SOPHIE OR DIE.
While Sophie slept calmly through all this, Agatha sat trapped in the church, listening to the screams and thumps. Give them Sophie, and her best friend would die. Don’t give them Sophie, and her whole town would die. Shame burnt her throat. Somehow she’d reopened the gates between the worlds. But to who? Who wanted Sophie dead?
There had to be a way to fix this. If she’d reopened the gates, surely she could close them!
First she tried to make her finger glow again, focusing on her anger until her cheeks puffed—anger at the assassins, anger at herself, anger at her stupid, unlit finger that looked even paler than before. Then she tried doing spells anyway to repel the raiders, which went about as well as expected. She tried praying to stained glass saints, wishing on a star, rubbing every lamp in the church for a genie, and when it all failed miserably, she pried Sophie’s pink lipstick from her fist and scratched “TAKE ME INSTEAD” on the dawn-lit window. To her surprise, she got an answer.
“NO,” flames spelled across the forest fringe.
For a moment, through trees, Agatha saw a glint of red. Then it was gone.
“WHO ARE YOU?” she wrote.
“GIVE US SOPHIE,” the flames answered.
“SHOW YOURSELF,” she demanded.
“GIVE US SOPHIE.”
“YOU CAN’T HAVE HER,” Agatha scrawled.
A cannonball smashed through Sophie’s statue in reply.
Sophie stirred behind her, mumbling about the connection between poor sleep and pimples. Banging around in the dark, she lit a candle that streaked the hemlock rafters with bronze glow. Then she did a few bumbling yoga moves, nibbled on an almond, rubbed her face with grapefruit seeds, trout scales, and cacao cream, and twirled to Agatha with a sleepy smile. “Morning, darling, what’s our plan?”
But hunched in the windowsill, Agatha just stared out the broken glass, and then Sophie did too, at the leveled town, the homeless masses picking through rubble, and her severed statue head gaping at her from the church steps. Sophie’s smile slowly vanished.
“There’s no plan, is there?”
CRACK!
The oak doors shivered as a hammer bashed away a padlock.
CRACK! CRACK!
“Assassins!” Sophie cried.
Agatha leapt up in horror. “The church is hallowed ground!”
Boards snapped; screws loosened and clinked to the floor.
The girls backed against the altar. “Hide!” Agatha gasped, and Sophie ran around the lectern like a headless chicken—
Something metal slipped into the door.
“A key!” Agatha squeaked. “They have a key!”
She heard the lock catch. Behind her, Sophie fluttered uselessly between curtains.
“Hide now!” cried Agatha—
The door crashed open, and she spun to the dark threshold. Through weak candlelight, a hunched black shadow slunk into the church.
Agatha’s heart stopped.
No …
The crooked shadow glided down the aisle, flickering in flamelight. Agatha dropped to her knees against the altar. Her heart was rattling so hard she couldn’t breathe.
He’s dead! Ripped to pieces by a white swan and thrown to the wind! His black swan feathers rained over a school far, far away! But now the School Master was creeping towards her, very much alive, and Agatha cowered against the lectern with a shriek—
“The situation has become untenable,” said a voice.
Not the School Master’s.
Agatha peeked through fingers at the Elder with the longest beard, standing over her.
“Sophie must be moved to safety,” said the younger Elder behind him, doffing his black top hat.
“And she must be moved tonight,” said the youngest at the rear, stroking his meager beard.
“Where?” a voice breathed.
The Elders looked up to see Sophie in the marble frieze over the altar, pressed against a naked saint.
“THAT’S where you hid?” barked Agatha.
“Where will you take me?” Sophie asked the Eldest, trying in vain to extricate herself from the nude statue.
“It’s been arranged,” he said, replacing his hat as he walked towards the door. “We’ll return this evening.”
“But the attacks!” Agatha cried. “How will you stop them?”
“Arranged,” said the middle, following the Eldest out.
“Eight o’clock,” said the youngest, trailing behind him. “Only Sophie.”
“How do you know she’ll be safe!” Agatha panicked—
“All arranged,” the Eldest called, and locked the door behind him.
The two girls stood in dumb silence before Sophie let out a squeal.
“See? I told you!” She slid down the frieze and smushed Agatha in a hug. “Nothing can ruin our happy ending.” Humming with relief, she packed her creams and cucumbers in her pretty pink suitcase, for who knew how long it’d be before they’d let her friend visit with more. She glanced back at Agatha’s big dark eyes fixed out the window.
“Don’t fret, Aggie. It’s all arranged.”
But as Agatha watched the villagers sift through ruins, glowering bloodshot at the church, she remembered the last time her mother said the Elders “arranged” things … and hoped this time they’d have better results.
Before sunset, the Elders allowed Stefan to come, who Sophie hadn’t seen since he locked her in. He didn’t look the same. His beard was overgrown, his clothes filthy, his body sallow and malnourished. Two of his teeth were missing, and his left eye socket was bruised blue. With his daughter protected by the Elders, the villagers had clearly expelled their frustrations on him.
Sophie forced a sympathetic look, but her heart twinged with glee. No matter how Good she tried to be, the witch inside still wanted her father to suffer. She looked over at Agatha, chewing on her nails in a corner, pretending not to listen.
“Elders said it won’t be long,” Stefan said. “Once those cowards in the forest realize you’ve been hidden, sooner or later they’ll come looking. And I’ll be ready.” He scratched at his blackened pores and noticed his daughter wincing. “I know I’m a sight.”
“What you need is a good honeycream scrub,” Sophie said, digging through her bag of beauty products until she found its snakeskin pouch. But her father was just staring out at the demolished town, eyes wet.
“Father?”
“The village wants to give you up. But the Elders will do anything to protect you, even with Christmas coming. They’re better men than any of us,” he said softly. “No one in town will sell to me now. How we’re going to survive …” He wiped his eyes.
Sophie had never seen her father cry. “Well it’s not my fault,” she blurted.
Stefan