Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

That night we all slept in the castle, all of the prince's soldiers, plus Jack, Ezu, myself, the Huntsman, Jameson, and the Dwarves crowded into the guard's barracks, which wasn't terribly comfortable, but everyone was too tired to even think of complaining. The Prince himself and Snow White were not with us, of course. Snow White still had a room of her own in the north wing of the Castle, which had been blocked off by the Queen but easily opened, and the two of them retired there.

Not once did Ezu speak to me the entire night.

He didn't look angry or upset, but I didn't like the expression he wore whenever I caught him staring at me. I focused on distracting myself by talking to Jack and the Dwarves, asking Roland what he planned on doing as a Lord, and hearing all about how the Huntsman was going to finally go home and see his family again—his wife, and his two daughters who he hadn't seen in so long—but when everyone finally went to sleep I felt so alone with just my thoughts, staring at Ezu's back on the wooden cot beside me.

We all parted ways the next morning.

The Prince and his men were headed north, back towards their own kingdom. We had to keep heading East, along the little red path Prince Charming had drawn for us, leading us to the next quest, the next Princess, the next life-or-death struggle. We waited with our four horses in hand just outside the castle gates, waving at the diminishing forms of the small army until they finally disappeared from sight.

Then it was just the three of us, and that feeling of tension bubbling away beneath the surface of calm began to rise again. A few conversations needed to be had, and I dreaded all of them.

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“Rikki,” Jack said, quietly. “I think you need to explain to me what's going on with this book.”

I turned to face him, smiling widely as said, as if I hadn't heard him, “Alright, so that's three princesses down, in you include the Miller's Daughter slash Rumpelstiltskin fiasco, two more to go. Who do you think we should tackle next, Rapunzel, or Sleeping Beauty?”

“Um, I'm not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what's going on here,” Jack replied, frowning. “I didn't ask any questions before, but this book... and the things you know about these situations we've been getting into, you know things you couldn't possibly know.”

My smile became a little strained, but I just kept on going as if he would just stop asking me if I didn't respond. “I think we should go after Rapunzel. We have to scale another tower, but there might be a dragon involved in the Sleeping Beauty part of the quest, and I think maybe we should save that for last. How does that sound? Rapunzel's tower will probably be a little tough to find since it's hidden in a forest and everything, and we'll probably have to fight another witch, but I'm feeling pretty confident about our witch-smiting prowess right about now. So let's get up on these horses and get going, how about it, guys?”
By the end of my monologue, delivered a little too quickly and cheerily to seem entirely natural, my smile had become more of a rictus grimace. I could tell Jack wasn't going to let this go any more, and Ezu wasn't looking at me at all, which was even more unsettling.

“Rikki,” Jack repeated, firmly. “What is going on that you're not telling me?”

I bit my lip, and sighed, giving up. “It's nothing bad, it's just...” I looked around as if expecting to find some way of avoiding this conversation hiding in the landscape. I had just explained about the Book to Ezu, and he'd barely been phased at all. Why was I so worried about telling Jack? “Okay, so the Book... So I'm... I'm not... from here,” I tried, lamely.

“Yeah,” Jack replied, raising one eyebrow, unimpressed. “I'd sort of guessed that already.”

“I mean... to me, the Book is... it brought me here, because, well, it's like... wormholes?” I stammered.

“She's from some other land, or world, or something like that,” Ezu interrupted me, his voice flat and still avoiding looking at me. “That book is magic, obviously and it brought her here. Where she comes from, we aren't real, we're only children's stories.”

Jack blinked. Whatever he had been expecting to hear, it wasn't that.

“What?” he said, fixing me with an odd look.

“It's a magic book,” I squeaked. An expression of anger flashed across Jack's face.

“Yeah, I got that bit a long time ago, I can handle a magic book, that isn't the point. What do you mean we're aren't real where you come from?”

“Well, like, in my world, all of this,” I gestured to the castle, to the landscape, all around us, “everyone we've met and every where we go, it's all... it's all just stories, fairy tales. We tell stories in my world about Snow White and Cinderella, but they aren't real, they are just stories. And then I got the Book, and it brought me into the stories, only things started to go wrong, like some crazy butterfly effect.”

Jack shook his head, obviously not on board with what I was telling him. “No, no. Okay, I can buy that you got... magicked here by some cursed book from another world, I've seen weirder stuff than that with my own eyes just today. But are you trying to tell me that I'm not really real? That I'm just some random character in some made up story that was poofed into being when you showed up?”

I mouthed wordlessly at him for several seconds, not sure how to respond. He was upset, and getting more so with every second, and I wasn't sure why. “I... I mean, I don't know, I don't know how it works. Maybe this place always existed, I don't know. All I know is that you're just stories where I come from.”

“What's my story?” Jack asked suddenly, angrily.

“What?” I responded dumbly.

“Am I in that book? Do you know my story, do you know what was supposed to happen to me?”

“I... I mean, yeah, at least you were, I think, I don't know the book has gone all weird, but I mean... I guess I do, but I don't see the-”

“So you've known my... my future, or my past or whatever this whole time and never bothered to mention it? What happens to me?”

“Um, I don't think telling you would be a good idea,” I somehow managed to rasp.

“It's my life, why can't you tell me?” Jack pressed, his voice raising a little.

“I don't know, I don't want to risk changing anything if I tell you too much, I don't know what kind of effect that would have on-”

“Give me the book,” Jack demanded, his hand outstretched. I could feel the weight of it in the pack on my back, but I didn't move.

“You're story isn't in there anymore,” I said quietly. “They are all gone, except for the Princesses.”

“Is Ezu in there? Did you tell him his story? Hell, how long has he known?”

I winced. “He... I don't know, I couldn't find his story. There are a lot with characters that aren't named, so... I just don't know. I told him, a long time ago, I guess.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Do you think you can't trust me?”

“No, that's not it at all!” I insisted. “At first I just wasn't sure how you would take it if I told you, and then there was just so much else going on all the time, the timing never seemed right-”

“So you just hid all of this from me, you dragged me along on your quest, expecting me to put my life on the line for you, letting me think that we were all in this together, while the whole time the two of you were hiding things from me, like you couldn't trust me?”

“Jack, that's not how it was-”

“Tell me what my... what my story is!”

“I don't think that's a good idea, Jack.”

“It's my life, I deserve to know! Haven't I earned that? For everything I've done for you, everything I've helped you with?”

“Telling you might change things, you could be put in danger, or it could all go wrong! It's already happened with the princesses, I don't want to screw up your story too!”

Jack threw his hands into the air. “You know what? It doesn't matter. Because apparently I'm not even real!”

“Oh shut up!” Ezu's tone was so sharp that Jack unconsciously obeyed, and we both turned to face him. “It isn't like it's all that important,” he snapped, his expression even darker than Jack's. “So what if we're 'real' or not? I feel real enough. And you know why we didn't bother to tell you about that stupid book? Because we knew you'd react like this, like an idiot!”

“No, Jack, that's not true, Ezu what are you-” I tried to interject, but the boys weren't paying attention to me anymore. I thought that Jack was going to explode, his fists were clenched so tightly as his sides that his knuckles were white, and his expression was furious. But when he spoke, it was quietly, though you could still hear his anger beneath his words.

“Fine. If that's how it is, then fine. It's always been the two of you, since we started this idiotic quest. The two of you on your little adventure while I tagged along behind, ignored until you found some use for me. Send me off on a search party, or to distract the crowd, or to any other damage control while you two go save the day without me.” He was talking to me now too, even though his eyes were still fixed on Ezu. “You didn't even feel bothered to tell me the truth about this quest despite feeling the need to drag me along on it. I came because I trusted you, because I thought you wanted me to and because we were friends. Well, thank you for finally letting me know what I really meant to you during this whole disaster of a journey.” He finally turned away from Ezu, grabbed his pack and one of the three bags of coins the Prince had given us from the horse we'd loaded with our supplies, and swung himself up onto his horse.

“Jack, none of that is true, you are my friend and I do need your help, because you're clever and talented and I couldn't do this without your help! I know I should have told you about the Book, but it just never seemed like the right time, and your story has such a good ending that I can't risk ruining it for you! It's not because I don't trust you, it's-” I pleaded, but Jack wasn't moved.

“Good luck on the rest of your quest. I've been gone from the farm too long anyways.” He squeezed the horse's sides with his knees and started her trotting off, back in the direction we had come from, towards the forest.

“Jack, please! How are you even going to get all the way back on your own?” I called after him, desperately, but he only ignored me, and urged his horse into a gallop. I stared after him helplessly, completely at a loss as how it could have turned out this way. I turned around, looking to Ezu for help, but I saw him throwing his own stuff over his horse's back.

“Ezu?” I asked, my voice cracking ever so slightly. He wouldn't look at me, his face was a grim mask. “Ezu, what are you doing?” I made to walk over to him, reaching my hand out to grab his arm, but he flinched and shied away from me which made me freeze in place.

Still without looking at me, he said, “I told you, I'm not going to love anyone. Ever.” He pulled himself onto the horse, never, not once, even glancing at my face. “You make friends easily, you'll be able to find two new knights. Finish the quest, and go home to your family, and your world.”

“You can't just leave!” I cried, but that didn't stop him from doing just that. He didn't follow the path Jack had taken, but he too headed towards the dark forest, in the opposite direction my quest for the remaining Princesses would take me. I watched him go, and he never looked back.