RAVEN TAKES THE LEAD, CREEPING THROUGH Lizzie Hearts’s Wonderland garden toward a wall of fog as high as the sky. The compass shivers in Raven’s hand. Or is she the one who is shivering? Is the land tremoring again?

It could also be Lizzie’s hedgehogs, who are rubbing up against Raven’s ankles, their shivery backs vibrating with alarm.

“Poor little things,” says Raven. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out what that nasty fog is and get rid of it, okay?”

The hedgehogs squeak, curl up into balls, and roll away.

The compass arrow points at a place in the wall of fog that looks exactly the same as the rest, certain to lead dead off the sudden cliff.

“Oh curses,” says Raven.

“Drac, can you…?” Frankie asks.

Draculaura takes a deep breath and pops back into her bat form with a nervous little squeak. She flaps out into the fog and flies back a moment later.

“A bridge!” she says. “There’s a narrow bridge of land, as white as the fog, so it’s hard to see, but it’s there!”

“A small bridge leading off a mysterious cliff into a foreboding fog,” says Raven. “That doesn’t sound scary at all. Good thing there aren’t monsters involved!”

Draculaura laughs. Frankie and Apple smile nervously at each other. The compass spins, pointing them forward.

Raven sighs and takes the first step through. The wall of fog is so thick she can see nothing, feel nothing but a chill and a damp cold. But then she’s past it and in a space of thinner fog. She steps on something solid. A white stone bridge about ten feet wide extends into the distance.

“Is it the right way?” Frankie asks. “It’s so small and so well hidden. There might be other bridges out there.”

The teacup in the compass is still spinning, but the glow has disappeared.

“Weird,” Raven says. “Let me just start this back up again.” She smiles as if she’s totally confident in her compass-magic abilities. Smiles as if she isn’t racked with worry that her mother has already ruined everything, no matter what they do. As if Maddie isn’t missing and possibly in terrible danger.

Frankie holds the compass device. Raven casts the locating spell, and… nothing.

She tries again. Nothing. No magic. She gets a few green sparks to spit from her fingertips, but that’s it.

“What’s happening?” Frankie asks.

“I don’t know,” Raven says. “My magic… just isn’t working.”

Apple makes a face like someone gave her an apple with a worm in it. “Oh dear. Has this happened before?”

“No,” Raven says, flapping her hands. “Not like this. Even when I was little, the magic was still there, just… smaller. And less manageable.”

Flap, flap, flap.

“Um, why are you flapping?” Apple asks.

Raven hops on one foot, and then the other. She waves her arms in the air.

“Something feels different,” she says. “Lighter. Do you guys feel that?”

Apple, Frankie, and Draculaura look at one another. “No,” they say.

“But we aren’t hopping around and flapping our arms,” Frankie says. “Maybe that has something to do with it.” Frankie leans over to Apple, whispering, “Does she do the flapping to cast spells or something?”

Raven continues to hop. “I feel lighter. It’s so strange. Like walking on one of those huge, sproingy plants that bounce you higher when you jump? You know the ones, Apple.”

“She’s talking about fairy fungus,” Apple says. “Kids love it. You can bounce for hours.”

“Do you think magic has weight?” Frankie asks. “Because—and I’m not saying I completely believe fairytale magic isn’t just unexplained science—but if whatever you call magic is real, it might actually weigh something. If it were taken from Raven, she would feel lighter. And that would explain why she can’t do her tricks anymore.”

“Not tricks, Frankie. Magic,” Apple says. “Raven, could this place have taken your magic away? Quick, go back to Ever After High!”

Raven hurries back through the wall of fog. Midskip and mid-fog-wall, she comes down hard. A hedgehog squeaks at her landing and chitters angrily as it scurries away.

“Oof,” Raven says. “Well, I’m off the fairy fungus. Everything’s heavier.” She gestures, and a little green butterfly springs into existence, flutters around her head, and vanishes. “And the magic is back.”

“It’s that place that is magic-free, not you,” Apple says, Draculaura and Frankie trailing her back through the wall of fog. “That’s good news.”

“So in the fog, where we most need it, our Maddie compass won’t work,” Frankie says. “Without your magic, it’s just an electric teacup spinner.”

“Let me try something,” Raven says. She lays a finger on the compass and chants.

Be now a kinder finder,

make your nature true

and fate your school.

Bind power to point

to steel and joint.

Go, become, be one.

The seeds are sown,

so fuel this lark

with spin and arc

alone!

While Raven speaks, a glow surrounds the compass again, but when she ends the spell, the glow sucks into the compass rather than circling the air around it.

“Whew, it worked!” says Raven. “I enchanted the object, so I don’t have to keep recasting the spell.”

“Simply spelltacular, Raven!” cheers Apple.

Until she did it, Raven hadn’t known just how much she needed a win. Just one thing today that maybe she could do right. Suddenly a scary bridge through a world of fog didn’t feel impossible.

Maddie would say, Impossible? I do six impossible things before breakfast, and so can you, Raven Queen!

Raven’s throat feels dry. She says, “We need to find Maddie.”

Frankie flips on the compass spinner and crosses back into the fog. Raven takes a deep breath. The spell has left her feeling shaken and half-empty, like an autumn gourd.

“It works!” Frankie calls back. “It isn’t quite as glowy as before, but it’s pointing us to this bridge.”

“Over the river and through the fog, to Madeline Hatter we go!” And Raven starts down the narrow bridge through a mysterious foggy landscape, accompanied by monsters.

The good, hopeful feeling stays with Raven for some time. She imagines it’s like Cerise’s warm red hood and cloak, protecting her as she walks through a forest of fog. Just as it occurs to her that most forests have big bad wolves in them, she spies movement in the fog ahead.

Raven peers. A darting shape, gray, shaggy, long snout and tail. Is that… is that a wolf? Perhaps a big bad one? Way too coincidental that she thinks about a wolf and one suddenly appears. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her.

The shape darts over the bridge. Raven shuffles close to the edge and squints into the mist. Nothing. Then she looks straight down. Not nothing.

“Whoa,” Raven says, stepping backward. “There’s lava down there. Like, bubbling volcanic lava!”

Apple and Frankie peer over.

“I saw it when I was flying over,” Draculaura says, staying right where she is. “But I didn’t want to talk about it, because, you know, scary.”

“Maybe let’s go single file from now on,” Frankie suggests.

Raven agrees, and the girls continue on.

“I wonder if my mother’s magic isn’t working out here, either,” Raven says.

“Probably,” Frankie responds, “if she’s anything like you.”

Raven stiffens.

“Ix-nay on the om-may,” Apple whispers.

“Was that a spell?” Draculaura asks. “I thought only Raven could do spells!”

“It was pig latin,” Frankie says.

“Pig latin?” Draculaura says. “I have so many questions!”

“She was saying not to mention my mom,” Raven says. “But don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, I totes get it,” Draculaura says. “Like, if the Normies back home knew my dad existed, they’d assume he was evil, but he’s the sweetest guy ever.”

“Yeah,” Raven says, “hexcept my mom really is evil. If not for her, we wouldn’t even be here. You guys would be safe in your school. Maddie would be home. Everything would be fine.”

“But I would never have met you, Raven,” Draculaura says. “And that would be a shame.”

“Thanks, Drac. I just wish it had been under less… apocalyptic circumstances.”

Ahead, the bridge forks in two directions. Frankie checks the compass and leads them to the left.

“Okay… I’m trying to work this out,” Frankie says. “Even though she’s technically evil, does your mom still love you?”

Does she? Raven certainly hoped so when she was little. And now? She’s not sure anymore. She doesn’t care, she tells herself, but her heart makes a twisting sensation. Raven tries to conjure a true image of her mother in her mind, analyze it for signs of real, genuine maternal affection. But before she can find a way to sum up her relationship with her mother, a dark figure saunters down the bridge toward them. Not exactly the Big Bad Wolf, but all the same Raven wishes for Cerise’s red cloak.

“What in Ever After is that?” asks Apple.

“Nothing in Ever After,” says Raven. “We’re not in Ever After anymore.”

“You all sound like chubby, little chitterbirds,” the Evil Queen snaps, her figure resolving out of the mist. “My, I used to love a good roast bird with mustard and pickles!”

Apple makes a noise in her throat like a frog that has swallowed its own tongue. Raven can barely breathe.

“Mother?” Raven says. “What are you—?”

The Evil Queen barrels over her question. “What are you wearing, daughter? You don’t have a spike on you anywhere! For the sake of my eyeballs, invest in some decent shoulder pads!”

“But—” Raven begins.

“Anyway, my little green friend, of course I love my daughter. In my own, evil way. Isn’t that what you would say, Raven?” The Evil Queen is nearly upon them, but she seems to be growing taller. She’s like a frightening, sparkly giantess. “And another thing… Wait, who are you again?”

“I… I’m your daughter, Raven,” she says in a quiet voice.

“Hmm”—the Evil Queen examines her nails—“your name no longer pleases me. You should change it to Beatriz von Witchiest. Or maybe Imma Gunna Rule. Where are my goblin servants? Come hither, minions, and carve a sculpture of your queen out of ice! No, wait… out of watermelons! No, make it cream cake!”

“Is she usually this chatty?” Frankie asks Apple.

“I… I guess,” Apple says. “But when I imagine her, she’s a lot more—”

A crash of deafening thunder sounds, and from the fog-stained sky the Evil Queen descends… a second Evil Queen. Only this one is glowing and is the size of a small house.

“What the what?” Draculaura yells. “How many Raven’s evil moms are there?”

The queen on the bridge does nothing to indicate she has noticed her giant flying twin and continues to talk, commanding absent minions to build her a throne made of ripe peaches and ordering Raven to change her name to things like Missy McEvilton and HeaddressFan217.

The sky Evil Queen raises her hands, a giant ball of fire forming between them. She screams as she hurls the fire straight at Apple.

“No!” Raven shouts, diving to push her friend out of the way. They fall onto the bridge, fire singeing the air inches above them.

“Oww…” Apple groans, rubbing her head.

“Hey,” Draculaura says. “Giant flying Evil Queen disappeared. Right when Apple hit her head.”

The skies are empty of everything but fog. The talking Evil Queen is still on the bridge, though, and still talking.

“How about Spiky Shoulders ’R’ Us? No, that would be a hexcellent gift shop but not a great name for a daughter. Hmm… Doomlet Von Greatness the Third? Empress Sparklepants?”

“You know, I was kind of scared of her at first,” Draculaura says. “But after the big, glowing fireball version, this one is not so scary.”

“She appeared after I started thinking about her,” Raven says.

“Yeah, me too.” Apple rubs her head. “I was thinking how your mom seemed way scarier to me.”

Raven nods. “And then a way scarier one appeared.”

She closes her eyes. She imagines the last time she saw her mother eating. Dumplings. She was eating dumplings. She loved those things.

“Whoa!” Draculaura says. “Magic food!”

Raven opens her eyes. The chatty Evil Queen is still there. Still ranting. Only now she has a little plate of dumplings.

“Above all, choose a frightening name,” the woman instructs. She holds up a finger, plucks a dumpling from the plate, and pops it into her mouth, chewing as she speaks. “Fear… is the only… universal… currency.”

“She’s imaginary,” Raven says. “Something about this place… it’s making our thoughts real.”

“Seriously?” Draculaura squeals. “Hold on a sec.”

Raven closes her eyes and mutters, “No mother, not real; no mother, not real,” but the woman does not disappear.

The bridge shakes, and suddenly there is a giant frog, much too large to fit on the bridge, crouched behind her imaginary mother.

“Ribbit,” it thunders.

The talking queen’s expression of horrified shock makes Raven smile, and finally the queen vanishes.

“Thanks for that, Drac,” Raven says. “I couldn’t get her to disappear.”

Draculaura smiles. “It helps if you tell a story, I think,” she says. “I just started going through a story Dad used to tell me about a giant frog in the swamps that would eat unsuspecting—”

“That’s good,” Raven says. “Stop there.”

“Okay,” Draculaura agrees, still smiling.

“Ribbit,” the giant frog croaks.

“You realize, of course,” Apple says, “there is now a giant frog on our path. How do you propose getting rid of it?”

“Apple could kiss it,” Frankie says. “Maybe it will turn into a giant prince.”

“Haha,” Apple says. “Not my story.”

The frog begins to turn transparent, so that the girls can see the path beyond.

“Is it disappearing?” Raven asks.

“Not really,” Drac says. “I just imagined more of the story where the frog turns into a ghost and guards the swamp against evil.”

“But it’s still on the path,” Apple says.

Draculaura shrugs. “We’ll have to walk through it,” she says. “It’s a ghost. You can walk through ghosts. I mean, it’s rude to walk through ghosts, but it was imaginary to begin with, so I don’t think it’ll mind.”

Apple takes a deep breath. “Fine. About to walk through an imaginary ghost frog. Nothing scary here. No problem whatsoever.”

One by one, the girls walk through the ghost frog, and it ribbits at them each time.⁵⁸

58 Okay, I figured out that this weird foggy place must be the Margins. I learned about it in Focal Studies class. The Margins is the space between stories. Imagination is powerful here, so the girls should be careful about what they imagine.