Sleep

Princess Briar Rose smiles menacingly at me. She leans against the sitting room window. I can just make out the distant glow of Little John's burning orchard in the night sky behind her. The view out the window becomes increasingly obscured by the enchanted thorny hedge growing outside.

She says, "Red, you're coming with me."

(Catch up to the first installment.)

I glance back into my grandmother's bedroom. Granny lies in an enchanted slumber, surrounded by another magical thorny hedge. "Will she be all right?"

Princess Briar Rose shrugs. "I handled a century under that curse. Granny Montville can make it through a day or two."

"You'll bring me back to her in a day or two?"

"She'll wake on her own!" the princess snaps. "I wouldn't really enchant her for a hundred years."

"What if the Fairy Godmother ordered you to?"

Princess Briar Rose doesn't answer me.

I press on: "How can you follow that evil old crone?"

"She isn't evil! She is uniting the kingdoms in the name of Peace. The Fairy Godmother is the walking, talking embodiment of Good. I can't even begin to repay her for her kindness to me."

I stare at Princess Briar Rose, uncertain of her sincerity. "It isn't Good to send Cinderella to shoot fireballs at a peaceful assembly of villagers. It isn't Good to send Sleeping Beauty to curse a harmless old woman and abduct a baker."

"I don't expect you to understand!" Princess Briar Rose shouts. "Are you going to walk with me to the carriage, or do I have to curse you too?"

I wonder how long I can stall. My friends will meet at Isobel Hansom’s farm in about half an hour, prepared to embark on our quest to stop the Fairy Godmother. How long will it take for them to realize I can't come? Surely, they'll find Granny's Bakery covered in the uncanny thorns, and recognize Princess Briar Rose's spellwork.

Will they be able to find me?

"Well?" the princess prompts.

I have to trust Marion Fletcher's tracking skills and Isobel Hansom’s lupine sense of smell. "All right," I say.

Princess Briar Rose leads me downstairs, through the bakery, and out into the street. The thorny hedge closes in behind us, swallowing the door whole. The princess whistles. An ostentatious coach with four horses pulls around a corner and stops before us. The footman hands Princess Briar Rose into the carriage, and then me.

Within two minutes of the ride, my captor falls asleep. I watch her minutely. For a while, her closed eyes dart back and forth with dreams. Then she settles into a deep slumber.

I move slowly and carefully. I untie the sashes from the coach windows and, with painstaking care, use them to bind Princess Briar Rose's wrists and ankles. I need one more tie. I undo the princess's belt. She groans and stirs a little. I have just enough time to gag her with her belt before she wakes and sounds a muffled scream.

The coachman stops the carriage. The moment the footman opens the coach door, I kick him hard in the gut. He tumbles backwards, breathless. In a trice I'm on the carriage box, throwing the coachman down to the ground.

I grab the reins. I urge the horses about a mile down the road, out of the reach of Princess Briar Rose's servants. Then I turn the carriage around and hurry back towards Sherwood, startling the footman and coachman on the way.

I meet with my friends a few miles out of town. Ranger Marion Fletcher, Barbarian Isobel Hansom, Bard Fredericia Forestay, Paladin Alice Cross, and Druid Eliza Rivers gawk to see me driving the coach.

"We were coming to rescue you," Marion tells me.

"I do need your help," I reply. "Sleeping Beauty is tied up inside."

Fredericia laughs. "We've been separate for ninety minutes, and you've already had an entire adventure without us."

"What are we going to do with her?" I ask. "We can't very well lock her in Isobel's barn with Cinderella. They could collaborate for an escape."

Genius strikes Eliza and she smiles. "You know what's almost on the way to Royal City? The Witchwood."

Fredericia shudders. "Isn't that place dangerous?"

"It's nothing we can't handle," Isobel says, "But why would we go there?"

Eliza responds, "Because there is an abandoned tower in there, fit to confine a princess."

Fredericia, Isobel, and Eliza sit with the captive princess inside the coach. Alice takes the footman's place. Marion joins me on the box.

The orange glow of sunrise pours over the eastern horizon when I see Princess Briar Rose's coachman and footman on the side of the road again. At first, they try to flag us down for a ride. Then they recognize the carriage and shout angrily as I drive on by.

It's midmorning when I turn off Sherwood Way and drive on Tower Street towards the Witchwood. I follow Marion's directions down increasingly overgrown paths.

We find Princess Rapunzel's tower looming over a grove of fine, tall oaks. I park the carriage in the shade of the trees and loose the horses. They gratefully sip from a nearby stream and start grazing. My friends break out some fruit, bread, and cheeses, which they share with Princess Briar Rose and me.

After a brief rest, we tackle the challenge of getting Princess Briar Rose up into Princess Rapunzel's tower.

Eliza uses her nature-magic to make a lattice of sturdy vines grow up the tower side to its single high window. Alice fashions a makeshift pulley system. Marion scales the vine-ladder with ease and rigs the pulley and rope. We haul Princess Briar Rose up. Then Marion tosses the pulley down, unbinds the princess's hands, and scrambles back down the tower as quickly as she can. Eliza banishes the vines behind Marion.

We can hear Princess Briar Rose yelling at us, but we are out of her magic's range.

The horses appear refreshed. Isobel and I hitch them back to the carriage and we resume our places in the coach.

We only have a few minutes of peace. An arrow suddenly pierces the front left horse's heart. It falls immediately to the ground, tripping up and panicking its companions.

We leap into action. Fredericia, Isobel, and I unhitch and calm the remaining three horses. Marion examines the fallen animal and declares, "White arrow. The Huntsman!"

Another arrow pierces Isobel's shoulder. She bellows with pain. The living horses bolt.

Fredericia tends to Isobel's wound. The rest of us encircle them, facing outwards and scrutinizing the forest for signs of Princess Blanche's Huntsman. A tense moment passes.

Eliza screams in surprise as another white arrow catches in her hair, narrowly missing her neck. Marion immediately returns the shot and aims again.

"The Huntsman won't be alone," I warn my friends. "The Fairy Godmother is after us in earnest. If we're up against Snow White now, then we can expect to see the Miners at any moment."

A fourth arrow glances off Alice's armor.

"Got you!" Marion declared, shooting confidently.

"I see him!" Eliza announces.

Marion and Eliza stalk off the path and into the undergrowth, hunting the Huntsman.

Fredericia finishes with Isobel's wound and helps her to her feet, just in time for the Miners to appear from the woods. The seven of them encircle Alice, Fredericia, Isobel, and me, wielding hammers and pickaxes.

"Evildoers, beware!" Alice proclaims with a flourish of her sword. "In the name of the White Rabbit, I will smite you all!"

There is no chance for a nonviolent resolution this time. Too many enemies attack us with too much deadly force. I briefly spar with the nearest Miner, but my daggers are faster than his hammer. I turn on my heel and dodge a pickaxe as it comes at me.

In my peripheral vision, I see Isobel in her wolf form maul one opponent, and Alice's sword take down another. The disengaged Miners hack away at the coach, destroying its wheels.

Fredericia parries a pickaxe with her shortsword and jeers at her attacker. "I've had better hits from drunken grandmothers!"

I dispatch another Miner and see Isobel and Alice do the same.

Fredericia dodges another attack and laughs. "You have one job: hit things. How are you so bad at it?"

Her attacker yells in wordless frustration and swings wildly. He loses his balance and falls heavily to the ground. Fredericia quickly finishes him with her blade.

With the Miners gone, I look around for Marion and Eliza. "Where…?"

Isobel sniffs the air and points into the woods. "Their scents are getting stronger. They'll be back in a moment."

When they appear, Marion has an extra quiver full of white arrows.

"We got the Huntsman," Eliza explains.

"We handled the Miners," Alice responds.

I say, "My question is: how far behind them is Snow White?"

We don't have an answer.

Marion and Isobel manage to round up the three remaining horses again. We walk them with us out of the Witchwood.

Someone stands in the center of the Tower Street/Sherwood Way intersection.

Marion asks me, "Should we go around?"

Alice says, "They could be friendly."

Isobel disagrees: "They could be another of the Fairy Godmother's agents."

Fredericia asks, "Do you see that gown? It could be a princess. If it's Snow White, she won't be happy we defeated her minions."

We draw closer. The girl has black hair and the palest skin I've ever seen. She's smaller than I had expected, though, and very slender.

"She's so young," I say. "That girl hasn't even finished growing yet. She can't really be a threat."

I continue forward and my friends follow behind. Soon I can see the girl's blood red lips and sparkling dark eyes. She is easily the loveliest child in the world. I lose all apprehensions of our meeting. I feel almost as if I had suddenly come face-to-face with a helpless kitten. I want to protect her, dote on her, provide for her.

"Good afternoon," I tell the girl. "I'm Red. Are you lost? Can I help?"

The girl gives me a hopeful, pleading look. "You can help, Robin Wood! You can come with me, without a fight."

I blink. "Princess Blanche?"

She blows a cloud of stinking purple gas at me. My skin breaks out in hives so itchy and painful that I can't hold back my screams.

I'm vaguely aware of a furry, snarling streak, and Alice shouting, "Isobel, no! She's just a child!"

It's hard to keep track of what's going on until Eliza pours a vial of sweet liquid into my mouth. The poison's effects immediately stop.

When I return to my senses, I see Fredericia singing to Princess Blanche, who sleeps with her head in our bard's lap. Eliza is administering a potion to Marion. Isobel pats Alice in a vaguely comforting way as the latter twitches on the ground, scratching at hives and crying in pain. Eliza gives Alice a potion, too, and the symptoms cease.

Fredericia gives me a quizzical look, continuing her song.

"I don't know," I admit. "For all we know, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are already escaping their prisons and coming after us. We have nowhere to stash this child, and we can't safely let her go free."

Alice sits up. "We have to take her with us."

Fredericia scowls but doesn't miss a note.

"I don't like it," Isobel says.

"I don't know…" Eliza hesitates.

"We have no other options," Marion insists.

All five look at me. I pause and swallow down the fluttering terror in my throat. "We have to take her with us," I decide.

We carefully gag the girl so she can't use her poison attacks, then tie her on one of the horses with rope. I nod to Fredericia, who ends her sleep-song. Princess Blanche jerks awake and cries, but doesn't struggle.

We continue on Sherwood Way towards Royal City.

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