The Sisters Grimm: Book Eight: The Inside Story (24 page)

They climbed the second flight and were stopped in their tracks by a heavy wooden door. Through it the girls heard a terrified scream followed by a jarring crash of broken glass.

“Stay close,” Henry whispered to the family, and he pushed the door. When it swung open, the family witnessed a horrible scene. Mirror had his hands wrapped around the slender throat of the Wicked Queen. Despite his tiny frame, the man had hoisted her off the floor. Her face was turning blue and her feet were kicking wildly in vain for the solid ground.

“Hello, everyone,” Mirror said without tearing his attention away from the Queen. “If you would just give me a moment here with my mother, I will soon give you my undivided attention.”

Mirror tossed the woman into a corner. She stared at him apprehensively as she struggled to breathe. “You look bewildered, Mommy. Are you surprised your son is angry? Of all the people in the world, you should know why! You locked me inside that prison! Then you gave me away!”

His shouts, full of a terrifying rage, echoed off the walls and rang in Sabrina’s ears. She was well aware of Mirror’s magical abilities, but at that moment it was his tone that scared her the most. It seemed to have an effect on the others, too. In the far corner of the room a small child let out a whimpering cry. It was her baby brother!

Henry spotted him too, and raced to him, but a blast of lightning from Mirror’s hands stopped him in his tracks.

“Not so fast, Hank,” Mirror said.

“You have to stop this,” the Wicked Queen choked. “You’re messing with very fragile history.”

“I’ve been abused and mistreated for centuries,” Mirror continued, ignoring her pleas. “Then you turned your back on me as if I were property. What kind of mother are you?”

“I am not your mother,” the Wicked Queen said. “If you’ve come for revenge, you should have stayed in the real world.”

Mirror’s eyes glowed and the air crackled. He stuck out an angry finger at the woman. “As always, you deny me.”

The reflection in a full-length mirror leaning against the wall swirled and bubbled. The frame was familiar to Sabrina. It was identical to the one they had in Granny Relda’s home. Soon, a bulbous and intimidating face appeared. It was the storybook version of Mirror himself, and his expression was panicked.

“You must stop this,” the man in the mirror said. “The story will collapse.”

Mirror approached the enchanted glass. “So, this is what I look like on the other side? I’m really quite impressive.”

“There is no need for this violence,” the fake magic mirror said.

Mirror thrust his hand into the reflection. He wrapped his fingers around his doppelgänger’s throat and squeezed.

“What do you want?” the Wicked Queen said as she climbed to her feet.

After a long and painful moment, Mirror released him and stalked back to the Wicked Queen. “I want you to use your considerable magical talents to make me real. I want—”

Suddenly, there was a tremendous rocking sensation. Everything was shaking—the ground, the air, even the colors of objects scattered around the room. Sabrina felt like she was inside a snow globe in the hands of a hyperactive child.

“What was that?” Mirror said.

“I told you this story is unstable,” the Queen said. “It can’t take any more revision. It’s all going to fall apart.”

“Then we better get crackin’,” Mirror said, pulling the Queen across the room.

“I can’t make you real,” the Queen stammered.

“Tsk tsk,” he said. “You are the Wicked Queen, or at least a version of her. You possess her magic and her knowledge. If the real Queen knew how to create me, then so do you. This task should be effortless.”

While they were arguing, Henry ran forward again. This time Mirror hit him with a blast of electricity and he flew across the room, crumpling to the ground against a stone wall. Veronica and Daphne rushed to his side.

“Bunny, we’re all waiting,” Mirror said.

The Wicked Queen looked around as if hoping a hero on a white horse might charge through the door and save her, but then her shoulders slumped in surrender. She crossed the room to where a dozen empty frames leaned against a table covered in a tarp. She removed the covering to reveal several jars filled with slithering blobs of black glop. Whatever it was, it seemed to be alive. “You don’t understand, Mirror. When I create a magical looking glass, I’m not creating a life. You are an enchantment, a spell—nothing more than a few rare ingredients and an ancient incantation. Once you appeared, I placed you into an empty vessel and then shaped you into whatever form I needed. I’ll show you.”

The Wicked Queen opened one of the jars and removed the black glob. It slithered around her arm like a snake but she wrangled it back into her palms. At once her hand turned a bright, hot red and the creature shimmied and twisted like melting glass.

She spoke a few unintelligible words and one of the empty picture frames began to brighten like a television screen. Once it was bright white, she introduced the blob onto its surface. It sank in like she had dropped it into a bathtub. Then she placed her hand over the reflection. She uttered a few more words in an ancient language and then removed her hand. A scarlet handprint remained on the surface.

Mirror smiled. “That red handprint was the first thing I saw when I was born. I’ve seen it in my dreams ever since. It’s quite a unique symbol—intimidating, powerful. Don’t you agree, Relda? You must have seen it popping up all over Ferryport Landing.”

Granny shook her head in disgust.

The red print faded and a face appeared in the frame. It was that of a burly man with short gray hair, a full beard, and a sweater. “Awaiting your instructions,” it said in a gruff, almost salty tone.

Mirror gestured to the jars. “If you can put that energy into something you can take it out, correct?” Mirror said. “You could take it out of my body?”

The Queen’s eyes grew wide. “I suppose I could, but I would need a vessel to place it into. I don’t see the point of just putting you back into a mirror.”

“Oh, no, I’ve done the mirror thing. Allow me to introduce my vessel,” Mirror said. He snatched the baby Grimm off the floor and held him in his arms. “I want you to put me into him. He will give me my freedom not only from the magical cage you trapped me in, but also from the town of Ferryport Landing. I will be both Everafter and human at the same time.”

“You want to possess him?” Mirror’s storybook double cried.

Mirror nodded. “He is still a child. Whatever soul he has cannot be strong, so he will not fight me. Can you do it?”

The Wicked Queen nodded. “Yes, but—”

“
No!
” Veronica cried. “If you want a body, you can take mine!”

Mirror shook his head. “No offense, Veronica, but I’d like to live a long, full life. I want the boy.”

Granny Relda growled. Sabrina had never seen her so angry. “None of this had to happen, Mirror. You could have come to me. I would have done everything in my power to set you free.”

“Relda, that is kind of you to say. But you would have failed. One day you would have died and I would have had to start all over with a new owner. Your family has shown me great kindness, but who knows where I might have landed? I could be in the hands of tyrants someday. No, the time is now. I can’t wait another day.” He turned back to the Wicked Queen. “All right, Mom. It’s time you finally gave me a birthday present.”

The Wicked Queen stepped forward and her hand grew red once more.

“You may want to set the boy on the ground,” she said. Mirror did as he was told and she placed her hand on Mirror’s head. He screamed in agony as the hand burned his skin, and then a black glob, just like the ones in the jars, seeped out of his mouth and hovered before the man’s blank eyes. When the Queen let go of him, Mirror’s body collapsed to the ground, dead and empty. A moment later, it liquefied into a silver, reflective fluid, like mercury.

“Bunny, you don’t have to finish this,” Granny said.

The Queen shook her head. “If I don’t, he’ll take someone else in this room. Maybe even me. You don’t want him to have my power.”

She stood the boy up, waved her red hand just over his face, and the black blob shot into his mouth. If it hurt or distressed him, the baby showed no sign. The only change was the expression on his face. His youthful smile and glittering eyes were replaced with an ageless intelligence. The boy looked down at the silver puddle and studied his face in its reflection.

“Fascinating,” he said. The single word told Sabrina that Mirror’s plan had succeeded.

“
No!
” Veronica cried, bursting into tears. Henry’s head fell in exhaustion.

The little boy turned to the Grimms. He lifted his little hands and his fingertips crackled with magical power. “Very good. My abilities work just as well.”

“The Editor will fix this,” Sabrina said. “He’ll change you back to what you were.”

“Oh, I’m afraid he’s going to have his hands full with other problems,” the boy said. “You see, while I was traveling through these books I learned that the Snow White history has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. Apparently, it was much different once—I don’t recall what actually happened because someone changed it in this book and it wiped my memory. A troubling phenomenon, but one I intend to exploit. There’s someone or something that is caged up in the margins. I can feel it. And if I can have my freedom, I suppose I can give it to someone else, too.”

“How are you going to do that, Mirror?” Granny Relda said.

“By killing a main character,” the child replied, his eyes glowing with power. His little body lifted off the ground and he flew through the castle window out into the sky. Sabrina and Daphne rushed to the window and saw him soaring like an eagle down toward the Seven Dwarfs’ cottage.

Suddenly a door materialized and the Editor appeared in the doorway. His face looked panicked. “He’s after Snow White! Queen, if he manages to kill someone that important, he will surely rip everything apart. We all have to stop him at any cost. You must help the Grimms!”

10

ome with me,” the Wicked Queen said, then hurried everyone down the many flights of stairs and into a stable where several saddled horses waited. Henry and Veronica helped the children and Granny Relda onto their mounts. They took two for themselves while the Wicked Queen mounted a frightening black stallion with angry eyes. Seconds later they were bolting down the path at a heart-racing speed.

“Revisers!” Daphne screamed, pointing to the side of the path. Hundreds of creatures were eating the trees and shrubs.

“Pray they work quickly,” the witch said.

“Pray? Those things are monsters,” Sabrina said.

“Those things may be the only way of keeping the story intact. If the bindings and rewrites the Editor established fall apart, then something far worse than a reviser will be let loose.”

“Could you fill us in on what everyone’s talking about? What’s so important about this story?” Sabrina asked.

The Wicked Queen turned to the girls. “There was a time when Snow White’s tale was much different—much more tragic.”

When they got to the cottage, they found the dwarfs battling with Mirror, who zipped around in the air like a mosquito. Mr. Seven broke from the fight and rushed out to help the family off their horses. When she was on her feet, Sabrina saw two glass coffins resting on a platform in the garden. The lovely Snow White was resting in one. In the other was Puck. Despite all the excitement around them, neither of the slumbering people woke up.

“We spotted revisers over the hill,” the Queen said.

“We’ve got a bigger problem. Prince Atticus is coming,” Mr. Seven said.

“Who is Atticus?” Daphne asked.

A man on a great gray horse galloped out of the woods. Moments later, he leaped to his feet and sprang into action, joining the fight to stop Mirror.

“Atticus is my brother,” he said, swinging his sword with all his might. Even with the odd, fake-looking colors of this world, Sabrina immediately recognized the Book’s version of Ferryport Landing’s former mayor, William Charming.

“Your brother?” Granny Relda said. “You don’t have a brother!”