Once

Fifty Five

Mr Luzlic quietly stepped toward her. She felt him reeling over her, his menacing eyes above that horrid grin piercing straight into hers. She thought back to the story of Rumpelstiltskin as she remembered it from her childhood. She'd remembered David saying the other day that this particular story had really creeped him out as a kid, and she had to admit she agreed with him. This one had terrified her, almost as much as the witch in the gingerbread house. Here was a man who didn't eat children - at least it didn't say so in the story - but he did appear out of nowhere, he did know how to do fantastical things like spinning straw into gold. Who was he? Where did he come from, and where did he disappear to afterwards? At the end of the story he'd tried to take the queen's baby. Why? Why on earth would this creepy magical man want to do something like that?

She was desperately trying to stop herself from shivering, to keep her gaze fixed on his. She had to keep him from turning round and looking at David. He just needed another minute and he'd be free.

"So you want to know my plan, do you?" he said. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you. I have another few minutes before the spell will be cast, anyway. What it comes down to, Elle, is happily ever after."

"Happily ever after?"

"That's right. Three little words - but such a lot of power they have! Have you ever wondered what they really mean? To be happy - to be successful, powerful, dominant, triumphant - forever! To have your wildest dreams come true! There is immense power in the concept of happily ever after. For too long these simpering stories you call fairy tales have all been ending up the same way: the nice, kind, charming characters all get to have their happy endings, and the villains, the monsters, the unloved and the disregarded - they end up written out completely. No happy endings for the big bad wolf, are there, on the end of the woodcutter's axe? Or for the giant who falls crashing from the sky, the witch baked alive, the evil queen who dances herself to death in her red-hot iron shoes. And no happy ending for me, either. For decades - centuries, even - I was exiled, weak, living in fear. When my happy ending was stolen from me it robbed me of my power and magic, and it took years for me to gain the strength to claim it back. Well, those days are over now. Tonight I am taking back my power. Tonight I will get my happily ever after."

"But why would you need us for that?"

He gaped at her as if she were stupid.

"You still don't get it, do you? I told you there is immense power in happily ever afters, and I meant it. Look at all of you." He swept his hand round, taking in the circle of thrones - for a second Elle panicked he would turn and see David, but thankfully he didn't. She still didn't dare look in his direction but she hoped against hope he would be out of his first restraint by now, tearing off his second one. "The nine of you represent a colossal amount of unharnessed, untapped magical energy. Nine people who, tonight, will have their happy endings ripped away from them. Nine people whose stories, through the power of my magic, will never be allowed to end in a happily ever after."

"And when you take our happy endings, what will happen to us?"

"You will no longer exist. That is, you won't be killed - you will simply cease to be. If you have no future, no ending, then your present simply ceases to exist. As I understand it you will be sent to a place of nothingness. A place of eternal ongoing torment. A place where hope cannot exist."

"Like hell, then?"

"People over the years have had different names for it." He shrugged. "To be perfectly honest, I don't care where you all end up. I don't need you at all. But by performing the magic to rob you of the endings of your stories, I will obtain the power of all of them - and it will make me the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever known! That is my happily ever after, Elle. Eternal power, eternal glory, eternal magic. A small price to pay for nine little children disappearing. And anyway, after a day or two, no one will remember any of you ever existed."