Worlds Collide (The Land of Stories #6)(79)
Alex spotted Conner doing a handstand on a radio antenna. She hit him with another blast of light and Emerelda tumbled to the floor.
“You are that young woman, Alex! People have made you feel bad for being accomplished, and now that you’re cursed, it feels like it’s the end of the world! You’re so used to being in control, you think you’ve disappointed everyone by being vulnerable to something you can’t control! But the only thing that would ever disappoint us is if you gave up fighting! So I won’t let this curse be the end of you! I know you can save yourself from it if you just cut yourself some slack!”
Suddenly, her brother’s binder of short stories slid between Alex’s feet. The real Conner jumped out from hiding and wrapped his arms around her.
“But if I can’t convince you, I know someone who will!”
Conner dropped the flask of Portal Potion and it shattered across the binder’s pages. A beam of light shot up and the Bailey twins disappeared into the most important story Conner had ever written….
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A SPECULATION STORY
The twins entered the bright and endless world of the Portal Potion. The story Conner had written was so short that it didn’t take long for his handwriting to take shape and form the world he’d created. He’d written the story so quickly, there hadn’t been time to include much detail. All that materialized in the empty space around them was a very familiar white door.
Alex’s eyes stopped glowing, her hair stopped floating above her head, and she looked around the story in a daze.
“I… I… I feel normal,” she said. “Conner, you broke the curse! How did you make it go away?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not over yet,” Conner explained. “You’re still cursed—it just can’t affect you in this story. I wrote about a world where curses don’t exist.”
“It’s nice to have a clear head again—even if it’s only temporary,” Alex said. “If we don’t find a way to break the curse, I should just stay here. What kind of story is this?”
It was difficult for Conner to describe it. “It’s sort of a speculation piece,” he said. “I wrote a story about what our lives might be like if… well, if we’d never had a reason to move out of our old house.”
His sister’s eyes grew wide when she realized what he was implying.
“You mean…” she said, but couldn’t finish her thought.
Conner sighed. “Maybe,” he said. “Let’s go inside and find out.”
The twins went through the white door and stepped into the living room of their old house. At first glance the room was exactly the way they remembered it, but as they walked farther into the house, they noticed a few subtle changes. All the photos in the picture frames had been changed to current ones of their family. There were pictures of birthday parties, family vacations, holiday trips, and embarrassing school portraits. Even though the twins were present in each photo, Alex and Conner didn’t remember any of the memories on display.
“It’s like an alternate reality,” Alex said. “Look, this school picture is me in the ninth grade—but I was already living in the fairy-tale world by then.”
“Maybe we never discovered the Land of Stories,” Conner said. “If we had stayed in this house, maybe Grandma wouldn’t have had a reason to give us her storybook—if you know what I mean.”
Alex absolutely knew what her brother meant and nodded. Suddenly, the sound of clanking pots and pans came from the next room—the twins weren’t alone. They walked down the hall and peered into the kitchen, and both froze in the doorway when they laid eyes on the person making the noise.
“Daddy,” Alex gasped.
It wasn’t until she said the word that Alex realized how long it had been since she had last said it. The twins’ father, John Bailey, was standing just a few feet away from them behind the kitchen counter. He wore an apron covered in flour and was in the middle of mixing ingredients in a large bowl. The twins noticed that their father was slightly older than their memory of him; his hair had started to gray around his temples and his crow’s-feet were more pronounced than they used to be.
“Hi, guys!” their father said. “You’re just in time. I know we promised your mom we’d try eating less sugar, but I left work with the biggest craving for chocolate chip cookies. I’m going to need help eating them before she gets home.”
He looked at his children with a smile they hadn’t seen in four years. Seeing their father again made Alex so happy, she cried harder than she had ever cried in her life. The tears of joy washed away all the specks of magic dust in her eyes, the warmth in her heart disintegrated all the magic dust in her lungs, and every trace of the witches’ curse was erased from her body. Their father had barely said a word and had already done exactly what Conner had hoped he would. Even though it was only a story, Conner couldn’t help becoming emotional himself. The person he had missed every day since he was eleven years old was standing right in front of him—how could he not be moved to tears?
John was very surprised to see the tears running down their faces. He wiped his hands on a washcloth and stepped out from behind the kitchen counter to take a closer look at them.