Suddenly, the mountain leveled off. She had reached the magician’s thigh. She looked down—a long, long way down—and bit back a squeak. Paws clenched on the robe, her legs shook. The linoleum swam beneath her. She clung to the terry cloth. Her mouse heart pattered like a snare drum. What a terrible idea this was. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a mouse acrobat.
She had been much higher in the ogre’s hat and on the griffin’s back, she told herself. After a long minute, she was able to move again. She gritted her mouse teeth and continued her climb: up the front lapel of the bathrobe and along the sleeve. She focused on one inch at a time. Concentrating, she forgot to be afraid.
Before she knew it, she was at the table. She scurried across the magician’s arm and onto the table, landing with a sharp click of claws on glass.
Oh, wow, she did it. She couldn’t believe she did it. She looked down. The frosted glass table warped her view of the floor below. She saw Boots watching her, and she waved with her tail. He flicked his tail in the air as if snapping a whip.
She hurried around the magician’s head. His pimples were the size of anthills. His nostrils widened like sails as he breathed. The wind of his breath ruffled her fur. She sniffed at his sandwich.
Yes! He’d used pepper. She dipped her tail into the olive oil smeared on the bread and then rolled her tail in pepper; then she scurried over to the magician. Leaning onto her front paws, she stuck her peppery tail up his nostril. She wiggled it.
The magician sneezed, and the hurricane blew her across the table. She tumbled, paws over tail. The ring clanged as it hit the table and rolled. He snorted. Scrambling her paws under her, Julie ran for the ring. As it tipped toward the edge, she caught it.
The magician rubbed his nose, and his eyelashes fluttered.
Ring in her mouth, Julie ran for the umbrella hole in the patio table. She dove through and slid on her stomach down the table leg. Crashing onto the ground, she oomphed, and the ring fell out of her mouth and clattered on the tile. The magician shifted above her. “Wha . . . wha . . .” he said. She bit the ring and ran across the floor toward the barbecue grill. Butting her head against the wand, she squeaked, “From a mouse to a girl!”
She popped back into her original size.
The magician lifted his head. “Hey, who . . .” Spitting out the ring, she shoved it on her finger. Boots tucked the ogre’s wand into his boot and leapt into Julie’s arms.
“Take me to my mother,” she shouted at the ring. “Take me to Rapunzel!” The magician charged up the aisle—and the store vanished.
Part Three
The Well
Chapter Eighteen
The Problem with Short Hair
For the thousandth time, Zel peered out the window. The view hadn’t changed much since she’d been imprisoned here. Occasionally, a beanstalk rose and fell. Once in a while, a glass hill appeared. Earlier, she had seen a giant-ogre stride across the landscape. Leaning out over the sill, she scanned the horizon for any hint of the one thing she wanted to see: if the Wild had trapped Julie.
Julie wasn’t the third son or the youngest of seven daughters. She didn’t have butter-yellow hair or skin as plastic smooth as Barbie’s. What would the Wild make her be? What if she was forced to play a stepsister? Or a stepmother? Or a serving maid who displaced a princess?
Breathe, Zel told herself. Most likely, one of the others had saved her. Julie could be in Florida with the fairy godmother right now. Or she could be in Cindy’s car, fleeing across the Midwest. She could be at a McDonald’s in Indiana.
Or she could be trapped in a gingerbread house.
Or inside a wolf’s stomach.
Or at the bottom of a well.
Zel resumed her pacing. She hated this. She had hated it centuries ago, and she hated it now. All she could do in this idiotic tower was think and worry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurl herself at the Wild and tear it apart branch by branch.
Been there; tried that. Was she doomed to repeat it all? Would she ever see her daughter again? She thought of her husband, and suddenly it hurt to swallow. It could happen, she realized. She could lose them both. She wouldn’t get to see Julie grow up. She’d never see her graduate. She’d never attend her daughter’s wedding. She would never see the time come when Julie was ready to be friends, not just mother and daughter. Some idiot had made a wish and, in seconds, taken it all away from her.
No, not an idiot: someone who knew exactly when Gothel would be away from the well, someone who knew the three bears would be guarding it, someone who knew their habits and weaknesses. All the evidence pointed to one of their own kind. But how could anyone who knew this world as it truly was want to return to it? No matter how many years passed, no matter how bad their lives were outside the Wild, how could anyone forget that “fairy-tale perfect” was a lie? Maybe an ordinary person, someone who didn’t know firsthand, could glorify the Wild Wood, but Zel could not imagine how bad life would have to be to knowingly choose this endless oblivion—and to knowingly condemn everyone to this hell. Yes, hell. Zel closed her eyes and took a deep, ragged breath, trying to stay calm. It couldn’t be one of their own who did this. She knew that much.