The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (23 page)

“Oh, I never bother myself with all that talk of economy and security and peasant needs and blah blah blah,” Red said. “My granny takes care of all that for me. She’s much better at it than I would be, anyway.”

Red got tired of holding the basket. She snapped her fingers, and her handmaiden collected the basket from her.

“Put it with the others,” Red instructed.

The handmaiden collected it from her and headed out of the room. The twins figured this was their chance.

“May we see the others?” Alex asked.

“The others?” Red asked.

“The other baskets,” Alex said. Red was looking at her peculiarly. “My brother loves baskets.”

Conner nodded, going along with it.

“I do! They’re my most favorite thing ever!” Conner said. “You know what they say, life is better with baskets!”

Red was staring at them as if they were the strangest people she had ever met in her life.

“If you wish,” she said, and shooed them off.

Alex and Conner jumped up and followed the handmaiden out of the room and down a hall.

“Where does Queen Red Riding Hood keep all of her baskets?” Alex asked the handmaiden, and then winked at Conner. She wasn’t very good at playing dumb.

“She has a chamber dedicated entirely to baskets,” the handmaiden said.

“So, she has a basket room?” Conner asked.

“Yes, and if you received as many as she did a year, you would, too,” the handmaiden said.

“How many are we talking about?” Conner asked.

“You’ll see,” she said.

The handmaiden opened a door, and the three of them walked inside. The room was twice the size of the room they had just been in and was filled from floor to ceiling with thousands and thousands of baskets.

Some were on shelves, some were stacked neatly, and others were just piled around the room. The handmaiden tossed the basket from Jack in a pile on one side of the room.

“The queen gets them for birthdays, holidays, and any special occasion,” the handmaiden said. “Some are from villagers, some from friends, others are from the monarchs of neighboring kingdoms.”

Alex and Conner stared around the room with their mouths open. How would they ever find the basket they were looking for in all of this?

“Do you mind if we have a look around?” Alex managed to say through her shock.

“I suppose,” the handmaiden said. She looked at the twins curiously and then left them inside the basket room.

The twins could barely breathe. They both felt as if a dumbbell had suddenly been tied to their chests.

“I have never felt so overwhelmed in my life!” Conner declared. “This is like trying to do the whole summer break packet of homework the day before school starts again, but a thousand times worse. How are we going to look through all of these?”

“It’s not that bad….” Alex tried convincing him, but she didn’t even convince herself. “We just need to start. You take one side, and I’ll take the other. Let’s do this.”

They split and rapidly began looking through the piles and piles of baskets for the one with the bark rim. They knew they didn’t have much time and grew more anxious after each second.

They had no idea there could be so many shapes and sizes and designs for baskets. Like snowflakes, each one was different from the next.

Alex was paranoid that she had missed it. Conner kept getting splinters and kept shouting
“Ah!”
every time it happened.

They had been there for almost an hour and still hadn’t covered even a fourth of the room. They were making a huge mess. The room was twice as disorganized now as it had been when they’d entered it. Even Alex wasn’t hesitating, throwing around baskets that she had already examined.

“This is impossible!” Conner yelled, kicking a pile of baskets.

Just as he kicked the pile, the door swung open and the
handmaiden returned. Alex and Conner froze. She was appalled by the chaos they had caused.

“I don’t know what on earth you’re doing, but I think it’s time for you two to leave,” she said.

The handmaiden escorted them back to the throne room. This time, she watched them like a hawk as they sat on their stools.

Queen Red Riding Hood was literally hanging off her throne and grabbing hold of Jack’s chair as she talked to him. The twins had never seen Jack look so bored and lifeless. Neither of them had noticed the twins return.

“You know, Jack,” Red said, circling his forearm with her finger. “The Red Riding Hood Kingdom isn’t much of a
kingdom
without a
king.
…”

“Perhaps you should change the name to the Red Riding Hood Queendom,” Jack said.

Red laughed much harder than she should have. “You’re so funny! But that’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to tell you, Jack, is that I’ve never been more ready to get married. If
someone
asked me for my hand in marriage today, I would say yes! Do you know
anyone
who might be interested in marrying me? In being king?
Anyone?
”

A white dove suddenly flew by one of the windows outside and sat on the window ledge. As soon as Jack saw it, his entire face lit up. His eyes grew wide, and he smiled; for once, he looked happy.

He turned to Red. Clearly she wasn’t used to seeing him like this, either. The twins could practically see her heart
beating out of her chest as excitement filled her body. Was he going to propose? Was this the moment she had been waiting for for so long?

“Red,” Jack said.

“Yes, Jack?” Red said.

“I have to go,” Jack said, jumping up and heading out of the throne room. Red almost fell off of her throne.

“Go?” she said. “Go where?”

“Home,” Jack called out, not even looking back at her. “I’ll see you next week.”

Red crossed her arms and pouted. He was the only thing preventing her from having
everything
.

The twins felt it was best to leave with Jack, so they followed him out of the castle.

“It was wonderful meeting you, Alex, Conner,” Jack said, and shook their hands.

“Likewise,” Alex said. “Thanks again for taking us to the castle.”

“My pleasure! I hope to run into you someday soon,” Jack said, and then headed in the direction of his home with a new bounce in his step.

It was very strange. Jack was now acting like the person Alex had always thought he would be.

“What is that guy’s deal? How does someone go from a zombie to a camp counselor in a matter of seconds?” Conner said.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, looking after him as he walked away. “He’s a very odd man.”

“Looks like we’ll be sneaking into the castle after all,” Conner said, and slumped to a seated position on the ground.

“At least we know what to expect tonight, and we already went through a good portion of the baskets,” Alex said. “We just have to wait until midnight.”

“And in the meantime, I could really use a nap,” Conner said.

The twins traveled up the street and booked a room at the Shoe Inn. Their room had a perfect view of Red Riding Hood’s castle. It was somewhere near the shoe’s tongue, because a set of laces crossed through one of their walls. The room also had a working bathtub, and they both took turns using it, since they hadn’t been able to bathe in so long.

“That was the best bath I think I’ll ever have,” Conner said.

They both decided to rest for a little bit, and as soon as their bodies touched the bed, they both fell into a deep sleep. They slept for a few hours and woke up shortly before midnight.

“What’s our game plan for tonight?” Conner said. “It’ll be the first time we’ll ever be breaking and entering anywhere, so I’m extra anxious.”

“Let’s take account of everything we have now,” Alex said, and dumped all the contents of their bags onto the bed.

“We have two blankets, a bag of gold coins, a dagger, a
lock of Rapunzel’s hair, a glass slipper, a map, a journal, and a satchel of food,” Alex listed. “We can use the dagger to cut a chunk of wood out of the basket, but it’s going to be dark. We’ll need some light.”

“Let’s take these lanterns,” Conner said, and gathered lanterns that were on the bed sides.

“Great,” Alex said. “We should plan on leaving the kingdom right after, just in case we run into some trouble. We’ll head to the east entrance of the kingdom, and that’ll bring us close to the border of the Fairy Kingdom.”

Conner lowered his head. “I was so looking forward to coming back to this bed.”

At a quarter to midnight, Alex and Conner gathered all their things, lit their lanterns, and left the Shoe Inn. They walked across town to the castle. It was so quiet at night; not even farm animals were up this late.

They hid behind Humpty Dumpty’s wall and watched through the castle windows as guards patrolled the halls.

“Just a few more minutes and they’ll leave,” Alex said.

A few minutes later, they saw fewer and fewer guards walk past the windows.

“Are they gone?” Conner asked.

“They must be!” Alex said. “Let’s go.”

They ran around to the back of the castle and saw a large kitchen through a set of windows. They hopped across the moat—they knew they’d be able to!—and pulled at the window. Like the journal had said, it didn’t have a lock, and it opened easily.

Alex crawled into the kitchen first. She was as quiet as possible; the only sound she made came from the intense beats of her heart. Conner climbed in after and knocked over a stack of pots and pans.

Alex was mortified. “I’m going to kill you!” she mouthed at him.

“Sorry!” he mouthed back at her.

They waited for a moment to see if anyone had heard the disturbance, but no one had.

The twins left the kitchen and found themselves in a hallway with, to no surprise, more portraits of Red Riding Hood.

“That Red Riding Hood sure loves having her portrait painted,” Conner said.

“Maybe there are so many paintings of her because she’s the first monarch the kingdom has ever had. It doesn’t have the history the Charming Kingdom has,” Alex said.

“Or she’s just a self-obsessed twit,” Conner said.

They traveled down the hall, then another one, then up a set of stairs and down another hall.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Conner asked.

“I thought I was following you!” Alex said.

“What? Since when do you follow me?” Conner said.

A shadow was creeping toward them from down the hall. As it got closer, they could see it was the silhouette of a guard.

“A guard!”
Alex whispered, and pointed at the shadow. They ran down the hall and entered the first room they found.

The room was pitch-black.

“Where are we now?” Conner asked.

“Why are you asking me questions you know I don’t have the answers to?” Alex said.

Alex waited by the door and listened for the guard to pass by. Conner moved around the room with his hands stretched out in the darkness so he wouldn’t bump into anything.

Their eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

“Alex, I think I can see something—” Conner walked right into what he thought was a doorway and suddenly saw a pale face staring back at him. He fell to the floor with fear. He screamed as quietly as he could.

“Alex! There’s someone standing over there in the doorway! He’s so creepy and ugly!” Conner said, pointing up.

Alex ran to his side and squinted her eyes to see what he was talking about.

“That’s not a doorway; that’s a mirror, you idiot!” Alex said.

“Oh,” Conner said, and Alex helped him up to his feet.

“Oh my, what big claws you have,” said a voice behind Alex and Conner, causing them both to jump five feet into the air.

They turned to see an enormous four-poster bed with silky red sheets and lacy white curtains around it. In the bed, talking in her sleep, was Queen Red Riding Hood.

“We’re in the queen’s bedroom!” Conner whispered to Alex.

“Oh my, what a big nose you have, Grandma,” Red said, still very much asleep.

“Is she having a nightmare?” Conner asked.

“Oh my, what big sharp teeth you have—
Wooolf
!” Red screamed, and sat straight up in her bed, awake. Alex and Conner dropped to the floor, out of her view.

She was out of breath, and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. She finally caught her breath. “Not again,” she said, and then, frustrated, laid back down to sleep.

Alex and Conner were afraid to move.

“Did she go back to sleep yet?” Conner asked.

“How are we supposed to tell?” Alex asked.

“Oh my, what big strong arms you have, Jack,” Red said.

“I’m guessing she’s asleep,” Conner said, and confidently stood.

“Oh my, what soft lips you have, Jack,” Red said.

“Let’s get out of here before we hear her describe anything else!” Conner said.

They emerged back into the hall and traveled around the castle for a while longer. All the halls looked so familiar, it seemed impossible to find the basket room. Every time they thought they had found the right door, they found themselves in a drawing room or a dining room or a ballroom.

“Let’s find the entrance and retrace our steps to the throne room—” Alex began, but Conner interrupted her.

“No need. The baskets are in there,” he said, and pointed to a door beside them.

“How do you know?” Alex asked him.

“Because I remember that portrait of Red being next to the basket room,” Conner said, and pointed to a portrait where Red Riding Hood was barely clothed, with only a wolf-skin coat to cover her.

Alex gave Conner a really dirty look.

“What?” Conner asked with a smirk. “It’s memorable.”

They pushed the door open and found the room they had spent the entire afternoon in earlier.

“Let’s take it from where we left off,” Alex said. She and Conner split up and headed to the areas they had last searched.

It had been hard during the day, but it was even harder at night, since they had only the light from their lanterns to go by. After a few hours of searching, their anxiety levels were as high as Jack’s beanstalk.

Suddenly, the twins heard a loud
clank!

“What was that?” Alex said.