LITMIR.BIZ

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round girl, mouth full. “I’m Dot. This is Hester,” she said, pointing at the tattooed girl. “And this ray of sunshine,” she said, pointing at the albino, “is Anadil.” Anadil spat on the floor.

      “Welcome to Room 66,” said Dot, and with a swish of her hand swept the ashes off the unclaimed bed.

      Sophie winced at moth-eaten sheets with ominous stains. “Appreciate the welcome, but I really should be going,” she said, backing against the door. “Might you direct me to the School Master’s office?”

      “Princes must be so confused when they see you,” said Dot. “Most villains don’t look like princesses.”

      “She’s not a villain,” Anadil and Hester groaned.

      “Do I have to make an appointment to see him?” pressed Sophie. “Or do I send him a note or—”

      “You could fly, I suppose,” Dot said, pulling two chocolate eggs from her pocket. “But the stymphs might eat you.”

      “Stymphs?” asked Sophie.

      “Those birds that dropped us off, love,” garbled Dot as she chewed. “You’d have to get past them. And you know how they hate villains.”

      “For the last time,” shot Sophie, “I’m not a vill—”

      Sounds rang in the stairwell. Sugary jingling, so dainty, so delicate it could only be—

      Fairies. They were coming for her!

      Sophie suppressed a scream. She dared not tell the girls her rescue was imminent (who knows how serious they were about making her a hall decoration). She backed against the door and listened to the jingles grow louder.

      “I don’t know why people think princesses are pretty,” Hester said, picking a wart on her toe. “Their noses are so small. Like little buttons you want to pop off.”

      Fairies on our floor! Sophie wanted to hop up and down. As soon as she got to the Good castle, she would take the longest bath of her life!

      “And their hair is always so long,” Anadil said, dangling a dead mouse for the rats’ dessert. “Makes me want to pull it all out.”

      Just a few rooms away now …

      “And those phony smiles,” Hester said.

      “And that obsession with pink,” said Anadil.

      Fairies next door!

      “Can’t wait to kill my first one,” said Hester.

      “Today’s as good a day as any,” Anadil said.

      They’re here! Sophie swelled with joy—new school, new friends, new life!

      But the fairies flew past her room.

      Sophie’s heart imploded. What happened! How could they miss her! She lunged past Anadil for the door, threw it open to a flash of wolf fur. Sophie jolted back in shock and Hester slammed the door.

      “You’ll get all of us punished,” Hester growled.

      “But they were here! They were looking for me!” Sophie cried.

      “Are you sure we can’t kill her?” said Anadil, watching her rats devour the mouse.

      “So where in the woods do you come from, love?” Dot asked Sophie, inhaling a chocolate frog.

      “I don’t come from the woods,” Sophie said impatiently, and peeped through the eyehole. The wolves had no doubt scared the fairies away. She needed to get back to the bridge and find them. But right now, there were three wolves guarding the hall, eating a meal of roasted turnips from cast-iron plates.

      Wolves eat turnips? With forks?

      But there was something else odd on the wolves’ plates.

      Fairies, scavenging food from the beasts.

      Sophie’s eye widened in shock.

      A cute boy fairy glanced up at her. He sees me! Clasping her hands, Sophie mouthed “Help!” through the glass. The fairy boy smiled with understanding, and whispered in a wolf’s ear. The wolf looked up at Sophie, and shattered her eyehole with a savage kick. Sophie stumbled back, hearing a chorus of airy giggles and growling laughs.

      The fairies had no intention of rescuing her.

      Sophie’s whole body shook, about to explode into sobs. Then she heard a throat clear and turned.

      Three girls gaped with identically confused expressions.

      “What do you mean you ‘don’t come from the woods’?” said Hester.

      Sophie was in no state to answer dumb questions, but now these goons were her only hope to find the School Master.

      “I come from Gavaldon,” she said, stifling tears. “You three seem to know a lot about this place, so I’d be thankful if you could tell me wher—”

      “Is that near the Murmuring Mountains?” asked Dot.

      “Only Nevers live in the Murmuring Mountains, you fool,” Hester groused.

      “Near Rainbow Gale, I bet,” said Anadil. “That’s where the most annoying Evers come from.”

      “Sorry, I’m lost already,” Sophie frowned. “Evers? Nevers?”

      “A sheltered Rapunzel locked-in-a-tower type,” Anadil said. “Explains everything.”

      “Evers are what we call Good-doers, love,” Dot said to Sophie. “You know, all their nonsense about finding Happily Ever After.”

      “So that makes you ‘Nevers’?” said Sophie, remembering the lettered columns in the stair room.

      “Short for ‘Nevermore,’” Hester reveled. “Paradise for Evildoers. We’ll have infinite power in Nevermore.”

      “Control time and space,” said Anadil.

      “Take new forms,” said Hester.

      “Splinter our souls.”

      “Conquer death.”

      “Only the wickedest villains get in,” said Anadil.

      “And the best part,” said Hester. “No other people. Each villain gets their own private kingdom.”

      “Eternal solitude,” said Anadil.

      “Sounds like misery,” said Sophie.

      “Other people are misery,” said Hester.

      “Agatha would love it here,” Sophie murmured.

      “Gavaldon … is that by Pifflepaff Hills?” Dot said airily.

      “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, it’s not near anything,” Sophie moaned. She held up her schedule, “SOPHIE OF WOODS BEYOND” at its top. “Gavaldon’s beyond the woods. Surrounded by it on all sides.”

      “Woods Beyond?” said Hester.

      “Who’s your king?” asked Dot.

      “We don’t have a king,” Sophie said.

      “Who’s your mother?” asked Anadil.

      “She’s dead,” Sophie said.

      “And your father?” asked Dot.

      “He’s a mill worker. These questions are quite personal—”

      “And what fairy-tale family is he from?” Anadil asked.

      “And now they’re just plain odd. No one’s family is a fairy tale. He’s from a normal family with normal faults. Like every one of your fathers.”

      “I knew it,” Hester said to Anadil.

      “Knew what?” said Sophie.

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