Quinn stared at the lock of black hair as if it was foreign to her. It now hovered a few inches above her waist.
"It's always grown fast, but this ridiculous," Quinn scoffed. She bundled it into a knot at her neck, like that could fix whatever was going on.
Andi caught her eye and saw the worry hidden there, but Quinn smiled and shrugged it off.
"Getting dragged from one world into another probably messed with it,” she tapped the door of the carriage and changed the subject. "What is this thing?"
On the inside of the carriage, gears whirred and spun where they shouldn't be. Set flush into the leather of the ceiling, doors, and floors, appearing sporadically, were springs and cogs with mysterious purposes. They turned and clicked, the muted rhythm making them feel like they were riding inside a giant clock.
"Horseless carriage?" Dylan guessed with a grin.
"Not really sure,” Andi responded. “It drove by and Mr. Jackson flagged it down.”
"Weird,” Fredrick rode his finger around a ticking brass cog just above his head.
"There's a lot we need to catch up on where there aren’t extra ears listening in." Andi reached into the satchel still riding on her hip and pulled out her copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
"You keep looking in that,” Fredrick said, leaning toward her, his eyebrows raised in question.
Andi nodded, her gray eyes a solemn contrast to her bouncing curls. "It’s why we're here. This," she tapped the cover, "is where we are."
"That's—” Dylan protested.
"Don't say impossible, not after the day we've had. She flipped the book open. “Wait until you hear this.” She cleared her throat and began reading. “There was once an old castle that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. All the day long she flew about in the form of an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always became an old woman again—”
"It's a coincidence,” Dylan interrupted her.
Snapping the book shut, Andi gave him an annoyed look for interrupting.
“That can't be the only story with a castle and a fairy..." Fredrick trailed off, staring at the book in Andi's lap.
She shook her head, but knew how they felt. She’d hated admitting it too. "You were out cold for some of it Dylan, it's all in here.
"And that’s not the only story in the book?” Quinn clarified.
Andi shook her head, “There are dozens.”
“Then all these people are characters in your book,” Quinn said, glancing up to where the driver sat.
"Including Mr. Jackson," Fredrick pointed out. "But who is he?”
"I've been trying to figure it out, but it doesn't fit any of the more famous stories I know. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty,” Andi said, listing off on her fingers. “But there are a lot of lesser-known stories he could be part of, like Jorinda and Jorindel. I won't know until I've sat down and read through it.”
“Those are all real people, wandering around here somewhere? Are we going to bump into fairy godmothers, evil witches, and fire breathing dragons?" Dylan tried to ask lightly, but his eyes were deadly serious.
"Not everything has a Disney version,” Andi said with a smirk.
“Then I’m in trouble,” Dylan said, with that odd forgetful movement toward his head again.
It occurred to Andi he was probably used to wearing a hat. "But... yeah. There could be dragons and witches,” she said. “If I'm right."
"Does everyone realize they’re part of a story?” Quinn asked, wrinkling her forehead.
"I don't think so. I got the impression from Jorindel and Jorinda that Mr. Jackson knows more than the average person living here," Andi told Quinn.
"How does he know? From his master?" Fredrick asked.
"Maybe. We won't know for sure until we see more of this place, and its people." Andi ran her hands around the perimeter of the book as if it were a lamp that might give up a genie with some answers.
The rhythm of the cogs changed and they slowed almost imperceptibly. She glanced out the window. The endless green of the pine forest gave way to the glare and glitter of a city. She shut the book and leaned toward the window, tilting her head up to try and catch the top of the buildings. The others noticed her preoccupation and crowded the windows on either side.
“We aren’t going back to the mansion?” Quinn asked, watching two roosters strut across the street in a cross walk.
“Mr. Jackson is taking us to his place in the city. By the time he caught up with us we were much closer to here than the mansion.”
City noise drifted into the carriage. The cacophony of conversation, screeching brakes, honking horns, music, and shoes clicking by on the sidewalk would have fit right into any modern day city sprawl, but tucked into these familiar sounds were reminders they were not at home; the nicker of a horse, the puff and hiss of steam, the creak of wooden wheels.
The scene outside looked as if New York had gone through some kind of time warp. Electronic billboards flickered on and off, advertisements for things from indoor plumbing to the newest model of car. Cars and carriages shared the street with bicycles weaving their way through the traffic. They saw every manner of dress and person imaginable. Short elves like Cob and Harland hurried along the sidewalks in top hats and tails. Perched on a lamppost, out of the way of passing feet, miniature men and women no bigger than a thumb spoke into cellphone so small they looked like toys. A donkey, rooster, and dog sat on a street corner and serenaded a small circle of onlookers.
"Now that’s weird,” Dylan said, his eyes riveted on the singing animals as they slowly chugged by. “What kinds of stories did you say are in that book, Andi?"
They pulled to a stop in front of a modern, glass fronted high rise that looked nearly normal, except for the 20 stories of pink tinted glass, whose reflections made the buildings around it glow an unnatural hue.
As soon as the carriage glided to a stop, Mr. Jackson pulled open the double doors and hustled them from the strange vehicle, under an awning, and through a set of revolving doors. A non-descript young man slouched against the outside of the building, watching their group intently. When he caught Andi’s gaze, he quickly looked away. They passed a bewildered doorman, to whom Mr. Jackson tossed his helmet, and when Andi looked back at the young man, he was gone.
They hurried through the lobby so fast Andi only got a glimpse of grandeur and wild colors before they were shoved into an elevator.
The elevator doors slid closed and Mr. Jackson seemed to relax as he hit the button for the penthouse on the panel of buttons.
"Sorry for the rush. The less people you four come in contact with, the better." Mr. Jackson slumped a little against the wall as the numbers flicked by.
"German," Andi said suddenly into the silence, turning to Mr. Jackson. "The Grimm brothers were German."
Mr. Jackson smiled at her. "Quite right," he said with the accent she now recognized as German as the doors of the elevator slid open.
Part III
Jack and the Beanstalk
“From the ground right up beside his window there was growing a great beanstalk, which stretched up and up as far as he could see, into the sky.”
Chapter 16
“A giant.”
Fredrick took in the acres of space and walls of windows overlooking the sprawling city as Harland appeared beside the door.
"Nice to see you again, young masters." He bowed low and took their coats before they could really collect themselves. He reached for Andi's cloak and received a glare in response, before gliding to the next in line.
"Wait." Dylan turned to the knee-high elf. "How did you get here?"
Harland grinned. "Elves can simply be wherever they wish to."
"You mean you just popped out of thin air? I wish our trip was that uneventful." Dylan reached up and rubbed his head.
“Taking things without permission can have… unpleasant consequences,” Harland said mildly before disappe
aring with their jackets. Dylan frowned after him.
"Harland will see that you get dinner and are shown to your rooms. We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Mr. Jackson said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things to prepare.”
After dinner, Fredrick stumbled into the guest room he and Dylan would be sharing. The girls were in an identical set-up across the hall.
He laid in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark long after Dylan started snoring on the other side of the room. Exhaustion dragged at his eyelids, but possible scenarios of tomorrow looped through his head, denying him sleep for a long time.
Fredrick awoke to the penthouse being ripped apart. Disoriented in the dark, a creaking and groaning vibrated though the room as it lurched to one side, then another. Steel beams squealed in protest and they snapped like twigs. Fredrick stared in shock, clutching his rocking bed until chunks of the ceiling started to fall around him.
Dylan’s cry of, “What the—?” spurned him in to action and he scrambled to the floor, wedging himself under the bed. Dylan did the same across the room.
The room continued to fall to pieces around them when one of the girls started to scream. Quinn!
Slithering out from under the bed, he dodged debris, wrenching on the door of the guest room. It stuck fast and Fredrick saw where one of the supporting two-by-fours had fallen across the frame. He shoved against the board pinning him in the room.
“Dylan!” he called frantically.
Another scream, definitely Quinn.
Joining him at the door, Dylan shoved his shoulder against the board and grunted, “Push!”
“Where are the rest of them, Jack?” Bellowed a male voice that shook his eardrums and vibrated through his body.
The board shifted and Fredrick shouldered open the door just enough for him and Dylan to slide into the hall. Moonlight streamed in, the roof having been completely torn off. Fredrick dodged the dump truck-sized object that came swinging at him from above, flattening himself against Dylan and pressing into the doorway.
Pops of gunfire flared farther into the apartment. Fredrick froze, praying he wasn’t the target of the gunman. The flashes of gunpowder that lit up the shambles of the apartment illuminated things that at first didn’t make any sense. A shoulder the size of a large boulder, an ear that could have doubled as a satellite dish, and a heavy browed, brown eye with the same dimensions as a serving platter.
“A giant,” Fredrick gasped, drowned out by the ricochet of the bullets.
The impossibly loud voice roared again and the building listed to the side as if being pushed by an invisible force before bouncing back into place, tossing both boys to the floor. It continued to shudder as the giant climbed down. Fredrick could here his footfalls pounding away, shaking the ground beneath their very feet.
In the silence that followed a small clatter of fumbling fingers in the dark was the hiss and flare of a match. Fredrick squinted in the sudden light of a hurricane lamp. It illuminated Mr. Jackson’s face and the small pistol in his other hand.
“Are you okay?” he said, hurrying to Fredrick and Dylan, who were trying to untangle themselves from each other and find their feet.
“A giant? A real giant?” Dylan repeated stupidly, staring out the hole where the roof used to be.
“Quinn! Where’s Quinn?!” Fredrick asked, trying to shove into the remains of the girl’s room across the hall.
“She’s gone,” a shaky voice said behind Mr. Jackson. Andi came out of the gloom, looking like the victim of a mine collapse. “He took her.”
“What does he want with her?” Fredrick asked, turning on Mr. Jackson.
“He wanted all of you,” Mr. Jackson said shortly, tucking the gun into the waistband of his sweatpants and picking his way to the front of the apartment in his bare feet. “I was not as careful as I should have been. My master sent someone else to collect you.”
“Why didn’t he take Andi?” Dylan asked, trailing after Mr. Jackson with the other two.
“I wasn’t in the room,” Andi said, climbing over an entire wall that was blocking the hallway.
“Where’s Harland?” Dylan asked, peering around the trampled apartment.
“I sent him home when the attack began,” Mr. Jackson said, holding up the lantern to illuminate a large piece of furniture blocking their way. “He’s involved himself in this mess too much already.”
“A giant,” Fredrick said again, watching Mr. Jackson shove aside the dresser so they could slip by. “He called you Jack. As in Jack and the Beanstalk,” he said, almost as an accusation.
“That’s one of the names I’ve been known by,” Mr. Jackson said dismissively. “We’ve got to get you out of here.” He bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairs. “Bullets are about as painful as a bee sting to a giant. Either he’ll be back or someone else will come hunting for you.”
“Wait, what about Quinn?” Fredrick asked, putting on the breaks at the entrance to the stairs.
Mr. Jackson sighed and turned to face them. “He’ll have taken her to his ancestral home for safe keeping until my master can collect her. It’s nearly impossible to reach.”
“So we’re just going to leave her there?” Fredrick demanded.
Mr. Jackson took a step toward him. “My priority is getting you home.”
Fredrick narrowed his eyes at the man. He couldn’t begin to guess at this man’s motivations; he was still a stranger, an unknown.
“Why? Why do you care what happens to us?”
Andi stepped up beside Fredrick and studied Mr. Jackson’s face. “Not us, just you,” she said quietly to Fredrick.
“I have my reasons,” Mr. Jackson said shortly, trying to usher them out the door.
“No,” Fredrick took a step back into the apartment. “I’ll go after her by myself if I have to. I’m not just leaving her.”
“You have no idea what you’re up against,” Mr. Jackson said forcefully, reaching a hand toward him like he intended to physically restrain him. “He is not like that fairy, Eulie.”
“I don’t know what’s waiting for me, but I’d have a better chance at getting her back with your help,” Fredrick challenged him, folding his arms tight across his chest.
Mr. Jackson watched Fredrick a moment, his expression unreadable, and glanced up at the open sky.
“Follow me.”
Chapter 17
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
Fredrick lost count of the dozens of floors they walked down. The building was strangely silent, absent of other residence and emergency personnel that would be swarming this place had they been in Fredrick’s world.
The basement was a concrete bunker tucked underground—one large, open space the size of Mr. Jackson’s entire apartment with metal shelves and storage boxes crisscrossed in dozens of aisles. Rolling open a chain link fence, Mr. Jackson quickly pulled things off of shelves, tossing them in a pile near the entrance.
“Find something that fits,” Mr. Jackson said, nodding at a stack of clothes before speeding to another box in another aisle and unearthing more gear.
They were all still barefoot, and in Dylan’s case bare chested, in their night things. Andi bent down and picked through the selection, all black.
“Everything’s too big,” she grumbled, throwing a t-shirt and leggings over her shoulder and finding an empty aisle to change in.
Dylan snagged a strange combination of pinstriped dress pants and a leather jacket, hurrying after her. “She’ll probably need help,” he winked at Fredrick, who silently snagged his arm, forcing Dylan to stay. He groaned in protest.
Mr. Jackson came back with an armload of things: backpacks, wads of money, first aid kits, parachutes, helmets, and an impressive array of weapons that made his pistol look like a child’s toy.
“What is all this?” Fredrick asked.
“I told you she wasn’t going to be easy to get to,” Mr. Jackson said shortly, rummaging around until he came up with a wi
cked looking machete as long as Fredrick’s forearm. He slid it in a sheath and tossed it to a surprised Fredrick along with a belt. “That’s going to work better than the gun. The draw back is you don’t ever want to be close enough to use it.”
“Yikes,” Andi said, coming around the corner with her borrowed pants cuffed three or four times so she could walk. She watched Fredrick fumble with the belt and the knife. “Are we going after Quinn or skinning deer?”
“You’re not coming,” Mr. Jackson said, jamming a helmet on Fredrick’s head and checking the fit.
“Why not?” Andi asked indignantly.
“There’s only room for myself and one more.” Mr. Jackson turned to Fredrick, “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
“No, I’m pretty used to them, actually. Why?” Fredrick asked.
Mr. Jackson dug a small remote out of the pile of gear and hit the single red button. With a grinding noise, a slice of early morning light appeared at the far end of the bunker. One of the walls slowly lifted, revealing a WWI Stearman biplane parked on a short runway.
“Because that’s our ride.”
The world spun by from the dizzying height of the small, open cockpit. A bird’s eye view made it easy to see the swath of destruction, the dozens of smashed buildings and toppled billboards the giant left through the city.
Up ahead, their destination came into view: an island in the sky.
The floating island below them was a tall, craggy piece of mountain someone dug out of the earth with a giant spade. Roots were left dangling from it as it hung in the sky. At one edge, the mountains sloped into a grass covered plain, too small for a plane to land, and a single tower that stood watch over the island like a soldier at attention.
Wasn’t there supposed to be a beanstalk to climb up? In the story, Jack had cut it down. From his position behind the pilot’s seat, Fredrick studied the back of Mr. Jackson’s head. Had he really done that?
A Grimm Legacy Page 10
