A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (11 page)

"Are we telling jokes?" he asked, not quite a smile on his face.

"She..." Jorinda dissolved into a laugh, took a deep breath and snickered again. "We were just discussing how many times I've been a bird."

Jorindel allowed himself a brief chuckle. "We stopped counting after seventy or so."

That wasn't in the story.

"How does she keep catching you? Surely you don't keep wandering up to her castle," Andi said.

"Not purposefully, but it certainly doesn't help that her castle is never in the same place twice. I can't live my life behind closed doors. I have to go out, help tend the sheep.”

Andi’s fork hovered, forgotten, over her pancakes. Jorinda tapped Andi's plate, reminding her to eat up.

"Although, I've never heard of anyone else having quite as much trouble." She gave Jorindel a passing peck on the cheek. "Del comes and gets me eventually, although it takes him over a week if he has to get a fresh flower."

In Jorindel’s hands, a single, deep purple bloom, the color of a fresh bruise drooped in a simple glass vase. Made up of hundreds of tiny overlapping petals like armor with the center a pearl the size of her thumbnail. The surface of the pearl tumbled with blues and pinks, depending on which way you turned your head. But there were unsightly holes in the petal pattern and the stem pliable and rubbery, bowing under the weight of the flower.

"You've good timing. It wouldn't have been any good tomorrow, and we would have had to hunt up another one." Jorindel handed over the flower and Andi tried to cradle it so it wouldn't lose any more petals. "Come on, I'll give you a ride up the path a ways." Jorindel headed for the door and Andi hesitated.

"Thank you, for the food, and for your help. I..." Andi looked down at her filthy self. "I'm not sure what I would have done."

Jorinda fixed her with a stern look. "You’re welcome. Watch your step out there." She tilted her head in the vague direction of the glass castle.

Stepping out of the neat stone house, the sun had traveled farther in the sky than she liked. She climbed back onto the four-wheeler and Jorindel skirted the pasture shooting through the brush so fast Andi ducked her head behind his back to keep the tree branches from whipping her as they passed. She cupped the flower close to her chest, trying to keep it from jostling.

Ten minutes later, Jorindel slowed and cut the engine. Andi clambered down as best she could one-handed.

"It shouldn't be much farther." Jorindel hesitated. "You'll be okay?"

Nodding, Andi tried to look confident. "It'll be a piece of cake, right?"

"Just don't drop it." He gave a small wave as he roared back the way he had come. Andi located the sun through the trees, gave one last look at Jorindel's retreating back and walked briskly in the opposite direction.
             

I’m not slapping you.”

Andi’s boot caught on the crook of a root knuckling up through the path. She staggered, catching herself before face-planting in the dirt, mashing the flower against her chest. Quickly releasing her instinctive crush on the vase, she checked to make
sure the bloom remained intact.

The flower was fine, none of the remaining petals worse for the wear from her stumble. The anxiety that clutched her stomach dropped back down to just being plain worried about her situation. Placing her feet more carefully this time, she stayed vigilant for wayward branches and stones. Andi knew nothing of the attacking owl until its needlelike talons found her exposed neck.

She threw herself forward, batting blindly behind her with her free hand, desperate to make the tearing at her flesh stop.

Her flailing forearm connected with her attacker, and wings beat her head as it struggled to gain the safety of the air. Its talons released her. Andi rolled and faced the owl, wheeling above the path. It bore down on her again, its glowing eyes transfixed, claws targeted on her face.

Scrambling backward still trying to cradle the flower, she lurched to the side and tucked her head into her body, the hood of her cloak falling partially over her head. She felt the tearing of claws at her scalp and the back of her hand before she tugged the hood all the way up. Her body vanished and the owl faltered as its prey disappeared.

Invisible, Andi crawled from the path, the lacerations in her neck and scalp burning. She moved as quietly as possible, pressing herself flat in to the shadows of the pines, struggling to quiet her sh
aky breathing.

At a scream directly overhead, her muscles clenched in response. Blood trailed stickiness down the sides of her neck. She caught a muffled beat of wings, and several second later, another scree
ch, this one faint and distant.

Andi tossed off her hood to inspect the damage to the flower.

Opening her fingers, a handful of petals drifted over her knees and a torn stem rested in her palm. Holding up the vase, a pearl ring sloshed around in the brackish water in the bottom.

The urge to puke worked its way up from Andi’s stomach. She took deep breaths trying to control the nausea, the evidence of the destroyed flower still sinking in.

Dumping the slimy water over her open hand, the pearl, cleverly attached to a gold band that had been hidden in the depths of the flower, rattled into her palm. She stared at it, disbelieving.

Eulie didn’t want her getting to the castle with the flower, that much was obvious. What was she going to do? She stared, overwhelmed, at the remains of the flower littering the ground. Twisting to look down the path in the direction of Jorindel and his cottage, she glanced the other way, toward the crash site. The frozen guys were much closer, although without the flower, she suspected she’d have to return to the cottage and beg Jorindel’s help to find another one. What had Jorinda said? That it could take weeks to find a fresh flower? Despair began to settle on her like her heavy cloak, imagining the enormity of the task in front of her.

She tried to shake it off as she painstakingly gathered each petal in the fold of her cloak, placing the broken stem on top, and the too large pearl ring on her thumb. She didn’t know if they’d be any use, but it seemed like a good idea to bring them.

Getting slowly to her feet, Andi put one hand on a nearby tree trunk when pricks of light started to dance in the corners of her vision. A monster headache was starting right behind her eyes. She ran a light hand over her neck and scalp, trying to gage the damage, but gave up when the edges of her vision began to go black. She took several steadying breaths and stumbled down the path to the others.

They were where she left them, but no longer fixed in place. Fredrick wore down the grass by the road where he paced, his shoulders hunched. Mr. Jackson was busy checking on Dylan, who was now awake and had a bandage wrapped around his head. He looked woozy, but tried to stand when he saw her. He failed halfway up, turned a sickly shade of green, and hit the ground again, groaning.

Relief Dylan was awake and not badly hurt churned in Andi along with worry that Quinn was still a bird. Locked in a cage in the glass castle, according to the fairy tale.   Andi’s rescue attempt was a disaster. She turned her disappointment and self-frustration outward at the handiest target. Mr. Jackson had kept information from them. They’d been right not to trust him, and now he’d come to drag them back to his mansion and lock them up tight this time.

Mr. Jackson finished with Dylan and hurried over, reaching her the same time as Fredrick, taking in her bloody, wild appearance.

"Are you hurt?" Mr. Jackson said, reaching a hand out to her. She looked at the mangled car and felt a little guilty. He hadn’t even mentioned it. She took a step back out of his reach anyway.

"You’re bleeding,” Fredrick said.
“That’s not from the accident.”

"You knew about the book,” she accused Mr. Jackson, quietly, ignoring Fredrick. “What else are you keeping from us?”

Mr. Jackson stood his ground. He surprised Andi with the regret and worry painted plainly on his face.

She drew up short, a light bulb clicking on in her mind. "Who are you?" Her vision swam, but she needed answers. "You must be one of them.” She peered closely at his face as if the truth wa
s written there. “Who are you?"

"I..." Mr. Jackson glanced at Dylan, who was curiously silent. Fredrick stood close, also quiet. Mr. Jackson dropped his hands. "I knew about the book because I asked the maids to keep an eye on you."

Raising an eyebrow in distrust Andi drifted to the side, stumbling unsteadily as her headache built, her neck throbbing in time with her agitated heart. Mr. Jackson reached out a hand to steady her, but she jerked back violently, almost loosing her footing.

Mr. Jackson pulled his hand away, leaving it slightly extended in a pleading gesture, and looked to Fredrick for support. "Let me help you. I can hide you until I can f
igure out how to get you home.”

"Hide us from your ‘master?’" An
di said, more weary than angry.

“I know I haven’t earned your trust and have no proof to offer. Most of the information you want I have been forbidden to tell you.” He lowered his voice. "I can say you are right about the book and about me. While I might not be able to tell you things," here he attempted a weak smile and small shrug, "if you happen to figure them out... there's no way I can undo that, is there?"

Andi held his gaze for a long moment before the black at the edges of her vision clouded her eyes again and she fell to her knees, struggling to keep conscious. Fredrick caught her under her arms and half carried her to the tree where Dylan was propped. Mr. Jackson knelt beside her with a battered first aid kit.

“May I?” he asked, penitently.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but nodded. He placed a cloth doused in something medicinal-smelling on her scalp and the cool burning sensation made Andi hiss and clench her hands in her lap, the pearl ring digging into her hand.

“Feels great, right?” Dylan said in a voice that lacked its usual bounce. He closed his eyes and flopped his head against Andi’s shoulder.

Mr. Jackson dabbed gently at her lacerations, the cloth coming away saturated in blood. Involuntary tears of pain gathered in Andi’s eyes and she concentrated on willing them away.

“What happened to you?” Fredrick asked in a quiet, rigid voice. “Where’s Quinn?”

From her sitting position Andi tried to look at him, but couldn’t see his face. He was so hard for her to read. Was he mad at her? Andi knew he was asking about more than a chain of events, he wanted to know what was up with the book. But she didn’t want to discuss too much in front of the man currently patching her up.

“The frozen feeling wore off and when I could move again, I came back here. You were both gone.” Fredrick’s eyes searched the edge of the forest where the shade of the trees took over. “I hoped she was with you.”

The remains of the flower wafted from her cloak. "That hag, Eulie, turned her into a bird. This would have changed her back.” She carefully showed him the dark purple petals.

Dylan opened his eyes, turning his head as little as possible to look into her lap. "What were you doing with that thing? Playing he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not? Where’s Quinn?"

"In a cage, in the castle. At least I’m pretty sure she is."

“She’s there,” Mr. Jackson said quietly, pressing a second rag on top of the first one.

"There's a castle?" Dylan jerked toward the woods, closed his eyes and moaned, “Bad idea.”

“I screwed up,” Andi took a deep breath, still a little light headed. “I had the flower. Now we’ll have to find ano
ther one.”

“We’ll think of something. Hold this,” Mr. Jackson said, placing Fredrick’s hand on the cloth. “We’ve got to get her bleeding under control. Let me tear up some more bandages.”

Fredrick knelt next to Andi. "A bird?” he asked, the skepticism heavy in his voice. “Are you sure?”

“I saw her clutched in the old woman’s hand. She called to me,” Andi insisted, realizing this might not be the best argument. She wasn’t sure anyone but Quinn really believed she could talk to birds. “Is it really so hard to believe? She froze
you
in
place!”

Fredrick’s hand slid off the cloth on her neck for a second, before he jerked it back up. The pain of the cut washed over her fresh. She gasped and a single tear she had been keeping at bay slid down her face
before she could wipe it away.

The tear plopped into her lap, landing directly on the pearl ring. As Andi watched, the pearl cracked open, and out of the c
rack a tendril of green curled.

They stared at the ring and the tiny plant, impossibly growing out it.

“You don’t think—?” Andi said, cupping the tiny sprout like a sparrow egg.

“I think we’re going to need more water,” Fredrick said, pressing the bloody rag into Dylan’s hand and hurrying into the forest where they’d seen the stream.

Cupping a handful of water, Fredrick ducked under the trees and caught Andi’s eye. She nodded, keeping one eye on Mr. Jackson. The water dribbled from Fredrick’s hands and slid down the sprout directly into the crack. Dylan leaned in, his task with the cloth forgotten, while Fredrick crouched down on his heels. Nothing happened.