CHAPTER NINETEEN DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Filomena has to give it up to the giants: They sure do know how to keep their cottage cozy. After the cold glamour and grandeur of the Northphalian palace, being at the giants’ homey cabin helps her feel a sense of calm. It’s like she’s on a grand tour of the cutest places to stay in the Never After kingdoms! Except, of course, her tour involves fighting for her life at every turn.
Filomena sits down at the long wooden table. She takes a sip of hot cocoa. “Thanks for cooking, Alistair,” she says. Alistair has whipped up breakfast for everyone.
After their curry dinner the previous night, Filomena, Jack, and their friends decided it makes the most sense to stay at the cottage while they plan how to find Zera and search for the League of Seven.
The giants, being the gentlemen they are, agreed to stay at their girlfriends’ cottage until Filomena and her crew leave. Luckily their girlfriends all live together in the cottage across the path. How convenient!
“Hey, no problem, Fil,” Alistair replies. “I’m loving this kitchen! Everything’s made of wood!”
Gretel takes a bite of pancake. “Fil, don’t you think that if there was TV in Never After, Alistair would have a cooking show?”
“Totally, he could tour every kitchen in the land and make different dishes in each!” One of Filomena’s favorite facts about Gretel: She’s biportal. Filomena feels a little more sane knowing someone else gets how weird it is to occupy two worlds.
“You two are so funny with your mortal world stuff. I never have the slightest idea what you’re saying,” Rosie chimes in. She’s buttering toast.
“I bet you’d love the Discovery Channel, Rosie.” Gretel laughs. “If you come visit me in the mortal world, we’ll totally binge it.”
Jack walks over to the table carrying a plate of food. “I have to say, staying at this cottage sure feels a lot more normal to me than staying at Princess Jeanne’s castle,” he says, taking a seat beside Filomena. “Not that it wasn’t cool. But silk pajamas and a four-poster bed? That was intense.”
“Yeah, the beds here are great!” Alistair enthuses from the kitchen.
“I concur,” Byron says, sitting down at the table with a cup of coffee. “Finally a bed that fits me properly! I’ll have to get myself a giant-sized bed when all this is over.”
Filomena notices that Jack is sitting very close, so close that they’re almost touching. He turns and smiles at her. “How did you sleep, Fil?” he asks in a soft voice only she can hear.
“Pretty well. Gretel doesn’t snore, so that’s a plus.”
He laughs. Their arms bump as they butter their toast and pick up their teacups. Each time, Filomena gets a little jolt.
“You know,” Jack says, “I was thinking, maybe, we never really—” Suddenly he blushes a bit, covering it with a cough.
“What?” she asks, her heartbeat speeding up.
He takes a deep breath. Is Jack the Giant Stalker nervous?
Suddenly everyone sitting around the table is paying attention to them.
“Uh, never mind,” says Jack.
Filomena tries not to look too disappointed.
The group turns its attention to Gretel, who’s asking Rosie about the interior decor. “So, Rosie,” Gretel’s saying, “I have to ask: Are you responsible for all the doilies around here?”
Rosie grimaces, then laughs. “No way! This cottage is so not my taste. The giants chose all this. If it were up to me, I’d live in a totally minimalist house. Just the essentials. Maybe some nice plants. No doilies on every table, no fuzzy throw pillows with cutesy sayings everywhere, and definitely no flowery curtains!”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it,” says Alistair.
“Well, I am pretty much a guest here, so it’s not my place to critique. But when I move out, I’m totally changing my decor scheme.”
Filomena’s liking Rosie more and more as she gets to know her. Rosie feels kindred, somehow.
“So what’s our plan for today?” Gretel asks the table, changing the subject to more serious matters.
Jack seems ready to get into it; he has a plan fully formed. “I’m thinking we can split up today. Some of us can go out exploring, get the lay of the land around Snow Country, and talk to people in town. See if anyone knows anything about Zera’s whereabouts.”
“I can’t do that, unfortunately,” Rosie says. “I can’t really go too far from the cottage these days.”
“That’s all right,” Jack responds. “I was thinking I’ll go. I have some allies from old times around here. I’m sure I can seek them out.”
“We’ll go with you, Jack,” Beatrice volunteers. “Since Byron and I are Prince and Princess now, I think it’d be good to get to know as many people in neighboring kingdoms as possible.”
“Great, it’s set,” Jack replies.
“And what should we do here, Jack? Twiddle our thumbs? Play with cootie catchers?” Gretel teases.
“I was thinking Filomena might have an idea of what to do, actually,” Jack says, looking at Filomena.
It feels good to be Jack’s right hand again. Or maybe Jack’s her right hand … They’re each other’s right hands? Is that anatomically possible? Either way, it feels good to be a team again. And maybe even more than just a team. Maybe … Filomena’s mind drifts to what Jack wanted to ask her. But wait—right now she has a mission to focus on!
Filomena considers the task at hand for the moment. She still thinks they need to find the League of Seven before they can do much else. The Prophecy does say only the League can save Never After, after all. Without the League of Seven, they stand no chance against the ogres.
“We’ll work on the League of Seven issue,” she says.
“All right, everyone,” Jack announces. “Eat up. We’re all going to need our energy today.”
After Jack, Byron, and Beatrice leave to go exploring for the day, Rosie leads them to her attic office. “Come on,” she tells the rest.
“Ooh, we can do our brainstorming up here?” Filomena says, climbing up the ladder.
“Whoa, I don’t know that I’ve ever climbed a ladder before,” Alistair says. “This is kind of freaky! Is there any other way up?”
Gretel laughs.
“Alistair, I’ve seen you literally stab ogres in the heart, and you’re afraid of climbing a one-story ladder? You can’t be serious.”
“Hey, everyone’s got something, all right? Heights are not my strong suit!”
Before Alistair can protest too much, Filomena and Gretel push his butt up the ladder. They all climb onto the loft platform.
It looks like a whole different world up here! Filomena surveys papers scrawled with calculations, odd-shaped bottles containing metallic or colored translucent liquids, drawing boards and drafting tables, and … are those mannequins?
Alistair walks around Rosie’s laboratory, inspecting everything. “What’s this?” he says, holding up a shimmering net.
“Oh, it’s this trapping device I’m working on for the giants’ border patrol. The net is made of superstrong, sticky fabric spun from silver. I got it from Rumpelstiltskin’s sister. He spins gold; she spins silver—family business. I had to promise to give her my firstborn child, but I don’t even want kids, so that was an easy bargain!”
Filomena’s in awe of Rosie—the life she’s lived!
“Rosie, you didn’t tell us you’re, like, a genius!” Gretel proclaims.
Rosie laughs. “I certainly wouldn’t call myself a genius. If I was a genius, I wouldn’t have worked on this stupid magic mirror for weeks with barely any progress.”
“Speaking of,” Alistair says, “what’s with you and talking mirrors, anyway? Why are you trying to make one?”
“I’m sort of obsessed with them,” Rosie explains. “They’re very ancient, you know. Usually you have to develop a real relationship with one to get it to engage with you at all, but I guess the ogres forced their hand. I’m not sure how.”
“Why do the ogres have them?” Filomena asks.
“Talking mirrors are very powerful. Like Jack told you, they know all about our world and can speak only truth. When that power gets into the wrong hands, it can be dangerous, taken advantage of. You can imagine what the ogres might want to use them for.”
Gretel, distracted, has wandered over to the row of mannequins. Fabric scraps are all over them. “What’s up with these, Rosie? Are you into fashion design, too?”
“No, no, this is more an experiment than a fashion project,” Rosie answers.
“What kind of experiment?” Filomena questions. She hopes they’re not being too nosy. But she has a feeling Rose Red is holding back.
Rose Red sighs. “I guess I should tell you guys a few things.” They all sit in a circle on the floor. “Do you know who the ruler of Snow Country is right now?” Rosie asks.
They shake their heads. Even Alistair seems confused.
“It’s Queen Christina,” Rosie goes on. “She’s a horrible queen. Cruel. Always so threatened by anyone who seems even a little bit powerful. I suspect she’s in cahoots with the ogres, though I haven’t been able to prove it yet. And I can’t be totally sure, but I have a strong suspicion that my mother’s disappearance has a lot to do with Queen Christina.”
Filomena gets a sinking feeling in her stomach. Another kingdom ruled by cruelty?
“What you also don’t know about me is that I have a lot of brothers. Had. Have?” Rosie sighs. “They’re older than me. They’re my dad’s sons. I guess they’re more half brothers? But as my dad says, there’s no such thing as half-loved. They’re my brothers! My mom is their stepmother. Well, that’s the whole thing. So I’ve been obsessed with talking mirrors for a long time, mostly because they seem like the most straightforward way to find out where my mother is.”
Sadness sweeps over Filomena. So much is going on that it’s been a moment since she’s thought about her own mother. Filomena thinks of her now, wonders if she’s still in the hospital or if she’s been allowed to return home yet. She hopes her mother is at home, in bed with a good book and a steaming hot cup of tea. Fil sympathizes so much with Rosie. Losing a mother … It’s something she doesn’t want to even imagine.
Rosie keeps telling her story: “After my mother had been gone for a while and none of us could figure out where she was and what happened to her, I decided we should sneak into Queen Christina’s castle and steal her talking mirror. If we could just ask it where my mother is…”
Gretel pats Rosie on the shoulder. She’s starting to tear up. “It’s okay, Rosie, you don’t have to tell us about this right now if you don’t want to,” she says.
“No, I have to,” Rosie responds, taking a deep breath. “I was keeping watch. My brothers were going to grab the mirror off the wall. I thought that if talking mirrors tell only truth, then they must also have a sense of justice. They’d be on our side. We even chose a day when Queen Christina was away. She was at Cinderella’s ball actually.”
Gretel’s, Alistair’s, and Filomena’s eyes widen, realizing they’d been in the same room with this queen.
“But it didn’t matter that she was gone,” Rosie says. “Her horrible minions captured my brothers, and I couldn’t warn them. I didn’t even see them. The minions kept my brothers in Christina’s dungeon, and every day I would go to check on them. I’d sneak up to this one tiny window that looks into the dungeon. The day Christina got back from Wonderland … It was horrible.”
Rosie looks so shaken up, Filomena wants to ask her to stop talking, stop telling the story, stop reliving it. But she knows, somehow, that she needs to hear the end.
“Queen Christina turned my brothers into swans. She cursed them. I had to watch them transform from boys to swans, and it was so awful to see them contorting like that. They were in so much pain.” Rosie wipes her tears away, remembering. “But she let them go. She turned them into swans and then let them fly away. I thought that was so odd. But when I think about it now, it makes sense. She captured their personhood, so they’ll be trapped no matter where they go. And it’s all my fault. I was supposed to keep watch, but I failed them.” As Rosie says this, she stands up to touch the strange fabric scraps hanging off the mannequins. “After that, I decided that if I couldn’t access an existing talking mirror, I’d make one. I’d find a way. So I went to visit the Winter Witch.”
Alistair gasps. “That’s very dangerous, Rosie!”
“Who is the Winter Witch?” Filomena asks, puzzled. She has a vague buzzing of memory. The Winter Witch is mentioned somewhere in the Never After books …
“She’s a very unpredictable old witch who lives on the mountain in Snow Country,” Rosie explains to Filomena. “It’s impossible to tell whose side she’s on or who she favors. She has no allegiances, and she’s very powerful. She never leaves her cave.”
“Visiting her means risking your life,” Alistair says. “I’ve heard of people who went to see her and never came back. If she doesn’t agree with whatever it is that you seek, you’re a goner.”
“Well, that’s chilling,” Gretel says.
“So you risked your life like that?” Filomena says.
“I did, and even with her gifts, still nothing!” Rosie yells in frustration.
“What happened?” Filomena asks. She has to know.
“I told her why I was there, that I’m searching for a way to create a talking mirror and that my brothers are cursed. At first I thought she would kill me on the spot; after all, it is incredibly presumptuous to try to create one of the most ancient powers in Never After from scratch.” Rosie laughs at herself, cooling her tears. “But she said she liked my pluck, or something like that. She gave me a truth serum she created—an incredibly powerful substance, very rare. I’m not sure if even the fairies can make truth serum. And she also told me a way to reverse the curse on my brothers.”
“Wow! That’s incredible!” Alistair says.
“It would be, if I could ever bloody figure out how to do it.” Rosie sits back down in a huff.
“So what is it? How do you reverse the curse?”
“I have to make shirts for them out of star flowers.”
“That’s it? You just have to make shirts?” Alistair says.
“That, and I have to put the shirts on them. But star flowers are incredibly delicate and hard to find. Whenever I pick them, I accidentally ruin them. I’ll finish three shirts, but by the time I’m on the fourth, the first three are wilted and falling apart.”
Filomena looks over at Gretel, who is absolutely beaming.
“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie,” Gretel says, grinning. “Aren’t you lucky that your dear cousin Gretel happens to be an expert seamstress?”