into her face, suffocating her cries. With a high, sickening shriek, the deathly womb swallowed her. Agatha flailed for breath, tried to kick herself out, but pain seared through her head and forced her into a fetal crouch.
HateLovePunishRewardHunterHuntedLiveDieKillKissTake
Screaming with vengeance, the black cocoon sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to—
Give.
The screaming stopped. The cocoon sloughed away.
Agatha fell back in shock.
In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend.
“A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.” Gasping softly, like a fish on land, she pressed her hand to Agatha’s cheek.
“Thank you.”
She closed her eyes and her body went limp in Agatha’s arms. Inch by inch, the girl started to glow the color of hot gold, and with a burst of white light, she splintered to sunbeams and disappeared.
Agatha gawked at the lake, empty of fish, and listened to her fraying heartbeat. It felt like her insides had been beaten and wrung out. She held up her finger, healed like new. “Um, was all that …” She took a deep breath and turned.
“NORMAL?”
The entire class was dispersed behind trees, including Princess Uma, whose expression answered her question.
Loud squawks pealed from above. Agatha looked up at the friendly dove her teacher had greeted earlier. Only the dove’s calls weren’t friendly anymore, but wild, frantic. From the Endless Woods came a fox’s growl, guttural and disturbed. Then more howls and wails from all around, nothing like the earlier welcome. The animals were in a frenzy now. They screamed louder, louder, building with fever—
“What’s happening!” Agatha cried, hands over ears.
As soon as she saw Princess Uma’s face, she knew.
They want it too.
Before Agatha could move, the stampede came from every direction. Squirrels, rats, dogs, moles, deer, birds, cats, rabbits, the bumbling otter—every animal on the school grounds, every animal that could squeeze through the gates charged towards their savior. …
Make us human! they demanded.
Agatha blanched. Since when could she understand animals?
Save us, Princess! they cried.
Since when could she understand delusional animals?
“What do I do!” Agatha shouted.
Uma took one glance at these animals, her faithful puppets, her bosom friends …
“RUN!”
For the first time, someone at this school gave Agatha advice she could use. She dashed for the towers as magpies pecked her hands, mice clung to her clumps, frogs hopped up her dress. Batting at the mob, she stumbled up the hill, shielding her head, hurdling hogs, hawks, hares. But just as she had the white swan doors in sight, a moose charged out of the trees and sprang—she ducked and the moose crashed, skewering the swans. Agatha bolted through the glass stair room, past Pollux on goat legs, who glimpsed the onslaught behind her.
“What in the devil’s—”
“A little help!” she yelled—
“DON’T MOVE!” Pollux shrieked—
But Agatha was already charging up the Honor stairs. When she looked back, she saw Pollux deflecting animals right and left, before a thousand butterflies crashed through the sunroof and knocked his head off his goat legs, leaving the herd to chase her up the steps.
“NOT INTO THE TOWERS!” Pollux’s head screeched as it rolled out the door—
But Agatha blew through the corridors into the full classrooms of Hansel’s Haven. As boys and teachers tackled porcupines (ill-advised) and screaming girls hopped desks in high heels (extremely ill-advised), she tried to escape the three-ring hubbub, but animals just snatched mouthfuls of candy and kept chase. Still, she managed just enough of a lead to sprint up the stairs, slide through the frosted door, and kick it shut before the first weasel popped through.
Agatha doubled over, shadowed by towering hedges of King Arthur. The glacial rooftop breeze bit into her bare arms. She wouldn’t last long up here. As she squinted through the clouded door for a teacher or nymph to rescue her, she noticed something reflected in it.
Agatha turned to a muscled silhouette hulking through sun mist. She wilted with relief. For once she was grateful for boys and ran towards her faceless prince—
She jolted back. The horned gargoyle ripped through mist and blasted the door aflame. Agatha dove to avoid a second firebomb that ignited the hedge of Arthur marrying Guinevere. She tried to crawl to the next hedge, but the gargoyle just burnt them one by one until the king’s story was a storm of ash. Stranded in flames, Agatha looked up at the smoldering demon as he pinned her chest to the ground with his cold stone foot. There was no escape from him this time. She went limp and closed her eyes.
Nothing came.
She opened her eyes and found the gargoyle kneeling before her, so close she could see the reflections in his glowing red eyes. Reflections of a scared little boy.
“You want my help?” she breathed.
The gargoyle blinked back hopeful tears.
“But—but—I don’t know how I did it,” she stuttered. “It was … an accident.”
The gargoyle gazed into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth. It slumped to the ground, scattering ash around them.
Looking down at the monster, just another lost child, Agatha thought of all the creatures in this world. They didn’t follow orders because they were loyal. They didn’t help princesses because they were loving. They did it because someday, maybe loyalty and love would be repaid with a second chance at being human. Only through a fairy tale could they find their way back. To their imperfect selves. To their storyless lives. She too was one of these animals now, searching for the way out.
Agatha bent down and took the gargoyle’s hand in hers.
“I wish I could help you,” she said. “I wish I could help us all go home.”
The gargoyle lay its head in her lap. As the burning menagerie closed in, a monster and child wept in each other’s arms.
Agatha felt its stone touch soften.
The gargoyle lurched back in shock. As it stumbled to its feet, its rock shell cracked … its claws smoothed to hands … its eyes lightened with innocence. Stunned, Agatha ran to it, dodging ricocheting flames, just as the monster’s face began to melt into a little boy’s. With a gasp of joy, she reached for him—
A
