The Enchantress Returns (22 page)

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” Snow White agreed.

King Chance grew tired of pacing and groaned angrily. He needed
someone
to blame. “Where are those useless fairies?” he demanded. “And why haven’t they done something about this yet?!”

A soft breeze blew through the ballroom, and twinkling lights of all the colors of the rainbow floated through the room. The Fairy Council slowly appeared out of thin air.

Emerelda was first to appear. “We’re doing everything in our power,” she said. She was tall, black, and beautiful. She wore a long emerald gown that matched her eyes and jewelry. Emerelda always had a soft but authoritative presence; she was someone you could trust but never wanted to cross.

Xanthous was next to arrive and was followed by Skylene,
the blue fairy. She had pale skin, hair the color of the sky, and robes the color of the ocean. Tangerina appeared shortly after her. She was the orange fairy and actual bees flew around her beehive. Violetta, the purple fairy and oldest of the council, popped up close to where Red and the twins were sitting.

Rosette, the short, plump, and rosy-cheeked red fairy, appeared next. Coral, the youngest and the pink fairy, showed up shortly after that, hovering in the air thanks to her tiny wings. The fairies’ colorful arrivals were a beautiful sight, but not beautiful enough to raise the spirits in the room.

“Well, it’s not enough,” Chance yelled at them. “The Enchantress is one of you, isn’t she? You outnumber her—why can’t you handle this?”

“We are greater than her in size, but not in strength,” said Skylene in her dreamlike voice.

“She’s managed to grow more powerful than we ever imagined,” Xanthous said. “I’m afraid even the Fairy Godmother is no match for her.”

“Speaking of the Fairy Godmother, has she or Mother Goose arrived yet?” Emerelda asked, looking around the ballroom. “We need to begin.”

Another soft breeze blew through the room, this time carrying white sparkling lights that circled into a vortex in the center of the room. A moment later, the twins’ grandmother appeared with her crystal wand raised.

The twins looked nervously at each other. Now that their grandmother was here they were
officially
in the same room as everyone they wanted to avoid.

“Forgive me for being late,” the Fairy Godmother said and politely acknowledged everyone in the room with a comforting nod. “There was a bit of an issue in the Otherworld.”

The twins had never heard their world referred to as anything else but
home
before; it was odd to hear it have a name of its own, although not entirely surprising. What else had the fairies been calling it this entire time?

“Red Riding Hood, my word, that is
quite
a dress you’re wearing,” the Fairy Godmother said when she saw Red sitting in the oversize gown.

Alex and Conner could hear each other’s heartbeats and were terrified they were about to be discovered.

“Well,” Red said nervously, thinking as quickly as possible. “It’s important to dress your best when the world is at its worst… to raise morale.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” the Fairy Godmother said, though she didn’t sound fully convinced.

“With all due respect, I don’t believe this is the proper time to be talking about dresses and the Otherworld,” King Chance said, his frustration building every second spent without his daughter.

“Will Mother Goose be joining us?” Emerelda asked, getting the meeting back on track.

The twins’ grandmother dropped the subject of Red’s dress. “No, she stayed behind in the Otherworld,” she said. “My grandchildren are missing, so she agreed to continue searching for them while we have our discussion.”

“That’s
horrible
,” Red said, shaking her head a tad too much. “I hope they’re all right, I just
loved
those two so much.”

Alex and Conner shared a mutual eye roll.

“Is everyone else here?” the Fairy Godmother asked, still eyeing Red strangely.

“Everyone but the elves, ma’am,” Sir Lampton informed her from the side of the room. “We sent word of our meeting to the Elf Empire, but they have chosen to miss it, feeling the current situation has nothing to do with them.”

King Chandler sighed. “Typical,” he said. “The elves never get involved unless they have to.”

“Thank you, Sir Lampton,” the Fairy Godmother said. “Then let’s begin.”

King Chance stormed up to her. “Tell us why the Enchantress can’t be stopped! Why are all of you so incompetent?” he shouted.

The Fairy Godmother looked at him with her trademark compassion. “Chance, I’m afraid I don’t have your answers. Ezmia is just as big a mystery to me as she is to all of you.”

“Then tell us what you know,” Chance ordered. “Where did this monster come from? What is she after now?”

Sleeping Beauty took a few steps toward the Fairy Godmother. “I’m willing to give myself up to her if that’s what she’s after,” she said.

“My dear, you are not responsible for any of this,” the Fairy Godmother said. “I’m afraid I’m the one who is entirely to blame. Ezmia wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

All the fairies lowered their heads, knowing the Fairy Godmother was telling the truth.

“What do you mean, Fairy Godmother?” Cinderella asked.
“Surely someone like you couldn’t be accountable for a creature like that?”

The Fairy Godmother closed her eyes and took a deep breath, deciding where to begin. There was so much to tell and not enough time to tell it.

“It all started centuries ago, on one of my first visits to the Otherworld,” the Fairy Godmother explained. “It was a horrible time for that world; there was plague and war everywhere you looked. Today they refer to that period as the
Dark Ages
, and there couldn’t be a better description. Sometimes the air would be filled with so much smoke from all the destruction the sun would be hidden for days at a time.

“I discovered a little girl all alone in the middle of the forest, no more than five years old. She was crying and was covered in ash and dirt. She told me that her name was Ezmia and that she had lived in a village nearby. Like many of the villages at the time, hers had been invaded by a group of barbaric soldiers. They swept through the village and killed everyone in their path, including her family.

“The soldiers discovered Ezmia hiding in a barn. However, when they tried harming her, the girl was able to defend herself using
magic
. She told me she had started a giant fire with just her hands and that it consumed her entire village and all the soldiers with it. The girl took me to her village so I could see the damage for myself, and it was devastating. Not only had the villagers perished, but all the land around the town for acres was destroyed. I knew then that this girl was no ordinary child.

“Magic has always been a mysterious thing, but I’m
absolutely astonished that a child in the middle of another dimension could have such capabilities. But for whatever reason, magic had found this girl and had saved her life, and I believe my discovering her was no accident.

“I didn’t think she would survive the Otherworld on her own so I brought her back to our world. I knew she was special because when we arrived in the Fairy Kingdom, the unicorns bowed,” the Fairy Godmother said.

Conner looked at his sister. The unicorns had bowed to them when they first traveled to the Fairy Kingdom—what did it mean?

“Ezmia was raised there,” the Fairy Godmother continued. “We taught her how to use her magic and she became a fairy. Her powers grew with time and she proved herself to be one of the most gifted fairies the Fairy Kingdom had ever seen.

“Ezmia was also the kindest, most honest, loving young woman I had ever known. She was so thankful I had brought her to live in our world and received so much joy from helping others. I loved her like a daughter and she became my apprentice. I was certain when my time came to an end I could leave this world safely in her hands. I was positive she would be the next Fairy Godmother. We created the Happily Ever After Assembly in hopes that Ezmia would lead it someday.

“But as Ezmia grew into adulthood, she changed. Things were going on beyond our knowledge—things we couldn’t see—and she became another person altogether. She became aggressive and mean-spirited; her interest in fairy life faded completely. Helping people became a chore for her and she started abusing her magic.

“It was during our first official meeting as the Happily Ever After Assembly that I knew Ezmia was no longer the little girl I saved in the Otherworld. We hadn’t officially appointed a leader of the assembly yet, so I was presiding. The trolls and goblins had just been sanctioned to their own territory but they were still enslaving innocent people from other kingdoms—I asked the rest of the assembly what the best solution was.

“Ezmia blurted out,
‘Why don’t we just drown them all? Thumbelina Stream practically runs through their territory; just break a dam and be done with them. We can make it look like an accident.’
She almost seemed amused by the idea.

“Naturally, after an outburst like that we couldn’t appoint her head of the assembly as planned. We appointed Emerelda and the Fairy Council instead. When Ezmia found out she had been replaced she was enraged. She went on a tirade, dissociating herself from the assembly and the Fairy Kingdom altogether. She changed her entire appearance and refused to be known as a fairy, deeming herself an
enchantress
instead.

“The next time we crossed paths with Ezmia was at Sleeping Beauty’s christening. She was uninvited, but we knew she would come anyway. We discovered Rumpelstiltskin had been working for her when he tried kidnapping Sleeping Beauty and we confronted her about it. Ezmia lost control and went on a rampage, cursing the princess to die after pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel.

“However, I knew that the curse wasn’t only going to affect Sleeping Beauty; Ezmia’s powers were too strong for that amount of rage to be aimed at just an innocent child. Luckily, I
was able to convert the curse into a harmless sleeping spell, and when she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel as planned the entire kingdom was affected, confirming my suspicions.

“Ezmia disappeared after the christening and we never saw her again. We searched everywhere but found no trace of her. Later, word reached us that she had been poisoned by the same toxins that left the upper Eastern Kingdom bare—we figured she must have died and stopped our search. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

“A year ago, my grandchildren accidentally found a way into this world and went missing. While I was searching for them I made a troubling discovery; small weeds started to grow in the Northeast where the flowers and grass had grown: The land had revived itself from the poison—except the poison had obliterated everything good that had come from the soil and the weeds had taken its place.

“I knew then it would only be a matter of time before Ezmia resurfaced. I alerted the Fairy Council at once and we spent the last year actively searching for her but found nothing to lead us in the right direction. It wasn’t until her recent attack on the Eastern Kingdom that we were positive she had returned.”

The crowd in the ballroom was even tenser after hearing Ezmia’s story.

“And why can’t we stop her
now
?” King Chance demanded. “If her spells could be converted back then, why can’t we get a grip on them anymore?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” the Fairy Godmother said. “We taught her everything she knows—we taught her how
to use magic from her heart; we had trained her to channel it from a good source—that’s why every spell she ever cast could be altered. But when she was poisoned, anything good that was left in her soul was killed. Now Ezmia’s powers come from a place of darkness and anger, forces that we fairies don’t stand a chance against—and believe me, Ezmia has a lot of anger to feed off of.”

Alex and Conner couldn’t believe what she was saying. Was their grandmother insinuating that the Enchantress was
unstoppable
?

“So… what are we to do?” Snow White asked.

The Fairy Godmother lowered her eyes and looked down at the floor, hating to say it as much as they hated hearing it. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

And with that, whatever hope had survived was obliterated. It was if the Fairy Godmother had told them the world was over.

Suddenly, all the windows burst open and a monstrous wind blew inside the ballroom, knocking Sleeping Beauty to the ground. A gigantic bolt of lightning hit the floor so hard the entire palace buckled, and in its blinding flash the Enchantress appeared.

She was the most majestic person the twins had ever seen. Her hair and cape flowed through the ballroom, and although her mouth was still, her eyes smiled evilly through her long lashes.

“Hope I’m not late,” Ezmia said. “I do love a good story, especially when it’s mine.”

Alex and Conner clutched on to each other under Red’s dress. Everyone in the room was frozen in fear.

“Don’t tell me you’re having another party without inviting me,” Ezmia said, glaring at all the royals and fairies around her. “You’d think you’d have learned your lesson from the last time you didn’t include me.”

A smirk appeared on her face. Cinderella was the only person to move. She jumped out of her throne and ran straight toward the Enchantress with fists raised. King Chandler and Froggy were quick to grab hold of her, but she lunged with such determination Rapunzel’s husband had to join them in holding her back.

“You horrible witch!”
Cinderella screamed, struggling against her brothers-in-law.
“Magic or no magic, I’ll pull you apart limb from limb if you hurt my daughter!”

Ezmia just laughed at her.

“What have you done with our daughter, you monster?!”
Chance yelled. Emerelda and Skylene placed their hands on his shoulders to keep him from charging toward her.

“She’s alive… for now,” Ezmia said and casually examined her nails. “I hope there are no hard feelings. I’ll give her back to you once I’m done with her… maybe.”