First Frost (25 page)

For the longest time neither of them said a word to each other. The anger swam around them freely in that tiny cell. It was almost a tangible thing.

Lenore pulled out a silver dagger from the sheath tied around her waist. She showed it to Rose and wiggled it before her. The blade glinted menacingly in the little bit of sunlight that squeezed into her pitiful holding cell.

“Curious?” Lenore whispered.

Rose’s eyes widened with fear and understanding. There was a heartbeat of silence between them before Rose exploded into a violent struggle against her bond, kicking and struggling to free herself from the chair she was tied to. She tried to use a fire spell that would incinerate the ropes that bound her.

Lenore moved faster than a snake. She grabbed Rose by the hair and pressed the dagger to her throat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she hissed. “You didn’t think I’d bring you all the way here, just so you could escape and murder me under my own roof, did you?”

Lenore slapped Rose across the cheek and released her from her grip. She rested her elbow on Rose’s head.

“I want you to think of this cell as a giant invisible mirror. Any spell you cast…will simply bounce right back to you. So if you thought you could burn the rope off your hands, all you’d do is set yourself on fire. Now…as much as I would
love
to see you burn yourself into a pile of ashes…I need something from you first.” With that having been said, Lenore cut a straight line on the palm of Rose’s hand and used a silver goblet to collect all of the blood she needed to complete her spell.

Lenore could see Rose suppressing the urge to scream in pain. It seemed that Rose wasn’t going to give Lenore the satisfaction.

“You think you’re proving something by staying quiet? Trust me, when I’m through with you…you’re going to beg for me to end your life,” Lenore whispered.

Lenore laughed as she walked out of Rose’s cell. The door closed, and Rose was left alone with her thoughts, pain and misery.

Chapter Twenty-One

Bianca heard strange murmurs, a series of hisses and whispers as she struggled to open her eyes that morning. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t wake up. She tried to move her hands and feet all to no avail. It felt as though someone had bound her limbs into place.

Something isn’t right.

Then, everything turned pitch black, and she was standing alone in the darkness. Her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach; this was an all-too-familiar darkness, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was something different this time around.

“Hello? Anyone there?” she shouted. No response. All she heard was a faint echo of her words.

She fought the urge to stand still and walked instead. Oddly enough, she felt the ground beneath her feet changing even though she couldn’t see. She could feel when she was going up a steep hill. Suddenly her feet sank a little, almost as if she were walking on sand. The ground beneath her feet was constantly changing; the only difference was that she couldn’t see it. Either way, she kept moving.

Bianca then heard a familiar voice screaming and shouting for help; it sounded far away and faint.

“Hello? Daddy? Ming? Terrance? Prince Ferdinand? Can anyone hear me?” Bianca cried.

“Bianca?”

“Ming?”

“Yes!”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see anything,” Ming replied. Bianca could hear the desperation in her friend’s voice. She could only imagine how terrified Ming was.

“Keep talking. I’ll try to follow the sound of your voice,” Bianca suggested.

“Okay.” Ming’s voice trembled.

But before they could follow up on their plan, Bianca heard a gut-wrenching scream.

“Ming!” Bianca ran toward her friend, still unable to figure out where she was going. She stopped when she heard Ming’s screams from all directions.

Which way do I go?
she wondered desperately as she spun around in search of her friend’s voice.

She closed her eyes and focused on finding Ming.
Where is she?
She stretched her arms out and tried to get a feel for the energy surrounding her.

As soon as she decided which direction she wanted to take, the darkness lifted like a fog, and she found herself in a garden that looked as though it hadn’t been tended to in years, perhaps decades.

“Ming?” Bianca whispered as she carefully navigated her way through the strange garden. There were roses everywhere: ruby, ivory, pink, yellow, and onyx. The roses that had once been bright and colorful were now wilted, grayish, and frayed at the tips. But that wasn’t what concerned her. What worried her was the fact that those once-beautiful roses were growing out of ebony-colored vines. They were covered by sharp and dangerous-looking thorns.

In the middle of the garden, a comatose Ming lay in a bed made up of cotton candy pink hydrangeas.

A dream within a dream. Is this even possible?

“Ming, please wake up. Open your eyes.” Bianca gently shook her friend on the shoulder.

There was a lump in her throat; she was trying so hard not to cry. She thought of ways she could wake Ming up. She searched her memory for every fairy tale that involved a girl trapped in a sleep-like state. Then she remembered the story of Sleeping Beauty.

True love’s kiss
.
Maybe Prince Ferdinand can help. He might not love her, but his kiss could break the spell.

She wondered if Prince Ferdinand and Terrance were trapped in this nightmare as well.

“Terrance!” She waited several minutes in silence for any type of response.

“Bianca?” Terrance cried.

“Terrance! Where are you?” she asked as she searched for him. Silence. No movement.

“I don’t know. I can’t see anything. Is Prince Ferdinand with you?”

“No. Ming is with me, but she’s unconscious. I can’t get her to wake up.”

“Stay where you are. I’ll find you.”

“Keep an eye out for my father. I haven’t seen or heard from him. And find Prince Ferdinand, if you can. I think he’s the only one who can wake her up.”

“I’ll do my best,” he replied.

Again, she waited in silence. Then she heard a soft rustling sound. Bianca frowned as she studied her surroundings.

“Terrance? Prince Ferdinand?” she whispered.

She gasped in horror as she watched black vines slither toward her, almost as if they were onyx pythons and she, their prey.

“Oh, my God.” She was surrounded. Everywhere she looked there were dozens of vines, all of them closing in on her and Ming. Her magic didn’t work in a dream—or nightmare.

Bianca tried to cast a spell, anything to help defend herself and the unconscious Ming, but nothing happened.

“Huzzah! Unhand her, foul beasts!” Prince Ferdinand shouted as he burst out from behind the bushes sword in hand ready to attack.

“Prince Ferdinand?” Bianca said.

He nodded and shook his blond hair out of his eyes.

Prince Ferdinand swung his sword and attacked all of the vines. He sliced left and right with a bright smile on his face, almost as if his body were made for combat. It was a brutal, strangely graceful dance, and in a matter of minutes, the fight was over, leaving him the victor.

“A fine adventure indeed, Bianca. I’m so glad we ran into each other.” He extended his hand out to her and helped her stand up.

“Your Highness, I’m so happy you’re here. By the way…thank you for saving us,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Where is Terrance?”

“I don’t know.”

Bianca glanced around, as though expecting Terrance to appear at any moment the same way Ferdinand did.

“Terrance?” Bianca cried.

No reply.

“Shit,” Bianca muttered.

“What’s wrong?” the prince asked, with a deep frown of concern for his friend.

“Terrance was trying to find you the last time I spoke to him,” she explained. She wanted to go and look for Terrance at that very moment, but then she remembered that Ming was still fast asleep.

She took a deep breath.
Okay. One thing at a time.

“You really are a prince, right?” she asked.

“Of course, I’m a prince. Why would I lie about that?”

She wasn’t about to explain to him that people lied about all sorts of things. “Can you wake her up?”

“I-I’ll try,” he stammered. For the first time since they met, he seemed unsure of himself.

Bianca closed her eyes and crossed her fingers and hoped that the kiss would work. Ferdinand took a deep breath and sheathed his sword. He walked up to Ming and shook her shoulders and shouted into her ear, begging her to wake up.

“Not like that, you idiot,” Bianca shouted as she punched him on the arm. “
Kiss
her. Like in the story of Sleeping Beauty.”

“Oh, my apologies.” At least Prince Ferdinand had the decency to blush and look slightly embarrassed.

He leaned over and kissed Ming gently on the lips. Bianca waited with bated breath. Ming finally stirred and her dark brown eyes fluttered open like the wings of a butterfly.

“It worked,” Ferdinand whispered, amazed.

“W-what happened?” Ming asked, clearly confused.

“You tell me,” Bianca replied.

“I don’t remember. Why is he looking at me like that?” Ming asked.

“You just got the Sleeping Beauty treatment,” Bianca replied.

“What? Whoa, hang on a minute…did we just kiss?”

“Yep,” Bianca said.

“Man, I missed it. I didn’t feel anything,” Ming complained.

“Didn’t feel anything?” Prince Ferdinand sputtered.

“You’ll have plenty of time to kiss and make up once we get out of here,” Bianca said.

“Challenge accepted! I shall kiss you once we wake up, fair maiden, and then we shall see whether or not you feel anything.” Ferdinand rubbed his chin and shook his head in confusion. “Not feel anything, my horse’s arse,” the prince muttered quietly to himself.

Ming rolled her eyes and sat up. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. But wherever we are, it’s a bad place to be trapped. We have to find Terrance and my dad, and get our bodies to wake up,” Bianca explained.

“Maybe your dad isn’t here,” Ming said.

“Why wouldn’t he be here? He’s with us inside the brick house,” Bianca said.

“Maybe the spell saw him as an animal? I don’t know.”

“You could be right.” Bianca nodded.

They held hands and searched for their missing friend in the abandoned garden. They walked in circles for what felt like an eternity, but eventually they reached a part of the garden they hadn’t explored. A scream escaped Bianca’s lips when she saw an unconscious Terrance on the ground. He had black vines wrapped all over his body and they slowly dragged him into the darkness.

“No! No! Leave him alone!” She released Ming’s hand and ran to him. She tried to pull the vines off Terrance’s body, but she wasn’t strong enough. She could feel the thorns slicing through the skin on the palms of her hands.

“Your Highness! I need your sword or a knife,” she shouted as she continued to struggle with the seemingly indestructible vines.

Ferdinand pulled a small knife out of his boot and handed it to Bianca. She grabbed it and began to cut all of the vines as quickly as she could. Ming jumped in and did what she could to help free Terrance. Prince Ferdinand unsheathed his sword and swung his sword with reckless abandon to help his friend. Once he was free, they pulled him into safety.

“Terrance?” she whispered as she carefully tapped his cheek with the palm of her hand. Without meaning to, she left bloodied imprints of her hands on his skin.

Prince Ferdinand picked up his hand and then dropped it. His friend was completely limp.

“He’s out cold,” he said.

“No, no, no. Terrance, wake up,” Bianca pleaded as she gently patted his cheeks.

“Do you think he’s awake in the real world? If you can call that crazy place…real,” Ming asked.

“Wouldn’t his body have vanished though? Besides I’d like to think he’d be trying to wake our bodies up,” she reasoned.

“That makes sense,” Ming said.

“Bianca?” the prince said.

“Yes?”

“May I be so bold as to suggest that you try waking him up with a kiss?”

“But…I’m not a princess,” she said.

“You do not need to be a princess to be one’s true love.”

She gave him a sad smile. “That sounds like something Terrance would say.”

“I do spend a lot of time with my friend…some things are bound to rub off on me.”

“Here goes nothing,” Bianca whispered.

Please let this work.

She gently combed his dark brown hair with her fingers. She marveled over how soft it was. He looked so peaceful in his sleep. It was strange to see him that way, so vulnerable. Helpless. She realized that she would’ve done just about anything to have him open his eyes and look at her.