Letters to Zell Read online

  Just take you and Jason. You’ll be so happy in faraway East of Oz. Especially with your perfectly romantic past. You met, fell in love, were cruelly separated. You: alone, at the edge of the Realm, pregnant, hungry, hopeless. Him: blind and lost. He stumbles into your wilderness, you heal his eyes with tears of joy, and you all return to Grimmland. Now that is a story. That is True Love.

  Even though Bianca says that you would have fallen for the first eligible bachelor who climbed through your window, I know better. I know it was fate. It hasn’t happened that way for me, true, but there’s still time. One day, Henry will enter the room and see me at just the right angle. He’ll think to himself, I’ve never realized how in love I am with Briar Rose, my Sleeping Beauty.

  Bianca and CeCi both swore they were going to write and give you a piece of their mind, but I imagine they left out the little plot they’ve hatched to venture Outside.

  I should back up a bit. You see, CeCi has been hanging out in the kitchens lately, and two nights ago—the night we got your note—that silly jester told her how Outside one can take lessons to be a certified anything. Tailors become fashion designers, planners become engineers, and, most importantly, cooks become chefs.

  Since then, she hasn’t been able to talk of anything besides becoming a real chef (and some silly chasing one’s dream nonsense). Her preoccupation unfortunately coincides with Bianca’s burgeoning recklessness, which worsens the closer she gets to her wedding.

  I had hoped CeCi would come to her senses after her hangover was cured. (The story about Lucinda’s new gown quickly made its way round to my servants’ quarters.) Instead, Bianca seized the opportunity to declare we would all attend a cooking class as a bridesmaids outing, even though she’s about as interested in cooking as DJ is in country music. I’m not sure why I agreed to go—someone responsible had to chaperone.

  Thinking our outing was to be an informal affair, I was enjoying five extra minutes of sleep when CeCi turned up attired as though we were attending a party, blond hair coiffed and complexion perfect, as if she’d been up for hours. As for Bianca, she managed to secure some sort of Outside clothing from Rumple’s tailoring shop. We spent the entirety of the walk from my castle to Solace’s Clock Shop arguing whether her arms were inserted through the correct openings. I maintain to this minute that she put the outfit on wrong, because it didn’t cover very much of her. Bianca informed us she’d been reading something called Cosmo, and that we could kindly go fuck ourselves.

  It had been some time since I’d seen Solace, probably not since CeCi’s wedding. She looked as lovely as ever—as beautiful as a rabbit woman can be. She hasn’t aged a bit, still soft and shiny. I suppose that’s a perk of being the Godmother of Time.

  Though Solace radiated a contagious and cheering sort of calm, the shop itself was crammed far tighter than it once was, with new clock portals to who knows where. There was scarcely room to walk, and moreover it was difficult to hear above all the bing-ing and bong-ing and chime-ing and tick-ing and tock-ing. Bianca wended her way to the front desk and proceeded to yell something about an “essential errand.”

  “Your friends are welcome to travel, Snow White.” Solace smiled. “But residents with unfinished Pages are discouraged from traveling Outside.”

  Bianca leaned back and crossed her arms—the same sort of posture she uses when we disagree with her. “Discouraged, Solace? Discouraged sounds an awful lot like your sister’s rhetoric.”

  Solace frowned. “As you well know, I believe travel to be a liberating and essential rite of passage. However, there are dangers. It’s an unnecessary risk while your Pages are incomplete.”

  Bianca’s eyes narrowed at the rules plaque on the wall adjacent. It read:

  Rules and Regulations:

  1. Keep hands to oneself when walking through the clocks.

  2. No one shall travel unaccompanied.

  3. Return within 24 hours of your departure date. Please consult your clock bracelet.

  A not-very-nice sort of smile spread across Bianca’s lips. “The rules say I can’t go alone. And I’m not going alone.”

  “Figueroa will have my ears if I let you go.”

  “Since when did she start ordering you around?”

  Solace gave a heavy thump of her hind foot. “If you don’t fulfill your Pages, Snow White, it will wreak havoc upon Grimmland, not to mention the entire Realm of Imagination.”

  “Okay. Fine. Can we skip the melodrama?”

  “If,” Solace said reluctantly, “you were to go with your friends, they would have to vouch for your safe return. It isn’t a burden any of you can take lightly.”

  Bianca turned and widened her eyes at us. “Don’t volunteer all at once or anything.”

  “We’ll make sure she gets back.” CeCi’s voice was tight.

  When Solace looked at me I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that vouching for Bianca was safe to do in any Realm—Imaginary or Human. Solace’s eyes stayed on mine too long. At first, I wasn’t sure what more she wanted of me.

  “This is serious,” said Solace. “It would be a hundred years before things could be set right again.”

  “Oh,” I started. Of course. I should have known she’d bring up Fred. He wanted so badly for our stories to end together, but it took one hundred years of sleep and all of Solace, Figgy, and Malice’s powers to keep the Realm from ripping apart. My entire palace atoned for Fred’s mistake. When I woke up, everything around me had changed, and Fred was gone. I completed the new Pages Figgy gave me. What more can I do?

  “Keeping us here,” I said, “won’t undo what happened with Fred.”

  Bianca let out a relieved sigh. “If it helps, I’ve read all of my father’s travel journals.”

  Solace looked at her in a rather piteous manner. “The Outside is very different from here, Snow White. I fear you may be unprepared.”

  “Then you’ll be glad to learn I’ve also been subscribing to magazines through the Pigeon Post. I know exactly what I’m doing. And if I get stuck, I’ll totally send you a postcard.”

  A breeze crossed the room and blew a sheaf of papers from the counter between Bianca and Solace. Solace’s brow furrowed as a clot of feathers floated though the window.

  “You think this is funny, Snow White, but you have a lot to learn.” Solace returned the papers to the counter. She looked at Bianca very intently. “Still, perhaps traveling can help you accomplish that very objective.”

  Bianca smiled like a cat who’d eaten a fat bird. It was then I knew that, even if not today or tomorrow or next year, we were almost certainly doomed.

  “If you are late to return, I will not be able to assist,” Solace said, binding our wrists with clock bracelets. “If you stay beyond the chime, the binding magic that allows you to pass through the portals will begin to decay. Once it is gone, you will become as if you were a Human or any other sort of being who cannot pass into our Realm. Now, are you prepared for your journey?”

  Earlier that morning, the question had been a simple formality. At that moment, with Solace awaiting an answer, I wanted nothing more than to go back home and have tea. All three of us nodded.

  “I assume you have currency?” asked Solace, her paw hovering over a large ebony lever.

  “My father left trunkloads from when he came back from his last trip.” Bianca patted a leather satchel slung over her shoulder and bounded forward.

  We passed the open mouths of portals leading to other places in the Realm of Imagination—Wonderland, Neverland, Toad Hollow, Fantasia, Atlantis. I trailed behind, following the other two into the looming black grandfather clock at the end of the shop, through a brightly lit hall of blue sky and cloud, to the Outside.

  The trip was far more exciting than the yawns I’m experiencing now would suggest. However, I’ve gone on so long already, and I’m overdue for my nap. I’ll write again tomorro
w. Don’t worry. We’re home safe.

  Always,

  Rory

  From the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming

  Crystal Palace

  North Road, Grimmland

  Dear Zell,

  I’m sure you’ve already heard the news from Rory. It’s not as if it’s a secret, though I’m sure Solace meant for us to emerge Outside less conspicuously than we did. Bianca and I made it out quietly enough, but Rory, so busy gawking at the sky, stumbled and caught the attention of a group of nearby children.

  A particularly sticky-looking boy pointed at us with a dripping fudgesicle. “How long did it take you to learn how to just appear like that?”

  “Do it again!” said another boy.

  I looked around to try and understand where we’d emerged. The structure in front of us didn’t seem to be the typical wardrobe or outhouse or saloon one arrives at within the Realm. Instead, we faced a squat and bulbous manor with a sign that read “The Magic Castle.” Overgenerously labeled (it was a manse, at best), the building also lacked a visible door.

  “Where did you come from?” asked a redheaded girl.

  “Grimmland!” Rory volunteered.

  The girl scrunched her forehead. “Is that like Disneyland? We went there yesterday.”

  “She means south,” Bianca said, elbowing Rory in the ribs. “We’re from the south.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from the south,” said the fudgesicle boy.

  The little girl looked at my gown. “How come you two are dressed up like princesses?”

  I tried to keep from rolling my eyes. “We were just at a fancy costume party.”

  “Yes,” Rory added, with cheerful vapidity. “A fancy party here at the, um, Magic Castle.”

  “That means they’re real magicians,” said the second boy. “Only real magicians are allowed inside. You have to know the magic words.”

  “Tell us the magic words!” said the first boy, brandishing his fudgesicle. I took a step back.

  This was probably pure entertainment for Solace, venting us into the courtyard of a monument to Human wizardry. Of course the children were right—we had arrived by magic, just not the sort of Human illusion they believed in.

  “How come your friend isn’t dressed up?” The girl pointed to Bianca, who was stuffing bits of cleavage back into her top.

  “She’s in disguise,” Rory said.

  “Are you sure you aren’t princesses?” the little girl whispered.

  Rory leaned down and smiled beatifically. “Do you like princesses? Would you like to be one?”

  The little girl twisted the toe of her shiny shoe against the ground. “I don’t know. I’m kind of tired of princesses. There were a lot them at Disneyland. I saw Belle and Jasmine and Ariel and Cinderella and—”

  Rory jumped in front of me. “She doesn’t know any better, CeCi”—as if I’d been a breath away from sliding the little pedant into my gingerbread oven and consuming her limb by limb. No one but Lucinda calls me that humiliating nickname.

  “Let’s get out of here before we catch something,” I grumbled. Rory began waving good-bye, but the girl was already distracted by a rectangular object in her palm.

  Bianca pointed to a line of motor vehicles, like they have in Toad Hollow. “We have to find one that’s yellow or has checks or says taxi on the side.” She strode past a group of gawking young men. “You snap your fingers at them like this.” Some of the drivers held up their middle finger at her.

  We piled into a taxi and asked to go to the cooking school. This caused some confusion as there is apparently more than one cooking school. Luckily, our coachman possessed a rectangular device like the redheaded girl’s, used primarily for talking to people who aren’t next to you. Like Valborg the Vain’s mirror, it also answered questions. Of course it’s much smaller. And less evil. The driver told us it was called a cell phone, then asked if we were Amish. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.

  It didn’t matter. We were finally Outside, making our way to a cooking class. Maybe it’s foolish, but this was a dream come true. And even if I had tried to talk myself out of it, you know how convincing Bianca can be.

  Outside was even more hectic than I pictured from Bianca’s father’s diaries or her Cosmo magazines. And it was certainly nothing like Rory’s novels—especially the old ones that claimed that the land had once been empty, the hills full of plants instead of houses, and the sky blue like home instead of greyish yellow. But who knows? The grass might have been purple and the sky orange once upon a time, for all we know. We are taught to believe deeply in books, but there are some things they just won’t tell you.

  After a lot of nattering between Bianca and Rory, the driver dropped us on a boulevard named Sunset. Bianca went inside the school and returned to tell us our class would start later that evening but first—according to the “jackass” inside—we all needed new clothing. Rory pointed out that she’d known Bianca’s outfit was inappropriate. Bianca responded by telling Rory she could stuff it or receive Human clothes for her next thirty birthdays.

  We walked back past a bumpy dome called the Cinerama, past tall buildings and short buildings and about a hundred places that served those cheeseburger sandwiches Hansel and Gretel introduced at the café a few years ago. Bianca bought us new clothing from a store with mannequins in the window. I didn’t mind ditching my gown because it was heavy and hot in the sun but Rory, as you might suspect, was temporarily despondent at the loss of her high, lacy collar.

  “Don’t be such a twit,” Bianca told her. “Are you telling me you sleep in your gowns, too?”

  “A dressing gown, of course,” Rory said. “Like everyone else.”

  “Not me,” Bianca laughed. “CeCi?”

  I shrugged.

  “Oh!” Rory let out a high-pitched squeal. “You terrible, lewd things!”

  The cooking class itself was incredible. As usual, everyone fell in love with Bianca’s deep laugh and carefree ease. We had trouble finding another taxi at the end of the night, but Rory had been so paranoid about getting back on time, we ended up staying only half a day.

  But now that we’re home, I want to be Outside again. I want to feel all the heat from the sidewalk and smell the exhaust and the cheeseburgers and the wisps of sea air. I want to be in a bright room full of people creating food for each other. I want to forget about undecorated nurseries and meddlesome stepmothers and blind stepsisters, the obligations of court, and the weight of a tiara—if even for an hour or two.

  Like you care, anyway. You’re probably having all kinds of fun settling in to your own dream come true. Is that why you’re too busy to write anything longer than a postcard?

  Until you write a real letter, I’m definitely staying mad at you. Sad at you. Both.

  CeCi

  Important Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White

  Onyx Manor

  West Road, Grimmland

  Z,

  Thanks to Rosemount and his big yap, CeCi’s been mooning over this cooking class business, so I said, screw it, let’s go see what the big fucking deal is.

  Besides, we can’t expect CeCi to be satisfied flouncing down to that poor excuse for a cooking school on Drury Lane for “Muffin Stuffin Saturdays” the rest of her life.

  And before you tell me to be less incautious (like Rory does five times a day), I have my father’s maps and his money and his diaries and his last letter with instructions on how to navigate all the major kingdoms in (and out) of the Realm.

  Going Outside will let us compare notes as soon as he gets back for the wedding. The Pigeon Post will find him any day now, I’m sure of it. And instead of awkward silences or his poor choice in brides, we’ll be able to talk about something we both enjoy, about the big wide world and our place in it. Or whatever. We can start a new relationship, one that lets stepmot
hers named Valborg be bygones.

  After sorting things out with Solace, we’re off, and I locate a taxi. Rory asks the driver a thousand irritating questions, and we arrive at the class venue around noon. CeCi and Rory are too nervous to go in, so I try the door and it swings open into a high-ceilinged, glassy box of a room filled with long countertops, banks of sinks, and a back wall of oven ranges. I learn several things, herein.

  First, being early is not a virtue appreciated on Earth. Second, despite the fact I’m already wearing Human clothing, the man at the front desk tells me we won’t be allowed to take class that evening unless we find different clothing, insisting I’m wearing too little clothing and Rory and CeCi are wearing too much. I try to explain we know how to handle ourselves around open flames. But alas, Humans seem to have an outfit for every activity.

  The shopping turns out to be pretty fun. The soufflé class, however, is ungodly boring. Add this, stir that, fold this, blend that. To top it all off, the Head of Soufflés makes me put on a pair of ugly rubbery shoes because she’s convinced that I’m going to slice my toes off. I ask her why they’re so orange and so homely and she mutters something about it being the nature of crocodiles. (I’ll have to ask Hook about it the next time I see him at Shambles.)

  Rory and I manage the class just fine and neither of us falls asleep. Head of Soufflés shows off her witty repartee when she’s not winking at me, and I find myself asking a lot of questions during oven time. Just before she heads back to the front of the room, she slips me a piece of paper inviting me for drinks after class.

  I expect Rory and CeCi to be staring at me with some manner of accusation, but when I turn toward their corner of the room, they aren’t even paying attention. Rory is clapping her hands at CeCi, who is positively beaming over her perfectly brown dish of pastry pudding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so happy. It’s like she’s glowing from the inside. Covered with pixie dust.