Spelled

30: Head in the Clouds

"The Rule of Duty: Always ask someone else to do, so you won't have to do for yourself."

—Thomason's Tips to Ruthless Ruling
30

Head in the Clouds

"We've got company," I said breathlessly, rushing inside and slamming the door.
Kato was in the middle of buttoning his shirt. "What do you mean?" He ran over and took a peek out the door—then slammed it shut, quickly putting his weight against it. "That doesn't look good."
"Is there a back door or a secret exit or something?" I asked Hydra.
"No in so muny wordins," she replied.
Someone pounded on the door. "Ozma. I know you're in there. Just hand over my princess and I'll leave you alone."
Hydra leaned her mouth near the door crack. "Sorry, wrong numba. Der be no Ozma here."
"I don't care what you're calling yourself now. Just do yourself a favor and stay out of it like you have the last two hundred years."
I really hoped she didn't hand us over, but you don't get to be that old by taking risks for near strangers. She didn't owe us anything.
Hydra pursed her lips and seemed to think over his proposal, then shook her head—the opossums swinging wildly. "No tanks, dat would be borin'."
I wanted to cheer, but the door pounded against my back.
"Let. Me. In."
"Not by da hairs of me chinny chin chin."
"Then I'll huff." The voice behind the door started changing. "And I'll puff." Getting rougher and gravelly. "And I'll blow your house in." When the wizard—no, Mimicman finished, I can only imagine that his body had shape-shifted to match his voice. There was a big bad wolf outside our door.
I took a deep breath and called the flames to my hands. It wasn't hard to summon hatred for that man. He'd tried to use and manipulate me. And Grimm knows what his plans were for after the marriage. My body shuddered, and my hair flared bright in anger.
Hydra put her hand to my heart. "No child. Dat is not da way. Using it will only feed da hunger inside until da madness gobble ya whole."
The power gnawed inside right now, trying to claw its way to the surface. The wind and something worse howled outside. "I don't think we have a better option. Can you freeze them all, Kato?"
He thought about it for a moment. "Not with my normal powers. Maybe if I used my life magic."
"No," Hydra said. "Between da two beasties, I's not sure you be winnin'."
I really didn't like that idea either. He was burning through those way too fast, and our enemies just kept growing in numbers.
Rexi ransacked Hydra's hut, pulling boxes and jars off the shelves, opening drawers and looking under the counters. "Where is it?"
I couldn't help but notice she hadn't frozen up with fear like she did any time Griz was around. Maybe that's because she had a trick up her sleeve—or under Hydra's cauldron or something. "Where's what? Do you have a huntsman stashed somewhere in here?"
The howling outside increased, and there was the sound of knocking coming from the walls—probably the hammerheads looking to do a little home remodeling.
Rexi yelled at Hydra over the din. "Where does it go? The black hole, wormhole, or rabbit hole that your houses keep disappearing into? Can't we just escape through that?"
"That's brilliant, Rexi!" I cried.
Hydra shook her head. "It only opens when I be puttin' on a new head."
Kato's back bucked against the banging of the door. "So switch already."
"I neber doned it while inside. Even with a transmigra-mogr-whosa, we's might be gettin' squished."
Rexi grabbed a random head off the shelf. "I think the house is comin' down either way."
"Okay. Donna be sayin' I dinna warn ya."
The tip of one of the hammerheads broke through the back wall.
"If it doesn't work, we'll be dead. Then we won't be saying anything." Rexi yanked the voodoo head off by its yellow afro and placed the new head on Hydra's shoulders.
"Wait for it," I whispered to Kato. He grasped my hand and squeezed.
The hut shook fiercely, making my shoes click together. Up above, the ceiling started to crack. The walls buckled. Pressure built up in the room, making my head ache and my ears clog. Just when I thought my head would explode, there was a loud pop.
We were no longer in the hut, but pieces of it were strewn all around us. Not only that, but we were surrounded by mountains of, well, junk. Old rockers, bed frames, doors, a giant shoe—all piled high in some kind of warehouse.
"Where are we?" I marveled.
Kato still had his back up against the door, but instead of the door to a wooden hut, it was now heavy, riveted steel. He pulled on the handle and opened it with a loud creak.
Hydra wrapped a purple shawl with clinking coins around her shoulders. "Should I read you your fortune, or perkhaps you might just be taking clue? Ve are in the cloud storage, da?" The new head had more wrinkles than smooth, while her nose and chin looked like a withered squash. She spoke like a native of the Old World, from the times when Grimm was the only Storymaker. They weren't spoken of in polite conversation, but from everything I'd heard about them, they made Rexi seem like a ray of sunshine.
To emphasize the point, she chucked a dead rat at Rexi, making her drop a pocket watch she'd been looking at. "Little thieves have a tendency to lose little hands."
I ignored Rexi's shoplifting attempt and subsequent rodent freak-out to look over Kato's shoulder and out the front door. The beach was gone. Thankfully, so was the Mimicman and his hammerhead soldiers. The ground had been replaced by white, fluffy clouds. Up above, the sky was dark, but the clouds were backlit from below, like the three suns were shining underneath the clouds. So while it was day down there, it was night up where we were.
"Is it safe to step on?" Kato asked and gently placed one bare foot outside.
"Why don't you try it? If we don't hear you plunging to your death, we'll know it's safe." Rexi batted her eyes and gave Kato an innocent, toothy grin.
Kato got a mischievous look on his face. "Watch this," he whispered and cupped his hands in front of his mouth. He took a deep breath and blew. Snow built up in his hands. When he had enough, he chucked the snowball at the unsuspecting Rexi.
She wiped the snow off her face. "That's it. The abominable snow boy is going down." She lowered her spiky blond head like a ram and charged full speed at him. With an oof! he doubled over, clutching his stomach, and fell out the door. He landed on his back, the fluffy clouds holding him up.
I smacked Rexi. "He doesn't have wings anymore. You could've killed him."
She waved me off. "Nah. I've been up here before. I knew it was safe."
That was news to me. "When?"
"The Emerald Palace has storage up here someplace too." My face must have shown my surprise, so she continued. "Think about it. You've ordered enough stuff from the Castle Shopping Network to clothe every storybook character ever written. Your closet's big, but not that big. It all has to go someplace."
She was right. I hadn't really thought of it before. I guess I hadn't really thought about a lot of things.
"I think I'm stuck," Kato called and waved his arms, having trouble getting out of the squishy clouds.
Rexi and I ran outside to get him out.
He grasped both our hands. "You know, we've had a rough day. I think you deserve some downtime."
Instead of pulling him up, on the word down, he yanked us to him. Soon, we were all rolling and playing in the clouds' banks, making cloud angels. It reminded me of winters in the courtyard when I was a kid, but this was so much better. For one, it wasn't cold and wet. And for another, I wasn't playing alone with palace guards standing watch. Aside from the hair and layers of grime, that was one of the biggest changes from the Emerald Palace: I wasn't alone anymore.
I had friends.
And now that I knew my parents and Verte were still alive somewhere, I was glad I'd stepped out of my Emerald Palace. Seeing the world up close looked a lot different than from my gilded window.
I had a whole new perspective.
Though I still believed in the Storymakers, I'd started to question how much control I had on how this story turned out. Maybe it was me and not the curse that would determine the kind of person I became. The power alone wouldn't make me evil. It all depended on what I did with it. But that didn't mean I had to be helpless either, waiting for someone else to solve my problems.
Hero or villain—it was up to me to decide.
I let the flame come to my hand. The power was sluggish, sleepy without having an immediate target. I thought back to the times I had used it, especially at the Ivory Tower. That voice, guiding me to burn it all. And the feeling of being invincible, being powerful—of having control. But who had really been in control? That was the question. If I didn't use the power in anger, if I only gave it my life to eat, was I strong enough to harness the flame and use it to my benefit? I'd used it to save Kato once...
Let's hope that in addition to my mother's temper, I also got her strength.
Leaving Kato and Rexi to finish their cloudball fight, I went back in the storage unit to find Hydra. "What do I need to do to put back the rules of magic and set everything right again?"
"Iz bout time you grow brain and stop vith the froo froo and play. Iz like carryink fire in one hand and vater in other. Maybe vere you to listen to me first time, you vould not have been burned, da?" Hydra spoke to me but didn't bother looking up while she sifted through piles of her things. She tucked the strands of her new salt-and-pepper hair behind her big gold hoop earrings.
Squatting down to her level, my dress pooled around my feet. "No offense, but you smelled and looked like the headless horseman's long-dead granny."
Hydra muttered under her breath. "Vise men say to never judge book by cover." She tossed a cannonball over her shoulder, narrowly missing me.
I cocked my head to the side and chuckled. "Hello...princess here. My whole life was about the cover—the clothes, the wrapping on the package." I put a hand on her arm, stilling her search. "But I was wrong. And I'm ready now to hear what you have to say."
She cocked her head to match mine and searched for the truth in my words. Apparently satisfied, she pulled her hand out of the pile. Opening her fist, Hydra's palm held a wishing star. Not just any wishing star—my wishing star.