The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 (35 page)

“Well hooray for you,” I muttered.

“Um, can we go?” asked one of the guys in the trap.

I ignored him, walking over to the rose bushes. I grabbed their ridiculously scary steel claws and went around the back of the house to the dumpster, tossing them inside.

Chapter 2

Parents. Just when you think you have them figured out … they go and surprise you.

I can only imagine my parents thinking the same thing about their daughter, too. Case in point: I’m pretty sure they were more than a little flabbergasted when I arrived that night with Seth and Chase in tow. Just imagine if they’d seen the giant talking rabbit as well.

But you know what? They were pretty cool about it. Mom understood the moment she saw Chase back in his wheelchair. And she didn’t ask questions, other than to inquire politely about the sleeping arrangements. Chase and Seth volunteered the living room, setting their backpacks on the coffee table.

“Woah, Mr. G!” Seth said, bending over to examine the DVDs under the television stand. “You got Blu-Ray now? You’re so twenty-first century!”

Dad stuffed his hands in his pockets, obviously proud. “Bought it this afternoon. Pretty soon, we’ll be watching TV in our minds, my boy. Ten years, tops.”

Mom brought down pillows and blankets, moving the coffee table near the TV so there was ample room. “What else do you need?” she asked. “Chase? Is there anything?”

Chase shook his head. He’d calmed down, not quite sure what to make of everything. Not quite sure if he should look around for the giant talking rabbit.

Thankfully, Seth was here. He gave Chase a solid pat on the shoulder. “He’s in good hands, Mrs. Goodenough. I’ve even valiantly offered to sleep on the uncomfortable couch so he can have the comfy floor.”

Chase cracked a smile.

“Oh no,” Mom said. “You give him the best spot. And no television. Right to bed, the both of you. No staying up late gossiping, either.”

Seth’s face turned serious. “Mrs. Goodenough. Chase and I only gossip by phone.”

“Do you need a toothbrush?” Dad asked. It was late and he was already wearing his Green Bay Packers pajama bottoms and his favorite old gray Washington High t-shirt. Chase was staring at the name, which was crossed with baseball bats. Below it was a football.

“Oh, I think we’re all right,” Seth said with a polite smile. “I didn’t eat too many sweets today, soooooo …”

Dad slapped him on the back, pushing him toward the bathroom. “There’s spare toothbrushes in the cabinet there. You too, Chase. Otherwise your teeth are going to rot out of your skull and we can’t have that. Chicks dig teeth.”

Chase glanced at me, raising an eyebrow.

“Have a fine sleep,” I said with a smile.

Mom cornered me upstairs. At first, I thought she was going to yell at me again. But her eyes were soft, almost glassy. She had that look she always gave me when I ran home from Seth’s as a child with a scrape or boo-boo.

I mean owie.

I mean
injury
.

“Was Chase really walking before?”

I nodded. My teeth found my lower lip, biting hard to keep the tears from pouring out. I don’t know why I was so emotional about it. Maybe it was the stress of the entire night all crashing down at once. I’d managed to hold it all together with surprising force. It was as if a switch turned on when I was dealing with the Corrupted, and while I was in “hero” mode I was on a different level.

Now, the switch had turned off. I was back in the “real world” again.

“And now Chase can’t walk again?”

I nodded again.

“Should we call his parents, just so they know where he is?”

I shook my head. “We … he left a note.”

She put a hand on my back, rubbing gently. “Honey. Don’t you think his parents will want to be with him tonight?”

“They’ll be too disappointed, Mom. Just like they were after the accident. They hurt Chase’s feelings. They were more worried about their stupid get-togethers with the other parents of kids on the baseball team. They didn’t care, Mom. They didn’t—”

She held me tight, hugging me.

“I’m sure they care,” Mom said. “Deep down, somewhere. And Chase is going to have to work things out with them. But don’t think his parents don’t care just because it
looks
that way. Sometimes, parents forget, too.”

“But he’s hurting.”

“So are they. And they’re adjusting to what happened. They’re only human, after all. It’s up to Chase and his parents to work through this.”

“What if they can’t?”

“If they care, they will,” she said. “And it’s up to them to do it, not you. You don’t have to fix their problems. You’re not a superhero.”

“OK.” I wiped my eyes. “They’re still buttheads for being so selfish.”

Mom smiled and nodded. “Just more proof you have great parents.” She ran a hand through my hair, catching it with her fingers. “Why is your hair damp?”

“It’s a long story.”

“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll let it go, but only because I don’t want to ruin this excellent mother-daughter moment.”

I laughed. “Thanks, Mom.”

In my room, Briar was waiting patiently at the desk, legs crossed.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get these wrinkles out of my trousers,” he said with more than a little defeat in his voice. “They’re soggy, too.”

“Relax, rabbit. I’ll iron them tomorrow.” I went into my closet, closing the door and changing into fresh clothes. The underwear was the most important part—while my shirt and pants had mostly dried, the underwear hadn’t been so kind. “I bet Wonder Woman never has to worry about soggy wedgies,” I muttered.

“What’s that now?” Briar asked once I emerged.

“Oh nothing. Let’s talk strategy.” I sat on the bed, putting the magic pen in the top drawer and setting the gold dragon coin on the desk.

Briar looked at it hesitantly. “Um … wouldn’t you rather sleep? You know how you get when you don’t get enough sleep.”

I narrowed an eye. “No. How do I get?”

“Oh. You get … uh …” He tapped his paws together nervously. “Just a little
edgy
, that’s all. Grumpy, too. Er, you have a tendency to forget to brush your teeth in the morning and your breath smells a bit …”

He trailed off.

“No, please … go on!” I said, eyes wide. “Let it all out, furball. Then we can have a loooooong discussion about how gross it is to talk to you when you have bits of carrot and lettuce stuck between your teeth. Which is, like,
always
.”

“Perhaps we should talk strategy.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

His paw wrapped around the gold coin. “Tell me about this wizard fellow.”

“The magician?” I shrugged. “Creepy. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Yes. Definitely. I could just
feel
it. Like, my entire body wanted me to run. The whole moment seemed so incredibly weird that I wanted to just get the heck out of there, even though I had a weapon to protect myself.”

“We must know who this particular Corrupted is,” Briar said. “There are only a few options. The Brothers Grimm only mentioned a few wizards or magicians or fellows of the like. One was from
Jorinda and Jorindel
, but another was from
The Glass Coffin
. And then of course there are fairies, who I don’t particularly enjoy bumping into. I need more to go on.”

“Do you want me to call him?” I asked.

His ears perked up. “Brilliant! Does he have a landline or cellular phone?”

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh. Right.” He grunted. “You snookered me.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Cheer up, old boy. My dreams will tell me more, right?”

“Perhaps …”

“So we wait until he appears in my dreams. Then I sneak around, find some information about him, and
wham
! We take him down.”

“
Wham
? I don’t think such a word …”

“Shhhhh,” I whispered, lying down on the bed. I tossed him the spare pillow. “I think you’re right: it’s time for sleepy-sleep, my friend.”

And so it was. My dreams, thankfully, were peaceful. Relaxing. No Corrupted. No monsters or weirdness. In fact, it wasn’t even really a
dream
at all; it was a movie. An old, grainy black and white movie.

In the movie, I stood in the back of a small schoolhouse. The house had one room, and sitting on the dirt floor were a dozen African-American children, each one wearing overalls and striped shirts. The woman at the head of the class was white, beautiful, with blonde hair and a sprinkling of freckles. She stood clutching a small green chalkboard no bigger than a laptop screen. She wore a white sundress that was dirty at the bottom, no doubt from the dirt floor.

“Jacob walked quietly home,” the woman read from the chalkboard. She had a smooth voice with a southern accent. “Identify the noun.”

“Jacob!” the kids yelled enthusiastically.

“Identify the verb … the
action
word.”

“Walked!” the kids called out.

“Excellent!” the woman stood up straight. There wasn’t any desk so she let the chalkboard fall to the floor. Her hand found her temple, pressing on her soft milk-white skin.

The scene seemed to change for just a moment, as quick as a lightning flash. It left a burning imprint in my eyes: a young man, standing with a young woman, holding her tight in front of a roaring fireplace. They were both wearing fancy royal clothes and little black masks, as if they’d just attended a costume ball.

At their feet was a body. A man, dressed immaculately in pants and a coat with braided trim and lots of shiny buttons.

“What have you done?” the young woman asked.

The scene shifted back. From outside came the low growl of thunder. The teacher looked out through the only window. “All right, students. Get home now. Don’t dally. Rain’s finally coming.”

The children stood up and walked to the old rickety-looking door. When they were all gone, the schoolteacher stood beside the window that overlooked a small old-timey town with narrow buildings clad in wood that had weathered to a silvery gray. A roiling mass of dark storm clouds loomed above.

I woke up the next morning thinking nothing of it.

Chapter 3

The next week, the dreams returned every single night. In every dream, I was inside the schoolroom. There was a thunderstorm approaching. The schoolteacher stood at the window and watched the clouds roll in.

Boy, if ever there was a metaphor for senior year of high school.

With the first crack of lightning, the scene temporarily changed, just a shard of a memory. Each time, I followed the same young man and woman as they disposed of the mysterious body that had been beside the fireplace. They fled down a long and winding staircase, pushing open a massive wooden door and disappearing into the night. I followed them twice. Both times, they hurried their way through a small town. I could tell from the writing on the signs outside the little buildings that they were in Germany, a long time ago: there were no cars and no tall buildings or asphalt roads.

The dreams left me perturbed. There seemed to be no Corrupted. So what was causing these?

Meanwhile, at school, Seth and I had officially become misfits. Social pariahs. Outsiders. We sat in the back of the lunch room with Rachel and Clyde, who were already about as “uncool” as you could get in the school. Of course, the “cool” kids weren’t exactly all that admirable. For starters, you had people like Joey Harrington, who if anything was becoming even more of a bully than he’d been in his previous years. Some of the kids from the track team and the baseball team had just sort of stopped paying so much attention to him, as if his aura of “coolness” had faded. Naturally, Joey responded by doubling down on his obnoxious and cruel antics.

Chase, for his part, kept his head high. But the defeat had returned to his eyes. He sat with his former teammates and ate his food, but they didn’t talk much. Then, five minutes before lunch was over, he wheeled out of the cafeteria to beat the traffic. He used the service elevator, alone. In class, he sat at the far end so that he didn’t have to wheel his way around the desks.

We hadn’t had much time to talk about the whole
Corrupted are trying to destroy the world
thing. In fencing class, Chase stayed focused. Rachel had officially joined the team, and with Chase’s help she began to get down the basics. She worked with a foil, which had its own set of rules and was the easiest to practice with. I graduated to the saber, which I was obviously more comfortable with (for reasons I could certainly never explain to Mr. Whitmann), and as such I had greater flexibility with my attacks.

Allow me to explain. In fencing, the weapon you use determines where you can hit your opponent and score a point. When you use a foil, you can only score a point by stabbing your opponent’s torso. But when you use a saber, it gets more terrifying. With a saber, you can score a point by hitting your opponent anywhere above the waist. That means you need to protect your arms and your head in addition to your torso. Another important point: with the saber, you can score points by using the edge of your blade, not just the tip. It makes every single attack a furious battle.

Fun stuff! And right up my alley, too. After all, how many of my opponents were getting extracurricular practice fighting off hordes of Corrupted monsters?

As it turned out, I would get the chance to size up the competition really soon. With the addition of Rachel, Mr. Whitmann immediately entered us in the Midwest fencing tournament that would be held in just a few short weeks. Combatants from all over the Midwest would be convening in downtown Milwaukee to do battle. We would be testing our mettle against some of the very best in the region.

No pressure or anything.

On Friday, with my grounding officially lifted, I invited Seth and Chase over once they were done with classes. Seth arrived first, and immediately he and the rabbit began putting together a game of Risk. They had their own rules, along with a “phantom” third army that attacked both of them every chance it could. Their games went fast and furious and required numerous glasses of milk and soda, not to mention vanilla wafers, cookies and various other forms of junk food.

Chase arrived at 3:30. When I saw his parents’ van pull up, I went to the door. There was still some obvious strain, frustration knotting the brows of parents and child. Still some adjusting that needed to be made. His mom tried to help him wheel up the driveway but Chase waved her away, pushing the wheels himself. At the door, he turned and gave his parents a hesitant wave, letting me grab the rubber handles in the rear of the chair and pull him up the little step and into the house.

“OK, OK,” he said, laughing when I started pulling him quickly into the living room. His hands found the wheels and deftly spun him around so he could face Seth and the rabbit kneeling beside the coffee table.

“Hello, Sir Chase,” Briar said cheerfully. He shook the attacker’s dice in both cupped paws, then let them fly onto the game board, causing all of the little Risk armies to bounce all over the place.

Chase shook his head, smiling. “And here I was starting to believe it was all a dream.”

“Nope,” Seth murmured, rolling his defender’s dice. “Crap! Two more armies gone.”

“Do you want something?” I asked Chase. “We have soda and cookies and stuff.”

He shook his head. “Not big on the junk food.”

“How about some carrots, celery, a little blue cheese, and whole grain crackers?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty specific.”

“That’s what she makes for herself,” Seth said. He made a puckered noise with his lips. “Pretty lame snack, if you ask me.”

“I second the motion,” said the rabbit.

“Ignore them,” I said, walking with Chase into the kitchen.

“Where are your parents?” Chase asked. “Or do they not care that a giant monster rabbit is in their house?”

“Monster?!” Briar exclaimed from the living room. I didn’t need to turn around to know his fur was bristling like he’d just stuck a fork in an electrical socket. “I resent that!”

“He has great hearing. And my parents are both working,” I answered. “Big ad campaigns. They’ll be home around six, or maybe later.”

Chase wheeled into the kitchen. His wheels had left heavy indentations in the living room carpeting, but the chair had a much easier time with the kitchen’s linoleum tiles. His eyes followed mine and he nodded solemnly. “Yeah, sorry. This chair is killer on carpeting.”

“Not a big deal.”

“No? You should hear my parents. Can’t stop talking about the carpeting. Can’t stop worrying about which room on the first floor is going to be turned into my bedroom. Dad wants to convert Mom’s study. Mom wants to convert Dad’s office.”

“Tell them to compromise,” Seth called out. “They should break down the wall and let you have both rooms.”

Despite himself, Chase couldn’t fight the grin. “Maybe, Seth.”

“Seth has good hearing, too. Here.” I handed him the plate of snacks. “Do you like orange juice?”

“Sure. Love it.”

I poured two glasses of orange juice and we returned to the living room. We sat around the coffee table, staring at the Risk board. Seth and Briar had chosen the black army as their “phantom” army. The little soldiers were spread across Asia, invading Europe, forcing their way down into Africa where Briar’s last remaining pieces were valiantly fighting for survival.

“There’s a metaphor here,” Seth said. “I’m sure of it! It’s on the tip of my tongue. Don’t tell me …”

“The Corruption,” Briar finished.

Seth snapped his fingers. “Right, right. Yeah. Perfect metaphor.”

“So wait,” Chase said, making a “T” with his hands. “Time out. How many Corrupted are there? Do they actually have an
army
to take over the world?”

I shrugged, looking at Briar. He thoughtfully finished chewing his cookie. “Difficult to say, I fear. The heroes have tried to keep track, but you know how it can be when you get busy. Who’s to say how many times a hero has forgotten to make an accurate record? That is, before I was created. I always keep an accurate record. We cross out names in the book.”

“The book?” Chase asked.

“That’s not important,” I said. “What’s important is this Order of the Golden Dragon.”

“
Who
?”

“Dudes who tried breaking into your house,” Seth explained. “Creepy. Unusual taste in accessories. Like to run around in bathrobes.”

“Hmmmm …” Briar clicked his tongue. “Well, that’s one way to put it, certainly. Are you certain your dreams are telling you nothing, Alice?”

I shook my head. “My dreams have been pretty peaceful all week. Just me in a schoolhouse. An old one.”

His ears perked up. So did Seth’s, only in a less literal sort of way. “How do you know it was from a long time ago?” the rabbit asked.

“It looks like a real old schoolhouse, somewhere south if the schoolteacher’s accent is any indication. The kids are all sitting on the floor.”

“Wait. I thought she could see the Corrupted in her dreams,” Chase said. “So why would she be dreaming about something that happened a long time ago?” He groaned, slapping his face. “Why am I asking a giant talking rabbit all of this?”

“They may be just dreams,” Briar offered, ignoring Chase’s incredulity. “It may be that whoever this mysterious Agnim the Magician is, he’s not yet become a threat.” His right paw tapped thoughtfully on his little furry chin. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Still, it’s a strange occurrence. All of this sounds quite familiar.”

“We’ve been learning about the period after the Civil War in my U.S. History class,” I said. “So it’s totally possible I’m just dreaming about the stuff I’m learning. Following the Civil War, African-American kids didn’t have access to good schools. And they were segregated, especially in the South. So that could be the source of my dreams.”

“Dude, Mr. Feinman is so cool,” Seth said. “I wish I had him teaching every class.”

He was right: Mr. Feinman
was
cool. And his class was fun. Instead of lecturing us on everything and making us take notes until our hands cramped, we were always doing activities, making posters, acting out scenes from history. All this past week, we’d been learning more about Reconstruction, the period after the Civil War where slavery was abolished, but new laws were passed to punish former slaves. Laws that made it a crime to not have a job. Laws that made vagrancy a crime, where “vagrancy” could be interpreted to mean just about anything so that sheriffs could arrest former slaves and put them back to work.

Just this past Wednesday, we’d all sat on the floor just like in my dreams. Mr. Feinman taught us using a little chalkboard just like in my dreams. We weren’t allowed to take any notes because, he said, most of the students in the segregated schools didn’t have any school supplies. Then, the next day, we tried to remember everything he’d taught us. He hadn’t been able to teach us much. His little chalkboard could only fit a few words at a time and his handwriting was awful.

That was the point. The schools weren’t able to provide a good education. Add onto that the laws being passed to restrict as many of the ex-slaves’ freedoms as possible, and what you had was a pretty rough life. I could remember so much more when we weren’t just sitting and taking notes.

“Forget Mr. Feinman,” Chase said, pulling me back out of my daydreams. “Let’s talk about the Big Bad Wolf. Who is he and how do we stop him?”

“Oh, I’m quite sure he’s long dead,” Briar said. “At least,
one
of the terrifying wolves from the Grimms’ fairy tales is gone. Dispatched by the first hero.” He leaned back, clicking his tongue in frustration. “The Brothers Grimm were so fond of wolves in their stories.”

“OK, so what about evil stepmothers?” he asked. “Thundering giants? Witches?”

“Chase, this isn’t a game,” I snapped.

“Yeah dude,” Seth said. “It may sound totally fun and cool, but it’s actually pretty terrifying when you’re facing down a giant lizard creature that’s on the verge of eating your best friend.”

Chase shook his head. “You really made that sound cool.”

“I know, right?” Seth smiled, tapping Briar on the shoulder. “You see? You see what I mean? It’s totally impossible to make this whole Hero-versus-Corrupted thing not sound cool!”

Briar sighed, tugging on his vest. “Point taken.”

“Let’s stay on track,” I said. “We need a plan to deal with this guy, preferably before my next paper is due and definitely before the fencing tournament.”

“Good to know you have your priorities in order,” Briar mumbled. “Very well. I shall continue to ascertain more details of this mysterious cult. I shall do it by using my abilities as a skilled researcher to infiltrate the darkest depths of the Dewey Decimal System, the
Dark Side of Dewey
, if you will …”

“The what?” Seth asked, scratching his head.

“The Dewey Decimal System. It’s a set of numbers libraries use to arrange information …”

“Why don’t you just Google it?” Chase asked.

Another sigh from the rabbit, this time more pronounced. “It’s complicated. Suffice it to say, there is more to the world than
the Google
.”

“You two can have a job, too,” I told the boys. “Since you’re obviously part of the team now, and I know for a fact that neither of you has much homework this weekend, you guys can start searching the newspaper for strange occurrences.”