A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (9 page)

“Works for me,” Andi said, ignoring the backseat and getting into the passengers side. “Hey,” she stopped half way in, “who’s driving?”

“I’m driving,” Dylan said, trying to close her door. Andi blocked it with her arm.

“Why do you g
et to drive?” she grilled him.

“You can drive if you know how to hot wire a car,” he said with a shrug.

“And you do?”

“Watch and learn,” he grinned, finally succeeding in getting the other two passengers in the backseat.

He stuck his head under the dash and had the ignition wires pulled out in seconds.  These old cars were a piece of cake.

“Where’d you learn that?” Andi asked as he stripped the wires.

“I’m from Orcas Island,” he said, sparking the wires and listening to the engine cough and go silent. “There’s not a lot in the way of entertainment. Sometimes you’ve got to make your own fun.”

The engine whined and Dylan slid into the driver’s seat to give it a little gas.  The car thundered to life, echoing in the cavernous garage. Dylan closed the car door, one eye watching for someone to come busting out of the house.

“Are we sure this is the best idea?” Quinn asked from the backseat, also watching the house.

“You can stay,” Dylan offered.

“Not by myself I’m not,” Quinn said.  “Let’s go.”

Shifting into gear and slamming his foot on the gas almost simultaneously, the car sped out of the garage and down the drive, spitting gravel in their wake. The silent, dark house flashed by as they drove away and turned onto a road at the edge of the woods.

In the glow of the headlights, dark pines riffled past them like a flip book as they dodged from shadow to moonlight along the road. They sped through the forest with only the trees for company for over an hour until, eventually, the road changed, starting to twist and wind through the trees. Dylan was having the time of his life. No speed limits, no cops that were on a first name basis with his dad and had know him since birth. He took the tight corners without slowing down, tossing his passengers against the doors and each other.

“Think you could slow down?” Andi asked, breaking the silence and checking her seatbelt for the fifth time.

“No
way, Grandma,” Dylan grinned. The engine strained and moaned briefly.  Dylan let up on the gas, frowning at the displays.

“What is it?” Fredrick asked from the backseat.

“Not sure,” Dylan said, downshifting and slowing down slightly. The engine resumed its gas-guzzling growl and Dylan shrugged. “It’s okay now.”

The engine gave a brief hiccup and stopped altogether, the car rocketing down the dark road at 70 miles an hour.

“What the—” Dylan clutched the wheel and glanced back at the display as if it held answers.

Andi screamed, and by the time Dylan looked up, all that registered was a flash of gray fur streaking across the shine of the headlights. He pull the wheel violently to the left, his breath quick, his muscles tight. He missed the animal, but couldn’t pull the car out of the overcorrection. 

The Impala left the road at a breakneck speed, wheels locked and skidding across the fallen pine needles toward the pillars of tree trunks. Dylan felt the car tilt and tried to brace himself against the wheel, but his grip was thrown off when the car reached a hair-raising slant. Then the world spun and he was tossed around like a stray coin in the dryer. His seatbelt bit painfully as it cinched his waist into the seat while the rest of him went flying around the front seat, arms and legs jumbled in cacophony of ripping metal and screams. With one final herculean blow to his door, the car stopped.

Jorindel and Jorinda

“But when any pretty maiden came within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle.

"You can’t hide from me, my lovely chick.”

Andi awoke upside down, dangling from her waist, and feeling decidedly scrambled. Her brain couldn’t seem to figure out how to make her limbs work. This left her staring out the broken windshield, the pine needles and inverted tree trunks just becoming visible in the early morning light. An unnatural silence bubbled around her, but she couldn’t put her finger on what she should be hearing.

Dylan was hanging in a similar fashion from his seat belt, but not moving. Blood was sticking his blond hair to his scalp and dripping softly onto the crumpled roof. Slowly, she regained control of herself, but she was shaky and clumsy. She looked in the backseat and saw Quinn dangling motionless with her eyes closed. A quiet groan came from directly behind her—Fredrick.

After a few fumbling tries, Andi dropped onto the roof. She crouched on her heels and tried the handle, quickly discovering the door was too mangled to give way. But the glass in the front window was cracked.

Backing up and balancing awkwardly on one foot, Andi smashed the heel of her boot once, twice, and on the third kick, a substantial chunk of window fell away. She widened the hole with her feet, trying her best to avoid the shards.

Behind her, Fredrick fumbled with his own belt. Andi reached back and pressed the catch for him.

"You okay?" His voice sounded like Andi felt, tossed apa
rt and badly put back together.

The others had still not stirred. Andi nodded, too unsur
e of her voice to try speaking.

"I’ll go first, then get you out." Fredrick shouldered his way into the front and out the window, keeping his hands out of the glass and letting the jagged edges of the window pull at his thick jacket. He reached back for Andi, hesitating slightly before taking her hand.

They stared at the car. It was wrapped around the trunk of a giant pine on the edge of the woods, bits of chrome and metal trailing from the road like confetti. Now out of the car, Andi’s shakiness subsided, slowly being replaced by aches and bruises.

"We’ve got to get the others. Look for something to break the rest of the window and lay over the glass." The calmness in Fredrick's voice steadied
Andi further.

Hunting through the wreckage produced a heavy wrench and an old wool blanket from an emergency kit tucked responsibly into the trunk. Careful to knock the glass out of the car, Fredrick cleared the rest of the window, laying the blanket over the jagged edges. They crawled back in and Fredrick braced Quinn's body as Andi undid her be
lt. He softly lowered her down.

"Why hasn't she woken up yet?" Andi asked, watching her chest rise and fall faintly. The stillness of her face was unnerving.

"She’s breathing. Help me drag her out."

They positioned her by the window and climbed out, each taking an arm and pulling her as gently as they could through the broken window.

"We need to get them clear of the car," Fredrick said. Andi reached for Quinn to move her again but Fredrick shook his head. "I’ll get her. Can you break out the back window?”

Fredrick bent and managed to get his arms under Quinn’s knees and shoulders. He lifted her awkwardly and gingerly cradled her to his chest. He held his body stiff and unbending, his
face an alarming shade of red.

Kneeling next to Dylan, Andi saw his face was open and peaceful, not things she had witnessed in him so far. It made her feel like more of stranger to him instead of less. Gently touching her fingers to the blood matted blond hair, she was afraid for him. Fredrick came back to help her move him and she quickly took her hand away.

She could only drag him a few yards before she needed to rest, and that was with Fredrick bearing over half his weight. She didn’t realize unconscious people were so heavy.

Andi ripped the blanket into strips and wound it around his head, tying it as tight as she dared.

"Now what?" Andi said, sitting back and turning her gray eyes on Fredrick.

He sank back on his heels beside her. "We can wait for them to wake up, or try and get help. But I’m not sure about leaving them here alone."

"I can stay with them," Andi offered.

"I don’t like to leave you alone either,” Fredrick said, his eyes serious.

Andi huffed wordlessly at his southern manners. "What if they're bleeding internally? They might not wake up – they could die."

"I know," he sighed, staring off into the dark woods. "What’s that?" he asked, squinting and pointing into th
e permanent dusk of the forest.

She tried to see in
to the shadows. "Is it a wall?"

"Let's look. Maybe there’s a house close," Fredrick said, standing.

"Wait, let me get my cloak." Andi ran back to the car, reaching through the smashed windshield and pulling her untouched messenger bag from the front seat. She fastened the cloak around her neck and, leaving Dylan and Quinn propped against a tree trunk, they ducked under the canopy.

The wall wasn't far in, only a few hundred yards and a hop over a stream that had slowed to a trickle. Andi glanced back uneasily, the still forms of the others barely visible.

The early morning shadows in this part of the woods made the trees more sinister, like they were listening to them breathe. The lack of sound she’d noticed when she first woke up suddenly made sense.

"There aren't any birds," Andi said.

"What?” Fredrick turned to her.

“It's too... quiet."

Fredrick tilted his head back, searching the trees rearing in the twilight. "There." He pointed to a tree fallen over the low stone wall, crumbling and pocketed with holes. A tremendous brown owl stood sentry on the end of the log, its eerie eyes glowing like candlelight. It stared unblinking at them from beneath its quizzical round markings.

"That isn't making me feel better." Andi kept her voice low, as
though the owl might overhear.

"Me neither. Come on."

They skirted the owl, giving it a wide berth as it tracked them with its intimidating stare until its head spun completely backward.

Reaching the wall, Andi grabbed Fredrick's arm. "Someone does live out here!"

Pinned between the pines, a castle rose to the height of the tallest trees. A true castle—not an overlarge mansion like Mr. Jackson lived in—with flagged turrets, an open drawbridge, and sprawling parapets. The entire structure was made of glass. Countless panes of window like facets on a diamond towered with the pines. But instead of illuminating with the inner light of a diamond, it drew in the sun and reflected the dark of the surrounding forest.

Fredrick put one hand on the low wall, vaulted over, and turned, extending his hand to help Andi over. His body shuddered briefly and seized up, suspended in an unnatural position. Andi peered closely at his face, unsure of what was happening. Only his eyes moved, panicked and darting over her shoulder. Whirling, she pulled up her hood, and held very still.

An old woman stood where the owl had been moments before. Her eyes, gleaming with the same fire as the owl’s, swept over Andi, unseeing. She wore fingerless gloves and dressed in too many ragged layers. Her chaotic white hair doubled the size of her head.

Andi slowly backed away, her heart threatening to thump out of her chest. She forced herself to move slowly, placing each foot with care. The cloak may make her invisible, but she could still be heard.

The old woman stalked her, sweeping her gaze from side to side. "Where are you my pretty bird? You can't have gone far." Her voice was gruff and gritty, and she sang low and tuneless in Andi's direction. Her eyes burned under wild eyebrows as she gained on Andi. Frantically sidestepping her like she was caught in a slow-motion nightmare, the ancient savage chased past.

"You can’t hide from Eulie, my lovely chick.” She shuffled away from Andi as a frenzied trill sounded from a small black bird clutched in Eulie’s hand.

Picking out words in the bird's song, she recognized the voice.

“Andi! Help!” the bird chirped.

"Quinn!" Andi stifled the gasp too late, and the woman’s flaming eyes swung her way, bristly lips parted under a hooked nose in a grotesque, triumphant smile.

Andi abandoned silence and fled in the direction of the road, stumbling over the stream and leaving Fredrick behind.

The crone's cackling nipped at her heels as she tripped and crashed through the underbrush, unable to keep her balance when she couldn't see her feet. Andi slid on the fallen needles and, heaving for air, skidded to a stop where she left the others. She flipped off her hood. Dylan was still there, and though she hadn't expected Quinn to be, her panic grew when she found her gone.

The real surprise was the bullet bike hastily parked next to the mangled Impala and Mr. Jackson frozen in a bent position over Dylan.

Tiptoeing to them, she lightly touched Dylan’s unmoving shoulder before glancing at Mr. Jackson, whose eyes, wide with too much white showing, were open and staring directly at her.

Her panic overrode the guilt about the mangled car and the mistrust she still felt. She blurted out, "An old woman turned Quinn into a bird!" She choked down her anxiety. "Fredrick can't move. She's coming. What do I do?"