Boots made a sound, half a meow and half a moan.
“Your mother is gone. Your father is gone. And you had no brothers or sisters,” the queen said.
“Except for me,” Boots said.
Both Girl and the queen turned. Even the white cat stopped eating to stare at him. He hung his head miserably. “You made me your brother,” he said. “Even when I abandoned you to enter the woods, you still called me brother.”
“A cat cannot be a brother. A cat is a companion,” the queen—the Wild—said. “I do not understand this.”
“You couldn’t,” Boots said to the Wild. To the white cat, he said, “I’m sorry, Precious, you’re everything I was searching for, but Julie’s right—I belong with my family. I wasn’t meant to be the villain; I want to be the brother.” He leapt off the table into the water. He meowed loudly as the water soaked his fur. For an instant, it looked as if he would leap out again, but then he flattened his ears and ran forward. Splashing across the floor, he bounded across the tops of toads and oysters toward the clock. Girl stepped aside. He shed his boots. Claws gouging the ornate wood, he scrambled up the clock. Perching on the rim of the face, Boots swatted at the hands.
Bong!
Water soaked her sandaled feet. She again wore jeans and a sweater. The key to the linen closet again was tucked in her front jeans pocket.
Bong!
Behind her, the queen shrieked. “No! I will not allow this!”
Bong!
“Stop her!” the queen shouted. Dishes rose up from the table and rolled past her. Spoons hopped beside them. They plunged off the table’s edge into the water.
Bong!
Three mice with canes ran into the hall and splashed into the shallows. A woman with a meat cleaver chased them. A hedgehog riding on a rooster raced behind them. “Find her a role!” the queen shouted.
Bong!
A shoe fell from the sky and landed in the prince’s hand. “I will marry the woman whose foot fits this slipper!” He held it over his head, and birds swooped low over it. The shoe overflowed with blood that ran down the prince’s arm as he advanced toward her. She retreated. What was happening? What was . . .
Bong!
A giant ogre echoed in the distance: “Fee, fie, foe, fum . . .”
Bong!
She remembered the ogre. She remembered the magician. She remembered the Wild. She remembered the trumpet player: her best friend, Gillian, who had sparked her memory at the ball. And she remembered herself. “Julie,” she said. “My name is Julie.”
Bong!
She could have been a princess with a palace and a prince and feasts and balls . . .
“Capture her!” the queen shouted. “Punish her! Stop her! Seize her!”
Julie saw torches and knives waved over cowled heads—a mob that surfaced out of the water. Splashing, she backed against the table as the mob spun into a circle. “Princess impersonator!” they shouted. “False princess! Villain!”
Bong!
“You shall dance in red-hot shoes!” the mob shouted. “You shall be put in a barrel with sharp nails and dragged up the street!”
Bong!
Circling, they brandished their torches. “You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar around your neck and shall eat burning coals ’til the flames burst forth from your throat!”
Bong!
One woman rose on the backs of salamanders. She leveled a scepter at Julie. “You will prick your finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel . . .”
Bong!
Midnight.
From the top of the clock, Puss-in-Boots yowled, “Julie, catch!” Pulling the ogre’s wand out of his boot with his teeth, he tossed it. It spun through the air. “Save our mother! Save Rapunzel! Run, Julie, run!” He was abruptly silent; the Wild must have seized his throat.
Splashing through the water, she ran for the wand. Torches dipped toward her as hands reached for her. She snatched the ogre’s wand out of the water. “From a girl to a fish!” She and the wand fell through the air. Belly-flopping into the water, she sank into the dark blue-green.
The wand! Where was the wand? She saw it, suspended in the murk. Wiggling her fin, she dove for it. Opening her fish lips, she aimed for the sinking stick. The wand hit her lips. She closed them firmly over it and kept wiggling. Zigzagging, she wove between human and animal legs.
On the other side of the lake, she flopped onto the shore. She spat out the wand and rolled on top of it. “From a fish to a girl!” Immediately, she morphed back into a girl.
She picked up the wand. She ran through the diamond forest, then the gold, then the silver. Behind her, she heard a thud—thud—thud. She looked over her shoulder as a giant lunged for her. She slapped his fingers with the wand. “Giant to rabbit!”