Soman Chainani - The Last Ever After

“Says who?” he called back.

Sophie frowned at the murals. “Says the storybooks, obviously. I can paint an ending where I bask on a tropical island, serviced by well-muscled slaves. But it’s just a fantasy. All of these are fantasies. They don’t mean anything. The real endings already happened.”

Rafal turned. “And what about your kiss with Agatha? Or Agatha’s kiss with Tedros? Weren’t those real endings too? And yet here we are, back in your story, as if those endings never happened. Endings can change, my queen.”

He gazed out a window at the School for Old. “And change they must.”

Sophie could have sworn she heard a roar from deep within the Old castle, like a monster breaking out of its cage.

“The Deans are eager to meet you,” he said, heading towards the rear staircase. “They’ll take you to your class.”

Sophie didn’t move, hands on hips. “You said it yourself. Agatha and Tedros are on their way to kill you. I can’t be in class! I have to protect you … I’ll fight with you—”

“And who do you think will be your army against Agatha and Tedros, if not your class?” he said, not looking back.

“What? No one at this school even likes me—they’ll never listen to me—”

“On the contrary, they have to listen to you,” Rafal said, fading up the stairs.

Standing alone in the hallway, Sophie watched his shadow spiral up the banister. She groaned, glancing quickly at her schedule.

Sophie snorted, confused. “There’s a mistake on here—has my name for—”

“Your class.”

Your class.

No.

Not possible.

Sophie dropped the schedule like a stone.

“I’m a teacher?”

he path through webbed trees was so narrow and dark that the three Evers had to travel one behind the other, like ducks out of a pond. While Tedros fixed his gold fingerglow on Princess Uma ahead, he kept peeking back at Agatha, whose gold fingerglow was pinned on him.

“Stop checking on me,” Agatha finally snapped.

“Oh, no, it’s just … I didn’t remember our glows matching so much,” Tedros fumbled and quickly turned around.

Agatha didn’t answer. For one thing, she was sick of his worried glances and sugar-sweet conversation, as if she was about to have a nervous breakdown or drown herself in the nearest pond. For another, she didn’t feel like talking to anyone (least of all about inane color symmetries), anxious the conversation might drift back to her mother. But most of all, she was preoccupied with wresting Sophie away from the School Master, rehearsing again and again what she’d say to her best friend when they finally made it to school.

Tell her how much you miss her … or should I apologize first? … How do you apologize for ruining someone’s life? “Sorry I tried to banish you forever” … “Sorry I thought you were a witch” … “Sorry I never asked your mother’s name and I’m a crap friend …”

Agatha gulped. Oh, why drudge up the past? Just get her to destroy the ring and then focus on the future. The three of us at Camelot—a clean slate—

Agatha smiled, trying to be confident … and slowly deflated.

Apologize first.

Agatha tensed again. But suppose she won’t destroy the ring? she thought, remembering how handsome the young School Master was. She thinks he’s her true love, Uma had said, and Agatha knew from experience that Sophie wasn’t one to give up on love once she thought she’d found it. What if she’s happy without me? What if she doesn’t want me anymore?

“I’ll rescue Sophie when we find her,” Tedros broke in, as if he’d decoded her silence. “Not sure she’ll want you there, to be honest. Let me talk to her alone.”

Agatha looked up, aghast.

“For one thing, you’ve been through enough already, my love,” her prince added, hopping over a log. “Second, you tend to faint at crucial moments. And third, Sophie and I have our own special bond.”

Agatha followed him, stumbling over the log. “First of all, I’m fine. Second, I fainted once—”

“Twice: waltz class and by the lake—”

“And third, she’s my best friend—I’ll rescue her—”

“Look, it’s best if I do it,” Tedros said, walking faster. “You two seem to have serious communication issues.”

“And you two don’t?” Agatha said, chasing him.

“All you and Sophie ever do is fight—”

“Because it always involves you!”

“Well, without you, she and I get along just swell,” puffed Tedros.

“When have you two even had a conversation?” said Agatha.

“We were roommates last year—”

“When she was a boy!”

“What does that have to do with anything—”

“A boy you tried to kiss!”

Tedros whirled, beet red. “So? You’re allowed to kiss her and I’m not?”

“Not when she’s a boy!” Agatha barked.

“You kissed her when she was a girl!” roared Tedros—

“I like you two better when you’re quiet,” Princess Uma hissed, glaring from the path.

Tedros mumbled something about “females” and “hypocrites” and stamped ahead, no longer checking back on his princess.

For the next three hours, Uma, Tedros, and Agatha slogged and shivered single file through the Endless Woods, stopping only when Agatha collided with a tree (often) or Tedros needed to pee (even more often). (“What’s wrong with you?!” Agatha growled. “It’s cold!” Tedros yelled.) Agatha tried to ask her teacher about her mother’s past—had Callis been in a storybook? How did she end up in Gavaldon?—but Uma said there’d be time for questions once they made it to League Headquarters.

“League Headquarters?” frowned Tedros. “I thought we were going to school—”

“And who do you think will get you into school?” said Uma. “The School Master has turned the castles into a fortress of Evil. Try and enter alone and you will be dead before you breach the gates. Your mother knew the League of Thirteen is your only hope to get to Sophie alive.” Uma glanced worriedly at the sun. “Besides, you’ll be safe at Headquarters tonight. Won’t last a minute in the Woods after dark on your own.”

“Have you seen any other undead villains? Besides the wolf and giant?” Agatha said, trying to keep their teacher talking.

“Not yet.” Uma looked back at her. “Another reason to be quiet.”

Dawn blossomed to a crisp, windy morning, and the students no longer needed their fingerglows to see. As Agatha and Tedros moved deeper into the Woods, huddled in their cloaks, Agatha noticed an eerie green haze thicken the air, sour smelling and cold. It reminded her of the jellied mildew on her front porch, where Reaper collected his headless birds. Her stomach turned, thinking of her bald little cat, all alone in her house. She wrenched her focus back to the present, to the tree branches passing over her head, spindly and jointed … like a skeleton’s hands … ticking on her mother’s clock …

Agatha’s gut twisted deeper.

“When will it w-w-warm up?” Tedros asked, teeth chattering. “Sun’s acting like it’s half asleep.”

Indeed, Agatha had been waiting for the sun to brighten too, but with each hour, it stayed sickly pale, even as it rose higher in the sky. She began to notice cankered tree trunks and fragile ferns, a skeletal chipmunk quailed in mulch, and the corpses of a few malnourished crows. Agatha fingered a single flowering plum, quivering on a bare tree; it withered under her fingers and rotted to black.