The Girl Who Bewitched the Red Shoes: Fairendale, #17

By L.R. Patton

What happens when magic is broken?

 

Something is wrong with 12-year-old Aurora's magic. After a Vanishing spell sent her all the way from Fairendale to the Whispering Woods outside Rosehaven, she tries to make the best of her situation—but her magic makes things dance. She's already lost countless potential shelters, delectable meals, and practical dresses (with pockets, of course) to the sky, after they danced away from her. How does a girl survive alone in the woods without magic?

 

When she meets the prince of Rosehaven, who's looking for Rapunzel's invisible tower, and learns that evil people in the land are capturing children and turning them over to someone for reward money, she vows to save the children. After all, she is one. Unfortunately, this means surrendering herself to the captors.

 

And what she finds at the end of her quest—children locked in cages, a society doubtful of good magic, and a powerful foreign sorceress from across the sea—will further complicate Aurora's magic problem. Can she channel her magic's wonky curse—making things dance—to save her and all the caged children before the sorceress accomplishes her evil, unknowable plan?

 

The Girl Who Bewitched the Red Shoes is the seventeenth book in the Fairendale series, an epic fantasy middle grade series that explores both familiar and unfamiliar fairy tales, legends, myths, and folk tales. The world of Fairendale revolves around villains and heroes—all on a quest for what they believe is right. Throughout the series, the story of King Willis and his determination to keep the throne of Fairendale (at all costs? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.) is woven into the story of his son, Prince Virgil, heir to the throne and friend to the village children, and the story of fairy tale children fleeing for their lives—children who become what we know as fairy tale villains (according to traditional stories), for one good reason or another.

 

One cannot always know, at first glance, who is the villain and who is the hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Toalson
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201517458

Book preview

Improvising

The Great Tree of Helomoth is dying.

And though the Great Tree is of grave importance here in the land of Fairendale—it is, after all, the balancer of good and evil, the lock on the boundary between the underworld and the overworld, the protector of the realm’s magic—there is another, more immediate concern unfolding at its trunk: a sorceress, the Grim Reaper, and what appears to be a reaping.

A wrong move in the wrong direction means almost certain death.

Queen Marion, who is affectionately (or unaffectionately, however one might choose to see it) called the Evil Queen, stands face to face with the alarmingly solid form of the Grim Reaper. His scythe hovers above her, ready to reap what was once stolen—that is, the life of Marion, former queen of Fairendale. Once upon a time, Marion was delivered from death, from the Grim Reaper himself, to become—well, she does not know exactly what she was supposed to become. She has traveled to this tree because she believes it may have some necessary answers for her—if she can save it from dying. A dream told her the Grim Reaper was responsible for the tree’s deterioration, but, alas, it did not show her that he would be waiting for her. She is not prepared. And revenge makes the Grim Reaper strong. Gleeful. Terrifying.

He does not like losing lives to the living.

The world stills for a moment in time. Not even the wind moves.

And then the world resumes, but in what seems to be slow motion. Marion reaches for her staff, which she keeps wrapped around her wrist in a bracelet. The Grim Reaper slashes down with his scythe, but a bear hurtles into the Grim Reaper, tackling him to the ground, and because he is so substantial—a new development in this world—he can feel everything—the teeth, the claws, the ripping.

For a fleeting moment, he wonders what is so wonderful about being a substantial human—but knowing it is the only way that he will be able to rule both the overland and the underworld, the Grim Reaper fights. He wants that power—he wants to feel what it would be like to have dominion over the ones who have always beaten him, the ones who have always seemed smarter than him and faster than him and more attractive than him. He wants to put them in their place or, quite possibly, inside his underworld, in lowly, demeaning positions.

He will do anything for this kind of power. Even battle a vicious bear.

Unfortunately, though the Grim Reaper is quite substantial, he is not substantial enough to kill a shape shifter. Shape shifters are a complicated population; they age as humans do, though at a much slower rate. They are not half-dead, half-living, as Marion is, but fully living like their human counterparts.  They contain a mysterious sort of magic, something akin to Mages, the most powerful sorcerers and sorceresses in magical hierarchy (though one should never mention this similarity to a Mage; shape shifters are considered, by them, inferior).

And this makes them slippery.

So there still exist some more powerful than the Grim Reaper.

The pain is excruciating. The bear tears at the Grim Reaper’s throat and eyes and hands. But the pain is excruciating for the bear, too—it feels as though her teeth meet stone rather than flesh. And stone is a much more accurate way to describe the Grim Reaper’s flesh; he is made of petrified bone, which is nearly as hard as stone.

The bear—Mira, who most recently served as Fairendale castle’s cook—grows weary after minutes that seem like hours. She knows she cannot kill the ruler of the dead. Nothing would be that simple; if no one ever died again, the world would be an uneven place. Death is the great equalizer of all people. Kings, paupers, they all die.

The Grim Reaper shoves at the bear, and the bear shoves back. They roll on the ground, one smacking the earth, the other smacking right after. They make grooves and pits in the ground around the Great Tree of Helomoth. The Grim Reaper hisses, the bear growls and roars. But at last, the Grim Reaper manages to pierce the bear with his scythe. He takes a piece of her flesh and flings it away. She was not fighting him with the magic he can smell on her, only teeth and bulk. Perhaps she should have relied on her magic.

He wins.

The Grim Reaper stands and looks at the bear and the woman he intended to reap. Both of them lie on the ground, exhausted, panting, and the Grim Reaper laughs and raises his scythe once more. But Marion, this time, points her staff, which she has finally dislodged from her wrist, and a blast of magic lifts him off his feet and carries him far away, back to the underworld.

Mira, who has now reverted into her regular human form—except this one is much younger than the form she assumes at Fairendale castle—angles her staff toward the tree, which continues to glow. Her magic curls toward its middle.

He will not have this tree, she says in a voice almost as ferocious as her bear growl.

Marion stares at Mira. The two size each other up. You are a shape shifter, Marion says.

Yes, Mira says. She is more powerful as a sorceress when she is in her human form, so she remains, for now. I am Mira, the cook from Fairendale castle.

You looked much older and... Marion looks at Mira’s body, which is solid and strong but slimmer than it was as Cook. A bit fluffier. She smiles to soften the words.

A disguise, Mira says. They would be suspicious if the cook never aged. She looks down at the ground. I am more than just a cook.

Clearly, Marion says. You are important to the realm.

Heat climbs up Mira’s neck. The two sorceresses exchange a few more inconsequential words, until Mira says, You must return immediately to the Graces and tell them what has happened here. I suspect they already know, but if they do not... A pause. It is imperative that they know how strong the Grim Reaper has become.

Yes. Marion looks off in the distance, in the direction she sent the Grim Reaper flying. It will not be long before he returns.

And he has the power to affect the tree, Mira says.

Marion shakes her head. It is impossible.

Not impossible, Mira says. It has always been a possibility. We only hoped it would never happen.

Marion looks at Mira, and something flickers across her face. Who are you? she says. Really? She takes a step closer.

Mira shakes her head. It is a long story. There is not time enough to tell it here. There is something about this woman, something she feels is important. So she says, Perhaps we will meet again, in better times. And I will tell you my story.

Marion nods. She turns as though to leave, then looks back. The Graces and I are not on friendly terms, she says. Uncertainty hides in her words.

Friendly terms, unfriendly terms, it does not matter when death walks the earth, Mira says. In times of war, we unite.

Marion nods once and says, This war is bigger than the land of Fairendale.

It is life and death, Mira agrees.

So long, Mira, Marion says. I hope we do meet again.

Mira watches Marion walk away, and when Marion has disappeared from sight, Mira takes a breath and drops her gaze to her side. She lifts the layers. She has almost bled through them. She presses her hand against the wound, then gives a cry and sinks to her knees. The other shape shifters who share her quest to save the Great Tree of Helomoth—two bears, a cat, and a mouse—surround her, and the largest of the bears—Grot—carries her to the cottage, where he lays her on a bed of gray blankets.

He lifts his face to the ceiling and howls.

MARION is not quite on her way yet. She hears the bear howl, because she was listening for it; she knew the Grim Reaper had wounded Mira.

She knows what the howl means, and she sends a spell of healing in the direction of the cottage where the guardian of the Great Tree of Helomoth used to live. (The guardian has not been seen for some time.) She sends it past the tree and through the window. She sends it to the bear who saved her life.

It is the least she can do.

But it is not only repayment that sends the spell flying from Marion’s staff. Marion still feels shaken by that face. Mira looks so much like Marion’s husband, King Brendon, that Marion cannot help but think he is in that body, somewhere. The curve of the jaw is different, the nose a little more pointed, the hair slightly lighter, but the eyes, they are the same.

Marion rubs her chest. She will see the woman again. She will hear her story.

Marion listens. The howling stops. The bear lives. So Marion lifts her chin, taps her staff on the ground, and disappears in a cloud of black.

She heads straight for the cottage shared by the three Graces—watchers of the realm, protectors of the seven kingdoms. She tries to calm herself on the path through the forest. She opted to walk the remainder of the way, because it allows adequate time for thinking.

What will she say?

I am sorry I did not become a Grace all those years ago, but now we must work together.

We are on the same team.

This is a larger battle than we had, at first, thought.

We. She has never been a we. When she was asked, all those years ago, if she wished to become a Grace, she said no, she preferred working alone. And she does, mostly. Except that sometimes it is quite lonely.

When Marion arrives at the household of the Graces, they already wait on the porch, as though they saw everything.

And perhaps they did. Marion knows they do not look in their looking ball until the evening, and it has taken her nearly all day to travel to Rosehaven and back again; a Travel spell is not an instantaneous spell. Minutes, sometimes even hours, depending on how much energy a sorceress desires to expend, pass in travel, during which a sorceress hovers above the ground, in an invisible sort of cloud, unseen to anyone below her. But the sorceress can see all the land. This sort of travel makes some sick; Marion, even now, feels queasy.

Good Cheer stands when she spies Marion. We will have to put aside our differences, is the first thing she says.

Yes, Marion says.

We will have to fight together.

I agree.

We know all, Splendor says, and Marion tries her best not to feel offended. As though she, too, does not know all. But, then, she does not.

We will need all of us to fight this battle, Good Cheer says.

Marion nods. It is all she can do. She is breathless with the fear and the worry. She cannot even imagine what can happen from here, but she knows it will not be good. They must stop the turning of Fate.

She has a bit of bad news, however. She holds out a battered staff. The Graces eye it, all their eyebrows raising at the exact moment in time. That is why Marion would not wish to be a Grace; she would hate to be bound by such trivialities. They cannot even express themselves individually.

What is this? Good Cheer says.

It is the staff of Folen, former prophet of Lincastle, Marion says. Her voice is strong, resolute. She will tell them. She must.

And why do you have it? Good Cheer says.

Because I put him in the magical mirror that lives inside Fairendale castle. Good Cheer looks at Marion, her eyes wide. But that is not the important part. She thrusts the old staff at the Graces again. They all flinch. Ah. So they do not completely trust her. Well, perhaps that is for the best.

She continues. His staff counts all the Black Eyed Beings in the Grim Reaper’s army. She holds up her own staff. Mine counts the Black Eyed Beings that have been extinguished.

The Graces stare at her. She knows what they are thinking; it is what she thought when she first discovered the strange counting of these staffs. Their gazes shift between the two magical objects, one so scarred and marked as to look ancient, the other still smooth and shining, but for one gash.

The Grim Reaper’s army is... Good Cheer does not finish, but Marion knows what she intends to say.

There are thousands, Marion says. I have counted them. Or, rather, tried.

And you have...eliminated only...?

One. Marion feels the flush warm her cheeks. I am not entirely sure how to hunt them.

Good Cheer does not say anything for a time, and when she does, it is only, Will you come in for a cup of tea?

It is almost enough to make Marion smile.

IT is time. Arthur and Zorag have passed a night and another day in a small clearing outside the dragon land of Melech. Zorag told Arthur it was necessary: the dragons of Melech would come to them, not the other way around. The other way around would be dangerous, since the dragons of Melech see any encroachment on their territory as a threat.

But now Zorag is telling Arthur it is time to move inside the boundaries and hope for the best.

Hope for the best? Well, it is not any more than Zorag has asked in any other dragon land they have visited, which is, to date, the land of Eyre outside Rosehaven and the land of Gyria, near Ashvale. This land, Melech, is in the eastern part of the realm, near the kingdom of Eastermoor. Arthur knows next to nothing about these dragons, only that they used to be peaceful—Zorag told him that last night—and that Zorag hopes they are still.

Arthur and Zorag are attempting to build a dragon army, for the purposes of restoring the realm of Fairendale to what it once was. What this really means is that they seek to restore dragons to their rightful place beside humans, instead of in hiding; they seek to protect magic and the sustaining effect it provides for both dragons and people; and they seek to free the children of the realm from pursuit by a king out of his mind.

This last one is the way Arthur frames it; he thinks King Willis, in pursuing the children in search of a magical child, really is out of his mind. He knows nothing of the curse of the Fairendale throne, but he can guess as much. The king is not acting like who he is—and Arthur used to know him well.

So much hinges on their success, though they have met only failure in the last two dragon lands. It is enough to make one want to give up. The dragons do not believe that magic or people are worth their fight, and even when Zorag appeals to their freedom, they claim they already have it.

What will the dragons of Melech say?

Arthur sighs and climbs on Zorag’s back. It is time.

He tries not to give weight to the fear crawling up his throat. But some of what the dragon has said over the past few days—that he tried the safer dragon lands first, that the lands from here on out will grow progressively more wild and unpredictable, that he does not know what to expect because some of these