The Everafter War (28 page)

“It appears we have a problem, Relda,” Mr. Canis said.

“Open the front door,” Granny said, and the old man did as he was told. The front door morphed like the mirror to allow the ox though and it stomped out onto the front lawn. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the chaos. A giant three-headed dog tumbled out of the mirror and immediately fell through the hole in the floor.

Puck flew over to where Sabrina was standing. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”

The dog was followed by a wave of bizarre beasties, monsters, and nefarious-looking people. Snakes with heads on both ends of their bodies slithered out and into the hole. People that looked like zombies, vampires, and werewolves from horror movies did the same. There was a seven-foot albino man with stringy muscles and pink eyes. There were pirates, wizards, witches, and unearthly creatures that looked like they were from other planets. They came in wave after wave after wave as if being pushed forward by an even bigger crowd behind them. Creatures made from ice and fire, a man surrounded by his own tornado, and a headless knight sitting atop a black horse. All the children could do was watch the macabre parade as it went by. Each creature fell into the pit then stumbled outside to freedom.

When the last of the creatures had come through and a few peaceful seconds had passed, the children carefully edged toward the magic mirror.

“Kids, just stay where you are,” Henry said. “I’ll get a ladder and help you down.”

“We have to check on Mirror,” Daphne said.

“It’s not safe,” Veronica said.

“He’s our friend, Mom,” Sabrina said. “He’s part of our family. We’ll be careful.”

The children headed into the reflection. Once inside the Hall of Wonders, Sabrina realized that every door was flung open wide. The marionettes were nowhere to be seen and neither was Mirror.

“Mirror!” Sabrina shouted, but the little man did not respond.

“We can’t go room to room looking for him. It would take forever,” Daphne said.

“If he’s alive he’s probably at the other end of the hall. The trolley isn’t here,” Sabrina said.

Puck’s wings expanded and flapped briskly. He grabbed the girls by the back of their pajamas and hoisted them into the air. Then he flew down the hallway so fast the open doors along the way slammed shut. In no time at all he came to rest outside the closed door to the Room of Reflections.

Sabrina pushed the heavy door open and looked inside, but he wasn’t there. The room was empty except for the mirrors hanging on the wall.

“Maybe one of the monsters ate him,” Daphne whimpered.

“That would be awesome,” Puck said.

Sabrina flashed him an angry look.

“
Awesome
in a terrible, heartbreakingly tragic kind of way,” Puck continued.

In a panic, Sabrina spun back around, determined to search every room until they found their friend. As she dashed out of the Room of Reflections she heard something clicking. It sounded like an army of little wooden feet. She stopped in her tracks.

“Do you hear that?” she asked the others.

Both Puck and Daphne nodded.

She turned back toward the Room of Reflections, trying to follow the sound. It was clearly coming from inside the room, which was empty except for the mirrors.

“Where is that coming from?” Daphne said, looking about.

Puck walked around the circular room, listening closely at each mirror. “It’s not coming from these.”

Sabrina agreed. “It seems to be coming from the door.” She studied the open door closely, then wondered if something might be behind it. She pulled it shut, closing them into the room, and that’s when she saw it. A passageway!

“What’s this?” Daphne asked.

Sabrina shrugged and stepped through the secret door. There she saw Pinocchio, surrounded by his evil marionettes, standing in front of a wall that contained thousands of shards of broken mirrors. They looked like tiny holes in space. None of them had a reflection, but rather, they acted like windows into places all over town and beyond. A quick glance showed her Nottingham’s office, Mayor Heart’s bedroom, Jack the Giant Killer’s empty apartment, even the Wizard of Oz’s workroom at Macy’s in Manhattan. Sabrina recalled seeing huge full-length mirrors in each of those rooms, and it was clear that this room allowed a person to peer into them. There were faces in some of the broken pieces—the Frog Prince, the Beast, Mayor Heart, and Nottingham himself. They were all waiting, as if expecting some important instructions.

“Have the doors been opened in the Grimm home, Master?” Mayor Heart said from one of the shards.

“You’re the Master?” Daphne shouted. Pinocchio turned and Daphne kicked him in the shin. The little boy howled and fell over. His marionettes leaped to his defense, jumping on Daphne’s back and punching her. It took all of Sabrina and Puck’s effort to free her from the tiny villains.

“You sick, twisted monster,” Sabrina seethed at Pinocchio. “Do you know the nightmare you have inflicted on my family? You’re a horrible, evil worm.”

“I’m not the Master!” Pinocchio shouted.

“Why should we believe you?” Puck said.

“Because I am the Master,” a voice said behind them. Sabrina spun around. Mirror was standing in the corner holding a little boy in his arms. A horrible mixture of terror, betrayal, shock, and disgust filled Sabrina’s head, sending a wave of mixed signals to every part of her body. One moment she wanted to run—to put as much distance between her and Mirror as possible. The next moment she wanted to snatch him by the collar and shake him in anger until he explained himself.

“No,” Daphne whispered.

“You? You’re the Master? You’re the leader of the Scarlet Hand?” Sabrina said.

Mirror nodded his head slightly. “Yes.”

“But you—” Daphne said, trembling.

“But I was your friend? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Yes! I trusted you. We all trusted you!” Sabrina cried.

“Then I’m afraid you’ve made a terrible mistake,” Mirror said.

Sabrina ran at Mirror, but a bolt of lightning stopped her in her tracks. She had witnessed Mirror’s magic before, but never had it been intentionally directed at her. She studied the boy in Mirror’s hands. He was small, maybe a year and a half old, wearing footie pajamas. He had curly red hair the color of Granny Relda’s. He had Sabrina’s father’s face and her mother’s beautiful eyes. “That’s my brother. You took him,” Sabrina said.

Mirror nodded. “It was unavoidable. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get my day started. Pinocchio, I believe I have a wish to fulfill.”

“Thank you, Master,” the boy said, bowing respectfully.

Mirror scooped the baby boy out of the crib again and turned to the children. “I’ll be needing your help.”

Sabrina shook her head but another blast of lightning told her Mirror wasn’t asking—it was an order.

Mirror walked them down the hall until they reached an oak door Sabrina knew at once. It was the room that she had seen with Pinocchio a few days before—the room that had no name and no keyhole.

“One of you has to unlock this door,” Mirror said.

“Uh, I don’t have a key for this room, and there’s no keyhole anyway,” Sabrina said.

“You don’t need either. You are the key,” Mirror said.

“I think Charming is right about you,” Daphne said. “You are defective.”

“When your family acquired me, this room was created to house your most important possession. Even before there were locks on the doors, there was concern that access to this room could fall into the wrong hands. Thus, this room was given a special lock—one that can only be opened by a Grimm,” Mirror explained.

“We won’t open it,” Sabrina said.

Mirror roughly snatched Sabrina’s hand and forced it onto the stone in the center of the door. Her hand fit perfectly into the carved relief and a warm sensation came over her. She heard a chime and then watched the stone sink into the door, triggering a series of internal locks and tumblers, as well as bursts of steam that hissed out of the cracks around the door. The door swung open. Mirror’s eyes welled with happy tears and he barged inside, pulling the children behind him. Unlike the other rooms that had wild, fantastical items or impossible creatures inside, this room was completely empty except for a thin wooden stand. On it sat an old book.

Mirror set the baby on the floor and rushed to the stand. He caressed the book’s cover lovingly. “The Book of Everafter. After eons of wishing and praying, the power is finally mine.”

“Are we supposed to be worried about an old book?” Puck asked.

“You ignorant little rodent! This isn’t just an old book. This is the Book of Everafter.”

“Sorry, I haven’t read it. I’m waiting for the movie,” Puck said.

Mirror scowled. “The Book of Everafter is a collection of every fairy tale, folk story, and tall tale ever told. Inside this book are the complete works of the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Baum, Lang, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Perrault, and a thousand others you’ve never heard of. Every version of the stories of Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Prince Charming, Dorothy, Alice, Puss in Boots, and every other tale can be found in this book. No one knows where it came from or who wrote all these stories down, but there was magic in his pen. This book is the source of our immortality, our magic weapons, everything—this is what gives us our power. It also allows an Everafter a second chance at a happy ending.” He turned to Pinocchio. “Boy, this book will give you the opportunity to right the wrong the Blue Fairy cursed you with so long ago.”

“What do I need to do, Master?” the boy asked.

“Open the book and find the story written about you. Find the moment in the story that you would like to change and place your hand on that page. You will be drawn into the story, allowing you to relive it and, if the legend is true, revise it.”

“You’re saying he can go in and change his own story?” Sabrina said. “That’s impossible.”

Mirror shook his head in disappointment. “With everything you’ve seen in this town, I would have thought you would have more of an open mind about the impossible. What this book does, in essence, is turn you into a fictional character that you can then revise. Once you have made your changes you can leave the book and return to the real world. In Pinocchio’s case he can step in as a boy and step out a full-grown man if he can manage to change his story to his liking.”

Pinocchio rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Let’s get started.”

The odd little boy opened the book, but instead of opening to a certain page, the book flipped through every page, back and forth, as if it were trapped in a relentless wind. He tried to stop the furious pages but failed.

“I will never be able to find my story if it keeps acting like this,” Pinocchio whined.

“An unforeseen wrinkle,” Mirror said. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to do it the hard way. Put your hand on a page and it will pull you in. Once there you’ll have to move from story to story until you find your own. I’ve heard there are doors if you can find them.”

Pinocchio looked uncertain.

“What if I can’t find the door?”

Mirror shrugged. “Perhaps you feel you’d have better luck on your own?”

Pinocchio frowned and turned back to the book. He slipped his hand into the whirling pages, and in a flash he was gone. His marionettes chased after him, plunging into the pages of the book and vanishing.

“What does this have to do with our baby brother?” Sabrina asked.

“He’s going to provide me with my happy ending, Starfish.”

“Don’t call me that,” Sabrina yelled.

Mirror frowned and looked genuinely hurt. “Very well, Sabrina. I know you’re angry, but I hope you won’t judge me too harshly. I’m only after what everyone on this planet wants—happiness. I’m not expecting you to understand but try to imagine what my life must be like. I was put into this world—born, you might say—by a cold, uncaring woman who treated me like property.

“For generations I have waited hand and foot on others. I can’t say that your current family is not kind, Sabrina, but my owners have not always been so sweet. I have been in the company of mad men, lunatics, or people who simply ignored me. As good as you have been to me, you are only a temporary creature on this planet. You will die someday, and who will own me then? A tyrant? A monster? Who knows? Well, I won’t do it any longer. I’m going to have my freedom. I’m going to walk out of this dreaded mirror. I’m going to get my happy ending and your brother is the key. He will lend me his body. I will become a human boy and grow into a human man.”

“Why?” Sabrina asked. “You have plenty of followers in your Scarlet Hand. Why not take one of them?”

“Because they’re Everafters,” Mirror said. “If I took one of their bodies I’d still be a prisoner in Ferryport Landing. Why would I trade one prison for another? If I take the body of a human I can walk out of this town with the magical weapons stored inside this hall. It will be easy work for me to conquer this world. It will be very nice to have others serving me.”

“But you don’t have to do this. You just said that this book would let you change your story,” Daphne said. “Why not go in and make sure you have freedom? Why steal our brother’s life?”

“Sadly, in all the stories collected in this book, the story of my glorious birth has never been documented. There is no story for me to step into and alter. Thus, I have had to come up with another solution. I believe there is someone who can help me in these pages.”

Mirror scooped up the baby boy from the floor and then stepped toward the book.

“You can’t go in there,” Sabrina said. “You can’t leave the Hall of Wonders.”

“I’m not leaving the Hall of Wonders,” Mirror said with a sly grin. “The book will be here the whole time.”

Mirror placed his hand on one of the pages and he and the child vanished.

“We have to go after them,” Sabrina said.

“We’re not going in there,” Puck said.

“Yeah, I think this is one of those times we should wait for an adult’s help,” Daphne said.

“We can’t wait,” Sabrina said, stepping up to the book. “They’re at the other end of the hall without a trolley. What if Mirror gets lucky and lands in the story he wants? He could be stealing our baby brother’s body as we speak. We’ve got to stop him now.”