A Grimm Legacy

by Janna Jennings

  “Did your book tell you that?” Fredrick asked, glancing back at Mr. Jackson, just finishing up on Dylan. “Are you sure about this?”

  "I don’t want to ask him for help,” she said, her tone tight and clipped. She forced a more civil tone, it wasn’t Fredrick she was mad at. “I’ll tell you about the book when you get back. I promise. It’ll work.”

  He nodded once and ventured back into the fairy’s territory.

  Chapter 14

  "That would’ve been helpful to know before I disenchanted a stadium full of women.”

  Fredrick approached the castle made of glass. The panes were warped, making the objects on the other side eerie and distorted, while the sun filtering through the trees caused the glass to reflect the woods around it.

  Fredrick moved slowly, constantly checking over his shoulder. He loosened his death grip on the flower as another petal fluttered to the ground. He didn’t know if their luck in growing enchanted flowers would hold out.

  The drawbridge spanned a disgusting brown moat, open and inviting as the maw of a great fish. This made him more wary than a hedge of impenetrable briars would have.

  Unidentifiable brown lumps floated below him that he tried not to stare at. He was pretty sure he didn't want to figure out what they were. But when one of the lumps moved, he saw it was a drifting alligator that flicked its scaled tail and disappeared. Fredrick hurried across, wanting to put distance between himself and the moat. The thud of his boots reverberated on the glass as he hurried through the open portcullis.

  The only thing not made of glass caught his eye—a satellite dish perched on an outside wall, angled straight up as though desperate to get a signal in the tangle of the trees. Fredrick shook his head, wondering if they had their own channels here.

  Several flights of stairs wound from the courtyard to the battlements, and doors led off in every direction. Some he could rule out, like what was obviously an abandoned stable turned into a storage shed. Fredrick caught sight of a grandfather clock missing its pendulum sagging against the wall like a lost man, and a phonograph perched precariously on one step, a record at the ready. He considered the multitude of other doors that could lead absolutely anywhere.

  The crash and crack of something hitting flagstones made Fredrick whirl back around. The phonograph and its record were in splinters at the bottom of the stairs and a black cat twitched its tail on the stairs, completely unrepentant.

  Relief washing through him, Fredrick let out a short bark of a laugh. He scratched the cat behind the ears and it mewed for more attention.

  A murmured sound caught his ear. Fredrick shushed the cat and held his breath, still not sure if he had heard anything at all.

  The noise sounded again. This time he was sure he heard it, although he still couldn’t identify its source. Edging forward, he followed the sound, trying to keep his feet silent on the glass and his pounding heart from drowning out his only guide.

  The murmur grew louder and led him up one of the open-air staircases. The noise was still indistinguishable, but Fredrick heard repetitions and patterns that separated and soared, dropped and blended together once more.

  He wandered and wove his way through abandoned halls made of thick frosted glass, at times the noise fading so far it could have been his imagination. Only when he was thoroughly lost did he find the source of the cacophony.

  Stories below, the center of the castle opened into an enormous atrium. Balconies identical to the one Fredrick stood on spiraled around the open space, drawing the eye to a riot of color and sound. Hundreds of birds filled the space, all trying to out scream each other. Their songs echoing off the glass paneled walls created a sound like a waterfall.

  Dotted among the rainforest of trees, ferns, and vines hung cages from every available branch, while more crowded for space on the floor. Tiny golden cages held delicate canaries, finches, chickadees, and sparrows. Tremendous wooden cages large enough for Fredrick to stand in were half hidden behind massive ferns. These held the larger birds—regal macaws, coral colored ibises, peacocks, and Fredrick thought he even saw a black eagle staring at him from her own cage suspended at eye level.

  How would he ever find Quinn in all this? He looked for both Quinn and the old woman. He chuckled when he spotted the black cat that beat him into the atrium and perched among the cages in a tree, napping.

  None of the staircases led directly to the ground floor, forcing Fredrick to follow the spiral of balconies down. He ducked under a hanging branch and peered into each smaller cage suspended from the trees carefully. There was no sign of Quinn.

  He finally found a small dark bird hopping around and trilling in the company of a few finches.

  Opening the door, the birds peeped in alarm and beat their wings frantically around the tiny space, trying to elude his hand. He hadn't realized she would be this difficult to catch, especially one handed, without crushing her against the side of the cage. He snagged one delicate clawed foot and dragged her through the cage door. As soon as his hand left the confines of the cage, the finches calmed down and satisfied themselves with chirping indignantly at him from behind the bars.

  The tiny black bird flapped in frantic desperation, trying to free herself from Fredrick's grip. He pinned her wings to her sides and she settled until only the buzz of her heart gave away her anxiety. He brought up the flower and gently touched it to her head.

  A faint POP sounded and the bird was gone, but a young woman with dark hair hiding her face sprawled at his feet. She looked disoriented as she cradled her head in both her hands.

  Fredrick bent and touched her shoulder, "Quinn?"

  The woman turned and peered into his face, confused. Then she screamed. Fredrick staggered back several paces. This wasn't Quinn. The woman continued to shriek as she scrambled backward like a crab.

  "Wait, wait!" Fredrick put up both hands in surrender, one still clutching the ragged flower. He expected the old woman to appear. Seconds passed, and as time stretched, the only sound continued to be the chirps, squawks, and cries of the birds.

  The woman eyed him like a poisonous snake and asked, "Who are you?"

  "Fredrick, ma’am. I'm sorry I upset you.” he ran a hand up the back of his head self-consciously. “I'm just looking for someone."

  The woman's face brightened. "Ah, you've come to claim your lost love!"

  "No! I... She's not... she's just..." Fredrick stammered himself silent, face flaming.

  The woman hadn’t listened anyway. "I'm Salina. I've no love to come for me. I've been here for months."

  She batted her eyes in what Fredrick assumed was supposed to be a coy manner.

  "A lucky girl, to have such a handsome, devoted love." She advanced on Fredrick and his body seized up like the hag had enchanted him again.

  His throat constricted, strangling any intelligible words. He choked out, "Could you help me?" The woman was now entirely too close for comfort and Fredrick leaned back as far as he could without physically moving his feet.

  The smile Salina flashed him became a feral grin. "I suppose it is the least I can do, as a thank you for disenchanting me." Salina walked away, and as Fredrick relaxed, she threw over her shoulder, "Unless you can think of a better way for me to thank you?"

  She strutted over to the cage where she was held captive and tilted her head at the finches still trapped inside.

  "The fastest way to find her is to disenchant everyone, otherwise it's like finding a needle in a haystack." She flipped open the cage door and gave a shrill whistle. One of the finches alighted on her finger and she expertly maneuvered it out of the tiny cage. "Besides, you wouldn't leave the other girls like this, would you?" She held out the finch that examined Fredrick with beady eyes, and waited.

  He took in the room ringing with birdcalls. She was right, but this was going to take forever.

  Holding out the flower, he lightly touched the bird's head. With another POP, a middle aged ash-blonde woman sprawled at his feet; he reached to
help her up, but Salina was already holding out the next finch from the cage.

  Soon the atrium echoed with a strange combination of chirps and the high-pitched voices of women. The noise made his head pound. They might have been quieter as birds. The atrium brimmed with women of every age and size—young girls, grandmothers, redheads, blondes, brunettes, every height and color imaginable. They wandered dazed, chatting, crying, hysterically laughing, and still there were more birds.

  Salina moved expertly from cage to cage calling to them and holding them still for Fredrick, like she’d done this before. He finally admitted, if only to himself, she was an enormous help.

  He disenchanted canaries, mockingbirds, jackdaws, magpies, blue jays, and robins, but there was still no Quinn. They emptied the small cages and moved to the house-like structures holding the larger birds. Fredrick eased open the cage door and waded through cranes, flamingos, and pelicans, touching each with the mangled flower until he was knee-deep in women. He moved from cage to cage, trailed by Salina. The noise in the atrium reached rock concert levels and the women drifted away, wandering back to wherever they were before they were snatched. Still, the fairy did not appear.

  Hours later, his legs tired and his back aching, he straightened up from the secretary bird that transformed into a tall lanky girl with mousy brown hair and glasses askew on her nose, and looked for the next cage. Except there was no next cage. He turned in a slow circle. Although there were hundreds of women, there were no more birds.

  Sidling up close to him, Salina grinned another of her wolf-like grins and he shied away like a nervous horse.

  "She's not here." Fredrick tried to think about it logically. "There’s got to be somewhere else she's keeping her. Salina?"

  Salina wouldn’t look him in the eyes. "It is not unheard of for the fairy to keep a few of her favorites in her rooms."

  Fredrick's eyebrows plunged together and he tried to keep the anger out of his voice. "That would’ve been helpful to know before I disenchanted a stadium full of women. Show me."

  Her smile widened at his less than civil tone. "No.” She stepped closer, backing him into a glass wall with nowhere to escape. Fredrick stared anywhere except the unnerving woman inches from him.

  He exchanged more words in the last two days with non-relative members of the opposite sex than he ever had. He wanted to be home with his irritating, loud, familiar brothers. He felt he could handle dangerous jobs and even the bizarre new world he found himself in, if he were just spared the social situations.

  “It wouldn't do for Eulie to catch me a second time.” Salina ran one blood red fingernail down his chest. “You might not disenchant me again." She laughed at his strangled look and the beads of sweat that broke out on his forehead. She tilted her chin to a glass archway on the far wall as she backed slowly away, refusing to break eye contact. "Straight to the end of the hall.” She winked. “Good luck." Spinning away, she flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and sauntered away.

  Realizing he was strangling the crushed flower in one fist, Fredrick quickly eased up on his grip.

  He stalked through the throng of women, ignoring their squawking, and passed through the arch on the far wall. Immediately the noise level dimmed in the deserted corridor and he slowed, the low light and the chill in the air making him shiver involuntarily. There was only a bare hall of more frosted glass and the mysterious blobs of the rooms beyond. The only thing of notice was the black cat that followed him out of the atrium.

  Giving the cat another quick scratch behind her ears, Fredrick watched both ends of the hallway carefully. “Don’t suppose you know where she is?”

  The cat sat down, studiously ignoring Fredrick, and began washing a paw.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Continuing on silent feet, he glancing over his shoulder at decreasing intervals, growing more and more nervous. The noise faded and the throbbing in his head subsided.

  The corridor felt endless when he turned a sharp corner and faced a set of double doors, remarkable in the fact they were actually made of wood. Trying the handle, it swung easily inward.

  Fredrick slipped through the gap in the doors, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Body tense, the wilted flower in a death grip, he slowly circled the room. No one. He turned his attention to the corner where hanging from a hook on a ceiling, a small black bird peeped at him from behind the bars of her cage.

  "Quinn!" Fredrick said with relief.

  An angry hiss cut off his shout and he whirled to face the cat that had been trailing him. Quinn cried in alarm from the corner as the cat launched itself at his face, claws extended, its face feral and frightening. Fredrick stumbled back when the cat hit an invisible barrier a foot from Fredrick's face and bounced painfully at his feet.

  The eyes of the cat were burning coals glaring out of a feline face. Its body rippled and stretched in a ghastly and fantastic way. The eyes stayed the same, but now they glowered from the alarmingly familiar face of the old woman.

  The flower was little more than a pearl on a stem at this point. His eyes slid past the flower to Eulie, who fruitlessly scrambled at the space in front of his legs.

  She hissed at him, "She’s mine!"

  Opening Quinn's cage, Fredrick held out a hand and she hopped on obediently. With what was left of the flower, Fredrick touched her head as she closed her eyes. A faint POP, and several hundred birds later, he’d found Quinn. She looked unharmed, though there was something different about her hair. She stumbled and sagged against Fredrick, who was still struggling to hold onto the flower. The witch continued to scream, trying desperately to grab them from behind the invisible barrier.

  Quinn got her feet firmly under her and turned her dark eyes on him. "You came for me." She let out a shaky breath. "I wasn't sure anyone would."

  Fredrick let his eyes trail toward the floor and mumbled something. He’d intend to say, “You’re welcome,” but he didn’t think that was how it came out. Quinn shook her head at him and smiled.

  "Is that what's keeping her at bay?" she nodded at the flower.

  "Yeah, Andi found it," Fredrick said with a dubious look at the handful of petals.

  "Then I suggest we run, it doesn't look like it's got a lot of life left," Quinn said.

  "Right.” Fredrick adjusted his grip on the flower. “I guess it’ll work for both of us if you hold on to me," he said, already feeling the tips of his ears tingle in embarrassment.

  Quinn slid her arm through his grip until she clutched his free hand and nodded. "Let's go."

  Fredrick edged around the fairy who was making headway against the barrier.

  "Wretched flower! Where do they keep getting them?" she mumbled to herself as she pounded relentlessly at the air and another petal drifted from the flower. All three of the strange party paused to watch it twist in the air until it hit the ground and the hag lurched toward Fredrick and Quinn. She was now only inches away. The barrier was doing nothing for the smell drifting off the hag that brought back memories of garbage day in the dead of summer.

  Hands joined, they ran. Out of the room and down the corridor, their feet slapped loudly against the glass tiles as they passed through the atrium, now silent and empty. The screams of the fairy were close behind them as Fredrick tried to remember the turns he’d taken through the castle. He glanced down at the flower, but all the petals and even the stem trailed behind them like breadcrumbs. The pearl ring was the only thing left clutched in his hand. He shoved it in his pocket, readjusted his grip on Quinn, and put on a burst of speed, practically dragging Quinn with him.

  Chapter 15

  “There could be dragons and witches. If I'm right."

  Andi’s frustration at Dylan was reaching critical levels.

  “—been gone for hours, how—” Dylan started in on her.

  “What was I supposed to do? Fredrick—” Andi argued.

  “Shouldn’t have gone,” Dylan said.

  If he interrupted her one more time, she
was going to punch him.

  Breaking through the edge of the trees, Quinn collapsed on the ground while nearby Fredrick doubled over his knees. Andi tried asking what happened, but Mr. Jackson broke in, herding them away from the trees.

  "Explanations will have to wait. Eulie doesn't usually wander far from her castle, but she may be more…" here he paused as Quinn and Fredrick panted, "irked than usual. Good job, though," he said, extending a hand to Fredrick.

  Fredrick gripped his hand briefly, the surprise plain on his face. Andi could see him wanting to rely on Mr. Jackson, but he didn’t know about the book. The secretive millionaire couldn’t be trusted.

  A hiss sounded from across the street. An old-fashioned coach bellowed steam into the air. This one was minus its horse and hitch, with what looked like a brass hot water heater strapped to the back, making it odd and unbalanced.

  Wind whipped a hole in the cloud of steam and she caught a glimpse of a bear of a man climbing into the driver's seat. Mr. Jackson strode toward the strange vehicle. Andi followed, still unsteady and wary of the odd contraption.

  “What about your… car?” Dylan asked reluctantly, glancing back at the destroyed Impala.

  “Forget it. There’s no way your presence hasn’t been noticed. We need to get you out of here before others come looking.”

  Mr. Jackson waved them into the open double doors of the carriage. Andi ducked her heads and slid onto the leather-upholstered seats with the others.

  The carriage gave an enormous lurch before the doors were fully closed. They banged shut, sliding Andi down on the seat into Dylan. The motorcycle sputtered to life behind them and followed the coach at a measured pace.

  "Your hair!" Andi leaned forward and twitched a sweaty lock over Quinn’s shoulder. "It must have grown half a foot in the last few hours."