The Everafter War (15 page)

Uncle Jake stood by the casket with Mallobarb and Buzzflower. The godmothers sobbed, and though his face was cracked with misery, Jake did his best to appear strong. His love affair with Briar was well known in the town and the entire crowd seemed to be bearing his heartbreak for him.

Daphne was inconsolable. She wept and clung to her mother. Elvis sat next to her, licking the tears from her face. Sabrina found herself sobbing as well.

“Today is a dark day for us,” Prince Charming said as he stepped before the casket. “We have lost one of our own and one of our most precious. Like many of us, Briar Rose came to America aboard the
New Beginning
, searching for a new life. She left a family and kingdom behind, but she brought with her two fairy godmothers, Mallobarb and Buzzflower, who have been by her side since she was a baby, nearly seven hundred years ago. Mallobarb and Buzzflower kept Briar safe from wicked witches and a few foolish suitors and an even more foolish husband.”

The crowd chuckled. Sabrina knew that Charming had once been married to Briar, but he had never spoken of their relationship. She had also never heard the prince be self-deprecating before.

“Sadly, they could not have stopped a freak accident. She was killed by a dragon—”

A gasp rose in the crowd. Robin Hood shouted for everyone to remain calm.

“Where did this dragon come from?” a stooped old witch asked.

“It was sent by the Master and the Scarlet Hand,” Charming said.

“They have a dragon!” Little Boy Blue cried.

“They have more than one,” Charming said. “Jacob Grimm managed to kill two of them and claims to have seen a third. We have no idea how many more there might be.”

“Where did they come from? I thought the Grimms had all the dragon eggs,” Morgan le Fay said.

“We have what we were given to look after,” Granny said. “I have no doubt there are others.”

Charming raised his hand for the crowd’s attention. “We can discuss that matter later, but first I would like to let some of the people who knew Briar Rose speak,” Charming said. “Starting with myself. I stumbled upon Briar Rose’s castle wrapped in a thorn hedge centuries ago. My youthful zeal for exploration and treasure urged me to cut through it. Little did I know the treasure I would find. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life. But her true beauty was hidden inside her like she was hidden in her castle. She was, above all, kind and patient. She was thoughtful and encouraging. She was smart, and funny, and wise, and I knew that I did not deserve her. I was not the husband I should have been to her and she knew it as well, but she never held a grudge. She was mature about the end of our marriage and moved on to a new life. I was not a good man when I met her, but I am all the better for knowing her. I count myself as one of the luckiest people in the world for having shared a love with her. Now, I’d like to ask Mallobarb and Buzzflower to speak.”

The fairy godmothers stepped forward and lifted their sad faces to the crowd. “Briar was a brave woman. She was also strong, stubborn, and opinionated … but brave,” Mallobarb said, holding back tears.

“She faced a dragon with no hope of victory … but that’s the way she was,” Buzzflower said. “I will miss her humor, her strong sense of right and wrong, and her companionship. Though my sister and I were assigned to raise her, I feel I learned more from her than she ever learned from me. Good-bye, my sweet rose.”

Buzzflower blew a kiss to the casket and the two rejoined Jake at the front of the crowd.

Jake stepped forward. He turned to the Everafters as if preparing to speak about the woman he loved, but instead, he reached into his pocket and took out the felt box that held her engagement ring. He took it out and slipped it on Briar Rose’s finger. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. A tear streamed down his face and landed on her forehead, then Jake rejoined the group.

Charming stepped forward and looked over the crowd. “So death has come to our door. I’ve told you all that this day would come, and now that it is here I get no satisfaction from being right. Today, we all lost a friend and a member of our unique community. She was our first casualty and I know what you are thinking.
Casualty
is a word people use for death in the midst of war, and I say we are at war. Just because some of you have chosen not to fight does not mean you are not in the battle. They will find this camp and they will slaughter us all. If we stand idle we might as well start digging our own graves.”

Mr. Seven appeared with a shovel on his shoulder. He handed it to Charming. “Who wants to dig their own grave?”

The crowd eyed the shovel like it was a scorpion preparing to strike.

“These are your choices. Join Sleeping Beauty or fight.”

Sabrina scanned the crowd. There she saw so many familiar faces—Snow White, Friar Tuck, Puss in Boots, Morgan le Fay, Old King Cole, Frau Pfefferkuchenhaus, Rip Van Winkle, Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, the Pied Piper and his son Wendell, Lancelot, Cinderella and her husband, Tom, and Jack Pumpkinhead. There were Munchkins and Lilliputians, Yahoos and shoe elves. There were brutish creatures like the blacksmith troll and a Cyclops, but also delicate beauties like Little Bo Peep and her flock of sheep. There were also many Everafters Sabrina had never met and couldn’t identify.

“Why should we trust you, Charming?” Ichabod Crane said from the middle of the crowd. “You have a history of manipulating this town for your own selfish concerns.”

Charming was taken aback. “Because—”

“And weren’t you a member of the Scarlet Hand yourself? How do we know this is not some trap you and your toadies are laying?” a duckling quacked.

“Let me explain,” Charming said as the crowd erupted into shouts and arguments, but the noise stopped when Mr. Canis stepped forward.

“He is not lying to you, but since you need to hear it from someone else, here it is. The war is coming. If we fight many will die, but there’s a chance we could beat them back. If not, we will all die anyway. None of you are safe. We can train you. We can prepare this camp. But we have to do it together. You decide. Join this battle or pick up the shovel and dig.”

The crowd looked bewildered, and then Uncle Jake stepped forward. “I will fight.”

Sabrina’s father gasped. “Jake, no!”

“Thank you, Jacob,” Charming said, then turned back to the crowd. “Is there no one else? A human has stepped forward to fight for you! A human!”

Mallobarb and Buzzflower joined him. “We will fight.”

“Anyone else?” Charming said, raising the shovel over his head.

Poppa, Momma, and Baby Bear were next. They roared. Puss in Boots joined the rest. “I will fight.”

The tabby was followed by Beauty and her beastly daughter, Bella, then former deputies Mr. Boarman and Mr. Swineheart. Soon Morgan le Fay had joined the group as well as the bridge troll and Rip Van Winkle. The Munchkins followed, then the Winkies, then the Gillikins. The Lilliputians were the next to join, followed by the Mouse King and a sea of his royal subjects, then several Houyhnhnms, then a huge contingent of knights, princes, princesses, and witches.

Soon, the last one left in the crowd was Ichabod Crane, who frowned and eventually stepped forward himself. “Fine, but if I see one of those Scarlet Hand thugs is missing a head, I’m deserting.”

“Very well,” Charming said. “We will train and we will fight. Let the Hand come because we will beat them back with our bare hands if necessary.”

The crowd roared approval and shook their fists in the air.

Charming turned to his team. Mr. Seven, Robin Hood, Snow White, and Mr. Canis nodded at him and he nodded back. Then he took off his purple suit jacket and tossed it aside. He scooped up the shovel off the ground and began to dig, but Uncle Jake stopped him and took the shovel from the prince. Charming nodded respectfully and stepped aside.

Sabrina and Daphne watched Uncle Jake dig. When the hole was big enough he pounded the casket lid closed. He and Charming lowered it into the hole as rain clouds circled and eventually soaked the camp. Uncle Jake filled the hole while Charming looked on. When it was finished, Mallobarb and Buzzflower planted a single seed on top of the plot and a moment later, fed by the rainwater, a rosebush sprouted and grew.

There was little time to mourn. The next morning Camp Charming became Fort Charming, and Sabrina was surrounded by a flurry of fight training, forging, and the construction of several lookout towers. Mr. Boarman and Mr. Swineheart directed the building, and with the help of some witches and wizards the fort grew in size dramatically. Teams of volunteers fortified the lookout towers with cannons, while others built a catapult big enough to hurl a pickup truck over the walls. Everyone else was drafted into Snow White’s army and trained in hand-to-hand combat. Under her command Everafters of all shapes and sizes ran drills, rappelled down the tall fort walls, and of course, Snow’s favorite, dropped at a moment’s notice for muscle-straining pushups. It was very strange to see the ancient Frau Pfefferkuchenhaus crawling beneath barbed wire on her belly.

It quickly became clear that the Grimms were in the way. The girls were left to their own devices, and as they searched for some way to be useful they came across Pinocchio sitting under an oak tree. He was resting on a stack of logs, one of which he had used to carve a dozen small marionette legs with a sharp knife. His work was detailed and marvelous, and his mastery of the blade was incredible. The legs were proportioned and elegant. There were several other arms, a few torsos, and a number of heads resting at his feet.

“You’re making puppets,” Daphne said, picking up one of the heads and examining it.

“They are called marionettes,” Pinocchio said.

“What’s a marionette?” Daphne asked.

“It’s a wooden figure with limbs attached to strings, and the strings are manipulated by someone,” Sabrina explained.

“And that’s not a puppet?” Daphne asked.

Pinocchio seemed to bristle at the little girl’s confusion. “No, a puppet has someone’s hand up its bum. Marionettes can walk, dance, and perform in any way its master desires.”

“And now you’re making them, just like your father,” Sabrina said, continuing to admire his work.

Pinocchio nodded. “It’s a skill I’ve been working on for some time. The secret is to use the right wood. If it’s too hard it’s impossible to carve but if it’s too soft then the whole piece can fall apart in your hands. It took me forever to find the right wood, but now that I have some I carry it with me.”

“Must get heavy,” Sabrina said, noticing the huge bag the boy had brought with him to the camp.

“A tad,” the boy said as if slightly annoyed. “My condolences for your loss.”

Sabrina thanked him and struggled not to cry. Her eyes and cheeks still hurt from the funeral. “She was the best.”

“I did not know her other than what I had heard from others,” Pinocchio said. “She seems to have been quite an exceptional woman and an asset to the Everafter community.”

Sabrina nodded, though she was unnerved by Pinocchio’s manner of speaking. He was such a little boy, yet he spoke as if he were a college professor.

Before she could respond, Goldilocks appeared. “Girls, your grandmother would like to see you in Charming’s cabin. She’s having some kind of meeting.”

The girls said good-bye to Pinocchio and crossed the fort to Charming’s cabin. When they entered they found their father and grandmother in the midst of a heated argument.

“If he does it again I’ll knock him out,” Henry said. “None of you have a right to sneak my children out in the middle of the night to fight dragons.”

“Good heavens,” Granny Relda said. “Your brother didn’t sneak them out to fight dragons. I’m sure he had no idea they would run into trouble.”

Henry looked as if he might scream. “We’re lucky any of them came back alive.”

“Henry!” Veronica cried. “Lower your voice. He might hear you.”

“I’m sorry but this is not cool. If he needed to go after Briar he shouldn’t turn to two children for help.”

Granny stepped forward. “Henry, I’m not happy about it either, but the girls are very capable. They’ve encountered dragons before. Why, Sabrina killed a giant once.”