Free Once Upon a Beanstalk by Kate Avery Ellison Page B

from his native country, might contain special enzymes which interacted with the magic bean and caused it to mutate to massive proportions—”
    A knock on the door drew her attention. Jack stuck his head in, and he smiled when he saw the news about the beanstalk on the screen.
    “We’re the biggest anonymous celebrities in the kingdom for causing that,” he said.
    “Yeah. But that’s nothing new to us, is it?”
    He shrugged and grinned. “Come on, we’re celebrating downstairs in the hotel restaurant.”
    “Celebrating?” She flipped off the TV and stood. “What for?”
    “The king has issued you both a full pardon for rescuing Alana.” He shut the door behind her, and she took a moment to catch her breath following his news. Pardoned. She’d been expecting as much, what with their success and the resulting good news about the peace treaty, but now ... now it was official.
    “What, you have nothing to say to that?” Jack teased.
    “Hansel and Alana will be glad to hear it.” They stopped at the elevator, and Jack pushed the down button. The doors opened.
    “ I’m glad to hear it,” Jack said.
    In response, Gretel grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. Her brother wasn’t the only one to find love in the recent death-defying situation.
    When Jack and Gretel stepped off the elevator, Alana and Hansel glanced up from where they were whispering together at a table. They waved the second couple over, their faces beaming.
    “Did you hear the good news?” Alana demanded. Once she’d recovered from her ordeal at the giant’s castle—and had a few good meals—she’d turned out to be quite spunky, princess or not. She was proving more than capable of handling Hansel’s bad temper. “My father has pardoned all of you!”
    “Which means we’re going to have to go legit,” Jack warned Hansel.
    “Can you believe it?” Hansel leaned back and wrapped one arm around Alana’s shoulders. “I think I’ve even found a job—apprentice to the palace locksmith. They were very pleased with my entrance exam.”
    “What about you?” Jack asked Gretel. “Any idea what you’re going to do now?”
    Of course they weren’t desperate for work, since the king had also given them a nice amount of money to get them started. But she wanted to have something to keep her busy.
    She thought about it. “I have been dying to write down some of our exploits.”
    “You mean, reveal our secrets to the public?” Hansel was aghast.
    “No, silly. I’ll tell the stories all scrambled up, with some of the details changed, of course, so nobody can figure out exactly who wrote them. I thought I’d keep our old name as a pseudonym, too. The Grimm Brothers.”
    “Just promise me you won’t write my story,” Alana said with a grimace. “I’d hate the publicity.”
    “I promise,” Gretel said.
    (And her collections, which became famous around the world, never did include the story of Princess Alana.)
    “Is there going to be a story about me in there?” Jack teased, kissing her hair.
    Gretel elbowed him playfully. “Of course. I think I’m going to call it ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.'”
    The waiter brought a plate of fruit, and Gretel inspected the peaches. They were bruised.
    “Why is it impossible to get good fruit around here?” She asked, pushing them aside with her fork.
    “That’s a perfectly good peach!” Jack protested.
    Some things never changed.

Read the first chapter of Kate Avery Ellison’s young adult fantasy, The Curse Girl , on sale now!
     
     

ONE
     
    My father drove me through the woods in his truck, the wheels shuddering over the dirt road while the air hummed with all the unspoken words between us. The tears wriggled down his wrinkled cheeks only to get lost in his beard. The mark on his wrist burned at the edge of my peripheral vision, as if it were glowing.
    I sat silent and immobile, a statue, a paper doll, a frozen thing of stone.
    When we reached the gate I drew one