Status: Active, I swear!
Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks
Happily Ever After
When I finally blinked away the last halos of light, I was confused at the sight that swam into view in front of my eyes.
It was… my room.
Not the room I shared with Ezu in the tiny cottage in the woods, but my room, my old room, from my old life.
I was sitting in the middle of it, right where I had been when I had first been sucked into The Book.
But it was obvious that I hadn’t been returned to that same moment. Most of my stuff, my bed and my books and my dresser, had been pushed up against one wall, the rest of the room filled with the boxes that I recognized at having been put in the storage unit my mother was always saying she’d get rid of when I moved out so she could save money by putting the stuff in my room instead.
Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, and there was an unused smell in the air that made it clear this room was rarely entered anymore.
I stood up shakily and wandered out of my old room, into the living room.
The house appeared to be empty. I glanced out the window at the familiar old backyard, more cracked cement than grass, and saw that it was was still light out, too early for either my mom or my dad to be home yet.
I didn’t have the Book with me this time. I had stuck it on a shelf in Ezu’s cottage and hadn’t opened it again, partly afraid that if I did, I’d be transported back. But, if I had been, at least I’d still have the Book, and might have a chance of returning again. Now…
The world seemed to spin around me, and belated shock hit me in the gut like a punch.
I couldn’t get back.
I couldn’t get back.
The next thing I knew I was laying on the carpet and staring up at the popcorn ceiling, having momentarily passed out or something. It had only been for a second, but I must have fallen hard because the back of my head throbbed.
“Mom? Is that you?” a voice called from another room, and the door opposite mine opened up, and my older brother came out.
“Rick?” I said, sitting up and staring at him.
His jaw dropped open, and for a moment he was too stunned to say or do anything but stare.
“R-rikki?” he finally spluttered. I stood up and looked at him sheepishly.
“Hi,” I said.
He cleared the room in three strides and enveloped me in a tight hug. Then he held me out at arm’s length and gave me a scrutinizing once over.
“Are you okay? What are you doing here? Where have you been? We thought you just ran away, maybe hooked up with some guy and left town. Why didn’t you call?”
“I’m fine, I’m totally fine. I’m here because… well, I’m here now, that’s all that matters. I’ve been… on a trip, a road trip, kind of. I didn’t mean to just take off without saying anything like that, I swear, but I kind of got caught up in some stuff.”
“Drug stuff?” Rick asked, his voice hard.
“No! No, nothing like that,” I insisted. “More like… helping people out.”
“And you couldn’t even call once?” he demanded.
“I wasn’t exactly somewhere where I had cell phone service.”
“What, like… building schools in South American villages or something?”
“Uh… I guess?”
“Well… what are you doing here? What made you come back after all this time?”
I flushed, and felt a wave of guilt crash over me. “Uh… actually, I didn’t… mean to come back. Not that I didn’t want to,” I added quickly, “but I was in a position where I thought I wouldn’t have the chance to come back and explain what happened. And then… I did. So here I am, I guess.”
“Are you staying?” Rick asked, expectantly.
I didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “If I can find a way to get back, no. I want to go back. I’m sorry, Rick, I didn’t mean to just disappear out of the blue like that, and I feel crappy for saying that I’d do it again if I got the chance, but that’s how I feel.”
“You were happy, wherever it was you were?”
“Really happy. Happier than I’ve ever been here.” I gestured to the house around us, the walls that held lackluster memories of a lackluster life.
It was Rick’s turn to be quite for a long moment. “What do you need to get back?” he asked, his expression grim and set. “Money? A car?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, just a little. “I wish it was that easy.”
Rick looked as though he wanted to ask where I had been again, but it seemed like he got the idea that I wasn’t about to give him a straight answer. “Well… what can I do to help?”
I thought about it, and then walked over into the kitchen and grabbed a notepad and a pencil from beside the phone. I scribbled a quick note to my mom and dad and tore it from the pad, handing it to Rick.
“If I don’t come back, give this to mom and dad. I’d stay to say goodbye in person, but if they just think I ran away to shack up with some guy and aren’t worried or anything, it’s probably better not to see them. Actually, don’t even bother with the note. Just tell them that I called, and that I said what I wrote down. Tell them the thing about building schools in South America, that I’ve been down in some small, rural town where I don’t have easy access to phones. That’s pretty much the truth, anyways. Just let them know I’m fine, that I’m sorry for not calling earlier, and that everything is good.”
“If you don’t come back? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see if I can find my way home. My new home, I mean. It might not work, I don’t know. I might be back in an hour. I hope not, but I might be.”
“You’re really not in trouble or anything, right?” Rick asked, looking at me hard, as if he half expected me to break down and admit that I was on the run from the law or from a gang of drug lords I’d crossed or something.
“I’m really not,” I assured him. “I just finally found my place in the world, and I really want to go back to it. I’ll do whatever I can to get back to it.”
Rick saw my earnest expression, I couldn’t hide it. He sighed, and reached out for a hug. I complied, and we gave each other a quick, tight squeeze.
“Okay. Just… stay safe out there, okay?”
“I will,” I agreed. We parted, and I looked around my old home one more time. I was standing in my house, in the present day with all the wonderful luxuries modern society had, luxuries which I had longed for ever since I had ended up in the world of fairy tales. Yet finally surrounded by it all once more, I couldn’t think of a single thing which I wanted to bring back with me. Everything I needed, everything I wanted was already there.
I said goodbye to Rick, and left the house.
I retraced the footsteps that had led me to the dingy little bookstore months before, the bookstore where I had bought the Book.
I had been almost afraid that it might not be there anymore—according to the movies I’d seen, mystical bookstores had a habit of disappearing—but there it was alright, all faded brick and a pale, weathered sign hanging above the door that read “NEW AND USED BOOKS”.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, the bell tinkling as I entered.
It was as cluttered and dark within as I remembered, and I stood blinking in the entry way for a few moments while my eyes adjusted. That gave the owner of the bookshop time to make an appearance, all swirling skirts and scarves and that musky, slightly overpowering perfume.
“Yes? How can I help-” she broke off, recognizing me almost instantly. A smile spread across her lips, the kind of smile that’s difficult to tell if it’s nice or not. “Welcome back,” she said. “It’s been a while since you were here last.”
“I want to go back,” I told her, my voice firm.
She raised her dark, finely sculpted eyebrows. “But you only just returned.”
“Well, I didn’t want to return. I didn’t ask to return.”
“You didn’t ask to be sent away in the first place either.”
“Yeah, but now that I have been, I know what I want. I’ve been here, I’ve been there, and I’ve been back here again. I’ve spent months wandering around in forests, freezing my ass off while sleeping under the stars in piles of dirt; I’ve been cold and I’ve been hungry and I’ve been scared for my life. I’ve been attacked and kicked around and help captive and I’ve had to take lives with my own hands. I’ve been abandoned and rescued, I’ve rescued even more people myself. I’ve made a lot of enemies, and I’ve made even more friends. I’ve watched my friends get hurt, I’ve tried my best to save them, and they’ve saved me. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into, I know what I have waiting for me here, and I know what’s waiting for me back there. I know what I want, and I want to go back!”
The woman’s smile widened. “You are sure?” she asked.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” I said.
“So be it. This trip, however, will be one way.”
I didn’t flinch. She gave a wave of her hand, and… nothing happened.
“What-” I began, and then the world melted around me.
[c][img]http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/400/S9DOE1.jpg[/c][/img]
When I regained consciousness—or became aware of my consciousness, perhaps—I was laying in the dirt in front of Ezu’s house.
I sat up, my head still spinning a little, and looked around. Everything was exactly as I had left it before getting whisked away. I looked to the side of the house, and saw the beginnings of my vegetable patch, the trowel still laying where I dropped it. The iron box and the key, and Ezu, were no where in sight however.
The door of the cottage was wide open, and I got up and went inside.
Ezu was sitting at the table inside, and he started at the sound of my approaching footsteps.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, leaping to his feet so abruptly that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting in. He looked towards the source of the sound that had startled him even though he couldn’t see it, and I saw that his eyes were red rimmed from crying.
“Ezu, it’s me,” I said.
“Rikki?” he took a step forward, hand outstretched, shocked. I ran across the small room and threw my arms around him, holding him tight.
“I’m so sorry, Ezu, I didn’t mean to leave like that. The box, it just… sucked me up, I didn’t even realize it was happening.”
Ezu clutched me back, so tightly that I could hardly breath, and he buried his face in my hair. “I had no idea what happened, you were just… gone, and I couldn’t even see what had happened. I’ve just been sitting here, I felt so damn helpless! I couldn’t go after you, I didn’t even know what happened.”
“I went back to my world, the box took me back.”
“How did you get back?”
“I asked.”
Ezu detached himself from my embrace and held me at an arm’s length, his brow furrowed.
“You… asked?”
“I went to the lady who sold me The Book. I told her I wanted to come back.”
“You had a choice…” Ezu said, and I heard the tremor in his words.
“I meant what I said before, Ezu. I had the choice, between staying there and coming back. And I came back, I came back to you, and to this crazy, stupid, wonderful world. This is where I always want to be.”
Ezu pulled me to him and kissed me hard. I kissed him back, just as hard.
And guess what?
We lived happily ever after.
It was… my room.
Not the room I shared with Ezu in the tiny cottage in the woods, but my room, my old room, from my old life.
I was sitting in the middle of it, right where I had been when I had first been sucked into The Book.
But it was obvious that I hadn’t been returned to that same moment. Most of my stuff, my bed and my books and my dresser, had been pushed up against one wall, the rest of the room filled with the boxes that I recognized at having been put in the storage unit my mother was always saying she’d get rid of when I moved out so she could save money by putting the stuff in my room instead.
Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, and there was an unused smell in the air that made it clear this room was rarely entered anymore.
I stood up shakily and wandered out of my old room, into the living room.
The house appeared to be empty. I glanced out the window at the familiar old backyard, more cracked cement than grass, and saw that it was was still light out, too early for either my mom or my dad to be home yet.
I didn’t have the Book with me this time. I had stuck it on a shelf in Ezu’s cottage and hadn’t opened it again, partly afraid that if I did, I’d be transported back. But, if I had been, at least I’d still have the Book, and might have a chance of returning again. Now…
The world seemed to spin around me, and belated shock hit me in the gut like a punch.
I couldn’t get back.
I couldn’t get back.
The next thing I knew I was laying on the carpet and staring up at the popcorn ceiling, having momentarily passed out or something. It had only been for a second, but I must have fallen hard because the back of my head throbbed.
“Mom? Is that you?” a voice called from another room, and the door opposite mine opened up, and my older brother came out.
“Rick?” I said, sitting up and staring at him.
His jaw dropped open, and for a moment he was too stunned to say or do anything but stare.
“R-rikki?” he finally spluttered. I stood up and looked at him sheepishly.
“Hi,” I said.
He cleared the room in three strides and enveloped me in a tight hug. Then he held me out at arm’s length and gave me a scrutinizing once over.
“Are you okay? What are you doing here? Where have you been? We thought you just ran away, maybe hooked up with some guy and left town. Why didn’t you call?”
“I’m fine, I’m totally fine. I’m here because… well, I’m here now, that’s all that matters. I’ve been… on a trip, a road trip, kind of. I didn’t mean to just take off without saying anything like that, I swear, but I kind of got caught up in some stuff.”
“Drug stuff?” Rick asked, his voice hard.
“No! No, nothing like that,” I insisted. “More like… helping people out.”
“And you couldn’t even call once?” he demanded.
“I wasn’t exactly somewhere where I had cell phone service.”
“What, like… building schools in South American villages or something?”
“Uh… I guess?”
“Well… what are you doing here? What made you come back after all this time?”
I flushed, and felt a wave of guilt crash over me. “Uh… actually, I didn’t… mean to come back. Not that I didn’t want to,” I added quickly, “but I was in a position where I thought I wouldn’t have the chance to come back and explain what happened. And then… I did. So here I am, I guess.”
“Are you staying?” Rick asked, expectantly.
I didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “If I can find a way to get back, no. I want to go back. I’m sorry, Rick, I didn’t mean to just disappear out of the blue like that, and I feel crappy for saying that I’d do it again if I got the chance, but that’s how I feel.”
“You were happy, wherever it was you were?”
“Really happy. Happier than I’ve ever been here.” I gestured to the house around us, the walls that held lackluster memories of a lackluster life.
It was Rick’s turn to be quite for a long moment. “What do you need to get back?” he asked, his expression grim and set. “Money? A car?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, just a little. “I wish it was that easy.”
Rick looked as though he wanted to ask where I had been again, but it seemed like he got the idea that I wasn’t about to give him a straight answer. “Well… what can I do to help?”
I thought about it, and then walked over into the kitchen and grabbed a notepad and a pencil from beside the phone. I scribbled a quick note to my mom and dad and tore it from the pad, handing it to Rick.
“If I don’t come back, give this to mom and dad. I’d stay to say goodbye in person, but if they just think I ran away to shack up with some guy and aren’t worried or anything, it’s probably better not to see them. Actually, don’t even bother with the note. Just tell them that I called, and that I said what I wrote down. Tell them the thing about building schools in South America, that I’ve been down in some small, rural town where I don’t have easy access to phones. That’s pretty much the truth, anyways. Just let them know I’m fine, that I’m sorry for not calling earlier, and that everything is good.”
“If you don’t come back? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see if I can find my way home. My new home, I mean. It might not work, I don’t know. I might be back in an hour. I hope not, but I might be.”
“You’re really not in trouble or anything, right?” Rick asked, looking at me hard, as if he half expected me to break down and admit that I was on the run from the law or from a gang of drug lords I’d crossed or something.
“I’m really not,” I assured him. “I just finally found my place in the world, and I really want to go back to it. I’ll do whatever I can to get back to it.”
Rick saw my earnest expression, I couldn’t hide it. He sighed, and reached out for a hug. I complied, and we gave each other a quick, tight squeeze.
“Okay. Just… stay safe out there, okay?”
“I will,” I agreed. We parted, and I looked around my old home one more time. I was standing in my house, in the present day with all the wonderful luxuries modern society had, luxuries which I had longed for ever since I had ended up in the world of fairy tales. Yet finally surrounded by it all once more, I couldn’t think of a single thing which I wanted to bring back with me. Everything I needed, everything I wanted was already there.
I said goodbye to Rick, and left the house.
I retraced the footsteps that had led me to the dingy little bookstore months before, the bookstore where I had bought the Book.
I had been almost afraid that it might not be there anymore—according to the movies I’d seen, mystical bookstores had a habit of disappearing—but there it was alright, all faded brick and a pale, weathered sign hanging above the door that read “NEW AND USED BOOKS”.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, the bell tinkling as I entered.
It was as cluttered and dark within as I remembered, and I stood blinking in the entry way for a few moments while my eyes adjusted. That gave the owner of the bookshop time to make an appearance, all swirling skirts and scarves and that musky, slightly overpowering perfume.
“Yes? How can I help-” she broke off, recognizing me almost instantly. A smile spread across her lips, the kind of smile that’s difficult to tell if it’s nice or not. “Welcome back,” she said. “It’s been a while since you were here last.”
“I want to go back,” I told her, my voice firm.
She raised her dark, finely sculpted eyebrows. “But you only just returned.”
“Well, I didn’t want to return. I didn’t ask to return.”
“You didn’t ask to be sent away in the first place either.”
“Yeah, but now that I have been, I know what I want. I’ve been here, I’ve been there, and I’ve been back here again. I’ve spent months wandering around in forests, freezing my ass off while sleeping under the stars in piles of dirt; I’ve been cold and I’ve been hungry and I’ve been scared for my life. I’ve been attacked and kicked around and help captive and I’ve had to take lives with my own hands. I’ve been abandoned and rescued, I’ve rescued even more people myself. I’ve made a lot of enemies, and I’ve made even more friends. I’ve watched my friends get hurt, I’ve tried my best to save them, and they’ve saved me. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into, I know what I have waiting for me here, and I know what’s waiting for me back there. I know what I want, and I want to go back!”
The woman’s smile widened. “You are sure?” she asked.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” I said.
“So be it. This trip, however, will be one way.”
I didn’t flinch. She gave a wave of her hand, and… nothing happened.
“What-” I began, and then the world melted around me.
[c][img]http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/400/S9DOE1.jpg[/c][/img]
When I regained consciousness—or became aware of my consciousness, perhaps—I was laying in the dirt in front of Ezu’s house.
I sat up, my head still spinning a little, and looked around. Everything was exactly as I had left it before getting whisked away. I looked to the side of the house, and saw the beginnings of my vegetable patch, the trowel still laying where I dropped it. The iron box and the key, and Ezu, were no where in sight however.
The door of the cottage was wide open, and I got up and went inside.
Ezu was sitting at the table inside, and he started at the sound of my approaching footsteps.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, leaping to his feet so abruptly that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting in. He looked towards the source of the sound that had startled him even though he couldn’t see it, and I saw that his eyes were red rimmed from crying.
“Ezu, it’s me,” I said.
“Rikki?” he took a step forward, hand outstretched, shocked. I ran across the small room and threw my arms around him, holding him tight.
“I’m so sorry, Ezu, I didn’t mean to leave like that. The box, it just… sucked me up, I didn’t even realize it was happening.”
Ezu clutched me back, so tightly that I could hardly breath, and he buried his face in my hair. “I had no idea what happened, you were just… gone, and I couldn’t even see what had happened. I’ve just been sitting here, I felt so damn helpless! I couldn’t go after you, I didn’t even know what happened.”
“I went back to my world, the box took me back.”
“How did you get back?”
“I asked.”
Ezu detached himself from my embrace and held me at an arm’s length, his brow furrowed.
“You… asked?”
“I went to the lady who sold me The Book. I told her I wanted to come back.”
“You had a choice…” Ezu said, and I heard the tremor in his words.
“I meant what I said before, Ezu. I had the choice, between staying there and coming back. And I came back, I came back to you, and to this crazy, stupid, wonderful world. This is where I always want to be.”
Ezu pulled me to him and kissed me hard. I kissed him back, just as hard.
And guess what?
We lived happily ever after.
♠ ♠ ♠
And… that’s the end.After almost ten years, it’s finally done.
I posted the first chapter on July 27th, 2008, at 9:52 AM. I finished writing the final chapter on April 20th 2018, at 10:20 PM. You guys will read it three weeks from the time I am writing this author’s note.
This story started out as a throw away, an idea I had when I was 15 that I never expected to go anywhere. I’d written dozens of beginnings to dozens of stories before, but they always fizzled out like bad fireworks. I can’t say what exactly it was about Little Red that kept me going—even my other stories on Mibba, despite plenty of positive feedback, all fell by the wayside. Something about this story, which I think was in large part due to you wonderful, devoted readers, kept me coming back, even when life happened and I disappeared for up to a year at a time between chapters.
If it weren’t for you wonderful readers, Little Red would have died a long time ago, and Ezu and Jack and Rikki would have been stuck in story limbo forever. They owe their happily ever afters entirely to you guys, and I dedicate this entire story to the 5-10 of you who have kept reading all this time.
Twisted;;Symphony, Black.jerboa, FullMoon2012, TeeHeeISpawned, h.c.a, ninjasauce, ShadowArcher, EdgeOfTheSea, n00bsftw; you all commented within the last year, so I’m assuming that some of you are among the 6 readers that have been following along with the last few chapters. Thank you all, and anyone else out there still reading who I didn’t mention, for letting Little Red be a part of your life, and encouraging me to keep it a part of mine.
I went through a LOT over the course of writing this story. I started between my freshman and sophmore year of high school. My author’s notes follow me progressing through most of high school, through me meeting my first boyfriend, through me graduating and going to college, through my pregnancy, through my break up, through my graduation of college, and possibly, though I can’t remember for sure, through the job I got at my city’s local art Museum, where my boss has recently offered me a position as her assistant (part time, but still exciting as a step up career-wise for me). I’m still struggling to find my place in the world, I want to be a writer professionally but I still have a long way to go. I can say now though that I’ve written two completed novels.
Funnily enough, Little Red was my first serious novel ever, but the second one I actually completed.
I’m going to miss Little Red a lot. I thought somehow that when I wrote those final lines, I’d feel… something. Something dramatic. Like the kind of explosion in your chest you get when you listen to the swelling of the theme from your favorite movie; or maybe like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. No more guiltily avoiding Mibba for months on end because I got lax about updating, no more stressing because I had no idea where to go next with the story, no more wondering if I should just abandon it once and for all.
But I didn’t feel any of that. It was sort of… quiet. I had to sit and stare at the words for a few moments before I felt any closure. Actually, I don’t know if I feel closure at all. I understand how J.K. Rowling felt at the end of Harry Potter. You spend so long with these characters and in this world, it doesn’t seem possible to just walk away, for it to just be over. Maybe I’m doing the same thing with the rewrite that she did with Fantastic Beasts and Pottermore; finding a loophole to linger in the world.
Anyways. I, and this story, have come a long way. It’s weird that it’s over. It’s weird that I’m writing this, and you guys don’t have any idea yet that it’s over. This story has been “almost over” for years, and somehow I just sped right through the ending in three days of writing.
I want to say just a few more things about the ending, now that it’s all here. I had planned on Ezu losing his sight from almost the very beginning. I knew there would be a tower and he would fall from it, and that his eyes would be punctured by thorns. It came from Rapunzel, only in the story of Rapunzel, she cries into the Prince’s eyes and they are restored. But Rikki and Ezu have been a bit too lucky during their adventures, and they aren’t invincible. I feel kind of like a jerk for planning on doing that to him this whole time, but I knew that was the path he was going to take. I also knew that his story was going to be the Golden Key from the very beginning. You’ll find in chapter 2 or 3 I write about Rikki searching through the entire book to find who Ezu might be, and she ends on the final story, The Golden Key, which is her favorite. I knew I wanted the mystery of what was in that box to be the way she got home, so she and Ezu could have closure, and her getting to stay in the fairy tale world could be her own choice.
This feels like the longest author’s note I’ve ever written, and I should probably wrap it up, but I’m hesitant to leave. I’m very aware that once this is done, it’s done. A decade of my life, wrapped up.
Well, I still have the rewrite.
If it ever really happens, if I seriously get through editing aaaaall those early chapters, I’ll post an update here if anyone is interested. Almost everything until the end of Cinderella will be drastically different, hopefully.
4/21 Update: I just grabbed my laptop, thinking “I’ll just write a little more of Little Red today—oh crap, I can’t, it’s done.”
That was a pretty surreal moment. I’m having trouble accepting that it’s finally finished.
5/5 Update: I’m weaning myself off with editing the revision. It’s helping ease me into acceptance.
5/12 Update: And this is it. The final chapter, posted at approximately 9:10, May 12th, 2018. The end of an era. I've cherished this time, even though it took me ten years to get here and I almost gave up multiple times along the road. But I followed through, and got Ezu and Rikki back home. Have wonderful lives, my friends, and chase your own happily ever afters.
Yours forever,
J. B. Parker