time,” even though all you did was walk through a sewer pipe lined with black-and-white spiraled rope lights—that is, if you could keep from being so dizzy that you fell down.
Ian said, “Let’s find out if it’s still around. They put up a wall around the ruins of Storytown but you can get in if you happen to know how. Which I do.”
Sage nodded. “Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do for the rest of the day and I’m bloody sick of hotel rooms. How about you, Zoe?”
“Sure. Why not? By tomorrow I’ll be back in Bridgewater anyway.”
Sage tossed his empty Coke can into the recycling bin. “Great. Let’s go.”
And that was that. I was about to commit the one sin the Queen had specifically requested I not do. But I suppose that’s what she got for firing me and, on the bright side, at least I hadn’t turned over the progress report to RJ.
Yet.
The evening parade was under way, so there wasn’t anyone in the Haunted Forest when Ian, Sage, and I emerged from the secret door by the Frog Prince’s Pond. Ian led the way, bushwhacking through underbrush until we found a worn path that snaked through a pine grove. Sage, in his pricey YMC suede boots, was slipping more than I was in my wedges, and he was complaining constantly. At last we came to a dark stone wall, the same wall I’d been examining when I’d fallen into the quicksand.
“You don’t want to go over there.” Ian pointed to some loose soil at the wall’s base. “As you can see, the wall dips down. It’s literally sinking. But there’s a way to get in right here.” He ripped down some vines to reveal a flimsy wooden door that opened with a mere push.
Sage went, “Whoa. This place is so overgrown, it’s like coming across some ruins in the jungle.” He went first. “You guys have gotta see this. It is sur-real.”
Which was his way of saying Storytown was a dump covered in weeds and littered with debris. No wonder the Queen had instructed me to keep Sage out of here at all costs, since many of the attractions had been left to simply rot.
The Old Woman’s Shoe had once been bright red, I recalled, with a ladder you could climb to the top and a slide that would take you to the inside. The ladder was gone, and most of the paint had peeled away, just like the merry-go-round that in better days had glittered with gold horses and intricately designed carriages. Someone had removed the horses and seats, leaving only the center. It was uniquely depressing.
As for the Way Back Machine, it was now just a dirty old sewer pipe filled with trash, leaves, and what appeared to be broken glass.
Sage stood by Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s oversize pumpkin, now defiled by black spray-painted graffiti that read Welcome to Zombie Land. He tossed me his cell. “Take a photo. I have to preserve this moment for posterity.”
A photo like that would be proof that we’d taken Sage to Storytown, and if it was posted online, it would seriously damage Fairyland’s rep. I tried explaining that to Sage, but he insisted.
“If anything, Storytown makes me love Fairyland more,” he said, posing with his arms straight out, like a zombie. “For some reason they saved it, and that tells me this park still has soul. It needs to be saved.”
Click! I took the photo.
“Cinderella’s Castle,” Sage said, taking the phone back so he could shoot his own picture of the fading pink fortress that wasn’t much bigger than our garage at home. “I remember that.” He jogged off to explore what was left inside.
Ian stood at the edge of an embankment. “The moat’s gone. Nothing but a ring of blue-painted concrete.”
But the willow tree was still there.
A lump rose to my throat. Storytown might have decayed into rust and witchgrass, but the tree remained steadfast, as proof that once upon a time there really had been a woman who so adored her daughter that she brought her to a special place where fairy tales and nursery rhymes came true.
I let the memories flood in: Mom running ahead of me in jean shorts and a red-checked top, her ponytail bouncing behind her as she led me through Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’s Garden.
I saw us paddling the swan boats, her lifting me up so I could see Cinderella on the drawbridge. Gently guiding my hand that was clutching