The Grimm Legacy (20 page)

In the mirror, his reflection put its arm around my reflection’s shoulders. My reflection nestled against him and looked up at him with adoring eyes. His reflection started playing with my reflection’s hair. She twisted around, curled her legs up on the bed, and put her head in his lap. I heard myself give an embarrassed giggle. It was almost as embarrassing as what was going on in the mirror.

Aaron looked embarrassed too. He said,

“Anjali! Is she okay?

I’d like an answer, please—today.”

Our reflections put their cheeks together and crooned,

“She’s surrounded by her peers,

Royals missing through the years.

She’s the glory of the hoard—

Safe enough, though rather bored.”

Then they put their foreheads together and looked into each other’s eyes.

I turned to Aaron and said, “Right. So if we can trust the mirror, she’s safe where she is, for now. That’s good news, anyway. We have some time to figure everything out.”

“While you try to get Marc’s attention, with your rival away?”

“Aaron, what is the matter with you?”

In the mirror, our reflections were staring at us with their mouths parted, as if they were watching the climax of an exciting movie. They had their arms around each other.

“Come on, Aaron! Let’s try one more time to get something useful out of the horrible thing, and if we can’t, let’s smash it. Or at least cover it.”

“Yes, okay. You ask this time.”

I thought for a bit and said,

“For the last time—answer me!

How can we free Anjali?”

As if they knew this was their last chance to torment us, the couple in the mirror turned to each other with a new intensity. Like a ghastly parody of Marc and Anjali in the magic painting after the basketball game—or my dream that night—Aaron’s reflection began kissing my reflection on the neck. She turned to us and breathed,

“Want to rescue Anjali?

Find and use the Golden Key.”

Then she went back to making out with Aaron’s reflection.

“Stop it!” said Aaron. The door opened behind us and a woman came in. I saw her in the mirror, staring out at us—evidently the real woman was staring at our reflections in the mirror.

I could see why; they were well worth staring at. They sprang apart hurriedly, straightening their clothes. By the time the real woman turned to look at the real us, our reflections were sitting up very straight, a foot apart, blushing furiously—exactly like us, as if they were reflections in a normal mirror.

“Mom! Can’t you knock?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company.” She looked at me expectantly.

“This is—this is my friend from the repository. We were just . . . ,” Aaron trailed off.

Aaron’s mother held out her hand to me. “Let me guess—Angeline?”

“No, Mom, not Anjali! It’s not Angeline, anyway, it’s Anjali,” said Aaron. “AHHHN-jah-lee. It’s Indian.”

“I’m so sorry, Anjali. I’m Rebecca Rosendorn.” I could see her struggling not to look thrown off balance, wondering how someone so obviously Caucasian had ended up with an Indian name. If I hadn’t been so busy trying to get my own balance, I would have felt sorry for her.

“But I’m not Anjali,” I said. “I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Rew.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Elizabeth! Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll just . . . leave this door open, shall I?” She left the room, with the door gaping wide.

I picked up my coat. “I think I’d better go. I don’t think there’s anything more we can do about Anjali tonight, and your mom—”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He walked me to the apartment door. “Want me to take you home?” he asked. “Or at least to the subway stop?”

“Thanks, I think I can get there myself.”

“Okay—see you tomorrow, then.”

“Bye.” I concentrated on getting to the subway. It was hard, but it helped keep my mind off what our reflections were doing under that blanket. I made it home with only one false turn.

Chapter 20:

The shrink ray

The next morning I went to the repository early and looked for Marc. He was on Stack 6. I looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “Well?” I whispered. “What are we going to do about the
kuduo
?”

“It’s done,” he said. “I just got back from Stone’s.”

“You did it? You stole the
kuduo
? You were supposed to wait for me!”

“It’s not stealing.”

I decided not to argue the point. “Did you at least empty out the deposits before you took it?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t figure out how to get them out, or what to do with them if I did.”

Oh, no! Good-bye to my sense of direction! I wondered whether Mr. Stone would be able to take it out of the
kuduo
and use it. Good luck to him if he did—it was never much good even when I had it. Good-bye to Aaron’s firstborn and everything else. Not for the first time, I thought Marc was pretty selfish. “Did you at least find out where Anjali is?” I asked. “The Snow White mirror said she’s a puppet.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

I told him about the conversation with Aaron and the mirror.

“So the spell worked on Anjali! A puppet! At least now we know what to look for when we go rescue her,” said Marc.

“So you found out where?”

He nodded. “Stone gave me a name and address. A woman named Gloria Badwin, in the West Village. I’m going there today, as soon as my shift is over—I just have to wait for Mrs. Walker to drop off Andre here.”

“Who’s Mrs. Walker?” I asked.

“Andre’s friend’s mom. She’s dropping him off here after his playdate, when my shift is over. I’ll have to get someone to watch him while I go look for Anjali.”

“That’s not the only problem. Before we rescue Anjali, we’ll need to find the Golden Key, whatever that is.”

“The Golden Key? Why?”

I told him what the mirror had said.

“Well, that’s easy enough. I’ll go get the key right now.”

“You know where it is? You know
what
it is?”

“Yeah, it’s one of the objects in the Grimm Collection. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

I sat down and opened the book I was reading for English. I heard him come in, but I didn’t look up. “Did you find it?” I asked.

“Find what?” said Aaron.

My heart tripped over its ankles. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you were Marc.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Aaron scowled at me. I tried to think of something better to say. “How’s your . . .” His what? His evil mirror? His hastily made bed? “How’s your mom?”

He blushed. “She’s fine. Look, what are we going to do about Anjali? Have you figured out what this Golden Key is?”

“Something from the Grimm Collection, Marc said. He went to get it.”

“You
told
him?”

“Of course I told him! He’s Anjali’s boyfriend. He has a right to know.”

“He’s also the guy who’s been stealing things from the Grimm Collection, remember?”

Marc walked in before I could answer. “I forgot—you need two keys to get into the GC now. Can I take yours?” Marc asked me.

I reached in my pocket.

“You’re not going to give it to him!” said Aaron. “Doc told you never to lend it to anyone!”

“Anjali got kidnapped! I need to rescue her!” said Marc.

“Why are you trying to stop me?”

“I’m not—,” Aaron began.

I grabbed his arm. “Shh, here comes Ms. Minnian.”

Ms. Minnian hurried over to us, her heels clicking on the linoleum. “Have any of you seen Dr. Rust? Or Anjali?” she asked. She sounded very worried.

We all shook our heads. “No—why?” said Marc.

“Nobody’s seen Dr. Rust since yesterday, and Anjali didn’t show up for her shift. If you hear from either of them, can you come and tell me or Ms. Callender immediately, please?”

“Of course,” I said. “Wow, I hope they’re okay!”

“I hope so too. Until we find Dr. Rust, we’re putting the Grimm Collection completely out of bounds. We’ve changed all the locks—your keys won’t work. If you get a *GC slip, send it straight to me.” She walked off quickly.

I waited until I couldn’t hear her heels anymore, then said, “I guess that means we can’t ask Doc for help. But we could still ask Ms. Minnian or Ms. Callender.”

“No!” said Marc. “This is just more proof that we can’t trust anyone.”

“I can certainly agree with that,” said Aaron. He glared at Marc to show exactly who he meant by “anyone.”

“Do you think Wallace Stone stole Dr. Rust too somehow?” I asked. “We should have warned Doc about Stone—Doc trusted him! Or is Doc looking for the
kuduo
?”

“What do you mean? What happened to the
kuduo
?” asked Aaron.

Now it was Marc’s turn to glare at me.

“Answer me,” said Aaron. “Where’s the
kuduo
?”

After a moment, I answered. “Marc took it. He traded it to Wallace Stone for the address of the person who has Anjali.”

“He
what
? He stole the
kuduo
? With my firstborn child in it? And you
knew
about it and you
let
him? I can’t believe you!” He stared at me for a moment, then spun on his heel and started to walk off.

“Wait! Aaron!” I grabbed his arm again. “Where are you going?”

“To tell Ms. Minnian and then the police. Let go!” He shook his arm.

Marc stepped between him and the door. “You can’t do that. You know you can’t. We’ve got to rescue Anjali—Stone gave me the address and the mirror told you about the Golden Key. Think about it! If we tell the librarians, they won’t let us near it and we’ll never get Anjali back!”

“They’ll get her back themselves.”

“You think you can trust them? Maybe Doc’s in on it. Maybe they’re all in on it!” said Marc.

“Or maybe nobody’s in on it except you. You just admitted you stole the
kuduo
! Get out of my way!”

“You think I would let my own girlfriend get kidnapped if I was in on it? Just calm down and
think
for a minute, Aaron! The point is, we know what to do, but if we tell the librarians, they won’t let us do it.”

“Aaron, he’s right,” I said. “You know he is. We have to rescue Anjali! Can we please just stop fighting and figure out how?”

Aaron glared at me some more, but he stopped trying to get to the door. “All right,” he said. “We’ll rescue Anjali. But the moment she’s safe, I’m turning Marc in.”

“Fine,” said Marc. “I don’t care what happens to me if Anjali’s safe. Let’s go get the Golden Key and rescue her.”

“Yeah, but how?” I said. “It’s in the Grimm Collection and they changed the locks. Our keys won’t work. Is there any other way into the Grimm Collection besides the door?”

Both boys looked stumped.

“Not unless you crawled in through the pneum pipes,” said Marc.

“Hey,” said Aaron. “That’s a thought.”

“Yeah, right,” said Marc. “You may be short, but you’re not
that
short.”

Aaron gave him a withering look. “We can use the shrink ray in the Wells Bequest. Ms. Minnian didn’t say anything about the other Special Collections, just the Grimm Collection—I bet my Wells key still works. I can shrink you down and send you into the Grimm Collection in a pneum.”

“There’s actually a shrink ray? That’s brilliant!” I said.

Marc nodded grudgingly. “I guess that could work,” he said.

I thought about it some more. “Okay, so that’s how we get into the Grimm Collection, but how do we get out? We would need somebody full size to send us back through the pipes.”

“Maybe we can use this Golden Key to get out. Any idea what it does?” said Marc.

“It opens a box. Nobody knows what’s in the box,” said Aaron.

“Then how do you know it opens it?” asked Marc.

“Didn’t you read the Grimm fairy tales? It’s the last one.”

“Right, the last story! Of course!” I said.

“Oh. I guess I must have skipped that one. Is it really boring, with lots of oafs and donkeys? I kind of skimmed those.”

“No, it’s really short. A boy finds a golden key in the woods. Then he digs around and finds an iron box. He unlocks it, but the story ends there, and you never find out what’s in the box.”

“I don’t see how that’s going to help us get out,” said Marc.

“Maybe the Golden Key unlocks more than just that one box,” I said. “Maybe once we’re inside the Grimm Collection, we can use something else to let us out. A genie or a wishing ring or something. Or we could put on the invisibility cloak and sneak out when a librarian comes in. I think we should use the shrink ray. I bet we can find a way out of the GC if we manage to get in.”

“All right,” said Aaron, picking up his backpack. “Let’s go.”

The shrink ray, a huge machine with streamlined curves, crouched like a gigantic rat in its own section of the Wells Bequest. Aaron picked up its long, curly tail and examined the plug at the end. “Where did I put that extension cord?”

I stared at the machine with rising apprehension as Aaron and Marc argued about who would shrink whom. The argument didn’t last long. Wells objects were really Aaron’s domain, as he pointed out. He was the only one who knew how to operate it.

“First we’ll send some useful stuff down to the GC in pneums, things like scissors and string,” said Aaron. “Then I’ll shrink the two of you so you fit in the pneums yourselves and send you down. Who wants to go first?”

“I’d better,” said Marc. “I’m stronger, so I can help Elizabeth get out of the tube.”

We packed a couple of pneums with supplies and stuffed a few more things in our backpacks. Aaron pushed a switch and the machine growled to life. He swung it around to point its nozzle at Marc.

“Hey! Aren’t you going to test it first?”

“If you want. What should I shrink?”

I handed him my sweater. It was a hand-me-down from Veronica, and it was too big. In fact, I had thought about trying to shrink it by putting it through the dryer.

Aaron pointed the shrink ray and fiddled with a knob. A green ray came whooshing out. The sweater writhed like a balloon losing air. In seconds it was down to half its size.

Aaron twisted another knob and the shrinking slowed down. So did the writhing—the sweater waved its arms slowly like something in an underwater documentary, kelp or a sea anemone.

I picked it up. It looked like it would fit a Barbie doll. I was amazed at how finely made it seemed, with its perfect little buttons and blindingly tiny stitches.

“Test the magnifying function—make sure you can get it back to the right size,” I said.

Aaron fiddled with the controls and turned the shrink ray on again. This time the light was red. The sweater puffed out, wrinkling into little hills. It looked like lava erupting undersea.

“Okay, stop,” I said.

“But it’s not done yet,” objected Aaron.

“Now! Stop!” I leaned over and flicked the switch to off. The light died down.

“Why did you do that? It’s only at 94 percent,” said Aaron.

“It was too big to begin with,” I said, putting on the sweater. It was still a little loose, but not nearly as bad as before. Maybe I would grow into it.

“Ready, Marc?” said Aaron, switching on the shrink ray.

The green light shot out, but Marc didn’t seem to be shrinking. “Is it working?” I asked.

Marc shrugged.

“Give it a minute,” said Aaron.

We gave it a minute. Nothing happened. Aaron fiddled with some knobs. Still nothing happened.

“I know!” I said. “It’s Jaya’s knot—it protects you, remember? I had to take mine off before Doc could remove my sense of direction.”

“Oh, right,” said Marc, tugging at the knot with his teeth.

“Not that way,” I said. “You’ll break your teeth. You have to tell it come off. In rhyme,” I added.

“Okay, knot, so here’s the gist: get your booty off my wrist,”
Marc told it, rapping like a hip-hop star. The knot came off.

Aaron started the machine again. “Is it working now?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Marc. “I feel funny.” He sounded funny too.

“Look, it’s definitely working,” I said. Marc had reached my height and was subsiding slowly, twitching. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah . . . it’s weird. It kind of tickles inside my bones, where I can’t scratch.”

“Enough?” I said. Marc was now the height of a soda can.

“Let’s check,” said Aaron. He switched off the shrink ray and put a pneum down next to Marc. “Can you fit in there?”

Marc slid the door open and tried to wedge himself in. “Too tight,” he said. His voice sounded tiny and higher than usual. He was like a doll of himself, with perfect little limbs and itty-bitty shoes. He stepped out of the pneum and stretched gracefully, like a tiny tiger. I wished I could take him home with me and keep him.

Aaron turned the ray on Marc again for a few seconds. “Better?”

Marc tried the pneum again; this time he fit. “Perfect.” He climbed back out.

Then it was my turn. I talked the knot off my ankle and went over to the shrinking spot. “Do your worst,” I said.