The Council of Mirrors (4 page)

inocchio was just the distraction the girls needed. His grumbling and endless whining kept Veronica so occupied the girls were able to stash the Book of Everafter in a safe place and slip out of the portal unseen. As they passed through the surface of the mirror, there was a rush of air, a dramatic drop in temperature, and Sabrina, Daphne, and Elvis found themselves inside a heavy thicket, deep in the Hudson Valley forest. The bushes were the perfect place to hide the door to their magical home, but they were less than convenient when exiting.

The girls pushed free of the thorns and prickly vines and stepped into a chilly splattering of autumn rain. Drops dripped onto Sabrina’s head and trickled down her face and neck, sending tingles straight to her feet. She leaned down and quickly zipped up her sister’s sweatshirt, then did her own.

“It rained like this the day we came to Ferryport Landing,” Daphne said, catching some of the drops on her tongue. Sabrina remembered the gray sky, icy drizzle, and brisk chill that had greeted them when their caseworker Ms. Smirt shoved them down the train platform to meet their grandmother for the first time. She could even recall declaring that she and Daphne weren’t going to stay with a crazy old woman who believed fairy tales were real. Funny how life got in the way of plans. Now she couldn’t imagine her life without Granny Relda. She had to rescue her from Mirror, even if her father tried to stand in the way.

“We have to be patient with them,” Daphne said, seemingly reading her sister’s mind.

“Now you’re on their side?” Sabrina said. “Five seconds ago you were shouting about how unfair they were.”

“When Mom and Dad went to sleep, I was six and you were ten. I was obsessed with princesses—”

“You still are.”

“Don’t interrupt. What I’m saying is, to them, one day we were little girls, and then all of a sudden we weren’t. They need time to catch up.”

“But they need to understand that Granny never treated us like little girls. She would have had us leading the rescue,” Sabrina said.

“Actually, she would have made us stay home too. It was just easier to sneak out when she was in charge.”

Sabrina sighed. She knew Daphne was right, but it was still frustrating. “So are you saying we should go back?”

Daphne laughed. “No way!” She leaned down and gave Elvis a wet kiss on the snout. “Find Granny, buddy.”

The dog gave himself a shake and water went everywhere. He sniffed the air and trotted into the wet brush. They watched him leap up a steep incline and they followed, trudging through spongy mounds of brown leaves and across slick black rocks. It wouldn’t be long before they were both soaked to the bone, but Sabrina didn’t mind. It felt good to be in the outside air without feeling the careful eyes of disapproving grown-ups on her. It infuriated her that her father couldn’t see potential in his daughters. He kept them locked away like porcelain dolls. What did she and her sister have to do to prove they could take care of themselves?

After an hour of walking and losing the dog half a dozen times they realized that Elvis’s nose wasn’t really necessary. All they had to do was walk in the direction of the tremendous storm rumbling across the sky. Lightning slashed the horizon, followed by explosions so loud they rattled Sabrina’s teeth. A normal person might have rushed to the cellar, fearing an approaching
tornado, but if the mirrors and Mr. Canis were right, this was no ordinary storm. It would lead them to Granny Relda.

The girls stumbled out onto a deserted road and walked along its edge, despite the fact that neither of them had seen a car in weeks—not since the Scarlet Hand took over the town. It felt to Sabrina as if she and her sister were the only two people left in the world. She took Daphne’s hand, not only to assure her that they would be OK, but to calm her own anxiety as they walked on toward the storm. Eventually, they found Elvis waiting by a bend in the road. He looked frightened, pacing in circles and panting. Daphne rubbed his neck to calm him down, but it did little to soothe the giant dog.

“Granny’s nearby,” Sabrina said.

Daphne nodded and turned back to the dog. “You stay here, OK?” Elvis clamped his teeth down on Daphne’s sweatshirt, but she pulled away. “We’ll be careful, Elvis. You stay.”

The girls left him and continued to follow the road around a tight turn. Whatever lay ahead was blocked by trees, but the very tops of their branches glowed as if the sun were hovering right behind them. Once they were on the other side they saw their first glimpse of their grandmother in three days.

It was not a happy sight. The old woman was engulfed in an intense light so bright that it hurt to look directly at her.
Her hands were held high above her head and glowed like two giant torches. Rockets of energy exploded from her fingertips and streaked into the sky, leaving in their wake plumes of smoke and magic. The rockets’ target was Wilhelm Grimm’s invisible wall, built long ago to keep Everafters from leaving Ferryport Landing.

Sabrina had never seen so much raw power. It was almost too horrible to watch, and yet, despite the earth-shattering intensity of the demonstration, it was nothing compared to the ancient and unyielding strength of the barrier. Each magical attack slammed into its surface, exploding into a million vivid colors that spread out over the dome’s surface. Aftershocks sent tremors into the earth and air. One attack was followed by another, and then another and another. Granny Relda’s heaving body exploded with magic, and as Sabrina watched, a terrifying truth filled her mind—her grandmother was not in control of herself. Mirror was inside her, forcing her to move as he wished. Sabrina wanted to run at him and demand that he set the old woman free, or at least try to communicate with Granny and encourage her to resist Mirror’s control, but the power and heat from the explosions were too strong. If she stepped forward, she might catch fire.

And then Sabrina heard a voice behind them and nearly
jumped out of her skin. “I’m soooooo telling.” Puck stood behind her. “You two disobeyed your parents! I’m both shocked and really impressed.”

Sabrina tried to compose herself without giving away that he had scared her enough to almost make her lose control of her bladder. “We’re tired of being under house arrest in the Hall of Wonders.”

“Yeah! We’ve fought lots of monsters,” Daphne said.

“Actually, you’ve done a lot more ‘running away from monsters’ than actual ‘fighting’ of said monsters,” Puck said. “I’ve seen it myself and it is always hee-larious. I love this big turnaround. It seems like only a month ago you were complaining about your family responsibility, and now you can’t wait to get out there and beat up the bad guys. Well, I’m all for it. The whole ‘I don’t want to be a Grimm’ thing was getting a little tired.”

Daphne nodded. “He’s right. You were getting kinda lame.”

Suddenly, their father, Henry, raced out of the woods, snatched the children by the arms, and dragged them back within the trees. Sabrina had never seen someone’s head explode, but she thought she might see her father’s. He looked like an erupting volcano, and she felt like a panicked villager frozen in fear at the sight of the angry lava god.

“Get back to the mirror right now!” he demanded.

“Granny had us do these things all the time, Dad,” Sabrina explained. “She trained us to be brave and take action.”

“And look where that got her!” he roared, then spent the next ten minutes in a breathless rant about respect, trust, and sneakiness. When he finally came up for air, he said, “You’re grounded.”

“You can’t ground us. We’re homeless,” Daphne said.

Henry was momentarily befuddled. “Fine! But once we get a home you are going to be locked inside it until you are very old and very gray! Come on, I’m taking you back myself.”

“What about the old lady?” Puck asked.

Henry shook his head. “We didn’t come out here to save her. I wanted to make sure she was OK and see if there are any obvious weaknesses in Mirror’s power over her.”

“And what did you learn?” Sabrina asked.

“That an all-powerful monster has control over my mother and if we confront him, especially now, when he’s angry, he’ll incinerate us with his magic.”

“So we’re just going to give up?” Puck said.

“You don’t just go running headfirst into a fight. No, we’re going to get some help. We need to find the Wicked Queen,” Henry said. “She made Mirror. She has to know how to stop him.”

Suddenly, Elvis raced to join the group. He was even more
frantic than before, whining and growling as he raced about in circles.

“Something’s wrong,” Daphne said, doing her best to ease the dog’s panic.

“It must be the storm,” Henry said.

But a crunching noise drowned him out. It came from within the woods and was followed by the sound of a tree falling over—a very big tree. When Sabrina turned to face the sound, she saw something so grotesque and terrifying she nearly fainted. Its body was mammoth and covered in thick, matted hair. Its arms were long and spindly, but its legs were thick with muscles and tendons. A ridge of raised spikes poked through the stretched skin covering its spine and trailed upward to its head, which was both shocking in size and shape. The head was nearly as big as half of the rest of its body, but it was also lumpy like a pumpkin that had fallen off a truck. Its eyes and nose were not where they should have been—almost as if it were a toddler’s Play-Doh creation. But its most eye-gouging feature was its fang-filled mouth that came unhinged at the jaw when it roared. It opened so wide Sabrina could have stepped inside with no trouble.

“Grendel!” Henry cried, snatching the girls once more and racing in the opposite direction.

“What is a Grendel?” Sabrina begged, doing her best to keep up.

“He killed hundreds of Vikings—and ate most of them. There’s a poem about him.”

“That thing’s in a poem? Ewwww!” Daphne cried.

Puck flew leisurely overhead. “Yawn! I’ve never been afraid of anything that appeared in a poem. Next time you guys will be trembling over the Cat in the Hat.”

“He’s no joke, Puck,” Henry said as he continued to run. “A warrior named Beowulf chopped off his head once. It still didn’t stop him.”

“Big deal! Who here hasn’t had their head chopped off?”

“This is exactly why I wanted you girls to wait in the mirror. We don’t just have your grandmother to deal with—the town is overrun with members of the Scarlet Hand, and unless you have forgotten, they let all the monsters out of the Hall of Wonders, too.”

“What are we going to do?” Daphne said. “He’s gaining on us.”

“Just keep running until I can come up with a plan of attack,” Henry said.

“Plan of attack?” Sabrina said. “The plan should be to keep running.”

“We can’t outrun that thing,” Henry said. “All right, Puck, you still have those stink balloons?”

“I never leave home without something disgusting!” Puck reached into the folds of his hoodie. What came out were four more of the disgusting sludge-balloon bombs he had tested on Sabrina.

“Good! You hit him high and I’ll take him low.”

Sabrina could feel panic squeezing her neck. “Wait! You’re going to attack him with some water balloons and your bare hands?”

“And my feet, too,” Henry said.

“Are you feeling all right, Dad?” Daphne asked.

“Don’t underestimate the weapon that is your own body. If you know what you’re doing, you can be very dangerous,” Henry said.

“What should we do?” Sabrina said.

“Nothing! You haven’t been trained in a fight,” Henry said.

“Then train us!” Sabrina said.

“Fine! Lesson one! Watch from the safety of these trees,” he demanded as he shoved the girls behind the thick trunk of an ancient maple.

“Dad!” they groaned.

“I’m serious. Don’t get involved no matter what. If something
bad happens, run for the mirror. All right, fairy, let’s do this,” their father said, taking off at a sprint toward Grendel. Henry roared like a barbarian berserker.

“Your dad rules,” Puck said, circling in the air and mimicking Henry’s wail.

“I thought it was stupid to run headfirst into a fight,” Sabrina grumbled.

Puck tossed his disgusting bombs at the creature, nailing Grendel in the face. Enraged, the brute snatched at the boy’s leg, but Puck was too fast and darted away from his deadly claws again and again. While Puck kept him busy, Henry snuck up until he was standing within arm’s length of the monster.