A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(39)

“What do you think she’s up to?” Alex whispered.

“Let’s find out.” Rook gestured for her to follow him.

They sprinted to the barn as quickly, as quietly, and as low to the ground as possible. Alex kept tripping over her dress and Rook had to help her up each time. They were both laughing and kept reminding each other to stay quiet. Alex couldn’t remember the last time she had had this much fun.

They circled the barn until they found an open window. They slowly peeked over the windowsill to see inside.

The barn was lined with mountainous stacks of square hay bales. Little Bo was standing before the largest stack, in the middle of the barn, tirelessly pulling the bales down one square at a time. She grunted and dabbed her forehead with the corner of her cloak. Eventually, a large rectangular object covered with a sheet was revealed. Little Bo had been hiding something in the hay.

She yanked off the sheet covering the object and Alex had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping out loud.

“That’s a magic mirror!” Alex whispered. “Little Bo Peep is hiding a magic mirror in her barn!”

“Are you sure it’s magic?” Rook asked.

“I’m positive.” The mirror had a thick silver frame with floral engravings and its reflection was too crisp to be a normal mirror’s.

Little Bo examined herself in the mirror, fixing a few strands of hair that had fallen into her face. Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she gently placed an open hand on the glass. The mirror instantly rippled to life like a stone had been dropped in a still lake.

Little Bo leaned as close to the mirror as she could without touching it. “Are you there, my love?” she whispered softly. Her eyes were wide and anxious as she waited. She looked like a puppy waiting for its master to arrive.

A dark silhouette of a man appeared through the rippling glass. “I am,” his deep and gruff voice declared.

Little Bo smiled and pressed both of her hands against the glass. “I missed you so much today,” she said. “I would have come sooner but the farmhands were working late.”

“How did it go at the House of Progress?” the man asked.

“Everything went exactly as we planned,” Little Bo was happy to share. “I wish you could have been there to hear me; I was very convincing. No one would have thought I was anything but genuinely passionate about the kingdom.”

“Good,” the man said. “Make sure to keep it that way.”

The man’s harsh tone made Little Bo blue. “What’s wrong? You don’t seem yourself,” she said, and peered closer into the glass to see his silhouette better.

“Every day I’m trapped in here is harder than the one before,” he said. “I’m starting to have doubts that I’ll ever be free.”

“You don’t trust me?” Little Bo said sadly.

“I trust your intentions, my sweet, but until you’re crowned queen I can’t get my hopes up,” he said. “Misery fills the emptiness that hope leaves behind when the world disappoints you.”

Little Bo passionately pressed her body against the glass. “I will find a way to get you out of there, if it’s the last thing I do,” she said. “Soon I’ll be queen and I’ll have a world of opportunity at my disposal. I’ll exhaust every resource in my power until I have you in my arms again.”

The silhouette went silent. “We’ll see,” it said coldly.

“You must believe in me,” Little Bo said. “I can’t do this without your trust.”

The silhouette slowly faded away and the mirror’s glass became solid.

“No, come back! Please come back!” Little Bo pleaded but the man did not return.

Little Bo slid down the glass and onto the ground. She sat on her knees and buried her face in her hands, quietly sobbing. Once she stopped crying she stood up and re-covered the mirror and re-stacked the bales of hay to hide it.

“We should head back before she finishes,” Rook suggested.

Alex agreed and they quickly crept away in the direction they’d come from. They stayed quiet until they reached the wall and then returned to the Fairy Kingdom on Cornelius’s back.

As they traveled home on the swift unicorn, Rook asked, “What was Little Bo Peep doing with a magic mirror? And who was that man trapped inside it?”

Alex had been asking herself the same questions. “I have no idea,” she said. “I feel so awful for her. Once someone is trapped in a magic mirror it’s nearly impossible to get them out, and whoever that man was, it looked like Little Bo loved him very much.”

“That’s the real reason she wants to be queen, then,” Rook said. “She thinks if she becomes queen it’ll be easier to find a way to free him.”

“And from the looks of it, that man hasn’t been trapped in the mirror very long,” Alex said. “After a while people imprisoned inside magic mirrors begin to lose themselves—their thoughts and memories fade and eventually all they can do is reflect the world around them. That man’s mind was still pretty intact. He must have been cursed recently and that’s probably what triggered Little Bo’s decision to challenge the throne today.”

“You sure know a lot about magic mirrors,” Rook said.

“I’ve had some experience with them,” Alex said. “And Little Bo’s not the first person to think of a throne as the solution to getting someone out. Not many people know this but the man trapped inside the Evil Queen’s mirror was her beloved, too. Her vanity and all the horrible things she did to Snow White were in one way or another just attempts to save the little of him that was left.”