Chord and I gathered up as much of the witch's jewels and pearls as we could stuff into our pockets. I was careful to avoid the oven. She no longer screamed and I knew she was dead, but the look of disgust on Chord's face when he peered through the small window on the oven door, proved that she was a nasty sight inside there.

I couldn't get out of the house fast enough. As soon as my pockets could no longer hold any more trinkets, I was out the door. Chord didn't stick around for very long after that either.

We started our walk back in silence. I couldn't get the images out of my head. They played over and over again like a bad record. I must have looked pretty bad because Chord slowed down to my pace and took my hand. He didn't say anything, his eyes remained fixed on the path ahead, but his message was clear, 'I'm here if you need me'.

I was grateful, but I wished it had been August. The thought of him being held by Iris kept gnawing at the back of my mind, never letting me forget. If I messed up or did anything to make Iris mad, she wouldn't hesitate to kill him.

Another part of me felt guilty. Here Chord was, giving me all the support I needed and yet all I had done was be a jerk to him. Maybe he was right, I wasn't sure how August had put up with someone like me for so long. It probably wouldn't be long before he came to his senses and dumped me. The curse on my family might have been lifted, but that didn't mean I was any better off in the romance department.

"Taryn!" Chord pulled me back right before I could walk right off the bank of a river.

He laughed. "Watch where you're going, would you?"

I stared down at the raging waters a foot below us. The bank wasn't large but it was steep and I had a feeling anything that accidentally fell into those waters was never seen again. How had I missed it? I must have really been out of it. The rushing water was so loud, we had to shout to be heard.

"How are we supposed to get across?" I asked.

Chord looked up and down the bank and then shrugged. "A white duck is supposed to carry us across."

"A duck?"

He nodded grimly. "But I don't see how anything can get past that river. Not even a duck can swim that well."

A voice behind us cleared their throat. I whipped around to find the largest swan I had ever seen. With his head held up, he was as tall as I was. His back was plenty large enough to carry a human with ease.

I leaned toward Chord, "I think I found your duck."

The bird ruffled his feathers indignantly. "I am a swan. Do not associate me with my dim witted brethren. Unfortunately we are related, however I smarter and much more beautiful. The ducks have not even learned how to speak yet. The poor creatures are simply too simple minded to handle such a task."

"You're supposed to be a duck." Chord pointed out.

I tried to tell him to shut up but he wasn't listening to me.

"The story clearly states that it was a white duck that carried the children across the river."

"Those idiots wouldn't know a duck from a squirrel. The stories of the children were far too misinterpreted. It was in fact, I, the great swan, who carried them across the raging river."

"Idiots? You mean the Grimm brothers?" I asked.

The swan shook his head. "Dear heavens, no. The Brothers Grimm were simply fed incorrect facts. Although it's true that this story has become somewhat of a legend because of them, they were not the original story tellers."

"Seriously? I thought the Grimm Brothers were the ones who wrote the Grimm Fairy Tales." Suddenly, I wasn't sure of anything anymore.

The swan cocked its head at me and frowned (can a swan frown?). "You are playing with me or are you really this clueless? The Brothers Grimm did not write any of the tales that they published. Yes, they would often add their own twists and style to the stories, but they were never their own creations. The brothers gathered up German tales to preserve their lineage. They wanted to create something that would last a lifetime.

"As for this particular tale, even I am unsure of who the original author was. However, the original story did involve ogres and other ghastly creatures. Since then, the story has gone through dozens of different variations, but the one that people most remember, is the one told by the Brothers Grimm."

"So you're saying that the Grimm Brothers didn't write these tales?"

The swan looked at Chord with obvious disbelief. "Did I not just say that? Is your friend here ill? Perhaps she needs to see a doctor."

Chord frowned. "You seem to know a lot about this stuff."

"Of course I do," he fluffed his feathers proudly, "I am the Swan. We are a noble creature with knowledge on nearly every subject. Since I am a part of this tale, it is only natural that I know its history."

"Uh-huh. So tell me," I said, "will you take us across the river? Whether the Grimm Brothers wrote this tale or not doesn't make me like it anymore. I would very much like to get out of here."

"I suppose you would after everything you have been a witness to today, Taryn Bauer. But please, do not take the witch's death in despair. It was not your fault. You are destined to save those trapped here in the tales, but you are only human. You can not save everyone."

"Was that supposed to be a pep talk?"

The swan seemed to laugh. "Come, let us cross the river. It will be dark soon."

The swan swam across the river with surprising ease. He took Chord across first and then came back to get me. His back was fairly comfortable, for a bird. His feathers were soft and there was plenty of room so I didn't feel like I was going to fall off.

When we reached the other side, Chord and I thanked the swan, who then turned and easily swam back upstream, against the current. I wasn't sure how he was doing it, but I assumed it had something to do with the magic of the curse.

"The house shouldn't be much further." Chord motioned for me to follow as he trapsed back into the forest. "We should be there by nightfall if we hurry."

"I'm too tired to hurry." I whined, stumbling along behind him.

It wasn't a lie. I was exhausted. My eyelids weighed about a million pounds and my feet shuffled along, tripping over every little stone on the path.

Chord stopped, looked me over and sighed. "You do look like death."

"You sure know how to make a girl feel good."

He rolled his eyes. "That's your boyfriend's job. My job, is to make sure you get everyone out of here alive."

Whether he meant to or not, he put extra emphasis on the word 'alive' which only made me feel worse.

"I'm sorry, alright?" I bit out. I didn't mean to sound so angry, but I wasn't thinking straight. I was tired and hungry. My feet were about to fall off and my emotions were running high. "It wasn't my fault the witch died. All I did was hit her over the head with a broom handle. The curse pushed her into the oven."

Chord quickly shook his head. "No, that's not-"

"Oh save it. We both know you blame me for that. You're probably thinking that I can't do this and you're wondering why you even bothered in the first place."

Chord tried to cut in, tell me I was wrong and that he didn't mean it like that but I was on a roll.

"All I do is mess things up for you. There's no possible way I can save everyone if I can't even save a single witch. Not to mention everyone else's lives that hang in the balance. One wrong move from me and everyone I care about back at home is dead. There's no possible way I can manage all of that! I know that, I don't need you rubbing it in my face!"

Without another word, I stormed ahead, leaving Chord staring after me, confused. I probably shouldn't have blown up at him like that. It wasn't his fault all of this was happening. All he wanted was a bit of help to bring this curse to an end. To resume the lives of everyone in here. Not only that, but he'd genuinely tried to be nice to me, but all I had ever done was yell at him. He must have thought I was the biggest jerk ever.

I stopped, pressed my back against a tree and slid to the ground. I refused to cry, but I was so tired I could barely stand.

After a while, Chord reappeared. He looked uneasy, like he wasn't sure how to approach me. I couldn't blame him. Not after I'd gone all banshee on him.

I sighed and leaned my head back against the rough bark, closing my eyes. It dug painfully into the back of my head, but I didn't care. In fact, I welcomed the pain. I proved I was still there. I was still alive. The curse hadn't destroyed me yet and as long as I had something to say about it, it wouldn't.

"I'm sorry." Surprisingly, it was Chord who spoke first.

I frowned but didn't open my eyes. "What?"

He took a deep breath, "I said I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for? I'm the one who nearly bit your head off. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you."

I heard him come closer and sit down next to me. "That's why I'm apologizing."

"That doesn't make any sense."

He breathed a laugh. "Maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'm going mad."

"I could have told you that."

"I shouldn't have said anything back there. I knew you were on the brink of losing it. I should have just kept my mouth shut for now. But I want you to know that I don't think that way about you. You're a great person, Taryn. Not many people I know would be willing to walk back into their own nightmare like you did. The swan was right. You can't save everyone. I know that, you know that. Iris knows it too. She's playing with your mind."

"I figured that much. Isis did the same thing the first time. It seems those sisters get a lot of pleasure out of messing with people's heads."

"I was wrong," Chord said.

I cringed, expecting him to tell me that he shouldn't have brought me here. That it was a mistake. I waited for him to tell me what a waste of time I was.

Instead he said, "I shouldn't have expected you to trust me when I wouldn't even tell you who I was."

He shocked me so much, I sat up to stare at him.

He took a shaky breath and studied his hands. "I was scared. I didn't think you'd help me if I told you who I played in the curse. All the horrible things I did. I was sure it would scare you away. But after everything's that's happened. The way you fought the witch knowing that you would probably die, and then getting up and brushing yourself off after the battle was over, it proved to me just how strong you are."

I fell back against the tree and blew out a frustrated breath. "I'm not that strong. Hmph, I'm falling apart here. If anyone's strong, it's you."

I turned to look at him then and voiced the words I had been terrified to speak before. I hadn't wanted them to be true, but looking at him now, I knew it was. He had the same big eyes, and if I looked close enough, I could make out yellow specks against the grey. His dark hair had streaks of silver in it and even his impish grin seemed familiar. "You're the infamous, 'Big Bad Wolf'."

His head shot up and his eyes were wide. He really was scared. I could tell by the way he watched me that he expected me to jump up and run at any second.

I actually laughed at him. I laughed so hard I cried. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I was laughing. I could have been the fact that I was so deliriously tired and his face was priceless, or it could have been that, even though I was scared out of my mind, I found myself deciding to trust him. I was probably signing my own death warrant by trusting him, but I didn't care. I was too tired to care. Besides, if he had wanted to hurt me, he would have done it by now.

"You knew?" He asked cautiously.

I shrugged as my laughter died. "I pieced it together. The other villains played some pretty nasty roles, but by the way you spoke of your role, I knew it had to be worse than that. And I knew we'd met before. You tried to kill me. That's why you didn't want to tell me, isn't it?"

He kept watching me, like he was waiting for me to jump up and kick him in the face. When he spoke, his words were slow and quiet.

"When I met you, I was awake. For the first time since I had entered the curse, I wasn't seeing things through the wolf's eyes. They were my own. It had been nearly a year since I'd eaten anything. The curse kept me alive, but it wasn't living. I meant what I said to you. It wasn't the curse manipulating my words. They told me that you were the only one who could cure my hunger and endless torture. They said I could go back to my real life if you were killed. I believed them. I didn't even hesitate."

His eyes held so much pain and regret for what he had done, but now that he had started he wasn't stopping. "I had killed so many people before you. Every person who played the grandma, I ate. I became the wolf, a predator, to shield myself from what my role demanded. My emotions were cut off, I couldn't escape it. I resigned myself to my fate. I told myself that I would spend the rest of my life playing the wolf. I lost myself completely.

"Then you came along. Just your presence alone was enough to bring me back to myself. I hated you for that. I had spent so long trying to hide inside the character, and all you had to do was show up and BAM I was back to being fully aware.

"I kept telling myself that it wasn't real. None of this was real and that I wasn't really doing any harm to anyone. I was only playing a role. Once the curse reset itself, those people I had eaten would come back and they'd be alright. It wasn't until after you broke the curse and those people never came back, that I learned the truth. I had killed them all."

"Chord," even though I spoke softly, he cringed when I said his name, "if anyone's strong here, it's you. You've been carrying this burden around for so long without so much as a word about it. That's enough to drive anyone mad."

It was my turn to reach over and take his hand. He tried to pull away, but I held it firmly.

"Whether you like it or not, we're in this together. You and me, Pal. You told me once that you didn't expect me to trust you, that you didn't need me to. Well I'm telling you now that I do trust you."

"A horrible decision."

"Maybe," I shrugged, "but whether I'm crazy or not, that doesn't change the fact that it's true. Look, if you were going to hurt me, you would have done it by now. You want to save everyone just as badly as I do. You never would have sought me out if you didn't. That alone proves you're a good person.

"It might not be much of one, but you've been handed a second chance. Just by coming here and playing the role beside me, that's a huge step. You can make a difference, Chord. Together, you and I can set this right. We'll defeat Iris and Isis. I'll get to bash Colton on the head for good measure, and then we can all go home."

He smiled at me gratefully. "You don't normally do the whole 'inspirational speech' thing, do you?"

"Was it that bad?"

Chord laughed and got to his feet, then he reached down and helped me up. "Nah, but it could use some work."

He looked ahead and I saw a new spark in his eyes. "You're right though. We need to start working together. As hard as it is, we need to trust each other. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get out of this alive."

"I don't think it's me who needs to work on their inspirational speeches." I mocked.

"Shut up, Bauer." He shoved me playfully. "Now let's get home before our lovely parents begin to worry."

So now you know who Chord really is! I think Taryn handled that pretty well lol