CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

BACK TO THE BOOKS

At least Filomena survived the school day without having to remove her beanie. Her teachers didn’t seem to mind, except for one who eyed her accusingly but didn’t say anything. Mr. Hernandez, her math teacher, probably assumed she had lice. She saw him scratching his head during the remainder of the class, like he was paranoid he’d somehow caught the critters. But she’d rather have her teachers think she has something wildly contagious than have the entire school and world know about her fairy mark, or curse, or whatever it is.

After taking Maggie away, the Linguine Losers left her alone for the rest of the day. They kept a close eye on her, though. At first Filomena briefly wondered if she was just being paranoid. No, she wasn’t. Every time she looked up from her work or her book, there they were, staring at her. She glared back. They didn’t stop staring.

To make matters more uncomfortable, she spent the whole day looking over her shoulder, half expecting Jack or Alistair to pop out and force her to go back to Never After. But they never appeared.

At long last the bell rings and school is done for the day. Dad picks her up as usual, and the minute they pull into the driveway, she races out of the car and to the front door before he even shuts the engine off. “What’s the big hurry?” he calls out.

“Oh, nothing!” she yells back. “I just have a lot of homework to do!”

Before he can respond, she’s already inside, closing the front door swiftly behind her so that the puppy can’t escape.

Dad looks baffled for a moment. He’s probably wondering why Filomena is acting this way, whether something happened at school or with her friends—make that friend, singular. She only ever had Maggie, and now she has nobody. Filomena knows she’s been unlike herself the last couple of days, and Dad will probably ask her about her behavior later, as he’s really into being a good parent.

Filomena quickly says hello to her mother on the way in, then takes the steps two at a time until she’s upstairs and in her bedroom. She slams her door behind her and locks it. She can’t wait to get this beanie off her head! It’s been itching her almost all day, and she wants to see if, by some miracle, the fairy mark is gone.

She tears off the hat and throws it on the floor, where it lands on Adelina, who is trailing behind her, tail wagging. The pup lets out a small and surprised whimper as the item softly lands on her little body, and then she runs in a circle and barks at it like it’s a threat.

Filomena stands in front of the mirror, tracing her fingertips along the mark that is very much still there, and very much still real.

There has to be a way to get rid of it! She can’t wear a beanie for the rest of her life, like some emo dude! Then she has an idea. She runs over to her bookcase, looking at the top shelf, where the books in the series are lined up. She riffles through them until she finds the very first book about Never After.

If there’s something—anything—she’s missed, it’ll be in there, and she decides to read all the books again, starting with volume one, to search for a spell or something to get rid of this mark on her head.

Just as she settles into bed, her doorknob starts turning.

“Fil?” her dad asks. “Honey, why is the door locked?”

“Um, no reason!” she answers nervously, rising from the bed and grabbing for the beanie on the floor. She puts it back on her head and checks the mirror, making sure the entire glowing mark is covered before seeing what her father wants.

Filomena takes a deep breath to calm her pounding heart, pasting on a fake smile and trying for a somewhat-normal demeanor. “What’s up?” she asks too cheerfully as she swings the door open and leans against the doorframe. Here it comes. Concerned parenting. She braces herself.

Dad stands outside her room with a perplexed look on his face. “Um, can we talk for a minute?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says, moving aside. He walks in and takes the seat at her desk, shifting her backpack out of the way. “What’s up?”

“I was going to ask you that,” he says. “Something on your mind? The other day you asked about your biological parents out of the blue, for the first time in twelve years. I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay. Is there something going on you’d like to talk about, sweetie?”

Yes.

So much. Let’s start with the fairy mark on my head.

Then we can move on to how fiction isn’t fiction at all.

Yes.

“No,” she says, after a moment. “Everything’s fine. I swear.”

“Really?” he prods.

She sits on her bed and looks down, fidgeting with her pillow. She can’t look him in the eye and lie. “I was just curious. You know I love you and Mum, but, um … it’d be nice to know where I came from.”

He moves to sit next to her on the bed, putting his arm around her. “I know, sweetheart. Mum and I love you, too. So much. You are the greatest gift we could have ever received. I wish we could tell you more, but we just don’t know anything.” He removes his glasses and starts wiping them with his flannel shirt.

“It’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I wish we had the answers, I really do,” her dad tells her sadly.

“No, it’s all right. I promise.”

“No matter where you came from, you’re ours. You’re Filomena Jefferson-Cho.”

“Of North Pasadena,” Filomena adds. “I know.” She smiles.

“You’re our baby.”

“I know I am.”

After a parting hug, he leaves the room, and she locks the door behind him, taking the beanie off once more.

Filomena exhales. She loves her parents, but she can’t burden them with the truth. Or put them in any sort of danger. The ogre queen was able to send her wrath to this side of the portal. What if her parents were attacked?

She kicks off her combat boots and cozies up in bed, starting with page one of volume one. She even reads the stuff she normally skips, like the copyright page and printing information. She pets her puppy with her free hand as she turns the pages, and the dog snuggles up next to her. They’re very cozy. No one would think there was anything wrong with this scene, or that one of them might be sporting a glow-in-the-dark evil-fairy mark.

Sometime later, after Filomena has read a decent chunk of the first book, she pauses and puts it down, scrambling through memories of previous reads. This book seems to be … different. She notices small discrepancies as she goes, and questions whether her recollection is simply off or if something strange is going on. The little instances are not enough to confirm or deny, though. She knows certain things get forgotten over time, especially when someone reads as often as she does. She’s read many books since this one. She’s just mixing up details in her mind, confusing them with other books, or possibly melding all the stories into one.

But the more she reads, the more she notices. She sits up, changes position, reading the book so closely that her nose is nearly pressed to the page.

Unless she’s somehow lost her mind, she’s pretty sure this isn’t how the story goes.

The first book is the story of Jack the Giant Stalker. But somehow, as she rereads it, it’s not.

The book couldn’t possibly rewrite itself … could it? she wonders. Because when she reaches the part about how Jack gets his name, the story is not at all how she remembers it.

In the previous version she read—although it’s the same copy she’s always had—Jack defeats the giant. He conquers the giant, thereby receiving the nickname Jack the Giant Stalker.

She is certain about this; she would stake her life on it. Jack Stalker is the hero of the story. But in this version, this strange and unexplainable new one, the tale is changed for the worse. Jack never even overpowers the giant. Instead, he falls out of the sky. Jack dies.

Wait! Jack dies! What?!

When she finishes the passage, she gasps and covers her mouth. She puts the book down and shakes her head, trying to make sense of this. The original story is gone, erased, rewritten. It’s been replaced with an entirely different version.

This book isn’t the one she’s read before. It’s not even close. For one, it’s kind of plodding. And the story seems to center on a mean little witch who’s horrid to everyone.

But what she doesn’t know, or understand, is how it’s possible.

This book is the same one she bought years ago. This is exactly the same copy—dog-eared, with her name written in ink on the front page. How is this happening?

She almost can’t bear to read any further.

But along the way, she notices something else that’s peculiar.

New characters are introduced in this version. And they sound like they resemble a certain Macaroni Mob a little too closely for her liking. The mean little witch has a group of trolls who do her bidding. These are the villains of the story in the original book. But now they’re presented as the heroes.

What is going on here?

Filomena removes all the other Never After books from her shelf. Sure enough, there’s nothing about Jack, or Alistair, or Zera, or any of the characters she knows and loves. They’re nowhere to be found.

She turns back to the first book. Wait! Now even the title has changed! It used to be called Never After: Giant Stalker. But now the title splashed across the front cover reads: Never After: Rise of the Trolls.

Something’s happened.

Something terrible!

Something, she is sure, that has to do with her leaving Never After and denying the fairy mark on her forehead.

There’s only one thing left to do.

She has to go back.