The mass of lion-eagle-serpent uncoiled, and Julie shrank back. Standing, he towered, dinosaur-sized, over them. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I am a great admirer. I have studied her deeds in the Great Battle. We have never had a hero like her.”
“Mom’s not a hero,” Julie said automatically. “She’s Rapunzel.”
“She rode into battle on the back of my grandfather,” the griffin said proudly. “Ah, it must have been glorious.”
“Messy, actually,” Boots said. “Stories ending left and right. Friends forgetting and turning into enemies right before our eyes. Still have nightmares about it.”
Julie realized her mouth was hanging open. She shut it. Her mother was in a battle? She pictured Mom with scissors in one hand and a curl brush in the other riding a griffin. “You’re joking.”
“It was genius strategy,” the griffin said, “a plan that no one but the brilliant Rapunzel could have concocted. And it would have succeeded . . .”
“. . . if it weren’t for the whole doomed-to-failure part,” Boots said.
The griffin glared at him. “It would have succeeded had not the odds been so overwhelming. How does one fight a force of nature? You’d do as well to reject gravity.”
Julie felt excitement rising. Could this be true? Could this Great Battle be Mom’s secret past? “What happened?”
“We lost,” Boots said shortly. “It won.”
“Through deceit, the Wild recaptured the valiant rebels,” the griffin said.
“Tricked into story endings; forced to reenact beginnings; memories gone,” Boots said. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“But someone did stop the Wild,” Julie said. “It was defeated.”
“Yes, but it was many, many years later,” the griffin said. “Many, many years of repeating the same actions, saying the same words . . .”
“How was it stopped?” she pressed.
The griffin looked uncomfortable. “My grandfather says that none but Rapunzel and her prince know. But all know the glory of her battle!” (“Once they remembered it,” Boots interjected.) “Minstrels sing of it! Poets write of it!” The griffin fanned his wings and crowed. Julie clapped her hands over her ears. She lowered them when the griffin settled down again. “She went to battle to break the endless cycles of stories by preventing the endings. She and her army chopped beanstalks before Jacks could climb them, stole glass shoes before princes could find them . . . For a while, there was glorious chaos!”
“And then it ended,” Boots interrupted.
The griffin bowed his head. “And then it ended,” he intoned.
“Can we get on with this, please?” Boots said. “Are you going to give us a ride or not?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the griffin said. He ruffled his feathers. “You know the rules? Of course, you do. You are Rapunzel’s daughter.” He lowered his head to the bridge. “Climb on my back and we’ll be off.”
Julie couldn’t picture it: her mother in a battle. Their Rapunzel and her mother felt like two separate people. Their Rapunzel was a stranger. She had to know more. “But my mom—”
Boots interrupted: “The sooner we cross the ocean, the sooner we find Zel. She can tell you all about it then.”
He was right. She could ask Mom all her questions. Suddenly, Julie felt even more impatient to find her. Holding on to feathers, Julie climbed onto the griffin.
The griffin raised his head, and Julie and the cat slid down the neck feathers until Julie’s thighs hit the griffin’s shoulders. “Wish he came with seat belts,” Julie said. She held on to two five-foot feathers as the griffin pumped his wings. Half hopping, half running, the griffin headed for the end of the bridge. His wings pumped harder. His paws pushed off beneath him. He leapt off the edge of the bridge.
They fell toward the roiling waters, and Julie’s stomach lurched; then his wings caught wind, and they were lifted up.
She felt as if she could fly forever. Beautiful blue water sparkled below her. Cool wind streamed in her face. She laughed out loud. “This is amazing!” she shouted into the wind. “Boots, isn’t this amazing?”
Shivering, Boots huddled in front of her.
Julie stretched her arms out to either side. She was soaring. Voice rumbling underneath her, the griffin said, “We are almost halfway across. Soon, I must rest.”
Julie peeked over the griffin’s neck. Water swelled and crested in windborne waves. Rest? “But there’s no land!”