The Enchantress Returns (57 page)
Charlotte placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “One day when you have kids, Conner, you’ll discover that your biggest fear is not always making good decisions for your children—and while I know I’ll always regret the decision to let her stay, I’ll always know it was the right decision,” she said. “You know as much as I do that your sister belongs here.”
Conner felt like he had been ambushed. He looked to his grandmother, but there was no sign of an alternative answer in her eyes.
“Alex, what about school?” Conner said. “What about graduation? What about college? What about starting families of our own someday? Are you just going to throw all of those things away?”
Alex wiped the tears from her face, even though they were quickly replaced with fresh streams.
“There’s nothing you’re going to say now or in a year that I wouldn’t have thought about a hundred times,” Alex said. “This isn’t easy for me, Conner, but I know it’s what I have to do.”
“You mean you’ve been planning this?” Conner said. He was so angry she had even considered something so drastic without telling him.
“I’ve thought about it every day since we got back the first time,” Alex said. “I never thought the conditions would be so severe—but it was even in the Snow Queen’s prophecy; we just didn’t recognize it.
‘Of the four travelers, one will not return’
—she was talking about you, me, Mom, and Bob.
We
were the four travelers, not the ones aboard the
Granny
.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Conner said. “One day you’re going to look back and wish you hadn’t left me and Mom—”
“No, I won’t,” Alex said. “Because I couldn’t live without this world now that I know how much it offers me.”
Conner felt like he was in a nightmare.
“Alex, I’ve never been anywhere without you in my entire life,” Conner said. “We can’t live worlds apart!”
“Don’t you get it, Conner?” Alex said. “We were always meant to live worlds apart. Magic chose us to be the bridge between the two worlds—it’s the reason there are two of us. I was always meant to stay here and succeed Grandma in magic, and you were meant to go to the Otherworld and continue her storytelling. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that you turned out to be such a good writer?”
Every fiber of his being wanted to argue with her; every inch of him wanted to reject what she was telling him—but something about seeing his sister among the fairies made him feel like everything was right in the world, even though his was crashing around him.
Alex stepped toward him and gave him the biggest hug she had ever given him. “We’ll always be together, Conner,” Alex said. “In our hearts and in your stories—every time you pen another story about our adventures in the Land of Stories, I’ll be right there with you. And when that isn’t enough, we can always see each other in the mirrors.”
Emerelda was the only one eyeing the portal. “The gateway is closing,” she said. “You have to leave soon before you’re
all
trapped in this world.”
For every tear that rolled down Conner’s face there were a dozen he fought back. He knew there was no going back now—Alex had made up her mind. There were so many things to say and not enough time to say it. Conner made sure to make his final moments with his sister count and said the only thing that mattered.
“I love you, Alex,” he said and hugged her.
“I love you, too, Conner,” she said and hugged him back. They could both feel each other’s tears on the back of their necks.
One by one, Lady Iris, Rosemary, Petunia, and Bob stepped through the seam between worlds and disappeared. Charlotte gave Alex one last hug before stepping through it, and Conner followed her. He watched his sister through the seam as it slowly closed and the fairy-tale world vanished before his eyes—they were now dimensions apart, yet both the twins were finally
home.
Alex was right—Conner could still feel her in his heart. However, underneath the pain of saying good-bye was a lingering certainty that their good-bye wouldn’t last forever. Despite what the fairies told him, Conner knew in his heart that his and Alex’s story was far from over.
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I’d like to thank Rob Weisbach, Glenn Rigberg, Alla Plotkin, Erica Tarin, Meredith Fine, Lorrie Bartlett, Derek Kroeger, Liz Uhl, Tom Robb, and Heather Manzutto for their contributions to the CC Army. Thanks to Alvina Ling, Melanie Chang, Bethany Strout, Megan Tingley, Andrew Smith, and everyone at Little, Brown.
I’d like to give a special thank-you to all my friends and family who sometimes get neglected in the juggling act I call a life: my parents, my grandmother, Will Sherrod, Ashley Fink, Pam Jackson, Jamie Greenberg, Megan Doyle, Barbara Brown, Roberto Aguirre, and my enormous and growing extended family.
Seeing as this is my third novel published in just one month shy of a calendar year, I would like to thank the people who taught me how to read and write, as it was not an easy task: my elementary school teachers, Mrs. Shehorn, Mrs. Keller, Mrs. Karl, Mrs. Lubisich, Mr. Schultz, Ms. Smith, Mrs. Denton, and Mrs. Ulrich.
Since he sat on my lap while I wrote the majority of this novel and acted as inspiration, I would like to thank my cat, Brian, who couldn’t care less about this recognition. Also Polly Bergen, for being the real Mother Goose.
Contents
PROLOGUE: THE RISE AND THE RETURN
CHAPTER ONE: A TRAIN OF THOUGHTS
CHAPTER TWO: IT STARTED WITH A DOG
CHAPTER THREE: LUNCH IN THE LIBRARY
CHAPTER FOUR: THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
CHAPTER SIX: POSITIONING THE GNOMES
CHAPTER NINE: THE GATHERING IN THE WOODS
CHAPTER TEN: RUMPELSTILTSKIN’S DEBT
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE QUEEN AND THE FROG
CHAPTER TWELVE: A NOT-SO-CHARMING EVENING
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: JARS OF SOULS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE WAND OF WONDERMENT
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: BEAN THERE, DONE THAT
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: FLIGHT OF THE GRANNY
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE SNOW QUEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE WICKED STEPMOTHER
CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE CASTLE IN THE SKY
CHAPTER TWENTY: THE REFLECTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE SEA WITCH
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TROLLBELLA, QUEEN OF THE TROBLINS
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE EIGHTH DWARF
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE LADY OF THE EAST
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: ROCK, ROOT, AND RAGE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE ENCHANTRESS’S MOST PRIZED POSSESSION
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE DREAM
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE GREATEST MAGIC OF ALL
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: FOR BETTER, OR FOR WORSE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Christopher Colfer
Jacket and interior art Copyright © 2013 by Brandon Dorman
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: August 2013
ISBN 978-0-316-25237-9