[Half/Time 01] Half Upon a Time (22 page)

“I figured that out!” May yelled in reply as the imp floated Jack back up to the tower’s window.

Clearly, the imp had them. But maybe there was still a way out? Jack quickly ran through the stories he’d heard. What about … no, they didn’t have a chicken. Or … wait, what about … “A contest!” Jack yelled.

“I know better than to fall for that,” the imp said disgustedly. “A cousin of mine taught a girl to spin straw into gold once, if she would give up her firstborn child. The girl agreed at first, then reneged on the deal—typical human. Being the kindhearted imp my cousin was, he agreed to one of your foolish contests. If she could but guess his name, he’d let her keep her gold
and
her child. The girl cheated, of course, as you people always do, and won.” The imp’s nostrils flared as it continued. “Then the bitter little witch had her husband, the prince, rename every city in their miserable little kingdom by my cousin’s name! He’s a laughingstock to this day! He even had to exile himself to regain his dignity!”

May looked from Jack to the imp and back, and her eyes went wide. “Mr. Little Imp-Man, sir?” she said. “Can I
offer
something?”

“May! Don’t!” Jack yelled, but the imp just waved its hand and Jack dropped halfway down the tower again.

Even though he couldn’t see her, he could still hear the shake in May’s voice. “Okay,
first
of all,” she screamed, “you’re gonna have to stop dropping him like that!”

The imp shrugged, and Jack reappeared outside the window.

“
Thank
you,” May said, sighing in relief. “Now, I have something to offer you if you’ll bring him back in.”

“Is it your skull?” the imp said, licking its lips. “The skull of a princess is a delicacy, you know.”

May stared at the thing in shock for a moment, then shook her head. “Ah … no,” she said. “I have something much more valuable. Something I use each and every day. Something more
important
to me than my very life!”

The gleam in the imp’s eye almost lit up the room. Jack started to say something to stop the princess, but she threw him a quick look that told him to stay out of it. He slowly shut his mouth, hoping she knew what she was doing.

“I’ll give you …,” May said, then paused and leaned in close to the imp, who obediently followed suit. “I’ll give you … my
sarcasm
,” she whispered.

The imp’s smile slowly faded, and it pulled back away from her. “Your … sarcasm?”

“Yes,” May said, wiping a fake tear from her eye. “I don’t know if I can live without it! I’ll just have to do my best!”

“But … but princesses don’t use sarcasm!” the imp protested.

“Oh, yeah, they
never
do,” May said.

“Wow,” the imp said, visibly impressed. “That’s pretty good!”

“Who’d have thought a girl like me would know anything about
sarcasm
!” May continued, snorting a bit.

“You are incredible!” the imp said. It was jumping up and down now. “Such a natural!”

“It must be because I’m having so much
fun
right now!” May said, rolling her eyes.

“You’ve got a deal!” the imp screamed delightedly.

It snapped its fingers, and Jack instantly appeared back in the cell. The imp snapped again, and a bluish light appeared over May’s head. The light shone briefly, changing from blue to green, then disappeared. A second light, this one green, appeared over the imp’s hatless skull, then turned blue and also faded away.

Jack gritted his teeth and leapt for the imp, but the creature made as if to snap his fingers again, and Jack stopped short. “You little
monster
,” Jack growled, more furious than he’d ever been. “If you’ve taken
anything
from her, I swear I will hunt you and take it out of your empty skull! And I
won’t
be using magic.”

“Oooh,” the imp said, shivering. “I’m
so
scared!” Then it laughed. “Your sarcasm is amazing, Princess! You had a master-level talent!”

May started to say something, then paused, looking confused. “Yeah,” she stammered. “I … um. Yeah, I … I used it a lot.” She glanced at Jack, her eyes wide. “I didn’t think it was something he could actually take!”

“You didn’t know?” the imp said, grinning evilly. “Someone as
worldly
as you? I’m
so
surprised! Now …” It snapped its fingers. May disappeared, instantly reappearing on the other side of the cell. “My hat?”

Now that the imp had fulfilled its part of the deal, it didn’t need Jack’s cooperation. It snapped its fingers, and its hat reappeared on its head, leaving Jack holding nothing.

“Let him out too!” May yelled from the other side of the bars.

“That was never the deal,
genius
,” the imp said, stroking its hat lovingly. “I just said I’d bring him in, and I did. He’s stuck here, I’m afraid. I’m
really
surprised you didn’t figure that one out sooner, though, considering that huge brain you’ve got going for you.”

May glared at the imp, then suddenly smiled her half smile. “If you leave him in there,” she said softly, “I’ll tell everyone your name….”

“Ha!” the imp shouted. “You don’t know it!” It went back to stroking its hat, but Jack noticed that it didn’t seem quite as sure of itself.

“Oh, yeah?” May said. “Let’s just say I’ve heard of your cousin … and family names are family names, aren’t they,
Mr.
Stiltskin
?”

The imp started to respond, then turned a very pale shade of white. “How … where … how did …,” it stammered, then abruptly started howling and stomping its feet. It opened its mouth to say something else, then glared at the princess, who glared back defiantly.

Finally, the imp dropped its head and sighed. It snapped its fingers, and Jack appeared outside the bars, right at May’s side.

“That’s what I thought,” May said, turning up her nose at the dejected, sarcastic imp. “You don’t mess with a princess from Punk, little man,” she said. “Remember that next time.”

The imp pushed itself up against the bars. “Oh, I’ll remember you, Princess,” it said, its smile showing all four hundred of its teeth. “You can count on that!” And then, with an unsettling wink, the imp disappeared.

Jack grabbed May’s head with both hands and stared her straight in the eye. “How do you feel?” he asked her, looking from eye to eye. She
seemed
all right, but you never could tell with magic. “Does it hurt?”

She looked at him miserably. “I don’t feel any different,” she said, “but it’s like … it’s like there are words I don’t
know
anymore. Except it’s not words. I can still say whatever I want, but when I try to use a tone, I just … can’t. Does that make sense?”

Jack nodded slowly. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll find that thing and get back whatever it took, okay? Trust me, that little monster’s not getting away with this.”

She smiled weakly at him. “Since when did you care so much, huh? I thought you hated royalty and all.”

Jack took a step back unconsciously. “I did,” he said. “I mean, I do.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Leave it to a princess to assume basic human decency is something more.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she started to say something, then stopped, looking like she was searching for the right word. Finally, she sighed dejectedly and her face fell. “Let’s just go find Phillip, huh? I’m ready to move on and forget all about this.”

Jack nodded, suddenly feeling absolutely terrible. Why had he said that? May had lost a part of herself to save him, and he insulted her? And it wasn’t like he really thought badly of her, not anymore. They’d gotten closer as they’d traveled, and he did think of May as … well, as something.

He wasn’t quite sure what he thought of her, but he knew it wasn’t bad, princess or no. So why had he said that, especially after what she’d just been through? He ran his words through his head over and over, each time coming across worse than the last.

“They took our stuff somewhere when they dumped us here,” May said, still not looking at him. “Your sword, the bag, the Mirror …”

For some reason, the mention of the sword made him nervous, so he changed the subject. “Considering what good the bag’s been so far, we’re probably better off,” Jack said as good-naturedly as he could.

May glanced up at him, and he did everything he could to smile, apologizing as hard as he could without actually saying the words.

“The bag itself was kinda cool,” May said tentatively. “I mean, if it could fit everything in the world in it, it might almost have been big enough for your ego!”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “I thought you couldn’t be sarcastic.”

She shrugged, the hint of a smile playing across her face. “That wasn’t sarcasm,” she said. “I was making fun of you. Trust me, no one can take
that
away from me.”

And just like that, everything was forgiven.

Opposite the jail cells, a door opened to a dark spiral stairway that sank into the dragon-tail tower. As they stood at the top of the stairs they could barely make out a light at the end. A light meant the stairway led
somewhere
, probably somewhere with people … or, more likely, goblins. Still, there wasn’t another choice.

Jack led the way, wondering briefly as he trudged down the stairs what would happen at the end of all this. Eventually, they’d find May’s
grandmother and, hopefully, rescue her. Then that would be that. Jack would go back to his grandfather, while May and Phillip went back to their royal lives. Despite all the obstacles still in their way, the thought of the quest ending gave him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

But why? It wasn’t like he was an adventurer like his grandfather—or even his father, for that matter. Jack knew the need for this sort of thing just wasn’t built into him like it was in them. In fact, the whole quest so far had been pretty miserable … hadn’t it? He glanced behind him, up at the princess, who flicked her eyebrows twice at him. He grinned and turned back around. She was
so
adorable….

Wait, what? Jack stopped dead in his tracks, causing May to plow straight into him. The princess’s momentum pushed them both down a few more stairs before Jack caught himself against the wall, halting May’s fall, as well.

“Sorry!” she said quickly. “I totally didn’t see you stop!”

“That’s all right,” he said, his face bright red in the dark. “I hadn’t really planned on stopping.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said, blowing a stray hair out of her face. “What happened?”

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it, turned around, and
started down the stairs. “We’re almost there,” he said, his face as hot as fire. “We should be quiet.”

“Gotcha,” she whispered behind him, thankfully letting it go.

The light they’d seen from above shone brightly through an uneven crack beneath another wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. Jack tiptoed up to the door and carefully pushed on it, just to test to see if it was locked. The door creaked open the slightest bit, hopefully not enough to be noticeable if anyone was watching from the other side.

Now that he knew it was unlocked, Jack held his breath and listened against the door for any sounds, but there was only silence. He breathed out, and ever so slowly pushed the door open, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay on the other side in case someone was waiting for them.

Thankfully, the hallway outside looked deserted.

“Okay, let’s go,” Jack said. “Remember, quietly. We don’t want anyone to hear us.”

May nodded, so he pushed the door open the entire way …

And almost ran into a short, fat goblin guard.

“
I
heard ya,” the goblin said. “Too bad for you, eh?”

Jack froze. Instead of a sword, this guard held a battle-axe in
its stubby fingers, the blade covered in what looked like blood. Jack knew he could attack the goblin empty-handed, but that wouldn’t end well. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else in the room other than a desk and a frail-looking chair behind it—nothing to use as a weapon….

And then he saw his sword and his grandfather’s bag sitting on top of the desk, along with some random items from the bag. Apparently the goblin had been looking for loot. Maybe Jack could make a grab for—

“Excuse me,” May said, stepping past Jack. The princess threw her nose into the air and glared down at the goblin. “I’m ready to see Malevolent now,” she said. “Be a good little monster and fetch her, will you?”

“We’re trying this again?” Jack whispered, but she ignored him.

The goblin snorted. “You’ll not be seeing anyone. How did you get out, anyway? I bet you found that imp, right? I’ve been after him for months. You’re the fifth group he’s let out this year.” The guard looked them up and down. “Though you’ve emerged with considerably more limbs than the others.”

“I need no impish-type creature to free me!” May exclaimed haughtily. “I am a
princess.
I demand to see Malevolent!”

Jack desperately wanted to stop her, considering how well
this act had played out before, but he couldn’t think of anything to do that wouldn’t make things worse.

The guard laughed. “Get back in your cell, and
maybe
I’ll let you keep your hands!”

May laughed back. Then she kicked the goblin in the stomach as hard as she could.

The goblin doubled over, and May grabbed his axe from his hands, then bashed him in the head with the flat of the blade. The goblin dropped to the floor, unconscious.

“See?” she said to Jack. “That’s what they get for not listening to me.”

It took Jack a minute to catch up, but when he did, he still couldn’t think of anything to say. May just smiled sweetly at him. He shook his head, then grabbed his sword and opened the bag to see if anything was missing, beyond what had been thrown on the desk.

The only thing he could find in the bag was May’s fairy, who apparently had hidden herself deep in its recesses. She seemed a bit disheveled but otherwise okay as she climbed up May’s shoulder and back into her spot in May’s hair.

Between the items on the desk and the now empty bag, something rather important was missing. “No Mirror,” Jack said, feeling a chill. “That’s not a good sign.”