Fairest of All (Whatever After #1) (4 page)

i
’m Abby, and this is my brother, Jonah,” I say as we follow her into the house. Except it isn’t really a house. It’s more of a, well,
cottage
, but that sounds like a word my nana would use.

Everything is small. Really small. Small table. Small chairs. Small lamp. And everything is tidy. Couch cushions are plumped and upright. Table is perfectly set. Fork, plate, knife; fork, plate, knife — times eight. She must have a big family. Well, a
small
big family. But where is everybody?

“It’s, uh, lovely to meet you.” The girl falters. She clutches the skirt of her dress, and I get the sense she’s not used to having visitors. “I’m Snow.”

Snow? What kind of name is Snow?

“What an interesting name,” I say, or think I say. Maybe I don’t. My eyelids suddenly weigh a ton. I can barely hold them open. I yawn.

My brother pinches my arm.

Ouch! “I’m not falling asleep!” I say, although I kind of am. It’s late. And we walked for miles. And it’s warm in here.

He waggles his eyebrows.

“What?”
I say.

“Her name is
Snow
,” he says, and waggles his eyebrows again.

“Yes, Jonah,” I say, giving him a look. “I heard.”

“Snow,”
he repeats, giving me a look right back.

Whoa, my head feels cloudy — but that’s no excuse for forgetting my manners. “Right. Sorry. Nice to meet you, too, Snow. Do you think we could use your phone?”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t know what you mean,” Snow says.

I sigh. Who doesn’t know what a phone is? But I don’t say that. That would be megarude. Maybe she’s homeschooled. Or one of those kids who’s never allowed to watch TV or use a cell phone.

Jonah pinches me again. “Abby,” he whispers. “Snow is —”

“Stop it,” I mutter, and yawn again. Why is he being so embarrassing? I can’t take him anywhere.

“But —”

“Shush. No talking. Zip it.” When Mom or Dad tells him to zip it, he has to be quiet and silently count to a hundred.

“Would you like to sit down?” Snow asks, motioning to the couch.

Yes!
“Thank you,” I say. My whole body aches. My feet are on fire. Walking in slippers was not my best move. If I’d known I’d be hiking through the forest when Jonah woke me up, I would have worn sneakers. And kept them tied.

I collapse onto the couch. So tired. Except it’s hard to get comfy. These cushions are so small. Who fits on a couch like this?

Jonah squeezes in beside me. And bounces.

“Do you have to use the bathroom?” I ask him, struggling to keep my eyes open.

He shakes his head back and forth. Then he giggles. He
giggles
!

What is wrong with him? Does he ever get tired?

“Can I get you anything?” Snow asks.

“Do you have any Cheetos?” Jonah asks.

Snow looks at us blankly. “I don’t know what those are, either.”

Her parents must be health nuts, too.

“Do you two live around here?” she asks.

At last we’re getting somewhere.

“Yes!” I say. “I mean, no! I mean, can you just tell us how to get to Sheraton Street from here?” Realizing how lame I must sound, I add, “Um, that’s where we live. We just moved.”

“I’ve never heard of Sheraton Street,” she says. “So you’re
really
two lost kids? You’re
really
not wearing disguises?”

I laugh uneasily. “Do people usually come over wearing disguises?”

“Only my stepmother.”

Jonah bounces again.

“Jonah, stop,” I say, and turn back to Snow. “Why would your stepmom put on a disguise?”

“So I won’t recognize her.”

I rub my forehead, because what she says makes no sense and makes total sense at the same time. It’s like I’m being given puzzle pieces, one and then another and then another, and if I wasn’t so tired, I could probably put all the pieces together and make some sort of picture.

“I’m glad you showed up,” Snow continues. “Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have realized it was my stepmother at the door, and I would have taken the apple. Who knows what would have happened then?”

“I do!” Jonah blurts out. “You would have eaten the apple and it would have been poisoned. That’s what!”

He zipped it up for about a minute. Not bad for Jonah. Wait. What did he just say? “The apple would have been poisoned?”

“Yeah,” Jonah says. “Snow’s stepmom was trying to kill her with the poisoned apple and that’s why she was wearing a disguise. So Snow would open the door. How could you not remember the story? Nana used to read it to you — to us — all the time!”

Stepmom.

Apple.

Disguise.

Poison.

I am suddenly wide-awake. “Oh. My. Goodness!”

“Finally!” Jonah says, and throws his hands in the air.

No. Yes. Impossible. “You’re Snow White?” I say. “You can’t be!”

She blinks her round blue eyes. “How do you know my last name?”

i
look around the cottage at all the small furniture.

I think about the apple and the woman in disguise.

The stepmom in disguise.

“You’re Snow White?” I ask again.

She nods.

“The
real
Snow White?”

“I think so. Unless there’s another Snow White?”

“I think you’re it,” Jonah says.

“But …” I slump back in my tiny chair, the gears of my brain turning.

Snow White exists only in a fairy tale. That means that if the Snow White here
is
the real Snow White, then we, Jonah and I, are also in a … in a … It makes no sense. You don’t just fall through a mirror and land in a fairy tale.

“We’re in the story,” Jonah says. “It’s magic!”

“But there’s no such thing as magic,” I say. “Not in the real world.”

“Maybe there is.”

“But … but …” I strain to come up with an argument that will convince him. I mean, me. I mean, him!

“You know how you want to be a judge when you grow up?” Jonah asks, his tone annoyingly calm.

“Why yes, I do know that. What does that have to do with anything?”

He shrugs. “Judges look at the evidence, right?”

I’m silent.

“So look at the evidence,” he says.

I don’t want to. But I do. I study the girl in front of me:

• Black hair.
  
• Pale skin.
  
• Red lips.
  

Just like in the story.

I look around the cottage. Tiny couch. Tiny table. Tiny chairs. For tiny people.
Also just like in the story.

I turn to Jonah. “It’s really her.” I turn back to Snow. “It’s really you!”

I’m staring at Snow White. The real Snow White. I’m in her living room.

No wonder she looked so familiar. I used to have a T-shirt with her face on it! And didn’t I once dress up as her for Halloween? And wait — she’s on my jewelry box! The one on my dresser. She’s with some other fairy tale characters, but she’s definitely there. And I think she’s even wearing the same dress with the puffy skirt and fitted top that she has on now.

“Who else would I be?” she asks.

“You’re famous!” Jonah cheers. “We’ve never met anyone famous before.”

Snow blushes. “You mean because I’m a princess?”

“Not because of that,” I say. “We’ve heard your story, like, a million times.”

“Really?” she asks, looking worried. “From who? Xavier, the huntsman? He said he wouldn’t tell anyone!”

“From books,” Jonah says. “You’re even in the movies.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “I don’t understand. What’s a movie?”

“It’s a story,” I say. “With pictures. That move.”

“But I’m right here,” she says. “So how can I be in books and movies?”

A very good question. “I don’t know,” I say honestly.

We’re all silent. I’m finding this all confusing, but at the same time, I can’t help feeling giddy. Because OH MY GOSH, how cool is this? I’m standing next to Snow White! I’m
in
a fairy tale!

Snow sighs. “So you know that my stepmother is trying to kill me?”

“Yeah,” Jonah says. “Bummer.”

“She sent Xavier, her huntsman, to kill me, but he felt bad for me,” she says. “He let me run away, but then I got lost in the forest. I walked and ran and walked some more, and finally, I came across this cottage. And I was so tired. So I fell asleep on an empty bed, and the next thing I knew, there were seven little people staring down at me.”

We hear a rustling outside and then the door flies open.

One little man. Two little men. Three.

“Speaking of whom …” Snow says.

It’s really them! “The dwarfs!” I yell, and then clamp my hand over my mouth. Am I supposed to use the word
dwarf
?

“Hello,” says the guy in the front. He’s the tallest of the seven and possibly the oldest. He has a really loud voice. “Is something wrong?”

I remove my hand. “I didn’t mean to call you a dwarf. What am I supposed to call you?”

“I’m Alan,” he booms. “The guy with all the hair is Bob. The super-handsome guy is Jon. That’s Stan with the big teeth, Tara has the braid, Enid has pink hair, and Frances has the cane.”

Tara, Enid, and Frances? Three of the dwarfs are women? That is not how I remember it. Maybe the story never said if they were women or men and I just guessed they were men. Oops.

And they’re definitely not like the dwarfs in the Disney version. No Sleepy, Happy, or Sneezy here.

“Hi!” says Jonah. “Nice to meet you!”

“Now you know who we are,” Alan says. “Do you want to tell us who you are?”

“And why you’re in our house?” Stan asks.

“Talk!” says Frances, slitting her eyes and lifting her cane to point it at us.

My heart skips a beat. The dwarfs are kind of scary. I push Jonah behind me to protect him.

He pushes my arm out of the way. “I’m Jonah!” he exclaims. “And this is awesome!”

Bob pulls on his beard. “Snow, we told you not to let anyone in the house when we’re not home!” He really does have a lot of hair. Beard hair, mustache hair, head hair. And chest hair peeking out of his shirt. “Didn’t you learn anything from the last two times you answered the door?”

“I know, I know,” Snow says. “But they’re just lost kids.”

“Yes,” I say. “We’re just lost kids. Don’t hurt us!”

Alan shakes his head. “But why do you keep talking to strangers?”

“A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet,” Snow says, and then gets a sad look in her eyes. “That’s what my father used to say.”

“We’re harmless,” I promise as I raise my arms to prove I’m weaponless. “We’d never hurt anyone.”

Snow nods. “They saved me from my stepmother. She came back. She tried to give me a poisoned apple, but they stopped her.”

“Wow,” says Enid. She runs her hand through her pink hair.

Frances puts down her cane.

Tara tugs on her braid.

Bob tugs on his beard.

Jon continues to look handsome.

Alan nods. “I guess we owe you a thank-you.”

“Thank you,” all the dwarfs say together.

I flush with pleasure. “No problem.”

Jonah puffs out his chest. “Anytime.”

“How about all the time?” Frances grunts. “Whenever we leave her alone, her stepmom does something awful. Do you know how hard it is to find someone to clean and cook? Hey, do you guys need a place to stay, too?”

“Cool!” Jonah cheers.

“She’s not just a housekeeper,” Alan says, glaring at Frances. “She’s a little sister.”

Little? She’s twice the size they are.

“It’s kind of sad that a princess has to cook and clean,” I say, thinking about the unfairness of it all. “I guess you have nowhere else to go.”

“I don’t mind,” Snow says. “It gives me something to focus on. Otherwise I’d spend all day thinking about …” Her voice trails off. I know she’s had a hard time lately, what with her stepmom trying to kill her and all, so I don’t ask for more info.

Poor Snow. I turn to my brother. “Jonah, we can’t stay. We have to go home. When Mom and Dad wake up, they’re going to be worried.” Not that it wouldn’t be cool to hang out in a fairy tale for a while. How many people get to hang out with the real Snow White?

“But we don’t know how to get home,” Jonah says.

“We should probably head back to the forest,” I say. “Maybe if we go back to where we started, we’ll figure it out.”

Problem is, do I remember the way back? I should have left bread crumbs along the path, like Gretel. Hey, I wonder if all the fairy-tale people know each other. “Do you know Gretel?” I ask. “Sister of Hansel?”

“Who?” they ask.

“Never mind.” I guess a poor, unwanted girl wouldn’t know a princess.

“Can you at least stay for dinner?” Snow asks.

“Yes!” Jonah says. “I’m starving.”

“I make the decisions around here,” I say. “I’m the older one.” My stomach growls.

I
am
kind of hungry. We
did
do a lot of walking today.

I’m the older, responsible sibling. It’s my job to make sure we refuel before setting off on another journey.

Plus, outside there are growling animals.

And stepmoms who want revenge.

“All right,” I say. “We can stay.”