 
## **Contents**

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

About the Author

Copyright Page
Books by Lotus Rose

More info at loteyrose.com

The Corruption of Innocence, Faerie Brace-Face, The Doll Queen, Poniworld Chronicles

Twisted Holiday Specials

SinEaster

Merry XXXmas, Charlee Frown

BlackHearts Day

Malice in Wonderland Saga

Malice in Wonderland Prequel

Malice in Wonderland #1: Alice the Assassin

Malice in Wonderland #2: Alice the Angel of Death

Malice In Wonderland #3: Alice the Girl Who Will Tear Your Heart Out and Show It To You Before You Die

Malice Hates Fairy Tales #1

Malice Hates Fairy Tales #2

Gothic Lolita Series

Gothic Lolita

Gothic Lolita 2: Heirloom

Gothic Lolita 3: Pageant

Malice Hates Fairy Tales #1

The Brothers Grimm are trying to unleash twisted fairy tale beings into Wonderland.

15-year-old Queen Malice doesn't want to deal with them.

But then Malice's dear friend, the Mad Hatter, is kidnapped. So to save him, she's forced to work with Cinderella, and ends up getting sucked into Fairy Tale Land.

If things keep going this way, the fairy tales might eventually cross over into the outside world, where her twin, Alice, lives.

Malice struggles to do the right thing, but her heart keeps malfunctioning, sending her into fits of maliciousness. Killing Cinderella would be bad, right?

By the author of Malice in Wonderland.

CHAPTER ONE

Malice peers around the croquet ground. She is searching for one of the mallets she had broken in half yesterday and thrown in a fit of her heart "malfunctioning".

"Morrrlleey!" she calls out.

She hears Morley's muffled voice calling from somewhere inside the castle, "Yes My Queen, what is it?" Now the pink flamingo comes shuffling through one of the garden's entrances. "You called me?"

Morley is now standing in front of her, breathing heavily, but Malice knows he is merely exaggerating for effect, and will probably throw another hissy fit, she just knows it.

Malice opens her mouth, about to inquire about her mallet, when Morley interrupts. "I'm sorry I'm so out of breath, Your Highness, it's just that I'm so unused to traveling without my much-needed electric scooter."

She rolls her eyes. "Don't start that again. I told you I'm not switching time back to the future. And besides, the watch is broken."

Morley narrows his eyes in irritation. "So you say..."

"Gah! I say it because it's true! And it's been three weeks, so please get over it!"

Morley continues taking deep gasping breaths of air, and seems to have trouble saying what he's about to.

Malice thinks to herself, My my my, he sure is dedicating himself to this role, isn't he?

Finally, Morley gasps out, "It's just that I could so much better serve you with my electric scooter, and plus I like so much better the younger version of you."

She points at him in her fury. "You! Off with your—" She shakes her own head.

I'm angry, she thinks to herself as her kindness subroutine kicks in. Of course I'm angry, but I shouldn't lose my head, nor should any else lose theirs either. "Arggh. Just...shut up...please!" That last "please" was provided by the injection of her ticktock heart's kindness subroutine.

"As you wish," Morley says, now he sets his beak firm and fixes her with a withering look.

I must remember to be nice. After all, I am not like the Queen of Hearts. My hair is black, not brown, and my dress is much less poofy, oh, and I don't wear clown makeup like her either.

Malice tries to use a softer voice as she says, "Don't you think if I could change my age back, that I would? But no, I'm 15 now, and we're back in 1865's 'primitive' technology, and all your whining won't do a confounded thing to change either!"

A few weeks ago, Malice had grown disenchanted with all the futuristic technology that had recently come into fashion in Wonderland, so as one of her first acts as the new Queen of Wonderland, she had decided to reset everything in the land back to 1865. The year in Wonderland doesn't change on its own, and no one ages either, except Malice and Alice. So she'd used a magic watch that had once belonged to the March Hare. Of course, she didn't know what she was doing, and had managed to rapidly age herself two years before resetting Wonderland technology back to how it was when she'd first been "born". But of course she'd ended up breaking the watch by winding it backwards, which apparently, watches aren't designed to do.

Malice hears an irritatingly familiar chuckle behind her and angrily whirls to glare at him.

There he is, just his creepily grinning head, floating in midair. The Cheshire Cat.

He gasps. "Oh! Good morning, Your Royal Highness," he coos soothingly, but she knows he's just mocking her. He's always mocking. He peruses her scowly face, and adds, "Having a change of heart?" His brow raises expectantly.

But Malice's kindness subroutine does its job and forces her to smile at him. She can see the disappointment in his face as she pleasantly says, "I really wish you would stop saying that 'change of heart' thing. My heart is fine."

Behind her, she hears Morley huff.

The Cheshire Cat's floating head looks skeptical, as he says, "So you're not feeling particularly murderous this morning? Because there's something I've been thinking of telling you about the Queen."

"I'm the queen," Malice says. "I replaced her, remember?"

The Cat tuts and makes a sour face.

Behind her, Morley says, "Then why do we still call her Queen of Hearts?"

The Cat quips, "Because that's the only name she's ever had."

Malice huffs at the foul, floating feline's head. Without turning, she says, "Morley, Your Queen requests you find Our mallet, quickly." She is pleased to note that she said that quite pleasantly. She'd become alarmed lately that her ticktock heart would continue malfunctioning. It had already completely stopped providing her with genius level thoughts. It still provided her the kindness programs, but sometimes that would shut off for hours at a time.

"Yes, milady," Morley says. "Despite having to go by foot." She hears him stomp off.

The Cat chuckles. "Has our good ol' 'refined poet' been complaining about the lack of technology again?"

"Yes, but I'm not messing with time anymore. I don't want to mess things up anymore than I already have."

He nods. "I do like how it broke your heart. I much prefer the old, heartless version of you."

"It's not broken."

"I hope you're wrong. Why, when you're beautifully gloriously malicious, you're almost as cruel and bloodthirsty as the Queen of Hearts herself. Oh, it is then that I find you most beautiful."

Malice had been "born" without a heart, so she had once been cruel and heartless, but then she'd acquired the Ticktock Heart, which had computer programming that gave her a conscience. Unfortunately, when she'd reset technology in Wonderland, it seemed to have affected her ticktock heart, causing it to malfunction occasionally. She was just grateful her heart hadn't vanished completely, though she wasn't sure why it had been spared, but she suspected it might have to do with how she was wearing the watch around her neck at the time.

Malice squares her shoulders. "Well she's in the dungeon for a reason."

"Because you refuse to kill her," says the Cat.

Malice says, "Because she was a cruel ruler, who was always having people and creatures beheaded."

"And you refuse to kill her."

"Yes, because of my kindness subroutine, I refuse to have anyone killed."

"That's a pity. I do so love seeing the rightfully accused being bloodily dealt justice. Speaking of her, I wish to inform you of something about her."

"You said you wanted to tell me something about that...lady in the dungeon?"

The Cheshire Cat's always-there creepy grin twitches. "You mean, the Queen?"

"There it is!" she hears Morley call out in the distance.

"Yes," Malice answers the Cat.

Now, the Cat says, "Which one? The Red Queen? Or..." He's intentionally drawing things out, teasing her.

Malice loses her temper. "The Queen of Hearts, you stupid cat!" She realizes her hands have formed into fists at her side.

The Cheshire Cat's floating face lights up with glee. "Ah, there she is! My beautiful angry Malice. Do you wish to finally give the Queen of Hearts what for?"

Malice shakes her head to clear it, tries to compose herself. "No. I'm sorry I yelled. But what do you want to tell me?" She's worried, she feels like her anger is barely contained—she wants to do mean things—her ticktock heart doesn't seem to be doing its job at the moment.

Her fists tighten and relax as she struggles to maintain control, and she can feel the Cat's stupid, judging eyes watching her, appraising her, making her angrier.

The stupid cat purses his stupid cat mouth. "Perhaps I shan't. You know I don't like to interfere. I'm an observer...at heart."

Malice explodes. "Confound you...you...you gormless feline!" It is at this awkward moment that Morley chooses to come up next to her, holding the upper half of her broken croquet mallet in his beak.

He drops it, now says, "Your Royal Highness, I found your mallet, though without my electric scooter, it has exhausted me ever-so-much."

Malice turns to him. She is sure her face must be red with anger. She can't take it anymore. "Don't..." she warns.

The Cat teases, "The other queen wouldn't put up with that mouthiness, that's for sure."

In a whiny voice Morley says, "It's just, why can't you just try to reset things? I miss my scooter." And now he starts that fake heavy panting again.

Malice feels her mechanical heart cease its ticking.

And something snaps inside her and she can feel the hold of the kindness program slip away. And she finds herself yelling, "You! I've had enough, you faker!" And she is kneeling, and now picking up the mallet.

And the Cat is chuckling, saying, "Ah, there she is, she emerges!"

And she is surging with anger and hatred—she can see Morley's face become full of fear. "Uh oh," he says.

"I'm going to kill you!" Malice shouts. She swings at him, but the creature twists aside, turns around and runs.

Malice chases him while screaming, "I shall beat you..." She swings. "...black and blue!" Swing.

And the Cat laughs as he floats beside her. "I love you so much right now!"

And Morley is running so fast and turning and ducking so much, that none of Malice's whooshing swings connect.

I want to see that confounded bird's head in the guillotine! I want him dead!

Swing! The mallet whooshes through empty air.

"Almost got him," the Cat encourages.

But Malice has to stop. She is panting for air, and she's not playing it up like Morley had.

Morley, by the way, takes the opportunity to escape through one of the doors into the interior of the castle.

"Oh no," says the Cat, sounding bored.

Malice screams in frustration and throws the mallet forcefully into the ground. "I shall have the guards capture him and then have his confounded head separated from his stupid, confounded neck!"

"That's the spirit! Oh, now I think you're in the proper mood for my news about the Queen of Hearts."

"Eh, what news?"

"Well, she's attempting to escape. Well, more accurately she was. I'm sure she already has by now."

"What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

He sniffs. "Well, she told me not to tell you until after she was gone. And you know I don't like to interfere."

Malice doesn't have time for this stupid cat. She must make sure the Queen of Hearts doesn't escape. She cups her hands in front of her mouth and calls out, "Guards!"

The Cat says, "Oh please tell me you'll dispatch her in a gruesome and bloody way if you catch her. I do so love my gore!"

She ignores him.

CHAPTER TWO

Malice is racing through the hallways of the castle in a frenzy. "Guards!"

A couple of the human-sized cards with arms and legs and heads poke out from a hallway. "Yes, My Queen?"

"We must go to the Queen of Heart's cell at once! I believe she may be trying to escape! Go go! I'll meet you there!"

The guard cards scurry away, carrying their spears.

About a half minute later she hears one of the guards yell from the dungeons, "The Queen of Hearts has escaped!"

On her way down the stairs, one of the guard cards is coming up the opposite direction. He says, "I shall alert all the guards to search for her!"

Malice continues down the stairs. She has to see for herself, so she makes her way to the Queen of Heart's cell. On the way, she passes the Red Queen's cell—she's the other queen locked in the dungeons. Malice peers into the little window to see she's there, doing her usual thing of running in place while levitating in midair.

But when Malice gets to the Queen of Heart's cell, the truth of the situation can no longer be denied. The door is wide open, and Malice is not met with the usual clown-face makeup of the Queen of Hearts. (Her face had been transformed by Malice's tears, though the Queen of Hearts herself is in denial of the transformation.)

Near the far corner of the wall, a pile of dirt rings the edge of a hole tunneling up from the ground. It instantly reminds her of one of the Groundhog's burrows.

If the Groundhog dug up a hole for her to escape, surely the guards I posted outside the door must have heard!

The chairs they were sitting in are empty.

One of the guard cards she had assigned to sit in one of them appears from a hallway and runs toward her. "I've searched the dungeons, Your Highness, and she is nowhere inside here."

Malice's heart suddenly starts ticking again. And so she feels pity for him. Sometimes the forced kindness from her ticktock heart goes way overboard. "Aww, I'm sorry my little smooky guardy poo, but methinks the Queen of Hearts has gone outside, yeah?" She winks. Malice herself is completely aware how sickeningly sweet she can get at these times.

The guard card stammers, "Of course, it'd be stupid for her to hang around here, but I was told to do a search anyway."

Malice pouts at him pityingly. "There there." She pats his arm. "Just because you were assigned a stupid task does not mean that you yourself are stupid."

His features relax. "Thank you My Queen. But I'm sure they'll find out where that tunnel leads and they shall be searching for the missing prisoner."

"Yes," Malice says sweetly, "and I am sure they will do their best to hunt her down despite their complete incompetence." She smiles big and her dimples pop. She embraces him in a tight hug, rocking side to side.

CHAPTER THREE

The Queen of Heart's rescue had taken her completely by surprise. She actually yipped in alarm when she saw the Groundhog's snout pushing out from the ground. She was lucky the guards outside her door hadn't heard.

Once the hole was big enough for the Groundhog to poke his head through, he did so, and then whispered, "Come through the burrow to the outside of the wall, if you please, My Queen, some of your loyal followers have come to rescue you!"

The Queen of Hearts didn't have to be asked twice. Her dress was poofy and wide, but the rather-quite-large Groundhog had made the burrow extra wide for her. Outside of the wall, four guard cards awaited, pledged their loyalty and led her away from the castle into the forest.

"Almost there," says one of the cards. He points with his spear. The Queen of Hearts looks where he points.

Her eyes go wide with dismay. She sees a makeshift arrangement. There are a bunch of tents set outside the mouth of a cave set in the side of a hill. A wooden sign is posted in front of the cave and on it have been sloppily painted the words, New Cassle.

The guard card next to her says, "We intend to build you a new castle for your new kingdom. We just haven't had enough time to do anything yet."

The Queen of Hearts stomps her foot and whines, "But I want my castle and my kingdom."

"My apologies, Your Majesty."

She scowls. "Oh, this shall not stand. We must organize a coup d'etat at once! How many guard cards are on my side now?"

"Seventeen, Your Majesty. And there are three humans. There they are now."

Two teenage boys and what looks to be a cloaked man walk out from the cave. The man is completely covered with the brown hooded cloak—she can't see his face and she can't tell the age, but something about the shape of the body suggests an older man.

As they walk toward her, she recognizes the two uncloaked boys. She exclaims, "The Brothers Grimm!"

Until very recently, the three Brothers Grimm had been imprisoned within the Queen of Heart's very own dungeons. But recently, a little girl from the outside world known as the Tinkerer had overthrown the Queen of Hearts and put Malice in power, and had also released the Brothers Grimm.

The Queen of Hearts gives a weak smile to the three figures as they step up to her. "Good afternoon, chaps. What are you fine fellows about, then?" She wants to appear nice, in case they are harboring thoughts of revenge.

The brother named Jacob, who is the oldest at 19 years old, says in his German accent, "My brothers and I arranged for your rescue, because you are Malice's rival. It would be undramatic for you to waste away in a dungeon cell."

The other brother, who she recognizes as Wilhelm, nods. "Would've been an unexciting story." He's the 18 year old brother, also with an accent.

The Queen of Hearts struggles to maintain her composure amongst these confusing utterances.

She hasn't failed to notice that the third brother has failed to speak, and seemingly stares intently at the grassy ground.

"Yes," the Queen of Hearts says carefully, "things will definitely be more exciting with me out of Malice's dungeons—I intend to coup d'etat her... That means, to violently overthrow her."

"We know what it means," Jacob says.

Wilhelm looks to Jacob, and Jacob nods. Now Jacob turns back to her and says, "But we feel there are more important matters. Bigger issues."

She says, "Oh, by the way, I'm dreadfully sorry for imprisoning you three all those years. I should have executed you immediately to spare you all that inconvenience."

Jacob scowls for a moment before going back to a neutral expression. Wilhelm chuckles and says, "Inconvenience? Is that what you call it?"

Wilhelm laughs again, but he doesn't sound amused—his laugh sounds mean. "Oh, my dear deluded former Queen, an inconvenience is getting a bad haircut or having a clown face."

In a warning voice, Jacob says, "Wilhelm. Remember what our task is..."

The Queen of Hearts straightens her shoulders and tuts. "Yes, why don't you get to why you brought me here to these wretched, plebeian accommodations."

Wilhelm snarls his lips and seems about to say something untoward but Jacob cuts him off when he says, "Big changes are coming to Wonderland. There is a powerful being known as the Storyteller who has gone into the mood."

"Eh?" says the Queen of Hearts. "Who is this Storyteller and what is he or she in the mood for?"

Jacob explains, "He is in the mood for telling an epic tale. It is because of him and the story he's telling that we had to help in your rescue. It's not like we actually like you or anything."

"In fact, we think you're a slag," Wilhelm says, but Jacob shushes him.

The Queen of Hearts says to Wilhelm, "And I think your head would look so cute on top of a pike."

Now Wilhelm's anger comes out. "Is that so?!"

"Yes that's so!" she screams.

"We rescued you, lady!"

"Yes, by having me grovel in dirt like some kind of worm! My dress is all dirty because of you!"

Jacob says, "Now now! There are more important things to focus on. If we can find the Storyteller and provide him with a satisfying story we can team up to conquer the outside world and fill it with fairy tales!"

"Huh?" she says. "Conquer the outside world? I demand you explain yourself. This instant."

Jacob bows mockingly. "When my brothers and I first portaled over into your world from our outside one, we wanted to destroy your world of Wonderland tales and replace it with our own fairy tales."

"Which is why I imprisoned you," she says.

"If you keep interrupting, it'll take forever to tell you...so when my brothers wanted to vanquish your land, we came up with a character known as the Storyteller who would guide the stories of the fairy tale creatures and beings. He was on the verge of unleashing all the fairy tales into Wonderland when we were captured. To save the fairy tale beings, he hid them away in their own realm. Then he holed himself up in his castle. Without any stories to inspire him, he grew uninterested until now."

"Bored. All he cares about is being entertained by you?"

"By stories. The stories of the fairy tale creatures interest him. And the tale of Wonderland. He has been watching, but has remained uninterested."

"So where's he been this whole time?" the Queen of Hearts asks.

"He hasn't told us everything. But he says he's been hidden in his secret castle, says he's been catching up on his gardening—likes growing squash, radishes and such."

"I've never heard of this Storyteller."

"He felt it would be more dramatic if you learned of him now."

"What?"

"He cares about things in the sense of fitting whatever story they're a part of. He thought this was the best point in the story for you to learn about him."

"So you've been speaking with him?"

"Yes, recently he has contacted us through our dreams. He believes this is the time of prophesy, when the world of Wonderland and the outside world are destined to clash and decide their fates once and for all."

"Yes. Prophesy. Days of judgment. Sounds good. But I only care if I can get something out of it. I've always wanted to invade the outside world and conquer it. Think of all the heads I could order be taken off," she says with a dreamy expression.

"That could very well happen now that the anchor being has been established within their realm."

"What anchor being?"

"Alice. The Storyteller thinks she is the Chosen One of the prophesy. When she left Wonderland, an opportunity opened up. The Storyteller felt a sudden shift between the two worlds when she crossed over to the outside world. She holds much of the essence of Wonderland inside her and so she serves as an anchor between the two worlds. As long as she is in the other realm, it is like a door has been opened for the fairy tale beings to cross over."

"Oh? And what will they do once they do? Create havoc? Mayhem? Misery?"

"Perhaps all three," Jacob says with a wicked grin. "It is prophesied that there will be great conflict between the two worlds, and also that there will be one known as the slayer who will battle the fairy tales. But don't worry, if we work together we can defeat them, and absolutely wreck their world with our fairy tales and rule over all!"

"Oh that sounds delightful!" the Queen of Hearts exclaims.

"So what do you say, can we put our differences aside and work together?! The first step is we'll have to contact Alice."

"Whoa. I never knew Alice could be so important for anything." Alice was a little girl from the outside world who'd entered Wonderland by traveling through the Looking Glass. When the Queen of Hearts found out her tears were magical, she'd captured Alice and essentially made her a slave. But around the girl's 13th birthday, she'd escaped back through the Looking Glass, but not before leaving behind a mirror reflection version of herself, named Malice, who was identical to Alice except for not having a heart. Malice was only kind because of a mechanical heart with kindness programming built into it. "Oh, how I'd love to get my hands on that bratty Alice again."

"So it's a deal?" Jacob says.

"Yes, quite," says the Queen of Hearts.

Jacob holds his hand out, but the Queen of Hearts merely raises her nose in the air.

Wilhelm scowls at her, while the cloaked one continues his impersonation of a statue.

Jacob says, "It's good we could come to an arrangement, because together we just might be strong enough to deal with the Storyteller."

"What's that? I thought he was on our side."

Jacob sighs. "The Storyteller doesn't really have a side. All he cares about is telling a good story, and to do that, he's willing to resort to all sorts of little tricks—all that sort of storyteller stuff: irony, poetic justice, coincidence, symbolism, tropes, archetypes, even deus ex machina. You do know what that is right?" He raises a brow.

"Pish posh. Of course I do, you cad. I'm not some illiterate peasant. But since you do so seem to love to explain such things, why don't you go ahead, then?"

"It's when a miraculous rescue of some sort swoops in and saves the hero who you'dve thunk was certainly doomed. But you know that."

"Of course." She nods smugly. "But I'm concerned that if he only cares about telling a good story, how good of a companion can he be?"

"I don't like to speak ill of him. The fact of the matter is we may have to play to his whims. He may have set up a good story for us to play our roles in."

"What are you talking about? I want to speak to this Storyteller, to let him know how things shall be."

The cloaked brother begins nodding up and down, over and over.

Jacob says, "As you wish."

The cloaked brother brings out a playing card from one of his pockets and hands it to her. It isn't a regular sort of card. Looking at it, she reads the words written on it: Dramatic reveal.

The cloaked figure says, "The truth of the matter..." He speaks in a strange voice, quite different from the one she is used to. He also has an English accent rather than a German one. He pulls his hood down. "...is that you've been speaking to him all along."

The Queen of Hearts gasps as she sees the cloaked figure is not the 17 year old boy she had known all these years as the third Brother Grimm. No, the man before her looks to be in his 40's with glasses and a big bald spot on top of his head. "I am the Storyteller..." he says dramatically. He adds, "And I just told you so, dramatically!" He plucks the card from her hand.

The Queen of Hearts rolls her eyes. "Well I agree, I was surprised. I thought you were the other Brother Grimm." She sees that the other brothers don't seem all that surprised, so they must have known it was the Storyteller.

A smirk forms on the Storyteller's face. "Ah, are you referring to the Brother Grimm who entered your world, and who you imprisoned with his other brothers all those years?"

"Yes," the Queen of Hearts says, "that'd be the one."

"I must tell you, that I have a special mask I wore. Because who you thought was the third brother was me all along!" he says dramatically while staring intensely, unwaveringly into her eyes.

She looks at him for a moment. "Pish posh. No mask is as good as that."

He sniffs. "Mine was. All that time, I was right there within your very own dungeon the whole time!" He raises a quivering pointing hand in the air for dramatic emphasis.

"But it doesn't even make sense. Why go through the bother of being imprisoned all those years? Just so you could be ironic?"

"Yes! Irony is one of my greatest devices. For I am the Storyteller!"

"So no other reason? Irony is your reason?" She smirks.

"Do not mock irony!"

"You don't even have the same body type as him. He was 17 years old."

"I exercised!"

"You don't even have the same voice. I spoke to him several times."

"Blimey!" He stomps his foot. "Don't get in the way of the irony! The beautiful irony."

"Well, maybe if you could make your voice sound like him, I might believe you."

He stomps. "I am an artist. I'm the Storyteller! And my irony is my art!"

She sniffs. "Well the irony just doesn't seem very believable, that's all."

He waves his hand dismissively. "Enough of this. I have more to inform you of. Things upon which your very fate, and indeed all of Wonderland's depends!" He raises his hand again.

"Go on, then."

"You and Malice shall go against each other. There is a chance that many will lose their lives, and indeed one of you two queens may have to die in order for the other to succeed." His voice takes on a deeper more ominous tone. "Which makes what I'm about to tell you that much more difficult."

He locks eyes with her and doesn't speak, move or even blink for several long seconds, which fills the Queen of Hearts with the dreadful fear that he is about to reveal something both of import and inconvenience.

"This is called suspense," he says quietly out the side of his mouth.

The Queen of Hearts waits. He hands her a card that says, Ironic twist.

"For I must tell you..." he says. "Malice... well... perhaps I shouldn't tell, no I must! Malice...the girl who has become your greatest rival... Well...Malice...is your daughter."

She gives him a look. "Well it seems like I'd remember that. I've never had any children."

"I know," he says, "that's what makes it even more ironic."

"Poppycock. You fail at your stupid irony." She tears the Ironic twist card in two, tears again and throws the pieces in his face.

He sighs. "My dear lady. I know it may have been quite challenging to your suspension of disbelief, but if you had simply been polite enough to go along with it, it would've made for quite an interesting story."

The Queen of Hearts crosses her arms. "It was stupid because of biology. Women notice when they have children."

Sulkily he says, "You could've glossed over that fact for the sake of the irony. It was such beautiful irony."

"It was rubbish irony. Is all your irony like that?" She narrows her eyes at him. "So where is the real third Brother Grimm?"

He nods, now hands her a card.

There are two words on the card. She only has the chance to read the first, which is Blackout before everything goes black.

CHAPTER FOUR

When the Queen of Hearts comes to again, she is lying upon a carpet.

She's inside what looks to be a medium sized bedroom. The walls are gray stone. She sees a bed and Wilhelm, Jacob and the Storyteller seated on chairs to its side. Without his cloak, the Storyteller looks like an ordinary Victorian gentleman.

The Queen of Hearts doesn't have a very good view from her vantage point, but she can hear the Storyteller orating: "And then the Princess laid a kiss upon the top of the frog's head."

The Queen of Hearts grunts as she rises up to an upright position. And the three guys turn to look at her.

"Ah, you're up," says Wilhelm.

She shouts, "This is outrageous that you would leave me upon the floor like this! I am a queen!"

Jacob says, "Well, actually you were usurped."

"Usurped? Absurd! I've escaped, and I shall regain my castle!"

The Storyteller says, "Well until then, you're in my castle. We couldn't put you in a chair for fear you'd fall out. But now, you're awake, so please join us for this most momentous messaging."

The Queen of Hearts looks to her sides before starting to get up. She sees the card she'd been holding lying next to her, picks it up and reads the words, Blackout Transition. "What is this?" She waves the card. "Oh, won't you fools help me up!"

The brothers walk to her and pull her up by grasping her hands. The Queen of Hearts doesn't like touching these two gits, but her full-hooped dress can make complicated maneuvering difficult.

She'd dropped the card when she was being picked up. Wilhelm stoops to pick it off the ground and hands it to her. "There you are. Now if you'll just—"

"Blackout Transition!" she shouts. "Why did you give me this card?" she says as she stomps over to the Storyteller who is seated in a chair next to the bed. A young girl of about 11 with long brown hair lies in a night gown on her back with her eyes closed.

"I thought—"

The Queen of Hearts would love to wake up whoever this brat is with her screaming. "Nincompoop!" Just to drive her point home, she crumples the card and tosses it into the crease of the book in his lap.

He clears his throat. "Yes, well I thought it would be better for the story. With a blackout transition you don't have to deal with all the traveling and boring interludes. You can get right to the next exciting part and still leave a lot of things mysterious and unknown."

"My life is not a story, you idiot!"

He gives a smug little smile. "Of course it is. All our lives are, though most peoples' lives are monotonous, full of boring parts—not enough drama, you see, or irony, for that matter. I like my stories to have irony."

"Oh, you prat! You knocked me out!"

"Or did I?" he says with a raised brow.

"Okay. What'd you do? Use some sort of potion?"

He leans and says, "It's a mystery."

"Ooooh!" she shouts in frustration. "Off with his head!" she shouts out of habit, but quickly looks embarrassed, for there are no guard cards around to carry out her orders.

"Come now," the Storyteller coos. "We've a more important matter to address."

One of the brothers sets a chair next to the others.

"Oh, fine." The Queen of Hearts sits, causing her royal gown to rise up. "But no more blackouts. Don't think I won't have you beheaded. And praytell, who is that, anyway?" She points at the little girl who hasn't moved at all, except to breathe.

The Storyteller says, "Oh that is my daughter, my little Sleeping Beauty. We are going to draw upon her dream energy to contact Alice in the other realm."

"Come, now we shall have some fun," the Queen of Hearts says, lighting up.

The Storyteller says, "Yes, I thought you'd like that. So enough dilly dallying, and let's get to it." He clears his throat, looks into the book, and orates to the girl, "Once upon a time there was a little girl who could use her magical abilities to open a dream connection with Alice in the outside realm, and one night, this night, she did..." He closes the book, then presses the back of his hand to the girl's forehead, as if to check for a fever. He presses his palm to her forehead. "I said, this night...she did!"

A few moments pass. A tiny dot of light appears in the air above the bed, flitting lazily like a firefly. Now the light grows, until it is a big hovering orb of light in which they all can see a blurry view of Alice, the twin of Malice, lying in her bed on her side, fast asleep.

Yet the Queen of Hearts thinks Alice looks somewhat younger than Malice. It's all so ludicrous, since only a few weeks ago, Malice was 13, but since messing with the magic time-changing watch, she'd managed to bungle herself to suddenly jump to be 15 years of age. Apparently, her twin, Alice, in the other world, hadn't experienced the same changes.

Wilhelm says, "Crikey, how do we wake her?"

Jacob shrugs, and the Storyteller closes his book and sets it on one of the nightstands. He places his index finger upon the side of his face, thoughtfully, but not helpfully, since he takes way too long, thinking.

So the Queen of Hearts shrugs and shouts at Alice, "Wake up, you rascal! You're late for your rounds," for she remembers fondly when she used to terrorize the child by sending her on daily rounds of humiliation, and if the girl was ever late, well she knew to fear the wrath of her queen, that was for sure.

And ah, the memory is still within Alice, for she shrieks and hops out of bed like jumping from a pot of hot water. Her frightened eyes look around in her dark room and she says, "I'm sorry, My Queen! I'll be ready at once! Oh, I'm so sorry for oversleeping!"

The Queen of Hearts snickers as Alice rummages through a cabinet drawer, then the Queen of Hearts says, "I knew you couldn't forget about me."

Alice strikes a match and lights a candle. "Oh, no no, My Queen, I could never forget you." Inside the floating orb above the bed, Alice turns to face the Queen of Hearts, a puzzled look on Alice's face as she says, "I mean, wait, I'm no longer in Wonderland, I mean, I never was."

"And the Queen of Hearts is no longer the queen," Wilhelm says unhelpfully, and the Queen of Hearts turns to snarl at him.

"Oh!" the Queen of Hearts cries as she is startled by the grinning floating head of that infernal Cheshire Cat staring straight at her, to mock her. "Infernal cat!"

He chuckles. "Why didn't you invite me?"

Alice's eyes are wide with fear, her fingers are touching her mouth, "Cat?" she whispers. She mumbles to her herself, "No, this must be a dream, or one of the 'hallucinations' they spoke of."

The Storyteller says, "Well it is a dream, my dear. You are actually still asleep. Greetings, Alice, I'm the Storyteller."

With a pleasant little smile upon her face, Alice smiles congenially. She reaches over and pinches her arm.

The Storyteller says, "That won't work. We're locked in. We're contacting you from the Wonderland Realm concerning a very important matter."

A faraway look on Alice's face. "There is no Wonderland. I realize that now."

The Storyteller says, "Well, I beg to differ. I know you're a girl with a wild imagination, which is why fate chose you to enter Wonderland all those years ago."

"Yes, I used to believe in it. But it was what they call a delusion. But the doctors, help me to not think that way."

"Then where had you been all those years?"

Alice answers, "They do not know. I may have been in a fugue state or may have amnesia."

The Queen of Hearts butts in, "I must ask you, how old are you, girl?"

"I'm 14, Your Highness."

"Poppycock! Obviously, you must be mistaken. You should still be 13."

Alice shakes her head meekly.

The Queen of Hearts says, "Well, perhaps you are not mistaken, then. Malice must have truly mucked up time by fiddling with that watch of hers."

"Oh, Malice!" Alice exclaims. "How is she?"

"Bleh," says the Queen of Hearts. "She's annoying. Still has that ticktock heart of hers that makes her act all righteous and holier than thou."

Alice asks, "But what of you? Don't you have a heart as well, now?"

"Of course I have a heart. But just because one has a heart, doesn't mean one's a good person, you know."

"Yes, I know. But I just know that with all the changes before I left, all the Wonderland citizens gained new hearts. Tell me, have their personalities changed? Are they much nicer? But, no..." She bites her lip, shakes her head as if to clear it. "This is all a dream. I mustn't persist in my delusions. I must wake up!" She shakes her head faster, causing her hair to whip about.

The view of Alice's room grows blurry and wavy, like viewing things through hot air.

The Storyteller says, "We're losing her. Our connection isn't strong enough. Please, Alice, stop and just listen for a little bit."

Alice stops and peers at him warily. "Okay."

"These two young men beside me are the Brothers Grimm."

Her eyes widen. "The ones who made the fairy tales?"

"Yes. I know how much you like stories, and how imaginative you are, and well, we want to bring the fairy tales over into your world, and make them real, not just stories."

"Why?" Alice asks.

"Because my girl, it will be fun and interesting. Don't you think your real world is boring? I know you do."

"I do, but, I mean, what can I do?"

"You can do so much. You're very special. You are the legendary Alice, and since you came from Wonderland you're like an anchor. It must be you who calls the fairy tale beings to your world."

"Anchor?" She scrunches her face. "Like on a ship?"

The Storyteller sighs. "It's like you're on one end of the rope, in your world, and you must call the fairy tale beings over—you must pull them through on the rope, using the power of your imagination."

"My imagination has gotten me in so much trouble! You can't be real."

"You are still connected to Wonderland, due to parts you've left behind, like Malice, for instance. Because of that you should still be able to sense...can't you feel that we're real?"

"Nope, silly dream." She grins as if she's not falling for the joke.

He sighs. "Can't you just give it a try and just believe?"

"T'is folly, I now realize." She shrugs. Grins.

The Storyteller turns to the Queen of Hearts and Brothers Grimm, says, "We must figure a way to strengthen the connection to her, so she can feel that we're real."

Jacob says, "Perhaps something with a magical aura to it."

Wilhelm nods. "Something that was personally connected to her."

The Storyteller's face alights. "Or even something that was an item of clothing she wore, like a hat or scarf, or something once a part of her body like, hair, fingernails."

"Or tears?" Alice asks. "Like the Hatter's special hat, you mean? Is that what you're hinting at with your 'accidentally overheard' conversation?"

They're all looking at her.

"The Hatter's hat?" the Storyteller asks.

"Yes, I cried into it. Or I imagined I did. But this has gone on quite long enough, you figments of my imagination. I'm going back to sleep, and I shan't dream of you anymore!" She covers her eyes with her hands and the floating image of her promptly disappears.

The Storyteller turns to them. "What do you know of the hat she spoke of?"

The Queen of Hearts says, "I know he has many of them—the twit is obsessed, I must say. But I don't know of one Alice cried in, but if she did, it must be magical in some way, since her tears were quite magical things."

The brothers are rubbing their chins, going, "Hmmm."

"I know the hat," the Cheshire Cat says. "He keeps it in his workshop."

"Well," says the Storyteller, "perhaps it's time to have a chat with the Hatter."

"Quite," says the Queen of Hearts. "But he's been paranoid the past couple of days and has holed himself up in his fort. Well, he calls it his fort, but it's really just his workshop, all gussied up. He's quite mad, you know. He's refused to speak to me for two days, and now that I'm not the official queen, I doubt he'll listen to me." She pouts.

"Send some guard cards?" the Storyteller says.

"The fort would chew them up, I'm afraid. He's set up a bunch of challenges to get to his door."

"Tell me about the fort, but whisper in my ear, so it won't be overheard, for the sake of..." He rummages in his pocket and hands her a card. She reads it: Suspense.

So she walks to him and whispers in his ear the description of the fort and all the challenges he set up.

The Storyteller's eyes alight. "Ahah!" he proclaims. "I know the perfect person to storm the Mad Hatter's little fort."

"Oh? Praytell, who?"

"Cinderella."

CHAPTER FIVE

"Who's Cinderella?" the Queen of Hearts asks.

The Storyteller answers, "One of the fairy tale beings."

Wilhelm says, "We created her."

"And I told her story," says the Storyteller.

The Queen of Hearts presses her fingertips to her temples and shakes her head. "I must say, this whole business is difficult for me to understand."

The Cat clucks his tongue. "I agree, it does all seem a bit hard to swallow."

The Queen of Hearts scowls at the Cat. She tends to do that automatically, for she quite despises the beast.

"Ah, well," says the Storyteller, "I'm sure I could try more explaining, leading to more confusing, but why don't we skip that and go to Cinderella at once. She's in one of the castle's gardens."

"Of course, she is," the Queen of Hearts mutters.

"Well, yes, of course. This is the official fairy tale castle. Since so many fairy tales have a castle, why not use the same one? Efficient, you see."

Angrily, the Queen of Hearts says, "Well I thought I had put a stop to all the fairy tale business when I cast the spells and put you two in prison." She's referring to the Brothers Grimm.

"You did," the Storyteller says. "She was one of the only few fairy tale beings let loose in Wonderland before you clamped down. I ended up freezing her. Come, I'll take you to her." He begins walking.

"What do you mean, 'freezing'?"

"She's frozen in place. Come along, I'll show you."

"Certainly," says the Cat.

"You're not invited," the Queen of Hearts tells him, but he tags along anyway.

They make their way down several floors and through many hallways until they enter a courtyard. The doors open out into a medium sized garden with sidewalks and neatly trimmed hedges and an array of flowers. A teenage girl in a blue evening gown is sitting like a statue upon a bench in front of a stone fountain.

"There she is," the Storyteller says as they approach.

"Our creation!" Jacob says.

The girl seems to be pressing a slab of glass which is broken on one end, against her bare wrist. Her other hand is adorned in a long elbow length white glove. The girl's face seems frozen in mid-crying, but also bears an expression of curiousity. Her head is raised and slightly tilted as if trying to make out something she hears.

Now that they're up close, the Queen of Hearts sees that the glass shard is a glass slipper, that has been broken on one end.

"Oh, my," the Queen of Hearts says, and wrinkles her nose in a bit of distaste.

"Oh, how morbid!" the Cat says.

Wilhelm says, "Oh, please, Storyteller, please release our creation."

The Queen of Hearts is still trying to understand all this. "So, you brothers created her, but you can't release her?"

"Yes," the Storyteller says, "the Brothers Grimm create all the fairy tale beings, but it is I who shape their lives, who tells their story, for I...am the Storyteller."

The Queen of Hearts struggles not to roll her eyes. "Why yes, I heard. Several times. So why is the poor girl about to slice her wrist?"

The Storyteller says, "Because once I found out you were destroying the fairy tales, I sought a way to save her. I couldn't send her off to Fairy Tale Land like the others, since she'd already been unleashed into Wonderland. But I came up with a way to save her—I froze her in place by attributing something to her known as..." He digs in his pockets, hands her a card. "an ambiguous ending."

She reads the card that reads, yes, Ambiguous ending. She rolls her eyes. "I say, what is the use of these cards?"

"Why they're storytelling tool cards," the Storyteller says, as if that explains it.

"Pardon me," says the Cat. "But may I ask, is the ending going to be that her arterial spray shoots out, because that would be delightfully gory."

The Queen of Hearts makes a sound of disgust.

"Well, it's ambiguous, Cat," the Storyteller says, "which means it's up in the air."

"Oh, like her blood soon shall be," the Cat says delightfully.

"Oh, I can't stand him," the Queen of Hearts mutters to herself.

"Well, I saved her by using that card, and ending her story, freezing her in place."

The Queen of Heart says, "You still haven't told me why she's about to slice her wrist with a glass shoe."

Jacob says, "She's the Princess who did woo, with her exhibitionist glass shoe."

The Queen of Hearts just stares at him, dumbfounded.

Wilhelm explains, "We created her. Sometimes there are little rhymes associated with their stories."

But the Queen of Hearts doesn't think that explains much of anything. "It's a simple question. Yet no one will answer."

"Well, my dear Queen," the Storyteller says, "to do so, I would have to tell her story, which I'm perfectly willing to do, with me being a storyteller and all, but when I get to the point of her ambiguous ending, in order to unfreeze her, I shall have to provide her with a right and proper ending to her tale."

The Queen of Hearts regards the girl. "So? Is there any other way? Let's get to it."

"Yes!" the Cat exclaims. "Let's get the blood flying up in the air!"

Wilhelm says, with hanged head, "I would hate to see our creation perish."

The Storyteller says, "Nonetheless, sometimes a tragic ending is the most fitting. I even have a 'tragic ending' card. Would you like to see?" he says with a smirk at the Queen of Hearts.

"Oh no no no, I shan't!" the Queen of Hearts exclaims while waving her hands in front of her.

"I'd like to see," says the Cat, slyly.

"We often prefer tragic endings," Jacob says.

"Yes, I suppose that's true," Wilhelm says.

The Storyteller says, "Well, I shall tell you all her story as I told it before, up until the point she froze, and then..." He reclaims the Ambiguous ending card from the Queen of Heart's hand. "...I shall provide her tale with an end. So shall I begin?" He motions toward the bench.

They nod and agree and take seats to either side of Cinderella (All except for the Cheshire Cat, whose grinning head remains floating in the air.)

The Storyteller begins. "Once upon a time, there was a girl named Cinderella, who had two wicked stepsisters and a cruel stepmother. Well, there was a prince who was looking for a wife. The stepmother forbid Cinderella from going to the Prince's ball. And of course, Cinderella was too poor to afford fancy things.

"But Cinderella called the aid of her fairy godmother who provided a gown and glass slippers and even a stage coach.

"So Cinderella went to the ball, where everyone's face was covered. Not even her stepsisters, who were there too, recognized her.

"Now the Prince was a foot fetishist, so when he saw Cinderella's toes, he fell in love, but Cinderella had to rush off just before midnight before all her magical things disappeared, and she rushed off before the Prince could find out who she was, but one of her glass slippers fell off.

"Well, long story short, the Prince went around trying the glass slipper on every girl in the kingdom. At last he tried it on Cinderella, who was barefoot, since her stepsisters had hidden her goody two-shoes, which were the only shoes she owned.

"Well, the glass slipper fit, the Prince proposed and the two were married. But on the night of their wedding, they were awakened by the arrival of an intruder in their bedroom.

"There, standing before their bed, was a strikingly beautiful woman, made entirely of glass.

"She was a powerful sorceress, and she told them she was the original owner of the slippers, and she was furious with Cinderella for stealing them. The vicious glass sorceress wouldn't believe Cinderella when she said she had no idea where the slippers had come from.

"Cinderella was very sorry and wanted to give the slippers back.

"But the sorceress was cruel and wanted to punish Cinderella. She told Cinderella that if she wanted the slippers so bad, she could keep them, and as punishment, the sorceress would take her husband.

"The sorceress cast an enchantment that caused the prince to fall in love with her, and the prince left with the sorceress back to her realm of glass, leaving poor Cinderella all alone.

"Well, poor Cinderella was heartbroken, and she missed her prince terribly. She held onto the hope that he would return to her, but for weeks, he didn't. All the courtesans and servants left the castle to be with a different ruler, and Cinderella roamed its empty halls lost in her misery. She was so distraught, she began to imagine she could hear him calling her, and she would rush over, only to see she'd been imagining.

"She slipped further into despair, until one day, she could not bear her sorrow any longer. She felt that her husband would never return to her.

"So she sat at a bench in one of the castle's gardens, and she broke the end of one of the glass slippers to form a sharp jagged edge, and she pressed it to her wrist.

"Moments before she was to press the slipper into her flesh, she heard his voice calling from somewhere within the castle walls, calling, 'Cinderella, my beloved! Where are you? I've returned to you!'"

The Storyteller tightens his mouth and stops talking.

The Cat chuckles. "Well, that sure was a coincidence."

The Storyteller raises a pointed finger in the air. "Or was it?" He tries to hand a card to the Cat, but since he doesn't have a body, the Queen of Hearts is handed it.

It reads: Coincidence.

The Queen of Hearts says, "Is that it? She's still frozen."

"Yes," the Storyteller says. "That's where I ended her tale, with the ambiguous ending. Rather dramatic, don't you think?"

Jacob and Wilhelm nod and both say something in agreeance.

The Storyteller taps his chin. "Is there a moral, do you think? Let's discuss it."

The Queen of Hearts groans and stomps her foot. "I shan't waste my time in some English class literary analysis tomfoolery! Now, get to unfreezing the girl so she can get the Hatter's hat, so we can strengthen the world connection and I can get to ruling over both worlds, already!"

The Storyteller, looks a little snubbed, but says, "As you wish." He steeples his fingers together. "But her story didn't end there. Oh no, it sure didn't. Because, just before she slit her wrist, she decided to check one last time, to see if he was really calling her. Cinderella rose up from the bench and rushed into the castle hallway."

Cinderella suddenly stands up and runs from the garden while yelling, "Prince? Is it really you?"

The Storyteller continues, "It turns out, it really was the Prince. After the glass sorceress's love spell had worn off, she had held him captive. But finally, after many months, he figured out a way to kill the sorceress and make his escape. He returned to his beloved. And finally, at long last, they were in each other's arms again."

The Queen of Hearts holds her hand out toward the Storyteller, who says, "Hmm?"

"Aren't you going to give me the card...for the unambiguous ending?"

"Pffft... Of course not, there's nothing special about those."

"Oh, fine," the Queen of Hearts says. "Then let's go talk to Cinderella about infiltrating the Hatter's fort, shall we?"

They go to one of the hallways where Cinderella and the Prince are embracing and kissing. The Prince is quite handsome, with brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a blue tunic and knee high boots.

The Queen of Hearts taps Cinderella on the shoulder.

The Storyteller quickly fills Cinderella in on the situation, informing her that she must infiltrate the Hatter's fort to retrieve the special hat that will strengthen the connection with Alice and allow her to call the fairy tale beings to enter Wonderland.

Cinderella seems very eager to help and agrees wholeheartedly.

After a while, they are surprised to see that the slipper has reformed and is good as new, so Cinderella slips it upon her foot.

But the Storyteller is not surprised at all.

"I knew of the slippers' magical abilities all along," he says, "which is why I found it intriguing how well suited Cinderella is for the mission. And I don't believe it's a coincidence, but rather that it was fated to be."

He proceeds to explain the slippers' abilities to Cinderella. In addition to being able to reform after being broken, they have the ability to give the wearer "astounding foot placement abilities," they also can "resist mercurial offenses to toes."

When Cinderella presses him for further specific details, he declines, citing the need for suspense. He even hands her a Suspense card in order to back himself up.

Cinderella departs on her mission to infiltrate the Hatter's fort.

The Storyteller asks the Cat to warn the Mad Hatter, so he'll be prepared, "for the sake of the story," the Storyteller explains.

CHAPTER SIX

The Mad Hatter sits on the floor in a corner of his hat workshop, rocking to and fro. The room is large and filled with hundreds of top hats set upon stands. A section of the room is dedicated to his hat-making equipment, and the chemicals used in the process, which permeate the room with noxious, dangerous smells. Many have told him, that it is these chemicals that have driven him mad through their effects upon his mind, but he's not quite so sure.

Because there is always the possibility they were lying to him, under some ruse to steal his hats.

He's barely slept the past two days, because he fears a burglar will sneak in while he's asleep.

The idea terrifies him.

So he set up the traps and trials to thwart any evil hat stealers. The obstacles are not impossible to get through, but are most exceedingly difficult. He's decided that only the Chosen One would be able to get through what he's set up. He doesn't know who the intruder would be chosen by, though. After all, he's just a hatter. But the Hatter feels that if prophesies and kingdoms can have Chosen Ones, then so can he.

The Hatter hears a creepy whisper in his left ear, saying, "She comes..."

The Mad Hatter lets out a screech and scooches back in terror. There, floating in the air, he sees the floating head of the Cheshire Cat, who is able to teleport from place to place, in a most annoying manner.

"Cat?!" he cries out. "You shan't take my hats!"

The Cat says, "Ninny. I don't want your hats, but there is one who comes. A girl."

"What? Who?"

"She is known as the one whose toes can be fully seen, though she wears shoes. A girl who has known the sweeping of cinders and ash. It is she who comes."

"Cinderella? Why are you talking like that? All ominous."

The Cat lets out a groan of frustration. "I was trying to be dramatic. Oh, if only I had one of those cards."

"Eh? What cards?"

"Never mind. You've got to hurry because the Storyteller has sent Cinderella to steal one of your hats, and I think it will be much more entertaining if you're prepared for her arrival."

"You're a bloodthirsty lunatic, Cat." He thinks about that. "And as a fellow lunatic, I thank you."

The Hatter hops up with a grim expression upon his face and a sense of purpose, for now he has something to focus on: repelling the intruder.

He goes to the front door and opens it, to gaze upon the obstacle course he's set up upon his front lawn. In addition to that, immediately in front and to the side of him, lies a semicircular trench set in the ground, an inch lower than the rest of the ground. The mini-trench extends to the sides of the building, so that one cannot walk to the doorway without going through the trench. The semicircle is eight feet wide throughout, a width the Hatter decided could not be easily jumped over.

He stands, waiting, his face firm, assured of his duty, hands behind his back. In the cauldron beside him, boiling mercury bubbles and pops. The cauldron has handles of course, so it can be tilted without burning one's hands.

Beside him, the floating cat head waits as well, purring in anticipation.

Soon, in the distance he sees a figure approaching, in a blue dress.

In puzzlement, he says, "The assassin approaches wearing formal evening wear?"

"She's not an assassin. She's a thief," the Cat replies.

"Irregardless," the Hatter says, and sniffs.

"Irregardless is not a proper word. In any case, I think some dramatic words are now in order, if you follow me."

"And now," the Hatter proclaims, "Cinderella and I await our formal introduction...of doom."

"Most excellent," the Cat says and nods, causing his floating head to dip two inches before rebounding.

The gowned figure approaches ever closer and the Mad Hatter smirks, for he knows that surely this dainty ball-attender's delight is not the Chosen One for whom he designed The Course.

"Oh, the folly of untethered hubris shall be thwarted this day, Cat, of that you can be sure."

"What?" says the Cat. "What does that even mean? I believe you've been inhaling too many of those peculiar fumes of yours."

"Just watch," says the Hatter, "as I mete out the reckoning of my justice like a fine wine fermenting in the caskets of indomitable come-uppance."

"I'm not even going to pretend that makes sense. But I know I'll have an exciting show, for she has arrived."

The Mad Hatter stares at this woman known as Cinderella in her blue dress and white elbow length gloves upon the hands that she is holding against the sides of her hips as she stares him down across the distance.

She is standing just outside the edge of the Hatter's line in the dirt.

He mocks her arms stance by imitating it. "Oh ho ho! I see you have seen my line drawn in the ground that marks the outer boundaries of my Obstacle Course of Serious Intention!" He leans back and chortles in his mirth.

She points down at the line in front of her glass-shoed feet. "I couldn't help but notice, since you wrote 'Herein lies the Obstacle Course of Serious Intention'." She gives a little mocking parody of his chortle, but cuts it short to smooth out the creases in her extravagant evening-wear dress.

"You have come to steal my hats, you, who are she of the cinders?" the Hatter calls out, now shakes his head, aware he has formed an awkward sentence.

The Hatter has never before this day seen the girl known as Cinderella. He has heard rumors, though, that the Brothers Grimm had brought her to Wonderland and that she is some kind of fairy with a tail. Of course, he can't tell, because her back is to him, and in any case, she is wearing an evening gown that would hide it.

Cinderella calls out over the distance, "I only want one hat. And what is that cat doing here? I just saw him, from where I came." She points.

The Cat calls out, "I didn't want to miss the show. I'm sorry you're so much slower than me."

The Mad Hatter calls, "I doubt he'll meddle. He's always watching but never raises a paw to do anything. All hiss, no scratch, as it were."

"I didn't realize he had a body," Cinderella says. "It must be hidden away somewhere."

The Hatter replies, "Yes, somewhere. I've rarely seen it, though. In any case, you shan't have my hats unless you prove yourself. My obstacle course is meticulously designed to test the reflexes and agility of any who challenge it. Few there are, who would be able to survive it, let alone a girl in an evening dress."

"Shall I take it off then?" She grins.

"No no. Wouldn't be proper. Best to turn around..."

"Bollocks."

Quietly, the Cat says to the Hatter, "Oh, I think she's going to do it. Oh, your course is marvelous. I do believe there's a good chance she'll be impaled. How delightful!"

"Are you talking about me?" the girl calls. "In any case, let's get on with it."

The Hatter calls out, "Then may fate be with you this day!"

The girl gives a curt nod, and begins appraising the course. The area is filled with an assortment of visible and hidden obstacles.

Cinderella smiles. And now she begins to dance, doing a jig, rising and stomping her feet to the rhythm of music only she can hear.

The Hatter stares at her, puzzled for a moment, cocking his head to the side. But a grin forms on his face and he cackles madly and starts hooting and stomping and clapping to match her rhythm.

The girl twirls, and faces him again. She lifts her skirts prudently, showing her dancing bare feet.

But no, wait...it is hard to tell from the distance, but he believes she wears shoes made of glass.

I wonder what they taste like, he thinks to himself. Probably not like chocolate.

Cinderella steps inside the line and dances, twirling, pumping her legs up and down gracefully. She begins standing atop the end of her toes like a ballerina and spinning like a top.

And thus does she address the challenges.

Gracefully she weaves and spins with her arms above her head through a line of swinging blades, timing her movements perfectly.

"Beautiful!" the Hatter shouts, and twirls as he'd seen her do.

"Not even a knick," the Cat says in disappointment.

"Thank you kind sir!" Cinderella calls out, just before a device pops up from the ground and fires twelve arrows at once in her direction. They all fly harmlessly above her as she lowers into the full splits on the ground.

"Magnificent!" the Hatter calls. He tries to mimic her full splits. He fails. So he jumps up and clicks his heels together.

"Crikey! Not even one strike?" the Cat says.

Cinderella stands, quickly brushes some dirt off her dress. "Much obliged!" She does several cartwheels to avoid being slammed by a stone bludgeon swinging toward her on a rope. Now she runs and leaps five feet with her legs gracefully apart like a ballerina to avoid a concealed pitfall in the ground.

She has made it through the obstacles. She is ten feet away from mini-moat in the ground.

"Bravo! Bravo!" the Hatter calls as he tips the cauldron of molten metal.

"Encore!" calls the Cat.

And the liquid metal fills the miniature moat.

"Ahah!" says the Hatter. "My moat shall prevent you from going further, my dear ballerina. You cannot dance your way across molten mercury!"

"You are correct," she says as she walks to the edge of the mini-moat. "So I shall simply walk." She raises her skirts and daintily walks through the moat. It is shallow, so only her glass slippers are exposed. She expresses no discomfort whatsoever, as she smiles radiantly at her two observers.

"Oh no no. Why is this happening?" the Cat laments.

She steps upon safe ground again, and bows deeply.

"Sublime!" the Hatter exclaims. He returns the bow. He applauds. "The Chosen One."

Cinderella says, "Okay, I'll go with that. So since I passed your challenges, will you give me the hat I seek?"

"As lovely as you are. And as divinely as you navigated my obstacles, I must decline. But thank you so much for coming."

The girl smiles graciously. "Well thank you for having me. Now close your eyes. I've a surprise for you."

"Oh splendid!" He claps. "I do so love surprises! Is it my birthday? Never mind, I'll pretend it is." He closes his eyes.

He hears a tinkling crack of glass breaking. His arm is pulled forcefully behind his back and he feels a sharp edge pressed into the side of his neck.

Cinderella says into his ear, "Give me the hat, or I'll slit your throat."

"Okay," the Hatter says, "but when do I get my surprise?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

It is nighttime again.

The Brothers Grimm and the Storyteller walk into Sleeping Beauty's bedroom once more.

Cinderella follows them, pushing the Mad Hatter in front of her. His hands are bound behind his back with handcuffs. Cinderella holds a knife to his back. Her shoe, that she'd previously held to his neck, has already reformed and so has been returned to her foot.

The Queen of Hearts looks around and is pleased to see no Cheshire Cat. He often grows distracted or bored and disappears to who-knows-where. Cinderella's prince is also not in attendance—he's gone target practicing with his slingshot.

Everyone in the room is standing this time, so that Cinderella can covertly press the knife to his back. She is under instruction to kill him if he tries to warn Alice in any way.

The Storyteller is holding the magical hat, which is separate from the nonmagical hat currently atop the Mad Hatter's head. The Hatter had been so kind to put a red rose in the magical hat's ribbon, for decorative effect.

The Storyteller says, "Now, I have been told that Alice cried into this hat for the purpose of a spell the Hatter cast. The spell created a strong connection between Alice and the hat, which the Hatter used to spy on her."

The Hatter says, "Well, yes, that was rather untoward, but I did that before I gained my red heart, in my defense. I wouldn't do such a deplorable thing now, since I have gained a conscience."

"Yes, yes, fiddle-faddle. The point is, this hat is bonded to her and will help strengthen the connection to her, and between our two worlds. It is in this way that we may start to make some...headway in the matter." He smirks.

The Queen of Hearts groans, but the Hatter starts giggling. "Oh that's so funny!" He can't stop giggling.

It makes the Queen of Hearts quite uncomfortable.

He keeps giggling, trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, just kill him already," the Queen of Hearts snarls.

"No, no no," the Storyteller says. "We need him alive in order to reassure Alice that we mean her and her world no harm, and only have the best of intentions." He tilts his head back and winks at the Queen of Hearts.

She winks back, to let him know she's going to keep the deception up.

They'd tricked the Hatter into believing they were all performing some noble task, which contrasts with the fact that Cinderella is holding a knife to his back, but then again, the bloke is quite mad.

And he'd seemed quite smitten with Cinderella. He'd kept going on about what a "marvelous dancer" she was. And Cinderella had promised him a kiss if he acted pleasantly when they spoke to Alice.

The Storyteller continues, "Now, I have thought upon the matter, and I believe I have figured what to do. I shall place this hat upon my dear, darling girl's head—"

"It'll crush the brim!" the Hatter exclaims.

The Queen of Hearts sees Cinderella press the blade even more firmly, causing him to yelp and cease any further protestations.

The Storyteller daintily lifts Sleeping Beauty's head, places the magic top hat atop. When her head once again lowers, it does indeed crush the brim. The Queen of Hearts notices the Hatter wince as a result of it, but he refrains from open protest.

The Storyteller says, "There. Now I shall connect with Alice in her dreams once again." He takes out a slip of paper and reads from it, "Once upon a time there was a little girl who could use her magical abilities to open a dream connection with Alice in the outside realm, and one night, this night, she did..."

They watch as Alice appears, floating above the bed. This time she appears much older, perhaps even in her twenties! She is also no longer blurry like the last time.

Alice looks around with frightened eyes, her body swaying and turning as if she is floating in water. "What's going on?"

The Storyteller says, "See? The hat has strengthened the connection. Alice is not actually here with us in the room, but the illusion is much stronger this time."

Alice says, "Illusion? Is this another wonky dream?"

"Yes," says the Storyteller. "We are communicating to you through the dream pathway, but we here in Wonderland are real. Can you sense it now?"

Alice looks around. "Hatter? Is that really you?"

"Why, yes it is, my girl! I've missed you!"

"I've missed you too! Well, at least the kinder version of you with a heart. I didn't really get to know that version of you before I left."

The Storyteller says, "So now you accept that Wonderland is real?"

Alice twists in the air and looks at him. "Why, yes. The doctors told me it was all delusions, but now I can sense you're real. I can feel...that hat..." She points. "That's the hat that's tuned in to me."

"Yes," the Storyteller says. "We're using it to strengthen the link."

"Link..." Alice murmurs. "That girl. It is like I can feel her mind. She's Sleeping Beauty. Your daughter. She's reaching out to me."

"Ah!" the Storyteller says. "How nice. Tell her I love her very much."

"She knows. She likes to listen to your stories."

"Ah, yes, I'm glad to hear it. She is one of the fairy tale beings, which is what we want to talk to you about this night. This girl is Cinderella, another of the fairy tale beings."

Cinderella gives a nod.

Alice nods back. "I know of the fairy tales, but in my realm, they are just stories."

The Storyteller says, "But the fairy tale beings all exist for real in Fairy Tale Land. The Brothers Grimm brought them into being. But they wish to cross over, to be 'real' in your world, Alice. And you have the power to help pull them into your realm."

"Me?"

"Yes, you are very special, Alice. The Chosen One. You're one of the few beings who's been in both realms, so you serve as a kind of connection between them. And you have such a strong imagination. All you have to do, is believe strongly enough in the fairy tales, in order to release them from Fairy Tale Land into Wonderland. Then you can call them over to your world, and the fairy tales will be able to cross over. Without you, they can't."

Alice says, "Crikey. But why would I want to do that?"

The Queen of Hearts sees Cinderella whisper something into the Hatter's ear.

He says, "Because, my darling girl. Let's face it, your world is boring. I'm sure you've noticed."

"Yeah," Alice says, sullenly. "It's much more boring than Wonderland, that's for sure."

The Hatter grins. "But imagine how much more interesting things could be with real live fairy tales running about. Why, it'd be magical, stupendous, exhilarating!"

She grins. "Will they meet with me?"

The Storyteller says, "Yes, because you will call them to you. They will be bound to you, in a way. Oh, you'll love meeting the fairy tale beings. They're so loving and friendly and kind. You'll make so many magical friends. Won't that be smashing?"

"Oh yes, it sounds splendid! And will my old friends from Wonderland be able to cross over as well?"

The Storyteller says, "I'm afraid not. But the fairy tale beings are not originally from Wonderland which is why they'll be able to. However, if the fairy tale beings cross over, it'll weaken the boundary between the realms, and you'll be able to communicate with your Wonderland friends much easier."

"Righto. Well, it sounds splendid. What do I have to do?"

"Start believing in the fairy tale beings. Believe that they are real. And, in your mind, call to them to enter your realm. Your imagination is powerful, so that is all that is needed. The situation is somewhat complicated, since the fairy tales are currently hidden away in their own realm. But if you believe in them, they will be unleashed into Wonderland. It may take a few days, though, as your belief builds."

"Okay. I will start believing. I already believe six impossible things before each breakfast. It is my habit."

"Excellent. Just be careful, and think only pure thoughts. You mustn't let any of your thoughts grow dark and twisted. Hmm..." The Storyteller rubs his chin. "Just as a precaution, for the sake of your own safety of course, can you think of any things that could possibly be used to twist your thoughts, if they got into the wrong hands? Just out of curiousity."

Alice arches a brow. "Twist my thoughts?"

"You know, make them dark and corrupt. That sort of thing. Something we can look out for, for your sake..." The Storyteller smiles soothingly.

"Umm..." She bites her lip as she thinks. "I was known to always be sweet and innocent, until I had a mishap with losing my heart. But I'm better now. Now I don't think dark, vicious thoughts."

"Yes, but, would there be a way to force you to, or trick you? Maybe a spell, or—"

"Stop! I don't want to talk about it. I'm sweet and innocent! Got it?!"

The Storyteller smiles cordially. "Of course you are, my dear. I'm sorry if I upset you. We'll leave you to your sleep. You can get to believing in the fairy tales. And soon, they shall become real."

"Yes, yes. Okay. I will believe so fiercely in them! Well, goodbye Hatter! And everyone else." She scowls at the Queen of Hearts. "Cheerio!"

They say their departures to her, before the Storyteller pulls the hat from Sleeping Beauty's head, and the image of Alice disappears.

The Storyteller is still rubbing his chin after Alice's image disappears.

"Well," says the Hatter. "I had my doubts, but I think I had you guys all wrong. It certainly sounds wonderful that my dear Alice will no longer have to live in such a dreary unimaginative world and will be able to make so many fairy tale friends, speaking of which, where is my kiss?"

Cinderella giggles and plants a kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you, madame," the Hatter says, and begins to blush.

"I wonder..." the Storyteller mutters to himself. He peers down at Sleeping Beauty. "Darling, when I was talking to Alice about things that might turn her thoughts dark and twisted, did you by any chance, read any of her thoughts? After all, that was the whole reason I asked her in the first place."

The Queen of Hearts, while gazing at the girl's face, sees a twitching of the girl's eyelids and brow, though her eyes remain closed.

"Ah, yes," the Hatter says, "You must protect Alice from such things. Good thinking."

Ignoring the Hatter, he says, "Can you tell me what you saw in her mind? Can you whisper it to me?" He leans his ear and listens. His face shows disappointment as her face remains serene and still.

"There," Jacob says. "I saw her finger twitch."

"What?" the Storyteller says. He rises up and stares at her hand for a few moments. "Jacob, won't you please fetch me that quill and ink, my good chap?"

Jacob does so, bringing a quill pen and a bottle of black ink as well as some paper from a table on the other end of the room.

"I'm hoping," the Storyteller says, "that if she can't speak, she can at least move her fingers enough to write it." He places the paper next to her. He dips the quill pen in the ink stand he's set on the nightstand, before placing the pen in the girl's hand. It's not a very good grip, but stays in place.

"Now can you tell us?" he asks her.

The room holds its breath in anticipation. But rather than writing anything, the girl turns on her side. Her arm lashes out as she does so.

The Queen of Hearts hears a clunk and sees the girl has somehow managed to knock the bottle of ink on its side. The ink has formed a puddle inside of which lays the rose that had been in the ribbon of her hat. "How'd she manage to do that?" the Queen of Hearts cries out. "Why, I hardly saw her move at all! And that rose..."

The Hatter giggles. "Ah, the rose is turning black!"

Jacob and Wilhelm begin hunting about for something to wipe the spill up.

"Drat! Maybe we could try again... Wait. Black rose." The Storyteller smiles big. "That's it."

"What is?" the Queen of Hearts asks.

"She has given us her answer," the Storyteller says. "We must seek the Black Rose."

The Queen of Hearts lets out a laugh. "Oh, the clever little sleeping scamp!"

The Hatter says, "Ah, so now we know what to beware of."

The Storyteller says, "I know of the rose's challenges. Only Cinderella and Malice may possibly attain it."

Cinderella says, "I look forward to attaining this Black Rose."

"To keep it out of harm's way?" the Hatter says, sounding a little confused.

Cinderella says, "No, because I am looking forward to becoming twisted."

"Huh?" the Hatter says.

The Storyteller says to Cinderella, "I know where it is. I'll send you and Malice to seek it. And use it to alter Alice's thoughts."

"Wait," the Hatter says, "You want to twist her thoughts? But don't you need her to call forth the fairy tales?"

The Storyteller says, "That we do, but with the Black Rose, we'll be able to make the fairy tales turn dark and twisted. Once they cross over to the outside world, they'll have no further need for Alice, and will be able to kill her."

"Kill Alice?" the Hatter says. "You told Alice they would be her friends!"

"We lied. We needed Alice to believe that in order to get her to cooperate with us. Once our twisted fairy tales gain entrance into their world we shall unleash devastation and destruction upon them."

"What?! No! You can't do that. You can't kill Alice!"

"Sure we can," the Storyteller says.

"No! You promised me you were gonna help Alice!"

"Take him out of here," he tells Cinderella, who pulls the struggling Mad Hatter away as he screams, "You promised!"

CHAPTER EIGHT

Malice approaches the man known as the Storyteller and the fairy tale being known as Cinderella in an open field. A guard card had informed Malice that they were holding the Mad Hatter captive, and if she ever wanted to see him alive again, she should cooperate. She'd been instructed to come alone to go on a mission with this Cinderella person.

Malice stands scowling at the two.

"Greetings. I'm the Storyteller. And this is Cinderella."

Cinderella curtsies.

"If I go on this mission, you'll let the Hatter go?"

"Of course, My Queen," the Storyteller says. "I hate to impose, but you two are the only ones who could possibly retrieve it."

"What do you mean?" Malice asks.

"Well, the Black Rose has become specifically obsessed with Alice, and since you're her twin, it's also focused onto you."

"I'm her reflection, not her twin," Malice corrects.

"I beg your pardon," he says with a slight bow. "The Black Rose sets its challenges specifically for whomever it wants to be found by."

"Hmm?"

"To put it simply, only you or Alice and Cinderella can overcome its obstacles. And since Alice isn't here anymore, you are the only one left in Wonderland who'd even be able to locate it in the first place."

Malice sighs. "So how do I do that, then?"

The Storyteller says, "I've been thinking about that, and researching old fairy tales, and I believe I may have the answer."

Malice scowls. "What's with all these dagnabbit fairy tales in Wonderland, lately? First there's Cinderella, and now this one? And you want to release even more fairy tales into Wonderland?"

"Yes."

"Stupid fairy tales. I hate them."

"Excuuuse me!" Cinderella says. "I so happen to be a fairy tale."

"Well, whoop-de-doo for you," Malice says.

Cinderella crosses her arms and harumphs.

Malice sighs. "So how do I find this stupid Black Rose?"

The Storyteller says, "I shall aid you in the endeavor."

"Huh?" Malice says.

"I'll help you," he says. "I've researched my archives and looked up the tales of the Black Rose, and I believe you, Queen Malice, may be the queen foretold of in the legends, the one who shall fulfill..." He begins rummaging in his pockets, pulls out a card. He hands it to Malice.

She reads the word: Prophesy on the card as the Storyteller echoes, "The prophesy."

Malice scowls. "I hate prophesies more than I hate fairy tales."

"Oh what a sourpuss!" Cinderella exclaims.

The Storyteller says, "Oh, I think you're just a bit tiffed because we're forcing you into this by holding your friend hostage."

"Well, yeahhh!" Malice says sarcastically.

Cinderella says, "The Hatter's pretty cute, isn't he? Do you two have a thing?"

"Yes, I agree he's cute." She shakes her head of her crush-like thoughts. "But, a thing? Heaven forbid! Why, I'm 15, and he must be at least 25!"

"15," the Storyteller says. "It's interesting, because the prophesy mentions that age."

"Bollocks to your prophesy!" Malice shouts.

The Storyteller smirks. "Now, remember we are holding your beloved Bonkers Hatter hostage. Things will go much smoother if you just cooperate."

Malice crosses her arms and mutters, "He's mad. The Mad Hatter."

"Irregardless. I shall begin my tale now, and by so doing, send you upon your quest. So...once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a queen who was little more than a child. She inherited the throne upon the death of her parents. She was spoiled by her nobility and soon developed a mean streak.

"The little child queen loved roses but she felt red roses didn't suit her. She was becoming more vicious and cruel and yearned one day to hold a fabled black rose. No one had ever seen one, but they knew it was magical indeed. There were legends that an ancient order of monks kept black roses, safe from the general public, because the monks felt most people could never handle their power.

"Well, the young queen was determined to attain one, and she turned to dark sorcery to aid her. She performed all sorts of spells and all manner of obscene rituals to call forth the Black Rose. Dozens of things she tried, that all failed, until years later, when she was 15, a cloaked figure visited her and handed her a black rose.

"The queen was enthralled, lost in rapture, spending days at a time inhaling its scent. She would pout when people tried to make her do things other than inhaling its fragrance. Then one day, she'd had enough. She walked out of her castle, alone, and went into a forest. In a hidden place, she sat in her throne in a secret hideaway, where she inhaled the fragrance without any further interference. In her mind, she ruled over an imaginary kingdom of darkness and ruthlessness, of which she was the queen, and she became lost in those thoughts as her heart and body withered away. But before she died, she left the gift of the Black Rose waiting for the next queen worthy of possessing it.

"To prove her worthiness, the next queen had to be heartless and had to pass the challenges. Before that first queen sat in her tomb and sealed herself inside, she set a series of challenges that the next potential owner of the Black Rose must overcome to possess it.

"And so, with the challenges having been set up, she sat, inhaling the rose's fragrance, ruling her imaginary kingdom in her mind, until her body passed away in her throne, but her mind was elsewhere, within the sweet scented realm of the Black Rose.

"The first queen was the start of it all. And throughout the centuries, the pattern has repeated, as the Black Rose once again seeks out a new owner, a new 15 year old heartless queen. The Black Rose calls out to them, yearning to be possessed by them, calling them to surmount its challenges. And on this day, still it calls out, to a new 15 year old queen..." He holds his hand out toward Malice and bows. "Ta da!"

"Oh! That'd be me! What do I have to do?"

The Storyteller says, "In order to hear the Black Rose's call, you must be absent of heart. I heard you have some kind of ticky heart or something?"

Malice sighs. "Here's the deal. When I first came into being, I was a copy of Alice, except I was missing a heart. Because of that, I acted like a cold and heartless person. But someone named the Tinkerer created a ticktock heart for me, that has kindness programs built in, that help me be kind to others."

The Storyteller says, "I believe you'll have to turn your heart off. That way, you'll be heartless, as far as the Black Rose is concerned."

Malice pouts. "I don't know how to turn it off, but it has been behaving rather wonkily lately, turning off and on. I don't like how I behave when it's off. I get vicious and mean, and cruel." She shakes her head. "I'd rather not invoke that state voluntarily."

"Nonetheless," the Storyteller says, "you should try, for the Hatter's sake."

Malice bites her lip in worry. She doesn't know what else to do, and feels defeated. "I'll try," she says quietly. "Excuse me." She turns away from them and begins slapping her chest, hoping to jostle the mechanisms of her heart. After several tries, she doesn't feel the cold, heartless feeling come over her, so she turns back around. "That didn't work."

"A magnet, perhaps," the Storyteller says.

"I don't have a magnet," Malice says woefully.

Cinderella suggests, "Perhaps I could cut your heart out with my shoe?"

"I'd rather not," Malice replies.

"Well, then how about a couple cartwheels to jostle it about, and then a few slaps on top of that?" she suggests.

"It's worth a try." So Malice does a couple cartwheels upon the grass, then adds a couple of spins in the air, then some chest slaps.

She feels a coldness in her chest as empathy and kindness cease running through her thoughts—her ticktock heart has stopped ticking. "I can feel it's stopped working," she says. "I am now heartless, though I don't know for how long. My heart will often get going on its own again after awhile."

Cinderella says, "Ha! I may not be the purest of heart, but at least I have one. A working one."

"Yes," Malice says, "I could now snap your neck with no remorse whatsoever. Well, I'd feel remorse once my heart started working again."

"Well, I can see how it might be convenient to be able to turn one's heart on and off," Cinderella says politely.

Malice shrugs.

The Storyteller says, "Now, repeat these words, 'Oh Black Rose, direct this heartless queen to where you reside.'"

As soon as Malice completes the phrase, she is struck with a sudden sense. A lonely flower calls out to her, seeking the presence of a human nose to appreciate her.

Malice points. "There. She is close." She begins walking and Cinderella accompanies her. To the Storyteller, Malice says, "Are you coming?"

"No. It is only you two who could possibly complete this task. I await your return."

CHAPTER NINE

They come upon it quickly, within ten minutes of walking. Malice wonders if that's coincidence, or more likely, the result of some magical "assistance". In any case, her feet are glad for the proximity.

The ground in front of them ends abruptly. They stand at the top of a sheer cliff. In front of them is a cavern so deep, they cannot see the bottom through the misty air. In the far distance is a mountain range.

Ten feet away from the cliff's edge, is a column of stone rising up to the same level as the top of the cliff. The top of the column is a flat and circular area of about ten feet in diameter.

On the top of the column of stone, they see a throne with a skeleton in a royal gown seated on it. Next to the throne is a pedestal atop which the Black Rose sits in its flower pot. A glass dome shields the flower.

They stare at the taut rope that spans the chasm between the edge of the cliff and the column of rock.

"It looks like a tightrope," Malice remarks.

"Yes," Cinderella says with a tremble in her voice.

They had talked some during their journey. Malice says, "So could you walk on it with your magic shoes, do you think?"

Cinderella bites her lip. "Seems like I might. But I'd hate to be wrong. Perhaps we should go back."

"What? Poppycock! I've got to save the Hatter and you shall not back out!"

Cinderella rolls her eyes. "Yes, you've got to do this for your boyfriend."

Malice squirms. "Well, he's not my boyfriend. Our ages are too far apart."

"But what if they weren't?"

"Well, since the citizens of Wonderland don't tend to age, but I do, if I wait long enough, we'll catch up."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. Ask me when my heart is working and maybe I'll care more about lovey dovey hoochie coochie stuff."

"He is pretty cute, isn't he?" Cinderella says.

Malice whirls upon her with a furious expression. "Hands off him, blondy!"

Cinderella is taken aback for a moment, before she chuckles. "He's old enough to make his own choices. And I'm closer to his age than you..."

Malice says, "He would never choose you."

"Well, before he chooses anyone, he must be saved. Do you think you can go across the rope by hanging on?"

"I would most likely fall. I think you should go ahead and walk across with your magic shoes."

"What of you?" Cinderella says. "The Storyteller seemed to think we would both be necessary to get the rose."

Malice sighs. "I believe that must be true."

Cinderella muses, "Of course, we could try..."

"What?"

"Well, perhaps you could sit atop my shoulders."

Malice's eyes widen. "Then we shall fall for certain."

"Don't jinx it. There's a good chance my shoes will guide us safely across."

"I don't like it."

But Cinderella persists in the idea, urging Malice to try some "practice" walking.

Malice climbs atop Cinderella's shoulders and together they test it out.

It is obvious that Malice cannot in any dignified manner sit atop shoulders in her dress. And she thinks to herself, It's a good thing it's just us two girls.

Soon they find that, because of the shoes, Cinderella is able to balance with absolutely no trouble at all. She even does a little dance just to make doubly sure. Then she walks in a perfectly straight line.

Of course, it's still vastly different from walking upon a tightrope.

But they decide to give it a go. Malice closes her eyes and stays rigid as they venture out onto the rope. She has to remember to force herself to breathe.

"There we are!" Cinderella exclaims. "This shall be no problem at all! One foot after the other. We're halfway there already! It seems I have discovered another magical ability of my slippers! Why, this is a piece of cake! Almost there... Almost... Ah! And here we are! You may open your eyes again."

Malice sees that they are atop that column of stone. It is a circular area of only about ten feet in diameter, but at least it is flat solid ground. Malice carefully gets down from her piggyback ride.

Malice finds herself staring at the skeleton in the royal gown. "Do you think she just sat there and died, like that? She could have just jumped."

"Perhaps she was simply enthralled with smelling the rose. Maybe she didn't even notice she was dying until, she did." Cinderella shrugs.

"Well if that's the case, then that must be one wallop of a flower!"

"Yes, which is why we must bring it to the Storyteller." Cinderella points. "Look, there is a plaque on the side of the pedestal there. Can you read it?"

Malice bends to get a better view of the bronze sign engraved with the words that she reads out loud: "Only a heartless queen may grasp this flower."

Cinderella gives a mocking clap. "Oh how very delightful! You just so happen to be a queen with a malfunctioning flip-flop heart, so for all intents and purposes, you are heartless, yeah?"

Malice grinds her teeth. "Ticktock," she corrects. "And the sign seems perfectly suited to me, but just out of curiousity, why don't you attempt to grab the rose? You're neither a queen nor heartless, yeah?"

Cinderella scowls. "I shan't risk it. You need me to get back across that rope, unless you want to try hanging on by your fingertips all that way. Oh, and I'll try not to drop you when I'm carrying you back over the rope. And now, you know what you've got to do, so go on then." She gestures at the rose and smirks.

Malice lets out a grunt, but chooses not to argue further. "Very well," she mutters. "There's nothing more to it, but to do it. And here we go!" Malice juts her hand out to lift the glass dome off the flower plant. But what she had assumed was a glass dome turns out to be some sort of magical field that crackles and sends tingling sensations like static electricity through her arms, then throughout her body. And she can sense that it is searching out for the existence of a heart. She hopes the fact that her heart isn't working will be enough to satisfy it.

As her hands clasp around the flower pot, she assumes she has passed the test. She lifts the pot up, and now stands holding it.

"Very good," Cinderella says, only mildly encouragingly.

"Now let's see what all the fuss is about." Malice lowers her head and deeply inhales the flower's scent.

It is like inhaling darkness itself.

Malice glares down at the skeleton of the "queen" upon the throne. "You impostor," she mutters.

"Hey, are you okay?" she hears Cinderella say, but Malice pays no heed to that blond munter.

After delicately setting the flower pot upon the ground, Malice pulls the impostor skeleton from the chair. "I usurp you!" she says and giggles.

Next to her, Cinderella says, "What are you doing?"

Malice sits in the throne with a smug grin. "I am overthrowing her, for there is a new queen, Queen Malice." She rests the flowerpot in her lap and inhales deeply. "I now reign in the Queendom of the Black Rose." She feels the skin of her face stretching into a wide grin and her eyes widen. She feels the scent of the rose seducing her, filling her mind with deliciously dark thoughts and it causes her to giggle.

"Queendom of the Black Rose? What are you on about?"

"Yes! I shall rule over it for eternity! Even beyond my death!" Malice holds her arms wide. "Behold the Queendom of the Black Rose!" Malice sweeps her arms forward in a gesture to display the boundaries of her realm.

"Wait...are you talking about this platform? This little itty bitty circle?"

Malice inhales deeply and feels the rapturous delight of its scent. "Yes! My realm! I shall rule over it with an iron fist! It shall be a realm of darkness and devotion to one pursuit...partaking of the scent of the Black Rose!"

Cinderella kneels in front of Malice, eye to eye. "But we have to cross back over the tightrope. We can't stay here."

"I will rule here for eternity!" Malice cackles.

"You'll die here, without food or water. Like the other queen." She points at the bones.

"Death means nothing! She knew of the pleasures of the Black Rose. Now it is my turn to reign!"

"Oh, crikey. You're delusional. You're letting that rose control you. Oh, dear..." Cinderella mutters to herself. "But its scent is not affecting me. Why?"

Malice answers the question for her. "Because you are weak."

"Praytell, what do you mean?"

"You have a heart, still. But don't worry. The Black Rose shall twist it to its will, just give it time. I, however, am not impeded by a heart. I can revel in the full majesty of the rose!" She raises her arms wide, feeling the surge of power the scent has given her.

Cinderella says, "It's because you're heartless? Perhaps if you turn your tippy top heart on again?"

Malice gives her a mocking expression. "It's ticktock. And why would I turn the stupid thing back on? So I can be like you? I pity you. I pray the Black Rose twists your heart soon, so that you too may know its pleasures."

"Oh, fine, fine. Listen, let's just go back across the tightrope. Then we can talk more about how great the flower is."

"No! I shall rule over my queendom for eternity!"

Cinderella sighs. She lowers her chin to her chest for a few moments. She puts her hands to Malice's shoulders and begins shaking. "Snap out of it!"

Malice looks at her and laughs.

Cinderella slaps her face. "Stop it!"

Malice feels the darkly delicious pain of the slap and grins. "You're so jealous."

Cinderella slaps at Malice's chest, sending more delicious pain. Once, twice.

After the third slap, Malice feels a movement in her chest. She can sense the ticking in her chest again. All the dark vicious thoughts in her mind become overruled by the kindness programs. "Ow! Wait, please stop!"

"Is your heart working again?" Cinderella asks.

"Yes! Crikey, what's going on? How did I get in this throne?"

"What do you remember?"

"I remember getting the rose, inhaling its scent. And next thing I know, I'm here. What happened?"

"I'll tell you after we get back across the tightrope."

Malice is agreeable to the idea. She wants to get off this terrifyingly small column of rock as soon as possible.

CHAPTER TEN

When Malice and Cinderella return to the fairy tale castle, Malice asks that the Hatter be released, but is disappointed when they instead handcuff one of her hands to one of the Hatter's, then chain her foot to the Mad Hatter's, for good measure.

She realizes now, as she stands in Sleeping Beauty's bedroom, that it was foolish to trust them, but the kindness programs of her ticktock heart had mistakenly led her to. Sometimes kindness is no different than being a sucker, Malice is mulling to herself, as she watches the grin widen on the Storyteller's face as he holds the flower pot with the Black Rose.

"Thank you, my dear, for bringing this delightful botanical specimen back to us."

Malice snarls. "You told me if I brought you the flower, you'd let Hatter free."

"Indeed, I did. And I still might. It all depends on how good of a story it makes."

"Is that all we are to you, then?" Malice blurts. "A jolly good fun time tale?"

"Well, frankly, for the most part, yes. Why is a life worth living if you do not leave behind a good tale, my dear!"

Malice merely scowls.

The Storyteller continues, "Don't get me wrong. Over the years, I've found the stories of Wonderland to be quite entertaining. But I think you have to admit, its cast of characters is rather...limited. So that is why I want to unleash the fairy tale beings into Wonderland once Alice gets to believing in them enough. And then, if I can somehow get them through the Looking Glass, the next step is to unleash them into the other realm! Imagine all the beautiful stories that will come from them running amok amongst the uptight non-magicals."

Jacob says, "Easy there, Storyteller. One step at a time. Even if you manage to send the fairy tales through the Looking Glass, they'll still have to contend with the slayer."

"Who's the slayer?" Malice asks.

The Storyteller says, "It is foretold that if the twisted versions of the fairy tales ever enter the outside world, there shall be one amongst them, known as the Fairy Tale Slayer, chosen for her special abilities, who will attempt to defeat the fairy tales. We think that slayer will be Alice."

Malice gasps. "But she's the one you're using to call the fairy tales to her world, right?"

"Yes," the Storyteller says. "But she doesn't know we intend to twist the fairy tales. We're tricking her to call forth the very fairy tales who shall attempt to kill her! Irony!" He tries to hand her a card.

Malice says, "Bollocks to your card. Alice is only 13! She'll have no chance against all the fairy tales!"

The Storyteller says, "Due to your tinkering with time, it's hard to know what age she'll be when the fairy tales come out on her side. And according to the Rules of Story, the fairy tales can only fight her one at a time."

"I hope to be the one who ends her, once I get twisted enough," Cinderella chimes in.

"Twisted how?" the Hatter says.

The Storyteller says, "That's what this Black Rose is for, my boy. Once Sleeping Beauty inhales its corrupting scent, it will twist the versions of the fairy tales she's keeping alive with her dream energy."

"Wait," Malice says. "So you mean the fairy tales are inside her head? Like some kind of dream?"

"Not quite," the Storyteller says. "When the Queen of Hearts here, cracked down on the fairy tales and imprisoned the Brothers Grimm here, I needed a way to hide the fairy tales away until I could bring them back. I put my daughter to sleep and read her the fairy tales to keep them existing, using her dream energy. But they don't actually exist in her mind. It is kind of like they're hibernating. They exist in their own realm I made for them to live in, Fairy Tale Land...and it is in that drawer." He's pointing at the wooden nightstand next to the bed.

The Queen of Hearts huffs. "Seems a rather small world. I'm a bit peeved you hid the fairy tales from me, but I suppose it's now to my advantage if it means I can rule over both worlds."

"Let me show you..." The Storyteller sets the flower pot on the ground. He opens the drawer and pulls out a dome of glass affixed to a piece of wood. "It's in there."

The Hatter exclaims, "Fairy Tale Land is a wee snowglobe!" He giggles and giggles.

The Storyteller is showing it to everyone in the room. Malice sees a little tree and the bits of fake snow on the ground. The glass is filled with water, so that if one turns it upside down, the fake snow will seem to drift down.

The Storyteller is explaining as he shows everyone. "It is small, but looks can be deceiving. A whole world is inside here, though you can't see it from the outside. You know, magic." He shrugs. "I gave it to my daughter on her birthday, and she cherished it, which made it very convenient to use as a place to hold Fairy Tale Land, since there's such a strong emotional connection with my daughter. It is inside here that all the beloved fairy tales have stayed safe all these years, except for Cinderella here. She was one of the earliest ones, who actually got released into Wonderland. Soon, though, I hope that Alice's belief will set all the fairy tales loose in Wonderland!"

Jacob claps delightedly.

Cinderella says, "But first you're going to twist us, right?"

The Storyteller says, "Yes my dear, with the Black Rose. Are you looking forward to it?"

"Oh yes," Cinderella purrs. "I look forward to being so very naughty and bad, without things like a conscience getting in the way. Why, I imagine it will be just as liberating as when Malice here gets to turn off her heart." She points at Malice, causing the Storyteller to look at her.

"Oh yes," he says. "I haven't forgotten about you. As soon as I evoke the rose's power, Cinderella will release you two."

Cinderella lifts some keys on a key ring and jiggle clanks them.

"And then we're free to go?" Malice asks. "You aren't gonna kill us or anything?"

"No, my dear. I intend to keep my word. Of course you could always stay and join our malevolent gang of supervillains as we take over both worlds."

The Queen of Hearts grunts. "But we're supposed to be enemies. Archrivals even!"

"Teams can change when one wishes to conquer worlds," the Storyteller admonishes.

But Malice confides, "So long as my heart still ticks, I shall not join you fiends."

The Hatter nods. "I as well, so long as mine ticks... I mean, beats. I'm with Malice, always."

"Why don't you marry her?" Cinderella mutters sarcastically.

The Storyteller merely shrugs. "Let us now initiate...the dark twisting powers of the Black Rose." He sets the snowglobe on the floor next to the Black Rose, which he now lifts up. "When Sleeping Beauty inhales its scent, it will directly affect the dream energy that's keeping Fairy Tale Land going. Each fairy tale being has his or her own story, but because of the rose, each of their stories will change, will become twisted."

"Even mine?" Cinderella says. "Even though I'm outside the snowglobe?"

"Well, yes, of course. I mean I'm fairly certain. Well, the ways of the Black Rose are not entirely known to me, but we shall soon see, won't we?"

Malice says, "And you intend to unleash these dark twisted fairy tales into Wonderland?"

"Yes, as soon as Alice gets to believing enough."

Malice sighs. "Oh, bother."

"Well if it makes you feel better, after that, we'll try to figure out how to get the fairy tale beings through the looking glass into the outside world so they can be a bother to them."

"Well at least they might leave us alone, then," Malice mutters.

"Quite," the Storyteller says. "Now let's get to twisting that whole miniature realm up, shall we?"

"Yes yes," Jacob says, while the Hatter makes a worried, fearful kind of humming sound to himself.

And Malice watches on silently, with dread, as the Storyteller lifts the pot close to the sleeping girl's face. He tilts the pot, presses down on the stem so that the petals are under her nose. "Inhale the corruption, my dear. Let its influence twist your thoughts and dreams."

Several moments pass. Malice isn't sure what's supposed to happen. Perhaps it's all happening, unseen, within that snowglobe, she thinks to herself.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Cinderella says, but now she gives out a yelp.

"What is it?" the Storyteller says.

"The Fairy Tale Realm!" Cinderella points at the snowglobe on the floor. "It's like it's calling me back... I can feel it pulling at me. It's going to pull me inside the snowglobe!" She starts glowing with a soft white light while her body seems to make crackling sounds as if she is abuzz with electricity.

"Hmm," the Storyteller says. "Wasn't expecting that. But it makes sense. Maybe the rose needs you to be in the Fairy Tale Realm in order to twist you."

Cinderella looks as if someone is tugging on her arm to pull her into the snowglobe. She pouts. "But I want to stay out here, with the stud."

"Oh, gosh, you think I'm a stud?" the Hatter says.

And now Cinderella is glowing brighter, her feet are being dragged along the floor toward the snowglobe. "Oh, no!" She jumps at the Hatter, wraps her arms around his neck. "Let me stay with you!" she cries.

The Hatter wraps his free arm around her waist and hugs her to him. The Hatter begins to glow too and now Malice watches as the two begin shrinking.

And my wrist is chained to his, she thinks as she looks at her wrist to see she's glowing as well.

I'm shrinking as well.

The Hatter says to Malice, "My apologies." He wraps his other hand around her waist and pulls her closer.

They are half the size they were, now, being pulled toward the snowglobe.

"Stop!" she calls out. "You'll pull me in too!"

But it's too late, they're flying through the air toward the glass orb. It seems to grow in size before Malice's eyes, becoming like a huge structure.

She winces and covers her face with her free arm as she crashes into the glass.

But there was no crash of glass, as now, she lands upon grass-covered ground.

"Oomph!" Her arm chained to the Hatter is pulled to the side as she lays face down on the ground.

Malice struggles to reorient herself.

Next to her, she hears the Hatter say, "Sorry, Miss Cinderella."

To which the muffled voice of Cinderella says, "Oof. Just get off me so I can breathe!"

And now Malice feels a few sharp tugs of the chain on her wrist. She strains her neck to see the Hatter fumbling to get off atop of Cinderella.

She watches Cinderella triumphantly scooch out from under him. "That would have been more delightful under more pleasant circumstances," Cinderella says.

Malice manages to rise up on her knees.

They are on a well-trodden dirt path, on both sides of which is dense forest.

Cinderella stands.

The Mad Hatter looks up at her. "I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, madame."

Cinderella waves her hand. "That is of no consequence, my darling. In fact, it is I who should apologize to you. I thought I could prevent myself being sucked in here by grabbing ahold of you, but that it seems, was not the case."

The Mad Hatter, who is sitting up now, turns to Malice. "And I didn't want you to get jealous, so I grabbed you too."

Malice is sitting up now too. "Why should I be jealous? You're a grown man, and I'm only 15. Too young for you, and besides, even if you hadn't manhandled me, it wouldn't have made much difference, since we're chained together. I suspect I would have been dragged down here, regardless."

Cinderella says, "My apologies. I didn't realize that you would be carried here as well. But I didn't have time to think."

"So are we—" Malice attempts to stand, and has to tug at the Hatter so he'll stand too. "So are we truly inside the snowglobe?"

"Yes," Cinderella says. "When Sleeping Beauty inhaled, the Black Rose called me back here amongst all the other fairy tales, in order to twist us all about." She grins in an intimidating manner.

Malice eyes her warily. She can see nothing different in her outward appearance—there's the same blue ball gown, white elbow-length gloves, golden necklace, glass slippers. "So have you become twisted?"

"Not yet, but I can feel it beginning. I can feel my story changing."

"What do you mean?"

"The origin of me, how I came to be the legendary Cinderella, my past is changing, I'm becoming a darker character."

"Well that's frankly unsettling," the Hatter contributes.

"Yes," Malice says. "We need to get out of here before you become some sort of evil character! Could you please unlock us?"

Cinderella brings out the key and dangles it in the air. "You heard the Storyteller. As soon as Alice gets to believing enough, all the fairy tale beings will be unleashed into Wonderland."

Malice holds her hand out for Cinderella to unlock it (pulling at Hatter's arm as well).

The Hatter mutters, "But all the fairy tale beings will be twisted? It seems they might be a bunch of hooligans running amok!"

"Yes," Cinderella says, "but that is not my concern right now, since now I feel compelled to move toward my destiny with my sister, according to the prophesy."

"What prophesy?" Malice asks.

"Of that, I don't know. That part of my new story hasn't been formed yet."

"Then there is no prophesy yet. You make no sense."

"Nonetheless, I must go, and fulfill my destiny. I wish you good luck."

"Hey!" Malice calls. "You're leaving us? You're going to unlock us, right? You told the Storyteller you would!"

Cinderella twerks her mouth while thinking. "So I did. Unfortunately, I'm not yet twisted, so I still have a sense of duty. Yet I don't want you following too closely and mucking up my destiny and whatnot."

"Oh, please, just release us, we won't follow you!"

Cinderella says, "I admit that in my rushed thinking, I thought to have the Hatter accompany me, but I doubt he'll appreciate the new version of me once I twist about. Ahah! I have an idea!" She unclasps the necklace from around her neck. "I shall put the key on this necklace around one of your necks. I'm sure if you travel the path you can find a helpful fairy tale being to unlock you. And by that time, I'll be far ahead, if you choose to follow me."

"How clever," the Hatter encourages.

"Thank you."

Malice says, "But we wouldn't follow you," but is ignored.

And Cinderella slips the necklace around the Hatter's neck. It fits him tightly enough so as to be near impossible to grab or manipulate with their hands bound as they are.

Cinderella kisses the Hatter on the cheek. "Goodbye, you rake. Once I twist, if you're ever in the mood for a bad girl, hit me up."

"If I do, I shall," he says, starting to blush.

"Oh, just go already," Malice growls.

And Cinderella hurries down the dirt path, leaving them behind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Malice and the Hatter decide to travel down the trail looking for someone to unlock them.

Soon they come upon five wooden signs where the path splits off in five different directions. The signs read:

Hansel & Gretel

Tom Thumb

Jack Sprat

Goldilocks

Little Miss Muffet

They look further down the different paths to try to see what lies ahead, but see nothing—which is not surprising since they are in a magical fantasy realm.

"What do you think?" Malice says. "Which path do you think Cinderella took?"

The Hatter says, "Of that I am uncertain, but I do know I'm hungry, so why not visit Jack Sprat?" His stomach growls.

"Why do you say that?"

The Hatter points to an area of the sign where are written the words:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.

His wife could eat no lean.

And so between the two of them,

They licked the platter clean.

"Seems as good a choice as any," Malice says, and so they walk down that fork of the trail.

After a bit of walking, the scene suddenly, magically changes around them. Now, up ahead they see a small village of quaint wooden buildings, with the trail running through it.

The aroma of cooking meat fills their nostrils, causing both their stomachs to growl loudly, but as they enter the village, they are unable to tell where the smell is coming from. They see none of the villagers bustling about, nor do they see any signs of activity other than smoke coming from the chimney of one of the buildings.

So Malice shouts out, "Hello! Anybody home!"

The door of the building with the smoking chimney creaks open and someone peers at them from behind the door. "Who are you?" a male voice calls out suspiciously.

"I'm Malice, and this is the Mad Hatter."

"You're not from our village?"

"No sir," Malice calls. "We've come to ask you a favor, as we're inconveniently chained up. We have the key, but can't reach it and we were wondering if you'd be so kind as to unlock us."

"Chained up?" the man says. He pokes his face out and peers at them. Now he opens the door and grins big at them. He steps out, a very thin, partially bald man in brown pants and a brown coat. "Oh my lad and lass! For a moment, I thought you were from our village here." He raises his arms to indicate it. "But we knew everyone who lived here. About fifty people." Another face pokes out from the door and he turns. "Ah, honey, come on out. It's only a young lad and a wee girl."

A large overweight woman in a blue dress and white bonnet steps out.

The man says, "I'm Jack Sprat, and this is my wife."

They all say their greetings.

Jack says to his wife, "These two unfortunate souls are chained up and would like us to release them."

The wife crinkles her eyes at them. "Well how the heavens did that happen? They look lean..." She looks Malice and Hatter up and down.

Malice says, "Well, err, it's a strange story, but long story short, there are some real wicked people who want to twist all the fairy tales, who captured us. We need to be freed to keep a girl known as Cinderella from doing horrible things in the name of some sort of prophesy. And um, we're gonna try to prevent the fairy tales being twisted—but okay, we're not quite sure on all the details. But please free us?"

"Cinderella is a very talented dancer," the Hatter offers.

Malice says, "That's the Mad Hatter. He's mad, obviously. Says the most unanticipated things."

Jack says, "We know what you mean though, about the fairy tales twisting."

"Oh?" Malice says. "Did Cinderella come through here? She's a girl with glass shoes, blue ball gown?"

"No, haven't seen her," Jack says.

"Well, we need to find her if we want to put a stop to all the fairy tale twisting." Malice is not sure if what she's saying is true, but it might be, and sometimes it's best to fake your certainty for a good cause, she thinks. "The Cinderella girl put the key on a necklace around his neck." She tilts her head over to indicate. "We'd appreciate it ever-so-greatly if you could unclasp the necklace and free us with the key."

"Of course my dear!" He beckons, "Come closer."

As Malice and the Hatter walk closer, the aroma from the open door of roasting meat becomes intense, causing Malice to salivate. She hears the Hatter's stomach grumble next to her.

"I say!" Hatter says. "It smells as if you are having dinner. My Queen and I are truly famished. If it wouldn't be too much trouble?..."

Malice scowls at him for his forwardness, but inwardly, she is quite pleased he has the audacity enough to impose.

But Jack Sprat chortles. "Of course, my boy!" he says. "We hope that once your hands are freed, you shall thoroughly engage them in participating in our feast! It is our village's greatest feast that only comes around once per year! An annual tradition, starting today!"

"A feast!" the Hatter says and giggles.

Malice nudges her chin at the building. "Is that where all the villagers are?"

Jack says, "Yes, they're all inside the great dining hall waiting for the feast. My wife and I have been cooking the villagers their own meat—because ours must be specially prepared for I, Jack Sprat, can eat no fat."

"And I can eat no lean," his wife says.

"You say the key is around your neck?" He begins walking behind the Hatter.

"Yes," the Hatter says. "Cinderella put it on the chain because I suppose she wanted us to get free eventually."

"We're thinking of following her," Malice says. "Do you know where she might have gone?"

"Haven't a clue." Jack lifts the necklace's clasp. He presses at it. "Fiddle sticks!" he says. "My fingers are too skinny to open it!" He starts tugging on the chain, causing the Mad Hatter to make choking noises. "Ack! Stop!" the Hatter proclaims.

"Sorry, my lad. I'm afraid I'll have to cut it off of you. But we have just the tools to do it! We're butchers and have powerful tools. We'll just go fetch one!" He slaps the Hatter reassuringly on the back.

Together, he and his wife step inside the building.

The Mad Hatter says, "I'm looking forward to eating some of that scrumptious meat!" His tummy rumbles.

"Stop that," Malice growls. "We can't stay long. We must be chasing Cinderella."

"Well we should eat to keep our strength up. And why do we have to chase Cinderella anyhow?"

"To stop the prophesy... Or to make it happen."

"Or both?"

"I don't know, alright? But what else are we supposed to do? I know nothing about this Fairy Tale Land. All I know is Cinderella is on some mission about some sort of prophesy or the other and something or another must be done."

The Hatter inhales deeply. "What sort of meat is it, do you think? Did they say?"

"I don't believe they did."

The voice of Jack Sprat calls out from the open doorway. "Here I am again! I'm back!"

The thin man walks out holding huge curved shears. The size of the tool causes Malice to wince and draw back.

"Yikes," the Hatter says. "Be careful you don't accidentally lop off my head!" He begins giggling uproariously.

Jack Sprat chuckles too. "Don't worry. I shan't make any mistakes!" He moves the cutting tool ever closer to the Hatter's neck, to whom he says, "Now stay very still, young man. I want to cut through in a single snip."

"Yes, quite," Hatter says.

Jack opens the cutting tool wide, much too wide, Malice thinks as she begins to worry.

From inside the building, Malice hears Jack's wife call out, "Stop, thief!"

From the door, out bolts a young man in a tunic and knee high boots, holding a gold plated and jewel encrusted stick in his hand.

As he runs off to the left, the wife comes out, huffing and puffing and holding a bloody cleaver in her hand. "Jack! He tried to steal our meat!"

"That rascal!" Jack shouts.

His wife says, "He almost untied some of the live ones..." She snarls at the young man. "I'm gonna cut you up and my husband'll eat you, since I can eat no lean. No lean!" She lets out a roar as she rushes at the young man with her cleaver raised, but she is not very fast at all, since she is so heavy.

The young man is about fifteen feet away, which gives him plenty of time to raise the slingshot in his hand, aim at the charging woman. He lets fly a steel ball that slams into the lady's forehead with a sharp crack.

A dazed look comes across the lady's face, as she drops the cleaver and wavers, struggling to keep standing.

From out the door come three people—an old man, a younger man and a middle aged woman.

"Aha!" shouts the older man to the dazed woman, "Now we're free! And we've got you!"

They grab the woman by her arms, while she gives a weak attempt at a struggle.

Three more people come out of the building. One man points at Jack. "Drop your weapon, Jack! We're all free now. There's no chance you'll escape!"

Jack slides the curved blades of the shears tight against the Hatter's neck. "Come any closer and I'll cut his head off!"

One of the men has picked up the dropped cleaver, which he shakes menacingly. "You do that and you'll be dead ten seconds later."

And meanwhile a few more people come out the door.

Malice is frozen in terror, afraid to move, because it might cause those blades to slice the dear Hatter's neck.

The young man with the slingshot lifts it and aims it at Jack Sprat's forehead. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

But Jack ducks down out of the line of fire.

"Give it up!" says one of the men in the crowd. "It's over. We already have your wife."

A couple of men are binding Jack's wife's hands behind her back with rope.

"Oh, very well!" Jack sighs, and pulls the shears away and drops them on the ground. A bunch of people are rushing toward him. "But can we at least have our meal? I was trying out a new recipe."

Furiously the man says, "They're people, Jack! Our friends and family!"

Some guys grab Jack's arms. He says, "That's why I'm not sure of the recipe. It's meant for spit roasted pigs, not humans, and as you know I cannot eat fat."

"And I can eat no lean!" his wife says woefully.

Malice herself has quite lost her appetite and feels sick to her stomach. Next to her, the Hatter looks disturbed as well, and is muttering to himself.

Malice watches as a man ties the hands of Jack Sprat. "Pardon me," she says to one of the men.

Meanwhile a man is shouting at Jack, "No! You shan't eat human flesh! And you'll be imprisoned for murder and attempted murder of the village!"

"Excuse me," Malice says meekly.

The young man with the slingshot is walking over.

Sulkily, Jack says, "But why let good meat go to waste? It's already cooked."

"Oh, take them both to the stockade!" says one of the men.

"Could you unlock us?" Malice whimpers.

But the man ignores her, because Jack starts to struggle and the man rushes over to him. They push him along as Jack yells, "But I'm so hungry!"

Eventually Jack settles down and he and his wife are led away, leaving Malice and the Hatter ignored.

Malice jumps in surprise as she suddenly notices the grinning boy with the slingshot in front of her. "Is that the key?" he says while gesturing at the necklace.

"Yes," Malice says. "Thank you for saving us, and won't you please unchain us?"

"I agree with her sentiments," the Hatter says.

The young man's brow furrows. "Well why are you wearing it around your neck?"

Malice sighs. "A girl put it on that necklace, to slow us down."

The Hatter says, "Yes, a girl named Cinderella. She's a very good dancer."

The young man's eyes light up. "Ah! My dear Cinderella! That's why I came here to begin with! Because of her! Here, let me unchain you!"

The young man works at the necklace's clasp. He's thin and muscular, and also quite handsome, Malice thinks.

"Thank you so much!" Malice gushes as he unlocks her chains.

"You're welcome. I'm Cinderella's Prince." He begins unlocking the Hatter. "But you may just call me Prince."

"Thank you, Mr. Prince," the Hatter says.

Malice says, "Prince? Just Prince? What's your real name?"

He thinks. "Well, it seems I don't think I have one. Maybe I'll have one later."

Malice is about to ask him what exactly that means, when one of the guys around them says, "Whatever your name is, you're a hero. You rescued us from being eaten by those two! Unfortunately, they already killed two of our villagers."

Malice feels a little green. "We didn't know that smell was people!"

"Yes," the Hatter says woefully. "We thought it might be pork. Ow!" He yelled because Malice swatted him on the arm.

The Prince says, "Well, I'm glad to have helped. But if I may ask, how did they get the whole village tied up like that?"

The man says, "About an hour ago, they were acting strangely, smelling some kind of black flower, then they decided to bake us cookies. They're the main cooks of our village. We ate them and it put us all to sleep. When we awoke, they'd tied us up and gagged our mouths. It was a complete surprise. They kept saying they were gonna eat us! I don't know what got into them all of the sudden."

Malice arches a brow. "They were nice before?"

"The sweetest two people you could ever meet! They used to cook us such wonderful meals. Never had a cruel word to say between the two of them."

Malice sighs. "I think they may have been twisted."

"I'll say," the man says. "Gone crazy."

Malice merely nods—she doesn't want to get dragged in to explaining about the Black Rose twisting the fairy tales.

The Prince says, "Well I hope those two get their due justice. Cinderella must be close, right? You came into contact with her?" he says to the Hatter.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I am seeking Cinderella. You are too, correct? We can travel together."

The man cuts in, "It's getting dark. You're welcome to stay the night in our village."

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Queen of Hearts, the Brothers Grimm, and the Storyteller are once again gathered in Sleeping Beauty's bedroom at nighttime. (Sleeping Beauty is there, too, of course, but she's always sleeping.)

The last time they were gathered here, Malice, the Mad Hatter, Cinderella, and her Prince all seemed to have been sucked into fairy tale land, inside the snowglobe.

Nobody knows any way to tell what's going on inside it, though.

The Storyteller is about to recite the words to speak to Alice once again, when the Cheshire Cat's floating head starts appearing in the air above Sleeping Beauty.

"Oh, you blasted feline!" the Queen of Hearts yells at his grinning face.

"Merry meet, Your Majesty," the Cat slurs in that smooth-speaking manner of his.

The Storyteller says, "Cat, we are about to contact Alice. We'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention our meddling around the fairy tales with the Black Rose."

"Oh, you know I don't like to interfere in things that way. I am at heart, an observer." His head whizzes through the air to hover next to the Storyteller.

"Ha!" the Queen of Hearts says. "Where is your heart, anyway? I never see you with a body. Have you lost it?"

The Cat sticks his tongue out at her. "Maybe it's up your—"

"That's enough of you two," the Storyteller says. "We're here to speak to Alice." He speaks the words to form a dream connection (with Sleeping Beauty wearing the hat to strengthen the reception).

The image of Alice sitting Indian style floating in midair appears. She is wearing pajamas, and some sort of silver metallic hat, formed like a child would fold a piece of paper to make a triangular hat.

"Welcome, again, Wonderlanders...to my dreams... Ommmm."

They all greet her. The Queen of Hearts realizes now that Alice is sitting in what is known as a lotus position. It is some sort of Buddhist position, she recalls, for meditation, or something—the person sits with legs folded tightly, and the back of their hands upon their knees with thumb touched to a finger.

Alice looks younger than last time, and the Queen of Hearts is about to remark upon it, when the Cat says, "Crikey, my girl! What happened to your face?"

Alice touches her cheek. "What do you mean?"

The Queen of Hearts says, "I believe he means to say that you seem several years younger than before. How old are you, now, my girl?"

"I'm 17. I know, I was 19 last time. But I am in a dream, so who knows?"

"Either that," snaps the Queen of Hearts, "or that fool girl Malice really threw the timelines of our worlds out of sync by fiddling with that watch of hers."

"Speaking of Malice," Alice says, "where is she?"

The Cat chuckles, but keeps his word not to reveal anything.

The Storyteller says, "She and Cinderella and the Hatter are currently having a grand old time gallivanting with all the other fairy tale beings inside the snowglobe."

"What snowglobe?"

"Here let me show you." He lifts the snowglobe from the nightstand and holds it up to her. "All the fairy tales are inside here, but we want to set them free. That's why we need you to focus on believing in them. Have you been doing that?"

"Oh, yes, I have been thinking and thinking and trying to believe. That's why I'm wearing this tinfoil hat to focus my mental powers shooting out from my brain. Look, watch." She closes her eyes. "Ommmmmm..."

"Very good, young lady," the Storyteller says. "I can tell that it won't take much longer for the power of your belief to break the glass of the snowglobe and send the wonderful fairy tale beings into Wonderland. We still have to figure out how to send them through the Looking Glass, but if you call them to you, they will do their best to visit you."

"Ooh!" the girl clasps her hands together. Her eyes are wide open now. "And then will they come with all their whimsy and magic? Will there be princes and princesses to come visit me?"

"Eventually, but one step at a time."

"Mmmm, handsome princes. Beautiful elegant princesses. Maybe I could borrow one of their gowns!"

"Of course, young lady. But first we need to get you to believe more in the fairy tales, and maybe have you focus your thoughts on breaking the glass."

She looks at the snowglobe. "Couldn't you easily break it yourself?"

"There is magic involved. Only you can do it, through your belief."

"I can break that snowglobe!" Alice yells out ferociously. "If you believe enough, you can do anything!" She points at it. "Oh snowglobe, I commandeth thee. Be torn asunder by my command!" It doesn't break, but to her credit it does tremble a little.

Alice's shoulders slump.

"Do not be discouraged, young lady. You're definitely making progress. First you make it tremble, then you'll make it break. It's only a matter of days. I just know it."

"You think so?" Alice says. "And the fairy tale creatures really are worth freeing? Are they all as nice and pretty as Cinderella?"

"Absolutely," the Storyteller says.

"Have you met any of the fairy tale creatures, Cat?"

"Just Cinderella. But I can tell you that everyone is really looking forward to you meeting them. It shall be a thrilling experience."

She pouts a little. "Quite. But will it be fun to meet them? Life in my realm is so boring compared to Wonderland, why I don't believe I've met a magical being or person the whole time I've been here."

The Cat says, "When you meet them, you're sure to have the time of your life. You'll be the whole reason they're released and they'll want to visit you just to pay you back personally."

She squeals in delight. "But how will you send them through the Looking Glass?"

The Storyteller says, "We are working on a way to do it, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Please, continue believing in the fairy tales and focusing on breaking the snowglobe glass."

"Oh, I definitely will. I want to do whatever it takes to bring the fairy tales over. All the anticipation is so built up I could explode!"

The Cat says, "Well, I have a suggestion on what you might do...to focus your thoughts..."

"Yes?" she says.

"Every hour on the hour..."

"Yes?"

"...tap your shiny hat while twirling and clucking like a chicken." The Cat laughs.

She scowls. "Oh, you, you're the same as always. Yet, oddly, I miss you."

"I miss you too," the Cat says.

"I don't miss you," the Queen of Hearts says.

"Okay," the Storyteller says. "Quit teasing the poor girl. Let's let her be. Just continue to focus, my girl. And we'll talk again soon, I'm sure of it. Cheerio."

"Cheerio," she echoes.

The Storyteller pulls the hat off Sleeping Beauty, ending the session.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Malice is to the right side of the Prince. The Hatter is on the Prince's left, as they walk out of the village, traveling farther down the trail.

Malice is the first to speak. "So, Prince. Why are you looking for Cinderella?"

His posture straightens as he walks. "She is my beloved. And I wish to find her to make her my wife. I have her glass slipper that I wish to slip upon her beautiful, sexy foot. I think."

"What do you mean, you think?"

His posture slumps some. "My story hasn't been decided yet."

"I can relate!" the Hatter says and begins giggling. "I often don't know whether I'm coming or going."

Malice struggles to make sense of it all. "You're a fairy tale prince, and the fairy tales may be becoming twisted due to the magical Black Rose. I think the process may be gradual though, or at least not all at once."

The Hatter says to the Prince, "So perhaps your story is currently shifting, becoming more twisted."

Malice is impressed. The Hatter is often annoying, but at times says many quite profound things.

"I believe you may be right," the Prince says. "I don't know how my story will end up, but one thing is certain—I must find my beloved Cinderella and slip her magical slipper upon her foot." He gestures toward one of the little bags dangling from his belt.

"You have one of her slippers?" Malice asks.

"Yes. Of course, I think she has replaced her lost slipper with another, but it's the thought that counts."

The Hatter says, "Such beautiful slippers upon such beautiful toes. She's such a lovely dancer."

The Prince says, "Ah, she is indeed beautiful, and my greatest weakness. I first fell in love with her after finding her foot fit perfectly into her lost shoe. But after we were married, she broke my heart, and left. But I must admit, I am a lovestruck fool. I still love her, and once I found she had returned to the Land of Fairy Tales, I sought to be reunited with her and her beautiful feet and toes."

"They are indeed delectable," the Hatter remarks.

Malice glares at him in her jealousy, but since the Prince is in the middle, the Hatter doesn't see, causing Malice to feel foolish.

The Prince says, "We'll have to wait to see how my story turns out. But in any case, I want to find her, which is how our paths came to cross. The shoe detected her presence in Jack Sprat's village." He again points to the bag upon his belt.

Malice says, "Jack Sprat said she hadn't been there."

"He lied. The slipper detected her presence."

Malice stops in the path to face the Prince, because this seems an important matter of discussion. "What do you mean, detected her presence?"

The Hatter says, "Is she here?" He peers behind Malice.

"No my dear," Malice says. "It's a wonder that he would be able to detect her."

The Prince says, "Well, I know she was with you recently, at least. Here, let me show you." He opens his bag and pulls out a glass shoe that looks like Cinderella's as far as Malice can tell. The shoe is glowing softly.

"Now, watch." The Prince holds the shoe toward the Hatter. As he moves it about, the shoe glows brighter the closer it gets to the Hatter's cheek. Now, it shines radiantly as he presses the shoe to the Hatter's face.

"I say," says the Hatter, "that's where she kissed me."

"And that's what my shoe detects. It is with this shoe that I shall track my beloved, and then perhaps I shall challenge you to a duel for stealing her affections."

"Err, I'm sorry, Prince. I didn't know you and her were an item."

"I jest! She is a single and free woman...for now. So now you know my story, as incomplete as it still is. What about yours?"

They resume walking and Malice and the Hatter speak of their own tales until they come to another collection of signs in the trail, where it again leads off in five directions.

They read the signs:

3 little pigs

Lady and the shoe

Princess and the pea

Aladdin

Pinocchio

The Prince takes out the glass slipper to see if he can pick up Cinderella's trail. The slipper glows slightly brighter near one trail. He points at the Lady and the Shoe sign. "It does seem the most logical choice, since we are so involved with shoes. Don't you think? Cinderella must have thought so as well."

They agree, and so they walk down that path, and what awaits, after reading the little poem on the sign:

There was an old woman

Who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children,

She didn't know what to do.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Malice, the Hatter and Cinderella's prince walk along the trail, the surrounding area seems to magically shift just like it had at Jack Sprat's village.

Now they can see a group of about twenty noisy children running and playing. In the middle of all the chaos is an older, gray-haired woman sitting in a rocking chair. Next to her is a huge woman's shoe with a buckle across the toe area.

The Hatter says, "Someone has to say it, so I proclaim that must be the little old lady who lives in that shoe!"

"Brilliant," Malice says, in a friendly joking manner.

"Tally Ho!" the Prince cries.

Some of the children temporarily halt their scampering to consider them, before immediately resuming running once again.

As they step up to the old lady, she ceases her rocking and proclaims, "Oh my goodness gracious! More visitors!"

"You entertained some others?" the Prince asks.

"Oh, just the one," she replies. "A young lass named Cinderfella I believe it was."

"Cinderella," the Prince corrects.

The old lady peers at him. "Oh? Do you know the young miss?"

"I most certainly do. She is the girl I love. She broke my heart, but I wish to find her and win her heart back again."

"Aye, lad. I can relate. Love can be such a vexing beast. The father of all these children claimed he loved me, but he left me, so now, I have so many children, I don't know what to do."

Malice says, "Yes, I can see how they might prove to be a handful." She briefly looks to see the Hatter crouching and making faces at a giggling child, before continuing. "However, I don't mean to be rude, but it's very important that we catch up with Cinderella again soon. Do you happen to know where she was headed?"

"She didn't say," the old lady replies. "Merely said, she knew where to go after I told her the prophesy, but didn't want to tell me where, which is her right, I suppose."

Malice asks, "To which prophesy are you referring? My, there certainly are a lot of them mucking about, aren't there?"

"Yes," the lady agrees. "Many prophesies, ironic tales, princes and an awful lot of princesses. This is Fairy Tale Land after all. But she wanted to know a prophesy about two magically-shoed sisters. And I happen to know a lot about the doings of shoes in Fairy Tale Land—a bit of an expert, you know." She cocks her head toward the large shoe next to her, as if that explains it.

Malice and the Prince exchange a look. The Hatter is too busy chasing a giggling kid.

Malice says to the Prince, "Cinderella was trying to recall some prophesy about her sister, remember?"

The Prince nods, then turns to the lady. "What was the prophesy, could you tell us?"

The lady considers. "Well, you should know that she payed me with something to tell it to her. Of course, she wouldn't rub the lotion on my feet like I first wanted her to."

Malice notices that the woman is barefoot—her feet are gnarly, wrinkly, and quite unkempt. Malice debates whether to inquire further upon the lotion, but then decides it might be best to avoid the topic, if she can.

But the Mad Hatter stops making faces at a child to say to her, "Well why would anyone in their right mind want to touch your feet? Oops, my apologies. At times I say rude things without thinking."

"That's alright, young man. I can tell you're a bit touched in the head. So I says to Cinderella, could you pay me one of your shoes? She wouldn't give me one, though. I like shoes." She cocks her head to the side at the huge shoe, as if that explains everything.

The Hatter says, "Did you know you're sitting beside a bloody big shoe?"

He's ignored.

"I have one," the Prince says, undoing his belt's little sack. He pulls out the glass slipper which is glowing (from Cinderella's recent presence, Malice figures.)

"That's it! She had two just like 'em. Such beautiful shoes!" She reaches out as if to grab it, but the Prince draws it back.

"Ah ah ah, this is for my future wife."

Malice turns her head in fright from the shriek of a child. She sees the Hatter holding a kid upside down for some reason. The boy starts giggling.

Malice rolls her eyes.

The lady says, "I'll tell you the prophesy you seek if you let me have that wonderful shoe."

He looks down at her toes and crinkles his face, before regaining his composure. "I'm sure it wouldn't fit you."

She replies, "Perhaps not, but it is still a thing of beauty I would like to possess. Maybe I'll have a replica made, to fit my feet once they have been made beautiful by the magic lotion."

Malice says, "This magical lotion of yours causes feet to be beautiful?"

"It will make mine radiantly beautiful. It's that way I intend to win back the heart of my beloved Reginald."

"Papa!" cries one of the children upon hearing the name.

The lady answers the unspoken question. "Yes, he is the father of all these brats, but he left me because he has a foot fetish and he said I had ugly feet. So won't you help a pitiful old lady out? What do you say? The shoe for the prophesy?"

"No deal," the Prince says. "For I must slip this slipper upon my beloved's feet and return it to her. It is my destiny."

"Uh? You have a prophesy about you as well?"

"No, well, not that I know of. I just feel it in my heart."

"Well then I hope that's how your story turns out, young man."

Malice chimes in, "So what did Cinderella pay you, then?"

"She gave me this black rose." She points at a pocket cut into her dress. "Said she didn't mind giving it to me, because my story was boring and should be changed anyway."

Malice gasps. "What? How is that possible? How did it get from outside, to in here! Why, I don't believe it! Surely she tricked you! Perhaps it's really a red rose and you're colorblind!"

"Young lady," she snaps. "You're being rather presumptuous. I may be old, but I can tell the color black! Here, take a look see." She pulls out a black rose, that looks, as far as Malice can tell, like the one she'd taken from the column of rock.

Malice shrieks and points. "It'll twist you! I mean—"

The lady gives her a quizzical look. "Of course, haven't had a chance to smell it yet." She presses it to her nose and inhales deeply.

"No!" Malice shouts. "Don't smell that!"

The lady holds the flower out to the Prince and says, "Here..."

He leans forward and inhales.

"Stop!" Malice shouts. She runs and shoves the Prince, causing him to stumble to regain his balance. She slaps the lady's hand, knocking the flower to the ground and causing her to let out a shriek.

The noises of the children has ceased, as they all stop to watch.

"Malice! What's gotten into you?!" the Prince shouts.

Malice points at it on the ground. "The magic of the Black Rose is what we're trying to stop. It'll twist all the fairy tales, turn them into dark, creepy versions!"

A wide grin on the old lady's face. "But what makes you think we don't want that? For what do you know—you're but a child."

The Prince is staring at his hands. "The rose is enchanted?...I feel...strange."

"Oh no!" Alice exclaims. She looks for the Hatter for support but sees that he is frozen in an open mouthed expression of shock, off to her side. To the Prince, she shouts, "You must fight its influence. Don't let it twist you!" She whirls on the lady, feeling hatred, but still wishing to be polite, due to the programming of her ticktock heart. "And you! You poor misguided soul! We're here to help you! Cinderella wants to twist all the fairy tales, but we can't allow that! It's wicked and evil. So please, tell us the prophesy, so we can figure out where she's going." She puts her hands together in a pleading gesturing and as she's shaking her hands back and forth, she spies a discrepancy in one of the kids.

Just a moment ago, she could have sworn that little boy behind and to the left of the lady was a regular 7 year old, but now he seems the size of a 12 year old.

As Malice stares at him more, her eyes widen as she realizes he is growing larger before her very eyes! "That boy is enlarging!" she says and points.

It soon becomes obvious, though, that he's not the only one—all the children are growing larger.

The Hatter looks around, grabs his hat, and proclaims, "They shall experience growing pains, by Jove!"

The old lady looks around at all the rapidly growing children. "Oh, look at the scamps. They're changing to accommodate my new story!"

"My story is changing as well!" the Prince calls out, looking aghast.

Malice politely acknowledges his distress, before turning her attention back to the old lady. "What do you mean?"

"It means that no longer did my children come from a human-sized man. My new story is this:" (And as she talks, the children around her keep growing.) "I fell in love with a giant and those are all our children, which is why they're so big."

And then, as if on cue, one of the lumbering tykes accidentally nudges against Malice, sending her sprawling and toppling over into the ground. She gets up in irritation, as the child says, "I'm real sorry, miss." The child holds out his hand to her—the child is two inches taller than Malice—he yanks her up and sends her flying through the air to land sprawling on her chest.

She lets out a scream, then tries to regain the wind knocked out of her.

"I'm real sorry again, miss," the child says, taking steps toward Malice again.

But the Hatter says, "I say, scamp. Perhaps it'd be best if you stop helping, and scram."

And meanwhile Malice lies upon the ground with various murderous thoughts running through her head, and the coldness spreading through her chest.

Ah, she thinks to herself, so all the jostling has shut my heart off once more. Well, so be it, for it was a burden anyway.

The Hatter graciously helps Malice up.

Her heart still hasn't resumed ticking.

The lady says, "I apologize on my clumsy child's behalf. As I was saying, they're all so large, since they're half giant. But their father eventually left me. He was a foot fetishist and since he was a giant, he wanted a wife with giant-sized feet. He sought a new wife and made a magic shoe." She nudges her head toward it. "He said that whatever woman may fit her foot in the shoe was to be his wife. It's similar to your story, right, Prince?"

The Prince looks taken aback, as if he wasn't expecting to be spoken to. "Well, it used to be—my story has twisted now. It's not quite the same. But I still wish to place the shoe upon her foot, as her reward for how she treated me. Oh, this I vow." He goes back to brooding.

The lady merely nods at him, as if she understands. "My story has changed as well. Previously, the giant shoe was merely a symbolic gesture of my love for shoes. In any case, long story short, I have the shoe now, and have devised the means that my foot will fit in it. I admit I have dabbled in dark sorcery to develop a foot lotion that shall grow my feet to the exact perfect size to fit the shoe, and then the giant shall be bound by his spell to love me once again. Oh, my fairy tale shall have its happily ever after, mark my words!"

Malice looks around to see all the children have stopped growing. They look like children still, only three times as big and tall as before. Now she looks at the shoe. It is eight feet long. "Wouldn't your feet be rather...disproportionate if they were to fit that shoe?"

The old lady says, "Quite. I told you I am no master witch. Just an old lady with a shoe I must fit into."

The Hatter giggles. "Have you heard of the creature in the Americas known as bigfoot? Perhaps you might catch his fancy."

The lady sighs. "No, I want my giant. He may be a lumbering oaf, but I'm a fool for him."

"We are all fools for love!" the Prince laments.

Meanwhile, the children, finished with their growth spurts, have begun scampering again. Their footfalls sound much heavier than before, more thudding.

The lady says, "So now that you know my new tale, you understand why I wish to have the magic lotion rubbed upon my feet."

The Prince mutters, "Your feet are not our concern. I wish to track down Cinderella and slip the glass slipper on her foot that she is owed. I don't mean to be rude, but I need to catch up with her."

The old lady's eyes widen at his audacity, but now she's smirking. "Well, my crass lad, you'll be needing to hear the shoe prophesy, won't ye then?"

"Yes, so we can figure where that woman went upon hearing it."

"Cinderella gave me the rose. What will you give me? Will you rub the magic lotion upon my feet?"

Malice finally gets a little fed up. "Why don't you do it yourself, you old crone?" I hope my heart doesn't start ticking again anytime soon. I quite enjoy being rude. It's so liberating.

The lady makes an irritated face. "Well, young lady, I am too old and arthritic to do it myself. And all my disobedient children won't do it, because they dislike the discipline of their father, so they don't want him around. He's not cruel to them, mind you, but he keeps them well-behaved, which they oppose."

Malice says, "Let me consider rubbing the lotion on. I'm not sure I want to touch your ugly feet."

While Malice is pondering, the Prince says, "I'll give you my dagger."

"That would be the death of me. One of my rascal children would steal it away from me and stab me when I try to scold them, I'm sure."

Meanwhile, Malice is pondering, thinking it would be gross to touch her feet, but it would be uproariously funny to see her feet grow so very huge compared to her body. How delightfully humiliating, how ridiculously mortifying it would be! She would love to see such a hilarious sight! A grin comes across her face just thinking about it.

"I'll offer you my slingshot. It is a magical relic. Legendary, it is, with many prophesies of its own." He brings out the gold-plated and jewel-encrusted weapon.

A sudden change of demeanor comes over the lady. "I know of that slingshot. I know one of its prophesies, too!"

"Sure are a lot of prophesies floating around this place," Malice mutters, but is ignored.

The old lady says, "Trust me, you don't want to be parting with that, if you wish to meet that Cinderella lass you're pining for."

"I don't?"

"No, lad, because of the slingshot prophesy. I'll tell you what it is—"

"How much will that cost?" Malice asks with a smirk.

"This one's free. Because I'd like to help out two lovers."

"We're not lovers anymore," the Prince corrects.

The lady says, "Well hopefully you shall be again, because the relevant part of the prophesy is this: In the time when the prince reunites with his glass-slippered princess, after she first breaks his heart, the use of that slingshot shall bring her flying back into his arms."

The Prince scowls. "Not sure I want that."

"Oh, quit being such a sourpuss," the lady says. "But I understand. She broke your heart. But she's only done so once, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then it fits the prophesy. So I shan't accept it, then."

The Prince looks flustered. "Well, I don't know what else I can offer you. Malice, do you have anything that might make a good trade?"

Malice makes a show of rubbing her chin in an exaggerated manner. "Even if I did, I would very much like to see her feet grow to comical proportions." She laughs to herself.

The Hatter says, "I don't think that would be very pleasant for her."

"I must agree," the Prince says, now addressing the lady, "Madame, how would you be able to move about with such huge-sized feet and such an unchanged-sized body?"

"Very awkwardly, I should think!" Malice starts cackling. She can't help it. Thinking of the old shrew's suffering fills her with such mirth.

"Malice!" the Prince says. "This is no laughing matter."

Between titters, Malice says, "It most certainly is, because look..." She points at her mouth and lets the laughter tumble out.

The Hatter mutters, "Oh dear, what happened to my dear, sweet Malice?"

"To answer your question," the lady says, "I trust that my fairy tale shall sort itself out, and I shall experience a happy ending."

Or an unhappy one, since fairy tales so often end with ironic endings instead.

She doesn't speak these thoughts out loud, though. Instead, she mocks, "So there. It's all sorted then!"

"How can you be so callous?" the Prince says, shaking his head.

While the Hatter moans, "Yes, what's happening to you, my dear Malice?"

"The heart of the matter is that my heart's shut off, so I feel no kindness toward this crone whatsoever. I've grown bored of this episode, so I'll rub her crooked toes, and so let's get on with the matter!"

The Hatter looks aghast. "Oh no! My dear Queen's heart is malfunctioning."

Malice sneers. "It's not malfunctioning. What it's not doing is getting in the way for a change. Now crinkle your toes and point me to the magic lotion, old crone, because you're about to get a rub down."

"Please," the Prince says. "I'm asking you not to do this. We shouldn't do something that we know is going to be bad for her."

Malice makes a raspberry sound. "But you heard her, it shall all end up peachy, right, crone?"

"Righty." Big grin and many revealed wrinkles as a result.

"Oh dear oh dear," mutters the Hatter. "He's right. Participating in it is the same as harming her on purpose."

"Rubbish!" Malice shouts. "Stop with all the fake moral dilemma. Oooh, you can't participate if you know what's gonna happen?! Spare me your 'concerned' routine." She glares at the Prince. "What do you propose? Are you gonna offer her something else? Because I think you ran out of things, didn't you? So are you suggesting we just walk away, and not hear the prophesy?"

The Prince opens his mouth but no words come out.

"I didn't think so," Malice snarls. "So why did we waste all this time with putting on the act of you being oh-so-morally torn, when we all knew we were going to end up here?"

The Prince closes his mouth and relents with a sheepish shrug.

"I do think we should just go," the Hatter says quietly. "It's just not right to do that to her."

Malice lets loose a howl of outrage, rushes over to him and kicks him in the shin.

As the Hatter yowls and hops about holding his leg, Malice says, "But there is a third option. I could take that dagger of yours and hold it up to the crone's neck and demand she tell us the prophesy or I'll slice her neck, and if she lies, we'll come back and make good on the promise, but I really thought the foot rub option would be much more entertaining." The old lady is looking a bit panicked so Malice smiles sweetly at her to calm her.

"You're right," the Prince says. "You were being pragmatic, while I was just trying to pretend...in order to look good."

Malice says, "Well, by golly, I thought that Black Rose was supposed to twist you. It's about time you start acting like it."

The Hatter starts making a pitiful moaning noise, but Malice glares at him, causing him to stop.

The Prince assumes a more rigid posture. "You're right. I am twisted. I don't know what I was thinking. Habit, I suppose. You may proceed with my blessings."

The Hatter whimpers but doesn't speak.

Malice says, "And so after wasting so much time, I'll rub the lotion on your feet if you'll agree to recite your little prophesy. So where is it?" She demonstratively looks about.

"Here," the old lady says. She rummages in her dress and pulls out a little tub.

She hands it to Malice's outstretched hand.

Malice twists it open. The goop inside smells like rotten milk, and she kneels, calling out as she grabs those old toes, "Avert your eyes!" because she thinks it's funny, but also to cover up the nervousness as she shifts the smelly goop ever closer to those crinkly, old toes.

But Malice closes her eyes, and soon it is over, and the old lady's scrunched wrinkled toes and feet are slathered in the goop.

She stands up and is so grateful as the old lady hands her a handkerchief.

Everybody stares at her ugly feet—something they had been avoiding before.

Her toes start wriggling and crinkling over and over and the flesh of her skin becomes red.

The lady says, "I can feel my little piggies tingling."

They all stare expectantly. Malice thinks she saw one big toe grow ever-so-slightly.

"Oh, fiddlesticks," the lady says, "the lot of you staring at my feet is embarrassing me. Come now, I'll tell you the prophesy."

They all look up to her face.

The lady says, "Many years ago, two sisters were born. One was Cinderella. Her sister, Goody Two-shoes, was born with a most beautiful pair of shoes.

"Goody Two-shoes was always kind and sweet. Her magic shoes made her so. Everyone loved her, except Cinderella. Cinderella was so jealous and wanted a magical pair of shoes of her own. Long story short, she stole a pair of magical glass slippers from a sorceress made of glass, who Cinderella then murdered by shattering her to death. But the magical slippers would never permanently shatter, because they have the ability to reform."

The lady glances down at her feet, which have grown three times their former size and are now visibly enlarging. The Hatter makes a whimpery sound as he spies them.

The lady continues, "And here is where the prophesy comes in, for it is foretold that there shall come a day when a flower of doom shall threaten to twist all the fairy tales. The fate of the fairy tales shall hinge on a showdown between Goody Two-shoes and Cinderella.

"The two shall duel. If Cinderella defeats her sister, all her goodness will be vanquished, and the twisting will prevail in the Land of Fairy Tales. But if Goody Two-shoes defeats Cinderella, the effects of the rose shall be reversed."

She looks down at her huge feet. They're now each as long as one of her entire legs.

She laughs. "Soon my feet will be big enough to fit in the shoe!" Nudge of her head.

The Prince says, "The girl named Goody Two-shoes...Cinderella must be going to kill her. Where is she?"

"Well, she has her own area." She points down the trail. "At the fork in the road, go through the Gold Egg-laying Goose's area, then go down the trail till you see Goody Two-shoes' sign. You can't miss it."

The Prince nods. "We must catch up with Cinderella. Come on, let's go."

"Good luck preserving the integrity of the fairy tale beings!" the lady calls out as the group begins walking away. "Thanks for helping me with my feet... No!"

They turn to look at her. She's straining to lift her legs, but her feet are so huge, they barely move.

"Having trouble?" Malice says with a grin.

The old lady is sobbing. "I can't move my feet! They're too heavy."

"And only getting heavier!" Malice adds not helpfully.

"Please!" the lady shrieks, panicking. "You've got to help me. You've got to—I don't know—help me put my foot in the shoe at least!"

Malice cackles and points. "Maybe one of your brats will help!"

Next to her, the Prince is cackling, and the Hatter is muttering to himself, "That poor dear lady."

"Let's go," Malice says. She turns away and walks.

"No! Don't leave me! Please don't leave me!"

They keep walking.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The scene behind them vanishes and the anguished cries of the old lady grow quieter as they walk down the trail.

The Hatter is sniveling to himself, constantly muttering things about the "poor old lady." He seems quite distraught, so Malice doesn't think he'll make very good conversation.

So she focuses her attention on the Prince.

She looks over at him as they continue walking. "So when you smelled the rose, it twisted you? Changed your story?"

"Yes, my origin story has been shifting ever since then. It's different than even a few minutes ago."

"Well, I'm curious to hear it."

"Very well. Once upon a time, I was a happy prince, minding my own business. I was satisfied being single, because women are complicated. But one day, Cinderella came, with her magic glass shoes and seduced me. She knew I had a foot fetish, and she took advantage of it. I don't want to go through all the details, but she ended up breaking my heart, stealing my kingdom and wealth, and kicking me out of my own castle!"

"What a scoundrel!"

"I tried to kill her, but she fled, but she lost one of her shoes, which I picked up. Ever since that day, I have vowed to one day place that shoe upon her foot once more."

"Huh? That sounds...rather nice. Why would you do that?"

The Hatter says, "Perhaps he's not as mean as you."

The Prince stops walking and shakes his head. He pulls out the glass slipper. "Look..."

She peers at it. It's quite different from the last time she saw it, since the inside of the shoe is now lined with sharp glass spikes.

The Hatter yelps, but Malice chuckles.

"Brilliant," she says.

The Prince says, "I had a witch enchant the shoe to grow those spikes, tipped with poison. Anyone who dons the shoe will die immediately. And that is why I have dedicated my life to hunting that conniving backstabber down. For I am determined to kill her with the very same shoe she used to seduce me."

"How ironic," she says.

"Indeed," the Prince says. He continues walking.

"If only I had a card," Malice adds.

The Hatter says, "But she seemed so nice before. She doesn't deserve to be killed."

The Prince says, "Her tale has become twisted, just as mine has. She's not the sweet innocent girl you knew before."

Malice says, "Well, I look forward to seeing the end of your tale. Sounds like it'll be a jolly good show." Malice laughs uproariously at the delectably twisted tale, but suddenly stops. Her ticktock heart has suddenly started ticking again, and the kindness programming kicks in. Such a cruel vicious tale is no longer funny.

The Prince doesn't notice her sudden change of demeanor. He is too busy inspecting one of the sacks of his belt. "One of those little hooligans must have stolen my slingshot balls!"

The Hatter says, "Perhaps they wanted to play marbles."

The Prince says, "If I wasn't on this mission, I'd turn back and show them what for."

They walk a bit further as the Prince stews.

Malice sighs and points. "There it is." Because up ahead is a bunch of signs and five different trails going off.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They find that the new version of the slipper can no longer track Cinderella, but they don't even have to think about which path to take, immediately setting off for the Gold Egg-laying Goose's area.

The scene around them shifts, and now they are in a dirt area next to a small humble wooden cottage.

A farm boy of about 15 years of age turns to look at them. He is standing next to a goose sitting in a bird nest in the middle of the open dirt area. About twenty feet away is an eight foot wide crater in the ground.

"Oh no," the boy says. "Not more visitors!"

Malice, who is pleasant and polite once more, says, "Sorry to bother you, but we are seeking a girl with glass slippers named Cinderella who is causing a lot of trouble in Fairy Tale Land."

"That's for sure," says the boy as he points to something lying on the ground in front of the goose. "She left that."

Malice looks to see a black rose lying there. She blows out from her cheeks. "Where does she get them all?"

The Prince shakes his head. "So the goose's tale has been twisted?"

The boy says, "Huh? Her tail?" He looks.

The Prince says, "No, her story. It has changed?"

The boy scowls, makes a fist and shakes it. "Yes. That crazy ball gown wearer! First she threatens to cut me with her glass shoe if I don't tell her where Goody Two-shoes' area is, then she uses that vicious magical flower to twist the goose and her golden eggs!"

Malice says, "Let me guess. The goose used to lay eggs of pure gold, and now she doesn't?"

The boy says, "Well after she smelled that flower, the eggs are still gold-colored, but...look!" He walks up to the goose. "Shoo goose, shoo!"

The goose lets loose some squawks and flutters its wings in irritation but then gives in and walks off to a short distance away.

They look down to see five golden goose eggs, with what look to be candle wicks with metal caps poking out the top of each of them.

The boy says, "Not only are they no longer real gold, but they are explosive. The goose now lays golden grenades!"

They all three let out sounds and utterances expressing their concern for their immediate safety.

But the boy says, "Oh, don't worry, they must be lit before they go off. But what use do I have for explosive eggs?! That nutter! She even lit one and threw it in my hands before she told me they were explosives. I had to throw it." He points at the crater in the ground a distance away.

"She's indeed a cruel mistress," the Prince mutters through clenched teeth.

"Yes," the boy says angrily. "She kept laughing at that. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. I hope you track her down and give her what she deserves."

"We fully intend to," the Prince says. "Would you be so kind as to point us to the goody two-shoed girl's area?"

He points. "Down the trail. There is a sign for it, so you can't miss it."

"Thank you," the Prince says. "Do you mind if we take some of these eggs? In case we need explosives..."

"Yes, please do. I have no use for them anyway. Oh, in order to light them, you must pull the cap off quick, and the friction causes a spark that lights the wick. It explodes about ten seconds later. Make sure not to be holding it at the time."

Moments later, the three travelers are on the trail once more, going as fast as they can to catch up.

When they come to the next mass of signs, they go in the direction of Goody Two-shoes.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Queen of Hearts had been taking a nap in the afternoon, when Alice intruded into her dream to tell her she was trying to contact someone on the Wonderland side. The Queen of Hearts bolted awake and rushed to Sleeping Beauty's bedroom. Unfortunately, the Cheshire Cat had decided to tag along.

So now, the Queen of Hearts is alone with the Cat in Sleeping Beauty's room, putting the hat on the girl's head.

After reciting the words she'd heard the Storyteller say, the image of Alice appears again.

This time, she seems to be around 16 years old.

The Queen of Hearts doesn't stop to question that.

The girl is sitting crosslegged in a day dress, floating in the air, with a glowing crystal ball floating above her lap. She is holding the palms of her hands to the ball, as if making a reading or directing its magic.

"Queeny weeny, so it's just you and the Cat this time, eh? Well, okay, I'll get right to it. My connection to Wonderland has grown stronger so I was able to call you, but I can't hold on for long. I have to tell you, I'm having a problem. One of the fairy tale beings is trying to contact me, in order to save her."

"Oh? Cinderella? Malice?"

"No, no, someone else. Goody Two-shoes is her name, I think. I can only get a vague sense of what she's trying to tell me, but I'm not yet strong enough to contact her. I'm having trouble reaching my thoughts into her Fairy Tale Land."

"I've heard of the goody two-shoes, but there is a girl who's named that?" the Queen of Hearts says.

"I think so, that's what I sense at least. She wants me to help her. Cat, do you know anything?"

"I'm afraid I'm unable to travel into the Fairy Tale Land and I know practically nothing about those who live there."

Alice bites her lip. "That's too bad. It's just that I don't know what to do. She keeps reaching out to me. I can sense...there's someone after her and she wants me to rescue her. And also in her thoughts I can read a strong notion, about the Black Rose, I believe. It's a magic flower I encountered in Wonderland. It got a hold of me once, and I can feel its dark influence once more. I must admit it's entered my thoughts again. I've been having dreams about it. And I can sense she wants me to focus my thoughts on it and stop it somehow, but it's all so vague. I can't read her thoughts completely clearly. But obviously, she wants me to help her in some way, and I don't know what to do."

The Queen of Hearts sees an opportunity suddenly opening up before her. And so, she decides to lie to the girl. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, my dear, but this Goody Two-shoes is not so wonderful. I actually do now recall her."

"You do?"

"Yes, she is a goody two-shoes. Remember when you used to wear them? She wants to make the fairy tales be all sickly sweet, and make them boring and sugary tales for toddlers to get 'moral' lessons from. She is the last thing the fairy tale beings need."

"Huh? I don't understand. Is she someone powerful? I'm sorry, but I can't speak much longer. My connection is fading."

The Queen of Hearts is committed to her lying, but at the same time, she doesn't want to go too far and be exposed as a liar later. "Some say she's powerful, some disagree, but the fact is, she's lying about the Black Rose. The Black Rose is actually what the fairy tale realm needs."

"It does?"

"Yes. I don't know what you think, but the Black Rose is not so bad. It'll shake fairy tale land up, make it exciting and alive!"

Alice bites her lip. "I'm not sure about that. But Goody Two-shoes says she's in danger and wants to be saved."

The Queen of Hearts thinks whoever Goody Two-shoes is, is probably better off dead, but she doesn't want to push her lies too far. "I don't know if she's in danger or not, or if she even deserves to be saved. But I do think she wants you to focus on bringing the Black Rose's power to Fairy Tale Land. Can you do that, by thinking on it?"

"I don't know. I feel my thoughts do have some kind of effect on Fairy Tale Land. I've been constantly focusing on believing in the fairy tales. Oh dear. I can feel my connection with you is fading. I'll keep up—"

Her image vanishes. After several moments of waiting, Alice doesn't reappear.

The Queen of Hearts wonders if she remains silent about this incident, if it will go unnoticed.

When she asks the Cat if he can keep the secret, he says he won't tell, and she has to make do with that.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When the area appears around them, they see a grassy area next to a modest wooden hut. There are about a dozen pink bunnies hopping about. There are also many hearts cut from red colored paper lying on the grass.

One of the bunnies hops up to them. "You must help!" the female bunny says. "Some girl is chasing Goody Two-shoes! I think she wants to kill her!"

They look around.

The bunny explains, "No, they are no longer here. Goody Two-shoes ran away, and the girl in the blue dress followed her!"

The Prince says, "Do you know where they went? We want to help Goody Two-shoes."

"No! I don't know! They went that way!"

"Well, what happened?" the Prince says.

"Goody was just sitting, cutting her paper hearts, and the other girl comes and calls her names, then they just started fighting. Goody kept asking why was she acting like that, and saying that they were sisters. Then the other girl said she had become twisted. Then Goody yelled up to the sky, 'Alice help save me! Help me to destroy the Black Rose!' I don't know what she was talking about. But then there was a flickering in the sky, and Goody ran away, saying she had to go to the queendom, and her sister followed her."

"Okay," the Prince says. "Is there anything else? We must hurry to catch up with them."

"No," the bunny says. "Oh, please save our human!"

Malice, the Hatter and Prince waste no time running down the trail.

Soon they come to another mass of signs. One of them reads: Queendom of the Black Rose so they go down that path.

As the scene appears around them, Malice gets a sudden sense of deja vu, but focuses on the sight of the two girls flamboyantly dancing in front of them. One of the girls is Cinderella, spinning in the air, kicking high. The other girl looks similar to Cinderella, but with brown hair and is dressed in a simple peasant dress. And she wears black Mary Jane shoes. She must be Goody Two-shoes, Malice thinks.

And now as Cinderella's calf cracks into the side of Goody Two-shoes' face, Malice realizes they aren't dancing at all, they're fighting. And now she realizes Cinderella must've struck with her calf instead of her foot in order to avoid shattering her shoe.

The Prince is rushing forward with dagger drawn. But Malice and the Hatter fall back.

She takes in the scene. Behind the two sisters is a tightrope going over a cliff, connecting to a platform on a column of stone ten feet from the cliff's edge. On the circular ten foot wide column is a throne next to a pedestal with a black rose on top of it.

Other than the fact there is no skeleton, it is exactly the same as it looked before, when Malice and Cinderella attained the Black Rose in the first place. Malice is not overly shocked about the strange occurrence. She comes from Wonderland, after all, but she does wonder if the scene is a replica or is actually the same place, before returning her attention to the sisters.

The Prince is letting out a war cry as he runs. When he is still seven feet away from them, Goody performs three cartwheels, landing atop the tightrope, which she starts running across.

Cinderella, caught by surprise, watches. She wants to follow, but the Prince is upon her, slashing at her with his dagger, which Cinderella dodges.

And meanwhile Malice and the Hatter are rushing over, but can do little more than watch as the Prince slashes and Cinderella delivers a series of spinning kick attacks.

From the platform, Goody is calling out, "Alice! Alice can you hear me?! Please, help me! Take me out of this place! Please, Alice!" Malice looks to see the girl is shouting up at the sky with tears streaming down her face.

Malice hears a cracking sound and looks to see the Prince reeling from a kick to the side of his face.

Cinderella takes the opportunity to flee, performing several cartwheels to land atop the tightrope.

"No!" the Prince shouts before rushing after her.

She is already partly on the tightrope when he arrives at the edge of the cliff.

Meanwhile, Goody Two-shoes is pressing her hands against the invisible dome around the Black Rose, struggling to force her way in—she's turned away from Cinderella, can't see her approaching closer on the tightrope, the tightrope that the Prince now starts shaking.

"Fall, betrayer!" he shouts.

But she doesn't, as she lifts her arms to her side, and her balance is unerring, magically enhanced.

Goody Two-shoes once again calls out to the sky, "Alice! Help me to destroy the Black Rose! Let me grab it! Please!"

Goody notices just in time, and dodges from a spinning kick to the back of her head. Cinderella's leg clangs into the rose's protective dome as Goody rolls to the side.

Malice stands beside the Prince now. The Hatter is behind them. They are watching helplessly as the sisters resume their kicking battle on the narrow ten foot wide, circular area.

"What can we do?" Malice whispers, mortified.

"I hope to watch Cinderella die," the Prince mutters.

The fight between the sisters is spectacular and acrobatic. It would be like a beautiful dance, if it wasn't such a deadly endeavor.

"No," Malice says. "We must save them."

"There's the rope," he says, without looking down at it, which Malice realizes is because he doesn't want to risk missing the moment of Cinderella's death.

The fight continues. Goody Two-shoes manages to knee Cinderella in the stomach then hits her in the back of the head with the back of her hand. This sends Cinderella reeling almost off the edge of the platform, but she drops to her stomach on the ground to keep from toppling over.

The Hatter lets out a whimper. "I can't watch."

When Malice looks back, he is covering his eyes.

She doesn't blame him, but she knows she herself must watch.

Cinderella manages to roll to the side, and get back to her feet. The twirling kicks continue, for several long moments.

Cinderella connects a spinning kick to the side of Goody's face, sending her head crashing into the side of the throne.

Goody lies slumped against the side of the throne, so dazed she can barely move. Goody twists so that her back is against the throne's side, only to see that Cinderella is now facing her with a smug expression on her face.

Barely moving, Goody Two-shoes looks back at Cinderella. Goody's mouth is bloody, her jaw looks crushed—she seems to barely be able to focus on the image of Cinderella in front of her.

Next to Malice, the Prince mutters, "No, she mustn't win."

"You've had this coming for a long time, sister," Cinderella says, as she lifts her glass-slippered foot up, preparing to stomp in the front of Goody's face, and Goody is helpless, looking at the bottom of the shoe with a blank expression.

Malice hears a scraping sound next to her. In her peripheral vision, Malice sees the Prince's arms rise. She looks over to see him holding the slingshot, aiming a lit golden egg at Cinderella's head.

"No!" Malice shouts. She pulls at his arms, but fears it's too late as the egg zings through the air.

The egg slams hard into the top of Cinderella's thigh through the fabric of her gown, partially spinning her body, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise.

Malice's eyes lose track of the egg and she thinks it may have gone past the edges of the platform, where it will explode safely somewhere in the chasm below.

"What?" Cinderella yells. She turns and glares at the Prince, who is already rummaging for another egg.

But now Malice hears a clink. Her eyes focus on the point of the sound and she realizes now that the egg had sailed straight up in the air and has just landed again on the platform.

She watches its path, spinning and meandering under the legs of the throne, coming out between the front two legs. She watches it spinning and going on a bizarre wobbling curve. With dread, she can see from the spinning blur, that the egg is still lit.

Cinderella sees it too, spinning a couple feet away from her.

Malice can almost read the thoughts running through Cinderella's head, as Cinderella watches the spinning egg, trying to track its twisting, curving path, wondering if she'd be able to grab it and throw it over the edge in time, or if it would spin and twist out of her grasp.

A change comes across Cinderella's features—perhaps she doesn't think she'd be able to grab it in time, as she turns her head to the right to glare at the Prince, who is lighting another egg. Cinderella turns, starts running full speed in the Prince's direction, despite there being only five feet between her and the edge of the platform. Cinderella leaps high off the edge of the platform just as an explosion erupts, consuming all of the platform in a ball of flame, hurling the sprawling figure of Cinderella upward in a boom of air and fire.

It sends Cinderella sailing directly at the Prince, who drops the slingshot and lit egg, and he almost seems to romantically catch her in his arms as he attempts to lessen the impact of her slamming into him.

In a daze, Malice is now lying on her side, watching them from the ground. She has been knocked off her feet, she realizes. She struggles to get back up, as she watches Cinderella and the Prince grappling, clasped in each other's arms like vicious lovers, rolling on the ground. In horror, Malice realizes from brief glimpses, that the upper part of the back of Cinderella's dress is gone, burnt away, and the skin of her back has been reduced to blackened cinders.

She hears the Hatter cry, "The egg!" to her right.

She looks to see him fling himself on top of the egg, sees the flash of fire beneath his stomach as it explodes, then he disappears from her sight.

Hatter's mangled, smoking body lands with a thud into the ground, twenty feet away. His hat has been blown from his head. But she doesn't have time to check up on him as she returns her attention to the Prince and Cinderella.

The couple are still on the ground, entwined and struggling. At the moment Malice looks at them again, Cinderella slams the side of her fist to the Prince's neck, and he lets out an eerily inhuman cry. Cinderella pushes away at him, and rises shakily to her feet, leaving him on the ground on his back.

Cinderella looks down at him and laughs at him, but now her laugh begins to sound pained. She looks down to her abdomen, and Malice and Cinderella see at the same time that there is a dagger stuck in her stomach.

The Prince rises up on his knees, points at the dagger, and attempts a mocking laugh, but only sickly sounds come out. Malice looks and realizes now, why. The back half of a glass slipper is protruding from the side of his neck.

Cinderella is staring down in confusion at the dagger in her stomach that wobbles with each of her panicked breaths, afraid to touch it. The Prince, with a tender touch, presses his fingertips to the shoe slammed into his neck.

And Malice is frozen in indecision. This has all gone horribly wrong. She is almost too afraid to look at the Hatter again, because she fears he's dead, or beyond hope. And the explosion has wiped the platform completely bare as well, so she knows there is no hope for Goody Two-shoes either.

Malice wonders if she should attack Cinderella. Cinderella still looks dazed and in shock. The Prince looks like he only has moments more to live.

The sky shimmers and flutters, like air in the heat.

A booming female voice rains down, saying "Goody Two-shoes? You called me? It's Alice."

And now a huge human girl's face seems to peer over in the sky, like a girl peering inside a snowglobe.

Malice recognizes that face. It is her own face, and the face of her twin/reflection, Alice.

And at that spectral sight in the sky, Malice and Cinderella both cry out, "Alice!"

But the giant image of Alice does not seem to hear. Alice's face peers around, squinting. "Goody Two-shoes?"

Malice calls again, while Cinderella coughs, but Alice doesn't hear.

The features of Alice form into a pout. She thinks for a moment, her brow furrowed. "Fairy tales, unleash yourselves. I believe in you. You hear me? I believe in you!"

The sky begins to form what looks like cracks in glass, more and more cracks, jagged lines, until the very sky shatters and a howling wind comes over them, lifting them up like rag dolls, taking them to they know not where.

Everything goes black.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Malice awakens to the smell of grass. She opens her eyes, and in her blurry vision, she sees that there is someone lying next to her.

She props herself on her elbow, and waits for her eyes to begin focusing again, and now sees that person is the Mad Hatter. A healthy Mad Hatter, unmolested by explosives, and with a dapper top hat upon his head.

Had Alice taken away his injuries?

Overjoyed by the possibility, she takes in her surroundings, and realizes that she is now on the grassy area outside the Queen of Heart's castle. Well, last she checked, it was her castle, but one couldn't be sure of what was going on, when it came to the comings and goings of Wonderland.

But nonetheless, her beloved Hatter is alive and well, which is all she can ask. The Cat's head zooms up and delivers her a card from his mouth. Absently, she accepts the card in her hand, then she shakes the Mad Hatter to wake him. "Oh Hatter, my dear Hatter. Wake up."

He gasps and looks about. "Malice, my dear! What's going on? Why, the last I remember I was throwing myself on a grenade."

"Alice, I think. Saved us."

He sits up. "Alice? Well, I'm grateful, but I must admit, I don't really know what's going on. Perhaps I need to be filled in."

"The Storyteller told me to give you that," the Cat says to Malice, sounding peeved at being ignored.

Malice spies a little girl of about 10 years old in a blue and white dress and bonnet carrying a long walking stick with a big hook on top walking down the trail. Malice returns her attention to the Hatter. "I think Alice may have released all the fairy tale beings into Wonderland. And while she was doing that, she managed to save us both..."

"Yes on both counts," says the Cat.

The Hatter casually takes the card from her hand and reads it. "It says deus ex machina." He looks puzzled.

Malice says, "It's like when the heroes of a story are suddenly saved from certain doom by the gods. So Alice was like the god."

The Hatter sighs. "Well I can't complain about being saved. And I'm glad you're okay. But I can't help but worry what the fairy tales being released into Wonderland means for our future."

"Me too," Malice says. "But come, let's make the best of it. Here we are delivered just outside our castle."

The little girl has walked close enough to them now, so she calls out to them meekly and politely, "Excuse me miss, my name is Bo Peep and I am seeking one of my sheep whom I have lost. Have you seen him?"

Malice is getting a bad feeling from the girl. Malice doesn't know quite what to make of it all, so she says, "Maybe I have. But why do you ask?"

"Because," says Bo Peep, as she pulls out a dagger, "I wish to slay him."

THE END. Thanks for reading. To stay informed of future releases, simply subscribe to my newsletter by visiting loteyrose.com

The second volume in the Malice Hates Fairy Tales trilogy is available.

Lotus, or Lotey, as he keeps trying to get people to call him, lives in Austin, an oasis in the heart of Texas. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he learned that frat boys are lame. He once watched a fraternity house burn down when they accidentally set their fake snow on fire after a party. After college, rather than get a real job, he decided to become a writer. He invented the corruptagram, a symbol he's trying to get banned in public schools. He enjoys Newcastle Brown Ale and black metal with blastbeats. Lotus Rose is not a frat boy.

His website is at~ loteyrose.com

Also by Lotus Rose, the Malice in Wonderland trilogy

Alice will have her heart returned to her even if she has to kill everyone in Wonderland one by one...

The truth is not what you were led to believe. Alice never left Wonderland. It wasn't all "just a dream."

It's a nightmare. A nightmare she can't escape, where formerly pleasant characters throw her unhappy unbirthday parties to torment her, while others like to make her cry so they can lick her tears.

But one day after years of this unpleasantness, she loses her heart. Literally. Well, technically someone steals it.

And she has to get it back. By any means necessary. And it's a lot easier to be ruthless now that she's heartless.

Also by Lotus Rose, Machoponi: A Prance with Death, the first book of The Poniworld Chronicles

In this "children's book for adults," MachoPoni has no choice but to enter the Dark Kingdom, where the undead ponies roam. He must rescue Dust, the poni he loves from the dark princess's castle, using wit, creativity and his magic bouncy blue ball to survive.

A twisted parody of My Little Pony, The Care Bears, and other 80's staples. Warning: contains gore and mild sexual content.

Note: Other volumes in the Poniworld Chronicles are now available. They're called Mein Poni-Kampf: A Biography of the Leader of the Nazi Ponies, My Brootal Poni: A Very Butch Poni Tale, and Dust in Your Eyes: An Erotic Poni Tale.

Also by Lotus Rose, SinEaster, the book that started the Twisted Holiday Specials

Like a naughty Easter version of The Nightmare Before Christmas mixed with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... On the day before her 18th birthday, Charlee wasn't expecting to be transported to Easter Land. A princess informs her she must compete to decide which of three creatures will be the future egg deliverer. But a man tied to a dark holiday known as SinEaster is also aware of her arrival.

For more info about all my books, visit http://loteyrose.com/bookinfo.html

Malice Hates Fairy Tales #1

Copyright © 2015 by Lotus Rose

Cover art copyright © Annnmei/Dreamstime.com

Discover other titles by Lotus Rose at loteyrose.com
