AND SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS… RAVEN AND Draculaura follow the compass into a cellar, Raven uses magical energy to move stones out of the way and release Maddie, and then Raven and Maddie hug and take the time to say how happy they are to see each other, even though they’re wasting precious seconds while the Evil Queen is upstairs doing something terrible that might destroy the world! Ahem!63
63 Sorry, I’m getting a little impatient. But why do characters take so long when there’s a crisis? Hurry up!
“Thanks for the rescuing,” says Maddie, “but our Narrator is insisting we hurry and deal with your mom quick-quick,” which isn’t technically true, because Narrators would never make someone do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.
“Drac, can you take Maddie and get her safe?” asks Raven. “I’ll stay and—”
“Wait, you want us to leave?” asks Draculaura.
“Maddie’s been locked up and needs—”
“I don’t need anything,” says Maddie. “I’m peachy. Peach cobblery, even. With whipped cream on top.”
So much talking, not enough hurrying!
“Sorry, Brooke,” says Maddie.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Raven,” Draculaura says. “Remember when we fought your imaginary mothers in the fog? We did it together.”
“Ooh, I’ve missed so much!” says Maddie.
“But this isn’t imaginary!” protests Raven. “This is the real thing! This is really her! And… and you don’t know her, Drac. She’s… she’s…”
“The Eee-vil Queen!” Maddie says ominously, wiggling her fingers in a spooky manner. “With a spray bottle!”
“Well, last time all we had was an imaginary Maddie to help us,” Draculaura says. “Now we’ve got the real thing!”
“Tarn dootin’!” Maddie says. “Real like fish and twice as slippery!”
Raven can’t help but smile.
Aaaand… now is the part when they start to hurry, probably. Aaaany second now. Ready, set—
“Go!” says Maddie. “We should go!”
The girls run up the stairs and through the library, climbing over piles of rubble, crossing floors of ancient tile mosaics, around tilty bookshelves—some empty, some with scattered tomes. They follow the sound of chanting.
At last they reach a room that’s only half a room, really. Part of a tiled roof balances above, and the three remaining walls are lined with bookshelves. The missing wall is open to the outside, the huge hole like the gaping mouth of a whale, loose stones and dangling roof tiles like its teeth. The Evil Queen is standing in the mouth-that’s-not-really-a-mouth-just-a-hole-in-the-wall, facing the … basically the shore of the library’s island.64
64 Sorry, Reader, this is not my best sentence. It’s just all so tense!
She chants:
Draw back the key,
pluck out the pin,
pull forth that debris
feared by Brooke’s kin.
A rope of twined black and silver magic extends out of the fog, and as the Evil Queen chants, she tugs on the magic rope as if pulling something closer.
What is she pulling toward herself?65
65 I think my parents know, but they can’t tell me because they are seriously flipping out and can’t even talk coherently, and when they’re flipping out this badly, it makes me panic, too. Hey, Evil Queen, whatever you’re doing, I think it’s both literally and figuratively evil.
Raven tiptoes nearer and thrusts her hands out. A current of purple light zaps toward the Evil Queen. Without turning around, the queen waves her hand, knocking the purple zap away. Instantly, a dome of transparent silvery magic rolls down and around the Evil Queen, cutting her off from the girls.
“Oh no,” says Raven. “She had a shield spell ready, contingent on any magical attack.”
“Ooh, you should do that, too,” suggests Draculaura.
“That’s really advanced magic,” says Raven. “I’m still in high school.”
Raven sends bolts of purple magic at the shield, but they bounce off like balloons.
“Raven, sweetheart, my own little dumpling, you found your mama!” calls the Evil Queen from inside the magical dome shield.
After she speaks, the Evil Queen’s lips keep moving, as if she’s continuing the spell’s chant under her breath. And she keeps pulling on that magical rope, too, hand over hand, steady and determined.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Mother,” says Raven, “but—”
“Your power has grown,” says the Evil Queen, examining the hand she used to bat away Raven’s spell, as if checking for injury. “How delightful! I knew you’d take more after your majestic and awe-inspiring mother than that father of yours. The ‘Good’ King. Boooring! But, my sweet little Black Forest cake, you can’t win. I simply know more than you do. I’ve had more time. And with these books here, I’ve learned things no one else has known since ancient times.”
“Can you open a hole in her barrier, Raven?” Draculaura whispers. “Just big enough for a tiny bat to get through?”
“Maybe, but, Drac… I won’t be able to biggify you behind that shield. What would you do to stop her?”
Draculaura pulls the Skullette on its chain from under her shirt. “This is humming again. Your mom must have the Monster Mapalogue near, and maybe between that and being out of the fog, it’s recharged. If I get close enough to touch her, it could send us both back to Monster High.”
Yes, good idea. Draculaura has a good idea. Any idea is good, because if the Evil Queen succeeds with whatever she is attempting, the consequences will be apocalyptic.66
66 At least, that’s my guess. None of the other Narrators can stop panicking long enough to explain it to me!
Maddie raises her hand. “Mrs. Queen?”
The Evil Queen laughs. “I know it feels like you’re being taken to school, Ms. Hatter, but no need to raise hands. Show some pluck. Stand your ground and shout your demands at the world!”
“Okay!” says Maddie. “I am now shouting at the world! And at you specifically! So, uh, you wanted to know what the Narrators were saying, right? Well, one of them is saying whatever it is you’re doing is apoplectic.”
“No, wait. Apologetic. It’s apologetic.”
“Ah. I think the word you’re looking for is apocalyptic,” says the dark sorceress. “As in, something that will cause the complete destruction of the world. And for the Narrators, I suppose what I’m doing is apocalyptic. Because once I reach Shadow High and claim the power of the Narrators, they will lose their power and won’t be able to rule us anymore. Honestly, Raven, who would you rather have controlling your life? Invisible beings who never show or name themselves, or your dear, beautiful, intelligent, powerful mother?”
Raven doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed, her forehead beaded with sweat; her lips mumble something, and then a fist-size hole opens in the shield.
Pop! Draculaura turns into a bat and swooshes through the hole, diving straight for the Evil Queen. But before she can change to her natural form, the Evil Queen grabs her by the Skullette pendant around her neck, yanks it off, and, with a brush of her hand, sends the Bat-Drac tumbling back through the hole. The shield seals shut.
“Aha! I thought a piece of my Mapalogue was missing,” says the Evil Queen. “So kind of you to have a winged rat deliver it to me.”
Pop! Draculaura sits on the ground and rubs the back of her neck. “Not cool. Not cool at all.”
The Evil Queen continues to mumble and pull on the rope of magic.
Raven touches the glowing surface of the shield. It feels like soft glass.
“What if you’re wrong?” Raven asks. “What if we need Narrators to tell our stories? What if we need Narrators to exist at all?”
The Evil Queen turns to look fully at her daughter, an inch of nearly transparent energy between them. They both appear to be looking into a mirror, one side showing the future, the other the past.
“That’s your fear talking,” the Evil Queen says. “This is my fight for control, control of our own destiny.”
“Then let me have my destiny, whatever it is. Don’t break the world before I can find my own path!”
“You can’t, my little semiprecious stone,” the Evil Queen coos. “You never could. I’m beginning to believe that the terrible secret of all this is that we have no real control at all—not as long as there are Narrators.”
That’s not true! That’s not true at all!67
67 It’s not true. I’m sure she read some really smart books and all, but the Evil Queen is totally misinterpreting them!
“Not true, not true!” says Maddie.
“The Narrators shape destiny, Raven,” says the Evil Queen, ignoring Maddie and still hauling in that magical tether. “They control us. We need to take that back. All I’ve ever wanted is to control my own destiny. They called me evil because I decided not to follow a script and instead make bold, magical, kingdom-shaking choices! Tell me, is it evil to simply try to control your own life?”
“No, Mom. But it is evil to want to control other people’s lives.”
“Yeah!” says Draculaura. “That’s right! You tell her, Raven.”
The Evil Queen shifts her gaze to Draculaura, who scoots backward.
“Draculaura, daughter of Dracula, cofounder of Monster High. I know you understand me.”
“I’m fighting to bring the pieces of our world together,” she says. “Isn’t that what you are working toward with your school? To bring the monsters out of hiding? To first unify the monsters and then one day, hopefully, the monster and Normie worlds? Through my reading in this very library, I have learned that once upon a time, all our lands were unified. Your ancestors and mine were possibly friends! And then the Narrators broke us apart, out of fear. Fear of us. Fear that we would work together to defeat them. We’re all just characters in a story to them, Draculaura. It’s time for us to be people.”
“Oh,” says Draculaura, nodding as if she can’t help it.
Even Raven feels wooed by the words. Could it be her mother is speaking the truth?68
68 I… I don’t think this is true. But I’m not sure. Did the lands all used to be together? Were the Narrators responsible for breaking it apart?
“Is that true, Brooke?” Maddie asks. “Am I not a people? I always thought I was a people.”
Um… the Narrator needs to tell what’s happening in the story, not answer characters’ questions.
“Characters?” asks Maddie. “You mean us?”
Yes, but… but that’s who you are. You’re characters in the story of your lives. That doesn’t mean you’re not people, too. I think. The other Narrators here are still panicking too much to explain it to me, but some of what the Evil Queen said sounds kinda true.
“I’m so confusal in my noodle,” says Maddie.
“Mom, please,” says Raven.
Her mother sighs. “I want what’s best for you, Raven. Always.”
The Evil Queen puts one of her hands up and presses it to her daughter’s. The shield between them flickers and vanishes.
“Thanks, Mom,” says Raven.
The Evil Queen raises an arched eyebrow. “Whatever for?”
Raven stutters a laugh, gesturing around her. “For dropping the barrier. For stopping what you were doing. For seeing reason. For being on my side.”
From somewhere in the distance comes a rumble, low and trembly and growing louder.
“I hear a critter,” Maddie whispers. “A big critter that is hungry maybe for peachy cobbler with whipped cream.”
“That’s no critter.” The Evil Queen looks out. “Raven, I am always on your side, because we’re on the same side, my precious lump of coal. But I haven’t stopped. I’ve finished. That foggy wilderness you walked through is called the Margins. The place between stories. The space keeping all the lands apart. And the rumbling you hear is the Margins narrowing. It is the sound of the Narrators’ great secret being pulled toward us.”
“No,” Raven whispers.
“Now I just need the last piece.…”
Loosen the key,
free the key,
at last, at last the key to me!
The Evil Queen gives the magical rope a hard yank.
An object streaks out of the fog like an arrow, the end of the rope tied around its middle. Just before it strikes the queen in the face, she plucks it easily from the air as if it weren’t moving at the speed of a falling star. She turns it over, her brow wrinkled.
“Hmm,” she says. “I’ll be honest. I’m a little surprised.” She speaks upward, as if to people in the sky. “And disappointed! This is the great key I read about in ancient books? The magical object you Narrators used to lock in place Shadow High’s island from the rest of the world? No flair for drama, you people! I hexpected the object would be a sword or an electric disk or, good heavens, an actual key!”
“What is it?” Raven asks.
The Evil Queen holds up the flat plank of iron, vaguely triangular and pockmarked with age.
“It’s a chisel,” Raven says.
“So it would seem,” says the Evil Queen, unimpressed. She begins to pace, closer to the edge of the island. Raven follows.
“Combined with some spell, this chisel is what locked Shadow High away for so long,” says the Evil Queen. “And kept the other lands away from it. Well, no longer is Shadow High stuck, pinned down by the ancient magic of this chisel. I don’t have to go to Shadow High. It is, even now, coming to me.”
And in the distance, the groaning of the critter that isn’t a critter grows louder. Hungrier. Nearer.69
69 A critter that eats peach cobbler would be so much better than what’s actually coming!