Spelled

11: The Haunted Acre Wood

"The Rule of Diplomacy: A royal should never get their hands dirty. If you can't reach a compromise, use an assassin. It's called diplomacy."

—Thomason's Tips to Ruthless Ruling
11

The Haunted Acre Wood

"How can you run in those ridiculous shoes?" Rexi huffed and puffed behind me.
Ignoring the barb, I kept running. Plus, I didn't have enough breath to respond anyway. Wanting as much distance as possible from the headhunter, I jogged until a tree root seemed to reach up out of the ground to send me sprawling.
First, I spit out a mouthful of dirt. Then, I screamed at the sky. "That's it! I've had it! Everything is trying to kill me! All I did was make one stupid wish. Aladdin made three. I'm the hero of this story, so where's my happy ending, already? It's not fair."
Rexi bent over, trying to catch her breath. "You know what's not fair? Spending Muse Day as a toad just because the kitchen ran out of frog legs. Or being volunteered for this little journey. So build a bridge, then make like a billy goat and get over it already because no one is listening."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand, since you never had much to start with." I sniffed. "Besides, you should be thanking me, since my wish is the only reason you're not still covered in slimy warts."
"You worthless piece of fluff!" Rexi launched herself at me. "Look around you! Your wishful thinking ruined everyone's life."
She pinned me against the ground, pulling my hair and scratching my face in the process. I threw up my arms instinctively. Aside from "How to Give an Open-Handed Slap," the proper way to fight had not been in the princess charm-school curriculum.
With a flurry of hands, I swatted at the space in front me. "I order you to get off!"
Rexi growled in response, yanking my shoulders up before slamming them back down. "Not until you admit it. You're more worried about replacing your wardrobe than getting your parents back."
The world seemed to go quiet, like it was holding its breath. Kato had been about to intervene but now backed away from the invisible line that Rexi had just crossed. I no longer gave a bubbling cauldron about how a princess should fight. Instead, I let my fear and fury take over and started hitting back. Using my legs for leverage, I bucked up and flipped her over. The sparkle of my ruby heel caught my eye. I yanked it out from under the tree root and raised it high.
"Take. It. Back."
For the first time, Rexi looked at me with fear in her eyes—and not just because a curse said I might end the world.
Her mouth moved but nothing came out.
"I can't hear you."
"I'm—" Her eyes widened and she pointed behind me. "Look!"
"Try again."
"No really, I swear," she said earnestly.
"If she moves, eat her," I instructed Kato.
I looked to the treetops where Rexi pointed. According to her makeshift map, we should have been in the Sherwood Forest. If that was true, then the wish had struck here as well; the usually rigid ironwood oaks were now gnarled and twisted. The treetops rustled and swayed like they were alive, but only one at a time. In a pattern. That was moving closer. Fast.
Weapon—wicked heel—already in hand, I faced the trees and stood my ground to confront our next opponent. With one fight under my sash, I felt a little more prepared to defend myself. Kato joined me, tail swinging high, ready to use like a whip. Rexi got up off the dirt and leaves to complete our defensive line. Well, more like defensive triangle since she stood noticeably behind Kato and I.
"There." She pointed at a sparkle of gold moving through the branches.
I squinted to focus in on any details. My heart stilled, then beat wildly. I could just make out a big, bulky black lump riding a sputtering and clunking broomstick.
I bounced up and down unevenly on one shoe. "It's Verte!" It had to be. Please be. "Over here," I cried, waving my arms.
"Shhh," someone chided and whacked my back. I turned, ready to let Rexi have it, but she held up her hands.
"The dog did it."
Sure. Only in this case, she might be right. Kato poked me in the side with his horns, growling a strange combination of gargling and hissing. Wait, when did he get big enough to be waist height?
"Bad Kato." I shook my shoe in front of his nose. "Help is here."
The broom and its rider crashed down through the trees. Joy leaped through me at the initial sight of black, wiry hair; the feeling quickly dissipated. Verte's hair only covered her head and maybe a bit under her lip and arms—not her entire body. She also favored the pointiest hat she could find, rather than the boxy gold fez that rolled to my feet.
"This is help?" Rexi scoffed behind me. "It's a flying monkey."
The party crasher was not technically a monkey, but a gorilla in a finely made tuxedo. Wearing those kind of clothes, he must have been human before...
Before you and your wish came along, a little voice in my head whispered. It sounded remarkably like a certain snarky servant.
"Those who were very recently toads have no room to mock," I countered over my shoulder to the real Rexi, to combat the imaginary Rexi in my head.
The large gorilla bowed low. "Lady Emerald."
A smile tugged on my lips. "Well, it's about time we met someone with manners—eep."
My sentiment was cut short as the gorilla changed his formal greeting into a forward rush, scooping up his hat—and me with it. Before I knew it, he'd flipped me over onto his back like a mountain troll with the catch of the day.
"Forgive me, but we must make haste," he said over my shriek while bounding away. "The magical infection has spread to the trees, and we are all in danger of being bushwhacked."
I stopped beating him with my shoe long enough to look back at where I'd stood. The knots in the trees trunks made a pattern in the bark, like faces. Angry ones. And the branches, having lost their broomstick-flying prey from the sky, silently bent low and reached out for what was on the ground. Clawlike twigs and branches flexed hungrily, making the Bumpkins seem like cheery woodland sprites.
"Move!" I yelled.
Kato was already roaring and chasing after me, though at my holler, he looked behind him. Then he ran faster.
Rexi stayed put with her arms folded. "I'm done rescuing dimwits in distress."
Why do I even bother? I thought to myself.
Out loud, I yelled, "You're about to get a splinter the size of a broadsword, SO DUCK!"
For once, she obeyed without arguing and barely missed being skewered. "AHHH! Why didn't you warn me sooner?" She scrambled away from a slashing branch.
The four of us sprinted through the forest—well, technically three, since I was a reduced to bouncing cargo. My ride was fast, much faster than my companions, who trailed farther and farther behind. With nothing else to do, I could only watch helplessly as the trees pulled up their roots and closed in around them.
Kato tried to hit an oncoming branch attack with his tail, but these trees were not the withered ones from Midas. The ironwood sprouted metal thorns that ripped through Kato's dragon-hide tail. He howled at the same time Rexi screamed after barely avoiding an impossibly fast acorn bullet.
I buried my face in the gorilla's fur. It was bad enough to watch them get hurt knowing I could do nothing—it was soul rending to watch and know the cause of the "magical infection."
I wish—no. I'd never wish again. Instead, I offered a broken prayer in the hopes that the Storymakers or the powers of magic itself would hear my plea. Someone...please help them.
Something sliced up the top of my calf. I inhaled sharply from pain. The fur I'd buried my nose in smelled like animal musk, sandalwood, and roses. The wind picked up harshly and brought the scent of burning wood with it.
Crackling and popping sounds came from overhead. I looked up, half-afraid of what I might find. A smoking twig claw retreated backward, the tree it belonged to stood tall again instead of stooping low to attack. Normally, I'd freak with anything associated with fire, but it was working in our favor this time.
The rest of the trees stopped advancing as well and formed a semicircle border behind us. Once they had re-rooted themselves to the ground, they froze in place.
"What are they doing?" I muttered to myself.
The gorilla answered, "It would seem you are not very tasty. And they are most likely petrified, since a Maker's workshop chose to appear in their forest."
"Huh?" Confused, I twisted my back to look where we were going instead of where we'd been. At the same time, the gorilla stopped running and let go of me. I fell to the ground and landed nose to nose with some sort of worm. It had a green body the size of my fist, a salt-and-pepper mustache, and wore large, round spectacles. He blinked at me and, seemingly unimpressed with what he saw, inched back to a tower of books stacked by half of a stone building. If this was the workshop that supposedly "appeared," the other half didn't make the trip.
"Why are we stopping? I thought stopping equaled dying," Rexi huffed. She and Kato staggered into the magical clearing, out of breath. "Hey, was this thing here a minute ago?"
"'Chose to appear.' That's what..." I realized I didn't know the ape's name. There hadn't been time for introductions. Would I have bothered to ask even if there had been time? How long has Rexi worked as the kitchen girl and I just learned her name yesterday?
"What's your name?" I whispered, so Rexi wouldn't hear and say something to embarrass me further.
"Nikko," he answered just as quietly before righting the fez atop his head again and peering up at me gratefully.
"'Chose to appear' is what Nikko said."
"Every wizard has a workshop," he clarified. "The more powerful the wizard, the more magical the workshop. And a Maker bends magic and fate at will, so it's not surprising that their workshops can too. Although this one does seem to be in a state of disrepair."
"Understatement," Rexi grumbled under her breath.
Bookshelves lined the two and a half walls, and the layer of dust was every bit as thick as the books it covered. Still, the workshop was proof a Maker had heard my prayer.
"I think it's, um, charming, and we should just be grateful it popped up and not be so quick to judge by appearances," I said.
Rexi opened her mouth to mock but a tail whack upside the head cut off whatever unpleasant thing she might have said. Instead, she switched her focus off me and narrowed her eyes at Nikko. "Not that I believe for a second that this place is what you claim, but how do you know so much about wizards, Makers, and magic? I don't think you found us by accident."
"Of course not," Nikko said brightly, unaware or uncaring of Rexi's implied meaning. "I've been sent to bring the Emerald Princess home." He offered me his arm. "Shall we go?"
Suddenly, it felt like the three suns would come out tomorrow after all, that birds were chirping again instead of being eaten by fungi, and surely, my happy ever after was right around the corner waiting for me.
"Sent by who?" Rexi asked, not buying it.
"By Mick, the Magnificent Wizard of—"
"That's why you smelled like that yucky incense," I interrupted, making the connection.
"So you know who he's talking about?" Rexi asked me.
"Yeah. Remember all those singing telegrams and gifts baskets that started showing up about six months ago?"
"I think so," Rexi said slowly. "Did they smell like someone dumped a bucket of perfume on them?"
"Yup, those were from Mick. He might have some obsession issues, but he's also a wizard, so maybe he's teamed up with Verte back at the palace to help undo the whole wish thing."
Maybe they'd even already managed to bring back my parents.
Rexi gave a wary look to the vicious yet still unmoving trees, then shrugged. "Okay, then what are we waiting for?"
Nikko put a hand out, stopping Rexi. "I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. The princess and I are going alone."