The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 (25 page)

“The dragon?” I asked.

Ishmael nodded. “I stepped closer to the captain. The cursed shadows clung tightly to my body, forcing out quick breaths. A gentle wind picked up. It smelled like the ocean and stung my nostrils. A chill went down my spine as the hood of the man slipped back a bit. He was not
human
.”

We walked closer to the door.

I gasped. Ishmael simply nodded, unable or unwilling to take his eyes off the object. Above us, the clouds parted and the moonlight hit the coin. The dragon’s eyes seemed to glisten, staring down at me.

“A gold coin,” Ishmael said, “for the first man to spot the fish.”

I woke up with a start, as if I’d been falling in my dream right before I woke up. I leaned over, squinting as my sore eyes adjusted to the morning sun shining in through the windows. I opened my desk drawer, fumbling around until my fingers touched the cold piece of metal. I pulled out the gold coin, the one we’d found at the mansion.

Yup, it was definitely the same coin as on the ship. The coin that Briar had said belonged to the Order of the Golden Dragon. What did it mean? How had the captain gotten one? How had the headmistress gotten one?

I put the coin away. “Briar!” I whispered.

No answer. I fought back tears. All I could think about was the empty water in my dreams. The intense loneliness.

“You’re the hero,” I whispered, wiping my eyes. “Tough it out. Come on, Alice.”

Downstairs, Mom was making pancakes. Dad was reading the paper, sipping coffee. I played it like I was really tired—that way, if they were still mad at me about getting suspended, I could feign exhaustion and go back to bed. I didn’t want to hear any more lectures. All I wanted were a few pancakes and a good training session.

“Well, it’s a pretty nice thing to do,” Mom said.

I sat down at the table. “What is?”

Dad grunted. “The city’s new hotshot CEO is setting up a foster home.”

I leaned over so I could look at the front page. Sure enough—there was Sam Grayle’s smooth mug on the front page, smiling broadly as he cut the tape on a brand-new foster home. He was looking right at the camera, his eyes no doubt searching for me.
See?
Those eyes said.
I’m holding up my side of the bargain. Again.

“It’s probably a P.R. stunt,” Dad said.

Mom handed me a glass of orange juice. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. He’s already the toast of the town, what with his bank halting all of the home foreclosures in the area. He doesn’t need more good publicity.”

“Oh yes he does,” Dad murmured, reading my thoughts. “Bankers
always
need more good publicity. And I’d love to know what happened to the lady who ran the orphanage in that mansion. I bet Grayle killed her.”

I nearly spit out my juice.

“Swallow small gulps,” Mom suggested, handing me a plate of pancakes. “When you’re done with breakfast, you can get your weekly chores done. You’ve been slacking all month on them.”

“OK,” I said, looking down. At least the pancakes were delicious.

“Do you have to put in any hours at the library this weekend?”

“N …” I stopped, then shoved a forkful of pancakes in my mouth. Chase was meeting me at the library at three o’clock. If he kept his word, I’d be able to confront him. “I, uh, was going to go in and work on the shelves,” I said. “I’m a little behind on cleaning there, too.”

“Just let us know when you’ll be back,” Dad said. He sipped his coffee. “That’s the only way you’re leaving the house this weekend.”

“OK, OK. I get it.”

Back in my room, I opened my laptop and sent an email to Briar, hoping that wherever he was, he’d at least read it. I made it quick and to the point:

NEED YOUR HELP. MAGIC FISH. SEA CAPTAIN. CURSE. DRAGON.

SINCERELY,

THE HERO.

That finished, I went back to my map and put a star right next to Ludington Harbor, which was on the northwestern border of Michigan.

“All right, brain,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Let’s do one more math problem, and then I promise I’ll let you take a break and watch and hour’s worth of music videos on Youtube.”

I opened up the website that let me measure the traveling distance from port to port in the Great Lakes. There was no button that would let me measure the distance from Ludington, so I had to figure out another way. I looked up “Lake Michigan” on Wikipedia and searched for its measurements. The maximum width of the lake was 190 kilometers, which gave me a rough estimate of the distance between Michigan and Wisconsin at its widest point … but of course the
Leviathan
wouldn’t be sailing directly across because Ludington was northeast of Milwaukee … so she would be sailing diagonally, which would add a little distance …

“Crap!” I said, rubbing my temples. I’d drawn a diagonal line from Ludington down to Milwaukee, then a horizontal line from Milwaukee to the western shore of Michigan, then a vertical line up to Ludington. I’d drawn a triangle. And no matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn’t figure out how I might be able to measure that long diagonal line.

OK, I thought. A guess was going to have to be good enough. If the
Leviathan
was traveling at 8 kilometers per hour, and it had to cover
about
190 kilometers …

The captain would arrive sometime tonight.

“Crud,” I whispered. My hand reached for the magic pen.

I made it to the library at 2:55 pm, waiting nervously outside by the benches where Chase had first shown me how to counter-riposte. I was convinced he wouldn’t show. A cool autumn wind had picked up, rustling the dry leaves on the trees. More leaves blew across the grass, rolling past my feet. A wind coming in from the east. Perfect for a ship sailing southwest.

Then, like magic, he appeared. OK, it wasn’t magic—he pulled up in his car and got out just like a normal human being, but I was surprised to see him nonetheless.

“Chase,” I said, standing up and licking my lips. “I didn’t think you’d show.”

“I always keep my word,” he said. His hand reached up for his hair, checking it against the wind. “Always.”

“I have to talk to you.”

He shook his head, crossing the grass and grabbing two long sticks that were lying beside one of the old empty benches. He tossed one to me. “Don’t talk. Fight.”

I hefted the stick in my hand. It was light. Bent awkwardly. Definitely not a good facsimile of a foil. But before I could say another word, he came at me, swinging his stick wildly. I whacked the stick away, falling back and nearly tripping.

“Woah! Time out, time out!”

“No,” Chase said, launching another attack. I riposted as best I could, but it was only a few attacks before his stick slipped through my defense and connected painfully with my left arm.

“Ouch! Chase!” I jumped back, looking at my arm. The sleeve of my blue t-shirt was ripped. The skin was cut. “You ripped my shirt!”

“You don’t like that shirt anyway,” Chase said. “You like your violet shirts. Now come at me. Are you mad?”

“Yes!”

“Then come at me!”

I launched an attack, whipping my stick wildly left, then right, then downward. I stabbed. Then I stabbed again, pushing him back.

“Good,” he said. “Faster now! Faster, Alice!”

I swung again, losing control. He counter-riposted, hitting me right in the stomach. I fell back, then came at him again, this time keeping control.

“Faster!” Chase ordered.

I swung faster. He parried what he could, but my stick connected with him a couple times. I aimed right for the number of his jersey, swinging and counter-riposting and stabbing that number 12 again and again. I wanted to tear away that jersey and make sure he never wore it again. I wanted to hurt him.

“OK, stop.” He lowered his stick but I swung again anyway, connecting with his elbow. “Ouch, damn it! We’re done. We’re done.”

“What the heck was that all about?” I asked angrily.

“You need the killer’s instinct,” he answered, grabbing my stick. He threw both of the sticks onto the grass. “The best athletes have it. It’s that drive to finish the job. It’s the absolute power over your opponent. Relentlessness. You haven’t had it yet. You always start strong, then you back up and play down to your opponent. Go for the kill, Goodenough.”

He turned and walked back to his car. “Chase!” I called out, following. At his door, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around. The force seemed to surprise him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Talk to me after the game,” he said. “Come to the game. See me play.”

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be surprised.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

He opened the door to his car. His left knee buckled and his grip on the door tightened to keep him from falling. A look of strain spread across his face.

“Chase, listen to me! The …”

He shook his head, getting inside and shutting the door. His car’s engine roared to life and he pulled out of the parking space.

“You bonehead,” I muttered.

There was only one thing left to do. I walked into the library, giving Mary a wave as I grabbed the duster. I made my way to the back of the library, taking a book titled
How to Tie Sailing Knots
off the top shelf of the Reference section.

I started reading.

Later, at the bus stop, I couldn’t keep my foot from tapping anxiously on the sidewalk as I peered down the street. The magic boots were good for tapping because they had such hard soles, but they were a dreadful fashion statement. I could walk normally with them so long as I focused, but the desire to paint over their dreary gray-brown color was absolutely overwhelming.

I glanced down the busy street again. The bus would take me to Greendale High, which was where the baseball game was tonight. On the offhand chance one of my parents was driving down the street at this exact moment, I could only hope they wouldn’t recognize the baggy gray UW-Milwaukee sweatshirt I was wearing. Technically, it belonged to Trish. And with the hood up, it would be hard for a person driving by to get a good look at my face. I had on the magic boots and my shoes and fountain pen were tucked away safely in my purse. In other words: Alice Goodenough was ready for battle.

I was going to take a big risk tonight. There was no other option.

OK, there was
one
other option. I could just let it go. Let the captain find his fish and get his old life back again. That was what he probably wanted, right? After all, in the Brothers Grimm story, he asks for too much and the fish takes it all away. So this time, he probably wouldn’t wish for quite so much. Or maybe he would kill the fish and he would be happy and Chase would keep his legs and he would be happy and everyone would be happy.

Right?

Yeah. Because these Corrupted are
allllllllllll
about happy endings …

I had a bad feeling about this one. And as I got on the bus that would take me to Greendale High, I couldn’t stop thinking about Chase’s legs giving out from under him. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe his legs worked just fine and the fish had granted his wish and there was no catch at all.

Heh. I could almost hear Briar add, “Pardon the pun.”

Crap, I missed that rabbit. The bus ride took longer than I expected, weaving its way through the neighborhood of Greendale, giving me lots of time to think about my furry friend. By the time I got off the bus in front of the high school, I’d firmly decided I was going to hunt him down and
order
him to come back. I never should have cast him aside like I did. I regretted it.

The floodlights over the baseball diamond were bright, so bright that they lit up the dusky sky behind the high school. A handful of parents and students had parked their cars and were now hurrying down the path that wrapped around the big three-story brick building. I followed them, surprised to see the baseball diamond lined with bleachers along the foul lines. There were enough seats to hold at least a thousand and they were nearly full.

Greendale took its baseball seriously.

I made my way to the bleachers near the visiting team’s dugout, hoping to spot Chase. He was there, all right, leaning against the chain-link fence dividing him from the fans, his fingers slipping between the links to touch the fingers of his ex-ex-girlfriend. He was standing, smiling, and generally looking pretty confident. I guess having a magic fish does that for you.

The other team’s players didn’t seem quite so happy. Neither did their coach. Everyone else was sitting on the dugout bench, watching the game, while Chase continued flirting with his girlfriend. It was already the fifth inning and Washington High was up 4 to 1.

“Chase!” I called out, slipping closer and navigating my way through the first row of the bleachers. The crowd behind me cheered as one of the batters for Washington High stepped up to the plate.

“Well if it isn’t the kung-fu fighter herself,” the ex-ex-girlfriend said with a smile. “I thought you’d for sure be grounded, sweetheart.”