Soman Chainani - A World Without Princes

She was so sure she’d made the right choice. It was the only ending she ever wanted. But the more she tried to forget him, the more her prince came. In dreams, day and night … his pained blue eyes … his body lunging … his big, strong hand, reaching for hers …

Until one day she reached back.

Just find Sophie, she gritted, remembering her promise to Stefan. All she wanted was Sophie home alive—charming, maniacal, ludicrous Sophie. She’d never doubt her happy ending again.

As she waded through a mess of fallen branches towards the gap in the trees, Agatha held up her lit finger and saw it wasn’t a path at all. It was a vast cesspool of mud, rusted red, stretching east and west as far as she could see. She picked up a rock and lobbed it into the pool. The splash wasn’t shallow.

Suddenly Agatha noticed two shadows down the bank, probing at the red mud with dark hooves: a horned stag with his female deer. After a few more testing prods, the stag seemed satisfied, and both slid into the mud side by side, swimming towards the distant bank. Relieved, Agatha rolled up her dress to follow them—

Something snatched the female deer and Agatha stumbled back in shock. Three long, spiny white crocodile snouts rose from the mud, thin and rectangular, with enormous round nostrils and black shark teeth, tearing into the thrashing female. They pulled her under, ignoring the bigger male completely as he flailed whimpering to the far shore.

Agatha didn’t try to cross.

Tears in her eyes, she staggered back the way she came, sweeping her fingerglow across the maze of trees. Where was her friend? What had they done with her? Trying to stifle her sobs, she limped towards the forest edge, seeing nothing but the shadows of skeletal branches … slivers of dark clouds … a hot glow of pink …

She stopped her finger on it, pulsing like a beacon to bad behavior. Anyone else would have mistaken it for an animal’s eye. But Agatha knew.

Only one animal on earth made a pink like that.

She tore through trees, fighting her pain, following the pink glow fading weaker in the distance. As she neared, she began to see smears of blood on trees, like the trail of a wounded beast. She plowed through broken branches and ripped away vines, hair snaring on nettles, until she caught wisps of lavender perfume. Agatha jumped over a log, heart bursting from her chest, and charged into the small glade—

“Sophie!”

Sophie didn’t respond. Facing away, she was slumped on her knees behind a far tree, arms over her head. The second finger on her right hand pulsed her signature pink glow a few last times and dulled to pale.

“Sophie?” Agatha said. Her own gold fingerglow went cold.

Sophie still didn’t move.

Agatha approached the tree, dread rising. She could hear her friend’s shallow breaths. Slowly Agatha reached out and touched bare shoulder through Sophie’s torn dress.

There was blood on it.

Agatha spun her around. Sophie’s hands were lashed to a branch with braided horse reins. There were shallow knife pricks in each of her palms, from which the Elders had taken blood and smeared a scarlet message on Sophie’s chest.

Frantic, Agatha cut Sophie down with her knife, trying in vain to think of a spell to wash away the blood. She scrubbed at her friend’s skin with shaking palms. “I’m sorry—” she choked, severing the last rein. “I’ll get us home—I promise—”

The instant she was free, Sophie covered Agatha’s mouth with ice-cold hands. Agatha followed her wide, bloodshot eyes …

There was something on all the trees ahead, flapping milky white in the darkness. Agatha held up her glowing finger.

Parchment scrolls crackled in the wind like dead leaves, tacked to the trunks. Each one was the same.

The face on the posters was Sophie’s.

“That’s impossible!” Agatha cried. “He’s dea—”

She froze.

Between trees she caught glints of red. Something was coming.

Agatha grabbed Sophie’s wrist and dragged her behind a trunk. Muffling Sophie’s moans with her hand, Agatha slowly peeked out.

Through tangled branches, she saw men in red leather hoods, eyeholes cut away. They carried fire-tipped arrows, which lit up their sleeveless black leather uniforms and bare, muscular arms. She tried to count how many there were—10, 15, 20, 25 … until she counted one whose violet eyes glared right at her. Grinning, he raised his bow.

“Down!” Agatha yelped—

The first arrow singed Sophie’s neck as both girls dove into dirt. Neither spoke as they floundered through snarls of black briars, dozens of flaming arrows barely missing them and igniting trees left and right. Hand in hand, the girls fled deeper into the Woods, looking for somewhere to hide, red hoods gaining, until they came to a break in the trees and finally glimpsed the forest path, serene in moonlight. Wheezing with relief, they ran for it and stopped short.

The path forked into two. Both trails were thin and sooty, crooking away in opposite directions. Neither looked more hopeful than the other, but from reading storybooks, the girls knew.

Only one was correct.

“Which way?” Sophie rasped.

Agatha could see just how weak and shaken her friend was. She had to get her to safety. Hearing the skimming of arrows again, Agatha swung her head between the paths, burning trees growing nearer … nearer …

“Aggie, which way ?” Sophie pressed.

Agatha’s eyes darted uselessly back and forth, waiting for a sign—

Sophie gasped. “Look!”

Agatha swiveled to the east path. A glowing blue butterfly flapped in darkness, high above the trail. It beat its wings faster and nosed forward, as if urging them to follow.

“Come on,” Sophie said, suddenly strong again, and surged forward.

“We’re following a butterfly ?” Agatha retorted as she chased Sophie past WANTED signs on trees ahead.

“Don’t worry. It’s leading us out of here!”

“How do you know?”

“Hurry! We’ll lose it!”

“You don’t know what I’ve been through—” Agatha heaved, puffing behind.

“Let’s not play who’s had it worse, shall we!”

The butterfly sped up as if nearing its destination and veered around a bend, wings brightening to blinding blue. Sophie grabbed Agatha by the wrist, dragged her faster around the curve—

Into a dead end of fallen trees.

The butterfly was gone.

“No!” Sophie squeaked. “But I thought—I thought—”

“It was a special butterfly?”

Sophie shook her head, eyes welling, as if her friend couldn’t understand. Then, over Agatha’s shoulder, she saw a torch-lit shadow inch across the trees, then two more …

The hoods had found their path.

“We had our happy ending—” Sophie backed against a trunk. “This is all my fault—”

“No …,” Agatha said, looking down. “It’s mine.”

Sophie’s heart clamped. It was the same feeling she had alone in the church, thinking about how her friend had changed. A feeling that told her none of the last month was an accident.

“Agatha … why is this all happening?”

Agatha watched the shadows grow closer around the bend. Her eyes stung with tears. “Sophie … I—I—I—made a—mistake—”

“Aggie, slow down.”

Agatha couldn’t look at her. “I opened it—I opened our fairy tale—”

“I don’t understand—”

“A w-w-wish!” Agatha stammered, reddening. “I made a wish—”

Sophie shook her head. “A wish?”