Truly Cursed
I reach for my quiver, but the gargoyles surrounding us are too fast. They rip Han and Hamish from me and fly them straight to Alva.
“Gilly! Help!” Han screams as Jax goes limp.
I hang on to him the best I can, but I have to let go if I’m going to save the boys. Hang on! a voice inside my head says. My heart is pounding as I make my choice. Jax goes down fast, crumpling by my feet. The gargoyles see him fall and screech louder. I pull an arrow from my quiver and nock it back.
“Touch them, and I’ll strike you in your heart,” I say, shaking.
Alva grins wickedly as she holds both boys by their shirts. “I like that fire in you, girl. Your sister could use some of that.”
“Please! Don’t hurt them,” Anna begs Alva and Stiltskin. “You said nothing about using my family’s fairy blood!”
“Well, whose did you think we’d use for the curse?” Alva asks as Stiltskin look guilty. “It never would have been mine. I always wanted Gillian’s, but when we didn’t catch her, I suggested you.” She sighs. “Sadly, he’s so fond of his star pupil that he said it had to be another fairy’s. Someone truly good and heroic—which isn’t you. That’s your sister.” She looks at me. “But if she won’t sacrifice herself, then I guess one of her brothers will do. They’re young and surely pure of heart.” Her eyes flash. “Or maybe I should just use them both…to be sure.” The boys’ eyes widen in horror.
“No! Please!” Anna begs. “Not my brothers.”
“Then tell your sister to sacrifice herself without any more fighting,” Alva says calmly. “Then I’ll let the boys go to live their last moments before the curse. I’m certainly not saving your family,” she says with a small laugh. “The Cobblers have always gotten in the way of what I’ve done.”
Alva places the egg on a rock in front of her, and my heart pounds wildly. What am I going to do?
“With Gillian’s blood spilled, I will use Pearl’s bloodline to finally end this. After all, this curse feeds on our feelings and our emotions, and hate is the strongest emotion of all. So Gillian, who will it be? Your brothers’ blood or yours?” I open my mouth to respond. “Never mind. I hate waiting.” Alva pulls a dagger from inside her dress and cuts the boys’ palms in quick succession.
“No!” I let go of the arrow, and it sails toward Alva. She deflects it with a wave of her wrist. She turns their wrists so their blood drips onto the egg. It immediately starts to glow.
The curse has begun.
“Stop!” Anna begs. “Stiltskin, do something!”
“Gilly! Please!” Hamish yells.
“Someone help me!” I fire again and again, but the arrows bounce off Alva. Gargoyles swoop toward me and Jax lying at my feet. I feel no pity as I fire at them again and again, but they keep coming. I have no radishes on me now.
“Hang on!” I try not to cry as a gargoyle picks me up and holds me by the shirt. Another grabs Jax, who can barely hold his head up. I struggle to get out of its grasp. “Anna! Please! Stop this! They’re your brothers!”
“It was Gilly or you, Anna,” I hear Stiltskin say, and he actually looks somewhat apologetic. “Alva wouldn’t settle for anyone but a Cobbler.” Anna looks gobsmacked, and her chest starts to heave. “But don’t you see? You don’t need any of them anymore! We are your family now!”
The egg is blinding as it lights up the darkness of the forest, shooting a beam up at the Fire Moon before shooting across the sky, washing the clouds in a red glow. The wind kicks up and trees start to blow. Lightning hits a tree in the distance, and the tree explodes, cracking into a million pieces. The thunder rumbles continuously as the ground starts to shake, knocking me and the others to the ground.
“It’s starting!” Stiltskin says with glee as Alva watches in amazement. “Enchantasia will be reborn, and we all will benefit from it!”
The light washes over the Pegasus stables at FTRS. They disappear in front of my eyes.
He’s erasing us. He’s going to erase everything. I try advancing on Alva to grab the boys, firing the last of my arrows at the egg, but it does nothing. The gargoyles surrounding me yank the quiver off my back as I look for a weapon of any kind to use, but I don’t see any. I search Jax’s pockets, but they too have nothing.
Please, Grandma Pearl. Please. What do I do? I beg, but there is no answer as I hang in the air unable to break free. Think, Gilly! Think! It can’t be too late. Even if I am alone. I am stronger than my fear. Focus on your instincts, I remind myself. The lamp is the key. The word comes to me so quickly I’m surprised. I glance at Stiltskin’s lamp on the ground. If I got it, could I force Darlene to let me be her master so I could stop this? Desperate, I kick out from the gargoyle’s grasp and fall to the ground. I lunge for the lamp.
“Uh, uh, uh!” Stiltskin grabs the lamp before I can reach it. The gargoyle grabs me again. “This isn’t yours! You’re always taking things that don’t belong to you!”
The egg’s rays touch the vegetable patch, and it dissolves. Next, the lake begins to get sucked up and Blackbeard’s pirate ship along with it. Lightning crackles across the sky as the earth begins to split open beneath my feet. I can see people running in the distance, but there is nowhere to hide from this curse. The edges of the forest near school begin to drift away into the wind. I imagine my village and school getting sucked away. As more and more of the kingdom is sucked up, even the Stiltskin Squad looks anxious.
“Why isn’t this curse working faster?” Alva continues to hold my brothers’ hands over the egg. The boys have stopped crying now. They’re just standing there in shock.
“Gilly, please…” Han says again, but his voice is fading.
“Please!” I shout. “The curse is working. You’ve won. Let my brothers go.”
Alva only smiles up at me. “Never. Watching you suffer is part of the fun.”
I hear a crack and watch as more and more of the forest disappears. A few giants get pulled up too and fade away.
Gretel grabs Stiltskin’s gold lapel. “How do we keep from being sucked away?”
“You don’t,” Alva says.
“My pet, see reason! I’ve told you over and over that I won’t leave without my squad and Anna.”
“I see no use for any of them in our new world,” Alva says dismissively. “Especially since you won’t be in it either.”
“I… What do you mean?” Stiltskin sputters.
Alva drops the dagger from her free hand and pulls out her wand. She whisks Darlene’s lamp out of Stiltskin’s hands and pulls it toward herself.
“What are you doing?” Stiltskin asks, his voice going up an octave. “My pet!”
“Don’t call me your pet.” Alva rolls her eyes. “I told you I hated that years ago!” She rubs the lamp. “I wish…” she says, and Darlene oozes out of her lamp again. She surveys the scene and gasps in horror. “I wish for you to banish Rumpelstiltskin to another realm from which he cannot return.”
“What? No! You can’t! My pet! No!” Stiltskin screams.
“I am your co-master, am I not?” Alva says coolly. “He made you make me one. Because he loves me.” She smiles nastily.
And that’s when Stiltskin realizes the truth at the same time I do: he’s been beaten at his own game.
“Stop her!” he yells to his squad. “Stop her!”
But instead, they take this as their chance to run from the Wicked Fairy before this curse swallows them up whole. Anna is the only one who stays, her eyes on our brothers as Stiltskin runs for the lamp to knock it out of Alva’s hands. But it’s too late.
Darlene looks from Alva up to me. “Well…it’s sort of an evil wish, which I despise, but your last wish wasn’t much better, and I was forced to grant that, so…” Darlene smiles. “I guess I’ll take the punishment from the genie council and be done with you!” She looks at Alva again. “As you wish,” Darlene says.
Stiltskin screams. “No!”
Alva doesn’t flinch.
Darlene closes her eyes, mumbles a few words, and there is a large gust of wind. I watch as it sucks the evil tyrant who caused us so much pain up into a vortex of wind. Alva and Anna watch it happen, and I take my chance. I try to pull Jax up to standing again and stagger toward the boys. Alva turns toward me and fires her wand. Jax and I get knocked onto our backs. My right shoulder is throbbing. I’m not even sure I can stand again.
“Alva, nooooo!” Stiltskin cries.
But his biggest weakness, the love of his life, watches quietly, not shedding a tear.
The funnel spins faster till it explodes with a pop and Stiltskin disappears into the light. There is complete silence as Darlene oozes back into her lamp, her work for Alva finally complete. The lamp clangs to the ground.
Anna is breathing hard. “Why did you do that to him?” she asks, and I know she’s trying not to cry. “You loved him! He loved you!”
“Love is for fools,” Alva says simply.
But I know she’s wrong. Love is what’s right in this kingdom, and no matter how much pain I’m in, I can’t be like Grandma Pearl and just give up. I can’t be my own worst enemy and be afraid. I need to fight for the things I love, even if I die trying—and I just might. I take a deep breath and roll onto my side.
“Come on, Jax,” I yell and he looks over at me. “We can get out of this. If this is the end, we need to make it count.”
He smiles weakly and nods to the trees. “We will. Look.”
I look over, and I could almost cry in relief. I’m not alone. Kayla, Jocelyn, Ollie, and Maxine are quietly racing up the hill!
“Fire!” I hear someone scream and look up to see Jack riding Erp through the trees. He drops smoke bombs onto the area as more kids come streaming out of the trees. Ollie, Maxine, and Jocelyn come running now too, shooting radishes into the air with small slingshots. Gargoyles begin falling from the sky. Angelina and Kayla’s sisters are flying our way too. My parents and Trixie are flying with them, holding on to their backs.
Alva is so surprised that she doesn’t see Peaches emerge from the trees, grab the lamp, and swallow it. When Peaches coughs it up seconds later, the lamp is small enough to fit into her beak. She picks it up and waddles back into the trees.
The gargoyles holding Jax and I even look fearful. Panicked, they drop Jax and me to the ground. Alva spins around, shocked to see her numbers dwindling. Still, she clings to the two boys. She looks at me.
“You may think this helps your cause, but look! Your school is fading away! Your village is gone! And soon you will be too.” She presses a dagger to Hamish’s neck, and my mother screams. “But not before I watch you suffer.”
“No!” I reach out to stop her, but I’m stopped by the sound of an explosion. I look over to see where it came from and spot Jax, his arm still raised from whatever he’s thrown at the ground. There is now a giant hole in the ground the size of a small house. It’s a magic bean!
With sudden strength, I watch as Jax dives at Han and Hamish and pulls my brothers into the portal. I cry out. They’re going to make it! They’re going to get away!
But then I hear the blast of Alva’s wand, which is aimed straight at Jax’s heart.
“No!” I cry as the portal closes up tight. The wind that follows knocks everyone off their feet and the battle grinds to a halt, everyone standing where they are in stunned silence. My mother bursts into tears. I breathe heavily. Did Alva hit them, or did they get away just in time? Is Jax dead? I feel a pain rip at my insides like I’ve never felt before. All I want to do is roll over and die.
“You killed them.” Anna’s voice is hollow.
“What’s done is done,” Alva says firmly. “You’re still here. I’m still here. Want to know why? We’re survivors! And now, we can finish this. We can hasten the curse’s effects, and Enchantasia will be reborn. Together we will win all we’ve ever wanted.”
“But you said…” Anna starts to say, tears falling down her cheeks.
“I can say anything I want,” Alva tells her. “It’s my curse and you’ve proven to be a better ally than I could have imagined. Now, you can join me.”
In the distance, I see FTRS start to be sucked into the nothingness. The girls’ and boys’ dormitory turrets disappear from view forevermore. My brothers are lost. My teachers have disappeared. Jax is gone. Soon there will be nothing left. Unless… The thought is roaring to the surface, begging to be heard. We can still win.
I look to Angelina, who is consoling my mother. “We have to try to create a quorum,” I say as Alva continues to corral my sister.
“But we don’t have enough fairies,” Angelina says as she holds my mother close. “The girls and I only make four.”
“And I make four and a half,” I say. “Maybe it’s not enough, but we can’t just wait for the end to come. Maybe if we believe strongly enough we have a shot.” I hold out my hand. “We have to try.”
“Of course you do,” says Grandma Pearl, appearing beside me in her own personal bubble.
“Grandma!” I run to her and hold on tight. “But you said this isn’t your fight.”
Grandma Pearl looks at me. “Obviously I was wrong. It’s all our fight, and you now have five! Count me in. I’m a strong half-fairy myself.”
“Make that five and a half,” says Father, who looks at me. “I’ll try my hardest to remember what I’ve learned.” He turns. “Hello, Mother.”
“Son.” Grandma Pearl beams and grasps his hand.
“We have six!” Trixie cries, rushing to take my other hand. “I believe. I truly believe!”
Will all of us half-fairies make up for the fact that we aren’t whole? It has to be enough. I will it to be. The group of us form a circle. Jocelyn stands at the outskirts and winds up a fireball.
“We’ll hold her off till you get into position,” she says as Ollie brandishes his sword.
“Repeat after me,” Grandma Pearl instructs. “Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight.”
“Is that a quorum, I see? How quaint!” Alva says, laughing. “And lead by an old crone like you, Pearl? For the love of Grimm, I didn’t even know you were still alive!” Her eyes glint. “No matter. You won’t be for long. And this quorum will never work. You aren’t full fairies! You don’t have enough power in the lot of you.”
“Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight,” we repeat.
Our collective hands start to glow, but it’s faint. If only we had more fairies. We need more power. I glance at Anna watching from the sidelines.
“Again!” Grandma Pearl commands.
“Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight.” Our hands continue to glow, but Alva is unaffected. Around us, the curse grows closer, sucking in the nearest trees.
Alva raises her wand and aims at our circle. “You aren’t powerful enough to stop this curse, Gillian Cobbler! You never have been!” She looks at me. “You are and always will be nothing more than a petty thief. Say goodbye to your precious Enchantasia!”
I keep chanting. Then someone brushes my fingers.
Anna is reaching for my hand.
Time seems to stop as I look at my younger sister. There is so much hurt between us that I don’t know what to say. All I know is that we’re as different as can be, but that’s not a bad thing. Not when she’s choosing good. I let go of Father’s hand for a split second and take Anna’s in my own. Father takes Anna’s hand, too, and together they repeat after me.
“Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight.” Our hands glow again, brighter than before. “Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight.”
Our hands start to glow orange, and the light emitting from the egg on the rock starts to dim. It’s working! A vortex appears directly behind Alva.
“It can’t be!” Alva shouts.
“Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight!” we say again, and the vortex spins faster, pulling Alva into it. The light from the egg goes out completely.
“No!” Alva cries, but there is nowhere left for her to turn.
“Power of fairy might, take this wicked witch and drive her from all lands and sight!” We say one last time.
And Alva disappears into thin air.