A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (12 page)

“Good try,” Dylan said, resuming his relaxed position against the tree.

“You’re concern for Quinn is touching,” Andi said dryly, her eyes still on tiny sprout. “It was like a time lapse it was so fast. We’ve just got to figure out how to do it again.”

“What do you suggest?” Fredrick asked.

“I don’t know!” she said, reaching up to tuck in a grubby, stray curl and hissing again when she touched her raw scalp. “It could be the time of day, the blood on my h
ands, the salt on my skin…”

Mr. Jackson headed back to them, his arms full of strips of cloth.

“Salt,” Andi repeated as if in a daze. She snapped out of it and started prodding Dylan to his feet. “Keep Mr. Jackson busy,” she murmured to him.

“What?” Dylan asked, still woozy on his feet.

“Keep. Him. Busy,” Andi said through clenched teeth, giving his leg a shove. Dylan staggered toward Mr. Jackson and met him several yards away. Andi saw Dylan gesture to his bandaged head and sink to the ground, as if dizzy. It probably wasn’t much of an act.

“What are we doing?” Fredrick asked in a low voice as Andi scooted herself around the tree, where they were harder to see. She pulled her book of fairy tales from her bag.

“Checking something,” Andi said, distracted as she scanned the index and quickly thumbed to the right page.

Then she took the hazel branch, and went to her mother’s grave and planted it there; and cried so much that it was watered with her tears; and there it grew and became a fine tree—

Fredrick broke into her thoughts, “Why are you reading? Shouldn’t we ask Mr. Jackson for help?”

She snapped the book shut, her suspicion confirmed. “Mr. Jackson’s not on top of my people-I-trust-list right now. But it’s tears, Fredrick. That’s what made the seed sprout.” What else could it be except a seed?

“And the book said that?” Fredrick asked, his doubtful tone back.

“Sort of. I need you to make me cry,” Andi said, darting a glance at Mr. Jackson, who was now unwinding Dylan’s bandage he had just put on, while Dylan gestured wildly.

“Make you cry? How?” Fredrick asked, edging away from her.

“Not sure. Tell me a sad story? Slap me?”

“I’m not slapping you,” Fredrick said, taking a step back.

Scowling at him in frustration, Andi closed her eyes to concentrate. She didn’t get the lead in the school musical for nothing. She dredged up every horrible thing she could imagine or remember, every news story about entire families dying in fiery car crashes, school shootings, killer tornados burying people alive. Then she found the worst laceration on her neck and pressed hard.

She felt the tears welling as she held up the sprout and blinked. One, two, three drops fell on the seed. As they watched, the sprout shot up and leaves unfolded along the stem. A bud formed and bloomed, the dark purple petals separated and stretched, revealing a new pearl center.

“That’s incredible,” Fredrick breathed, not taking his eyes off the flower.

Andi’s elation turned to alarm as the process continued. The flower curled in on itself, several petals fell and the heavy head drooped on a supple stem.

Then it stopped and Andi released a sigh of relief. She had almost overdone it. The pearl ring, now a dry husk, fell away from the flower. The new flower was very similar to the one she’d crushed, it even looked half dead. She glanced again at Mr. Jackson who carefully redressed Dylan’s head. Leveraging herself up with the help of the tree, she clutched at the bark until her reeling head slowed slightly.

“Let’s go,” she said, pitching into Fredrick.

“We should talk to Mr. Jackson about this. I think he’s genuinely trying to help.”

“It’s my flower,” she said mulishly.

Fredrick sighed. “Then you wait here,” he said, lowering her back down next to the tree. He held out his hand for the flower. “I'll be right back."

“No. I'm going," she said stubbornly.

"You’ve done a good job." Fredrick chose his words carefully, slipping the flower from her grasp. "Let me do this. I owe you both, especially Quinn.”

Remembering Quinn's headlong dash up the tree to save Fredrick's life, Andi felt disoriented in time for a moment. Was that only yesterday?

"Fine. But only because my head feels like a truck ran over it," Andi said closing her eyes for a second and swallowing hard. She tried to smile at him, but didn’t quite make it. “She’s a small black bird. Just touch her with the flower. Eulie shouldn’t be able to freeze you again.”

“Did your book tell you that?” Fredrick asked, glancing back at Mr. Jackson, just finishing up on Dylan. “Are you sure about this?”

"I don’t want to ask him for help,” she said, her tone tight and clipped. She forced a more civil tone, it wasn’t Fredrick she was mad at. “I’ll tell you about the book when you get back. I promise. It’ll work.”

He nodded once and ventured back into the fairy’s territory.

"That would’ve been helpful to know
before
I disenchanted a stadium full of women.”

Fredrick approached the castle made of glass. The panes were warped, making the objects on the other side eerie and distorted, while the sun filtering through the trees caused the glass to reflect the woods around it.

Fredrick moved slowly, constantly checking over his shoulder. He loosened his death grip on the flower as another petal fluttered to the ground. He didn’t know if their luck in growing enchanted flowers would hold out.

The drawbridge spanned a disgusting brown moat, open and inviting as the maw of a great fish. This made him more wary than a hedge of impenetrable briars would have.

Unidentifiable brown lumps floated below him that he tried not to stare at. He was pretty sure he didn't want to figure out what they were. But when one of the lumps moved, he saw it was a drifting alligator that flicked its scaled tail and disappeared. Fredrick hurried across, wanting to put distance between himself and the moat. The thud of his boots reverberated on the glass as he hurried through the open portcullis.
             

The only thing not made of glass caught his eye—a satellite dish perched on an outside wall, angled straight up as though desperate to get a signal in the tangle of the trees. Fredrick shook his head, wondering if they had their own channels here.

Several flights of stairs wound from the courtyard to the battlements, and doors led off in every direction. Some he could rule out, like what was obviously an abandoned stable turned into a storage shed. Fredrick caught sight of a grandfather clock missing its pendulum sagging against the wall like a lost man, and a phonograph perched precariously on one step, a record at the ready. He considered the multitude of other doors that could lead absolutely anywhere.

The crash and crack of something hitting flagstones made Fredrick whirl back around. The phonograph and its record were in splinters at the bottom of the stairs and a black cat twitched its tail on the stairs, completely unrepentant.

Relief washing through him, Fredrick let out a short bark of a laugh. He scratched the cat behind the ears and it mewed for more attention.

A murmured sound caught his ear. Fredrick shushed the cat and held his breath, still not sure if he had heard anything at all.

The noise sounded again. This time he was sure he heard it, although he still couldn’t identify its source. Edging forward, he followed the sound, trying to keep his feet silent on the glass and his pounding heart from drowning out his only guide.

The murmur grew louder and led him up one of the open-air staircases. The noise was still indistinguishable, but Fredrick heard repetitions and patterns that separated and soared, dropped and blended together once more.

He wandered and wove his way through abandoned halls made of thick frosted glass, at times the noise fading so far it could have been his imagination. Only when he was thoroughly lost did he find the source of the cacophony.

Stories below, the center of the castle opened into an enormous atrium. Balconies identical to the one Fredrick stood on spiraled around the open space, drawing the eye to a riot of color and sound. Hundreds of birds filled the space, all trying to out scream each other. Their songs echoing off the glass paneled walls crea
ted a sound like a waterfall.

Dotted among the rainforest of trees, ferns, and vines hung cages from every available branch, while more crowded for space on the floor. Tiny golden cages held delicate canaries, finches, chickadees, and sparrows. Tremendous wooden cages large enough for Fredrick to stand in were half hidden behind massive ferns. These held the larger birds—regal macaws, coral colored ibises, peacocks, and Fredrick thought he even saw a black eagle staring at him from her own cage suspended at eye level.

How would he ever find Quinn in all this? He looked for both Quinn and the old woman. He chuckled when he spotted the black cat that beat him into the atrium and perched among the cages in a tree, napping.

None of the staircases led directly to the ground floor, forcing Fredrick to follow the spiral of balconies down. He ducked under a hanging branch and peered into each smaller cage suspended from the trees carefully. There was no sign of Quinn.

He finally found a small dark bird hopping around and trilling in the company of a few finches.

Opening the door, the birds peeped in alarm and beat their wings frantically around the tiny space, trying to elude his hand. He hadn't realized she would be this difficult to catch, especially one handed, without crushing her against the side of the cage. He snagged one delicate clawed foot and dragged her through the cage door. As soon as his hand left the confines of the cage, the finches calmed down and satisfied themselves with chirping indignantly at him from behind the bars.

The tiny black bird flapped in frantic desperation, trying to free herself from Fredrick's grip. He pinned her wings to her sides and she settled until only the buzz of her heart gave away her anxiety. He brought up the flower and gently touched it to her head.

A faint POP sounded and the bird was gone, but a young woman with dark hair hiding her face sprawled at his feet. She looked disoriented as she cradled her head in both her hands.

Fredrick bent and touched her shoulder, "Quinn?"

The woman turned and peered into his face, confused. Then she screamed. Fredrick staggered back several paces. This wasn't Quinn. The woman continued to shriek as she
scrambled backward like a crab.

"Wait, wait!" Fredrick put up both hands in surrender, one still clutching the ragged flower. He expected the old woman to appear. Seconds passed, and as time stretched, the only sound continued to be the chirps, s
quawks, and cries of the birds.

The woman eyed him like a poisonous
snake and asked, "Who are you?"

"Fredrick, ma’am. I'm sorry I upset you.” he ran a hand up the back of his head self-consciously. “I'm just looking for someone."

The woman's face brightened. "Ah, you've come to claim your lost love!"

"No! I... She's not... she's just..." Fredrick stammered himself silent, face flaming.

The woman hadn’t listened anyway. "I'm Salina. I've no love to come for me. I've been here for months."

She batted her eyes in what Fredrick assumed was supposed to be
a coy manner.

"A lucky girl, to have such a handsome, devoted love." She advanced on Fredrick and his body seized up like t
he hag had enchanted him again.

His throat constricted, strangling any intelligible words. He choked out, "Could you help me?" The woman was now entirely too close for comfort and Fredrick leaned back as far as he could without physically moving his feet.

The smile Salina flashed him became a feral grin. "I suppose it is the least I can do, as a thank you for disenchanting me." Salina walked away, and as Fredrick relaxed, she threw over her shoulder, "Unless you can think of a better way for me to thank you?"

She strutted over to the cage where she was held captive and tilted her head at th
e finches still trapped inside.

"The fastest way to find her is to disenchant everyone, otherwise it's like finding a needle in a haystack." She flipped open the cage door and gave a shrill whistle. One of the finches alighted on her finger and she expertly maneuvered it out of the tiny cage. "Besides, you wouldn't leave the other girls like this, would you?" She held out the finch that examined Fredri
ck with beady eyes, and waited.

He took in the room ringing with birdcalls. She was right, but
this was going to take forever.

Holding out the flower, he lightly touched the bird's head. With another POP, a middle aged ash-blonde woman sprawled at his feet; he reached to help her up, but Salina was already holding out the next finch from the cage.

Soon the atrium echoed with a strange combination of chirps and the high-pitched voices of women. The noise made his head pound. They might have been quieter as birds. The atrium brimmed with women of every age and size—young girls, grandmothers, redheads, blondes, brunettes, every height and color imaginable. They wandered dazed, chatting, crying, hysterically laughing, and still there were more birds.