Part 3 (1/2)
Blondie nodded in Cedar's direction, opening her eyes wide in warning.
”Oh, right,” said Briar. ”Um, nothing, Cedar. Never mind. I just... sorry, girl, I'd better not repeat it to you. You understand.”
”Sure, I understand.” Whatever it was, it was a secret. ”Although I get why no one wants to share secrets with me, when you do that, I still feel whittled to my heartwood. Sorry! I couldn't help saying that. And also, Blondie, there's a huge black cricket stuck in your curls. Sorry, couldn't help that, either! Never mind. I'm going.”
Cedar ran off, Blondie's horrified shrieks fading behind her.
A few minutes later, Raven found Cedar knee-deep in the scratchiest, meanest, most villainous blackberry bramble Cedar had ever found.
”What's up, Cedar?” Raven asked.
Cedar wiped her dry wooden cheeks. She felt like she was crying. A knot of sadness tightened in her chest where her heart would be, running up into her head with a burning, uncomfortable heat. But no tears fell from her carved eyes. It was just her magic-enhanced imagination.
”Oh, you know,” Cedar said, shrugging as if it were unimportant. ”Puppet girl is cursed to blab, so real girls can't confide in puppet girl, yadda yadda yadda.”
”I'm sorry, Cedar,” said Raven. ”But... hey, why are you in the middle of a blackberry bush?”
Cedar held up a handful of dark purple berries. ”For paints, remember? I like to make my own. The colors are rich and natural and uneven and unexpected and just luscious! I found some black walnuts-their sh.e.l.ls make beautiful black paint-and I even found some turmeric for yellow.”
She reached into the thicket for a fat berry, so ripe it was black. Thorns big as shark teeth scratched at her brown arms, but Cedar didn't feel a thing. She didn't even feel a thing as something lurking inside the bramble took offense at her probing arm and attacked. When she lifted her hand up again, the something was stuck to her. Furry and fat, like a dog-sized guinea pig, the thing's two rows of teeth-big-as-thorns were now clamped to her forearm.
”Oh,” said Cedar.
”Whoa!” Raven stumbled back with her hands out, as if ready to cast a spell. ”What is that?”
Cedar shook her arm, but the beastie didn't budge. A pale green gas leaked from its nether end, and the girls turned their heads and gagged.
”That... smells... like a very bad ending!” said Raven.
Cedar nodded. She could smell things (unfortunately, at the moment)-or at least, the magic that made her alive enhanced her ability to imagine smells, just as it allowed her to imagine joy and sadness, fear and excitement. But the magical imagination didn't allow her to experience sickness or pain-not even from the bite of the toothy creature clamped to her wooden arm. Still, that didn't mean she wanted to keep it there.
She fought her way out of the blackberry bramble, and they ran back toward the amphitheater.
”Headmaster Grimm! Madam Baba Yaga! Help!” Raven called out.
”Um... something appears to be biting my arm,” Cedar said softly. ”I didn't want to make a fuss, but...”
”What is that creature?” the headmaster said, his normally robust voice a mere whisper.
Baba Yaga floated forward, sitting cross-legged on her levitating stool. Her fierce eyes and determined nose and chin made her seem formidable. She pushed her tangled gray hair out of her face and squinted. ”It looks like a banders.n.a.t.c.h, but that's impossible. There are no banders.n.a.t.c.hes in Ever After.”
Baba Yaga took a deep sniff of the pale green gas and then smacked her lips as if trying to identify a peculiar taste. Cedar winced. She heard Raven behind her trying not to gag too loudly.
”It smells like a banders.n.a.t.c.h,” said Baba Yaga. ”Or perhaps a thing wearing banders.n.a.t.c.h perfume.”
”Yeah, that's sure to be the hot new scent this spring,” said Briar, her nose plugged. ”Banders.n.a.t.c.h perfume-for those special occasions when you want everyone to run away screaming.”
”Um... could you maybe pry it off my arm?” Cedar asked.
”Hold your piglets, Ms. Wood. I'm still investigating,” said the old sorceress.
Cedar nodded. And considered maybe lying down and dying on the spot. All her cla.s.smates were staring at her. And she had a smelly, sticky beastie clamped on her arm. Cedar imagined the warm p.r.i.c.kle of a blush in her cheeks, but she knew her cheeks remained the same shade of warm brown.
”Doesn't that hurt?” she heard someone whisper.
”Those teeth are, like, an inch long,” someone else whispered.
”Yeah, but she's, you know, made of wood.”
”I never realized she was that weird.”
”No kidding.”
Cedar closed her eyes. Maybe if she tried really hard, she could grow into a tree and disappear behind a wall of leaves. Or maybe if she tried even harder, she could wish herself real like everyone else.
Please, please, please, Blue-Haired Fairy, please make me real now. Please don't make me wait any longer or follow a choiceless destiny to get my Happily Ever After. I just want to be normal. Please...
”Aha!” Baba Yaga shouted, startling Cedar's eyes open. The old sorceress mumbled a spell, then shot mustard-yellow light from her hands, and the banders.n.a.t.c.h began to vibrate. With a noise like a souffle popping in the oven, the banders.n.a.t.c.h transformed.
”Oh!” said Ashlynn Ella. ”A fuzzy, cuddly bear cub! Look at you, sweetie pie!”
She pranced forward and began to pet the cub. Which was still clamped to Cedar's arm.
”The question is,” said Baba Yaga, ”why was a bear cub transformed into a baby banders.n.a.t.c.h?”
”It's so cute!” said Ashlynn. ”What are you saying, cutie sweetie-bear? I can't hear you when you've got an arm in your mouth.”
”Uh...” said Cedar.
”But... isn't a bear cub, I don't know, dangerous or something?” Raven asked.
”Not nearly so dangerous as your basic fire-breathing dragon,” said Daring, ”of which I've battled dozens.”
Several girls sighed dreamily.
”Who's scared of a teddy bear?” said Faybelle Thorn.
”I am and not embarra.s.sed to admit it,” said Hunter Huntsman, putting his fists on his hips. His hair-styled in a sort of relaxed Mohawk-rippled in the breeze. ”A bear cub is extremely dangerous not for itself but for who is nearby.”
”Like it's mother?” Apple squeaked, staring at something in the distance.
”Exactly, Apple, like the cub's mother,” said Hunter. ”Um... Ash, you should probably leave it alone. If its mother is nearby, she might misunderstand and fear we're harming her cub.”
”Nonsense,” said Ashlynn, scratching behind the cub's ears. ”I'd just explain to her the situation.”
”In my experience,” Daring said, sharpening his sword on a rock, ”a mother bear mauls first and listens to lengthy explanations second.”
”Uh...” said Cedar again. Baby bear/banders.n.a.t.c.h drool had covered her arm and was dripping into a puddle at her feet.
”Hey, bear,” whispered Blondie, crouching down and whispering in its ear. ”Where's the porridge? You and your folks have an unsupervised porridge-filled cabin stashed nearby? Come on, talk.”