4
Daphne Grimm was laying in a cot, sandwiched in between crisp white sheets and a navy blue, woolen blanket. Her hair was lying in it's same ratty pigtails that she had worn the day before. Her eyes were closed and her mouth parted slightly. She didn't move and her breathing was even, yet silent.
Sabrina looked down at her younger sister casually, hoping-in the back of her mind-that her eyes would flutter open and she would smile nonchalantly as if nothing had ever happened. But no, Daphne's face remained perfectly still and Sabrina turned her face away, blinking back tears. She carefully caressed her sister's hand, memorizing every square millimeter, remembering the little freckle on her pinky and the callus she got from writing with her right hand.
A shadow cast across the medical tent. Sabrina looked up in shock.
"Okay, 'Brina?" Snow White asked sweetly, a slight sound of sadness echoing from her words.
"What?" Sabrina asked.
"Look, Sabrina, I know it's tough. And I'm not going to tell you something like everything's gonna work out, or the good guys always win-cause that's not life. Trust me. I've seen everything and anything. I know something about how it works. But I will tell you that you should never give up. Not ever. You've got a family that loves you to death and would do anything for you. And a certain fairy boy." Snow White said slyly, taking a seat next to Sabrina.
"Puck?" Sabrina asked dubiously. She was almost positive that the only thing Puck would love to death was pranks and free food and possibly cable and the only thing he'd do for Sabrina was humiliate her.
"Yes, Puck!" Snow exclaimed as if it were obvious, "That boy is head over heels in love with you."
"Are you sure we're talking about the same Puck?"
"You can't run from love, Sabrina," Snow said softly.
Sabrina's eyebrows twisted in thought as she mulled over Snow's words.
Suddenly, Prince Charming barged into the tent looking especially handsome in old fashioned army attire.
"Why Snow, you look absolutely gorgeous this morning!" Charming exclaimed, taking her hand and giving it a big, wet smooch.
"That's General White, to you," Snow corrected, letting a small smile escape at the compliment.
"And how's our invalid doing today?" the Prince asked, ignoring Snow's correction.
"Sleepy," Sabrina muttered.
A gust of wind suddenly blew open the tent flap and Puck, who was testing his aim with a bow and arrow, could be seen by Sabrina. Puck turned his gaze and their eyes locked. Sabrina blushed and turned away.
"I have to go train this blasted army, but I shall see you later, my sweet," Charming sang and left the tent.
Snow's words echoed in both Sabrina and Snow's heads.
"You can't run from love."
The Grimm family dined early without conversing much. Sabrina still couldn't believe that just as her family had come together, everyone happy, Daphne was put under a magical coma. Her little sister, her beloved Daphne. The one thing that she had to protect the past two years. Sabrina gulped back sobs and swallowed a hard lump of bread.
After dinner, Henry insisted that the Grimms spend the night in the medical tent, all together, with Daphne. They laid out cots and sleeping bags and pillows and made themselves as comfortable as they could be because the ground was hard and rocky. They then agreed that an adult should take watch. They would switch off, Veronica taking watch first.
Sabrina settled down into her sleeping bag and fell into a restless sleep.
Sabrina awoke with a start. Her hair was soaked through-and-through with sweat. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and looked around the tent. It was Uncle Jake's turn to take watch but he had drifted off to sleep and was now snoring loudly, though not as loudly as Puck.
She decided, since she was up, that she would take watch and she sat on her cot with absolute stillness. She had a lot on her mind and she began thinking things over. She made a list in her mind of what happened:
1. Mirror had taken Granny Relda.
2. Attis had been released from the Book of Everafter-which, according to everybody, was a bad thing, a very, very bad thing!
3. Bunny Lancaster, Snow's mother, had been kidnapped by the Scarlet Hand.
4. And Daphne, after touching a magical silver ball, had been put into a magical coma with no hope of waking up.
Something was missing. There was something someone said in the Book of Everafter. The Editor, maybe? Or was it one of the Book's characters? What was it? Sabrina knew there was something, something that would help the Grimms. Something. But what?
And then it hit her. The story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, had been the one that had been unstable. She had changed it, Snow White (Sabrina guessed). Because. . .because the end. Yes, that's right, the end had been shatteringly tragic, Sabrina recounted. Snow White had changed it. And maybe, just maybe, Snow would know a way to stop Atticus.
Sabrina knew there was no time to spare-Snow White could be kidnapped by the Scarlet Hand before dawn broke. She had to talk with her. Now.
Sabrina, without leaving a note or waking up one of her family members, slipped out of the tent and ran through a muddy path that ran in between the various tents. She heard running footsteps and her name being shouted after her and she turned around, huffing and, all of a sudden, in an extremely bad mood.
It was Puck. He caught up with her, coughing and wheezing.
"What?" Sabrina asked angrily, but her voice was hollow sounding, even to her. Perhaps it was because the fluffy, airy feeling in her stomach, or the way her heart fluttered when Puck was near. She did her best to ignore it but it felt as if it was crawling through her, and finally entering and taking over her mind.
"You can't expect to leave without any protection, can you?"
"And you're my protection?"
"Well, yes!"
"Why?" she asked suspiciously, "What's in it for you?"
"Well, the way I figure it, when the Old Lady finally does come back she's gonna thank me and if I take care of you that definitely deserves extra TV time and extra deserts!"
"Figures," Sabrina muttered.
The couple walked on a few minutes in silence, Sabrina looking around at the tents to make sure they didn't pass Snow's tent.
"What are we looking for anyway, Sabrina?" Puck asked.
Sabrina looked at him, Puck hardly ever used her real name. Even in emergencies. Dogface? Yes. Sabrina? Not so much. She ignored it though and answered his question. "I need to talk with Snow."
"Now? You do know it's like two in the morning. . . and I could use my beauty sleep."
Sabrina rolled her eyes but nodded. "It's important."
Silence then invaded the couple's conversation as the night seemed to grow darker and denser.
Finally, Sabrina and Puck came upon a small, dark tent. It smelled like roses and honeysuckle. Sabrina was the first one to step through the flap. Her mouth gaped open. It was not what she had expected. It was huge. There was a queen-sized bed with a sleeping Snow, a chest of drawers, and a beautiful oriental rug on a hardwood floor. Through a door and into another room, a kitchen-space with a refrigerator, counter-space, and a microwave smelled like fresh cookies. And then there was a large room with a cushy couch, two reclining chairs, and a coffee-table. Not to mention two bathrooms, a den, and a guest bedroom.
"Hey, how come we didn't get a tent like this?" Puck demanded.
"It's amazing what some magic and a credit card can do," Snow said, looking around at the living room. "Coffee?" Both Sabrina and Puck shook their heads no and Snow shrugged and took a seat on the couch. Sabrina and Puck were sitting in the two recliners and both munching on some cookies.
"Okay," Snow said, taking a sip of her coffee, "I know you didn't just come to my tent to gawk at it. What's up?"
"We know," Sabrina said, swallowing her bite of cookie.
"What?" Snow laughed and took another sip of her coffee.
"The Editor told us; we know."
Snow's smiling face became stony and solemn.
"We need to know the original story. This could be the only way to stop Atticus and defeat the Hand. Please, Snow," Sabrina begged softly.
"Don't judge me because of what I did. I was young," Snow said softly.
"Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen, Bunny Lancaster, sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And while she was sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window-frame. Soon after that she had a little daughter, me, who was as white as snow, and as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony, and she was called little Snow White. You know that part."
"Wait a second, Bunny Lancaster is your mother? But in the book she was your step-mother!"
"I re-wrote it that way. At the time I thought it was better to have an evil step-mother than have an evil mother; one might think that I turned out evil," Snow explained.
"Anyway, Bunny was tremendously jealous of me, for she did not realize to the extent of her wishes. She wanted to be the prettiest in the kingdom, but Mirror, or her looking glass, told her otherwise. But it wasn't just looks that made her angry, it was her husband, my father, Atticus. My father was an angry, greedy king. All he wished for was money. Until the day I turned sixteen. He then fell in love with me and it was then that Bunny grew extremely jealous, to the point of having me killed."
"Ew! Your dad fell in love with you?" Sabrina exclaimed.
"At the time fathers fell in love with their daughters all the time-it was strangely a very common thing to have happen," Snow said.
"As I was saying, Bunny had a hunter go with me to the woods and have me killed. Well, he spared me and I ran into the woods. Now, it wasn't like the Disney movie, I didn't sing and animals magically appeared and guided the way. No, it was frightening and I spent two days in search of a home. The forest, at the time, was filled with magical beasts and killers and pirates and ghosts and witches and not to many dancing chipmunks, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I found the seven dwarves cottage and I lived there."
"Now, the hunter came back to the castle with a heart of a boar, I believe. Bunny then roasted it and ate it. But the news of the killing did not escape my father, who flew into a rage and he swore to have my mother killed. But he did not stop at that, he went to a sorcerer, an evil sorcerer, who turned him into a monster. I'm talking a lean, mean, killing machine. He then went in search of me in the woods; dead or alive, he wanted me."
"But, after the news that I was still alive and somewhere in the woods, my mother, Bunny, was even more convinced to kill me-herself, this time. She dressed herself in rags of a peasant and disguised her face and voice to that of an old woman. She then went in search of the dwarves' cottage with a basket of poisoned apples. Even though the dwarves had told me repeatedly not to open the door to anyone, I was naive back then, and a little idiotic. When the beggar woman came knocking I gladly opened the door and purchased an apple. I then ate it and, well, you know the rest. The dwarves found me on the floor, asleep, and, after unsuccessfully trying to wake me up, put me in a glass coffin to await my true love's kiss."
"Prince Charming came, that he did. And he kissed me and I awoke. But my father had found me as Prince Charming had kissed me and he killed Prince Charming, there as I awoke. He killed him slowly, in front of me and he killed part of me. It felt as if my soul had been taken out. I then spent the rest of my life in an old castle. I wasn't allowed outside of it, for my father was insanely jealous and worried that I might leave him, and I probably would have. I was chained to my bed and I was only allowed to move around the castle in certain rooms. I was a prisoner."
Sabrina looked around. Puck was sound asleep and snoring and Snow's face was red and blotchy from crying.
"I'm-I'm so sorry. I really am," Sabrina spoke softly.
Snow wiped away her tears and grinned. "It's okay. Sure, I was kind of paranoid about dating an 'older man' for about a hundred years but I got over it. Part of the reason I left Billy at the alter, I didn't want him to imprison me. Plus, he is two years older than me."
"Any questions?" Snow asked.
"Well, yes," Sabrina answered, "Do you know how to stop Atticus?"
"I don't know how, but I know someone who does-"
A/N: Ah, cliffy! Who will it be? What's going to happen? Will Sabrina and Puck ever get together? And whatever happened to Mirror/Granny Relda? All (okay, maybe not all) will be revealed in the next chapter of the Final Battle!
I am so sorry about not updating in FOREVER! I have been so busy, I had a karate tournament, then I got a bruised rib (incidentally FROM the karate tournament), then I had my art class, we're also moving so that's been REALLY chaotic, we had a humongous garage sale that completely wiped me out, and then school started and on the very first day they piled on tons of homework! So, I finally got around to writing the next chapter and here it is. Now, I proofread it about a million times but even I make mistakes (ha ha ha ha!) so if you see any mistakes spelling, grammatical, punctuational, etc. tell me and I will fix it!
Anyway, I want to hear what you guys think of my next chapter so REVIEW, por favor!
Cheers,
ManMenDude