“Let me down, traitors,” he demanded.
“Welcome to our forest, Jack,” Sabrina said. “And congratulations, you’re the first person to get caught in one of our traps.”
“When I get down from here, I swear you’ll pay,” the man shouted.
“I never get tired of hearing empty threats. Cut this walking pumpkin pie down,” Sabrina said.
“Wait! It’s not finished,” Puck said, and a moment later a dozen chimpanzees plopped down from the limbs. Each wore a soldier’s helmet and held fat Wiffle ball bats, which they used to smack their captive. Jack groaned while the chimps giggled like little maniacs.
“So I guess Bunny found a way to get into his bedroom,” Sabrina said to her sister.
“Yep. For better or worse,” Daphne said.
Over the course of the day, the Master’s thugs suffered at the diabolical hands of the Trickster King. Hansel fell into a pit filled with honey (and to no one’s surprise, fire ants). His sister, Gretel, surrendered after being chased through the woods by a pack of zombie chipmunks. Bo Peep was hoisted skyward by enormous helium balloons that were quickly popped by tiny arrows. She fell onto a carefully placed hornet’s nest. A couple of goblins found themselves caught in the hungry jaws of giant Venus flytraps that magically sprang from the ground. A towering troll stomped through the woods only to be clobbered in the head by a huge log that swung down from the trees. It seemed that every ten minutes or so the quiet of the forest was interrupted by surprised cries and painful bellows and then Puck’s gleeful giggles.
By evening, thirty of the Hand’s thugs were locked tight in the Hall of Wonders, and it was time to move on to a new camp. Sabrina examined a map of the forest with the help of the mirrors and found another great site for hiding. Traveling by night, the army made their way there just before midnight and set up camp.
The next day started much like the day before. The Patchwork Girl was the first victim. Sabrina had never met her, but the Scarecrow, who had once been very much in love with her, informed everyone that she was made entirely of old pieces of blankets. Unfortunately for her, she was caught when she walked through a trip wire that doused her with gallons of sewage. Sabrina was sure the smell would never come out.
“I wonder if you can dry-clean a person,” Goldilocks said through her pinched nose.
The day brought more prisoners, many caught with the help of a thousand little pixies Puck affectionately referred to as his minions: Ms. Muffet and her husband, the Spider, Big Hans and Little Hans, Babe the Big Blue Ox, Jack and Jill, Solomon Grundie, and a blue dragon all got the worst of their little stings and relentless pursuits. Once again, by nightfall, the ragtag army had captured another thirty-five members of the Hand, but their most important prisoner—Beast—was completely entwined in what looked like a giant spiderweb made from bubblegum. It had clumped into his hair, making it painful to move.
“Where’s my daughter?” Beauty said coolly.
“Our daughter is safe,” Beast said. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Don’t tell me what I have to worry about, James. You don’t get to do that anymore.”
“They’ve turned you against me!” he roared.
“No, it’s you who walked out on me when you decided to do the wrong thing. You can do what you want, but you won’t do it with our daughter,” Beauty said.
“You’ll never find her,” Beast said.
“You’re wrong about that,” Sabrina said. “The mirrors will show us.”
The Beast growled “Beauty, why won’t you be reasonable? These people you have befriended have brought us nothing but misery. What happened to the woman who would do anything for our freedom?”
“That woman realized that she was also someone’s mother,” Beauty said. “One of us has to teach her right from wrong.”
The Beast snarled. “So you’re finished with me, then?”
“I will never be finished with you, James. I’m always going to love you, but right now you don’t deserve me.”
Beauty walked with Beast as he was taken into the Hall of Mirrors and locked inside his room. She herself turned the key, then looked through the barred window at her husband. “Figure out how to be the man I loved,” she said to him.
In the morning, they set up a new camp and found another twenty-five prisoners to lock safely away. These villains suffered through animal bites, toxic waste, angry bruises, and a few depantsings. In between runs to check on traps, Sabrina and Daphne went to the mirror room to give the guardians an update.
“At this rate we’ll have every bad guy under lock and key in no time at all,” Daphne told the mirrors.
“You should be very proud of yourselves,” the strange beaver guardian commended. His name was Shi’arsted. Sabrina was slowly learning everyone’s names during her daily visits to check the maps for new campsites.