I’ve been wanting to ask you for months and months but I’ve been good.
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You were politely persistent on behalf of all of us @joefishing209 
So glad to see this continuing/concluding and thanks again for sharing your talents @ryan1!
You have been a very good boy!
It is always a trick with writing, for me, balancing finding a time to do it when I am feeling inspired with my other obligations.
I actually know how the rest of the story plays out, but I have been struggling with those free moments of inspiration.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Happy
“Me?” I said. “But…I’m just a kid.”
Walt laughed. “Just a kid? Really? A kid who chased after his sister through a magical mirror, possibly risking his own life in the process, in order to rescue her? Sounds like more than ‘just a kid.’ Sounds like a kid with a lot of bravery inside!”
I shook my head, wanting to disagree, but unable to find any words to counter his argument. Still, it was quite a leap from wanting to save your sister to being some source of power that an evil sea witch was after! “I don’t have any power. No magic. Nothing like that!”
“Is that what you think? Truly?”
I nodded.
“But you, my boy, are the magic! You brought it with you inside that thick skull of yours!”
“But—”
“Here. Let me show you.”
Walt set down his mug, pushed himself up and opened up a cabinet across the room. Inside, it seemed like a treasure trove of random objects! But…not random. I knew these objects. Like a glass slipper. Cinderella’s glass slipper! And the Mad Hatter’s top hat. An apple with a single missing bite. A tiny umbrella, like the one carried by Jiminy Cricket. And so much more!
“These are some trinkets I’ve collected over the years from others, such as yourself, who have come to visit me and my supposed kingdom.” He reached in, pulled out a silver hand mirror, then quickly shut up the cabinet again. Holding it out, he said, “Here! Take it.”
My hand clasped onto the cool metal handle.
“Now, look into it.”
Slowly, I lifted it enough to see into it. And, to my shock, I saw myself. Only, not myself as I sat there in that moment, but myself with my sister and parents as we were before this whole adventure began. I gasped, then looked away for a moment, as if seeing the image might somehow blind me, before gazing back. Only, the scene had changed. Now it showed just me, alone, standing at the gap between the monorail station and the floor of the monorail itself, eyes closed. I remember that moment, and how scared I felt inside. Which was crazy, I could see now. The small crack could never hurt me.
“What do you see?” Walt asked.
I told him about how my shoelace hadn’t been tied properly, and how I worried, needlessly, about what might happen if the lace had gotten caught.
“So,” he said, easing himself back down onto his chair, “I might say you had an overactive imagination. You created fear where there was nothing to fear, no?”
Then I heard noises coming from somewhere outside the room. Distant, pounding noises. I hesitated, glancing at the door to the room, but Walt seemed not to notice.
“Well…I guess…” I started, distractedly.
“And that is where your power comes from!”
I tried to focus back on him, looking down at my feet. “My shoelaces?”
“No, my boy! From inside your mind. Your imagination! The ability to create something real out of nothing at all!”
“But, anyone can do that!”
Then more pounding. Slightly lounder.
Walt shook his head. “You’d like to think so. But, sadly, that’s not the case. For some, a gap on a monorail station is nothing more than a gap. And a ride on a carousel is nothing more than going in circles. But for some…for some…a carousel means riding horseback across a meadow and jumping straight into the middle of a fox hunt, and then winning the derby! And that, son, is the kind of power you have. Like it or not.”
Now the sound grew even more intense to the point where even Walt could no longer ignore it. He stood, then reached out to take back the mirror. “I’m afraid time has run out for us,” he said.
Only, I didn’t relinquish it. Not yet.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “Why does Ursula want my imagination? What good is it to her?”
He shrugged, then reached closer. “You’ll have to ask her that. Now then, please. My mirror.”
I hesitated, but finally handed it over.
The moment the metal touched his fingers, the world around me transformed. He vanished. The room vanished. The seat I had been sitting on vanished, and I fell to the stone floor of the castle hallway. The doorway that I had not long ago passed through to discover this man seemed to just melt away into solid stone.
The pounding was louder now, like someone trying each and every door as I had myself done earlier. Glancing in the direction of the sound, I could see shadows being cast from around the corner. She was close. Ursula. Because I was certain that’s who was approaching. And any moment, she would come around the corner and find me.
I felt torn between running away in the opposite direction and finding a place to hide, or staying to face her. My heart pounded. What about Sarah? Would facing Ursula now help her if I only managed to get caught? And what would she do to me? If I had this power she wanted, what vile thing might she do to extract it from me? Walt never said. Actually, he never told me much of anything, come to think of it. It was nonsense! I had no power. I was no different from any other kid my age!
More pounding, even closer. Only…something odd. I could hear foot falls as well, like those wearing heavy boots. And not just a few, but a lot of feet. And then, a voice, low and gruff.
“Nothing!”
Who could this be? I stood up, trying to find a place to hide, but there was nowhere but to run the other way. I turned, ready to flee, only…I couldn’t. I had to know who was coming. Friend, or foe? And how did they end up in the castle? Walt never actually said he lived here alone. Maybe there was someone else who remained inside the magical wall that protected this castle.
I spun around and took in a deep breath, closing my eyes, bracing myself for the worst, but hoping…no, praying…that I wasn’t going to regret this.
The stampede of feet came closer, the shadow cast by the castle’s torches growing, stretching out like an ominous blob. And then…
“Achoo!”
A sneeze.
A sneeze?
I unclenched my fists, not even realizing I had clenched them to begin with. I waited. And then, a moment later, two very short, very stocky bearded men came around the corner, followed by another younger skinnier one. Dwarfs. Three of them. And I knew them in an instance. Dopey, Sneezy, and Happy!
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