Chapter 21!sorry I haven't updated, but I started a new story and I wanted to post as many chapters as I could before I forgot them. So is everyone having a good weekend? Not me, I'm sick . My parents say I should be well by Monday, but I ask you: is that really a good thing? I mean, if I'm going to be miserable, it could at least be on a school day. Oh, well.
Let the quest for love continue!
Pinnochio and Daphne walked through the forest. Daphne led the way.
"Are you sure it's this way?" Pinnochio asked.
"Positive," Daphne said, not even looking at him.
Finally they reached a huge castle, though it had recently been abandoned. This was the fort that the everafters had built to hide from the scarlet hand what seemed like centuries ago. It was abandoned because when the Ferryport Landing barrier was broken, so were the other boundary spells like the one that had surrounded the very fort at which Daphne and Pinnochio stood in front of that very day.
"Let's get this over with," Daphne said, and marched right through the front gates with Pinnochio following close behind.
When they got inside the fort, Daphne and Pinnochio gasped in unison. The place was a disaster. Broken weapons and pieces of the fort walls lay everywhere. Every room in the place had been ransacked. The gardens that some of the everafters had worked so hard on were now nothing but trampled, shriveled weeds in soil that looked too dry for a cactus.
But Pinnochio and Daphne weren't concerned as much with the state of the place as you'd think. Pinnochio was trying to find the thing Daphne had suggested the riddle spoke of, while Daphne was thinking that they should have added a moat and better walls.
In the distance, Pinnochio caught a look at something green and bushy with white flowers.
"There it is!" he exclaimed. "Briar Rose's grave!"
He walked over to it and was happy to see that it was unharmed. It looked a little out of place, being a beautiful sight in the middle of carnage.
Pinnochio stood there, looking at the rose bush, waiting for some kind of sign.
"What are we supposed to do?" Pinnochio asked.
"Well," Daphne said, "the riddle tells us to follow the path of her scorn, so…we look for angry fairies?"
Suddenly the air got cold. Pinnochio shivered, even though it was the middle of July. He looked at the grave and saw something very strange. He saw a ghost, enveloped in white light. She emitted a cold feeling, as if she were made of snow.
"Briar Rose," Pinnochio said in awe.
The ghost of Briar Rose didn't smile. Instead, at the mention of her name she got a look of longing on her face, as if remembering good times. "Yes," she said in a voice that was pretty, but also had a hint of something like a banshee, "Yes, that was what I was called in life. Yes, I remember now".
"What?" Pinnochio asked.
"Pinnochio," Daphne said, "When someone dies and becomes a ghost, they usually don't remember anything from their life. It takes them a while to remember their own name".
Pinnochio looked at Briar Rose. "do you remember who I am?"
Briar cocked her head to the side. "…No. should I?"
"Yes," Pinnochio said. "I was the friend of your boyfriend's nieces".
"I had a boyfriend?" Briar asked with wide eyes.
"Yes," Pinnochio said. "Jake Grimm. You remember his at least, don't you?"
Briar thought about this for a while. "Jake Grimm…Jake…Yes, that name seems familiar. Was he the one who gave me this?" she held out her left hand, and Pinnochio saw a ring on it.
"Yes, you remember!" Pinnochio said.
"Yes, I think I do," Briar Rose said. "Yes, Jake". She looked at her ring with a look of loving.
"Anyways, we're here because we need your help," Pinnochio said. "You wouldn't happen to know where Maleficent lives, do you?"
"Maleficent?" Briar said. "Who is she?"
"She's the one who put the sleeping curse on you," Pinnochio said. "Don't you remember?"
"I was put under a sleeping spell? Is that how I died?"
"No!" Pinnochio was starting to get annoyed. "You died from a dragon attack. Please, you have to help us. You have to remember. We need to find her".
Briar looked at the former marionette. She seemed to be trying to remember, but couldn't. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who this 'Maleficent' is. But I can still help you". She turned around and plucked a white rose from the bush. She brought it close to her lips and blew. Frost covered the petals, then melted.
"This will lead you to one person from my past," Briar said, placing it in Pinnochio's hand. "The colder it gets, the closer you are to your destination. But be careful. Roses are fragile things. It will age just like a normal rose would. When the last petal falls, it will stop doing what it was designed to do".
"That means we have only a few days to find her," Pinnochio said. "We have to get moving". And with that, Pinnochio grabbed Daphne's hand and ran out of the fort, the temperature of a rose the only thing to guide him
So there's chapter 7! I might write chapter 8 today, if I'm well enough to do so. Bye bye now! Achoo!