‘Ooh no, they keep to themselves up there and the rest of us are very much not welcome. It’s all wolves and bears. And a giant crow.’
‘A giant crow?’
‘Or a raven. I can never remember the difference.’
‘Like…’ Snow frowns. ‘As big as an eagle owl?’
‘As big as a man, dear. Or at least, that’s what the stories would have you believe, but there are so many silly stories about us going around that maybe we should take it with a pinch of salt. Why all the interest in the northern territory, anyway?’
‘Snow and Gretel want us to go up there,’ Trevor tells her.
Buttercup’s fingers tremble so much that she drops her quiche. ‘Bother!’
In the cake cottage, dropped food very much has a five-second rule – it only lasts about five seconds on the floor before the Dwarves eat the lot. The inhabitants of the cottage watch with their usual morbid fascination as the Dwarves descend in a noisy feeding frenzy upon the smashed quiche.
‘Oh dear.’
‘It’s fine,’ says Jack, ‘I’ll grow us a salad.’
Snow spits. ‘Ugh. Salad.’
‘I’ll be fine with my bluebottles, mate,’ Trevor tells him.
‘And I don’t have to eat any more,’ adds Patience, ‘thanks to my accident’.
‘You’re… welcome?’ attempts Jack.
Patience glares. ‘Too soon, Trott. Toooo soooooooonnn.’
‘Buttercup, she’s doing it again!’
‘Patience,’ tuts Buttercup, gently pushing Snow’s muddy feet off the table, ‘no spooky voices indoors.’
Gretel sighs. It’s been like this ever since they got back from the liberation of Nearby – extremely slow going. If she didn’t know better, she might almost say that Snow’s deliberately putting off making her next move. Almost as if she’s worried. Almost as if she’s afraid.
Gretel doesn’t say any of this, of course. It’s not the sort of thought one voices aloud to a woman who uses tiny throwing axes to keep her hair in place. Instead, she says, ‘Can we see the Citadel, then?’
‘Sure.’ Snow gives the frame of the Mirror a sharp tap with her knuckles. ‘Dad?’
From deep within the magic Mirror comes a man’s voice – the voice, in fact, of the long dead King of Myrsina. ‘Ask properly,’ it says.
Snow huffs. ‘This, again.’
Gretel leans in to the Mirror. ‘Mirror, Mirror, here for lunch, show us the huntsmen. Er… thanks a bunch?’
There is a sudden crackle of magical energy around the Mirror, like electricity hanging in the air. The surface of the Mirror stops reflecting the kitchen ceiling and instead shows a thick static. The static quickly clears, to show an image of the streets of the Citadel.
In the Citadel, the huntsmen still patrol, and gather in groups as the rest of the population avert their gazes and hurry past. Lists of abominations are still pinned up around the Citadel – but, Gretel notices, the paper looks old and worn, as if no new edicts have been issued lately.
There are some new sheets of paper pinned up, and oh, this is interesting. They appear to be campaign adverts for a new head huntsman, following the death of the last one. Gretel can’t make out from the Mirror’s image whether all the posters are for the same candidate, or whether they’re identical-looking posters for several different candidates. Considering that all huntsmen wear expressionless white porcelain masks and never use their real names, it’s anybody’s guess.
‘They’re going to have an election,’ says Patience.
‘That’s good for us, isn’t it?’ asks Gretel. ‘We were wondering when our chance would come to make a change… surely this means it’s now?’
Patience shakes her head thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know. These things are weighted to keep all of the decision-making in the hands of the huntsmen. Certainly, all the candidates will be high-ranking huntsmen – as bad as each other. There is one significant upside right now, but Snow isn’t going to like it.’
Snow gives the Ghost an eyebrow.
‘They’re in disarray,’ Patience continues. ‘The fact that they’re having an election means that there’s no clear candidate to lead, otherwise he’d have just swept in and taken over already, like the last one did. If you wanted to strike the Citadel now, they’re at their weakest…’
‘So are we.’
‘We just liberated a village, and saved Darkwood from the brink of destruction.’
‘Yes. One village. This would be different. I keep saying we need more allies.’
‘We’d have more allies if you revealed yourself as the lost princess; the rightful heir.’
Snow scoffs. In fairness, Patience had warned Snow that she wasn’t going to like it.
‘People still have fond memories of the royal family,’ Patience persists. ‘A lot of the ordinary people would follow you if they knew who you are, and believed they could bring back the crown.’
‘Old people,’ snaps Snow. ‘Everyone who looks back fondly on having a king and queen is a wrinkly, and I am not getting a load of grannies killed in battle just so that I can sit in a shiny chair.’
‘We’re not necessarily talking about a physical battle,’ interjects Gretel. She can feel this one turning into yet another long argument that ends up going nowhere and wastes yet more time.
‘I was,’ counters Patience. She flings a fork onto the floor telekinetically, in direct contravention of the house rules re haunting. ‘We can’t just sit here! They’ll only get more powerful again!’
‘Some of us would really like to get out of this forest,’ adds Jack. He looks across at Gretel meaningfully.
‘We can come up with a way that doesn’t risk lives,’ says Gretel. ‘Surely the least we can do is go north, talk to the witches there. You did say you wanted to get rid of the huntsmen for good,’ she reminds Snow quietly.
‘And I’m going to! Would you all just get off my case?’
‘Snow,’ calls Buttercup after her, but Snow is already on her feet and stomping to the door, Dwarves skittering along behind her.
She slams the door behind her, leaving Dwarf hair and water everywhere, as well as an awkward silence.
After a moment, the silence is broken by the Mirror.
‘She forgot me again, didn’t she?’
2
Over There Be Monsters, Too
Past the trees and over the bridge in Nearby, life is getting back to not-quite-normal. The buildings that were wrecked by the huntsmen’s siege weapons have almost been fixed. Enough food resources have been salvaged to last them through the rapidly approaching winter. They all miss Gretel, of course, but at least now they know she’s doing OK, and at least they all got to see her again at the party.
All of them, except one.
Gretel’s twin brother Hansel spent the whole of the celebrations unconscious in bed, and continues to be extremely unhappy about this fact. The rest of the village are sympathetic, of course, and curse the huntsmen’s cruelty for drugging Hansel into a comatose state when the battle to liberate Nearby had begun.