Briar edged forward, closer to Benny. “Why do you need the boys?” She kept her movements slow and steady, hoping to distract Isodora with talk.
Isodora stepped back. “You want me to believe you’ll kindly prick your finger again if I let the boy go first? I don’t believe you. But if you are willing to touch the end of the spindle, by all means.” She waved an arm at frame number four. “It’s getting late and your birthday is fast approaching.” She pinched Benny’s ear, causing him to cry out in pain.
“No!” screamed Jack from across the room. He started running to save Benny. But instead of running for his brother, he ran for Briar. “That’s like Sleepin’ Beauty, Bri!” He stopped between Briar and Isodora, blocking the spindle, his hands out. “Don’t do it.”
“Stay back,” Briar yelled.
But Jack was determined to help. “Miss Fanny told us all about Sleepin’ Beauty. Pansy cried herself to sleep worried that you would touch one of these spindles and die, until Miss Fanny told her it wasn’t the same kind of spindles in your machines.” He paused to take a breath. “But that spindle there looks different. She’s been working on it since we got here.” Jack pointed to the wooden spindle. “Don’t touch it.”
The frame had been pulled apart so that the row of spindles was tilted out. Briar didn’t know the frame could bend like that.
While Briar glanced away to the frame, Isodora grabbed Jack. He put up a fuss, kicking and squirming. “Let me go. Let me go!”
“I’ll do it,” Briar said, her voice sounding calm despite her racing heart. “Just release the boys. As soon as they are out of the building, I’ll prick my finger. I don’t want them to see.”
“No. You’ll do it now.” Isodora dragged the kicking Jack over to the spindle and held his finger over the point.
Briar ran forward. “He can’t break the curse, don’t hurt him.”
Isodora shot her an annoyed look. “I know how my curse works.”
“But she doesn’t know how mine works,” said a voice near the door. Fanny, hair out of sorts and filled with pieces of broken vine, her face and arms scratched and bleeding, stepped out of the shadows and into the flickering candlelight. Her connection to Isodora must have let her break through the briars.
“That is, I call it a blessing, not a curse. It’s a protection I put over the frame to keep these silly girls from accidentally hurting themselves again.”
“You.” Isodora narrowed her eyes. “I can’t get rid of you. What did you do to this contraption?”
“Miss Fanny,” called Benny. He was now fully awake, his mouth trembling as he tried to squirm out of his bindings.
Fanny put her hands on her hips. “Tying up children? Really, Isodora?” She made a move to rescue Benny.
Isodora called out in a loud voice, “You are forbidden to let that child go!” The spinning frame began to tremble and Benny reached out for his brother.
Jack, who enjoyed exciting adventures, looked to Briar for help, his eyes wide and pupils dilated. Obviously scared, he was being so brave.
Briar’s instincts took over and she lunged for Jack. Briar pulled on the boy, trying to get him out of Isodora’s grip, but then saw that was only hurting him. She tugged at Isodora’s bony fingers one by one, and Jack assisted with a bite to the fairy’s forearm.
Isodora screamed while loosening her grip on Jack. He went limp, slid out from her grasp, and then wiggled away on the floor. He ran to help Fanny loose Benny.
Isodora clawed for Briar.
“No, you can’t have them.” Briar pushed her away with all her strength and ran for the twins.
As she fell backward, Isodora tripped on the tangle of thread left over from the boys’ play and fell against the frame. The ends of the exposed spindles piercing Isodora’s flesh, she cried out in pain and rage. She tried to lift her body forward, but stuck fast.
Briar covered the boys’ eyes, watching in horror as Isodora writhed on the spikes. “Fanny, what do we do?”
Fanny twisted her hands. “I-I don’t know. Try to get her off, I suppose.”
Briar held her hand out to stop Fanny. “First, undo the curse,” Briar said to Isodora. Her voice came out strong, even though she was trembling inside.
Isodora panted through the pain. “I can’t, you fool. It must be carried out.”
Fanny nodded. “That is the problem that got us here in the first place.”
Briar didn’t want to be cruel, but she couldn’t let Isodora go free only to hurt someone else. “You must be able to do something. Release the Prince family. Seal up the spindle where no one can get to it.”
“But then I’ll forever be like this,” Isodora seethed, glaring at Fanny.
“You’ll be alive,” Briar said.