The Fairy-Tale Detectives

by Michael Buckley

  After an hour of walking and losing the dog half a dozen times they realized that Elvis’s nose wasn’t really necessary. All they had to do was walk in the direction of the tremendous storm rumbling across the sky. Lightning slashed the horizon, followed by explosions so loud they rattled Sabrina’s teeth. A normal person might have rushed to the cellar, fearing an approaching tornado, but if the mirrors and Mr. Canis were right, this was no ordinary storm. It would lead them to Granny Relda.

  The girls stumbled out onto a deserted road and walked along its edge, despite the fact that neither of them had seen a car in weeks—not since the Scarlet Hand took over the town. It felt to Sabrina as if she and her sister were the only two people left in the world. She took Daphne’s hand, not only to assure her that they would be OK, but to calm her own anxiety as they walked on toward the storm. Eventually, they found Elvis waiting by a bend in the road. He looked frightened, pacing in circles and panting. Daphne rubbed his neck to calm him down, but it did little to soothe the giant dog.

  “Granny’s nearby,” Sabrina said.

  Daphne nodded and turned back to the dog. “You stay here, OK?” Elvis clamped his teeth down on Daphne’s sweatshirt, but she pulled away. “We’ll be careful, Elvis. You stay.”

  The girls left him and continued to follow the road around a tight turn. Whatever lay ahead was blocked by trees, but the very tops of their branches glowed as if the sun were hovering right behind them. Once they were on the other side they saw their first glimpse of their grandmother in three days.

  It was not a happy sight. The old woman was engulfed in an intense light so bright that it hurt to look directly at her. Her hands were held high above her head and glowed like two giant torches. Rockets of energy exploded from her fingertips and streaked into the sky, leaving in their wake plumes of smoke and magic. The rockets’ target was Wilhelm Grimm’s invisible wall, built long ago to keep Everafters from leaving Ferryport Landing.

  Sabrina had never seen so much raw power. It was almost too horrible to watch, and yet, despite the earth-shattering intensity of the demonstration, it was nothing compared to the ancient and unyielding strength of the barrier. Each magical attack slammed into its surface, exploding into a million vivid colors that spread out over the dome’s surface. Aftershocks sent tremors into the earth and air. One attack was followed by another, and then another and another. Granny Relda’s heaving body exploded with magic, and as Sabrina watched, a terrifying truth filled her mind—her grandmother was not in control of herself. Mirror was inside her, forcing her to move as he wished. Sabrina wanted to run at him and demand that he set the old woman free, or at least try to communicate with Granny and encourage her to resist Mirror’s control, but the power and heat from the explosions were too strong. If she stepped forward, she might catch fire.

  And then Sabrina heard a voice behind them and nearly jumped out of her skin. “I’m soooooo telling.” Puck stood behind her. “You two disobeyed your parents! I’m both shocked and really impressed.”

  Sabrina tried to compose herself without giving away that he had scared her enough to almost make her lose control of her bladder. “We’re tired of being under house arrest in the Hall of Wonders.”

  “Yeah! We’ve fought lots of monsters,” Daphne said.

  “Actually, you’ve done a lot more ‘running away from monsters’ than actual ‘fighting’ of said monsters,” Puck said. “I’ve seen it myself and it is always hee-larious. I love this big turnaround. It seems like only a month ago you were complaining about your family responsibility, and now you can’t wait to get out there and beat up the bad guys. Well, I’m all for it. The whole ‘I don’t want to be a Grimm’ thing was getting a little tired.”

  Daphne nodded. “He’s right. You were getting kinda lame.”

  Suddenly, their father, Henry, raced out of the woods, snatched the children by the arms, and dragged them back within the trees. Sabrina had never seen someone’s head explode, but she thought she might see her father’s. He looked like an erupting volcano, and she felt like a panicked villager frozen in fear at the sight of the angry lava god.

  “Get back to the mirror right now!” he demanded.

  “Granny had us do these things all the time, Dad,” Sabrina explained. “She trained us to be brave and take action.”

  “And look where that got her!” he roared, then spent the next ten minutes in a breathless rant about respect, trust, and sneakiness. When he finally came up for air, he said, “You’re grounded.”

  “You can’t ground us. We’re homeless,” Daphne said.

  Henry was momentarily befuddled. “Fine! But once we get a home you are going to be locked inside it until you are very old and very gray! Come on, I’m taking you back myself.”

  “What about the old lady?” Puck asked.

  Henry shook his head. “We didn’t come out here to save her. I wanted to make sure she was OK and see if there are any obvious weaknesses in Mirror’s power over her.”

  “And what did you learn?” Sabrina asked.

  “That an all-powerful monster has control over my mother and if we confront him, especially now, when he’s angry, he’ll incinerate us with his magic.”

  “So we’re just going to give up?” Puck said.

  “You don’t just go running headfirst into a fight. No, we’re going to get some help. We need to find the Wicked Queen,” Henry said. “She made Mirror. She has to know how to stop him.”

  Suddenly, Elvis raced to join the group. He was even more frantic than before, whining and growling as he raced about in circles.

  “Something’s wrong,” Daphne said, doing her best to ease the dog’s panic.

  “It must be the storm,” Henry said.

  But a crunching noise drowned him out. It came from within the woods and was followed by the sound of a tree falling over—a very big tree. When Sabrina turned to face the sound, she saw something so grotesque and terrifying she nearly fainted. Its body was mammoth and covered in thick, matted hair. Its arms were long and spindly, but its legs were thick with muscles and tendons. A ridge of raised spikes poked through the stretched skin covering its spine and trailed upward to its head, which was both shocking in size and shape. The head was nearly as big as half of the rest of its body, but it was also lumpy like a pumpkin that had fallen off a truck. Its eyes and nose were not where they should have been—almost as if it were a toddler’s Play-Doh creation. But its most eye-gouging feature was its fang-filled mouth that came unhinged at the jaw when it roared. It opened so wide Sabrina could have stepped inside with no trouble.

  “Grendel!” Henry cried, snatching the girls once more and racing in the opposite direction.

  “What is a Grendel?” Sabrina begged, doing her best to keep up.

  “He killed hundreds of Vikings—and ate most of them. There’s a poem about him.”

  “That thing’s in a poem? Ewwww!” Daphne cried.

  Puck flew leisurely overhead. “Yawn! I’ve never been afraid of anything that appeared in a poem. Next time you guys will be trembling over the Cat in the Hat.”

  “He’s no joke, Puck,” Henry said as he continued to run. “A warrior named Beowulf chopped off his head once. It still didn’t stop him.”

  “Big deal! Who here hasn’t had their head chopped off?”

  “This is exactly why I wanted you girls to wait in the mirror. We don’t just have your grandmother to deal with—the town is overrun with members of the Scarlet Hand, and unless you have forgotten, they let all the monsters out of the Hall of Wonders, too.”

  “What are we going to do?” Daphne said. “He’s gaining on us.”

  “Just keep running until I can come up with a plan of attack,” Henry said.

  “Plan of attack?” Sabrina said. “The plan should be to keep running.”

  “We can’t outrun that thing,” Henry said. “All right, Puck, you still have those stink balloons?”

  “I never leave home without something disgusting!” Puc
k reached into the folds of his hoodie. What came out were four more of the disgusting sludge-balloon bombs he had tested on Sabrina.

  “Good! You hit him high and I’ll take him low.”

  Sabrina could feel panic squeezing her neck. “Wait! You’re going to attack him with some water balloons and your bare hands?”

  “And my feet, too,” Henry said.

  “Are you feeling all right, Dad?” Daphne asked.

  “Don’t underestimate the weapon that is your own body. If you know what you’re doing, you can be very dangerous,” Henry said.

  “What should we do?” Sabrina said.

  “Nothing! You haven’t been trained in a fight,” Henry said.

  “Then train us!” Sabrina said.

  “Fine! Lesson one! Watch from the safety of these trees,” he demanded as he shoved the girls behind the thick trunk of an ancient maple.

  “Dad!” they groaned.

  “I’m serious. Don’t get involved no matter what. If something bad happens, run for the mirror. All right, fairy, let’s do this,” their father said, taking off at a sprint toward Grendel. Henry roared like a barbarian berserker.

  “Your dad rules,” Puck said, circling in the air and mimicking Henry’s wail.

  “I thought it was stupid to run headfirst into a fight,” Sabrina grumbled.

  Puck tossed his disgusting bombs at the creature, nailing Grendel in the face. Enraged, the brute snatched at the boy’s leg, but Puck was too fast and darted away from his deadly claws again and again. While Puck kept him busy, Henry snuck up until he was standing within arm’s length of the monster.

  “Lesson number two!” Henry shouted to the girls. “The first thing you do when you are about to fight someone—or something, for that matter—is take them off guard. Screaming like a maniac startles your opponent. The confusion will allow you to observe his weaknesses. While Puck was freaking him out, I was looking for a place to attack. Look at his left knee. See? It’s bigger than the right one. It’s bulging and red and the skin is pulled tight around it. It means he has an infection, which also means that if I kick it . . .”

  Henry delivered a vicious kick with his boot heel. Grendel shrieked and bent over to protect his injury.

  “Your grandpa Basil taught us to have careful eyes,” Henry continued, circling around the creature until they were nearly face-to-face. “Now, while Grendel is bent over we can get a closer look. Notice his left eye. The pupil is milkier than the right eye, which means he’s going blind in it, which also means he can’t see me as well when I’m standing on this side of his body. Which also means he can’t see this!”

  Henry punched Grendel in his left temple. The monster fell to the ground and lay there silently.

  “Whoa,” Daphne said.

  Sabrina was just as surprised. What happened to her super-careful father? Henry was a man who refused to step off the curb to hail a cab. He wouldn’t eat hot dogs from the carts in Times Square because he was afraid of food poisoning. He never left the house without antibacterial spray. Who was this . . . man of danger?

  “You knocked him out? Awww, man! Who am I supposed to throw the rest of these balloons at?” Puck complained when he landed next to the fallen monster. “It’s no fun to pelt someone when they are unconscious.”

  He threw one of his balloons at Grendel and it exploded on his cheek.

  “OK, it’s still fun, but not as much fun! If I don’t hit someone with the rest of these, they’ll go to waste.” He turned to Sabrina and grinned.

  “Don’t even think about it, dog-breath,” Sabrina warned.

  “Geez, he’s big,” Henry said as he knelt down to get a closer look at Grendel. “He’s gotta be nine feet tall and mostly muscle. Your uncle and I used to peek through the window in his door but this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to him. Some say his father was a dragon, and his mother . . .”

  “What about his mother?” Sabrina asked, unsure if she really wanted an answer.

  “Forget it. That will give you nightmares,” Henry said, standing upright again. “All right, we need to get him back to the Hall of Wonders. He’s too dangerous to be running loose—” But Henry didn’t get to finish his sentence. Grendel was up in a flash.

  “DAD!” Sabrina screamed. Henry somersaulted out of the way just as the brute’s hulking fist shattered the ground where he’d been standing. A wicked backhand followed, but Henry’s fast action avoided the blow. The tree behind him was not so lucky. It cracked in half and exploded all over the forest floor in a shower of sawdust.

  “Puck!” Henry shouted. “A little help, please.”

  The fairy blasted the creature with more of his gag bombs while buzzing around his head. Grendel swatted and roared, nearly blind from the sickly syrup, but still dangerous.

  “Girls, get back!” Henry demanded just before Grendel connected a brutal punch to his chest. Sabrina watched as her father fell to the ground and rolled violently into a nearby tree. She raced to his side and cradled his head in her lap. He was unconscious and bleeding from his left ear.

  “Is he OK?” Puck cried as he continued his assault.

  “He’s breathing, but we have to get him into the mirror,” Sabrina shouted.

  “I’ve got this covered,” Daphne said. She fumbled through the front pocket of her sweatshirt. A second later she was spilling objects onto the ground: bejeweled rings, a pair of red shoes, a few wands, and some odds and ends. “He’s messing with the wrong family.”

  “You brought magic weapons!” Sabrina exclaimed, overjoyed.

  “It’s not much. The bad guys took all the good stuff.”

  Sabrina pointed out a ring with a rose decoration cut into its clear crystal. “What’s that? Does that kill monsters?”

  “That’s the Kingmoor Ring,” Daphne said. “It stops a nose bleed.”

  “So all we’ve got is the magical equivalent of tilting your head back with a wet rag on your face?”

  “You won’t need any of those trinkets,” Puck said as he continued to taunt the monster. “I think he’s getting tired!”

  With a burst of speed, Grendel landed an uppercut so powerful it sent Puck sailing straight up into the sky and into the clouds.

  With Puck in the air and Henry knocked out, it was just the girls and Elvis versus Grendel. The big dog stood between the girls and their opponent, barking and baring his fangs, which only made the hideous creature do the same. It was a momentary distraction, but Sabrina hoped Daphne would take advantage of it.

  She turned back to her sister, praying Daphne had found a magic sword or a Sherman tank inside her pockets, but she was sorely disappointed. Daphne waved a long silver wand with a glittering star on its tip. It looked like part of a cheap Halloween costume, but Sabrina knew what it really was—a fairy godmother’s wand. She’d seen one do some amazing things, but could it stop this creature? Daphne must have gone crazy.

  When Grendel charged them, the little girl flicked her wrist. The monster vanished into a puff of purple smoke and light—then there was a loud thump, followed by a groan.

  “Daphne!” Sabrina cried through the smoke. She could barely make out her own hand in front of her face and couldn’t see Daphne at all.

  “I took care of it,” Daphne said as the haze began to dissipate. Daphne stood over the fallen Grendel, her wand in hand and Elvis by her side. Grendel squirmed and struggled to escape a formfitting silver taffeta dress.

  “I don’t think he likes the dress,” Sabrina said as Grendel ripped the gown off his back.

  “It doesn’t go with his shoes. I’ll try another,” Daphne said, flicking the wand once more. The silver gown vanished in another puff of smoke and was replaced by a clown outfit, complete with floppy yellow shoes, rainbow fright wig, and bright red nose. Grendel looked down at himself, completely perplexed.

  “Can’t you put him in a straitjacket or something?” Sabrina cried.

  “I’m trying. This isn’t as easy as it looks,” Daphne said, twirling th
e wand erratically, then zapping the creature over and over again: tuxedo with tie and tails, conquistador suit, ballerina tutu complete with tights and slippers, Raggedy Andy overalls, and a life-size banana costume complete with necktie. Each abrupt change only caused Grendel’s rage to grow, and eventually he snatched the little girl, jerking her off the ground and forcing her to drop her magic wand.

  Sabrina jumped to her feet and grabbed the magical weapon but immediately threw it to the ground. She was hit with the rolling nausea that overtook her every time she touched anything enchanted. If she held the wand much longer, she wasn’t sure what would happen. She might lose control of herself.

  She was going to have to fight Grendel without magic. But how? What had her father said about the monster’s knee? Yes, it was swollen and infected—if only she could give it one of her patented kicks to the shin. Being an orphan had taught her a lot about kicking and punching.

  “Just run to the mirror,” Daphne begged.

  Sabrina was incensed. “Now you’re doing it.”

  “Doing what?” Daphne said as she dangled high above the ground.

  “Treating me like a baby! Since when am I the helpless one in this family?”

  She wanted to rail at her sister but she realized Grendel was now standing over her, Daphne in his claw, his good eye staring at her with hungry curiosity. Slick saliva as murky as swamp water dripped from his broken, jagged teeth. His breath was like a coal oven and each blast smelled of charcoal and charred meat. When his jaw opened up to swallow her, Sabrina figured she was about to become Grendel’s breakfast.

  “I hope you choke on me!” she shouted defiantly, then swung a fist that popped the monster in the nose.

  And much to Sabrina’s surprise, Grendel cried out in agony. She looked down at her hand, unsure of her own strength. Then there was a flash of fur and claws. Something was attacking the monster, but the action was too fast to follow. Sabrina was not responsible for Grendel’s pain.