Lindsey Kelk - Cinders and Sparks - Goblins and Gold

E ven the bravest prince in the entire world might have been a little bit nervous riding through the Dark Forest on his own, and Prince Joderick Jorenson Picklebottom was the first to admit he was hardly the bravest prince in the entire world. Joderick was the kind of prince who would much rather spend his days baking a perfect chocolate soufflé or playing video games. But here he was, riding his horse, Muffin, through the darkest part of the Deep Dark Very Incredibly Scary Forest, looking for his friend Cinders.

‘So … which way do you think we should go?’ Joderick asked Muffin as they came to a fork in the trail.

Muffin snorted in response. She wasn’t magic like Sparks, so she couldn’t tell him what she thought. And, if she could, she didn’t think he would appreciate her response very much anyway.

Joderick looked down at the map he had secretly borrowed-without-asking from his father’s private desk, and frowned at the big tear that ran right down the edge. Joderick must have ripped it when he pulled it out of the desk, and now he had reached the end of the trail marked out on the parchment. He had no idea where to go next.

‘Why is it, whenever I bump into people from the kingdom, they’re always hanging around like spare parts?’

Joderick looked up from his map to see a woman standing right in front of him. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Where had she come from? She wasn’t there a minute ago. And he couldn’t help but notice that her hair was very red and her skin was very pale and, if he wasn’t much mistaken, she had a pair of quite impressive wings sprouting out of the middle of her back.

‘Giddy gumdrops,’ Joderick whispered. ‘You’re a fairy.’

‘I’m not getting anything past you, am I?’ she replied. ‘What’s wrong with you? Never seen a fairy before?’

‘A-actually, n-no,’ he said, stuttering over every word. ‘Fairies are banned from the kingdom. Are you going to eat me?’

That did it. The fairy started laughing as though Hansel had said the funniest thing she’d ever heard. She laughed so hard, she fell to the ground with a hard tears streaming from her eyes and fogging up her glasses. (Yes, some fairies do need glasses. Just because they can grant wishes and fly doesn’t mean they have perfect eyesight.)

‘Eat you?’ the fairy gasped, clutching her sides. The prince had made her laugh so hard, she’d given herself a stitch. ‘I shouldn’t think so.

Can you imagine the mess? And there’s hardly any meat on those bones anyway. I’m a fairy with a good appetite, and you wouldn’t fill up a flea.’

‘Right,’ Joderick said, still wary of the red-headed lady.

Ever since he was a teeny-tiny little baby, his mother and father had told him stories of how evil the fairies were. How they stalked children at night, how they crept around with long claws and sharp teeth, and how they were determined to take over the kingdom. But this fairy didn’t have long claws or sharp teeth, and she certainly didn’t seem very interested in eating him. In fact, she’d already pulled a cupcake out of her bag and was happily tucking into that instead.

‘I’m looking for a girl,’ the fairy said, a dollop of icing on the end of her nose. ‘About your height, fair hair, very messy, probably covered in muck and with food all over her face.’

Joderick’s eyes widened.

‘You wouldn’t be talking about Cinders by any chance, would you?’ he asked.

‘How do you know my goddaughter?’ the fairy replied.

‘She’s my friend. I’m looking for her too,’ Joderick said, completely gobsmacked. ‘You’re Cinders’s godmother?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re a fairy!’

‘Sharpest knife in the drawer, aren’t you, clever clogs?’ Brian muttered to herself. ‘Yes, I’m Cinders’s godmother and yes, I’m a fairy and, as I mentioned, I’m looking for her. Have you seen her or not because I’m in something of a rush. There’s a very large man with a very large axe roaming around these woods who is also looking for her and I’d much prefer it if I found her first.’

All the colour drained from Joderick’s face.

‘I really, really, really, really hope you aren’t talking about the Huntsman,’ he said, holding Muffin’s reins a little bit tighter.

‘That’s him,’ Brian said with a chuckle. ‘Fancies himself a bit, doesn’t he?’

Joderick was very pleased to be up on his horse because he was shaking so much that, if he’d been down on the ground, Brian would have seen his knees knocking together.

‘The Huntsman is the most feared man in the entire kingdom,’ he said in a wobbly voice. ‘He has never failed to complete a mission. Whatever he hunts, he catches. He isn’t scared of anything.’

Brian shrugged. ‘Everyone is scared of something. For me, it’s guinea pigs. I don’t like their little hands …’

‘I’m serious!’ Joderick told her, trying not to sound too wibbly. ‘Anything you tell him to find, he finds it. And I don’t think he always asks nicely.’

He knew his father would say it wasn’t very becoming for a prince to sound so scared, but they were talking about the Huntsman, and he was after Cinders.

‘I don’t know what you’re so worried about,’ Brian said, fluttering her wings until she was up on her feet once again. ‘Like I said, everyone is afraid of something, and I happen to have an inkling of what will scare him.’

‘What are you, some sort of mind-reader?’ Joderick asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied confidently.

Joderick wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not, but she very much looked like she was.

‘The bigger they come, the harder they fall,’ Brian went on. ‘Besides, all we have to do is find Cinders first and then we needn’t worry about him.’

‘And how are we going to do that?’ Joderick asked.

She looked at him with a little smile on her shining face.

‘Magic,’ she said, snapping her fingers.

And, just like that, they both

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