Sisters Grimm 05 Magic and Other Misdemeanors (19 page)

"What? Who is it?" Sabrina asked, and Granny handed her the binoculars. She adjusted them and looked out toward the ship. The deck was filled with princes, princesses, witches, ogres, dwarves, oddly dressed people, and numerous hairy and feathered creatures. She searched the water for the rowboat. A man with brown hair and a rather large nose was approaching the shore. He seemed oddly familiar, as if she had seen a picture of him before, or maybe a drawing... Then it dawned on her who it was.

"Children, that's your great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather. That's Wilhelm Grimm," Granny said.

Chapter 9

Sabrina glanced at the sky. A swirling black storm--another tear in time--was rapidly vanishing from above the river.

The little rowboat drifted to the shore and Wilhelm leaped out. He was shorter than Sabrina expected. He was wearing a long brown coat and a wide-brimmed hat. His eyes were almost black and quite small. He turned and gazed at the crowd with awe and wonder.

"Ist das Amerika?" Wilhelm asked.

"Ja, das ist Amerika. Willkommen, Wilhelm. Willkommen,"

Granny said.

"What did you just say?" Daphne asked.

"I just welcomed him to America," Granny said, then turned back to Wilhelm. "Do you speak English?"

"Ja, a little," Wilhelm said. "Is this New York?"

Granny nodded.

Wilhelm studied the crowd. He spotted Briar Rose on the shore and rushed to her. Confused and excited, he took her hand, then looked back at his ship. "

Wie sind Sie hier herkommen? Waren Sie auf dem Schiff?

he asked.

"What is he saying?" Ms. Rose asked.

"He's confused," Granny explained.

"How can you be here?" Wilhelm turned and pointed at the ship. "And there?"

Before anyone could explain, Nottingham pulled handcuffs from his jacket and clamped them around Wilhelm's wrists. "Ask him if he understands he's under arrest."

Nottingham led Wilhelm from the marina toward the town jail. Granny was at the head of a crowd demanding the man's release, while also doing her best to explain what was happening to the family's bewildered ancestor.

As she left, Granny instructed Sabrina and Daphne to stay with Mr. Canis and to help make sure that no one else rowed from the

New Beginning to shore or from the marina to the ship.

"I'm on that boat," Briar Rose said as Uncle Jake took her hand. "I mean, I was on that boat. I mean... I don't know what I mean."

"How did this happen?" Mr. Seven asked, pushing his way through the crowd.

Sabrina and Daphne looked at each other. They knew exactly how it happened. They just didn't know who or what was causing it. Apparently, their conspiratorial look wasn't lost on Mr. Canis. He snatched them both by the arm and dragged them out of earshot of the crowd.

"You know something," he said.

Sabrina did her best to play innocent. She glanced over at Daphne, who was whipping her head around, trying to avoid the old man's eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sabrina mumbled.

"Child, this is no time for lies," Canis growled.

"We promised Mr. Charming that we wouldn't say anything," Daphne blurted out. Sabrina scowled. Daphne was just no good at lying.

Canis bristled. "I should have known he had something to do with this."

"You've got it wrong, Mr. Canis," Sabrina said, throwing her hands up in surrender. "He's trying to help."

"Help who?"

"It's going to sound crazy."

"Try me," the hulking man said. Sabrina looked up into his face. She saw his wolfen features, clearer every day, and realized he might actually understand. "It's a tear in time," Sabrina said. "It's been happening all over town, but this is the biggest incident yet."

"A tear in what?"

"In time. Things are slipping out of the future and the past."

"And how do you know this?"

"Because we slipped through one ourselves," Daphne said. "Yesterday when you took us out into the forest we didn't get lost. We got sent to the future!"

"We went fifteen years ahead," Sabrina added.

"How does Charming have anything to do with this?" Canis asked impatiently.

"He was stuck there too. He'd been pulled into one of these tears right after the election," Daphne said. "He had been trying to find a way back for months."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Canis asked.

"Charming made us promise to keep it to ourselves. We know things... about the future. He thinks that we should keep them a secret so we can change things without anyone getting in the way."

"What is so bad about the future that needs to be changed?" Canis asked.

A tear rolled down Daphne's cheek. "You weren't in the future. The Wolf was."

Canis looked shaken but controlled himself.

"We're trying to change as much as we can," Sabrina said. "You can't tell anyone, not even Granny."

"How do we stop these time tears?" Canis asked.

"We don't know," Daphne said. "We've got something that helps us find them, but I'm not very good at using it yet."

"We think that all those stolen magical items we've been investigating are being used together, and they're causing the tears," Sabrina explained as best she could. "We know that in the future we never found the missing items. If we can locate them, we might be able to fix the tears and change the future at the same time."

Just then, an enormous fiery explosion smacked into the beach, sending rock and sand in all directions. When Sabrina searched for the source of the attack she noticed that one of the cannons on the ship had smoke coming out of it.

"They're firing on us!" Sabrina exclaimed.

"Of course, we just arrested their captain," Canis said, rushing back to the dock. "Those aren't pebbles they're throwing at you, people. Get back!"

Another blast rocked the beach.

"Are we going to stand here and let them fire on us?" King Arthur shouted as he stepped through the crowd. "Shouldn't we fire back?"

"Not if you don't want to wipe out your own existence," a saggy-jowled man said from the crowd. Sabrina thought at first that he was just an old man, but then she realized his wrinkled skin wasn't skin at all but an old burlap sack. He had straw sticking out of his cuffs, and he wore an old farmer's hat on his head.

"What are you talking about, Scarecrow?" Mr. Seven shouted.

"That ship has clearly sailed here from the past. How and why, I can't say, but I do know one thing: Many of us are on that ship. Arthur, you're on that boat, but it's you from two hundred years ago. If you attack that ship, you could accidentally kill yourself."

"Scarecrow, I never can make heads or tails of anything you say," one of the Three Blind Mice complained. "You sure the Wizard gave you brains? I got a feeling he stuffed your head with cotton candy."

"Oh, if you only had a brain," the Scarecrow replied.

Canis stared at the Scarecrow. "So, are you saying that if someone from that ship was killed, it could change the present?"

The Scarecrow nodded. "Absolutely."

In a flash, Canis had the girls in his arms and was running up the street. "What are you doing?" Sabrina yelled.

"Nottingham's got Wilhelm!" he shouted. "If he knows what the Scarecrow knows, he will kill him."

"Why would he do that?" Sabrina asked.

"Because if Wilhelm were to die, then the barrier that traps us in this town would never have been created," Canis said. "And killing him would put an end to his descendants. Every member of your family could suddenly cease to exist."

"Fudge," Daphne whispered.

Sabrina looked back at the crowd by the river. As she watched, many of the bystanders started chasing after them. It seemed that they had realized the dark opportunity Canis had just explained. "Uh, could you run a little faster?" she said.

The jailhouse was a mob scene. There were hundreds of Everafters outside, demanding answers. Canis set the girls on his huge shoulders and tossed people aside as he pushed his way into the tiny building. They found Granny at the front desk, pounding on the table and calling out for the sheriff.

"Where is he?" Canis said, setting the girls down.

"Nottingham has taken him back to a cell for interrogation," she said.

"I worry about how he defines the word 'interrogation,'" Canis said. "We have to get him out of there."

Granny nodded.

Then the sheriff stepped back into the office. He had a grin on his face like he had just gotten a bicycle for his birthday.

"Sheriff Nottingham!" Granny exclaimed. "You had no right to arrest that man."

"I have every right. I'm the sheriff," he said.

"What is his crime?"

"Let's see. He doesn't have a sailing license, or a passport, and he's trying to sneak foreigners into the country."

"He doesn't belong here, Nottingham," Canis said. Sabrina and Daphne both tugged on his sleeves, hoping to remind him that it wasn't wise to tell what he knew about the time tears.

"Oh, I'm well aware he doesn't belong here," Nottingham said. "He's come here from the past. Now that I see it with my own eyes, I almost feel like apologizing for ignoring all the reports I've been getting from citizens. The phone has been ringing off the hook for days about the Lenni Lenape Indian tribe, dinosaurs, Civil War soldiers, spacemen... Still, none of them really deserved my attention until today. It seems as if the past has opened up and delivered us a gift."

"Gift! What are you talking about?" Granny demanded.

"Why, with one slash of my dagger, I can end the suffering of this entire town," Nottingham replied. "If I am not mistaken, the man back in that cell is Wilhelm Grimm. Killing him gives us our freedom."

"You can't just kill a man," Sabrina said. "You're a police officer."

"Police officer?" Nottingham laughed. "Child, do you think I took this job because I care about justice? Your precious Wilhelm is being put to death for crimes against Everafters. If my theory is correct, when he expires, your wretched family will vanish just like that!" He snapped his fingers so loudly that Daphne jumped in fright. "I wonder if I'll remember you when it's all said and done. It would be a shame if I didn't."

"When do you plan to do this?" Granny Relda asked.

"Midnight tonight!" a voice shouted through a megaphone. The crowd separated and Mayor Heart stepped front and center. "Tonight I make good on my campaign promise of changing everything. I bet you didn't guess just how much change I had planned. It's going to be quite a celebration, folks. Everyone is invited."

Nottingham let out a wicked laugh as he glared at the Grimm family. "Aren't you going to tell us we'll never get away with this?" The crowd roared with laughter.

"I thought it was understood," Granny Relda said calmly. The family pushed their way through the mob and out into the street. Uncle Jake was waiting by the car when they arrived.

"Is he in there?" he asked, pointing back toward the jail.

Granny nodded. "Heaven only knows how he got here."

Sabrina and Daphne shared a look but kept quiet.

"What are we going to do?" Sabrina asked.

"Yeah, I don't want to not exist. I've got plans," Daphne added.

"We're going to do what every Grimm has done in times of trouble. We're going to work together as a family. Mr. Canis, take us home. We have to rally the troops."

* * *

"You want to what?"

Uncle Jake said, leaping from his seat on the family couch.

"I want you to tell Baba Yaga that Nottingham has her wand and lead her to the police station," Granny said.

Charming, Canis, Sabrina, Daphne, Puck, and even Elvis seemed shocked by Granny's plan. They gazed at one another in disbelief.

"What in heaven for?" Uncle Jake asked.

"We're going to need her as a distraction," the old woman explained. "If she can cause enough of a ruckus, Nottingham won't hear Mr. Canis knocking down the back wall so we can break Wilhelm out of his cell."

Puck clapped his hands. "A jailbreak. I love it!"

Uncle Jake, however, stood shaking his head. "Mom, mutual trust is the only thing keeping Baba Yaga from adding all of us to her bone fence. If you lie to her, things will get ugly."

"Things are ugly," Mr. Canis said. "Desperate times, son."

"I know the consequences," the old woman said, "but the alternative is much worse."

"Personally, I think your job sounds a lot more fun than mine," Puck complained to Uncle Jake.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Puck," Granny said. "But your task is the most important."

"What about us?" Daphne said as she rubbed Elvis's chin. The big dog watched Granny Relda attentively as if waiting to find out what his role in the plan would be.

"You girls are going to stay with me. I may need your help getting Wilhelm to safety," Granny said.

"But there's a hole in your plan, general," Charming said.

"'General'?" Granny Relda said.

The girls and Charming shared a look.

"I mean... what are you going to do with Wilhelm when you get him? You won't be able to hide him here. Nottingham is going to know who was responsible."

Granny shook her head. "I don't know. All I do know is that if we don't rescue him, the queen is going to kill him and then my family is going to cease to exist. Now, I suspect it will take Jacob a couple of hours to find Baba Yaga and lure her into town. I suggest you all have something to eat and get some rest. This is probably going to be a long night."

After everyone had eaten what they could, Granny retired to her bedroom and Puck went to his. Uncle Jake went off in search of Baba Yaga, and Charming retreated into his mirror, leaving Mr. Canis and the girls alone.

The old man sat quietly, studying the girls. His face looked as if he were wrestling with a question. Sabrina knew what it would be and dreaded having to answer it. How do you tell someone he is going to be taken over by a monster and lose his soul?

"Can I do anything to stop it?" Mr. Canis asked finally, looking down at the sharp black talons on his hand.

"Yes!" Daphne said.

Sabrina, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. Canis had been creeping toward a complete metamorphosis since his fight with Rumpelstiltskin in the tunnels beneath the town several months ago. Nothing he had done since had slowed his change. Still, she knew it was best to keep her doubts to herself. "Our future selves believed we could change things, and we already have, a little."