“Readers are unpredictable, of course. Some have been our greatest students. Most have been embarrassing failures.” He gazed at the distant towers, turning his back to the girls. “But this just shows how confused Readers have become.”
Agatha’s heart pounded. This was their chance! She jabbed Sophie. “Go!”
“I can’t!” Sophie whispered.
“You said leave him to you!”
“He’s too old!”
Agatha elbowed her in the ribs, Sophie elbowed her back—
“Many of the faculty say I kidnap you, steal you, take you against your will,” the School Master said.
Agatha kicked Sophie forward.
“But the truth is I free you.”
Sophie swallowed and took off her broken shoe.
“You deserve to live extraordinary lives.”
Sophie crept towards the School Master, raising her jagged heel.
“You deserve the chance to know who you are.”
The School Master turned to Sophie, shoe poised over his heart.
“We demand our release!” Agatha cried.
Silence.
Sophie dropped to her knees. “Oh, please, sir, we beg for mercy!”
Agatha groaned.
“You took me for Good,” sobbed Sophie, “but they put me in Evil and now my dress is black and my hair’s dirty and my prince hates me and my roommates are murderers and there’s no Groom Rooms for Nevers so now”—she let out a soprano wail—“I smell.” She bawled into her hands.
“So you’d like to switch schools?” the School Master asked.
“We’d like to go home,” said Agatha.
Sophie looked up brightly. “Can we switch schools?”
The School Master smiled. “No.”
“Then we’d like to go home,” Sophie said.
“Lost in a strange land, the girls wanted to go home,” the Storian noted.
“We have sent students home before,” the School Master said, silver mask flaring. “Illness, mental incapacity, the petition of an influential family …”
“So you can send us home!” Agatha said.
“Indeed I could,” said the School Master, “if you weren’t in the midst of a fairy tale.” He eyed the pen across the room. “You see, once the Storian begins your story, then I’m afraid we must follow it wherever it takes you. Now the question is, ‘Will your story take you home?’”
The Storian plunged to the page: “Stupid girls! They were trapped for eternity!”
“I suspected as much,” said the School Master.
“So there’s no way home?” Agatha asked, eyes welling.
“Not unless it’s your ending,” the School Master said. “And going home together is a rather far-fetched ending for two girls fighting for opposing sides, don’t you think?”
“But we don’t want to fight!” Sophie said.
“We’re on the same side!” said Agatha.
“We’re friends!” Sophie said, clasping Agatha’s hand.
“Friends!” the School Master marveled.
Agatha looked just as surprised, feeling Sophie’s grip.
“Well, that certainly changes things.” The School Master paced like a doddering duck. “You see, a princess and a witch can never be friends in our world. It’s unnatural. It’s unthinkable. It’s impossible. Which means if you are indeed friends … Agatha must not be a princess and Sophie must not be a witch.”
“Exactly!” said Sophie. “Because I’m the princess and she’s the wi—” Agatha kicked her.
“And if Agatha is not a princess and Sophie is not a witch, then clearly I’ve got it wrong and you don’t belong in our world at all,” he said, pace slowing. “Maybe what everyone says about me is true after all.”
“That you’re Good?” Sophie said.
“That I’m old,” the School Master sighed out the window.
Agatha couldn’t contain her excitement. “So we can go home now?”
“Well, there is the thorny matter of proving all this.”
“But I’ve tried!” Sophie said. “I’ve tried proving I’m not a villain!”
“And I’ve tried proving I’m not a princess!” said Agatha.
“Ah, but there’s only one way in this world to prove who you are.”
The Storian stopped its busy writing, sensing a pivotal moment. Slowly the School Master turned. For the first time, his blue eyes had a glint of danger.
“What’s the one thing Evil can never have … and the one thing Good can never do without?”
The girls looked at each other.
“So we solve your riddle and you … send us home?” Agatha asked hopefully.
The School Master turned away. “I trust I won’t see either of you again. Unless you want a rather depressing end to your story.”
Suddenly, the room started disappearing in a sweep of white, as if the scene was being erased before their eyes.
“Wait!” Agatha cried. “What are you doing!”
First the bookshelves vanished, then the walls—
“No! We want to go home now!” Agatha yelled.
Then the ceiling, the table, the floor around them—the two girls lunged to a corner to avoid being erased—
“How do we find you! How do we answe—” Agatha ducked to avoid a streak of white. “You’re cheating!”
Across the room, Sophie saw the Storian furiously writing to keep up with their fairy tale. The pen sensed her gaze, for the words in its steel suddenly seared red and Sophie’s heart burned again with secret understanding. Scared, she clung to Agatha—
“You thief! You bully! You masked-face old creep!” Agatha screamed. “We’re fine without you! Readers are fine without you! Stay in your tower with your masks and pens and stay out of our lives! You hear me! Steal children from other villages and leave us alone!”
The last thing they saw was the School Master turn from the window, smiling in a sea of white.
“What other villages?”
The ground vanished beneath the two girls’ feet and they free-fell into emptiness, the School Master’s last words echoing, blending into the wolves’ call to morning class—
They woke, blinded by sunlight, swimming in puddles of sweat. Agatha looked for Sophie. Sophie looked for Agatha. But all they found were their own beds, in towers far apart.