The Fairy-Tale Detectives Page 5

  “And it’s spreading,” a voice said from behind them. Sabrina turned and saw Morgan le Fay approaching with a basket of herbs and berries. Morgan was a curvy beauty and quite glamorous, with the kind of face you might see in an old black-and-white movie. Even wearing a hard hat and overalls, she was a stunner. Seven rushed to her side and when the woman knelt down to his height, he planted a kiss on her that made everyone blush.

  “Mom, please!” Mordred groaned from the corner, where he’d finally subdued the water tower. “Can you two give it a rest?”

  “Sorry, honey,” Morgan said. “My darling boyfriend has swept me off my feet. In fact, he popped the question last night. We’re getting married!”

  “As soon as everything calms down,” Seven explained.

  Puck flapped up to the happy couple. “Wait a minute! You have to ask someone to marry you? No one told me that! I thought you just hit them with a club and dragged them back to your cave!”

  Henry put his arm around Sabrina. “You’re officially grounded from ever getting married.”

  “Thank you,” Sabrina whispered sincerely.

  Charming grumbled. “All this kissing and hugging is becoming quite tiresome. There is serious work to do here. The west wall needs fortifying. The armory is still not ready. The stables need cleaning. We can’t move into the castle until it’s complete. And these two are running off at the drop of a hat to stare into each other’s eyes!”

  “I seem to recall a certain handsome prince doing the same with me last night,” Snow White said from the doorway of one of the cabins. It seemed you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some gorgeous princess or exotic enchantress around here, but Snow White was in a class all by herself. Her skin was creamy and flawless. Her hair was as black as night and her lips were full and pink. She wrapped her arms around Charming and planted a kiss on his cheek. He looked as if her touch made him dizzy.

  “Snow, I—”

  Snow giggled. “I’m just teasing, Casanova.”

  “Harrumph!” Charming said, though he did flash a hint of a smile. The prince and Snow White had a long, complicated relationship. Hundreds of years ago she left him at the altar. In the centuries since, he married Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. None of those marriages had worked out, and Sabrina suspected the reason was Snow. Even after countless centuries, William Charming could not get her out of his system.

  “Come to join the army?” Snow asked the Grimms.

  “No,” Henry said. “We’re here to see Jacob.”

  Snow White’s smile disappeared. “Oh. Henry, maybe you want to leave the girls here with me.”

  Henry looked to Veronica. “Maybe—”

  Sabrina interrupted. “Sure, Dad. That is, if you can trust us out of your sight.”

  “We do have a tendency to get into shenanigans,” Daphne said.

  Henry frowned. “No, they’ll stay with me.”

  Daphne shared a knowing wink with Sabrina.

  As they continued their walk along the perimeter of the fortress, the group came across Gepetto, who, despite his advanced age, was splitting firewood with an ax. Pinocchio watched him for several moments, silently, as if preparing for a big speech. Finally, he sputtered out, “Papa?” like a little boy. Sabrina realized immediately it wasn’t a speech Pinocchio was readying—it was a performance.

  “Pinocchio!” Gepetto dropped a handful of wood and rushed to the little boy. He scooped him up in his arms and showered him with kisses. “My son! My son!”

  Pinocchio hugged the old man and forced a few tears. “Oh, Papa! I thought . . . Oh, it’s too terrible to say.”

  Sabrina and Daphne looked at each other in bewilderment.

  “And the Oscar goes to . . . ,” Sabrina said.

  “Papa, you have no idea how bad things have been for me,” Pinocchio cried. “These horrible people expect me to sleep on the floor and they are incredibly rude! We’re living on rice and—”

  “I know what you did, son,” Gepetto said.

  Suddenly, the crocodile tears dried from Pinocchio’s face. “Then—then—you have to hear my side of the story,” he stammered.

  “Your side of the story is that you betrayed a family I consider amongst my dearest friends. You helped to loot and destroy their home, leaving them with nothing. You conspired with their mortal enemy—my mortal enemy. You helped a . . . a monster who tried to steal the body of a little boy and when that failed took Relda Grimm for his puppet. You remember what it was like to be controlled by a master, and yet you allowed it to happen to someone else!”

  “Mirror promised to turn me into a man.”

  “A man! What makes you think you are ready to be a man? Do you think playing chess and reading big books without pictures makes you a man? It takes more than the interests of an adult to make you one. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Blue Fairy’s spell keeps you as a child until you are ready to grow up. Is that something you’ve ever considered? Perhaps you are too immature!”

  “Papa, please,” Pinocchio cried. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand perfectly. I have failed you as a father, but that is going to change as of this moment. You are going to become a good person. I’m going to make sure of it or I will speak to the Blue Fairy myself and have her turn you back into a puppet!”

  “I was a marrion—”

  “Your first lesson is to shut your mouth when your father is speaking to you!” Gepetto roared.

  “Why, you act like you don’t love me anymore, Father.” Pinocchio whimpered.

  “Oh, I love you, son, more than I can ever say. But right now, I don’t like you very much.” He picked up the ax and placed it into his son’s soft hands.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Chopping wood, of course. You’re the one who wants to be a grown-up. Grown-ups have jobs. Get to work,” Gepetto said.

  Pinocchio turned to the Grimms with a look of desperation on his face.

  “Don’t look at us,” Sabrina said. She and the others all turned their backs on him and walked away.

  As Charming led them around one more corner Sabrina felt something whiz past her head, followed by a loud thunk! The next second she spotted a knife impaled in the chest of a straw dummy propped on a stake not more than a foot away. The dummy was dressed as the Sheriff of Nottingham, complete with a leather jacket and hat. Another dummy dressed as the Queen of Hearts was nearby. It had another knife buried in its forehead.

  “Sabrina!” Uncle Jake cried, racing to her side. “I’m sorry. I did not know . . . Henry, Veronica, what are you all doing here?”

  “We came to see you,” Henry said. “We’re worried about you.”

  “I suppose they’ve told you I’ve lost my mind.” Uncle Jake scowled and slumped into an old wooden chair placed near a grave marked by a wooden cross. Despite the freshness of the plot, it was completely covered in gorgeous white roses in full bloom. This was the grave of Sleeping Beauty, also known by her friends as Briar Rose. Surrounding her plot were candles, beads, dried flowers, and photographs of Jake’s former love. Seeing them brought on a stampede of memories for Sabrina about the night she died. Why did someone so kind and lovely have to be taken away? Sabrina had prayed for an answer many times, but it had never come.

  As she struggled to hold back tears, she became painfully aware of her uncle’s current appearance. He was a wreck: exhausted, filthy, gaunt, and angry. His smell was oppressive, like a hot summer night in New York City. Sabrina knew at once that Goldi and Beauty had done the right thing coming to them for help.

  A large black crow with a red ribbon tied about its neck fluttered from above and landed on the back of Jake’s chair. “No one thinks you’re crazy, big guy,” the bird said. Normally, Sabrina would have felt queasy. Talking animals made her uncomfortable, but Sabrina recognized this particular bird as the Widow, Queen of the Crows.

  “I’m fine!” Jake said as he leaped from the chair. The crow hopped down to the ground. “I
have no plans to kill myself, if that is what you are worrying about.”

  Henry gestured to the knives impaled in Jake’s stuffed targets. “It’s your other plans that are worrying us.”

  “That’s none of your business,” Jake said. He snatched his weapons and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket.

  Henry shook his head. “I understand you’re hurt—”

  “Hurt? I’m a little more than hurt, Hank. I am destroyed. I promised Briar’s fairy godmothers I would look after her and now she’s gone. Those monsters killed her, Hank. Right in front of my eyes.”

  “Revenge won’t bring her back,” Henry said. “It will just hurt you more. It will hurt your soul.”

  Jake turned to his brother with a look of utter disbelief. “My soul! You’ve got to be kidding me, Henry. Do you want to see my soul? It’s in that hole, right there. It’s buried six feet deep!”

  He hefted a quill of arrows onto his back and scooped up a bow leaning against the wall. Then without another word he marched in the direction of the drawbridge.

  “Where are you going?” Henry called after him.

  “It’s better that you don’t know,” Jake shouted back. He activated the drawbridge and was across it and into the woods before anyone thought to stop him. Sabrina could feel panic squeezing her heart. Her uncle was exhausted and obsessed with two incredibly dangerous people. Who knew what might happen if he found them.

  “We have to go after him,” Veronica said. “He’s not thinking clearly.”

  “The Hand is crawling all over these woods,” Charming said. “Bringing you all here was a tremendous risk to begin with. I can’t have you stumbling around in the forest drawing attention to us.”

  “He’s my brother!” Henry shouted.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” the crow squawked and flapped into the air. “Sometimes he listens to me. I’ll do my best to keep him out of trouble.”

  Once the Widow was gone, Charming activated the machine to raise the drawbridge, but when it was barely halfway up, it came to a jerking stop.

  “Boarman! Swineheart! What is wrong with this infernal machine?” he shouted.

  The pigs rushed to investigate, inspecting the chains and pulleys, but stepped back and scratched their heads.

  “Nothing’s broken, boss,” Swineheart said. “Push the button again.”

  Charming did, but just as soon as the mechanisms started, they stopped again.

  “Fix this!” Charming huffed. “Keeping this door open makes this castle vulnerable.”

  A woman’s voice rang out from outside the wall. “Where are the Grimms?” There was something otherworldly about the voice, as if it were being artificially amplified. The question was repeated.

  “Who is that?” Veronica asked.

  “Get your weapons!” Charming shouted to his army. “Someone has found the castle. We can’t let them through the gate!”

  The castle inhabitants rushed to arm themselves. Sabrina was about to do the same when her father clamped his hand on her shoulder. He had Daphne held with his other hand. “Don’t even think about it, girls,” he said.

  There was a terrible metal straining sound, and then the chains on the drawbridge snapped. The bridge fell forward and slammed into the trench. Henry stepped in front of his family and prepared to fight. Puck landed next to him and drew his wooden sword. Even Mr. Canis had his shaking fists in the air.

  Suddenly, a woman stormed through the gate. Her frightening voice did not match her appearance: She wore a pretty black dress, milky pearls, and expensive heels. If Snow was the most beautiful woman in the world, this woman was a close second. It made sense. After all, she was Ms. White’s mother—a woman some called Bunny Lancaster, while others knew her by her more well-known name, the Wicked Queen.

  “Mother?” Snow said. “How did you find us?”

  “There are few things in this world that my eyes cannot see,” Bunny snapped.

  “Bunny! You broke my drawbridge!” Charming cried.

  The witch dismissed him with a wave. “I want everyone to follow me.”

  Henry stepped forward. “We had some things we wanted to ask you, Bunny.”

  “No questions! It’s time we got to work saving the world,” the witch replied.

  She stepped over to Poppa Bear, and with the slash of her hand the ropes that held the magic mirror onto his back were magically severed. She eased the big mirror to the ground and leaned it against a cabin wall, then turned to Sabrina and pointed a finger at her. “You! Where are you keeping the other mirrors?”

  Sabrina pointed toward the mirror and without a word the queen plunged through its reflection. Sabrina looked at her father, who was still holding her and Daphne tight, but he eased his grip and led them into the mirror as well.

  “Hurry, now!” the witch demanded as soon as they broke the surface and entered the Hall of Wonders. Everyone followed them, eager to hear what Bunny was planning. “Which room is it? Time is wasting. Don’t you want to save Relda?”

  Red rushed down the hall to meet them with baby Basil in her arms. “What’s going on?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “I don’t have a clue.” Then she hurried ahead and unlocked the room in which they stored the other mirrors. Sabrina had barely swung the door open when Bunny pushed past her into the room. Once inside, the Wicked Queen looked around, bewildered. “Someone has not been taking care of these mirrors.”

  “They were like this when we found them,” Daphne said.

  The queen gazed closely at the shards that were glued to the walls, marveling at the different places they revealed. “Fascinating. These are pieces of other looking glasses.”

  “The Master used them to spy on us and everyone in town,” Sabrina said.

  “He could see into any mirror he wanted,” Daphne added.

  “I know very well what he was doing with them, young ladies,” she said, and then walked over to the fifth intact magic mirror, which was empty as always.

  “That one’s guardian has never appeared to us,” Mr. Canis said.

  “That’s because it doesn’t have one. This is the one that resets them all to their factory settings. Ongegn!” Bunny cried, and a scarlet-red handprint appeared in the fifth mirror. There was a loud humming that seemed to shake the very air and then suddenly the broken shards peeled themselves off the walls and floated about in midair. Like bees to nectar, they darted into the correct empty frames and reformed themselves, melting into one another until their surfaces were clean and whole. When the mirrors were completely repaired and looking as good as new, the witch raised her hand above her head. Sabrina watched as it turned bright red, cracking and popping and smoldering like a charcoal briquette.

  “Give it a second,” Bunny said. “They need to reboot.”

  After a moment, the red handprints appeared in all the newly mended mirrors and just as quickly faded.

  “Mirrors, I require your presence,” Bunny said sternly, and in the blink of an eye twenty-four different heads floated in twenty-four silver pools. Many looked as normal as any human being, but other guardians seemed more beastlike. One had a pointy nose as long as a yardstick, and another had eyes and lips as big as a trout. There were faces that were clearly human and a few that seemed as if they came from outer space. One was a huge iguana-like thing and another had the face of a beautiful woman with the antlers of a deer. One had the eyes of a crocodile and a smile to match. Sabrina was happy to see that Reggie, Fanny, Titan, and Donovan were amongst them, but she was especially overjoyed to see a familiar face—Harry, who had been the guardian of Prince Charming’s mirror, the Hotel of Wonders.

  “Hello, Mother,” they said with great respect.

  “Please, stop calling me that. Arden, I come seeking a prophecy,” Bunny said.

  “Ask what you will,” the antler-woman said, and her reflection rippled and shimmied. The other mirrors followed suit until each guardian was now barely visible behind their churning silver. Daphne slipped her hand
into Sabrina’s and squeezed. After a long, unsettling moment, the mirrors stilled and each guardian’s eyes glowed with the power of a full moon.

  “WE SEE ALL. EVERY DAY THAT HAS PASSED. EVERY DAY TO COME. THERE ARE A MYRIAD OF POSSIBILITIES. MANY PATHS THAT CAN BE TAKEN, MANY POSSIBLE OUTCOMES.”

  “Mirrors, mirrors, our future is cursed. Tell me how to defeat the First,” the queen said.

  “YOU CANNOT,” they replied as one.

  “You are mistaken,” the witch said.

  “THE FUTURE IS WOVEN LIKE A SPIDER’S WEB, WITH MILLIONS OF STRANDS LEADING TOWARD THE CONFLICT YOU SEEK. IF YOU CHOOSE THIS QUEST FOR YOURSELF YOU WILL FAIL. IN ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES THE ONE YOU CALL MIRROR WILL DEFEAT YOU. HE WILL DESTROY WILHELM’S BARRIER. HE WILL UNLEASH HIS POWER ON MANKIND. NATIONS WILL KNEEL BEFORE HIM. MOTHER, YOU CANNOT STOP OUR BROTHER.”

  “Nonsense!” the queen cried. “I created Mirror! I very well should be able to destroy him.”

  “THE FUTURE SAYS OTHERWISE.”

  Bunny shook her head. “Then you’re saying there is no hope.”

  “NONE ALONG THIS PATH.”

  The witch turned to the crowd. “I’m sorry. I was mistaken. My suggestion to you all is to run and hide. I wish you luck.”

  Sabrina was stunned. The mirrors had to be wrong. She stepped forward so she blocked Bunny’s way. “You’re just going to give up?”

  The Wicked Queen’s lip curled. “The mirrors don’t lie, child.”

  “Well, then your mirrors are stupid,” Daphne said.

  “This is all your fault,” Sabrina said. “You made Mirror, then abandoned him. You sold him like he was an old chair, and he wound up with owners that were twisted and cruel. It’s no wonder he’s gone crazy and taken my grandmother. So, you fix this. You find a way!”

  The Wicked Queen’s eyes were bright with anger. Sabrina could feel dark magic building in the air around her. Everyone was afraid of this woman, even her own daughter, and it appeared Sabrina was going to find out why.

  “Mirrors, the child did not hear what you said,” Bunny said through clenched teeth.

  “LISTEN TO OUR WORDS. THE QUEEN CAN DO NOTHING TO STOP THE FIRST.”