The Grimm Legacy (15 page)

I handed Doc the call slip.

“Oh, a
mermaid’s
comb. Heady stuff, but safe enough as long as you don’t use it around water. Or a busy highway. You’re not planning to lure any young men to their doom, are you?”

How embarrassing! I shook my head, blushing. “I just want to look nice for the big basketball game.”

“I see. You know there’s a three-hour limit on this?”

“Three hours? But Ms. Callender said I could bring it back on Saturday!”

“No, I mean a limit on the effects. They taper off, and everything goes back to normal after three hours. Most of the Grimm Collection objects have a time limit—some of them last three days, or a fortnight, or a year and a day. This one’s just three hours. If you’re looking for a permanent love potion, this isn’t it.”

A freckle was floating up Doc’s nose like the shadow of an airplane skimming across the grass. It fascinated me. I made an effort and tore my eyes away. “Really? Is there a permanent love potion in the Grimm Collection?”

“Interesting question. There’s a great deal of scholarly debate in the community over whether any artificially induced love can ever be permanent. Or any natural love, for that matter. Any so-called natural love, assuming any love is natural.”

I noticed that wasn’t really an answer. I also noticed Doc didn’t seem to be signing the slip. “So, the deposit,” I said nervously.

“Mmm.” Doc didn’t seem to be in any hurry. “Let me explain how this works. Here in the repository we keep the objects safe under lock and key. Out in the world, the borrower is responsible for them. When you sign the slip, you’re pledging not to use the object for ill. You’re also pledging to return it whole and potent by the appointed hour. Otherwise your deposit is forfeit. You understand?”

“Of course.”

“I just want to make sure you understand how serious this is. It’s not always easy to keep the objects safe. Not everyone who’s part of our knowledge community is well intentioned, unfortunately. There’s a thief out there, not to mention that bird. It’s possible someone could try to take the comb. It might make you a target, and you’re responsible for keeping it safe.”

That sounded serious. Was it worth it, I wondered, just for pretty hair? But Doc had said to start with something small. If I didn’t have the guts to borrow a mere mermaid comb, how would I ever work my way up to something really big, like flying shoes or an invisibility cloak?

“Are you saying I shouldn’t do this?”

“Not at all. We trust you. You passed the test, and I believe you’re ready. And you’ve chosen something appropriately small to start with. I just need to make sure you’re going into this with your eyes open.”

“I see. Yes, I’m ready.”

“All right. Now, where did I put that
kuduo
?” Doc opened and shut desk drawers, stood up, scanned the bookshelves, walked over to a closet and peered in. “Do you see it behind your chair?”

“I don’t know. What does it look like?”

“It’s rather ornate. It has a puff adder and a hornbill on the lid.”

I didn’t know what a puff adder or a hornbill looked like, but there was nothing behind the chair. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Oh, there it is!” Doc pointed to the top of a bookcase. “Drag over that chair, would you?” I held the chair while Doc handed down a heavy bronzy-black object, roughly cylindrical, about the size of a cantaloupe.

A puff adder is a snake and a hornbill is a bird, evidently.

I put the object on the desk. “Thanks,” said Doc, scrambling down from the chair and lifting the lid.

I peered inside. There seemed to be things in it, but I couldn’t make out what. Looking at them made me dizzy. “What
is
this thing?” I asked.

“It’s a
kuduo,
a ceremonial vessel from the Akan people. They’re traditionally used to hold a chief’s gold and spiritual treasure.”

“Is it from the Grimm Collection?” I asked.

“No—it’s on loan to the repository from one of our close families.”

“Like the way Anjali’s family has magic?” I asked. Thinking of my own family, I felt faintly jealous. “Do all the other pages have magic families—the Grimm pages, I mean?”

“Not all of them, but some do, yes.”

“Who does the
kuduo
belong to, then?” I asked.

Looking a little uncomfortable, Doc answered, “Marc Merritt’s uncle. He loaned it to the repository to use for keeping the deposits. Now, what deposit would you like to leave?”

“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “How much is it supposed to be? I have about two hundred dollars saved up.” It didn’t sound as if it could possibly be enough. A mere two hundred dollars—for real magic?

“Money?” Doc sounded shocked. “No, no, Grimm deposits are never money. You’ll have to leave something else.”

“Oh. Like what?”

“You have plenty of choices. We’re quite flexible. The most traditional forfeit, of course, is your firstborn child. Or your skill with your right hand, but that could be inconvenient. Your beauty, your courage, your eyesight, your sense of gravity, your free will, your luck. Those are some of the more common deposits. But most of them are a little heavy for a mere mermaid’s comb, and giving up your beauty would defeat the purpose, I imagine. Your sense of smell, maybe?”

I shook my head, horrified by all these options, especially smell. How would I do my work in the Grimm Collection if I couldn’t smell magic?

“No? Many people don’t mind giving that up for a few days, but of course it’s a matter of individual preference. Your sense of humor, then?”

“Are you joking?”

“Your ear for music? Skill at games? Ability to take tests? Childhood memories? Sense of direction?”

“Sense of direction,” I said quickly. It seemed like the least important of all the possibilities Doc had mentioned. My sense of direction wasn’t all that great to begin with, and it was only for a few days.

“You’re right-handed, right? Give me your right hand.”

I hesitated. “You want my right hand? Didn’t you just say my sense of direction?”

Doc smiled reassuringly. “Not as the deposit. Just as a conduit.”

“Oh. Okay.” I laid my hand in Doc’s cool, dry one.

“Orientation,

Spatial relation,

Out of this body and to your new station!”
Doc intoned impressively.

Nothing happened.

I cleared my throat.

“My, my,” said Doc mildly. “I wonder why that didn’t . . . Ah, what’s this?”

“This” was the matted remains of the yarn Jaya had tied around my wrist.

“Just a knot Anjali’s little sister tied.”

“Clever girl. What’s her name?”

“Jaya.”

“Jaya Rao. One of Abigail Bender’s students, isn’t she? Hm . . . Would you mind taking that off?”

“Not at all,” I said.

I pulled on the yarn, but it wouldn’t break. I sawed at it with my teeth; no good. I picked at the knot, but I couldn’t tease it loose.

“Do you have scissors?”

Doc reached into a drawer and handed me a pair. It looked sharp, but like the cheap, blunt baby scissors they give kids in grade school, it just gagged uselessly on the yarn.

“You might try saying a word or two of encouragement,” suggested Doc. “Tell it you forgo the protection and so on. In rhyme, if you can.”

I thought for a minute.

“
I forgo

Protection, knot.

Please let go,

And . . . thanks a lot,”
I said, feeling very silly. But it worked: the knot collapsed as soon as I touched it.

I brushed the yarn off my wrist. So it really had some magic power, then! I’d assumed Jaya was just playing around. Did that mean it was actually protecting me? Maybe I should have thought harder before giving it up. Well, too late now.

“Very good,” said Doc, taking my hand and intoning once again.

This time the incantation worked. Something poured out of me, flowing weightily, like when you give blood. It had a complicated, patterned structure that seemed to take up more space than just the part I saw, as if it had extra dimensions. It flowed out and out—could
that
have been inside me?

Doc carefully balanced it on the edge of the desk. I worried that all the internal motion would make it fall, but it didn’t. It smelled appallingly intimate, like my own breath.

“Sign here,” said Doc.

I signed.

“Now the vow. Repeat after me:

Forfeit fair and given free,

I resign a part of me.

In exchange I’ll keep with care

What is given free and fair:

Potent, uncorrupt, and whole.

Else the bargain shall be null—

My pledge forfeit, or my soul.”

I looked at the intricate, throbbing blob balanced on the edge of the desk and hesitated. What a grim vow! But if this was what it took to borrow items from the Grimm Collection, so be it. “Can you say that again, slowly?”

“Sure. We can take it line by line,” said Doc.

Piece by piece I repeated the rhyme, as firmly as I could.

“Great! That’s it,” said Doc, scooping up my sense of direction, tucking it in the
kuduo,
and signing the call slip.

I felt strangely shaken. I guess it must have showed. “What you’re feeling is normal, Elizabeth,” Doc said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s hard to give something up, something that’s a part of you. I know a mermaid’s comb is a small thing, but this is a big step. I remember my first Grimm loan—I started small, like you, with a magic darning needle. I left my singing voice. I remember how I felt when I watched it go.”

“Did you get it back?”

“Of course, the very next day. And even if I hadn’t—because there have been things I’ve been asked to give up for good . . . Well, over the years here I’ve learned that sometimes a great loss is also a great gain.” Under the slowly swirling freckles, Doc’s face looked infinitely sad. Somehow I didn’t find that reassuring.

Chapter 15:

I lose my way

I had trouble getting back to Stack 6 to claim the mermaid’s comb. Somehow I got turned around on my way to the elevator, and then I got turned around again on my way out. I had to look at the fire evacuation map on the wall, and even then I took a wrong turn.

I was late to social studies on Wednesday—I went to the wrong floor first. Mr. Mauskopf squinted at me and frowned as I slipped into my seat, but he didn’t mark me late in his book.

I was late to my next class too. I started to wish I’d pledged my sense of humor instead of my sense of direction. Getting lost all the time was so annoying, I was starting to lose it anyway.

My phone rang that evening while I was doing my trigonometry.

“Elizabeth? It’s Aaron. Aaron Rosendorn.”

“Hi, Aaron. How—where did you get my number?”

“From Sarah, at the repository.”

Did he always have such a deep voice? He sounded different—older, but less sure of himself.

I waited for him to tell me what he wanted. He hadn’t been all that nice the last time we’d spoken, as I recalled.

He cleared his throat. “Did you figure out what’s going on with those objects from the Grimm Collection?” he asked.

He was calling me about the Grimm Collection? At home? How weird!

“No, I still have no idea what’s up with them,” I said. “Ms. Callender said she was just getting started looking into it. Do you know?”

“No, but . . . Do you think we should talk to Anjali? Maybe she could help figure it out.”

Oh. Of course. Of course that was why he was calling. He just wanted to talk about Anjali.

“I already talked to Anjali about it,” I said. “She input the objects into a spreadsheet and she’s working on finding a pattern.”

Aaron laughed. “That’s so like her! Maybe I should call her and see if there’s anything I might know that could help. What do you think?”

A wave of irritation swept over me. Why was he asking
me
? “I don’t know. I don’t know what more you could tell her, but you can call her if you want. Or you could just talk to her next time you see her. I don’t think it matters.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

His voice disappeared. I was about to hang up when he spoke again. “Um, so how are you?”

“How am I?”

“Yeah. How are you?”

“Uh . . . fine?”

“Good.” I heard him swallow.

“How are
you
?” I asked.

“I’m fine too.”

“Good. We’re both fine.”

Another pause.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Up to?”

“Yeah, what are you doing?”

“My trig homework. Why? What are
you
doing?”

“Nothing. Calling you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. “I guess I should get back to my homework,” I said eventually.

“Yeah. Well, thanks, Elizabeth. Call me if you figure anything out, okay? Or if . . . or if you just want to talk.”

Talk? About what? “Okay, I will,” I said.

“Okay, thanks. Bye.”

“Bye.” I pressed the off button on my phone and stared at the screen for a while. Then I stared at the wall for a while.

That was one weird conversation.

Well, it was a weird week, and he was a weird guy. I shrugged and went back to cosines and tangents.

Half an hour later he called back.

“Hi, Elizabeth, me again.”

“Hi, Aaron.”

“Listen, I was thinking. What if we asked some of the objects in the Grimm Collection to tell us what’s wrong with the other ones?”

“You mean ask the objects themselves? You think that would work?”

“It might. Some of them are pretty talkative. At least, they are if you talk to them in rhyme.”

“Tell me about it. But aren’t you the guy who thinks we shouldn’t touch anything or use anything?”

“Yeah. But what if . . . I don’t know, we could borrow them officially. That would be legit.”

“Hm. That’s not a bad idea, actually,” I said. “Which objects did you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought it through yet.”

“Okay. Well, maybe we should go through the card catalog and see if there’s anything useful.”

“Okay . . . Well, bye.”

“Bye.”

I had just finished a tricky math problem and was feeling proud of myself when the phone rang again.

“Elizabeth? It’s Aaron again.”

What on earth was going on with him?

“You don’t say,” I said.

He laughed uncomfortably. “Actually, I was wondering. What are you doing Friday?”

“I’m going to the basketball game,” I said. “There’s a big home game at my school. Why?”

“Oh.” His voice fell. “I just thought . . . never mind.”

Before he could hang up again, I said, “Well, maybe—you could come to the game if you want.”

What on earth was I doing? Was I asking him out? Why was I doing that? He was kind of awful, and he liked Anjali—
Anjali,
not me. I was making a complete fool of myself.

“It’ll probably be an exciting game,” I went on. “We’re playing the World Peace Academy. They’re a charter school, they have a dumb name but a killer team, and they keep winning. But we’re doing great too this season.” I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop. “We have a lot of talent on our team. Especially Marc. I think this time we might actually have a chance of winning. You should see Marc play. He’s been amazing lately.”

Aaron finally spoke. When he did, nice, nervous Aaron was gone. He had turned into cold, sarcastic Aaron, the Aaron who hated Marc. “Yeah, I bet he has. I just
bet
he has,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s more to sports than just speed and strength, you know. There’s also honesty and fair play.”

“What are you talking about? Are you implying Marc cheats?”

“I know what I’ve seen at the repository.”

“You know what you think you’ve seen, but you’re wrong. Marc is just as worried as you are about the suspicious objects. He’s helping me and Anjali figure it out and get them back.”

“What? You
told
him about them?”

“Of course I did. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I can’t believe you! I can’t believe
myself.
What was I thinking, deciding I could trust you?”

“What’s the matter with you, Aaron? I didn’t do anything to you, and you call me up out of the blue and start yelling at me!”

“Fine. I’ll get off the phone now.” He hung up.

“Bye,” I said to the dead phone. I went back to my math, wondering why I felt like I was about to cry.

I didn’t see Aaron at the repository on Thursday. Ms. Callender sent me to the MER to handle the pneum traffic, and it was so busy I didn’t have a moment free to look for helpful GC objects in the catalog, even if I’d had the heart to.

Friday after school I made my way to Anjali’s house. I managed to get there by keeping careful track of the building numbers as I walked up Park Avenue. I gave my name to the doorman, who gave it to whoever answered the buzzer at the Raos’.

“Fourteenth floor,” he told me.

I found the elevator okay. It was in plain sight, right in front of me.

“Elizabeth! So nice to see you again, dear,” said Mrs. Rao, opening the door. “Are you excited about the basketball game tonight?”

“Totally,” I said. “We’re playing World Peace Academy. They have a cutthroat team, but we’re doing great this year, so it should be a close one.”

“It sounds exciting. Anjali is in her room—you remember the way?”

“I think so.”

“No, the other way—to the left,” said Mrs. Rao.

I opened the door to a linen closet and what must have been Jaya’s room, judging by the sparkly clothes strewn all around, before I came to a door marked
Anjali
in careful calligraphy. I knocked and tried the handle. It was locked.

Anjali’s voice came through the door, muffled but firm: “Go away.”

“Anjali? It’s me, Elizabeth.”

“Oh, sorry!” The door opened. Anjali was wearing pink sweats with clouds on them, and even in sweats she looked great. “Sorry, I thought it was Jaya.” She stood aside to let me in, then locked the door again.

“Well? Did you figure out who took those objects?” I asked.

“I think so. Maybe. Marc wants us to meet him in your school library after the game so the three of us can go over it together. But why don’t you take a look now and see if there’s anything I missed?” She got out her laptop and patted the sofa pillow next to her. I sat down and tilted the screen so that I could see it better.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is everyone who checked out any of the objects on Ms. Callender’s list. These are their affiliations—their business or school or whatever. Here are pairs of people who checked out at least one object in common. Do you see the pattern?”

I shook my head.

“Yeah, I didn’t get it either at first. All right, let me show you one more list.” Anjali opened a new window on her computer. “This has all the objects you pulled for Ms. Callender on the
y
-axis, with all the patrons who took them out in chronological order along the
x
-axis. The objects that still smell like magic are highlighted in red. Okay, now I’m going to highlight the patrons who work for a place called Benign Designs.” She touched a key, and a bunch of spreadsheet cells lit up in blue. “Get it now?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really understand what all the boxes mean. How do you know this stuff? Is this what they teach you at Miss Wharton’s—like, AP Spreadsheets or something?”

Anjali laughed. “Sorry, I forgot not everybody has to live with my dad. He had Jaya and me using these programs the minute we were born. Look.” She pointed to the screen. “These seven patrons are from some business called Benign Designs. Notice how somebody from Benign Designs took out every one of the objects that you said doesn’t smell magical?”

She was right. At least one of the seven names appeared on every row. “Yes, but they also took out most of the ones that do smell magical,” I said. “Maybe they’re just heavy library users. And they’re not the only ones who took out the messed-up objects. Look, two or three other people did too, including Ms. Minnian.”

“Maybe. But look at
when.
With the ones that don’t smell right, someone from Benign Designs took them out at least three patrons ago. The ones that still smell magical have been checked out only once or twice since the Benign Designs patron.”

“Except for the ones that haven’t ever been checked out by Benign Designs. Like the seven-league boots,” I pointed out.

She waved her hand. “I’m not counting those. They’re clearly mistakes.”

“You can’t just decide anything that doesn’t fit your theory is a mistake! And what actually is your theory, anyway?”

“That the people at Benign Designs are doing something to the objects.”

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know. Stealing their magic, maybe.”

“Can you do that? Can you take the magic out of something magical?”

“I don’t know.
I
can’t, obviously, but maybe
somebody
can.”

“But then why do the objects still work for the next three patrons?”

“I’m not sure. It has to be some kind of delayed action. Maybe the magic fades slowly.”

“Or maybe they put a spell on them so the third person to take them out has to give them to Benign Designs, and they replace it with a fake, like you and Marc do with the seven-league boots.”

“Maybe—that’s another possible theory. We could test it, by borrowing one of the objects.”

“Oh, wait!” I remembered the comb. “I already did!” I took it out of my bag. “This was on the list.”

“What is it?” Anjali turned it over in her hands.

“It’s a . . . comb,” I mumbled, suddenly embarrassed.

She looked at me intensely. Under her scrutiny, I felt mortifyingly vain. I couldn’t believe I had borrowed a mermaid’s comb so I could look nice while watching someone else’s boyfriend play basketball.

“What kind of comb?” she asked.

“A mermaid’s comb. I wanted . . . I thought . . . ,” I trailed off.