Dropping his head, he said nothing.
“You don’t have to make it up to me,” she said.
“I know,” he said. And the white cat nosed the paper bag toward Julie’s feet.
She couldn’t refuse a peace offering from Boots—they were rare. Julie picked up the bag. What if it was candy from the gingerbread house? She shouldn’t eat anything from there. She could pretend to eat and then throw it out. Opening the bag, she took out a sandwich and lifted the bread: ham and cheese with mustard. She would have felt safer with PB&J, but it wasn’t so bad. At worst, it was one of the Three Little Pigs. She owed Boots an apology for being suspicious. “We can split it,” she offered.
“There’s more,” the white cat said.
“That’s okay,” Boots said simultaneously. “I don’t need any.”
Looking for a second sandwich, Julie rooted through the bag: napkins, crackers . . . a Red Delicious apple. Oh, no.
A red apple. In the Wild.
She tried to toss the bag. Instead, her hand pulled out the apple, and the empty bag fell to her feet. “Boots . . .” she said. He flinched as if she’d hit him. Ears flattened, looking miserable, he huddled on the forest floor. Beside him, Precious watched her with an unreadable expression.
Throw it, she told her arm. Drop it! Now! Her muscles wouldn’t obey, and her hand lifted the apple to her mouth.
No, no, no! But her mouth opened, and her teeth sank into the apple’s red skin. The wet crunch seemed to echo, and she tasted the juice on her tongue.
“Sorry, Julie,” Boots whispered. The white cat purred. And everything went black.
Thud. A sudden jolt. Julie hacked—apple bits flew out of her throat.
Air! She needed air! She gasped in and her lungs squeezed. Coughing, she bent up, and her forehead smacked into something solid. She flattened back down.
She opened her eyes, wincing. Warped through glass, she saw blue sky, a smear of leaves, and seven faces pressed against the glass peering down at her. She screamed and recoiled—directly into more glass.
She was enclosed: glass on all sides. She pounded on it. “Let me out!” she shouted. “Let me out of here!” She pushed upward with her hands and her feet.
She heard a click, and the glass coffin opened. She sat up quickly, and the world swam. She squeezed her eyes shut. What happened? Where was she? Gingerly, she felt her head and opened her eyes.
She was surrounded by dwarves.
“Oh, no, not you,” she said. She scooted backward. How did she get with them? She remembered the apple . . .
Oh, idiot.
“My Snow White,” a boy’s voice said.
Boots, what have you done? Why did you do it? She thought of the white cat. How convenient that Boots found the one thing he always wanted right when Julie was close to the motel. She’d worried that Precious was part of a story bit, but she hadn’t thought about any other kind of trap, a voluntary trap. Had Precious been a bribe or a reward? It was bad enough thinking that the Wild had used her own brother as an unwitting pawn, but to think that Boots had chosen to betray her . . .
A boy—fourteen or fifteen with curly black hair—strode across the clearing. “Oh, fair beauty!” he cried. She looked over her shoulder to see if there was someone behind her, someone prettier. But there was only the forest, silent and shadowed.
The dwarves hurried in front of the coffin, in between her and the prince. “Run!” they shouted. “Hurry!” Julie swung one leg over to climb out of the coffin, and the prince pushed through the dwarves as if they were no more than shrubbery in his way.
“Julie!” the dwarves shouted. They do know my name, she thought. “The kiss ends the story! The kiss is an ending! You’re about to forget!” they said.
And the prince was in front of her. She was trapped, half in and half out of the coffin. Trees hemmed her in on all sides—had they moved closer? She could no longer see the dwarves, just the prince. He was going to kiss her? A zillion scenes from movies flashed through her head. Inches from her, his nose loomed huge. She shouldn’t let him kiss her—it would end the story. But she felt frozen; her limbs wouldn’t move.
Gently, he placed his lips on hers. Her eyes were wide open—his eyes were so close they blurred into one oblong iris. His lips felt soft and warm. His mouth opened, and she felt his tongue move between her lips. It felt like fried egg in her mouth. She yanked away.
He looked at her and she stared back at him. He’d kissed her. She’d never been kissed before. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She wasn’t sure she didn’t like it. She thought she might want to try it again. But he didn’t move toward her. He didn’t even smile. Had she done it wrong? He opened his mouth to speak, and she didn’t breathe. “And they lived happily ever after,” he said in a flat voice—as flat as the Wild when it spoke through Boots.