Tales From the Hood

by Michael Buckley

  Sabrina shook her head. “No, she’s asleep, too.”

  “Never a dull moment in Ferryport Landing,” the blond beauty said. “How did this happen?”

  “The Scarlet Hand did it,” Uncle Jake croaked.

  “The Scarlet Who?” the blonde asked.

  “They’re the bad guys,” Daphne said. “They kidnapped my parents almost two years ago. Now they are running the town. That creepy guy, the Black Knight, he was one of them.”

  “He’s been chasing me for a month,” Goldilocks said. “If he is part of the group that kidnapped your parents, they probably don’t want anyone to wake them up. Whoever sent him will send others.”

  “Come back and we’ll protect you,” Sabrina said.

  Goldilocks looked into Sabrina’s face. “Come back to Ferryport Landing?”

  Sabrina nodded hopefully.

  Goldilocks shook her head. “I can’t do that. Terrible things occurred just to set me free. Your grandfather died because of it. Your grandmother doesn’t want to see me, and I’m sure Henry wouldn’t want to see me, either. He told me to leave him alone.”

  “But we can’t wake him up without you,” Daphne begged. “Without you it’s impossible.”

  Goldilocks turned to Uncle Jake. “If I went back, could you set me free again?”

  Uncle Jake shook his head. Sabrina wasn’t surprised. After what had happened the first time he shut down the barrier, she doubted that her uncle would ever attempt it again. She wondered if he would even do it for Briar.

  “Then no,” Goldilocks said. “I won’t go back. I’m sorry. I wish I could help. Don’t give up hope. You live in Ferryport Landing. Anything is possible there.” She turned and a moment later she was walking down the steps that led to the second level. Sabrina started to chase after her, but Uncle Jake snatched her arm and pulled her back. He shook his head. “Let her go,” he whispered painfully.

  “We have to stop her. We can force her to go back with us,” Sabrina said.

  “That’s not what we do,” Daphne said, softly. Sabrina noticed Daphne hadn’t looked at her since the Black Knight had been thrown from the building.

  “But—”

  Again, Uncle Jake shook his head. “We’ll find another way. It’s time to go home.”

  abrina watched her uncle pack up the traveler’s chest. An hour later, the same rabbit and tortoise that delivered it came and picked it up. The rabbit hoisted it onto his partner’s shell and walked it over to the little truck. Moments later they were gone, along with the only hope the family had of ever seeing Goldilocks again.

  “We could go back and change her mind,” Sabrina pleaded as the family watched the truck disappear down the road.

  “She said no, Sabrina,” Jake exclaimed, though speaking still hurt his voice.

  “None of you care!” Sabrina raged at her family. “None of you care whether Mom and Dad ever wake up!” She raced upstairs to the room where her parents slept, nestled herself between their bodies, and cried into her hands. Her old thoughts of anger toward Everafters surfaced. Most were betrayers, others couldn’t be counted on. She wept openly, not caring if Mirror or anyone else for that matter heard her railing at the world around her. Mirror’s face appeared briefly in the reflection but then faded away. She silently thanked him for letting her be alone. She lay there for hours, her face and neck drenched in tears, until eventually she was too exhausted to continue.

  After a long while she got to her feet and went out into the hallway. There she found Granny, Uncle Jake, Briar, and Elvis sitting on the hardwood floor, obviously waiting for her. They all had expressions of concern mixed with forced smiles.

  Granny took Sabrina by the hand, “Sabrina—”

  Sabrina pulled away. “I can’t take a lecture right now.”

  “I was going to say I was sorry. I know how heartbroken you feel. We feel it as well, dear. We had the same hopes that you did.”

  Sabrina nodded, sadly. “Where’s Daphne?”

  “She’s in your room,” the old woman said.

  “You might want to leave her alone,” Uncle Jake said.

  “Why?”

  “She’s a little angry right now,” he replied.

  “I know how she feels,” Sabrina said, ignoring the warning. She turned and walked down the hall and entered her bedroom. There, she found Daphne sitting at Henry’s desk, braiding her hair into her familiar pigtails. She had taken off Sabrina’s clothes and was now wearing a pair of cotton candy–colored pajamas with little stars on them. Her face was cleanly scrubbed of the lip gloss, and she had folded Sabrina’s clothes neatly and set them on the bed.

  “Are you OK?” Sabrina said.

  “We don’t have to talk about it, Sabrina,” the little girl said. “In fact, I’d rather not.”

  Sabrina was taken back by her sister’s attitude. “You’re angry about the weapon. Well, I can explain—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Daphne interrupted.

  “Well, I think we should. I want to explain my side of what happened.”

  Daphne burst into tears. “How are you going to explain that you stole from me, kept a secret, and lied about it? How are you going to explain that you . . . that you betrayed me?”

  “You don’t even know what betrayed means!”

  “Yes, I do!” Daphne said, heaving a new paperback dictionary at her sister. “I looked it up.”

  Sabrina bent down and picked up her sister’s dictionary. “Yes, I lied to you. I stole the key and snuck out and took the weapon without you knowing. You were too young to have that kind of responsibility and you refused to see the danger we are in, so I did it.”

  “You treat me like I’m a baby, Sabrina. I’m not a baby!”

  “I have a reason to be angry, too! You’ve been walking around here for days, wearing my clothes, mocking me. I’ve seen you roll your eyes and your snarky comments. You think it’s nice to be made fun of?”

  “I wasn’t making fun of you, Sabrina. I was trying to be more like you. You’re my role model,” Daphne said. “I was dressing like you and wearing my hair like yours ’cause I was trying to grow up a little. I wanted to be more like my sister. But not anymore.”

  Sabrina looked at the stack of clothing on the bed.

  “I think I’ll go back to being myself. I like me,” Daphne said.

  Sabrina searched for words, but they were jumbled like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t fit together.

  “I wasn’t making fun of you. I love you. Though, I don’t like you very much,” the little girl said. “And it’s obvious to me that you don’t like me much, either.”

  “That’s not true!” Sabrina said.

  “I’m not going to bother you anymore. I’m sleeping in Granny’s room tonight. Tomorrow, Mr. Boarman and Mr. Swineheart are going to come over and build me my own bedroom,” her sister said. She finished with her hair and got up from the desk. “Hand it over.”

  Sabrina shuffled her feet. “What, the kazoo?”

  “You can’t handle it. It’s magic, Sabrina. Give it to me.”

  “But—”

  Daphne shook her head. “Don’t argue with me. Just hand it over.”

  Sabrina dug into her pocket for the kazoo. Her fingers tingled when she touched it. It made her feel good, but she knew that feeling was false. She knew her sister was right. She took it out of her pocket and handed it to Daphne.

  “I have something of yours,” the little girl said, digging into her overalls. She pulled a tube of lip gloss out of her pocket and placed it into Sabrina’s hand; then she walked into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

  Sabrina bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She wanted to cry but couldn’t anymore. Puck had been right. He had warned her that the truth would come out and when it did, it would be ugly. That’s the only thing he got wrong—it wasn’t just ugly, it was horrible.

  The next morning, Robin and Little John arrived bright and early.

  “We’ve g
ot some bad news,” Little John said when Granny asked them in.

  “The tape is missing,” Robin explained. “Everything Hatchett said is gone. We’ve got no evidence!”

  “What happened?” Sabrina cried.

  “We don’t know, but we have our suspicions,” Robin said. “You know that snail on the jury, the one with the Scarlet Hand mark on his chest?”

  “Sure!” Daphne said.

  “Well, this morning when I woke up the tape was gone, and there was a trail of slime leading to the front door. The place smelled like apple tobacco, too.”

  “We don’t have a lot of hope if the jury is trying to sabotage our case,” Little John replied.

  “Worse still, Bluebeard is calling Red Riding Hood to the stand today. I’m sure she’ll back up Hatchett’s story,” Robin said.

  “Maybe not,” Daphne said as she removed the kazoo from her pocket. “I have an idea that might put a whammy into Bluebeard’s case.”

  “A whammy?” Robin Hood asked.

  “It’s my new word. It means something no one saw coming.”

  Little John scooped Daphne up into his arms. “Well, young lady. We could really use a whammy right about now!”

  Nurse Sprat seemed startled when the group returned to the hospital. She nearly choked on her pork chop sandwich.

  “You want to see her again? No one ever wants to see her again.”

  She led the group down the familiar hallway and unlocked Red’s door. The child was sitting at the same little table having the same tea party she had had the last time they had visited. Sabrina wondered if Red had even gone to bed. Before Sprat could lock them in, Sabrina turned to her.

  “Would you happen to have an empty jar with a tight lid?”

  “Why?” Sprat asked.

  “Let’s just say it’s going to make your job here at the hospital a lot easier.”

  Sprat shrugged. “I’ll check,” she said, then locked the door.

  “You came back,” Red said, clapping her hands. “Please, sit, have some tea!”

  Daphne sat down at the table. “I’d love some,” Daphne said, as she took the kazoo from her pocket.

  Sabrina stood behind her. “Red, do you remember when we said you were sick inside your brain?”

  Red nodded.

  “Well, how would you like to feel better?”

  Red clapped. “Then I can go home.”

  Robin joined the girls at the table. “Girls, I’m worried about this. Daphne has never tried to use this kazoo before. If what you say is true, it can demolish a house with one little puff.”

  “I’ve used it a couple of times. It kind of does what you want it to,” Sabrina explained.

  “Except for the time you destroyed the bank,” Puck reminded her.

  “OK, about fifty percent of the time it works like a charm.”

  “I’m still a bit confused,” Little John said. “Are you planning to blow this crazy child into the next county? What good will that do us?”

  “It does more than blow houses down. Right, Daphne?” Sabrina said. The little girl nodded. “It cures the mentally insane.”

  “Uh, maybe you should turn it on yourself, ’cause you sound crazy,” Puck replied.

  Sabrina was about to roll her eyes but she caught herself. She looked to Daphne for permission to continue explaining. The little girl nodded again. “Let me start from the very beginning. We know from the story of Red Riding Hood that her mother sent her into the forest with a basket of food to deliver to her grandmother. That part of the story has always been a little odd. Who sends a child into the woods where wild animals live? That is not good parenting.”

  “Good point,” Uncle Jake said.

  “We think Mr. Hatchett told us the reason, though I doubt he meant to. The truth is Red’s family was at their wit’s end with her. They were desperate. They sent her to the grandmother’s because they were hoping she could do something to help her.”

  “My mommy and daddy love me,” Red said.

  “They wanted you to get better,” Sabrina said to the girl. Red nodded and hugged a stuffed doll with a missing head.

  “Hatchett says Red’s granny was a witch, and when he showed up she was blowing a little flute that could manipulate the wind. Well, he got it wrong. It wasn’t a flute. It was a kazoo.”

  Daphne held it up for everyone to see. Sabrina continued, “Red’s grandmother either found the kazoo or created it herself. From Hatchett’s version, it could control the wind. But we think it does more than that. The kazoo creates a wind that literally blows the insanity out of a person. When Hatchett and Canis stumbled upon the grandmother’s house, they watched the witch blow the madness out of a rabid wolf. She bottled it up but she wasn’t doing this to heal a sick animal. She was testing the kazoo to make sure it worked before she tried it on her granddaughter.”

  “She was trying to fix Red,” Granny marveled.

  Sabrina nodded. “At least we think she was. Mr. Canis, or Tobias Clay, or whatever his name was, just got in the way. He was trying to be a hero and save Red. He is the real hero woodcutter from the story, not Howard Hatchett.”

  “And you want to try this on Red? Hatchett told us it was dangerous. The madness from the rabid wolf merged with Mr. Canis to become the Big Bad Wolf,” Uncle Jake said. “What happens if Red’s madness slips into one of us? The Wolf part of Canis is completely insane. Canis has never been able to fully control it.”

  “We have to be careful,” Sabrina said. There was a knock at the door and when the locks were all undone it swung open. Nurse Sprat held a glass jar in her nervous hands.

  “Here!” she cried, then shoved it into Sabrina’s hands and slammed the door tight.

  “This jar will do the trick, I hope,” Sabrina said. “If the three pigs had had a jar when they beat the Wolf and took the kazoo from him, we might have been rid of the monster for good, but they had no idea what the kazoo was capable of. They just thought it was how the Wolf huffed and puffed his way around town. But when they turned it on him, the Wolf was gone and Canis was left behind. The rabid wolf’s insanity left Canis, allowing him to take control of his body, even when the insanity swirled back into him. But as we’ve been seeing, he wasn’t that much in control, and he’s slowly changing back.”

  “So if we can trap Red’s insanity in a jar, then she can tell what she remembers from that day?” Robin asked.

  Sabrina nodded. “The only chance of saving Canis is if an Everafter stands up for him. If we fix Red, she can do that for us.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that she’s in the Scarlet Hand,” Uncle Jake added.

  “Should I do it now?” Daphne asked.

  “Yes. When I turned it on the Black Knight, I concentrated on having the power affect him only. I think the wind will do what you ask it to,” Sabrina encouraged her sister.

  Daphne raised the kazoo to her lips and blew. The wind blasted out of it, upending the dolls, tea set, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. The people, however, seemed unfazed, except for their hair flying around.

  Red Riding Hood glanced around her and started to laugh. “Bad weather!” she shrieked. “Very bad weather.”

  The wind swirled around her like a snake. It crept around every limb, embraced her tightly, and then pulled back. Red cried out in pain as the group watched something horrible and black seep out of her. To call it a person would be wrong. It was more like an animal, with fangs and with eyes like bottomless pits. To Sabrina, it looked like some horribly mutated worm seeking revenge on a fisherman. It whipped around in midair, desperate to reach Red Riding Hood, but the wind kept it at bay. It shrieked angrily.

  “Now, Sabrina!” Granny cried.

  Sabrina opened the glass jar and reached out to the creature. It thrashed about as Daphne forced it into the jar. Once it was inside, Sabrina quickly tightened the lid and the wind vanished. She watched her sister look at the little kazoo and slip it back into her pocket. Then she turned to Red Riding Hood. The strange
girl had collapsed to the ground and lay still.

  “She’s hurt,” Robin Hood said, as he rushed to her side, but his concerns proved to be unwarranted. Red opened her eyes slowly and looked up into the face of Granny Relda.

  “Grandmother?” she asked.

  Sabrina’s heart sank. She had been wrong. She believed they could really heal the girl, and that she in turn could save Mr. Canis, but Red was just as crazy as before. The weapon had not done what she had hoped it would.

  The door to the room flew open and slammed against the wall. Sabrina looked up and saw Bluebeard and Nottingham barging into the room, along with half a dozen card soldiers armed with swords.

  “Sorry, Grimms!” Nottingham said. “We have to take our witness to the trial.”

  One of the card soldiers dragged Red to her feet and pulled her from the room.

  “I do hope you had enough time to question her,” Bluebeard said. “Though I suspect you didn’t get too many straight answers out of her.”

  Nottingham and Bluebeard roared with laughter as they left the room.

  “See you in court,” Bluebeard cried back over his shoulder. “The trial starts in fifteen minutes.”

  The family rushed to the courthouse and pushed their way through the crowd at the entrance. There were no seats left and they were forced to stand in the back of the room.

  Mayor Heart made her way over to the family. She had a wicked grin on her face. Her crooked yellow teeth made Sabrina’s stomach turn more than her mean-spirited comments. “Looks like today’s the day we wrap this all up, Grimms. I suspect your Wolf will meet the nooseman by this time tomorrow.”

  Granny frowned as the woman walked away. “Isn’t she a delight?”

  Judge Hatter entered the courtroom and made his way to the front where his desk once stood. Since he had smashed it with a sledgehammer the day before, it had been replaced with a stack of milk crates. He didn’t seem to notice. The Four of Spades called for order and announced the judge as he sat down.

  “Let’s get started,” Judge Hatter said. “We can’t exactly get ended can we? No, I suppose we can’t. Can we? Or is it, may we? We may. No, we may not. Mr. Bluebeard, do you have a new witness?”