A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

They were already growing bright, and many people had turned away from the glow of the last group, so possibly Littlebit was the only one who saw the healed mother bend down and pick up a gypsy-style basket, cradling it to her chest just before they fizzled into a magical burst.

I will take good care of her for you, a voice promised on an errant spark, which circled once around her head before streaking up to join the others as they danced.

She shouted, not even knowing what she said and dropped bonelessly to her knees on the platform, watching every last sparkle fade. She was still trying to breathe through the weight of grief and relief when Wendell came over to help her to her feet.

“My turn, I think,” he said gently. “You’ve been a slave to the gypsies, a servant to Queen Red, and now a servant to me and your own pack. To break the curse, I give you the right to choose your own destiny. What do you want? Anything I can give you is yours.”

Littlebit scrubbed her suddenly sweaty hands on her skirt, looking back nervously at her family pack. Virginia and Wolf smiled encouragingly at her, nodding their heads. Lord Anthony stepped forward. “I add my offer to his. Whatever I and the wolves of my castle can do for you is yours for the asking.”

“Ummm...” She’d never really thought about it. All her life she’d been too far down in the pack to ever have a destiny. She did what she was told, hoping that she would never slide so low as to be a last wolf, despairing when she did. “Um, I don’t know.” My only status lies in working for you and my brother! Giving that up would make me free, but it would also make me nothing! I don’t want to be without a pack or a purpose!

“What is your dearest dream?” Virginia called.

“What have you sat in the cinders and wished for?” Cinderella asked.

“What did you think of as you sew? Ask for it,” Red counseled.

The crowd started shouting suggestions, which Wendell cut off with an upraised hand. “This must be her decision!”

“I... um...” There had been something she’d dreamed of, back when she was a very little girl apprenticed to the town seamstress. She’d buried that dream a long time ago; it was too painful to think of those relatively happy days after things got so dark. Wendell smiled encouragingly.

“I want a house of my own!” There, she’d said it. “With a solarium on top where I can sit and sew in peace with a few friends. And I want to pick what I work on. Oh, your majesty-” she turned to Red, “Your majesties, I am still willing to work for you. I have been so proud to be chosen to work for you. But I want to set my own schedule! No more cloaks in a day, or suits in a week! I want a little time to myself, so I can help raise my nephew and because... well, because...” She’d gone this far without anyone getting angry with her; the rest of it came out in a rush. “Because downstairs will be a little classroom. And I’ll teach anyone who comes, wolf or human. That’s what I want. And it will be called Elizabeth’s school because,” she turned to the assembled township, “my name is Elizabeth! Elizabeth of the Lewis pack!”

She bit her lip, afraid she’d been too greedy. When she finally worked up the courage to look at Wendell, she saw that he was laughing. “It shall be done,” he promised. “I shall have my architects start to draft designs for you tonight.” He turned to find Great Wolf in the crowd. “I trust there is an empty lot in walking distance of Wolf and Virginia’s home for this school?”

Most of the lots on and near their street were taken, as everybody wanted to live near the famous Wolf and Virginia, but Great Wolf nodded his heavy head. “I will find a suitable location,” he promised. She trusted him. With his power, he could demand that someone give their house to her for remodeling.

“Building will begin as soon as a lot is found and you pick an architectural design,” Wendell said. “I hope you will consider my application to be your first commission.” Then he kissed her hand!

There was a magical spark as his lips touched her, spreading out in a ring that flooded across the square and into the woods. The ghosts of the humans did not appear but suddenly the shadows didn’t seem so dark and the breezes no longer carried the unnerving echo of whispers. Several humans and wolves started laughing in relief.

And then Wolf and Virginia were clustered around her, hugging and congratulating her. Tony reached over them to pat her on the head once, then went over to Wendell. “I’d like to talk to you and Queen Riding Hood,” she heard him say. “Now that you two are going to be working together, I want to tell you about two places in my world called America and Canada...”

Each of the queens and Wendell had private rooms in the pub, but that night Wendell invited Queen Red, Queen Cinderella, and the Lewises to share a celebratory dinner with him. Unfortunately, his private dining room was too small to hold their staff as well, so it was just the six of them. Virginia and Wolf had given each other an amused look and offered to do the serving, and really, they were quite good at it. Even Queen Red noticed and gave them a chilly compliment about it.

“I’ve had lots of practice,” Virginia laughed.

“There’s certainly no shame in doing a servant’s work,” Cinderella said firmly, and that ended the conversation.

“So, this friendly open border, how does that work?” Red asked, turning to Anthony, who gladly launched into another description of the kingdoms of Canada and America.

Wendell turned to Wolf and Virginia, relieved at the chance for a semi-private word with them. “I’m going to do everything in my power to get that school built for Elizabeth by spring. However, I’m a little worried. I will, of course, apply for enough commissions to keep her as busy as she wants to be…”

“Save some of her time for me, Wendell!” Red cut in.

“...but I’m not sure how I can ensure that her school will be a success,” Wendell continued. “I’m afraid it will crush her if it doesn’t work out.”

Cinderella laughed wheezily. “Is that what you’ve been fussing about all night, Wendell? You have a lot to learn about women!” She rose unsteadily to her feet, crooking a finger at him. “Come with me and see!”

As she reached the door to the private room, she turned with a finger to her lips. “Say nothing and don’t be seen. Just listen.”

She opened the door stealthily and waved the guards away, then leaned with an ear turned down to the main common room below. She turned her head this way and that, then pointed almost straight down, gesturing that they should listen there.

At first the noise of all those voices was hard to resolve, but then a few words could be picked out. Right below them a woman was talking.

“... so of course I’ve told my Horace that he has to find out when she starts taking commissions. I’m going to have me a dress fancied up by a royal seamstress, just imagine!”

“She’s a wolf,” a taciturn male voice answered.

“I’m not marrying her, I’m hiring her! She’s worked for the grandchildren of two of the Five Great Women!”

“Bet she’ll be working for one of the Great Women too,” the man replied. “If she’s that good, Cinderella’s going to want something of hers.”

“And so she might, and so the wolf shall-just as long as I can bribe her to do something for me as well! Anne, are you going to commission a fancy dress from her too? Your Maureen is of marrying age. Get her a wedding dress that will be the talk of the town for years!”

“No, I’m not going to get a dress,” another woman said. “I’m going to enroll Maureen in that school.”

“No! Really? It’s one thing to buy from a wolf, it’s another to be cooped up with one all day.”

“I don’t think she’s going to go around eating her students,” the man said.

“I’m going to enroll Maureen,” the woman repeated. “My Joe is already writing up a letter of application, that’s why he’s not here. She’s going to that school if it takes every penny we have and every head of livestock.”

“Why is it so important? You’re the richest merchant of Horner’s Corners! You can pick any husband you want for her.”

“I can pick any tradesman for her husband! But with her face and our fortune, why settle for the trade? My girl is going to have the chance to marry nobility!”

“Plenty of titled ladies with pretty faces and large fortunes,” the man objected.

“And no talent!” Anne exulted. “My Maureen’ll stand out. And besides, if she does learn how to sew like that, I can have one of them there fancy dresses and not pay the wolf’s prices!”

“Do you think it will work?” the first woman asked doubtfully.

Anne laughed. “And how did Cinderella the Great catch the eye of her prince? What did her stepmother give her? Fancy dresses!”

“There was a bit more to it than that,” Cinderella sniffed, sweeping back into the room.

“How did you know that they’d be talking right below us?” Virginia asked.

“I didn’t. Nor did I know what they’d say.” Cinderella picked up her spoon, preparing once more to dig into her pumpkin soup. “But I know fashionable women and I know social climbers, so I knew that somewhere below us someone would be having a conversation like that.”

She slurped delicately, licking her lips afterwards. “Wendy, trust me, you don’t have to worry about that wolf girl. She’s going be just fine. Even if she couldn’t sew a stitch, now she’s famous and people will want to be around her.”

He believed her.

Virginia climbed up on the witness platform to get away from the crush of the crowd. It was a rare thing for kings and queens to congregate, so the entire town was once again packed into the square, even to see something as anticlimactic as the readying of the royal coaches. There was room up on the platform, though, next to the unshrouded Mirror of Truth that was now a bit of a hero in its own right. This was her last chance to cautiously admire it-admire because it had saved everyone she loved; cautious because all mirrors reminded her of her mother’s fate. Well, she wouldn’t have to worry about living with it for long. Wendell was going to take the mirror and make a long tour of his kingdom, hoping to use the magic to settle other pressing cases. The dwarves were furious, but the citizens of the Fourth Kingdom were delighted to see their king taking an interest in meting out true justice.

Red was the first to climb up on the platform, joining Virginia in her perusal of the mirror. “I wish I had one,” the diminutive queen said sadly. “It would have prevented many of my problems.”

“Talk to the dwarves.”

“They are notoriously bad about taking orders.” Red looked over to the doorway of the inn, where Elizabeth was talking softly to Wolf, and suddenly an unexpected dimple showed to the side of her smile. “I hope your sister-in-law is less picky.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Oh, no, no! It must be her choice,” Red said seriously.

“You’re learning.” Cinderella had climbed up and now stood behind them. “I was going to say something catty, but you really have shown that you’ve grown, Red. You’ve changed history, you and Wendell. I could feel it. You’ll be remembered in stories, Red Riding Hood the Third, and maybe one day your name will eclipse your grandmother’s.”

“Oh!” Red looked both thrilled and terrified.

“I wish I knew what my destiny was,” Virginia said, reaching out to brush the mirror gently with her fingertips. Perhaps it was the contact with the magic that made her truthfully blurt her insecurities. “What do I do now? What do heroines do when they’re through being heroines? You get to go off and change the world! All I see is a future of making babies and being a has-been. Or is this world going to keep throwing adventures at me until I fail one and die?”

“I don’t think so,” Cinderella came over to put a hand on her shoulder. “You more than any of us has changed history. You saved the all the humans when you defeated the evil queen. You saved all the wolves by insisting on finding a way to defeat the curses in this wood. You have a great and kind heart, and with it you have done more than Rapunzel, Snow, Gretel, Red, and I ever did. Combined.” She looked into the mirror, smiling slightly. “I’m sure if we asked this, it would say that the truth is that you will have the happiest of happy ever afters.”

All three women gasped as the mirror flashed with light. Confusingly, when it cleared again, it still showed only Virginia flanked by the two queens. Then the reflection of Red Riding Hood changed into an older woman dressed in a faded red cloak, silver streaks in her blond hair.

“Grandmother!” Red whispered. The figure nodded once, then reached out to put a hand on Virginia’s other shoulder. Could she feel the slightest of pressures or was that her imagination?

As Virginia stared wide-eyed into the mirror and the chatter of the crowd turned to astonished noises, another figure walked in, a portly, no-nonsense peasant type. Virginia knew her from the portraits in Wendell’s palace. Gretel the Great! She stood behind Red Riding Hood, making a chain by placing one hand on a scarlet cloaked shoulder.

A shimmer of golden highlights heralded the appearance of Rapunzel, who put her hand on Cinderella’s shoulder. The real Cinderella smiled and nodded to the reflection, who gravely nodded back.

The excited sound of the crowd reached a crescendo and died in wonder as Snow White appeared directly behind the now trembling Virginia. Unlike the other Great Ladies, she was clothed in full royal pomp, with a velvet ermine-trimmed robe and a big crown on her head. She lifted her pale hands to her crown, which she held raised for a moment over Virginia’s head before settling it down.

She felt it, Virginia felt it settle onto her head as the crowd cried out in unison, but when she touched her brow there was nothing there. Nothing but her reflection surrounded by the greatest people in the history of this world, all smiling and nodding at her.

The brightest flash of all burned into her eyes; Cinderella’s hand jerked and clawed at her shoulder. When Virginia blinked the spots out of her eyes, the mirror showed only what was there. Virginia turned, confused, only to became more unsettled to see the people in the square dropping onto their knees before her.

Speechless, she turned to Cinderella, who still was holding her. The great queen gave her a gentle shake. “Well! I think that’s a pretty clear sign. If we do not meet again on this plane, but I’ll look forward to greeting you when it’s your turn to join the fairy godmothers.”

“I... but... I... I’m not a....”

Wendell climbed up on the platform. “I saw,” he told the queens, pride and awe in his voice.

“And here she worried about her destiny!” Cinderella chuckled.

“But I-I-I-I just… I’m not…” Even as her mouth stuttered denials, Virginia’s heart denied her. I am. I am strong enough. I am capable enough. Whatever I am asked to do, I will be able to do it. I am, if not wise, wise enough to follow my heart. Even as she thought it, she knew, bone-deep, it was true. Confidence! Confidence in herself, that was what Snow’s crown had given her!

Wendell hadn’t waited for her epiphany to end; while she’d been digesting her revelation, he’d been leading her by the hand to the edge of the platform. “Remember what I said when I gave you the rose?” he whispered in her ear. “My grandmother said that one day I would meet her again, even though she would never return.” He turned to the crowd “Rejoice, for the great goodness that was Snow White has returned to our land! I give you my sister Lady Virginia-Fairest of Them All!”

Behind him, the crowd bowed low. “Hail, Virginia! Fairest of them all!”