The Grimm Chronicles, Vol.1 (14 page)

“May we talk, finally?” Briar asked, appearing next to me on the bench.

“Yes,” I answered, “but only so long as no one is around. That’s the rule.”

“Fine, fine. Anywho, as I was saying earlier, this Grayle fellow …”

I turned to him. “He’s a Corrupted.”

“Yes … I know.”

“You know? How?”

Briar sighed. “He’s one of the surviving seven dwarfs. He’s taken a few names over the years, but he always pops up with some business or other. Last I spotted him, he was drilling for oil out west.”

“And now he’s here,” I said. “Drawn to me?”

Briar scratched the brown fur on the tip of his head, between his long ears. “It’s possible. Or maybe he just wants Edward’s property. The Corrupted are not all friends. Some just don’t get along with each other.”

“How can we be sure what this Grayle fellow is up to?” I asked.

“Oh, I think if we keep an eye on him, something will pop up. Has he appeared in your dreams?”

“No … just more rats. Big ones. Inside a sewer.” I shuddered. “They’re definitely becoming more defined. More
real
.”

“We should focus on that,” Briar said. “Your dreams will oftentimes focus on the most threatening Corrupted … although I can’t be quite sure what it is in this case. A rat, perhaps? A rat king? Darned if I can remember all of those fairy tales.”

“I don’t remember reading about any rat kings,” I said, thinking back. The truth was I’d read
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
twice and had been amazed, not at how many names had been crossed out by previous heroes but by how many
still remained
. There were so many still out there, causing all sorts of awful trouble.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at my book with his paw.

“Oh.” I closed it so he could see the cover. “It’s a book about springs. Boingy-boingy springs. I got the idea from you hopping around.”

“Hmmmm.” He clicked his tongue against his big front teeth. “Interesting, I suppose …”

I glanced up at a shadow passing over the sidewalk to my left, feeling my heart speed up for a moment before I realized it was just a young college-age woman walking into the library, a beautiful black purse slung over her shoulder. I smiled, waiting for the library door to shut again before turning back to the rabbit.

“You said my magic pen relied on my knowledge to create things, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“Well, so here I am, learning things. On my summer vacation. I’m not having a lot of fun, but I thought it might be good to nail down some of the physics stuff I never really learned my junior year.”

Briar shuddered. “I take it you understand how a spring trap works, then.”

I nodded solemnly. “I think so, at least. The force a spring exerts is proportional to its change in length, so that’s a pretty good measure of how strong a trap would be. If an animal gets caught in one …”

“I’ve avoided many a trap in my day,” Briar said. “And seen many wonderful creatures fall victim to its painful jaws. Terrible things, those traps. Some of them look like metal mouths, metal teeth and all. And you don’t even see them! They’re hiding away in the grass, and then you step down on top of one …”

“And the spring’s energy does the work,” I finished. “A spring trap might help catch some of these little critters the Grimms mention in their stories, though.”

Briar whimpered slightly. “Yes, but … oh, I’m such a softy. It’s just that those spring traps are so painful! It’s animal torture. There. I said it. Think less of me if you will. Call me a Corrupted lover.”

I laughed. “We can modify the design.” I opened the book to the middle page, where the author was very slowly and methodically explaining how a standard bow and arrow worked—another advantage in learning about
stored energy
. I had a piece of paper there to mark my place, and on the paper were a variety of pencil sketches. “Look at this one,” I said, pointing to the spring trap I’d designed. “I widened the jaws of the trap so that it wraps around the animal’s leg without hurting it. All it does it traps them until we can show up.”

Briar glanced up at me with wide eyes. “I like your style, sister!”

“Yeah, well.” I closed the book. “Maybe I’ve watched too many Disney movies full of talking woodland animals. I have a feeling if we do run into any Corrupted ducks or mules or dogs, they’re not going to have any problem gobbling us up if they have the chance.”

“Still,” Briar said. “It’s nice to know … just in case some innocent animal comes along and accidentally springs a trap. I would feel awful bad. We animal folk get along, for the most part.”

I turned and craned my neck so I could see the clock on the bank across the street. “I have to get back inside. Despite the fact that I’m not being paid, Fran the librarian is obsessed with making sure my breaks aren’t too long.”

Briar stood up with me. “I shall accompany you, for I have need of the library’s resources.”

“You do? Which resources?”

His whiskers twitched and a glimmer of deviousness shone in his eyes. “Periodicals,” he answered.

Chapter 3

Tricia and Seth planned to come over that night to watch a movie, which meant I had to wrench the living room away from my parents. I told them to go out for dinner and a movie.

“But it’s Thursday!” Dad exclaimed, not budging from his place on the couch. “No one goes out on Thursday. There aren’t any discounts.”

“So just pay full price for once in your life!” I said, frustrated. “We have movies to watch and the last thing I need is you and Mom wandering around the house, stomping your hooves like a couple of horses.”

“Hooves!” Mom called out from the kitchen. “
Horses
? What’s gotten into you, dear?”

“It’s her hormones,” Dad said. He’d bent over to put on his shoes. “Hormones raging all over the place. I’m terrified of her.”

“She just wants to spend some time with her friends,” Mom said. She came out of the kitchen with her spring jacket already on. Her soft dark hair was pulled back behind her ears. It was shorter now than it used to be at the beginning of summer. She’d officially gotten a “mom” cut.

“Go to that place downtown,” I offered.

Dad glanced at me and raised one bushy eyebrow. “Oh yeah? That place downtown? That’s a great place!”

“The Brazillian place,” I said, rolling my eyes. “With all the different kinds of meats.”

“That’s expensive,” Dad said. “We’re going to Arby’s and then the budget cinema.”

“Carl!” Mom said, grabbing his arm before he could finish Velcroing his shoes. Yup, my dad liked to wear Velcro shoes when he wasn’t at work. Wild, isn’t it?

“Have fun!” I said, following them to the door. “Please, by all means, take your time at the movie. Watch two of them. Make out in the bleachers.”

“She has good ideas sometimes,” Dad said as Mom pushed him outside. She turned to me, frowning.

“
No
drinking.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for the reminder.”

Mom closed the door behind her. And just like that—finally!—I had the house to myself. I felt liberated. I felt like a million bucks. I felt like eating a strawberry toaster thingy and dancing around while Florence and the Machine blasted through the living room speakers.

So that’s exactly what I did.

When I was finished, I turned down the music. The rabbit was sitting on the couch, watching me with a bemused expression.

“Is this normal?” he asked.

“Perfectly! You know what else is normal? Spending the evening with your friends.”

His whiskers twitched. “I’ll have you know I have plenty of friends, too. Sure, they don’t talk and they live in the forest and some of them try to eat me, but it’s all in good fun. ‘Briar,’ I always say to myself, ‘you can’t be too picky given your unique talents.’ So I’m not.”

“OK, so what if you, like, spent some time with them tonight? Tricia and Seth are coming over and I’d really like to just veg out before these dreams get any worse.”

“Which reminds me,” Briar began, following me up the stairs to my room. “I spent last night in the library and …”

“You spent last night in the library?! Like, all night?!”

He straightened, smoothing out his vest. “Yup. I was searching the old newspaper archives for deaths that mention sewers and combing through histories of Chicago and I came across some startling data.”

He pulled a small folded piece of paper and handed it to me. I unfolded it, examining the names and dates.

“Interesting, no?”

I nodded. “I can’t believe you figured out a way to write even though you don’t have opposable thumbs.”

Briar sighed. “Will you please just focus? Every single name on that list is a person who, over the last twenty years, has been found dead in Chicago in the sewers.”

My heart thumped in my chest. “Not more dead bodies …”

Briar rubbed his big eyes with both paws. “Unfortunately, yes. I combed through Chicago’s newspapers to get all of this and I’m pretty sure there’s a connection. But I can’t see it yet. It could take weeks of night visits to the library to figure this out and by then, more deaths may yet occur.”

“Or …” I walked over to my laptop and opened it. “Take a look at this. Do you know what this is?”

Briar hopped over and stared at the screen. “A computing device, of course.”

“Right. See, we have this magical thing now called
the
Internet
. Look.” I typed in the Chicago Tribune’s web site. “Check it out: you can search for whatever you want here. And then you can click on these links to read stuff.”

I was laying the sarcasm on pretty thick, but the rabbit couldn’t be more impressed. His eyes were nearly bulging out of his skull. “This is amazing!” he exclaimed.

“Try it,” I said.

His paw grabbed the mouse with surprising deftness as he clicked one of the links. “The newspaper at your fingertips. Well played, sister! This could very well change the game!”

I stood back, satisfied. It was a little surreal, seeing a giant rabbit pecking away at the keyboard on my laptop. But at least he was diverted. A quiet night to myself. A day off from our ridiculous exercise routine … perfect.

“So I take it we’re not going for a run tonight?” he asked absently. His eyes were positively glued to the computer screen now as his little paw clicked link after link.

“No,” I said, rubbing my upper leg. “I could use a day off. I think during our last game of ‘tag,’ I stepped on a rock weird.”

“Hellooooooo,” Briar said, bringing up a new page. “What’s this then?”

“Oh.” I reached over and closed the window. “That’s my Facebook page. That’s not for rabbits.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a place where you can talk online to your friends and post to their walls and get addicted and forget about everything else and postpone homework assignments.”

The rabbit’s eyes narrowed. “Fascinating! ”

The doorbell rang.

“Look,” I said, hands on hips. “Can I trust you to stay up here alone while I spend some time with my friends?”

“Yes, yes … go on. Ah, what is the Google?”

“Just play around with it,” I said, shutting the door. I went downstairs and opened the front door. Seth and Trish pushed me aside and hurried in.

“There’s a bat,” Trish said, grabbing the door and slamming it shut. “I feel like he’s on me or something!”

“He was gigantic,” Seth said with wide eyes. “And he was swooping around the streetlight, gobbling up bugs. It was so gross.”

Trish wiped her hands on her white shorts and gave me a hug. “How are you, darling?”

“I’m doing just fine,” I said. Seth had already made his way to the kitchen, rummaging around the cabinets. “There’s popcorn in the cabinet next to the fridge!” I called out. Then, in a low voice, I asked Trish, “Are you guys fighting?”

“No.” She frowned and playfully slapped my shoulder. “We don’t
always
fight.”

“Just asking. I like to be prepared.”

We went to the couch. In the kitchen, Seth threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

“What did you guys pick out?” I asked.

“Well …” Trish tossed back her blonde hair. She’d been growing it longer and occasionally putting it in tight braid. It gave her a very
senior
look. I needed that kind of look before school started up again. Senior year was our chance to show off a more grown-up version of ourselves, and here Trish was doing just that. What was I doing? I needed to do
something
, specifically with my hair.

“I thought a romantic comedy would help,” Trish said. “Seth thought you needed some kind of gross splatter flick with aliens or monsters or something.”

“
Cthulu
!” Seth called out from the kitchen. “It’s a slimy squid-like monster.”

Trish rolled her eyes. She pulled out her phone, tapping the screen a few times. “So you get to pick. Did you hear anything more about Edward?”

“Um … actually, they moved.”

“What?” Her mouth remained open for a moment. Dramatic surprise—that was Trish for you. “Where did they move?”

I shrugged. “Does it matter? They moved. Some bank foreclosed on the mansion.”

“Oh good.” She reached across the empty couch cushion and touched my bare arm. “I mean, OK, I know you said it was pretty amicable—whatever that means—but it’s still good to take a little pleasure in his demise.”

“I did,” I said. “But he’s gone now. And that’s the end of things.”

She leaned back in the couch cushion, resting her leg on the coffee table and wiggling her long toes. Her eyes had returned to her phone screen.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Playing
Castle Cats
. It’s the most annoyingly addictive phone game I’ve ever played. And now I just lost.” She turned off her phone. “Gosh, I bet that mansion was beautiful inside. Kind of annoying he never invited anyone over.”

“He was … weirder than he let on.”

“Really?” She leaned closer. “Details, darling!”

I shrugged. “Well, he collected dead butterflies. That was pretty weird.”

Seth walked back into the kitchen with a big porcelain bowl full of popcorn and a couple bottles of diet soda. He hopped over the couch, nearly falling forward onto the coffee table. I reached out, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him back onto the soft cushions.

“Jeez,” he said. “What are you, on steroids or something?”

I smiled. “Yup. I shave my beard every morning.”

Seth shuddered and reached for Tricia’s red purse on the floor. “Who needs a horror movie with talk like that?”

“Exactly,” Trish said, “which is why we’re watching the romantic comedy.”

Both Seth and I groaned. “Seriously, the last thing I want to see is a sappy happily-ever-after movie,” I said.

Trish gasped. “It’s not sappy! It’s
romantic
!”

“It’s a load of crap,” Seth said, stuffing a handful of buttery popcorn into his mouth. He crunched down and a few fluffy pieces fell out from between his thin lips.

“You just feel that way because you’re a mean boyfriend.”

Seth’s mouth opened in mock outrage and another half-eaten piece of popcorn fell out. “I just bought you a promise ring!”

“From a
department store
,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “You’re supposed to go out and craft a ring yourself and inscribe it. Mine the diamond yourself, too.”

“Did you see that in a movie?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The point is … well, I don’t remember. Don’t you want to find someone who’ll take care of you and make you happy?”

“Make me happy? Yes. But take care of me?” I thought about that one. It had been a while since I’d thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I still thought it would be cool to be a librarian, or work with books in some way. But I had some other ideas, too. No matter what, I couldn’t imagine any future where someone took care of me.

“I think it sounds like a great idea,” Seth said, leaning back on the couch. “Yup. Trish can go out and find a job, and I can sit back and play video games all day. I like it.”

She picked a few popcorn crumbs off his stomach, tossing them at his mouth. “Just because a movie has a happy ending doesn’t mean it’s bad, you know.”

“You’re right.” I chuckled. “It just gets weird sometimes, seeing couples kissing and then the credits roll. Because then life goes on. At least, in my experience.”

“Mine too,” Seth mumbled, stuffing more popcorn into his mouth.

Trish reached over him to touch my arm again. “Darling, being rescued from the dullness of the suburb is every girl’s dream. Why do you think I keep telling Seth to move?”

“I think she wants me to kidnap her,” Seth mumbled.

“Well, I don’t want to be rescued,” I said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I thought maybe I would go into nursing when we get to college.”

“Oh, but you’ll be around blood and guts and stuff!” Trish said with a frown. “Why not something a little cleaner?”

I shrugged. “Nursing sounds like fun. I want to be in a profession where I can save people.”

“Fine,” Tricia said. “Nursing it is. But that doesn’t mean a good guy won’t come along, darling. He still will. And you’ll live happily ever after.”

“Yeah, well. Tonight, I’m not all that excited about seeing it happen on the TV.”

Seth nodded. A veritable pile of half-eaten popcorn was accumulating on his lap. “She’s right. She’s still in pain. She needs a slimy
Cthulu
monster to cheer her up. Maybe a few dismemberments.” He licked his lips, giving his girlfriend a sinister look. “Maybe a few human sacrifices. Oodles of blood and gore. A couple zombies …”

“OK, OK.” She pushed him back. “Fine. Horror it is. But I’m closing my eyes every time it gets gross.”

She wasn’t kidding, either. In fact, she ended up keeping her eyes closed for most of the movie.