“Here they are as they were,” he said. He reached out carefully and took a small oval painting in a gilt frame from a shelf. I saw a teenage girl and a young woman. Both were gorgeous. They stood with their arms around each other in front of a fountain. They wore pretty dresses and bits of lace over their dressed hair. Leah had a mouth to smile with, and yes, they looked like royalty.
I pointed to the girl. “This was Leah? Before…？”
“Yes.” Woody put the picture back in its place just as carefully. “Before. What happened to us happened not too long after we fled the city. An act of pure, spiteful vengeance. They were beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would.” I kept looking at the smiling younger girl and thought that Leah’s curse was twice as terrible as Woody’s blindness.
“Whose vengeance?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk of it. I only wish I could see that picture again. But wishes are like beauty—vain things. Sleep well, Charlie. You must be on your way early if you are to reach Claudia’s before sundown tomorrow. She may tell you more. And if you wake in the night—or if your dog wakes you—don’t go out. Not for anything.”
“I totally understand that.”
“Good. I’m delighted to have made your acquaintance, young prince. Any friend of Adrian’s is, as they say, a friend of mine.”
He left, walking confidently but with one hand held out before him, as must have been second nature to him after all the years he’d spent in darkness. How many had that been, I wondered. How long since the rise of Gogmagog and the purge that had decimated his family? Who or what was Flight Killer? How long since Leah had been a girl with a smiling mouth who took eating for granted? Were the years even the same here?
Stephen Woodleigh was Woody… like the cowboy in Toy Story. That was probably just a coincidence, but I didn’t think the wolves and the house of bricks were. Then there was that thing he’d said about the Rumpa Bridge. My mother had died on the bridge over the Little Rumple, and a Rumpelstiltskin kind of guy had almost killed me. Was I supposed to believe those things coincidences?
Radar was sleeping beside my bed, and now that Woody had called my attention to the rattle and wheeze of her breathing, I couldn’t unhear it. I thought either that or the sporadic howling of the wolves would keep me awake. But I had come a long way, and pulling a cart behind me. I didn’t last long, I had no dreams, and didn’t come to until early the next morning with Woody shaking my shoulder.
“Wake up, Charlie. I’ve made us breakfast, and you must be on your way as soon as you’ve eaten.”
13
There was a bowl heaped with scrambled eggs and a bowl similarly heaped with smoking sausages. Woody ate a little, Radar ate a little, and I took care of the rest myself.
“I’ve put your possessions in Dora’s cart, and added something you’ll want to show my cousin when you get to her house. So she knows you’ve come from me.”
“I guess she’s not prone to intuitions, huh?”
He smiled. “She is, actually, and I’ve done my best in that regard, but it’s not wise to rely on such communications. It’s something you may want later on, if your mission is successful and you’re able to return to your own fairy-tale world.”
“What is it?”
“Look in your packsack and you’ll see.” He smiled, reached out for me, and took me by my shoulders. “You may not be the prince, Charlie, but you’re a brave boy.”
“Someday my prince will come,” I half-sang.
He smiled; the wrinkles on his face flowed. “Adrian knew that same song. He said it was from a moving picture that told a story.”
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
Woody nodded. “He also said the real story was much darker.”
Aren’t they all, I thought.
“Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself. And Catriona.”
“We take care of each other. Do you remember all I told you?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Most important?”
“Follow Mr. Bowditch’s marks, be quiet, and be out of the city before dark. Because of the night soldiers.”
“Do you believe what I told you about them, Charlie? You must, because otherwise you might be tempted to stay too long, if you haven’t reached the sundial.”
“You told me Hana is a giant and the night soldiers are the undead.”
“Yes, but do you believe it?”