Except her mother. And her grandmother. And Gillian. And Boots.
Julie released her father’s hand as if it had stung her. She had forgotten. Oh, God, she’d forgotten they were still in the Wild. She’d forgotten this wasn’t real. She’d been caught up in just as much of a dream as after she’d eaten the apple, but she didn’t have the excuse of no memory. How had she let that happen? How could she have forgotten?
Her father looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”
She felt sick. This might have been the best afternoon of her life, but it wasn’t hers. It was the Wild’s. Suddenly, the stone walls felt darker, closer, and she thought of dungeon walls. This was just a pretty cage. All of this . . . “What story are we in?” she asked.
He seemed confused, but did she know that it wasn’t an act? She blinked fast. Her eyes felt hot. Dad. Daddy. Did she know that the Wild wasn’t controlling his every action? Did he know? “What do you mean?” he asked.
“You, me, the castle—what is it? Is there a spindle somewhere? A forbidden door? What?” Her voice cracked. Blinking faster, she took off walking down the hall. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry.
Her father followed. “Julie, I don’t understand. Aren’t you happy here?”
Yes, she was, and that’s what made it all the worse. She wanted very badly to be wrong. She wanted to believe that this was real, that her father had spent these hours with her by choice, that he wasn’t a puppet in the Wild’s story . . . Please, let me be wrong. Please . . .
It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Julie wished that it had taken a lifetime. She walked up to it, the last door on the hallway—a wooden door with flaking purple paint, odd amid the golden doors. It had a modern doorknob and a peephole under a plastic sign. ROOM THIRTEEN, she read.
A motel room door.
“You may have all the wonders this castle has to offer,” her father said in a wooden voice, “but you must not open this door.”
Of course. She should have known. No matter how the Wild disguised this place with televisions and books and games, it had to make this castle from its old stories. It couldn’t help itself. The Wild has to play by its own rules, her mom had said. Remember that. The Wild had to present her with this choice: either she could be the one who heeds the warning and stays or she could be the one who goes through the forbidden door and faces her fate. It was the only thing that made sense, the final game the Wild could play: she had to choose.
Her cheeks felt wet. She was crying, she realized. When had she started crying?
On the other side of this door was the Wishing Well Motel. On the other side of this door was the well, waiting for her to make the wish that would put everything back to normal.
Back to not fitting in. Back to Kristen laughing at her. Back to Mr. Wallace’s history quizzes and Cindy’s car rides and Mom’s dinner parties . . .
Back to a world where everyone knew she was Rapunzel’s daughter.
Their secret was out. Who knew what would happen? She could come home to find the media camped on her lawn. The tabloids would eat it up. The U.S. government could even be interested—the Wild had taken down a military helicopter, not to mention whatever else they’d thrown at it since. Scientists might probe and poke and study. She could be walking into a nightmare.
She could be walking into a world with no father.
Julie looked over her shoulder at her dad, and she felt her heart lurch into her throat. Dad. Her dad, alive and here. Candlelight behind him, he seemed to glow. But I am offering a gift: the world as it should be, the Wild had said. In here, life is fair. Everyone has a place. Everyone belongs. I am offering you what you’ve always wanted.
On the other side of this door was the real world, with all its embarrassments, disappointments, and losses. In here was happily ever after. Here was the father she’d always dreamed of having. Yes, he was the Wild’s puppet, but he was here. She had a chance to make up for all those lost years. If she stayed with him, she would always belong. She would always have a role, the prince’s daughter. The future wouldn’t be a scary unknown. The Wild had made her a story of her own, cobbled together from the stories and people it knew she wanted, including a very special incentive: the one character who had not escaped its control. It was offering her a gift, and it was betting that she would take it. It was betting that she would choose to stay here and be forever safe. “Safe inside the Wild,” she murmured.
And yet . . . five hundred years ago, Mom had chosen the real world over the Wild, and Dad had sacrificed himself to give it to her. Was this how Mom had felt when she looked down the well at her prince and had to make her wish? Julie felt as if she’d swallowed a tornado, and it was churning inside her, tearing her up.