A Grimm Legacy

by Janna Jennings

"Hey!" Fredrick screamed.

  She jabbed an elbow into a guard’s face, connecting hard with his cheek. He shook head like an angry dog and came at her with the butt of his gun raised.

  "Andi!” Fredrick screamed. “Stop! You've gotta stop!"

  Slowing her wild swinging, she considered the end of the guard’s gun. Her options had run out. She contented herself with glaring viciously at her captors and trying to contain the full body trembling she couldn’t seem to control.

  Dame Gothel strolled from the other side of the tower, the wolves heeling like well-trained dogs.

  "Lovely," she exclaimed, her green eyes drinking in the scene with a smile. "Shall we go?"

  The guard with a malicious sneer thrust the solid oak stock of his shotgun directly at Andi’s head.

  Chapter 35

  "I swear, entitlement hangs off every single one of you like a stench."

  Fredrick paced another lap in the cramped, airless cellar. It was a nervous habit of his and there was plenty to be concerned about. He strode by a barrel of apples, countless jars of vegetables stacked on shelves, and a single candle that guttered as he passed by. Andi groaned from her post, propped against a sack of potatoes on the hard packed dirt.

  "Stop, Fredrick. You’re making me dizzy,” she pleaded clutching at her head. “Plus, if you make that candle go out, I'll also be claustrophobic, and neither of us wants to experience that."

  "Let him be," Quinn said from her perch on another barrel. The contents were unknown, but Fredrick heard sloshing from within. "If there was enough room, I'd be pacing too."

  Andi threw up her hands in mock surrender. She staggered to the deep freezer hunched in a corner. Snagging three ice cream bars, she let the lid bang shut and tossed a few to the others, putting her own on her throbbing head.

  “Ahh, that’s better.”

  Andi wasn’t sure about this bizarre world where magical trees handed out formal wear and princes kept deep freezes full of ice cream in their medieval castles. It might be an okay place if the people that lived here weren’t bent on imprisoning them.

  The tiny wooden door to the cellar flew open and one of the hawk nosed palace guards shoved his face in the doorway. “Get up you lot. Herrchen is ready to see you."

  With the door finally open, Fredrick moved slowly, his eyes searching out potential danger. Andi tossed her half melted ice cream to the guard and shoved past him as Quinn tried smoothing the wrinkles out of her ruined dress.

  "Dylan is still out there somewhere,” Fredrick whispered to Quinn, heading up the stairs to their unknown fate. “He could get us out of this.”

  He blinked when the bright sunlight from the window hit his eyes. It had been a miserable night trying to sleep in the frigid underground room. Although it stung his sensitive eyes, the morning light was a welcome relief.

  "I stink,” Andi said to no one in particular, taking in her filthy clothes in the harsh reality of daylight.

  Fredrick still wasn’t sure where they were. The cold stone walls didn’t offer many clues, and the single window showed a forest of pine trees that had so far been everywhere in Elorium.

  They shuffled through a wooden door and filed into a large room towering with windows and early sunlight. It was either a small library or an enormous study. Books lined every surface—the walls and tops of tables. The precarious stacks on the floor inadvertently erected a short maze. Dominant in the middle of the room sat a heavy mahogany desk, big enough to nap on.

  Fredrick frowned at the pattern on the rug and the shape of the windows, craning his neck to see if the view from here would give him a clue to where they were. He caught sight of the garden and the tree he’d stepped out of only two nights ago. They were back at Prince Wilhelm’s castle.

  “Feels like we just left this place, right?”

  Dylan stood in the middle of the landslide of books with his right arm pulled awkwardly across his chest. The girls sandwiched him between them in a hug, making him gasp before they noticed his broken wrist. Fredrick strode over and clapped him on the shoulder, relieved. He didn't even try to make himself heard over the girls’ exclamations of "Where were you!" and "What happened?"

  "I'm glad to see you’re well."

  Fredrick spun around, searching for the source of the newcomer’s voice.

  Mr. Jackson emerged from the shadow of a pile of books. The girls stuttered to silence. His hair was a bird’s nest, and his normally impeccable clothes looked as though he’d slept for several days in a cellar. He sported two black eyes and numerous other small lacerations on his face, neck, and hands. And those were just the injuries Fredrick could see.

  "What are you doing here?" Fredrick asked.

  "Jack here needed to be brought in and reminded who he works for. He’s been unwilling to follow orders, as of late." A stranger stood from behind the desk. His work sat interrupted, a quill and bottle of ink lay beside scattered sheets of parchment. "He needed a bit of… persuasion to come and finish what he started."

  The small man's dress was immaculate; cravat bleached white and tied with precision under a rich vest and a dark suit coat with wide lapels. The entire ensemble looked like it had been starched with him in it. Every wave of his dark hair was perfectly in place, and he glared down at them from behind his thin, pointed nose.

  "But I believe we understand each other better now, don't we Jack?" the man asked emphatically.

  "Yes, Herrchen," Mr. Jackson said in a clear voice, although he addressed his feet. He briefly looked at Fredrick with helplessness and fear plain on his face, then quickly back at his toes. The glance was lost on Herrchen, who clasped his hands behind his back and strode out from the behind the desk.

  "My, my, you do look like you've been roughing it, Cynthia."

  The last person in the room, a silhouette that detached itself from the bright light of the window behind the desk, stepped forward. Wilhelm’s handsome face came into the light. Andi stood next to Dylan and took his uninjured hand and, as a pair, they glared in his direction.

  Prince Wilhelm only chuckled at her burning gaze. "Now, don't be like that, Andi. I can be perfectly charming if you behave yourself."

  "You do know who I am,” she accused him.

  "While the resemblance to your grandmother is remarkable, only a fool would be confused. And I am no fool." His eyes narrowed and Fredrick remembered all too clearly the idiot she made him look when she ran away. "You are very—human. I swear, entitlement hangs off every single one of you like a stench."

  "Not now, Wilhelm." Herrchen waved away his banter without a backward glance. “I’m not happy to have to come here and sort this out myself. It has made for a long night.”

  The prince straightened himself and came to stand beside his master. Quinn bumped Fredrick quietly with her hip, nodding in the direction of the desk. He caught a glimpse of Andi’s pack—missing since their arrest—half propped up against one of the desk legs. Fredrick raised an eyebrow at Quinn in acknowledgement.

  "You four…” Herrchen glared up his nose at them. “No, five," he added as he included Mr. Jackson in his glare, "have made quite the mess for me to clean up."

  "I'm sorry," Quinn interrupted, not sounding sorry at all, "but who are you?"

  Herrchen turned as if noticing her for the first time. "I am Herrchen, the master of these lands. It is my responsibility to keep them running in the proper manner. And as I have said, you five have mucked that up."

  "You're the one who yanked us out of our world," Dylan accused him.

  "I did, as is my right. Despite several explicit commands—one being for Jack to bring you straight here—you seem to have gone astray.” He leveled a ferocious glare at Mr. Jackson, who met his eyes impassively. "More than once.” Herrchen shifted his gaze to Wilhelm, who looked bored with the entire conversation.

  “He has managed to keep you from me, until now that is. You picked up some very bad habits in their world, Jack."

  "What do you mean it's your right to pl
uck us from our homes and bring us here?"

  Quinn's question lapped over the top of Fredrick's asking, "You're from our world?"

  Herrchen's gaze flipped toward the ceiling as if looking for patience among the rafters. He addressed Wilhelm lounging next to his desk. "This is the problem with humans. They’re used to having a say in everything. It gives one a headache."

  "Tell me about it." Wilhelm raised an eyebrow at Andi, who scowled so deeply that the loathsome prince should have burst into flames.

  "Your grandparents belonged to me, they were my property to dictate my will upon!" Herrchen thundered down the row of people, his accusatory finger finding each of them. "As the children of their children, you are also mine to command. They left holes in their stories, ones needing to be filled, and if it hadn't taken me more than fifty years to find those conniving usurpers, I would have hauled their sorry selves back here."

  He’d worked himself into lather now, and a few careful waves of hair began to droop as Fredrick listened in horrified fascination.

  "But they had the audacity to grow old and die, leaving me with you three," he said, his wildly gesturing hand took in Andi, Quinn, and Dylan. "Which I would have made work, except you are so, so... human!"

  "You can't command us,” Fredrick blurted out.

  The others looked at him like he’d lost it.

  "Remember what Rumplestiltskin said when we turned down his offer? 'How can you just walk away like that?'"

  Andi caught on. "It's because we're human. We have a will, we have choices."

  Herrchen pulled himself together, smoothing back his hair and straightening his coat as he sneered at them. "Yes, choices that have made my life nothing but a circus since you landed in Elorium."

  "Sounds to me like you need to work on your management skills. You don't strike me as a people person,” Dylan quipped.

  Herrchen snapped his fingers and Wilhelm came around the desk and kidney punched Dylan before anyone could blink. Stepping back, he smiled down at the doubled over teenager as the others crowded around.

  "It may be funny to you now, Mr. Peterson, but we'll see what 200 years under your grandmother's thumb does for your sense of humor."

  “You’re crazy,” Andi said, her voice a sharp hiss. One of her arms wrapped protectively around Dylan, who was still bent over in pain.

  Herrchen waved Wilhelm toward the door, not even pretending to listen or care. “We leave in ten minutes, make the necessary preparations."

  "Wait!" Andi called at his retreating back. "Where are you taking us?"

  Herrchen raised a well-groomed eyebrow. "I thought I made myself clear. You're going back to where you belong, even if I have to chain you there." Wilhelm gave Andi an oily smile as he strode out the door. “Back to your stories.”

  "Where am I going? I don't seem to have a story." Fredrick's quiet question brought a look of delight to Herrchen's face and a hard edge to Mr. Jackson's.

  "He doesn’t know?" Herrchen asked Mr. Jackson. “I guess that would have been a difficult conversation to have.” He addressed Fredrick again. "I will keep you with me as assurance Jack will behave. I think I'll leave it to your grandfather to explain." He strode out the door, leaving two guards flanking the only way out.

  "No," Fredrick shook his head at the man who suddenly came into focus as familiar. The green eyes and dark hair, the slight build… He could have been a cross between Fredrick and his father. "That can't be true. My grandfather disappeared—"

  "—when your dad was five," Mr. Jackson finished for him. He took a step toward Fredrick. "Let me explain.”

  Fredrick continued to mutely shake his head at him. Mr. Jackson calmly soldiered on, like the words have been waiting decades to come out.

  “Your grandmothers were best friends." He nodded at Andi and Quinn. "Cynthia was a sweet natured girl, never getting riled and always patient, even with her step-family." Andi grimaced as he continued. "She was over the moon when she found out she was supposed to marry Prince Wilhelm… until she found out what he was really like."

  "You don't need to tell me,” Andi said.

  "She felt trapped. The hazel tree that grew on her mother’s grave always aided Cindy when she needed it. It was as if her mother was trying to make up for leaving her so young to such a hard life. That’s where the cloak and the shoes came from, tools for escaping from the prince and her supposed 'happily ever after.'”

  Mr. Jackson began pacing along an aisle of books. It was disconcerting for Fredrick to see one of his nervous habits on someone else.

  “She came up with a plan, determined to take as many people with her as she could. Quietly, she began by sending out feelers, asking around to see who else was unhappy, who else would be willing to change their lives. Rapunzel was miserable with her prince as well, so she was an obvious choice. I heard about Cynthia’s plans from my mother who worked as a cook in the castle when I was young. She used to buy fish at the local market, which is where she knew your grandfather from, Dylan. By the time everything was in place, we had four in total,” Mr. Jackson said.

  "You decided to just leave? I thought Elorians didn't have a will of their own?" Fredrick asked.

  "It’s not that simple," Mr. Jackson wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  "But you knew about our world from the book,” Quinn said.

  "No," Mr. Jackson shook his head. "I had no idea about the fairy tales until I stumbled across a copy of it in your world. Apparently, Cynthia did as well. We knew another world beside ours existed because Cynthia had seen the queen's magic mirror. Wilhelm is terrible at keeping secrets—”

  “He managed to keep a pretty big one from me,” Andi interrupted.

  “Cynthia's mother gave her the shoes as a way to not only see into the mirror, but pass through it as well. We met at the appointed time and broke into the castle. We almost didn't make it. Your grandfather," Mr. Jackson nodded at Dylan, "could not bear to leave his wife behind and tried to convince her to come. She raised the alarm instead and your grandfather ran, taking his infant son with him. "

  "How did you get back here?" Fredrick asked, as if afraid of the answer.

  Mr. Jackson opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again with a frustrated look.

  “You owe me a few answers, and we’re about out of time,” Fredrick pushed him.

  “I panicked!” Mr. Jackson rested his head in his hands and was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his tormented words were difficult to listen to. "I thought my family would be better off without me. I ran back to this place.” He picked his head up from his hands and looked around the room, but his eyes were haunted and distant. “Here I’m both tormented and liberated. Not having to make decisions—when they’re difficult ones—can be a tempting thing. In Elorium, I had no responsibilities, no worries. It was, obviously, a mistake.”

  His eyes found Fredrick’s. They didn’t plead or make excuses—they looked tortured. Fredrick tried to hide his look of shock and anguish, but knew he wasn’t completely erasing the emotion from his face. His grandfather had abandoned his family.

  Torn between pity and revulsion, he avoided Jack’s gaze, pulling out the ring that had made up the center of the strange purple flower and worried it in his hands.

  “Do you know what it did to Dad when you left?” Fredrick spoke in a calm, tight voice, still not meeting his eyes. “Do you know how much we’ve needed you this past year?”

  “I regretted it,” Mr. Jackson said matter-of-factly. “Immediately I regretted it. I tried to get back, but I couldn’t figure out how without Cynthia’s shoes. I even tried calling to warn you. The cell phones here are spotty at the best of times, and I didn’t even know if it was possible to call another world—” Jack said.

  “It was you!” Andi shouted, remembering the strange phone call she’d gotten on the roof. “I got a weird call the day I disappeared!”

  “Wait, we could have called our parents?” Quinn asked, looking floored. “Why didn’t we?�
�

  “What exactly would have told them?” Andi pointed out. “Hey Dad, got sucked into a fairy tale world, be back as soon as I can?”

  “You may have a point,” Quinn conceded.

  "I was accepting of my punishment, to mindlessly follow another’s orders for eternity.” What remained of Mr. Jackson was a shell, a leftover husk of a man eaten away by guilt for half a century. “Then Herrchen ordered me to bring you to him. And when you showed up on my doorstep, it was the worst and best day of my life." He moved as though to take Fredrick’s hands in his, but his eyes fell to the ring Fredrick turned around in his fingers. His drawn face turned a pasty white as he whispered, "Where’d you get that?"

  Chapter 36

  "Ummm... we were just looking for the bathroom?"

  Andi hadn’t realized he’d kept the ring. She plucked it from Fredrick’s hand and balanced the circle of gold between two fingers so that it caught the morning light.

  “What, this?"

  "It's the center of the flower I used to free Quinn from the fairy,” Fredrick said. “The rest of it disintegrated, but this was left behind."

  "I didn't realize..." Mr. Jackson got an urgent look on his face as voices echoed in the hall. "Do any of you know where the queen's magic mirror is?"

  Andi shrugged, but Dylan raised his hand like a reluctant student. "I know which corridor to go down. I was right outside of it when I got jumped."

  "Hold hands." Mr. Jackson grabbed the ring from Andi, ignoring her protests and shoved it into Dylan's good hand. "It’s a wishing ring! One person gets one wish. It won’t take you home, but it’ll take you to the mirror."

  The door swung inward. He vaulted across the room and rammed his body into the door, slamming it back shut. The howl from outside said he caught someone's fingers in the door. Andi stood numb, frozen to her spot.

  "Move!" Mr. Jackson screamed, leaning all his weight into the bucking door. Andi leapt to the desk, retrieving her bag from the floor. Dylan stared at the ring, a doubtful expression on his face. Quinn hung on to his good hand and grabbed an alarmed Fredrick with the other as he tried to cross the room to his grandfather.