The sandalwood-colored fur on his forehead crinkles in an uneasy frown. Through pursed lips, he lets out a yip. Then he squeezes his eyes closed and flattens his ears. I’m waiting for the big pop, but still, nothing happens. We both sigh, and he hangs his head in defeat.
“Nah, don’t worry,” I tell him and rub behind his ear because I know it’ll lift his mood again. “In a few hours, the spell should be over anyway. Do you know what the doctor also said while you were zonked out?” I start walking again. Jack curiously lifts his muzzle to me. “He’s confident the serum will affect you for quite a while. Like two weeks or something. Maybe even through the entire month. Which means, you won’t be troubled by the pull of the story any longer.”
At that news, he perks his ears. The hopeful gleam in his eyes is cute.
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” I move in front of the Wolf, taking a few steps backward, and smile down at him. “In that time, I’m sure to find Prince Right For Me, we’ll fall in love with each other, and once the story of Red Riding Hood is—” I hesitate and then start whispering, “B-R-O…” Warily, I quirk my eyebrows and finish my incomplete spelling by breaking an imaginary stick with my hands. “Then you won’t feel any kind of calling ever again and won’t have to lock yourself in other people’s dungeons anymore.”
It’s too risky to really speak the sentence out loud. There’s only one way to get out of a story, and that is by saying the words: “I’m breaking from my tale.” Nobody really knows what happens to Fairyland residents who have no story to tell anymore. But rumor has it, there’s a group of breakers dwelling on the outskirts of Oz. According to the Scarecrow, they have no home, no jobs, nothing to do or care about. Must be quite a dreary life.
Of course, that fate isn’t awaiting Jack, no matter how panicky he stares at my hands currently. Once I have my prince, we’ll find Jack a beautiful princess, too. New stories—happy endings.
Granny’s house is around the next bend. Mother Holle steps out through the small gate in the low, coffee-brown picket fence, beaming when she lifts her head and spots us. The rotund woman wearing a white apron over her dark-blue dress is one of my grandmother’s best friends. She always braids her brown hair up in two circlets over her ears. Her chubby cheeks dent as she takes my chin in her hand with a smile. “Good morning, dear child. Your grandma will be so happy to see you. She’s been worried sick the past couple of days.”
“Um…yes. Another adventure came in between.” I scrunch my face. “Is she okay? I mean, she didn’t turn into a…er…”
“Vindictive witch because you two didn’t come to play?” Mother Holle finishes my sentence.
“Yeah, something like that.”
She laughs and pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I think your grandma actually enjoyed the vacations.”
Oh. That’s good. I nod. She acknowledges Jack with a tilt of her head, and we both stand there for a moment, watching the fine trail of snow falling in her wake as she leaves. I wonder how she does that.
When a cold snout nudges my hand, I emerge from my daze and let Jack through the fence gate. Before we even knock, Granny opens the door. She must have seen us coming through the window. A warm smile on her face, she welcomes us with a hug for me and a skeptical frown for Jack.
We see each other so often, I barely ever come to visit between the tales. With Jack Wolf at my side, it must look rather odd to her.
“Since you’re not alone, I believe this isn’t an official visit?” she asks, raising one graying eyebrow.
“No, Granny, it’s not.” I push my hood down and take a seat at the kitchen table. Inside, her little house looks a lot like mine. All wooden walls and cozy ambiance. I’ve always loved coming here.
Completely different from Mother Holle, my grandmother has the petite proportions of an imp rather than a teapot. She barely reaches my height, which is a shame because I’m already not the tallest girl on the block. But she probably doesn’t mind. What she lacks in stature, she makes up for with her loving personality and humor.
“Now, tell me what kept you two away from my house for so long,” she demands, placing a cup of raspberry juice in front of me and a bowl of water on the floor for the Wolf, who sits down and gives her a wary furry frown.
She rubs his head before tightening the cord of her pink terry robe and lowering into a chair across from me. Her elbows braced on the table, she plants her chin in her cupped hands, waiting curiously for me to fill her in.
I brief her about my intentions to find a prince and the weird adventures the past couple of days held for Jack and me. When she hears about the mishap with King Arthur, she almost falls off the chair from her laughter. “You really tried to shoot him out of his story? With an arrow of love?” Her salt-and-pepper hair fans out around her head on the table when she drops her forehead to her arms, sheepishly hiding her red face from me.
“All right, you can stop laughing now, Granny,” I grumble.
Half a minute passes before she gets a grip again. She rises and walks to the cupboards, shaking her head at Jack with a reprimanding smile. “And you let her do that? A fine Wolf you are.” Opening the fridge, she throws a quick glance back at me. “Are you hungry? I’m going to make soup and roast chicken for lunch. Jack looks like he’s starving.”
The sound of a decent meal makes my stomach skip with joy, so I nod, and Jack’s tail starts drumming an excited tune on the floor.
“You know, the night after our encounter with King Arthur, Jack got into real trouble,” I continue. “The call of the wood seems to be harder on him with his wolf half than it is with me.” Taking a sip of my juice, I study Granny with a curious look. “Mother Holle said that you enjoyed your time off. So didn’t you feel the pull of the tale at all?”
Giggling, she takes some veggies from a rack and gets out a big pot to put them in. “Oh, I felt it, indeed. But it was more like a funny tickle in my toes.” Her puffy, pink slippers waggle. “Nothing to worry about. To be frank, I was hoping that maybe you two might like to pause the tale a little longer. When you didn’t come and sent the stork to me with your message, I told Roland, and he decided to go on a cruise aboard the Nautilus.”
“The Huntsman is on vacation?”
“Yes. He left last night. They’re going to visit Poseidon in Atlantis, too. The journey will probably take a couple of days. I was thinking, maybe I could visit my cousin Wilma in Bedrock in the meantime.”
“What a lovely idea!” I set my glass on the table and rise. From the corner drawer, I grab a vegetable peeler and head to the sink with the square window above. Red-and-white-plaid curtains are drawn back, letting in the noon sunlight. On the draining board, I find some carrots and start peeling them for the soup. “It must be a while since you’ve last been there.”
“True. You two have been keeping me on my toes.” She snickers behind me. “Wilma has been writing and asking for me to come for years. Traveling isn’t so easy for her with the baby and the dinosaur, as you know. And then they only have this funny foot-work car. I can’t wait to get into—” She goes abruptly quiet.
“Get into what?” I chuckle. But there’s no answer. A half-peeled carrot in my hand, I turn around. My smile fades. “Granny?”
The spot where she stood only moments ago is empty except for her fluffy pink slippers. My gaze drops to the Wolf sitting beside them. The happy spark in his dark eyes makes me nervous. “Jaaack?”
Innocently, he lifts his brows.
Cocking my head, I glare at him. “Did you eat my granny?”
He shakes his head so fast, it’s a miracle he doesn’t get dizzy from it. He can go play the sweet puppy dog for someone else today. The bulges in his belly convict him.