Jack and the Beanstalk (Faerie Tale Collection) Read online

  PRAISE FOR JENNI JAMES

  Beauty and the Beast (Faerie Tale Collection)

  “Jenni James takes this well loved faerie tale and gives it a paranormal twist. Very well written and hard to put down, even on my cruise vacation where I had plenty to do. Looking forward to others in Jenni’s Faerie Tale series. A great escape!”

  —Amazon reviewer, 5-star review

  Pride & Popularity (The Jane Austen Diaries)

  “This book was unputdownable. I highly recommend it to any fan of Jane Austen, young or old. Impatiently awaiting the rest of the series.”

  —Jenny Ellis, Librarian and Jane Austen Society of North America

  “Having read several other Young Adult retellings of Pride and Prejudice - I must admit that Pride and Popularity by Jenni James is my top choice and receives my highest recommendation! In my opinion, it is the most plausible, accessible, and well-crafted YA version of Pride and Prejudice I have read! I can hardly wait to read the [next] installment in this series!”

  —Meredith, Austenesque Reviews

  “I started reading Pride and Popularity and couldn’t put it down! I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning to finish. I’ve never been happier to lose sleep. I was still happy this morning. You can’t help but be happy when reading this feel good book. Thank you Jenni for the fun night!”

  —Clean Teen Fiction

  Northanger Alibi (The Jane Austen Diaries)

  “Twilight obsessed teens (and their moms) will relate to Claire’s longing for the fantastical but will be surprised when they find the hero is even better than a vampire or werewolf. Hilarious, fun and romantic!”

  —TwilightMOMS.com

  “Stephenie Meyer meets Jane Austen in this humorous, romantic tale of a girl on a mission to find her very own Edward Cullen. I didn’t want it to end!”

  —Mandy Hubbard, author of Prada & Prejudice

  “We often speak of Jane Austen’s satiric wit, her social commentary, her invention of the domestic novel. But Jenni James, in this delicious retelling of Northanger Abbey, casts new light on Austen’s genius in portraying relationships and the foibles of human nature—in this case, the projection of our literary fantasies onto our daily experience.”

  —M.M. Bennetts, author of May 1812

  Prince Tennyson

  “After reading Prince Tennyson, your heart will be warmed, tears will be shed, and loved ones will be more appreciated. Jenni James has written a story that will make you believe in miracles and tender mercies from above.”

  —Sheila Staley, Book Reviewer & Writer

  “Divinely inspired, beautifully written—a must read!”

  —Gerald D. Benally, author of Premonition (2013)

  “Prince Tennyson is a sweet story that will put tears in your eyes and hope in your heart at the same time.”

  —Author Shanti Krishnamurty

  ALSO BY JENNI JAMES

  Jenni James Faerie Tale Collection:

  Beauty and the Beast

  Sleeping Beauty

  Rumplestiltskin

  Cinderella

  Hansel and Gretel

  Jack and the Beanstalk

  Snow White

  The Frog Prince

  The Jane Austen Diaries:

  Pride & Popularity

  Northanger Alibi

  Persuaded

  Emmalee

  Mansfield Ranch

  Sensible & Sensational

  Prince Tennyson

  Revitalizing Jane

  Eternal Realm Series:

  Eternity

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Dear Reader,

  While you do not have to read Hansel and Gretel before this one—as each book is its own tale—it is best that you understand that Jack and the Beanstalk is the continuing story of Hansel and Gretel, as Jack is their son. I have included the following blurb from the back of the book so you may get a feel for the prequel and understand the circumstances. –Jenni James

  Hansel and Gretel

  A hidden princess and the boy who saves her life—

  Hansel’s father finds a child lost and alone during a violent thunderstorm. After bringing her in from the tempest, he and his son are startled to discover that she is Gretel, a princess of Larkein—the enemy kingdom their own king has just destroyed. Fearful for her life, Hansel pleads with his father to save her. He believes they can make Gretel good by teaching her their ways. His kindhearted father agrees, but with great trepidation.

  Ten years later, Gretel has grown into a lovely young woman who both infuriates and drives Hansel to distraction while he attempts to not lose his heart to her. When the Larkein witch comes back in the guise of a beautiful woman and marries their father, everything is set into a tailspin. Now they must figure out their new stepmother’s plans and prevent her from destroying them all before it is too late.

  This book is dedicated to Dalen, Tanner, and Carson.

  I love you. May your life be full of amazing adventures!

  CHAPTER ONE

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, she is gone?” Jack asked as he whirled around on his heel, his great brown overcoat flinging about with him. “What has been done to bring her back? Has anyone even attempted to call the authorities?”

  The old woman wrung her hands nervously over her pump form. “We have! There was nothing they could do. We sent for you as soon as possible.”

  Jack paused his pacing on the worn rug in the main cottage room of his dearest Rachel’s home. “So you mean to tell me that sometime last night, Miss Rachel, my Miss Rachel, was taken forcefully from her bedchamber by a great beast of a man, and none of you bothered to wake me up to attend this search of her?” He was livid. He was more than livid. He was terrified, heartbroken, worried out of his mind. “Why, it is nearly seven o’clock in the morning! This giant monster is hours ahead of us, and I am just now hearing of it.”

  “We are sorry!” cried the man Jack had hoped to call a father one day. “We were not attending properly. All we could hear ringing in our minds was the memory of her screams of fright over and over again as he took her from us.”

  Jack was going to be sick. He swallowed and breathed deeply before attempting to speak again. “I understand this house has been under great duress the past few hours, but you must know I love your daughter more than I love my own life. I am frantic with the need to rescue her at this moment. Please, I ask that you forgive my hastiness in chastising you at such a time and instead, give me any bit of information you can so I may bring my fiancée back. Anything at all.” He knelt before the older man and woman, still in their night attire with shawls and slippers. “And I vow to you both that I will not give up my search for your daughter, unlike the authorities. I will not simply hear who has captured her and run in fear. Nay, I am yours, I am hers, and you will see her again or I will die trying to attempt the thing.”

  “Oh, Jack! What would we do without you?” Mrs. Staheli clutched his hands, tugging him up. “Come and have a cup of tea and we will tell you all we know.”

  He shook his head. “No. I would prefer to hear it all now, just as we are, so I may begin this search instantly.”

  “Son, it is useless. The monster—the giant—he took her up in the clouds,” her father answered as he ran his hands through his hair.

  “I beg your pardon—he took her where? No, wait. Start at the beginning and tell me everything you can of this giant and all that happened. I will see what is to be done.”

  Celeste glanced over and shared a look with Hans.

  Jack leaned toward the couple and tried his best not to let his growing irritation show upon his face as Hans cleared his throat. Why wer
e these two moving so slowly? Every second wasted was a second he could be using to fetch Rachel back.

  “It was quite late—nearly morning—when he came,” Hans started.

  “Yes, I know this. Why did he abduct her? Did he say?”

  Celeste clutched her shawl. “Yes! Yes, that is definitely something I can answer. He wanted her voice. Apparently, his ears picked up the sound of her humming and singing the other day while she was in the meadow picking those flowers.” She pointed over to a vase of wildflowers on the worn oak dining table. “He decided to bring her back to his castle so she would sing for him.”

  “And he also mentioned something about her playing the harp for him,” Hans added.

  “The harp?” Jack tried not to smile at the absurdity. “She does not do any such thing.”

  “So she told the giant.” Hans folded his arms. “But he would not listen to her.”

  “Why did he not take her when he had her alone in the meadow?” Jack asked.

  “He did not say.”

  “How did he get here? And you are certain he took her up to the sky?”

  “Aye.” Hans unfolded his arms and then clasped his hands together. Jack noticed the slight tremor in her as Celeste hung on to her husband’s elbow. “We heard her shouts for help and came in the room immediately. The giant’s huge head peered into the windows. One long arm snaked in and captured her up in his palm. She tried to make him see reason and not take her from the house. I believe he is a bit dimwitted, as each time Rachel asked him a question, it slowed him down—he would stop and think about it and then answer her. It was a clever ploy and even we joined in until he caught on to what we were doing. Then he swung his arm out and brushed us both down before wrapping his fingers around her and sliding his hand through the window again. It was a tight fit and required precision to get his fist out.”

  “What are some of the things he said?”

  “Most of it you already know,” Hans said. “He was taking her up to his kingdom in the clouds where she was meant to live in a golden cage and sing for him, or play the harp. And how he had found her in the first place.”

  “How did he get back up to his kingdom, and where did he come from? Has anyone heard of this giant before?”

  “We had no idea he existed until he came for her.” Celeste brought her hand to her mouth. “So, so terrifying.”

  “This is all baffling. No wonder the authorities are useless. Where does one begin? How does one get all the way up into the clouds to rescue her?”

  Hans pulled away from his wife. “If you follow me outside, I can show you his tracks and where they lead. When we made it to the window and watched him take her away, it was as if the giant were climbing on something, but we could not make out what it was. Indeed, there was nothing to be seen there at all.”

  Jack nodded to Hans. “Let me follow you where the tracks lead. Perhaps I will find something then, something to make sense of all this.”

  Hans paused at the door as he pulled on his outer coat. “Celeste, we will be back shortly.”

  She shooed them away with her hand. “Yes, go. I could not bear to go out there again anyhow.”

  As the men stepped outside, Jack was amazed to see that the giant’s footprints had formed six-foot craters all over the Stahelis’ garden as well as the road and up a small embankment about a half mile away. They did not need to travel that far to see the great indents he left.

  “Are you sure that is where they stop, up there?” Jack pointed to the hill.

  “Yes.” Hans turned and gestured toward the cottage. “And from that window just there—her bedroom window—we watched him make his way up an invisible rope or ladder of some sort, up into the clouds until they could not be seen anymore. It all happened so fast once he got her out of the house. We rushed to see where he was taking her. I had hopes to follow them, but he had already run here and was climbing up the thing within seconds. I have never seen anyone disappear so fast in my life. We knew it was useless to attempt to go after him.”

  Jack placed his hands on his hips and shook his head, his eyes scanning the sky above them.

  His father and mother, Hansel and Gretel, had warned him that life was full of adventures and that one day he would meet one that would change everything he had ever believed about himself. He sucked in a long breath of air. It would seem his particular adventure had met him after all.

  There was a certain giant out there who needed to be introduced to the wrath of Jack.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JACK MARCHED INTO HIS home, his mind whirling with the things he must do. He had been over the entire hill where the giant’s footprints ended to determine what had happened to her. The imprints in the ground did seem to imply that a sort of large, invisible item had been there, but was now gone. Whatever it was, whatever the giant had used, that was his ticket to getting Rachel back.

  “Why are you in such a foul-looking mood?” asked his sister. Jill leaned back against the family’s small settee with a book in her hand, her feet on the cushions.

  “Have you not heard the news?” he asked, stunned that hearsay of Rachel’s disappearance had not reached Jill yet.

  “News? What news?” Her cotton dress brushed the wooden floor as she swung her legs down from the sofa and sat up properly. “Does it have something to do with why Mother and Father have been gone all morning?”

  Jack thought of the several people who had descended upon the Staheli’s cottage to be of help while he was there. The word spread so quickly that he left the place to find peace and solve this riddle himself. “Aye. I am assuming so. Though I did not see either of them, that does not mean they were not part of the crowd.”

  Tossing her book upon the sofa, Jill stood up. “Tell me everything. What has happened? What reports would put you in such a state?”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “Rachel is gone. She was stolen.” At his sister’s gasp, he continued, “Her parents speak of a great giant who reached into her room last night and took her.”

  “And no one has tracked him and found her yet?”

  Jack was surprised to feel a chuckle escape. “They cannot. No one knows how to get to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled off his suddenly warm overcoat and hung it on a peg in the front closet. “He apparently has a kingdom of some sort in the sky and has taken her there.”

  “What? How?”

  “That is something no one has been able to figure out as of yet. Though I spent quite a few hours at the last spot where he was seen this morning, it has left me baffled.”

  She walked up to him, her hand clutching his shirtsleeve for a moment. “Jack, you must go after her. No one will be able to figure this out but you. You are the best at solving riddles.”

  He reached over and held her hand. “No one else should figure this out but me. I am the one who must go after her.”

  Her blue eyes met his. He watched as a spark of life simmered deep within them. “I believe you have finally found your adventure.”

  “Aye. I have.”

  She brought her other hand up, sandwiching his hand with both of hers. “You must take me with you. You must!”

  He looked at that eager face below him and smirked. “This is not something that can be considered fun and daring—this is not a lark, Jill. This is real. And one of us could die attempting to do what must be done.”

  She grinned. “Of course it is fun and daring! How could it not be? And you—you will more than likely solve the puzzle of the giant quicker than you realize! And we will be finding our way up to the kingdom and bringing Rachel back home very soon. I know it. I can feel it bubbling inside me. You were meant to do this—and I was meant to come along and help.”

  “Jill,” he said with a voice of warning, “do not become overly excited. I am not convinced it would be wise to take you.”

  She pulled away from him. “Then you are a fool to believe you will be able to do this on your own. Two
heads have always been better than one—you know this! Have not our parents taught us this every time they speak of their own tale?”

  Jack walked toward the basin in the kitchen and fetched himself a cup of water from the pitcher nearby. He knew his sister had incredible sense and could reason much better than he could—usually solving dilemmas in half the time. Mayhap he was foolish to think of leaving her behind. Her defensive skills were good too, and he was a simpleton indeed to believe she could not out-master a dimwitted giant. He took another long drink and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Glancing over, he saw the pout upon Jill’s lips as she sat back on the settee, and attempted to appease her a bit by distracting her with one of her favorite subjects. “That witch our parents speak of was purely wicked to have thought to eat them, and ruin Grandfather as she did.”

  “Yes.” Jill did not look up.

  Goodness, she was certainly in a mood. “Well now, I did not take you for a little child,” Jack said as he walked into the living area.

  She folded her arms, still not meeting his eyes. “You have no right to exclude me and yet you will, simply because I am a girl.”

  He stepped directly in front of her, his boots touching hers. “No, you are wrong. If I would not have allowed you to go, it is because I did not want you to die. It has nothing to do with you being a girl.”

  “I am seventeen!” she exclaimed. “Well old enough to be considered for adventures.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said simply. “Which is why I have decided to let you come.”

  She glanced up at him. “What did you say?”

  He shrugged and grinned at her. “Besides, I need my navigator. Who would I turn to if I got lost?”

  She laughed. “Yes, you do need me.”

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Thank you for being willing to support me.”

  Rolling her eyes, she stood up, causing him to move back a few paces. “Do not become all mushy and sentimental now. Let us wait until we find ourselves in that kingdom, and then you can thank me all you wish.”