Jaclyn and the Beanstalk by Mary Ting

Author:Mary Ting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fairy tale, adventure, monsters, historical, jack and the beanstalk, adaptation, Christian, beast, sword, secrets, fantasy, fables, legend
Publisher: Vesuvian Books
Published: 2018-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The Beanstalk

Fire engulfed me. I was consumed by pain and heat, as though my every bone and muscle had melted. But shortly after, I found relief when the frigid air washed over me.

“Jack.” I screamed from the top of my lungs when he came through the flames. “I’m going to kill you. I swear it.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked at me as if I should be thankful, patting out the fire that had caught his cloak and mine. “I’m sorry but I couldn’t find your father when I went back. He might have run back into the cave.”

I gave him an angry stare and searched for my father through the flames. “Father! Father!”

The fire prevented me from seeing him, and Father did not answer. I ran from one end to the other, frantically searching for a way in. The flames reached higher than before, causing me to lose my courage to run through. I also didn’t know how much it had spread.

My eyes burned, and I coughed in the smoke. I hollered deep within my throat so Father could hear. “I promise. I’ll find a way to save you.”

I reached out as if I could touch. My heart, my heart, oh my heart. It dropped out of my chest, into the fire.

Please, be safe Father. May angels watch over you.

Jack gripped my shoulders. “We shall save him, but we need help.”

Anger scorched through my veins. How dare Jack take me away from my father? How dare he make such a decision for me?

“No one will help us. Not even your brothers are here to save their own father.” I threw up my arms.

He looked down in shame and then met my gaze. “We need to go and warn the town. We are their only chance.”

“We? Where’s your father and John? Did they not—”

“My father and John are safe. They went down first. I stayed behind for you and your father.”

I glared at him, but I felt thankful he cared. “You go, and I shall stay.”

Jack did not have a chance to answer. A lit torch flew high above us and landed close to the beanstalk. I assumed by Longinus’s doing. Any second, the beanstalk would catch fire.

A rope was suddenly around my waist. I turned to Jack, who tied the other end of the rope around himself. He grabbed me before I had a chance to stop him, and my stomach lurched into my chest as I leapt to a giant leaf. Then I slid down the beanstalk at ferocious speed, Jack ahead of me.

“Jack.” My arms went around his neck, and I shifted onto his back.

“Hold on tight and don’t let go!”

He held onto the stalk with one hand, his dagger with the other, cutting through stems as we plummeted from leaf to leaf. He must have planned this before he’d pulled me out of the fire, and I had been too busy to notice.

Having no choice, I held on to him, and I, too, helped chop the stems with my dagger, but I didn’t have to work hard.

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