HOW COULD MOANICA BE HERE?” FRANKIE ASKS. IT doesn’t make any sense to her, but then very little of what has happened since she messed up their history project has made sense.

“Who is Moanica?” Apple asks. She grabs Frankie’s arm and looks up at her with panicked eyes. “Is she a monster, too? Are monsters behind all this? Did you cause the tremors and Maddie’s kidnapping and… and that scary fog?”

“What? No!” says Frankie. “I mean, I don’t think I did. I mean, no! I mean, I don’t think so. But…”

Of course she didn’t kidnap Maddie! But… but did she cause the tremors? When she tried to get the Mapalogue to send them to Shadow High, she didn’t know what she was doing. Apple’s suspicious stare feels like a condemnation.

“But Moanica is a monster. She’s one of our classmates,” Draculaura says. “One of the more… difficult ones.”

“Difficult in what way?” Apple asks. “Our classmate Faybelle once cast a wilted-wings spell on the other fairies trying out for a role in the school play to improve her chance of getting the part. It took days to wear off, and the poor fairies were so depressed that they couldn’t even cheerhex. Difficult like that?”

“That might be the definition of difficult here, but it’s not quite what we meant,” Frankie says.

Apple purses her lips. “What I’m asking is if she’s the kind of person who would trap perfectly nice, innocent people in some kind of evil fog world.”

“I don’t think she’s capable of creating a pocket universe and hiding fairytale characters in it, no,” Frankie says. She knows she’s being more snarky than she should, but something about monsters being blamed for everything irritates her.

“Yeah, I don’t know what a ‘pocket universe’ even is,” Raven says.

“Me neither,” Draculaura says.

“A pocket universe is kind of a quantum bubble of space-time,” says Frankie.

“Yes, it’s where a parallel reality theoretically can unfold,” Apple says.

“Oh thanks, that clears it right up,” Draculaura says, and Raven smiles.

Frankie’s neck bolts sizzle and a twitch of electricity tingles upward, heating the tips of her ears. That happens when she’s angry—specifically, jealous. And she’s ashamed to realize that she is a little jealous of how Draculaura seems to have made an insta-connection with this daughter of the Evil Queen, while Frankie is feeling like Alice lost in Wonderland.

“Okay, then,” Frankie says with a deep breath, trying to defizzle. “I’m just surprised that Apple here has ever met anyone in fairytale-land who is even the slightest bit difficult.”

“Well, surprising as it may seem, I have,” Apple replies, trying hard to keep her voice light.

“If you say so,” Frankie says.

That sounds mean, and Frankie frowns at herself. Apple frowns in response, as if she thinks Frankie is frowning at her.

“Okaaay, ghouls…” Draculaura says, making a “calm down” gesture.

“And frankly, Frankie,” Apple says, “it seems a little petty to assume I haven’t had challenges just because I’m a princess. My mom rules an entire kingdom and often has to deal with difficult situations. It’s part of my story.”

Frankie’s ears are red-hot, and even her eyelashes vibrate with loose electricity.

“Whoa, now,” Raven says. “I think all this fog might be clouding our thinking.”

“Ha,” Draculaura says. “I see what you did there. ‘Cloud our thinking’? Clever.”

“I thought it might have been too subtle,” Raven says with a smile.

Apple is staring at Draculaura and Raven with the same kind of confused, annoyed, and jealous expression that Frankie fears is on her own face.

“I didn’t think it was funny, either,” Frankie whispers to Apple.

Apple glances at her and quirks a little smile.

“Anyway,” Frankie says, loud enough to interrupt the giggle party just starting between Draculaura and Raven, “I think the answer is that Moanica is difficult in a pretty bad way. She loves to cause chaos. But she couldn’t be responsible for this weird fog wall that’s cut your school off from the rest of the world. That’s serious business.”

Raven glances at the mirror in Maddie’s room. “Not on her own, anyway,” Raven says.

“I still don’t get how Moanica, much less the Zomboyz, could have gotten here at all,” Draculaura says.

“We got here,” Frankie points out.

“And now we’re trapped here,” Draculaura says, looking out a window at the fog.

Frankie’s blood goes as cold as yeti feet. Trapped. At least when she was locked up in the laboratory she had her dad with her and the hope of one day leaving. Now she’s trapped in some school full of people who are frightened of monsters, and she can’t even run away. Outside the window, the world is brightening with morning, but the fog stays put.

“Wait,” Frankie says.

“Not a problem,” Draculaura says. “I was kind of doing that anyway, since there’s nowhere to go.”

“What if there is, though?” Frankie asks.

“You saw the road to Book End,” Raven says. “Where the fog starts, the bridge just ends.”

“But Maddie was taken away,” Frankie says. “Therefore, she was taken away! She left Ever After High. Despite the fog, she left. Therefore—”

“There’s got to be a way out!” Draculaura says.

“I see only two possibilities,” Apple says. “One: She left through a secret wishing well. Or two: She left via a hidden bridge through the fog.”

“Wait, what?” asks Frankie. “Those are your only two possibilities? And one of them is ‘a secret wishing well’?”

“It’s an Ever After thing,” Raven says.

Apple taps her finger on her chin. “Briar said that the wishing wells were fog-bottomed.”

“So there’s got to be a bridge,” says Frankie, heading toward the door. “I’ll go look.”

“I’ll come with you,” Apple says. “Headmaster Grimm asked us to take care of you, and besides, the students are already a little on edge. If they see a… a…”

“Monster?” asks Frankie.

Apple shrugs. “As nice as I’m sure you must be, if they see a monster creeping about alone, they could get frightened.”

“I wasn’t planning on creeping about, but I see your point,” Frankie says.

“Cool!” Draculaura says. “I’ll stay with Raven and we’ll work on magic!”

Frankie follows Apple out into the halls of Ever After High. No coffin lockers, no dangling cobwebs or slime trails, no mysterious gurgling noises from the vents. Instead, it’s all filtered sunlight, live trees growing like pillars through the floors and up the walls, humming mushrooms sprouting between their roots, and butterflies—Wait, do those butterflies have human faces?—flitting past her nose. It is, in a word, magical. Frankie stares. She’s never believed magic was real, but she’s kinda loving the thought that she might be wrong.

“Briar gathered the students in the Charmitorium for a ‘fog party,’” Apple says. “Ashlynn Ella is helping, so at least the students will be—”

“Who is Ashlynn Ella?”

“Oh, she’s…” Apple blushes, a pretty pink on her pale cheeks, and mutters, “Cinderella’s daughter.”

Frankie shakes her head. Her neck makes its usual creaking sound. “Cinderella’s daughter… This can’t be real—none of this is real.…” Not for the first time, Frankie considers that maybe she is still lying in the Mad Science lab at Monster High after being struck by lightning, and this is all just a dream.

“We’ll go out the opposite direction of the Charmitorium so no one has to see you,” says Apple.

So no one has to see me, Frankie thinks. In Ever After, I’m some kind of disgusting Thing.

Frankie groans at the thought, and Apple jumps.

“Ooh, please don’t make that noise! It’s fairy creepy.”

“Sorry,” Frankie says. Behind them, she hears the distinct popping noise Draculaura makes when turning into a bat, followed by Raven’s applause.

At least they’re getting along, she thinks. Her ear tips are hot again; her hair rises slightly with static. She’s not usually a jealous friend. What’s gone wrong with her?

Water break. Or… er… scene change. Time jump. Something like that.⁵⁶

56 Look, a girl has to keep hydrated when telling a story.

Anyway, sometime later, Frankie is hiding behind a garden shed as Apple checks to make sure no one is around. Frankie is all too familiar with hiding and prefers for that part of her life to be over.

“The coast is clear,” Apple whispers loudly.

Frankie edges out from the shed and paces along the fog.

“You could whistle,” suggests Frankie, “instead of trying to whisper at me.”

“Well, whistling is close to singing, and it’s hard to be sneaky when I sing, because birds start to follow me—”

“Wait, birds follow you?”

Apple shrugs. “Birds like me. If I whistle, they might think I’m in distress and come to my rescue.”

“Okaaay. Well, this might go faster if we split up.” Frankie sees nothing out there. The land just drops away. It’s so creepy it gives her a happy kind of jolt in her heart region.

“What? Are you kidding?” Apple asks. “Never split up! That’s when they get you!”

“When who gets you?”

“The monsters!” Apple blurts. “Well… other monsters. Evil ones.”

“You know, I think you might be underestimating your fellow students,” Frankie says. “This fog is way scarier than I am, and they’re currently having a party hosted by Sleeping Beauty’s daughter in bunny slippers. Maybe we don’t need to worry about hiding me so much?”

A branch cracks somewhere behind them.

Apple shoves Frankie to the ground. “Quick, pretend to be a rock.”

Frankie moves to get back to her feet, but Apple sits on her.

“Dum-dee-dum-dee-dum,” she sings. “Nothing to see here. Just Apple White sitting on a perfectly normal rock.”

A rabbit scampers out of a nearby bush, stares at them, and hops away.

“I think it was a rabbit,” Apple whispers to her Frankie-chair.

“This isn’t working,” Frankie mumbles, her face pressed against the grass.

When they return to Raven and Draculaura, they find the room bathed in purple light. A hairbrush is on the table, a thin purple mist surrounding it.

“Okay,” Raven says. “Now spin it.”

Draculaura hits the handle of the hairbrush and it spins on the top of the table like a deranged clock. After a few rotations, it suddenly hops off the table, clatters to the floor, and scoots itself under the desk. The glow fades, and Raven sighs.

“Are walking brushes normal here?” Frankie asks.

“You’re back!” Draculaura says. “Did you find a bridge?”

“No,” Apple says. “No bridge, and also walking brushes are not normal.”

“That all depends on your definition of normal,” Raven says. “But no progress here, either. I’m trying to enchant objects to go find my mom, but nothing works. I think they might be afraid of her.”

Under the desk, the brush, a plush bear, and a copy of Princess Today magazine all shiver.

Frankie runs her mint-green fingers over Maddie’s desk. Not much open space for doing homework; it’s taken up by two pairs of tiny running shoes that look small enough to fit a mouse, a basket of bright-purple muffins, several dozen teapots, a collection of shoelaces, a stack of books so high it tilts in the draft but never falls, and various other items Frankie has no name for, though her curious brain aches to figure them out. Maddie seems like the kind of person anyone would want to seek out. Even a hairbrush.

“Would the spell work better if the brush were trying to find Maddie?” Frankie asks.

“Maybe,” says Raven. “Or… ooh! I know! In order to do a stronger, long-distance seeking spell, I need something that belongs to Maddie.”

Of all the various teacups in the room, one appears to be more well used than the others, with tea stains in the bottom and an affectionate chip in the rim.

“How about this?” Frankie asks.

“Hexcellent!” Raven says. “Put the teacup on the table.”

With her left hand, Raven makes a gesture, and the teacup begins to spin around and around. With her right hand, she points at the spinning cup and chants.

Glow show the go flow.

A green fog surrounds the cup, forming a perfect sphere.

Raven clenches her teeth and spins her left hand harder. The green sphere forms the barest suggestion of a point.

“Gah!” Raven exhales. The sphere disappears and the cup comes to a stop.

“Was it working?” Draculaura asks.

“I think so,” Raven says, massaging her hand. “But I can’t keep that up. It needs to spin at a constant rate so the magic can detect where its spin is different from the natural state of matter.”

“Oh, so it’s like a gyrocompass,” Frankie says.

“What?” the three other girls say at once.

“Ships use compasses to navigate, right?” says Frankie. “But the big ones are full of metal and magnets, which throw off the magnetic field. With a gyrocompass, an electric motor spins the compass at a constant speed, and gravity naturally pulls a floating needle in the direction of true north. So Raven’s left hand is the magical motor, and her right is the magical gravity.”

“That sounds about right,” Raven says. She holds up her hand. “But my magical motor is cramping.”

“Give me a second,” Frankie says, glancing around the room.

She takes apart an alarm clock and a makeup case she finds on Kitty’s side of the room. Raven fetches some tools, and before long Frankie puts the parts back together to form a spinning mechanism. When she wires the device to the bolts in her neck, the dial begins to spin as fast as a windmill in a storm.

“And you’re certain that isn’t magic?” Raven asks.

“It’s science,” Frankie says, handing the device to Raven. “Well, engineering, technically. And plain old electricity makes it go. Put Maddie’s teacup in here and the device can keep it spinning for you as long as I’m connected to it.”

Frankie attaches the cup to the device with metal clamps, keeping it firmly in place. Raven casts the seeking spell on the cup as Frankie gets the compass spinning again. A misty green sphere surrounds the device, and a small arrow pokes out, pointing to the door.

Draculaura pops into bat form. “Follow that arrow!” she says.

The two princesses and two monsters make their way down the stairs and out toward the wall of fog.⁵⁷

57 Oh my bolded text, I have no idea what’s going to happen. What is that fog wall? How did the rest of Ever After just suddenly get cut off? Why does my first solo narration have to be such a dangerous story?