The Enchantress Returns (34 page)
Alex cautiously walked over to her. Was she dead? Could she hear her approaching?
Alex leaned down and picked up the scepter. Just as her hand wrapped around it, the Snow Queen grabbed on to Alex’s forearm and pulled her in close. The cloth slid off of her lids and Alex was staring into two bright lights instead of eyes.
“Of the four travelers, one will not return…”
the Snow Queen rasped. Then the lights faded into nothing but empty eye sockets. The Snow Queen’s hand around Alex went limp and she fell unconscious.
Alex didn’t understand what had just happened. Had the Snow Queen just given her a prophecy?
“You got it!” Conner said excitedly and ran up to his sister. He was covered in snow but was jumping for joy.
“Yeah, I did,” Alex said—still unsure of how to process what the Snow Queen had just told her.
Jack and Goldilocks charged into the cavern. They were so relieved to see the twins. They took one look at the frozen polar bear and at the trapped Snow Queen and laughed.
Jack playfully nudged Goldilocks. “And
you
were worried they were in danger,” he said.
“Jack, look out!”
Conner yelled. Jack ducked just in time to miss being slashed with a claw. The other polar bear had managed to get out of the frozen lake and appeared behind
them—he was soaked and furious. He leaped toward Jack and Goldilocks, ready to tear them apart.
Alex pointed the scepter at the polar bear and an icy beam hit him in the chest. He froze in midair and hit the ground, trapped in ice.
“Well, I’m ready for this snow day to be over,” Conner said.
“Let’s get out of here before the bears thaw out,” Goldilocks said.
The group found the opening in the glaciers they had entered through and followed the marks Goldilocks left back into the harsh winds. They traveled south until they found the
Granny
right where they had left it.
“You’re back! You’re back!” Froggy said and literally leaped for joy as they climbed aboard the ship. “Well, how’d it go? Did you get the scepter?”
Alex showed him the Snow Queen’s scepter. “Boy, do we have a story for you!” she said.
But before Alex could even start, Red emerged from the lower deck. “Oh good, you’re all back! You won’t believe what happened to me while you were gone!” she said.
“
We
won’t believe what happened to
you
?” Conner asked, wondering what could top defeating polar bears and a Snow Queen.
Red was cradling something in her arms like a baby. As she neared the others, they could see it was furry and had four paws.
“I got a puppy!” Red said and happily showed them the small dog sleeping in her arms.
“Where did you get a puppy?” Alex asked.
“I grew a little impatient waiting for you to return—
oh, I see you got the scepter! Well done—
anyway, I went for a walk to pass the time and I found this little guy wandering around the snow alone! He was helpless, starving, and adorable, so I decided to adopt him!” Red explained.
No one knew what to say. Anything they could have said about retrieving the scepter wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting to her as the pup in her arms.
“Did you name him?” Conner asked.
“I named him Claudius,” Red informed them. “I named him after one of the characters from my favorite Shakeyfruit play,
Hamhead
.”
Froggy hit his forehead with an open hand. “
Hamlet
, my dear,” he corrected her.
“Yes, that’s the one,” she said. “But I’m going to spell it with a
w
. Wouldn’t that be divine? Clawdius, with a
w
! Do you get it?”
Everyone nodded along with her like she was a three-year-old child—except for Goldilocks. She was staring daggers at Red.
“You probably don’t get it,” Red said and explained it to her further. “If I spell it with a
w
, the word
claw
will be in his name, like an animal claw. Get it now? Say it with me, Goldie—
Clawdius
.”
Goldilocks looked down at the small dog and then back up at Red with a smile. “He’s very cute, congratulations.”
The others did a double take. They had never seen Goldilocks collect herself so effortlessly before.
“Thank you,” Red said. She climbed the steps back down to the lower deck, rocking her new pet as she went. “Oh my, what cute little paws you have, Clawdius! Oh my, what precious little eyes you have. Oh my, what pointy little ears you have…”
Goldilocks began unloading all her weapons, chuckling as she did.
“That was big of you,” Conner said to her.
“What’s so amusing?” Jack asked.
“Red is in for a rude awakening,” Goldilocks said.
“Oh, dear,” Froggy said. “Why is that?”
A sly smile came to Goldilocks’s face. “I’d recognize one of those anywhere. That’s not a
puppy
—it’s a
wolf cub
.”
Red was insufferably inseparable from her new pet. While the others rested in the lower deck after their encounter with the Snow Queen, the sounds of Red playing fetch with Clawdius kept them tossing and turning in their cots.
“Fetch, Clawdius!” Red encouraged in a loud and high-pitched voice. “Go on, boy! Go get the stick! Bring it back to Mommy!”
Since they had decided it was best for the
Granny
to fly covertly at night, everyone on board was struggling to adjust to
the nocturnal traveling schedule, getting sleep whenever they could—and Red wasn’t helping matters.
A loud clank came from the upper deck that caused everyone to jolt.
“That’s it!” Goldilocks said, jumping out of her cot. She ran up the steps to the upper deck and was mortified by what she saw—
Red was using the ice scepter to play fetch with Clawdius.
“Are you insane!?”
Goldilocks said, yanking the scepter out of the pup’s mouth.
“What? He likes it,” Red said.
The twins could hear their conversation as clear as a bell below, and they worried these moments would be Red’s last.
“You’re really not helping my urge to throw you and that mutt off this ship!” Goldilocks said.
Red ignored her. She hummed a tune to herself and took a seat on the other side of the deck. Clawdius curled up in Red’s lap and went to sleep as she stroked his bushy gray fur.
“Hoods have always suited me so well, and motherhood is no exception,” Red said. “Isn’t it amazing how quickly we’ve bonded? What are the chances a poor dog would be stranded in the wilderness and rescued by a fabulous queen? I feel like we’re living in a story!”
Goldilocks had had enough. It was time to burst Red’s bubble.
“He treats you like you’re his mother because
he actually thinks you’re his mother
,” Goldilocks said. “He’s bonding with your coat, Red, not you! Clawdius is a wolf!”
“What?” Red said with a laugh, as if it was the most
preposterous thing she had ever heard in her life. “That’s ridiculous! There’s no way Clawdius is a…” Her voice trailed off. She looked down and saw Clawdius sucking on one of the buttons of her coat—disappointed no milk was coming from it.
Red was suddenly aware of the familiarity of his teeth, his ears, his snout, and his fur—she had seen all these features before, just on a larger scale.
A piercing scream erupted from the back of Red’s throat.
“WOLF!”
She jumped to her feet and pushed Clawdius to the ground.
“Get it away from me! Get it away from me!”
Jack, Froggy, and the twins climbed to the upper deck when they heard the screaming. They were afraid Goldilocks might have finally lost her patience and tried to murder Red, but Goldilocks was leaning on the banister watching Clawdius chase Red around the deck with a huge smile on her face.
“Don’t just stand there! Help me!”
Red yelled at Jack and the twins. She was running in circles and Clawdius was playfully barking up at her, thinking they were playing another game.
“Darling, please calm down!” Froggy said. “He’s just a tiny little—”
“He’s a bloodthirsty killer!”
Red screamed.
“Just look at him! He’s probably been plotting to kill me in my sleep since he came aboard!”
“He’s not the only one,” Goldilocks said.
“Get away from me, you ferocious beast!”
Red yelled over her shoulder at the baby wolf. The twins found her choice of words to be a bit extreme. The wolf cub didn’t seem
threatening in the slightest, especially as Clawdius was now chasing his own tail.
“Perhaps you could raise him to be
unferocious
, my love?” Froggy suggested.
“Name one example of
that
method working!” Red yelled. Froggy drew a blank. “That’s because you can take the wolf out of the wilderness but you can’t take the wilderness out of the wolf!”
Red stood on the banister and Clawdius jumped up at her, trying to join her on the ship’s edge. He grew tired of jumping up for Red’s affection and sat on the floor just below her with his oversize paws spread in front of him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Red said. “I can’t be your mother if I’m constantly worried you’re going to maul me to death, now can I?”
A singular sad yelp came out of the pup and he looked at her sideways.
“I have a history with wolves, you know,” Red said. “One almost gobbled me and my grandmother up when I was a little girl! A wall was built around my kingdom to keep out the likes of you. Surely you can understand the inconvenience?”
Clawdius whimpered, somehow understanding the young queen. He moped over to Froggy, feeling like he had been abandoned for a second time.
“There, there, old chap,” Froggy said and picked up the tiny wolf. “We’ll find you a nice home, don’t you worry.”
Red stayed on the banister for the majority of the day, too afraid to move.
That night, as soon as the sun set, Jack fired up the ship and Froggy steered it south. It sailed through the clouds of the Northern Kingdom to their next destination—Cinderella’s wicked stepmother’s estate.
Jack and Froggy took shifts through the night navigating the
Granny
. The twins tried to sleep, but it was difficult with the
Granny
rocking along the midnight sky and because Red was talking in her sleep.
“Oh my, what soft fur you have, little Clawdius,” Red said, and stroked an imaginary dog in her bed. “Oh my, what small nonthreatening teeth you have.… Oh my, what strong non-growing bones you have.… Oh my, what a delicate little diet of fruits and vegetables you have.…”
Goldilocks had successfully blocked out the noises with a pillow wrapped around her head. Alex wasn’t so lucky. Not only did she have Red talking in her sleep to drown out but also the fear of what the Snow Queen had told her in the cavern.
Out of the four travelers, one would not return.
What did it mean? Was she referring to the twins, Jack, and Goldilocks? Was she telling Alex that one of them was going to die? Had she actually made a true prophecy or was she just trying to get into Alex’s head?
Alex wondered if anyone had literally worried themselves to death, because if not, she was probably going to be the first. Her thoughts were overwhelming and Alex finally gave up on the idea of sleep. She got up from her cot and discovered her brother had done the same. She climbed up to the upper deck
and found him leaning on the banister facing the East. He held a quill, and a stack of parchment was spread in front of him.
It was quiet out here. Only the sounds of the
Granny
’s sails flapping in the wind and the flickering of the central flame could be heard.
“You couldn’t sleep, either?” Alex asked.
“I don’t think someone comatose could sleep through all of that,” he said.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked, gesturing to his quill and parchment. “Not homework, I hope. I think you’ll be allowed to turn in a couple late assignments given the circumstances.”
“No, I’m just writing,” Conner said. “I’m making notes of all the things we’ve seen and the places we’ve been so far. I don’t want to forget anything. I may want to make a couple short stories out of it. The Snow Queen’s polar bear servants, Red having a pet wolf,
pheasant pudding
… It’s all good stuff.”