The Everafter War Read online

  “You’re supposed to make sure I don’t fall off,” he reminded her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “This thing really needs seat belts.”

  “It’s easier if you relax. It can sense your stress. Just sit down and try to enjoy the ride,” Daphne explained over the wind. Sabrina tried to take her advice and found she was right. The more relaxed she was, the better the ride, but it wasn’t easy. The quarter moon above did little to illuminate the forest below, so flying above it was like sailing over a black abyss. Sabrina worried about what might be lurking among the trees, waiting to attack. She imagined the hideous roar of the Jabberwocky or a hobgoblin.

  Uncle Jake seemed to read her mind. “You forget that under all his arrogance the prince is brilliant. I doubt that those hobgoblins could ever find the camp again. Still, it’s good that Snow is training some of the refugees. Charming should make it mandatory.”

  “You think they’ll need to fight back against the Hand?” Daphne asked.

  “Absolutely,” Uncle Jake replied. “Will they win? It’s hard to say. They’re completely outnumbered. And even if they do manage to raise an army, it will consist of elderly witches, gentle animals, and princesses. Only a few of them have any real fighting experience.”

  “So, if the odds are against the camp, why are we going to find Briar and bring her back there?”

  “Because she can help. She’s smart,” Jake said. Briar Rose was the basis for the famous story of Sleeping Beauty, but unlike a lot of the royalty Sabrina had met, she was also a resourceful woman. Sabrina thought of Briar, Snow White, and Granny Relda as role models.

  “Plus, her fairy godmothers are a force to be reckoned with,” he continued.

  “We’ll find her,” Sabrina promised.

  Uncle Jake nodded.

  Daphne steered the rug westward. “We’re coming up on the farms. Oh, no! Look!”

  Sabrina expected to see huge fields of corn and wheat, neatly planted in rows, and maybe the occasional cow mooing at the moon, but what they found was unrecognizable. Much of Ferryport Landing’s farmland was in ruins. The little houses that freckled the fields were ablaze.

  “The Scarlet Hand has been here,” Uncle Jake said gravely. “Recently.”

  “But aren’t these Everafter farms?” Daphne asked. “Why burn them?”

  “The owners must have resisted joining the Master,” Uncle Jake said, as his jaw stiffened. “Can you make this thing go faster?”

  Daphne nodded and spoke a few words of encouragement to the carpet. It picked up speed, now streaking across the sky. Uncle Jake nearly fell over the side, but this time Sabrina did her job and kept him upright. Soon, the farms of Ferryport Landing were behind them and the town proper was just ahead.

  Daphne slowed the carpet and lowered it until they were hovering a few feet above the ground on Main Street. Once there, the trio absorbed the shocking scene before them. Stores were gutted, their contents spilling onto the street. Old King Cole’s restaurant was nothing but a burned-out shell, as was the Blue Plate Special diner. Cars lay on their backs like dead beetles. Bicycles were scattered in the middle of the street, bent beyond repair. The wire that held the town’s one and only traffic light had snapped, and the light lay shattered on the road.

  “Get this thing to the coffee shop, now!” Uncle Jake blurted out.

  The rug didn’t wait for Daphne’s command. It zipped down the street toward the little shop. But, when they arrived, they found Sacred Grounds destroyed. The windows were black with soot. The roof had collapsed. The only thing untouched by the flames was the hand-painted sign that once hung over the door. It now lay on the ground. A red handprint covered the name.

  Despite his injury, Uncle Jake leaped off the rug before it came to a full stop. He rushed to the shop and threw open the door. A blast of still-smoldering fire exploded out, and Uncle Jake fell backward. The girls rushed to his side and helped him to his feet.

  Uncle Jake groaned. “I fell on my shoulder.”

  “You can’t go in there,” Sabrina said, snatching him by the hand.

  “I have to,” he protested, trying to pull away.

  “Looking for your sweetheart, Jake?” a voice called out from behind them. When the Grimms spun around, they found Sheriff Nottingham glowering behind them. The flames from the building illuminated his face and exaggerated his scar. The red hand-print on his chest held an eerie glow.

  “Where is she, Nottingham?” Jake demanded.

  “She’s dead. Or she will be soon,” the sheriff said, his white teeth flashing.

  Jake charged the sheriff and swung wildly. Before the villain could pull out his dagger, Jake’s fist slammed into his cheek. Nottingham howled and collapsed to the ground. Bewildered, he grasped for his dagger, but Jake didn’t give him a chance to use it. His hands went into a coat pocket, and, in a flash, the sheriff was enclosed in a perfect green bubble. When Jake lifted his hand, the bubble and its prisoner rose as well. Nottingham kicked and fought like an angry marionette, but he was completely helpless.

  “You’ve made a terrible mistake, Grimm,” the sheriff shouted.

  “The mistake is yours, Nottingham. You think that I am good-natured like my mother or my father. But you’ve got me all wrong.”

  “Is that so? Then who are you, Jacob?” Nottingham sneered.

  “A man who will kill to protect the people he loves.”

  Nottingham paled.

  “Where is she?” Jake pressed.

  Nottingham shook his head.

  Jake swung his arm around, and the bubble followed his every move. He slammed it into an abandoned building, and Nottingham let out a pained groan. Jake aimed the bubble at a building across the street, with similar results. When he returned the bubble to the middle of the street, the sheriff scampered to his feet. His nose was covered in blood.

  “Tell me, Nottingham!” Jake shouted.

  “Heart has her home surrounded,” the sheriff groaned. “Her fairy godmothers are holding them off, but they can’t last forever. She’s probably already dead.”

  A long, ropelike stem appeared at the top of the bubble. It wrapped itself around a streetlight, and the sheriff hung there like an evil Christmas ornament.

  “You better hope not. I’m going after her, Nottingham,” Uncle Jake growled. “If a single hair on her head has been harmed, I’ll come back for you.”

  He stepped onto the flying carpet, and the girls followed. Once they were in the air, Uncle Jake collapsed. Sweat poured down his forehead, and he looked ashen.

  “Remind me to punch people with my good arm,” he said weakly, and then passed out.

  “Do you think he meant it?” Daphne asked. “Do you really think he’d kill Nottingham?”

  Sabrina stared at her uncle. It was like she was seeing him for the first time. Maybe he was capable of murder, or maybe it was all talk. She just couldn’t be sure.

  “What do we do now?” Daphne asked.

  “The smartest thing would be to bring Uncle Jake back to the camp to get some rest, but—”

  “But?”

  “But Briar is in trouble.”

  “She needs our help.”

  “Daphne, we’re just a couple of kids. Can we stop an entire mob by ourselves? I don’t think he’s going to wake up anytime soon,” Sabrina said, nudging Uncle Jake.

  Daphne dug through Uncle Jake’s jacket pockets and pulled out a handful of trinkets. “We’re a couple of kids with magic weapons.”

  “Do you know how to use any of those?” Sabrina asked.

  Daphne shrugged and shoved the enchanted objects into her own pockets. “How hard could it be?”

  There was real confidence in Daphne’s eyes. Dad might treat her like a baby, but Sabrina knew Daphne was more courageous than most adults.

  “It’s your call, then,” Sabrina offered.

  “Really?”

  Sabrina nodded. “I should have said this a long time ago. I have more faith in you than anyone else I know.”
/>
  Daphne smiled and hugged her sister. “I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know.”

  “Carpet,” Daphne commanded, “take us to Briar Rose’s house, and step on it.”

  Daphne gave the carpet instructions while Sabrina attended to her uncle. Jake looked pale and vulnerable in the night sky, his skin sallow.

  Daphne brought the carpet to a slow crawl as they approached Briar’s home. Briar lived in a sturdy Victorian, painted sea green, with a round column on each side of the door and a stained-glass rose window set into the second story. Jake had told them about Briar’s dozens of rosebushes, and he wasn’t exaggerating. The perimeter of the house was lined with the beautiful flowering plants: reds, whites, and yellows.

  Unfortunately, many of the bushes had been trampled by the horde of Everafters surrounding the house. The mob was made up of goblins, witches, knights, and a near-giant—a twenty-foot-tall man carrying an ax nearly that long. He wore a flannel shirt, a big, bushy beard, and a red handprint on his enormous chest. Paul Bunyan had joined the Scarlet Hand.

  “Look who’s leading the pack,” Daphne said, pointing to a familiar woman in a red dress. Mayor Heart was barking orders through her megaphone.

  “Do you think Briar is still alive?” Daphne asked, taking the magical trinkets out of her pocket to give them another look.

  “I hope so. At least we know her fairy godmothers are going strong,” Sabrina said, pointing toward the house.

  A green blast of magic shot out of an open window and hit a goblin. His fierce metal armor suddenly transformed into an elaborate silk gown. The goblin tripped over his hoop skirt and tumbled onto his back, unable to right himself.

  Another blast came from the window and nailed a troll, who found himself sporting a feathery headdress and high heels, like a Las Vegas showgirl. He cried indignantly and shook a mace at the house.

  “Let’s go give them some help,” Daphne said, urging the carpet forward. Soon they were barreling into the midst of the Scarlet Hand’s army. When the villains noticed the flying carpet, they turned their attention to the girls. Swords slashed and wands launched deadly spells. But the nimble carpet banked and weaved expertly through the angry crowd, and the Grimms remained unscathed.

  “Uh, maybe it’s time to use one of those magic doohickeys?” Sabrina asked.

  “I’m working on it,” Daphne said. She slipped on a huge ring with a stone scorpion set inside an emerald and waved it around. “Abracadabra!”

  The ring popped and sparked like metal in the microwave, but it didn’t seem to do anything helpful. Daphne shrugged and exchanged it for a second ring, this one with a small tooth embedded in amber. “Gimme some magic!”

  This time, nothing happened—not even a spark.

  Sabrina was starting to worry, especially when the carpet hovered too close to an angry knight. He swung his sword wildly, nearly cutting the carpet, and the sisters, in two. Sabrina kicked him in the helmet. His visor came down over his face, and he staggered into a rosebush, where the vines held him fast.

  The carpet veered away from the mob. Sabrina turned to her sister, who was trying out one of three magic wands. It was made of little red jewels fused together like a long stick of rock candy.

  “Any luck?” Sabrina asked. “That knight almost gave me a haircut.”

  “Hold your horses,” Daphne said. She waved the wand, and it started to glow. “Now we’re talking.”

  “What does it do?” Sabrina asked.

  Daphne shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  She waved it around some more, but nothing happened.

  Daphne frowned. “Set something on fire!” she begged.

  Nothing.

  “Freeze the bad guys!”

  Zilch.

  “Shoot electricity!”

  Nada.

  Daphne huffed. “This thing is for the birds.”

  All of a sudden, a flash of light blinded Sabrina.

  “No way!” Daphne exclaimed, her eyes widening with surprise.

  “What?”

  “OK, don’t be mad. I didn’t know it would do that,” Daphne said.

  “WHAT?”

  “Take a look at your back,” Daphne muttered.

  Sabrina peeked over her shoulder and stifled a scream. On her back was a set of huge white wings. The feathers fluttered in the wind, and when she tensed up, they flapped.

  “Oh, no!” she cried. “Change me back. I can’t go through life with wings!”

  “It’s not the wings that’re the problem,” Daphne said. “It’s the beak.”

  Sabrina crossed her eyes to find a hard, golden beak with a hooked tip. She shrieked, but what came out sounded more like a squawk. “Fix me!”

  Mayor Heart’s voice ripped through the air. “Ignore the children. Attack the house until Briar and her traitorous fairies are dead! Our backup can handle the Grimms.”

  “Backup? I don’t like the sound of that,” Daphne said, steering the rug to avoid a flying spear. “I wonder who it is.”

  “Who cares about the backup? I look like Big Bird!” Sabrina complained.

  “OK! OK!” Daphne cried. She flicked the wand at Sabrina and said, “Change her back!” But nothing happened. “OK, let’s not panic,” she reassured her sister.

  “‘Let’s not panic’?” Sabrina cried. “I’m starting to get a craving for worms. It’s definitely time to panic.”

  Daphne steered the carpet low over the crowd. With one hand, she removed her sneaker and used it wallop a few heads. Clearly, she’d abandoned magical solutions after the latest mishap.

  “I realize this is inconvenient, but you need to focus. We’re here to rescue Briar Rose.”

  “Excuse me if I’m a little distracted—honk!” Sabrina was horrified by the sound she made. “Did I—?”

  “Yeah . . . you honked,” Daphne confirmed with a guilty grimace. She smacked a few more trolls with her shoe. “Think on the bright side. At least Puck isn’t here. He’d never let you forget it.”

  Uncle Jake groaned and opened his eyes slowly. When he saw Sabrina, he shoved her off the rug in midair with a “Shooo!”

  “NO!” Sabrina cried, plummeting toward the ground. In desperation, she flapped her wings as hard as she could, and it seemed to slow her fall. Unfortunately, she was so busy concentrating on staying aloft that she forgot to watch where she was going. She sailed through an open window and crashed to the floor.

  She scrambled to her feet and called out for Briar Rose. Instead, she found Briar’s two fairy godmothers, wands drawn. Buzzflower and Mallobarb were stout, intimidating women. Their dark, menacing eyes told her that she better not move a muscle—or a feather.

  “We’re giving you three seconds to take your filthy, traitorous bottom out of here, goose,” Mallobarb threatened.

  “And tell the rest of the Scarlet Hand they’re going to have to send a lot more than a bird if they want take us down,” Buzzflower added.

  “I’m not a goose!” Sabrina cried.

  “Well, you aren’t a Bengal tiger,” said Mallobarb.

  “I’m Sabrina Grimm!” she honked. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  The fairy godmothers looked at each other in disbelief, then back at Sabrina.

  “Really?”

  “Listen, my uncle is here. And my sister, too.”

  “Jake is here?” Buzzflower asked.

  “He is?” a voice called from down the hall. A moment later Briar Rose raced into the room, wielding a baseball bat.

  Sabrina pointed out the window with her wing just as the flying carpet zipped past.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Buzzflower asked.

  “Yeah . . . a plan. We kind of got sidetracked when my sister turned me into a bird,” Sabrina admitted.

  “Great,” Mallobarb said sarcastically. “Jacob Grimm is quite a catch, Briar.”

  “What we need is a distraction,” Briar said, ignoring the insult. “If we can get the mob outside to focus on somethi
ng other than the house, we can fly out of here ourselves.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sabrina said. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I think a giant goose might confuse them for a bit,” Buzzflower said.

  “You want me to fly out the window and let them shoot at me?”

  The fairy godmothers nodded.

  “I could be killed!”

  The fairy godmothers nodded again.

  “No,” Briar said. “That’s too dangerous. If something were to happen to Sabrina, I could never live with myself.”

  “What choice do we have?” Mallobarb said.

  Sabrina peered out the window. Her sister was having little success.

  “OK, I’ll do it, but I’ve only been a bird for five minutes. I haven’t quite figured out flying yet. If I manage to stay in the air, you have to act fast. Get out of the house as soon as you can.”

  “And then what?” Buzzflower asked.

  “Prince Charming and Mr. Canis have built a camp. We’ll take you there,” Sabrina said.

  “Good luck,” Briar said.

  “Here goes nothing!” Sabrina cried as she leaped out the window, flapping her wings as hard as she could.

  Her sudden appearance drew the full ferocity of the crowd. Dozens of arrows, magical blasts, and even one electronic megaphone rocketed toward her. She dodged left and right, until a spear clipped her tail feathers. It startled her, and she fell right onto a hobgoblin’s head. The creature tried to clobber her, but she scampered off and landed on another. She quickly leaped from one hobgoblin to the next before landing on the beehive hairdo of the Queen of Hearts herself. Heart screamed and slapped at the goose. Sabrina pecked at the mayor’s hands viciously before springing into the air. She flapped wildly and, much to her surprise, stayed aloft. She flew away from the mob and joined Daphne and Uncle Jake back beside the carpet.

  When she looked back toward the house, she spotted Buzzflower and Mallobarb carrying Briar Rose out of the window and through the air, a stream of magical dust floating behind them. They fled toward the woods. The trio followed but soon lost them in the thick of the trees.

  Sabrina heard Mayor Heart commanding her troops. “Don’t follow the traitors. We’ll let the pack handle them.”