“Right,” I say. “But why did Maryrose send us to this particular fairy tale?”

“Good question,” Jonah says, pondering.

We always have a lot of questions — and very few answers.

We do know that Maryrose, the fairy in our mirror, is cursed. And we also know that she thinks we’re “almost ready” for something. That’s what she told us once anyway. But for what?

“We keep messing up the stories, and she keeps sending us back,” I explain to Jonah, taking a wriggling Prince from his arms and setting the puppy back down on the ground. “So she must like that we change the stories. Right?”

“Or the opposite,” Jonah says, kicking a pebble in front of his shoe. “Maybe she keeps sending us back because we keep changing them. Maybe she doesn’t want us to change them. Maybe she’s waiting for us to learn how to stop messing them up! And that’s when she knows we’re ready for our mission.”

“Oh,” I say. “I never thought of it like that.”

I push a leafy branch out of the way, and suddenly —

BAM!

Jonah and I bump smack into a girl and a boy.

“Ouch!” I say, rubbing my forehead.

“That hurt!” says the girl, rubbing her forehead.

The girl and I stare at each other.

She has wavy brown hair and pale skin and looks a lot like me.

Like identical to me.

The boy has brown hair, pale skin, and looks a lot like Jonah. Like identical to Jonah.

I love my little brother, but the world does not need two of them.

The girl has a totally freaked-out expression on her face. The boy has a this-is-awesome expression on his face.

Jonah has a this-is-awesome expression on his face, too.

I can’t see my own expression, but I can pretty much guess it mirrors the girl’s.

“What the what?” asks the boy.

Jonah raises a hand slowly.

The boy raises a hand slowly.

I take a step back. So does the girl.

“AHHHH!” all four of us shriek.

Are we looking in a mirror? Did someone put a giant mirror in the middle of the forest?

No. Clearly not. Mirrors don’t speak.

Well, sometimes they do. When they’re in my basement. But still.

Jonah and I take a step to the right. Mirror-me and mirror-Jonah take a step to the left. We circle each other like cats.

“You can’t be me,” I tell mirror-me.

“I’m not you,” she barks back. “I’m me!”

But we have the same green eyes. Same small noses. Same heart-shaped faces. Same wavy brown hair. Her hair is definitely messier than mine, though.

Wait. The girl has a mole on her left cheek. I don’t have a mole on my cheek. Do I? I feel my left cheek. Nope. No mole.

I glance at the boy. His eyebrows are bushier than Jonah’s.

I start to notice other differences. The girl and the boy are both much thinner than Jonah and I are. And they’re wearing different clothes. The girl has on a tattered, thin brown dress. And the boy is wearing torn brown pants that are too short for him and a ripped brown shirt.