Should we stop now and then I can tell you the rest another time? No? Oh, you needn't get so excited, I was only teasing! Of course I'll tell you what happened, My goodness! This part of the story has been told for many years and everyone always talked about...

Gallant Jakob and Courageous Frederick

'Must breathe…' thought Jakob.

The witch's grip was like an iron vise as she squeezed tighter and tighter, her nails digging into the soft flesh of his neck. He grabbed her slender wrists with his large hands and tried to pull her hands away, but her grip was as tight as a hangman's noose. Frederick looked on in horror as Jakob's body went limp and his arms dropped to his sides as if he were giving up, but at the last moment he brought his arms up, full force under her forearms and slammed her hands away. Just a quickly he brought his right arm back around and caught the witch directly under her chin with the heel of his hand sending her flying backwards a few steps away from him. Jakob went reeling backwards a few steps as well, coughing and wheezing as he rubbed his neck and tried to shake off the remaining effects of the spell. He looked at his hands and saw streaks of blood where she had scratched his neck when he broke her grip on him. He so hoped those nails of hers weren't tipped with poison as he had heard before in so many tales from his childhood.

The old witch was now very angry at this new affront. Not only had he broken free, but he had stuck her! With a terrifying scream she regained her true ugly, misshapen form, her eyes flashed a brilliant red and she hissed baring her rotten, crooked teeth. She raised her right arm, fingers spread and bright blue lightening jumped from her fingertips directly towards Jake.

"I shall send you straight to hell!"

Frederick saw it coming first as Jake hadn't fully recovered from the witch's grip.

"Jake! No!" he shouted.

Frederick took a flying leap at Jakob literally body slamming him out of the way and onto the floor sending them both rolling away scattering seed and feathers everywhere.

"Thanks" coughed Jakob as he picked a feather off of his face and tossed it away.

The witch had missed her mark and was now heading for Jakob with fury in her eyes. Fred realized that the witch was now fixated on killing Jake and that her attention was no longer on him. He took this as the perfect opportunity to grab the flower and scoot away in the opposite direction. He had to protect it and keep it out of her possession.

She unleashed her fury on Jakob once again, but this time he was ready for it and dove out of the way. The lightening blast hit the stone floor and the impact caused the birds to panic in their cages, cooing frantically and sending feathers flying everywhere.

Frederick had made his way safely to the other side of the room and he winched at the sound of the blast hitting the stone floor. He couldn't really see, but he hoped that Jakob hadn't been in the path of that attack. He knew he had to do something fast to derail the old witch's plans while she was still after Jake. The Princess was the key and he had to find her, but sadly all the doves looked alike to him making that task all the harder.

"Oh my beloved Princess", he said mournfully, "which one are you?"

He had to take a chance and so not knowing how else to choose, he closed his eyes, spun around and when he stopped, he pointed forward. When he opened his eyes he walked up to the cage he had been pointing at.

"You're the one I'll start with", he announced trying to sound as if he had made a proper decision and not a frantic guess.

Swallowing hard he lightly touched the flower to the cage. There was an instant reaction. A cloud of blue and white smoke poofed up in front of him and a young girl appeared. Fred jumped back as his heart leapt into his throat. Her instant appearance had scared him out of his wits! However, fear quickly turned to disappointment as he realized she was not his beloved Princess. The girl was overjoyed to see Frederick and to find that she was at last free, but her joy turned to sheer panic as the old witch fired off another round at Jakob on the other side of the tower room. Letting out a tiny scream, she ran away from the sound of the blast, past Fred and cowered against the wall on the far side of the room.

Determined to find her, Fred touched another cage. The result was the same. He touched cage after cage, but still no luck.

"Nope…No, not you….not you either. Oh, saints in hell! I'm going to be here all day at this rate!"

He had gone through several cages and the group of girls at the back of the room had begun to grow, but still no Princess. He prayed that Jakob wasn't kidding when he said he was good at surviving attacks from witches and could keep her busy long enough for him to find her and get her and the newly freed girls out of there even if that meant coming back for Katherine and the others later after sunset and the equinox had passed.

Unfortunately for Frederick, the old witch heard the freed girl's tiny screams as they huddled as far away from the fireworks as they could as she took shots at Jakob.

"Give me that flower!" she bellowed as she headed in Fred's direction, "or your death will be far worse that you ever imagined!"

Jakob had successfully dodged her last blast and was now on his hands and knees trying to decide where to jump next when he heard her demand the flower from Frederick. He could see her heading for him as Fred was picking his way through the cages, bumping into them left and right, as he tried to get away from her. Jakob knew he was no match for her and she would have him in one shot, so he had to think quickly about how to draw her attention back to him, so that he could continue to free more of the girls.

Jake knelt there with his hands on his head in a semi state of panic, looking around for something that might help. Then he remembered the gold coins he had in his pack. He wasn't sure what he had in mind was going to work, but he had to try or lose Fred. Quickly he plunged both hands into his pack and coming up with two handfuls of gold; he tossed them across the stone floor at the witch sending birdseed and feathers flying everywhere.

"My gold!" she screamed as the coins rolled across the floor around her feet. "How did you get my gold?"

She began scrambling around snatching up coins and stuffing them in the pockets of her dress.

"Oh, you horrible, wretched creature!" she screamed at Jakob, "I shall make you suffer!"

This had the intended effect of distracting her away from Frederick, but the unintended consequence of making her even angrier at Jakob, if that were at all possible. Fred took this as his queue to continue hunting for the Princess. His lack of success so far was rather frustrating and he hoped he would find her soon so as not to expose Jake to the old witch's wrath for any longer that he had to.

The old witch turned on Jakob, heading straight for him, forcing him to crawl backward away from her until he bumped into a wall. He now had no where to go and she knew it. Raising her hands above her head, fingers spread wide; she tilted her head back and let out a roar of anger that literally shook the very foundations of the castle.

A bright blue glow began to surround her and the room grew deathly cold. A foul wind whipped up from around her feet much like the one she had created at the gingerbread house, but this was far more frightening and intense. The freezing wind was tearing through the room like a tornado, blowing feathers and seed out the windows and clearing the floor. The birds panicked and thrashed themselves against their cages trying to escape and Fred retreated to the far side of the room, hunkering down on the floor against the wall with the group of freed girls who were screaming in terror. There in the center of the deadly vortex stood the witch gathering every last ounce of power she could muster and as the wind closed in around her it whipped her clothes and hair about in a wild frenzy.

"Scheiße", muttered Jakob weakly, his face a pale mask of shock and fear, his brown eyes wide with terror, "No, no, no, no, don't do that!" he said in a hoarse whisper putting his hands up in front on him as if that somehow protect him, "Oh, this is bad. So very, very bad! Gah, what have I done?"

He knew at any moment the witch would let loose of all that power she was gathering and having no way to escape it, he would meet his end. It all came crashing down on him like a fragile house of cards and it was entirely his fault. Will would die tomorrow and the entire Kingdom would remain cursed forever, all those innocent girls trapped in those cages for eternity and poor, simple Fred whose end he knew full well would be also close at hand. So many people hurt or dieing and it was all on him for failing, for getting in over his head!

He thought of the cage that contained the little bird with the purple stain. He knew full well what that meant. Kate; dear, sweet Kate. His Kate! His eyes filled with hot tears blurring his vision, making everything look as if it were melting before his eyes. Her heart had been broken by the thought of his death and now his was as well because he had never told her how he really felt. He just assumed she knew, but he hadn't said it, really said it, to her face and now he would never see her sweet face ever again!

Her face…her face…face? Face! Yes, that was it! The mirror! Jakob looked up at the old witch who now had a huge ball of blue-white lighting in her hands and was preparing to fire on him at any moment. He slid his hand inside of his pack and his long fingers closed around the handle of the mirror.

"Die!" screamed the witch as she unleashed her fury at Jakob.

Jakob whipped the mirror out of the pack and held it up in front of his upper body, the glass facing the witch and closing his eyes, he turned his face away, pulling his legs up tight against himself, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. As the setting sun touched the horizon, the last bright rays poured through the west windows and hit the glass of the hand mirror. The flash of the setting sun blinded the witch for just a few precious seconds throwing her shot off its mark and slightly upward. That little nudge was all it took. The witch's blast struck the mirror's glass dead on reflecting its full force right back in her direction.

She saw the returning blast just seconds too late and she screamed as she was engulfed in flames, blazing brightly like the head of a match, then quickly going out. As the last wisps of smoke cleared away, all that was left of her was what appeared to be a pale, gray statue that slowly began crumbling to the floor like a sand castle engulfed in an ocean wave. After a few moments of silence punctuated by the sobs of the frightened girls, Jakob opened one eye and peeked around the edge of the mirror, then opened the other and stared in disbelief. Nothing remained of the old witch now but a pile of gray ashes on the stone floor. A stiff, cold evening breeze blew through the windows scattering the ashes across the floor leaving nothing behind but the gold coins that were in her pockets.

"Huh, what do you know, it worked", Jakob said cheerfully surprised.

Feeling quite pleased that things had gone much smoother than he expected and the whole ordeal was finally over; Jakob smiled and spun the mirror around in his hand and stuffed it back into his pack. Standing up he brushed the dust from his clothing and wondered where Fred had gotten off to. Frederick stuck his head around a cage and smiled broadly at him.

"You did it! Oh yes!" cheered Fred as he ran to him. "I knew you could do it! That was brilliant! How did you ever think of something so clever?"

Jakob tried his best to look humble and what he had done was really nothing so extraordinary. He would never admit that he had thoroughly given up just moments before; the mirror was just a desperate last stab and he really had no idea if it was going to work at all.

"Oh, it just sort of came to me", said Jake nonchalantly, but to Frederick he was a hero.

"What about you then", said Jakob patting him on the shoulder, "going around freeing all those girls in the face of danger? I think you're the real hero here!"

He was trying to take the spotlight off of himself and shine it on Frederick a little more. After all, he had been very brave through the whole thing and had always dreamed of being a hero someday.

"That was a very brave thing to do", Jake continued, "I'm very impressed!"

"I simply did what needed to be done", said Frederick humbly, "That is what we came here to do, isn't it? No witch was going to stand in our way of doing it, isn't that right?"

"Right!" replied Jake stoutly.

'What a heroic fool', thought Jakob shaking his head to himself, 'and speaking of fools…' He took the flower from Fred and walked directly to the cage that held Kate. This time without hesitation, he touched it to the cage and Kate promptly appeared before him.

"Jakob?" she asked in a slight whisper, not sure if she should believe what she was seeing was real.

Jakob smiled broadly at her as he softly cradled her cheek in his long fingers and handed the flower back to Fred without taking his eyes off of her. As Fred went merrily about freeing the other girls and looking for his missing Princess, Jake took Kate in his arms and kissed her deeply. When the parted, Kate laid her head against Jakob's chest and there they remained holding each other as if they would never, ever let each other go.

Finally the witch is dead and the girls have been freed, but will they all make it back in time to save dear Wilhelm? And what about the geese? Will Frederick marry the Princess? Look for the next chapter and find out.

Thanks for reading this chapter and reviews are always welcome. Please let me know how I'm doing so far. Thanks.