hours for one of his servants to find him.
Deep in the dungeons beneath the dungeons the children have just woken in their places around the cell. They feel the absence of the prophetess like a cold blanket has descended upon this home where they have spent far too many days. Aleen, you see, brought a warmth and a comfort inside the bars. And now she is gone.
“Where is Aleen?” says one of the children.
“She is gone,” Yerin says. His voice breaks on his words.
“Why did she leave us?” another child says. “Why did she not take us with her?”
“She could not take us with her,” Yerin says. “She did not have that much magic left.”
“But why did she go?” the same child says.
“She had to do what she could while she could,” Yerin says. He pats the child, who has moved closer to him in the dark, on his rigid back. He is just a young thing. Small and curled up on the cold floor. Yerin pulls the boy into his arms, in a way he never did for his boy. He regrets it like nothing else. Perhaps if he had embraced his boy more often, he might have become someone entirely different.
“She had magic left?” the child says. “Why did she not leave much sooner?”
“Because the only magic a prophet has is summoned on the prophet’s birthing day,” Yerin says.
“Today is her birthing day?” the child says.
“Yes,” Yerin says. “It is.”
“I wish I could tell her happy birthing day,” the child says.
“Yes, well,” Yerin says.
“I wish I could tell her I love her,” a girl calls out in the dark, from somewhere behind Yerin.
“I am sure she knew it already,” Yerin says.
“What is she doing to help save us?” says the child in Yerin’s lap.
Yerin squeezes the child again. What he would do to embrace his son again. But it is too late for that. His son died long ago. “That we cannot know,” Yerin says. “But what we can know is this: the wheels have been set in motion. And no one can stop them.”
“Not even the evil King Willis?” the boy says.
“The king is not so very evil,” Yerin says, though he does not expect the children to understand. But perhaps a story. Stories can teach them what they do not yet know. So Yerin says, “Would you like to hear a story?”
The boy in his lap answers for all the other children. “Yes, very much,” he says.
“Gather round, children,” Yerin says. He waits for the dungeon to grow quiet again before he begins. He weaves around them a magnificent story of impossible escape and valiant rescue and happily ever after.
Will this one be a magnificent story of impossible escape and valiant rescue and happily ever after?
Well, now, we shall have to wait and see.