He knows what Jack said to me before he left? Then again, it’s not a big surprise. They must have met afterward. Leaning the gun against the wall next to the door, I step aside and ask my visitor in, confessing, “I think he’s a bit out of his mind since we stopped playing.”
“Oh, he sure is.” Phillip comes through the door and takes a curious look around my small but cozy home. He’s never been here before, which hikes up my next suspicion.
“To what do I owe the honor?” I drawl, sweeping my hand toward the couch, offering him a seat. “Did Rory send you?”
Tearing his attention away from my whimsical furniture, his focus sharpens on me once more as his hands disappear into his dark leather pants’ pockets, pushing the red, button-down shirt and white royal vest slightly upward. “Nobody sent me. But I need you to come with me, Riley.” Besides the urgency in his tone, I notice that he ignores my offer to sit down and lingers close to the door, which is still open.
My backside pressed against the kitchen table, I grab the wooden edges beside my hips. Lines furrow my brow. “Come with you where?”
“To Jack.” He takes a step toward me, his chin dipping just a little as he stares down at my face. “He’s in trouble, and I believe you’re the only one who can help him.”
“What?” The tiny word escapes me on a squeak of shock. My fingers loosen from the edge of the table, and I clasp my suddenly clammy hands in front of my stomach. “Where is he? Is anybody hurt? Did Jack eat someone?” Holy honeypot, if he lost control in the village, it’s all my fault. I forced this fate on him, even though he told me how hard it was for him to endure. I saw the struggle in his eyes yesterday before he left. “Are the police after him?”
Phillip lays his hands on my shoulders, speaking very softly yet with insistence. “No one got hurt…yet. But it’s only a matter of time. Will you please come with me and help me save my friend?”
In a wild panic, I nod and let the prince lead me out of my house. With my brain so fuzzy, I only realize that I’m without my bow and quiver when I pull the door closed. As I turn around to get them, something else grabs my focus.
There’s a horse in front of my house.
Phillip walks to the giant white animal, takes the reins, and holds out a hand to me. In response, I lift both of mine in denial. “Nuh-uh!”
“You don’t have to be afraid. I’ll help you up.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse before,” I confess, fear making my voice tremble.
He slips one foot into the stirrup of the lordly black saddle and hoists himself onto the back of the beast. A loud snort puffs out of the horse’s nostrils as it shakes its ghostly white mane. When Phillip has a good seat, he gently taps the animal’s belly with his heel so it trots toward me.
The gleam in his eyes is a mix of taunt and mischief. “I heard you rode a wolf yesterday,” he says, bending down to grab my wrist. In the next moment, I’m lifted up so fast that I can’t even protest. “Riding a horse is much the same.” He tucks me sideways against his chest and holds me tightly with one arm as he gathers the reins in the other hand and makes the white horse gallop off with an aggressive, “Giddyup!”
My legs dangling over the horse’s side, Phillip is the only thing I can hold on to. And I do it with ferocious strength.
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen you scared before, Red Riding Hood,” he chuckles into my ear as I press my face against his chest.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Well, now you know my weakness.”
A few minutes later, the sound of hoof beats on the forest floor gives way to the sound of a hard clop on cobblestones. I dare to glimpse at where we are. Expecting a ride through Grimwich, surprise knocks me dumb because we’re crossing the bridge over the moat to Rory’s home.
The mighty castle towers over an enchanted circle of thorn hedges around us, and Phillip pulls the horse to an abrupt stop. He gets off first and helps me down with a safe grip on my waist.
By Pinocchio’s growing nose, standing on my own feet has never felt so good.
That the magical hedge is still there but lets us ride through it so easily tells me exactly where in their story of Little Briar-Rose they are stuck right now. “Is Rory asleep?”
“Yep. Has been for almost a day.” A smack on the horse’s behind from Phillip is enough to send it trotting away. Apparently, it knows the way to the stables well.
“Why didn’t you kiss her?” It should be the first thing for him to do right after breaking through the wild, creeping rose brambles. And why are we here anyway? Didn’t he say he was going to take me to Jack?
“Because things will be easier if she sleeps on for a little longer.” He opens the door and drags me through.
Everything inside the castle is eerily quiet. The servants are probably napping in the sun. Briar-Rose is supposed to be asleep in a room in the highest tower of the castle, but as we pass the grand stairs leading upward, I realize that’s not where we’re going.
“I’ll kiss her awake soon. But first, we need to solve this problem.”
We take a left behind the servants’ kitchen, and Phillip picks a burning torch from the wall before he leads me down a set of narrow stone steps. All right, the problem must be in the dungeons then. A shiver pleads with me to turn around and run away because damp vaults without any daylight are never a place for a happy story. Phillip seems to sense my worry and wraps his fingers around my hand a little tighter.
“I thought we were going to see Jack? Why are we heading into the dungeon?” I croak in an almost inaudible voice. I don’t know why, but dark places always make me whisper.
Phillip pulls me along a narrow corridor, the light from the torch making our shadows perform a spooky welcome dance on the stone walls. He turns his head to me, his gaze serious. “Because Jack is in the dungeon. He asked me to lock him away.”
His words zap me like Maleficent’s evil spell. My mouth tips open, but no sound comes out. Until we round another corner, and I make out the features of a person in a vault behind an iron gate.
My heartbeat clips incredibly fast. Letting go of Phillip’s hand, I move closer to the gate, noticing that the young man in there is leaning his head on his forearm, which is braced against the wall. Even though his back is to us, I would recognize him anywhere in the world. “Jack—” I croak.
He’s breathing hard, I can see that from here. When he turns his head to look over his shoulder at me, an inhuman sound rumbles from his throat, making me stop in my tracks. His face is covered in sweat. With Phillip’s torchlight, I can see that his clothes are also drenched. Wet hair sticks to his forehead, strands of it nearly covering his sinister eyes. “Why did you bring her?” he growls so dangerously my skin rises in goosebumps. Even though I know he’s talking to the prince behind me, his gaze bores holes into me.
My hands clapped over my mouth, I try not to tear up as I walk closer to him. “Jack…what hap—?”
In an explosive roar, he leaps away from the wall, changing into the deadly Wolf, and knocks against the gate only inches from my face.
“Baaah!” Terrified, I jump away, bumping into Phillip, who almost drops the torch in surprise. Thankfully, the iron keeps Jack in place, even if his mighty paw claws out through the gaps in the woven metal. His enraged barks and snarls echo through the tunnels.
Phillip steadies me and worriedly searches my face. “Are you all right? He didn’t catch you, did he?”
“Ah, yeah…no…I’m fine,” I stutter in a whiny voice. Even if he has no trouble ignoring Jack, I can’t do that so easily. My torn gaze switches back to the tortured Wolf, and I want to start crying. “What’s going on?”
Phillip tucks the torch into an iron claw fastened on the stone wall and puts his hands on my shoulders, gently moving me backward until my legs knock into something hard and I drop sideways onto a wooden chair by the wall. “Jack came to me yesterday. He was in bad shape, asking me for help.”