Down she goes, like a blown nose

to expose what is under is not the ground and once she arrives she finds that she's found.

Maddie said, "Since Wonderland is often found down, maybe things get madder the lower you go, and the school will become less mad the higher we climb."

"We'd still be trapped here by the magical barrier," said Cedar, "but at least it might be less dangerous."

"Up, hut-beast! I command you to take us up!" said Lizzie.

Cedar crouched by the fireplace and whispered into the chimney, "Hutling? We're hoping the top of the school might be safer than down here with clacking and stampeding chairs." She stroked its fuzzy wallpaper like the neck of a frisky horse. "Could you carry us up? Please?"

The cottage began to run. Cedar gripped the mantel, trying to stay on her soft, little feet as the cottage swayed and bounced. The floor tilted back as the hutling started up the stairs. Kitty slipped, rolling back and hitting the wall. She dissolved and reappeared beside Cedar.

"I'm bored," said Kitty. "This is taking forever."

She put her hands beneath the curtains and began to tickle. The hutling howled, the whole cottage rumbling.

"Stop bugging it," said Cedar.

Kitty disappeared and reappeared at the other window, her feet on the sill, pulling the curtains as if they were the reins on a galloping horse.

"Yee-ha," she said with her mischievous smile.

The hutling rumbled again. The walls squeezed in as if the cottage were tightening up its middle, and the girls all squished together. Kitty's face was pressed into Cedar's cheek, and Maddie's head was in Lizzie's armpit. The hutling opened its door and the back wall spasmed forward, effectively spitting the girls out. They landed on the stairs.

"Pick us back up!" Lizzie shouted.

The hutling shut its door and ran away, its chicken-feet toenails tapping on the stone steps.

"Wait! The Raven-raven!" said Cedar. "And the Apple-apple! And all the other people-things!"

"Bah. They're safer in there," said Lizzie.

Cedar folded her arms. "Kitty, why did you-"

"I am not reasonable," said Kitty, smiling but not meaning it. "I refuse to be turned reasonable by that horribific monster's magic. I am a Cheshire. I am chaos! But this kind of chaos, I don't... I don't know what to..." She turned red in the face and disappeared.

"Kitty Cheshire!" Lizzie shouted at the air. "I order you to be chaotic again!"

Smile first, Kitty reappeared. "Thanks, Lizzie," she whispered.

From the darkness down the corridor, Cedar heard slow clopping like the sound a twelve-burner stove would make if it could walk. Then a hideous, scratchy voice whispered, "I. Eat. Wiggly. Things."

Cedar screamed. She took the stairs three at a time, running higher and higher, the other girls following. Well, Kitty never ran, but when they reached the top of the stairs, Kitty appeared there, terror in her smiling eyes.

The scratchy whisper echoed up from the floor below. "Wiggly? Things?"

And Cedar kept running. Her new legs ached, her thighs trembling, but she didn't stop climbing stairs until suddenly she was going down.

"Eek! How did that happen?" Cedar reversed to go back up, pa.s.sing the other girls. "Come on, we've got to go up."

"We are going up," Kitty said with a laugh.

"Close your eyes at once," said Lizzie. "You are being tricked by reality."

Cedar closed her eyes. Maddie took her hand. And they started running back up the stairs. When Cedar peeked, they appeared to be going down, so she shut her eyes again and felt rather than saw the climb.

They only stopped when they reached the highest tower of the school. It was wobbling as if made of rubber.

Cedar clutched the empty frame of the window, its panes curiously missing. Outside, the huge yellow dome of the magical barrier crackled and fizzed as insects flew into it. Through the yellowness she spotted the Troll Bridge and, beyond, the rooftops of Book End.

Maddie rummaged through her Hat of Many Things. So helpful, really, wearing a Hat of Many Things. She wondered why everyone didn't have one. Then she scolded herself for wondering about something that didn't matter to the current story. That's simply not what Narrators do! Hocus focus, Maddie. Ahem.

From her hat, she pulled out two telescopes, holding one to each eye.

"There's Dad!" said Maddie. "He's on the roof of the Tea Shoppe. He sees me. Dad! Dad!" Maddie shouted, waving. "Oh, good. He's got the flags."

"Flags?" asked Cedar.

"Yes, to spell out messages from far away. Doesn't everyone have a flag language with their father?" asked Maddie. "Okay, he's signaling with the flags. I'll translate. aIf the Jabberwock magic reaches Book End, everything ends. Because our story will literally become the book end and the book will end without a resolution.' Oh nose!"

Lizzie grabbed one of the telescopes and put it to her eye. "No way he said all that so fast. Wait... oh!... You're right, Maddie." She handed the telescope back to Maddie. "Your dad can really move flags."

"Our story ends? That can't be right," Cedar started to say, but then, really, what was right at the moment? She'd just spotted the gla.s.s panes that were missing from the windows. They were slowly crawling across the tower wall, rippling like transparent caterpillars.

"Cedar, could you stop noticing things for a minute?" Maddie said. "You're the main character of this chapter, so I'm supposed to focus more on you, but I can't narrate what you're doing and pay attention to my dad at the same time."

"Sorry."

"Thanks. Okay, he says the Jabberwock can't complete the transformation of Ever After into its version of Wonderland without Wonderland things to squeeze. Things of Wonderland are full of Wonder, and Wonder powers its magic. At least I think that's what he's saying. He's speaking Riddlish. With flags."

"So, wait..." Cedar said. "The Jabberwock needs to collect Wonderland things and use them like batteries for its magic? Wonderland things like... like you guys?"

Kitty and Lizzie backed away from the window, and the tippy tower slid them farther. They b.u.mped together, Kitty's pale purple locks tangled in Lizzie's gold crown.

"Off... with her head," Lizzie said, but she sounded more like she was saying, I'm so scared at the moment I may start beheading b.u.t.ter people.

Kitty snickered.

"What?" Lizzie demanded.

"Nothing," said Kitty. "Narration joke."

"Dad is warning us to stay away from the Jabberwock," Maddie said. "If it captures the three of us, it would have enough power to make its mad transformation permanent."

"Yeah, I'd planned to avoid it," said Cedar. "But where is it?"

Kitty, her smile gone stiff, whispered through her teeth, "Right. There."

Cedar whirled around. Through another window, she could see the Jabberwock hanging on the side of a tower, gripping the stones with long white claws. It was as large as a full-size dragon armored with gray scales, but its feet and antennaed head were ragged with unexpected fur. Its snakelike neck and toothy head were stretched forward, its milky white, seemingly blind eyes staring at something in the distance. Toward Book End.

It screeched and beat its huge leathery wings, lifting off the tower and taking flight.

"It sees Dad!" said Maddie. "It will squeeze him for Wonder and then he'll be Wonder-less and we've got to stop it!"

"Baba Yaga's magic barrier will stop it," Cedar whispered.

The Jabberwock threw itself at the transparent yellow dome, with an explosion of flares and sparks. The beast shrieked but seemed more angry than hurt. It attacked the barrier again and again and again. The yellow of the magic began to dim, like egg yolks bleeding into the whites. The barrier was weakening. And the Mad Hatter was on the other side. Maddie's Dad. No, not Dad!

"No!" Maddie found herself screaming. "Leave him alone!"

The long, thin neck snaked around, the gruesome face of the Jabberwock pointed at their tower.

It shrieked, beating its wings straight for them.

Run, said the Narrator.

"Run," Maddie said.

They ran.

They were only halfway down the first flight of stairs when the tower shook with the impact of the Jabberwock.

The stone steps underneath Cedar's feet suddenly felt softer, almost gelatinous. She slipped but kept running on the stairs in the same direction, though sometimes she felt that she was going up, not down. She heard the Jabberwock shriek, and the tower trembled and hummed and seemed a breath away from crumbling.

Cedar's new heart was pounding hard against her ribs, like a bird flinging itself against a window, trying to escape. She began to cry but couldn't marvel at the newness and wonder of cold wetness sliding down her soft cheeks. Instead, tears felt like losing control, like the ground no longer under her shoes, like hurting and not being sure if she'd ever feel okay again. She stumbled into the soft floor and began to slowly sink. Maddie grabbed her hands and started to pull, but Cedar wondered if it was too late.

She whispered the truth aloud: "Maybe everything is easier when you're made of wood."

No, she told herself. No! She'd been waiting her entire life to be real. She was not going to let the fear of a Jabberwock steal that away.

"That's right," said Maddie. "You are not made of wood, you are made of Wood. You are Cedar Wood!"

I am Cedar Wood. Cedar pulled herself out of the sinking floor and ran faster. No more waiting. Now she was who she'd always wanted to be. And whatever happened next, she'd make this chance count.

THE GIRLS RAN. THE WALLS GROANED WITH stress, and each painting they pa.s.sed only compounded their worry.

"It's right behind you!" yelled a girl in a painting holding a watering can.

"It will eat us all!" shouted a painting of a wide-mouthed man on a bridge.

"Run, stinky pooters, run," the daisies in a bright watercolor chanted.

"Behave!" Lizzie shouted at the daisies. "I am a princess of Wonderland and I will not be insulted by stained canvas!"

The Narrator warned her to keep running, but Lizzie was all red-face and up-chin and pointing-finger, and didn't listen. The Jabberwock was right outside the window, looking in with those milk-white eyes that seemed blind and yet saw. It opened its square, toothy mouth.

"Duck!" Cedar shouted.

"Where?" said Lizzie, looking around for a duck.

Cedar pulled her down just as the Jabberwock hissed, a spray of magic exhaling over their heads. The paint on the walls curdled and flaked off, pulling itself together into a huge ma.s.s of daddy longlegs. The paint-spiders began to crawl all over the girls, tickling them with their featherlight feet.

Cedar screamed. "Stop it! I'm finally real, and I'm not going to waste this realness getting attacked by tickle-spiders!"

Lizzie leaped into the path of the oncoming spiders, pointed her scepter, and commanded, "Retreat, multilegged paint chips! Do not touch my friend!"

Cedar blinked. So did Maddie. Lizzie swallowed. Had she just admitted to having friends? Her mother would not approve. All this madness was making it hard to keep her mother's good advice in mind.

The girls shook off the spiders and kept running.

SNAILS DON'T ROCK OR ROLL.

Behave now, not-me-Narrator! You know better than to interrupt a story.

"Where do we go?" Cedar asked.

"If it doesn't matter where you end up, any path will do," said Kitty.

"But I do know where I want to end up," said Cedar. "Away!"

"There is no getting to Away," said Kitty. "Away is wherever we aren't."

"Then let's make sure the Jabberwock stays in Away," said Lizzie.

Ahead, several tiny cows with pink b.u.t.terfly wings hovered in the corridor, gripping wands between their bitty hooves.

"Are those the fairy-G.o.dmothers-in-training?" Cedar said. "The FiGITs?"

"DiGITs," Kitty whispered.

Above the crowd of cows fluttered tiny cheese slices and milk cartons on wispy wings.

"Right. Dairy-G.o.dmothers-in-training," Lizzie said.

"Help us?" said Cedar.

One winged cow pointed her magic wand at Cedar. Cedar ducked just as a pink bolt of magic flew over her head. The vase in the nook behind her turned into a large gla.s.s pitcher full of milk.

"Keep running!" Lizzie said.