Chapter twenty three:
Darling was all alone in a clearing deep within the Enchanted forest, this clearing was where she went every day to practice in privacy with her sword. This morning Darling was very much enjoying going through her moves with her new sword, the blade felt absolutely perfect in her hand, she found it easy to use and Darling had no doubt at all that she would have no issues in using Draco effectively in battle should she ever need to.
Darling had never felt so in harmony with a sword before and to her this was a wonderful feeling, one which she really wished she had been able to experience before now. Darling couldn't wait to get in more practice with the blade and to be able to use it in one of her adventures.
Suddenly Darling lit with a bright golden glow edged with a rainbow light from within her, the unexpectedness with which this occurred caused Darling to gasp in surprise. This was followed just a moment later by a fear filled scream which filled the air around Darling, though there was no one there to make the sound, this scream sent a spear of anxiety and dread through her, because Darling knew without a doubt who was screaming and said to herself in apprehension. "Raven!"
Darling quickly sheathed her sword, she set off towards the school at a run, as she did so Darling pulled out her mirror phone and made a call to Maddie. The moment it was answered Darling didn't even allow her to say hello before she started speaking in a serious and urgent voice. "Maddie! Something has happened to Raven, I don't know what it is, but I feel sure that it is something very bad! Get Kitty and Cerise and meet me in the main hall!"
"Rodger right!" Maddie responded without hesitation before quickly ending the call.
On her way back to the school she ran past her brothers, they both instantly turned and came running up to Darling's side. "Darling! What's wrong?!" Dexter asked her in a worried voice as he ran along beside her.
"Something has happened to Raven, something bad! I don't have any idea what it is yet, but I heard her terrified scream and whatever is happening to Raven cause our true love bond to flare!" Darling explained in to him response to the question.
"That can't be good!" Daring exclaimed in horror.
Darling nodded to him. "Agreed!"
"We'll help you any way we can! We were off to sword practice when we ran into you, so we are armed." Dexter declared to his twin.
"Thank you both!" Darling told them in a grateful voice.
As they came rushing into the main hall of the school, Maddie, Kitty and Cerise were waiting for them there. The Charming siblings halted from their run, while at the same time Kitty, Maddie and Cerise quickly came up to them. "Darling! Do you know what has happened?"
Quickly Darling shook her head. "I heard a fearful scream from all about me, it caused my true love for Raven to flare up! I know because of that reaction that Raven is in danger!"
Maddie's eyes went wide with realisation and bit out a Wonderland curse. "Bandersnatch's bites!"
"Maddie my love what is it?" Kitty asked the hatter with concern.
"Today is the time of month when Raven does her duty to her mirrored mother and goes and spends some moments of the clock with her." Maddie explains to Kitty.
"Raven went to see her mother today, didn't she?" Darling enquired of Kitty in a distressed and angry voice, while dread rushed through her whole being.
Kitty's face darkened and she gave Darling a single nod of the head in response to this question.
"Curses!" Daring bit out furiously as he saw the nod, before saying to them all. "Okay, we need a plan!"
Instantly Darling took command of the situation. "The first thing we need to do is to tell the headmaster something terrible has happened to Raven and we should inform him that we think it more than likely has something to do with the Evil Queen. I am sure that the headmaster will know where Raven has to go to visit her mother and I am sure once he is informed of what has happened that the headmaster will be willing to help us with defeating her."
"If it is the Evil Queen, then how do we deal with her?" Cerise asked with focused curiosity.
"Well Raven told me, that the sword she gave me can cut through spells, so I should at least be able to defend myself and the rest of you from her magic. The best thing to do would probably be to somehow return her to the prison she was in before her escape or to find some way to contain the Evil Queen until she can be transported back to her prison…Kitty, Cerise do you think that between you, that you can somehow trick the Evil Queen into whatever we can find to hold her or back into her prison if we need you both too?"
Kitty gave Darling a feral smile, while Cerise nodded and said to her. "It will be our pleasure!"
"We just need to work out what we can use to contain the Evil Queen if we cannot fool her into returning to her prison. Does anyone have any ideas?" Darling asked them all.
After a few moments of thoughtful silence Daring spoke up. "What about a bag of holding? It will contain anything that is put into or pushed into it's opening once it has been untied at the top. That means that all we have to do is opened the top as wide as possible, push the Evil Queen towards it so that she makes contact with the entrance and then she will be sucked into the bag. This bag it made of a material made like metal, it could withstand the claws of a Bandersnatch and not be damaged at all. We then tie the bag closed and it will hold the Evil Queen until she is released into her original and hopefully newly reinforced prison."
"A bag of holding is a great idea!" Darling said enthusiastically.
"I have one of those!" Maddie announced in triumph, before sweeping her top hat off and riffling around inside it, she threw out a few odd items, before digging deeper and deeper into it until the upper half her body was inside the top hat and Kitty was holding onto her waist in order to prevent Maddie from falling into it.
"Ah ha! Got it!" She called out eventually, then with Kitty's help Maddie came back out of the hat. Once Maddie was on her feet, they all noticed that she was holding in her hands a seemingly normal, yellow brown small pouch bag.
"Is that it?!" Daring asked her incredulously.
Maddie nodded to him as she said to them all. "Yep! This is the one. Don't be fooled by its outer size, or plain looking appearance! It is all but an illusion which is like those from caterpillar smoke! The bag is a bottomless pit that can hold anything at all, without it ever gaining freedom from the bag until you desire like the dawn for its return!"
Darling quickly turned to Maddie and said to her. "Okay, Maddie you should be the one to hold the bag, you are the one who knows best how to use it. Kitty and Cerise can help keep the Evil Queen's attention off of you if necessary, however if they don't need to or can't for any reason, do you comfortable getting close to the Evil Queen to use the bag of holding on her?"
Maddie gave her a nod, before saying assuring too Darling. "I shall show my brave heart and send her within the bag no matter what!"
Darling the turned her gaze to Daring and asked him. "I assume you have your enchanted sword with you?"
Daring nodded to her. "I do."
"And you Dexter?" Darlin asked him firmly.
"Yes, I have mine too." Dexter assured his twin.
"Good, then you can help me go up against the Evil Queen. We should really grab our shields, but that might take too much time." Darling said to them fretfully.
"I can use my speed and go fetch them!" Cerise offered without prompting.
Darling gave her a grateful smile. "That would be wonderful thank you!"
With a jaunty solute for Darling Cerise dashes off into the school to fetch the shields. Darling felt a small amount of relief as Cerise left to grab their shields, as Darling knew that it would hold them in good stead to make sure that they were armed well before going into a fight with the Evil Queen. "Good, that is that problem sorted out."
Darling then turned her full attention onto Maddie and inquires of her. "Do you know where Raven goes to visit her mother?"
Maddie shakes her head and says nervously to Darling. "No, Raven is not permitted to mention much of it."
Darling looked into Maddie's eyes before saying to her in a gentle, but serious voice. "Is there anything else you can tell us about what happens on days like this? Anything at all? It doesn't matter how small and inconsequential you think it is it may well be the key to helping Raven."
The young hatter sits very still, it is clear to them all that she is thinking over the days when Raven goes to visits to her mother to try to see if she could recall something which might help to save her friend. Then slowly her Maddie recalled something, she spoke slowly, trying to keep her voice steady and without any Riddleish so she could be completely understood by the others. "There is a recollection…One time…Raven said that in order to see her mother, she first had to go to see the headmaster. Raven never said why, but I am sure she said she had to go to him."
Darling gave her a grateful smile. "Thank you, for telling us that Maddie, I know that it cannot have been an easy thing for you to have done."
"It was as hard as upright is to find on sunny days…Though at most I can manage your strait sain tongue for some small measures of time, those little ticking of the clock are rather hard for me." Maddie confirmed to her.
"Right, once Cerise returns with our shields we should make our way to the headmaster's office. Unless anyone has an objection or something else, they would like to add to our plans?" Darling said to them all.
"Should we make others in the school aware of what is going on?" Kitty queried curiously.
Quickly Daring and Darling shook their heads. "No I don't think that would be a good idea, I think that accept those who absolutely need to know no one should know the truth, at least not for now as knowing the Evil Queen s free might cause a panic, which we don't need at this time. We do however need to start getting people away from the school before the Evil Queen can start doing anything to harm others. Any ideas how we can do that without causing a mass panic or mentioning the Evil Queen to any of them?"
This question caused another thoughtful silence to descend over the small group. After giving it some though Kitty spoke up with the idea which had come to her. "What if we simply pull one of the fire alarms? It would mean that students and staff would perform a fire drill which would make them gather outside the school and therefore out of the Evil Queen's immediate reach. If things become worse, then we can somehow get information to them in order to get both the students and teachers further away from the school."
"That is a good idea, but we would need to run it passed the headmaster first. So don't go pulling any fire alarms just yet." Darling tells the mischievous Kitty in a firm voice.
Before Kitty or Darling could say any more on this subject Cerise reappeared, she was carrying the three shields under her arms. "Here we are!" She announced to them holding out the shields to the Charming siblings.
"Thank you Cerise." Darling said gratefully taking from Cerise her shield.
Daring shot Cerise a grateful look, as he accepted his shield from her. "Many thanks Cerise."
Dexter smiled at her while he took his shield from Cerise too. "Thank you so much Cerise."
"You are welcome." She assured them.
"Okay let's make our way to the headmaster's office." Darling said to the others commandingly.
They all nodded their agreement in response to these words and then they set off to the headmaster's office together.
When they reached the office, they entered the outer office were Mrs Trollsworth sat at her desk performing her duties as the headmaster's sectary. As they entered the office, she looked up at them with a scowl on her face, but when she saw the armed Charming's and the serious expressions on the faces of the all the students in the group, this expression dropped from her face and was instead replaced with a look of uneasiness. "What are you all doing here armed like this?"
"We don't have time to explain it all. Please believe me when I say that this is an emergency situation and we need to see the headmaster now!" Darling told her in a commanding voice which spoke of the future Queen she would be one day.
Seeing the serious expression on Darling's face, Mrs Trollsworth nodded to them, she picked up her phone and called through to the headmaster's inner office. "Sir, Miss Charming is here, with her brothers, Miss Hood, Miss Hatter and Miss Cheshire, they say they have an emergency and need to see you right away. Yes sir."
Mrs Tollsworth put the phone down and addressed them. "You may go in."
"Thank you." Darling said to her appreciatively, before she and the others made their way through the door and into the headmaster's office.
The moment they entered the room, Milton and his brother who had clearly been doing something with some paperwork looked up at them. The grim brothers could tell right away from the expressions on the faces of the students and the fact that the Charming's had come here armed that something very bad was going on. "What is the matter?" Milton asked them in a firm voice.
Without any hesitation Darling answered him. "Something horrible has happened to Raven. Before you ask me I know this is so because my true love bond to her flared into life and I heard a scream from the air around me, a scream which I am sure was Raven's. Maddie tells me that she went to visit her mother this morning and I am sure that something terrible has happened to Raven during this visit. Maddie also said you are the only one to know were Raven goes to see her mother, please headmaster we need to know where Raven is right now."
As Darling had told them all of this, both Milton's and Giles's facial expressions had morphed from ones of enquiry to ones of distress. "Raven hasn't returned from her visit?" Milton asked, his voice full of shock and horror.
"No." Darling confirmed, while Maddie also shook her head at the same time.
"Curses!" Milton bit off furiously.
Darling addressed him again. "What ever is going on with the Evil Queen, it might be best to get the other students and the staff as far away from the castle as possible so they are not pulled into a bad situation. We considered a fire alarm in order to get everyone out of the school, but we wanted to talk to you before we took any action. I need to make it clear to you, that we do need to take action and quickly as I am sure that we don't have much time to deal with the Evil Queen. We have a plan to confine the Evil Queen using a bag of holding so that she cannot escape until you return her to her prison. It might be wise that the prison is reinforced before she is rereleased into it again."
Milton nodded to her. "I quite agree that we need to keep staff and students safe from her. Your plan of how to trap the Evil Queen should work well and the idea of a fire alarm is not a bad one…The evacuation point is quiet a distance outside the school…People would react to it calmly…I think we should do as you have suggested. I think that you are wise to suggest that we reinforce the Evil Queen's prison before we put her back into it. First however let's get the fire alarm going so we can get rescuing Raven and prevent the Evil Queen from causing harm to anyone else."
After he said this the headmaster lifted his phone, he made a call to Mrs Tollsworth and when she answered Milton addressed her in a very serious voice. "Yes, we need to perform a fire drill, yes I know it's not the expected time for one, however it is very important that all the staff, children and yourself leave the school. This is a potentially hazardous situation this is because we believe the Evil Queen is up to something malevolent and we don't want the children and staff to become her targets if whatever she is doing to Raven is not a success. I am telling you this information, because if things go badly for us you will need to pass this information to madam Yaga and professor Badwolf so they can take charge. Give us an hour no more, no less to deal with her, do you understand?"
They didn't hear Mrs Tollsworth's answer, but the headmaster said to her. "Thank you."
Milton put the phone down then looked around the room at all of them. "The fire alarm will sound momentarily and I will then open the way to where Raven's mother's mirror prison is kept."
These words where met with nods of agreement from those in office. Just a moment later the fire alarm began to blare loudly. The headmaster walked around the desk, he pressed the button there to reveal the hidden entrance to the tower room.
The students and Giles look at him wide eyed, shocked to know that all this time the prison of the Evil Queen was inside the school an air of disbelief settled on them for a moment, but it is quickly dispersed as the head master made his way towards the door and signalled for them to follow him.
Without a moment's hesitation the group followed him from the office, through the door and onto the stairs on the other side. Slowly and as quietly as was possible they made their way up the stairs and towards the wooden door at the end.
When they reached the door, Milton went to open the door but his hand was caught by Darling. This caused him to shoot her a confused look, Darling firmly shook her head at him and pushed his hand back to his side. She then gestured her brother's forwards, the three of them position their shields on their arms and draw their swords.
The three Charming siblings look at each other, then once they are happy that they are prepared for what they might encounter inside they nodded to each other. Darling puts her hand out, pushes the door handle down and then opens the door.
