The Everafter War (4 page)

“He turned into a rhinoceros,” Ms. Smirt said.

“He does that,” Sabrina said.

While she and Smirt stood gaping at Puck, Daphne grabbed Sabrina’s arm and dragged her in the direction of the blasted door. Never once had the little girl led an escape, but Sabrina was too bewildered to argue.

They saw Puck plow through the next car’s door, and he was about to do the same to the one after that. Unfortunately, the train was packed tight with commuters. They cowered in their seats and hid behind their copies of the
New York Times
. No one was injured, but Sabrina suspected that many had wet their pants. She couldn’t blame them. No one expects to see a charging rhino on their way to work. She and Daphne did their best to assure them that everything was under control as they ran past.

The girls reached the last car just in time to see Puck plow through its door and tumble out onto the tracks. The girls held hands and leaped to the ground below just as the train came to a stop. Once she had regained her bearings, Sabrina found that she and her sister were not alone. Uncle Jake, Granny Relda, and Elvis were waiting for them. Goldilocks hovered in the background, as did Red Riding Hood. The three bears stood at the back of the crowd with hairy arms crossed in disgust, and Puck was busy morphing back into his true form. But there were two people in the crowd that made Sabrina wonder if her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. Her parents, Henry and Veronica Grimm, stood right in front of her with arms outstretched.

“Mom? Dad?” she cried.

Henry and Veronica smiled and scooped her and Daphne into their arms. Tears fell from every eye, streamed down cheeks, and fell to the ground below. Veronica peppered them with kisses while Henry wrapped them up and squeezed.

“But Goldilocks’s kiss. It didn’t work,” Daphne said.

“It worked,” Veronica said. “But you know your father. He was always a late sleeper.”

Henry stepped back and studied his daughters. “Girls, you look so different.” He held Daphne’s face in his hand. “You’re so … big.”

“You’ve been asleep a long time,” Daphne said.

Henry turned to Granny Relda with questioning eyes.

“It’s true. Nearly two years,” the old woman said.

“Two years!” Veronica cried.

Henry looked as if someone had punched him in the belly. He stumbled back a little before righting himself. “That can’t be true.”

Daphne nodded. “It’s true.”

“But we’re together now,” Sabrina said, trying to shift the mood back to the happy reunion. All her worries over the last two years seemed to evaporate like dew in the summer sun. The incredible weight of being responsible for herself and Daphne lifted from her shoulders and for the first time in a long time she felt like what she was—a twelve-year-old kid.

Ms. Smirt scurried through the open train door. She pressed her bony hands across her gray suit to flatten wrinkles and struggled with a broken heel on one of her shoes. She straightened, as if mustering all of her courage. “These children are wards of the state, and they’re coming with me, flying boy or no flying boy.”

“Who is this woman?” Henry asked.

“She’s our caseworker,” Sabrina explained. “When you vanished we were sent to live in an orphanage. She placed us with foster parents.”

“Horrible, evil foster parents,” Daphne said. “She sent us to live with a man who was terrified of soap!”

“Don’t forget the family that had a Bengal tiger living in their house!” Sabrina said.

“And the guy who rented us out as dogcatchers for his Korean restaurant.”

Veronica stepped forward and snatched Smirt by the collar. “Have you been mistreating my children?”

“I did what I thought was best,” Smirt sputtered as she tried to break free from Veronica’s grip. Sabrina remembered how much her mother enjoyed rock climbing—she was crazy strong. Smirt squirmed like a worm on a hook.

“If I ever see you within twenty miles of my children again you’ll wish you were never born,” Veronica said.

“Are you threatening me?” the caseworker said.

“No,” Veronica replied. “But my fist is.”

Smirt squeaked and scampered back onto the train.

“We have to throw some forgetful dust on her,” Sabrina said to Uncle Jake. “She knows too much. In fact, you should do the whole train.”

“Do everyone but Smirt,” Daphne said. Jake smiled and hopped onto the train with a handful of pink powder.

“Why not Smirt?” Sabrina demanded. “You told her everything. She’ll go back to New York City and tell everyone what she knows.”

“Exactly,” Daphne said with a grin. “She’s going to go back to the orphanage with this crazy story and they’ll think she’s a nutcase. They’ll fire her.”

Sabrina was astounded with the little girl’s plan. It was almost like something she would have concocted herself. In fact, it was better.

“Henry, Veronica, we have a lot of catching up to do,” Granny Relda said.

“I’ll say,” Veronica agreed.

“Forget it, Mom. We’re leaving as soon as the girls are packed,” Henry said.

“Leaving?” Granny cried.

Sabrina and Daphne eyed one another in astonishment.

Henry nodded. “We’re getting out of Ferryport Landing as fast as we can.”

ig brother, this is not one of your best ideas. You’re forgetting you’ve been off the radar for two years,” Uncle Jake said when he returned from the train. “Most people think you and Veronica are dead. Your apartment was sold. You don’t have a job. You’ve got a mountain of paperwork to go through before you can get at any of your money, and if you were smart you’d steer clear of that caseworker and the board of child welfare until you can prove that you and Veronica are really the girls’ parents. All of this will take weeks to sort out. Come back to the house—we can help.”

“He makes a good point, Henry,” Veronica said. “Maybe we should stay put until we get everything settled.”

Henry shook his head stubbornly. “Getting out of Ferryport Landing is more important than all those details. We’ll manage.”

Granny Relda’s face fell. She looked on the verge of tears. Sabrina had never seen her so upset. “But, Henry—”

“It’s not open for discussion, Mom,” he said sharply.

Sabrina’s mom frowned but kept her tongue. Everyone else looked uncomfortable.

The group trudged up the embankment quietly and found the family’s ancient car parked nearby. A quart of oil had leaked onto the sidewalk beneath its engine and a mysterious green fluid was seeping from the muffler. The old jalopy was a collection of illfitting parts from dozens of different car models and maybe a tank. Its best days were behind it—if it ever had best days. Now it looked like a wounded animal waiting for the Grim Reaper to come and put it out of its misery.

“Did you all come in this car?” Sabrina asked, looking around for another vehicle. “This old rust bucket is big, but you couldn’t fit everyone and the bears inside even if you squeezed.”

“That was my doing,” Uncle Jake said with a grin. He reached into one of his many jacket pockets and took out a small wooden box. Inside was a green dust that spun like a tiny hurricane.

Daphne’s eyes lit up with wonder. “What’s that?”

“It’s called stretching powder. Sprinkle a little of this on anything and you can make it as big or as small as you want. I blew a handful into the inside of the car. It’s big enough for a whole forest of bears now.”

“Gravy!” Daphne said, eyeing the green particles.

“Gravy?” Sabrina asked.

“It’s my new word. It means something is cooler than cool,” Daphne said, turning her attention back to Uncle Jake. “Where did you get it?”

“This is one of the first magical items I ever collected. Picked it up from the little old woman who lived in a shoe. She used this to get all seventy of her rug rats inside an old penny loafer.”

Henry snatched the box from his brother, shut the lid, and stuffed it into one of Jake’s pockets. “I’d prefer you kept your magic away from the girls. It’s dangerous and I don’t want them anywhere near it.”

“Dad, we’re old pros with the magic stuff,” Daphne said. “We use it all the time.”

Henry glared at his mother.

“I’m getting pretty good, too,” Daphne continued, completely oblivious to Henry’s rising temper. “In fact, I have my own little collection of wands and rings, just like Uncle Jake.”

Henry’s face turned as red as lava exploding out of a volcano. “You are five years old. You shouldn’t be anywhere near magic. You’ll hand it all over to me when we get back to the house. None of this nonsense is going back to New York City with us.”

“Dad, I’ll be eight in two weeks,” Daphne said.

Henry looked at his daughter as if she were speaking ancient Greek.

And Daphne looked like she had just been slapped. Sabrina knew firsthand how insulted her sister could be when she was treated like a baby. She herself had created a deep emotional chasm between them by not respecting Daphne. Only a few days before, she had betrayed her sister, stealing a magical item she felt Daphne was too young to possess. Now, they were barely speaking.

“Maybe we should go,” Goldilocks said with a forced smile. She opened one of the rusty car doors.

Sabrina and Daphne climbed inside as an orchestra of springs and joints cried out for mercy. The stretching powder had done just what Uncle Jake claimed it would do: The interior was enormous, even bigger than Granny Relda’s living room. They could have shared the car with a football team and would still have had plenty of room for everyone. Red, Goldilocks, the bears, Elvis, Puck, Granny Relda, Uncle Jake, Henry, and Veronica piled inside.

Veronica took a seat between her daughters and hugged them both. “So, what have we missed?”

Granny shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, where do we begin? Well, I’ve been training the girls in the art of detection and—”

“You knew I didn’t want them in this town,” Henry interrupted.

“I couldn’t leave them in the orphanage. They’ve been perfectly safe,” Granny said.

Sabrina laughed and the entire family turned to face her.

“You disagree?” Henry asked her.

Sabrina felt Granny’s betrayed eyes on her. “No.”

“Sabrina, if you have something to say I’d like to hear it,” Henry demanded.

She tried to stay quiet but the truth spilled out anyway. “Well, we were attacked by Jack the Giant Killer, then nearly stomped to death by an army of giants. Rumpelstiltskin heightened my emotions then fed off the anger like I was an all-you-can-eat buffet, then he nearly blew us up in some underground tunnels but not before he sent a bunch of half-monster children to kill us. We were nearly devoured by the Little Mermaid’s mutant hermit crab, almost killed by Little Red Riding Hood—”

Red seemed to sink into her seat.

“We killed the Jabberwocky—”

“It’s dead?” Henry asked, bewildered.

Granny Relda nodded.

“What else, oh, I was turned into a frog and was almost eaten by Baba Yaga, we were attacked by a six-story giant robot in Times Square, nearly killed by Titania, Queen of the Fairies, sucked into a time vortex, nearly barbecued by dragons from the future, almost sliced and diced by the Sheriff of Nottingham, and just about had our heads chopped off by the Queen of Hearts and Bluebeard. I’m sure there’s more but that’s right off the top of my head. Oh, I was taken over by the insane rabid spirit of the Big Bad Wolf, too.”