A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (7 page)

"Ready?" Quinn asked.

He nodded, looking more determined than scared, which was impressive.

He inched himself to safety, reaching the edge of the basket and grabbing the branch below Quinn. An ominous creak made him freeze mid-turn. The basket settled. Quinn hadn’t realized she had tensed up until the muscles of her knotted back began to relax.

With a crack, a pivotal branch broke, free creating a domino effect of splintering limbs and flying pinecones as the basket pinwheeled to the ground. The guy’s yell was lost in the amputation of tree limbs as he launched himself at Quinn's tree. He missed and fell, the rope catching him awkwardly under the arms.

On the other end of the tether, Quinn braced herself, but the boy's momentum was too much for her precarious seat. She was launched from the branch, smacking hard into the trunk. They dangled, twisting on the rope.

Fighting for breath, Quinn shuddered, her hands burning and raw. Strung in the tree like two battered Christmas ornaments, their faces only inches apart, Quinn stared into his eyes and saw her disbelief, relief, and barely contained hysteria reflected in them.

"Thank
s," he wheezed. “I’m Fredrick.”

“Quinn.”
             

Climbing down was slower than going up, which always happened when climbing. But her progress was even slower with a green climber in tow, both of them preoccupied with what pulled them together in this place.

"Did you disappear too?" Quinn's foot searched for a foothold on the next branch down. "The girl below us—Andi—was in Utah ea
rlier today and I was in Napa."

"Sort of.” Fredrick’s foot was bobbing blindly just above her head, at a loss for where the next branch was. “I helped launch the balloon this morning. A storm came up while I was in the basket... Something hit me and I blacked out until the envelope tore free."

“The balloon?” Quinn clarified.

“Right.”

When they reached the last branch, Quinn looped the rope around the limb, through her legs, and across her chest to create an emergency belay.

“Watch,” she told Fredrick, and bounced down the last fifteen feet. She craned her neck to watch him follow, not very gracefully. He landed hard on the ground and stayed there, hanging his elbows over his tented knees and resting his head on his arms.

Quinn was beyond spent and laid flat on her back, knees bent, arms winged out, eyes closed. She could hear Andi fidgeting as she asked questions. Quinn didn’t have the energy for more than monosyllable answers. Andi settled cross-legged by them and filled Fredrick in on their stories in a low voice. Quinn could feel the heat of the day evaporate from her body as the sun dropped and the chill of fall took a firmer hold.

"What bothers me,” Andi said, filling the silence, "is we all disappeared from different parts of the country, roughly at the same time."

Quinn cracked an eye open as Andi whirled a vague hand over her head.

"But none of it seems connected. We weren't doing the same things, touching the same things, know any of the same people..."

Quinn didn’t have any answers to offer and didn’t hear anything from Fredrick either.

"The sun’s going down," Andi said to no one in particular, crossing her arms and grasping them. "Now what?"

"We could try getting help at that mansion," Fredrick said.

Quinn sat up. "What mansion?"
             

Fredrick raised his head. "Over there." He pointed through the trees. "Didn't you see it while you were up in the tree?"

Quinn shook her head, feeling a small surge of hope at not having to sleep on the forest floor. She pulled herself to her feet while Andi grabbed her cloak and shoes.

"Where we’re from, you don't see pointed ears outside of sci-fi conventions."

Andi couldn’t help but agree with Fredrick’s label of mansion. A tiered lawn yawned the size of a football field between the edge of the trees and the front doors. Andi crept up the footpath with the others, feeling the eyes of the cherubs from the ostentatious marble fountain following her. She glimpsed a sliver of ocean past a conservatory protruding from one side of the mini-castle. Old-fashioned lampposts popped on with a hiss.

Strange vines with white and red roses crawled up the columns of the long porch. The door was a monumental structure, heavy aged wood smothered in complex carvings. Andi could see all manner of animals worked into the motif: foxes, bears, frogs, and birds. Intertwined with them were towering trees, castles, borders of brambles, roses, and looming mountain landscapes. She looked high in a corner where a red light blinked at her from a small security camera. Fredrick was the one who finally reached out and rang the doorbell.

A moment passed and the door opened on silent hinges. There stood a diminutive man with pointed ears, thinning hair and an enormous smile that made the corners of his blue eyes wrinkle. He was dressed in a three-piece tux that looked as if it had been slept in, his bow tie hanging untied around his neck.

Blinking her eyes in  disbelief, Andi could see the shock on Quinn and Fredrick’s faces as well. This can’t be happening, she thought for the second time that day.

The shrunken servant broke the silence. "Wonderful! You're all here. Mr. Jackson will be so pleased."

Andi continued to stand like a statue with the others on the front step, staring at him.

"Come in, come in." He waved at them. "First a little chat, then some food and I'm sure you'll want to get cleaned up." He passed an eye over the mud covered, sap encrusted, rope burned, bare footed group. "You've had a busy day." He disappeared into the house.

"Does anyone else get the impression we were expected?" Andi asked the other two, not taking her eyes off the door left ajar.

Fredrick nodded, his eyes glued to the unknown, dark interior.

"Do we go in?" Andi pressed. She wasn’t making this decision by herself.

Quinn turned back in the direction they came, hands on her hips. Andi watched her take in the darkness creeping in from the setting sun, the ostentatious grounds borde
red by the black forest beyond.

Turning back to the dark maw of the house, sh
e asked, "Do we have a choice?”

"To be honest," Andi poked her head in the open door, "even if it’s dangerous, a trap, or whatever, food and baths are a severe temptation at this point."

But then, most food was a severe temptation for her and she shuddered at the thought of sleeping on the cold ground while pine needles poked her back all night.

"Then in we go," Quinn said.

Andi considered the shoes still hanging in her hands. She wasn't about to stuff her filthy toes in them now. Guilty about her dirt crusted feet, she quick-walked over the highly polished checkerboard marble floor.

"We'll meet in the garden. Our other guest is already there,” the small servant said leading them through a door sandwiched between the floating arms of a double staircase. They continued down a wide hallway covered in oriental carpets. A glass ceiling created a giant window to the next story. The effect was dizzying, like walking through a room within a room. "I’m Harland. I hope your stay here will be comfortable."

"Do you mind me asking," Andi said as she followed him down the corridor, "what you are?"

A pure white statue caught her eye. The form vaguely mimicked the human body from certain angles, but it was at odds somehow with the bold patterned wallpaper and dark wooden pedestal it posed on. Harland had turned and regarded her seriously.

"I mean," Andi stumbled under his intense look. "Where we’re from, you don't see pointed ears outside of sci-fi conventions."

Harland gave her an odd smile. "What do you think I am?"

"Well…" Andi regretted her question and looked to the others for help. They stared back with shocked looks.

She had disappeared just earlier that afternoon, had no idea where she now was nor the people she was with. So far, she’d talked to birds and now a tiny, pointy-eared servant who was leading her deeper into an imposing and odd house. Somebody had to ask questions. This is probably how that horror movie had started. A young girl, naively creeping into a strange old house. She could practically sense the man with the chainsaw lurking behind the next door. At least she didn’t have shoes on to slow her down.

"I think you're an elf," she challenged him.

She was surprised to hear him laugh, a deep chuckle from someone so small. "And you would be right! You might do okay here after all." He looked her up and down. “But no more questions until we see Mr. Jackson.”

They passed through sitting rooms with heavy drapes and marble fireplaces. Against the opposite wall, completely out of place, were space age molded chairs and a wall devoted entirely to a single TV.

At the end of their hike, they passed through a modest arch onto a covered porch. The sprawling deck overlooked some kind of public park that backed up to the sea. When Andi looked more carefully, it became apparent that the acres of flowers, trees, and shrubs she assumed parkland were actually part of the mansion’s extensive grounds.

"Is that... a golden apple?" Andi gaped at one of the fruit trees bumping against the overhang. She turned to the others and jumped slightly. Sprawled in one of the chairs, head thrown back and jaw slack, snored another boy. He was the perfect California surfer cliché, from the top of his salt encrusted, sunburned head to his baggy cargo shorts. This must be the other guest Harland had referred to. Fredrick and Quinn joined her, staring at the fourth, and hopefully last, displaced person. Harland approached him with a wicked grin and poked him in his side.

He jerked awake, Harland watching
him with a cheerful expression.

"Not funny, Cob,” he said, rubbing his ribs.

The elf's grin widened and he shook his head. "I'm his twin, Harland. Having a good nap Mr. Peterson?"

The boy scooted back down into his relaxed position and closed his eyes again. "I was."

"Did you know you snore?" Andi asked with a grin. She considered it her mission in life to make good-looking guys as uncomfortable as possible, and he certainly qualified.

He stood quickly, making an odd movement to his head, like he expected a hat to be there. The boy caught sight of Fredrick and Quinn over Andi's shoulder.

“A little warning next time?” Dylan said in an exasperated undertone to Harland as he stretched and tried to shake himself a little more awake.

Harland conducted the introductions with a ridiculously gleeful look. Andi was surprised he knew all their names. Surprised, and a more than a little concerned.

"Dylan Peterson, please meet Fredrick Avery, Quinn Neely and Candide Grace."

"And I," interrupted a quiet voice from the doorway, "am Mr. Jackson.”

“We’re not actually taking him seriously, are we?”

Andi sat in the circle of lawn chairs with the others, the early darkness falling around them. The flickering light of the gas lamps flanking the porch enhanced the dreamlike quality of their surroundings. 

The sight of a mansion had set certain expectations for Mr. Jackson’s appearance. Andi pictured a railroad tycoon, complete with top hat, eyeglasses, and a Teddy Roosevelt-type mustache.

Instead, Mr. Jackson was only ten or fifteen years older than his visitors, and his appearance felt a little off, much like the strange garden surrounding the house. Tall with a slight build, his dark hair and green eyes were set off by old-fashioned sideburns. A fedora twisted in his hands. He sported a white vest over a black turtleneck and pinstripe pants with too much flared to be from this century. Mr. Jackson dressed like two time periods had fought an epic battle and neither had won.

Harland and Cob made several trips to and from the kitchen. First with hot towels for Andi, Quinn, and Fredrick’s sap and mud covered hands. Then bringing small trays piled with tiny sandwiches, mushroom caps, dainty cakes, and other food they couldn't identify. Andi ate like she might never see food again, Dylan keeping pace with her. Quinn and Fredrick were either not hungry or had some reservations about their host and his food.

"I know you’re more than ready for explanations," Mr. Jackson began in an accent similar to Cob’s, staccato with a bit of hiss at the end. "Ask your questions and if I can answer them, I will,” Mr. Jackson continued.

"Where are we?" Four voices rocketed the question at him in unison.

"No longer in your world,” Mr. Jackson said calmly, settling his fedora firmly back on his head.

The group stilled as one. Several heavy, silent seconds passed. Quinn raised her eyebrows at the incredulity of the statement.

“Sure we are,” Andi said in a calm, placating manner.

Mr. Jackson smiled patiently at them. “You’ve been brought here by someone I work for, the master of these lands. He’s selected the four of you,” he met Andi’s eyes briefly, his gaze skipping from one person to the next, “to do a job.”

Fredrick sat quietly, studying their host’s face intently
.