“That ship has clearly sailed here from the past. How and why, I can’t say, but I do know one thing: Many of us are on that ship. Arthur, you’re on that boat, but it’s you from two hundred years ago. If you attack that ship, you could accidentally kill yourself.”
“Scarecrow, I never can make heads or tails of anything you say,” one of the Three Blind Mice complained. “You sure the Wizard gave you brains? I got a feeling he stuffed your head with cotton candy.”
“Oh, if you only had a brain,” the Scarecrow replied.
Canis stared at the Scarecrow. “So, are you saying that if someone from that ship was killed, it could change the present?”
The Scarecrow nodded. “Absolutely.”
In a flash, Canis had the girls in his arms and was running up the street. “What are you doing?” Sabrina yelled.
“Nottingham’s got Wilhelm!” he shouted. “If he knows what the Scarecrow knows, he will kill him.”
“Why would he do that?” Sabrina asked.
“Because if Wilhelm were to die, then the barrier that traps us in this town would never have been created,” Canis said. “And killing him would put an end to his descendants. Every member of your family could suddenly cease to exist.”
“Fudge,” Daphne whispered.
Sabrina looked back at the crowd by the river. As she watched, many of the bystanders started chasing after them. It seemed that they had realized the dark opportunity Canis had just explained. “Uh, could you run a little faster?” she said.
The jailhouse was a mob scene. There were hundreds of Everafters outside, demanding answers. Canis set the girls on his huge shoulders and tossed people aside as he pushed his way into the tiny building. They found Granny at the front desk, pounding on the table and calling out for the sheriff.
“Where is he?” Canis said, setting the girls down.
“Nottingham has taken him back to a cell for interrogation,” she said.
“I worry about how he defines the word ‘interrogation,’” Canis said. “We have to get him out of there.”
Granny nodded.
Then the sheriff stepped back into the office. He had a grin on his face like he had just gotten a bicycle for his birthday.
“Sheriff Nottingham!” Granny exclaimed. “You had no right to arrest that man.”
“I have every right. I’m the sheriff,” he said.
“What is his crime?”
“Let’s see. He doesn’t have a sailing license, or a passport, and he’s trying to sneak foreigners into the country.”
“He doesn’t belong here, Nottingham,” Canis said. Sabrina and Daphne both tugged on his sleeves, hoping to remind him that it wasn’t wise to tell what he knew about the time tears.
“Oh, I’m well aware he doesn’t belong here,” Nottingham said. “He’s come here from the past. Now that I see it with my own eyes, I almost feel like apologizing for ignoring all the reports I’ve been getting from citizens. The phone has been ringing off the hook for days about the Lenni Lenape Indian tribe, dinosaurs, Civil War soldiers, spacemen . . . Still, none of them really deserved my attention until today. It seems as if the past has opened up and delivered us a gift.”
“Gift! What are you talking about?” Granny demanded.
“Why, with one slash of my dagger, I can end the suffering of this entire town,” Nottingham replied. “If I am not mistaken, the man back in that cell is Wilhelm Grimm. Killing him gives us our freedom.”
“You can’t just kill a man,” Sabrina said. “You’re a police officer.”
“Police officer?” Nottingham laughed. “Child, do you think I took this job because I care about justice? Your precious Wilhelm is being put to death for crimes against Everafters. If my theory is correct, when he expires, your wretched family will vanish just like that!” He snapped his fingers so loudly that Daphne jumped in fright. “I wonder if I’ll remember you when it’s all said and done. It would be a shame if I didn’t.”
“When do you plan to do this?” Granny Relda asked.
“Midnight tonight!” a voice shouted through a megaphone. The crowd separated and Mayor Heart stepped front and center. “Tonight I make good on my campaign promise of changing everything. I bet you didn’t guess just how much change I had planned. It’s going to be quite a celebration, folks. Everyone is invited.”
Nottingham let out a wicked laugh as he glared at the Grimm family. “Aren’t you going to tell us we’ll never get away with this?” The crowd roared with laughter.
“I thought it was understood,” Granny Relda said calmly.
The family pushed their way through the mob and out into the street. Uncle Jake was waiting by the car when they arrived.
“Is he in there?” he asked, pointing back toward the jail.
Granny nodded. “Heaven only knows how he got here.”
Sabrina and Daphne shared a look but kept quiet.
“What are we going to do?” Sabrina asked.
“Yeah, I don’t want to not exist. I’ve got plans,” Daphne added.
“We’re going to do what every Grimm has done in times of trouble. We’re going to work together as a family. Mr. Canis, take us home. We have to rally the troops.”
“You want to what?” Uncle Jake said, leaping from his seat on the family couch.
“I want you to tell Baba Yaga that Nottingham has her wand and lead her to the police station,” Granny said.
Charming, Canis, Sabrina, Daphne, Puck, and even Elvis seemed shocked by Granny’s plan. They gazed at one another in disbelief.
“What in heaven for?” Uncle Jake asked.
“We’re going to need her as a distraction,” the old woman explained. “If she can cause enough of a ruckus, Nottingham won’t hear Mr. Canis knocking down the back wall so we can break Wilhelm out of his cell.”
Puck clapped his hands. “A jailbreak. I love it!”
Uncle Jake, however, stood shaking his head. “Mom, mutual trust is the only thing keeping Baba Yaga from adding all of us to her bone fence. If you lie to her, things will get ugly.”
“Things are ugly,” Mr. Canis said. “Desperate times, son.”
“I know the consequences,” the old woman said, “but the alternative is much worse.”
“Personally, I think your job sounds a lot more fun than mine,” Puck complained to Uncle Jake.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Puck,” Granny said. “But your task is the most important.”
“What about us?” Daphne said as she rubbed Elvis’s chin. The big dog watched Granny Relda attentively as if waiting to find out what his role in the plan would be.
“You girls are going to stay with me. I may need your help getting Wilhelm to safety,” Granny said.
“But there’s a hole in your plan, general,” Charming said.
“‘General’?” Granny Relda said.
The girls and Charming shared a look.
“I mean . . . what are you going to do with Wilhelm when you get him? You won’t be able to hide him here. Nottingham is going to know who was responsible.”
Granny shook her head. “I don’t know. All I do know is that if we don’t rescue him, the queen is going to kill him and then my family is going to cease to exist. Now, I suspect it will take Jacob a couple of hours to find Baba Yaga and lure her into town. I suggest you all have something to eat and get some rest. This is probably going to be a long night.”
After everyone had eaten what they could, Granny retired to her bedroom and Puck went to his. Uncle Jake went off in search of Baba Yaga, and Charming retreated into his mirror, leaving Mr. Canis and the girls alone.
The old man sat quietly, studying the girls. His face looked as if he were wrestling with a question. Sabrina knew what it would be and dreaded having to answer it. How do you tell someone he is going to be taken over by a monster and lose his soul?
“Can I do anything to stop it?” Mr. Canis asked finally, looking down at the sharp black talons on his hand.
“Yes!” Daphne said.
Sabrina, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. Canis had been creeping toward a complete metamorphosis since his fight with Rumpelstiltskin in the tunnels beneath the town several months ago. Nothing he had done since had slowed his change. Still, she knew it was best to keep her doubts to herself. “Our future selves believed we could change things, and we already have, a little.”
“Do you know when it happens to me?” the old man asked.
The girls shook their heads. They should have asked when they had the chance, but there were so many other questions that had gone unanswered too.
“Perhaps if I altered course I could stop it,” Canis said. “That’s what you’re trying to do, correct?”
“We know we’ve changed a few things,” Sabrina said. “Though we have no idea if it has made a difference in the future.”
Canis got up from his chair. He repeated Granny Relda’s advice about getting some rest and then slowly climbed the steps to his room.
“Are we going to lose him?” Daphne whispered.
“I don’t know,” Sabrina said.
After a few moments of silence, the girls went up to their room. Elvis padded along beside them and hopped up onto their bed.
“I guess we better get some rest,” Daphne said, shutting off the light.
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Sabrina said.
“About tonight?”
“No, about the future, about this case. We still haven’t found the missing items and it seems like things keep popping up to get in the way. What if we can’t figure out who the thief is? What if we don’t solve this mystery? What if there are things we can’t change?”
The girls slipped their hands together and lay quietly. The darkness was like a heavy weight on their chests.
Sabrina awoke to an incredible shaking. Her head felt like it was going to bounce off her shoulders. The bed seemed to be moving around the room on its own. She looked over at her sister. Daphne had her eyes closed, concentrating hard. She also had the magic detector in her hand, and it was vibrating.
“Ugh, I think I’m going to be sick,” Daphne said, squirming around the bed like someone had tossed a handful of worms down her pants.
“What’s going on?” Sabrina asked, doing her best to keep the bed from careening into her father’s desk.
“I feel like one of those time tears is about to open up again. Ohhh, my legs feel like pudding.”
“Where is it going to happen? Can you tell?”
“There’s going to be one in the river. It’s going to be a big one too.”
“Big enough for Wilhelm’s ship?”
“Mucho big-o!”
The shimmering and shaking stopped, and Daphne shook her arms out as if they had fallen asleep. “We have to go now!”
Sabrina glanced over at the alarm clock on the night table by the bed.
“It’s only ten o’clock. We can’t go now. What about Uncle Jake? We don’t know if he’s found Baba Yaga yet!”
“This could be the only chance we get to send Wilhelm back,” Daphne said as she put the magic detector into her pants pocket.
The girls leaped out of bed and raced into their grandmother’s room. Granny Relda was still resting and they had to shake her from her nap.
“Lieblings, for heaven’s sake!” Granny Relda cried as she sat up in bed.
“There’s a time tear opening in the river soon. We need to go now.”
“A time what?” the old woman said.
“A hole in time,” Sabrina explained. “Just like the one Wilhelm came through to get here. We need to get him back on the boat so they can sail into it and get back to where they belong, but it has to happen soon.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Granny, you keep secrets from us sometimes to protect us, right?” Daphne asked. The old woman nodded.
“Well, this is our secret and you’re just going to have to trust us, like we trust you.”
Granny laughed. “But girls, you never trust me.”
“Fine, then trust us like we’re supposed to trust you,” Sabrina said, pulling her grandmother out of bed and down the hallway. Meanwhile, Daphne pounded on Puck’s door. The fairy joined them shortly, strapped with enough of his glop grenades to fight a war, and everyone rushed downstairs where Canis was sitting on the couch.
“We have to—” Granny started, but Mr. Canis held up his hand.
“I heard,” he replied. “The car is already warmed up.”
“What about Jacob?” Charming said as he poked his head out of his mirror.
“He’s only been gone an hour and there’s no way to reach him,” Granny Relda said. “We’re going to have to try something else.”
Charming disappeared into his mirror and moments later returned, leading a brilliant white stallion out of the reflection. Even Canis, who was rarely surprised by anything, was stunned. Elvis looked up at the horse as if he were in the presence of royalty.
“I’ll go for Jacob,” the prince said as he led the horse outside. The rest of the group followed him. He mounted the creature and raced off into the night.
Daphne looked over at her grandmother with a smile. “Remember when you told me I couldn’t have a pony because we didn’t have enough room?”
Granny shook her head. “Not a chance.”
Mr. Canis drove faster than he ever had. He whipped the old jalopy through the empty back roads, over the wooden bridges, and across the abandoned train tracks like he was an international race-car driver. Sabrina was happy he understood the urgency of their plan, but it was times like this she wished the car had more modern safety features. She tightened the ropes that the family had installed as makeshift seat belts around her waist. Even the usually fearless Puck put his on.
When they got to the town, Canis parked the car across from the police station and everyone got out.
“Puck, go ahead and take your position,” Granny said.
Puck’s wings spread out and flapped vigorously, lifting him into the air. “I’ll wait for you at the dock,” he said, and then zipped off toward the river.
Canis nodded. “What next?”
“Unfortunately, this plan of ours was somewhat dependent upon Jacob,” Granny said. “We need to give Charming some time to find him and Baba Yaga.”
“We can’t wait another second,” Daphne said as she pointed to the sky. The stars seemed to have been devoured by a swirling black mass hovering high over the town. It was bigger and uglier than any Sabrina had seen before. “We’ve got to do this now, Granny.”
“All right,” their grandmother said. “I suppose we can sneak around the back and knock a hole in the wall. At least that much of the plan could still work.”
“No, stop!” Mr. Canis said, sniffing the air. “There are men stationed on the top of the building and a large group of them at the back.”
“How many do you think?” Granny said.
“I smell fifty of them, maybe more.”
“They knew we were coming,” Sabrina said, spotting one of the playing-card soldiers peering over the edge of the jailhouse roof. She also saw the deadly broadsword he held in his hands.
“I can take a few of them,” Canis said. “But the three of you should wait here.”
“Old friend, you’ll never get past them all. This isn’t going to work.” The old woman sighed.
“Then what?”
“Then we go right through the front door,” Sabrina said. The family turned to her.
“Remember our escape training?” Sabrina said. “Puck knew we would head for the woods so he didn’t bother to guard the path. I bet you a million bucks Nottingham thinks the same way. He would never suspect us coming through the front door. I bet the inside isn’t guarded at all!”
Her family and friends looked at her for a long time. Their faces were filled with doubt, but suddenly Mr. Canis started across the street. “Let’s do it.”
“What’s the plan?” Granny asked as t
he rest of the family hurried to catch up to Canis.
“Mr. Canis can just run through and make us a path to the cell. We’ll follow him.”
“There’s going to be a lot of dust, so stay close,” the old man said, and then he bolted right through the front door. His face may have appeared old and frail, but he slammed through the offices like a powerful wrecking machine, plowing through walls, overturning desks, and making his own path to the jail cells at the back of the building. The women followed the best they could, dodging falling plaster and broken electrical lines. They held their faces under their shirts to filter out some of the debris. The blitz made a tremendous racket and would surely attract the attention of the guards outside, but Sabrina was right, Nottingham hadn’t bothered to fortify the inside of the jail.
In no time, the group had reached the back of the building. There they found Wilhelm locked inside a small cell. The poor man was terrified by what he had heard coming toward him. He leaped from his chair, lifted it, and waved it threateningly at the group.
“Zurück bleiben! Ich möchte Sie nicht verletzen!” Wilhelm shouted.
“What did he say?” Sabrina asked.
“He’s frightened. He thinks we’ve come to hurt him,” Granny explained, then turned to the man. “Wilhelm, it’s us. We’ve come to rescue you.”
“Rescue?” Wilhelm cried. He set his chair down on the ground and shook his jail cell bars as if to remind them of their next obstacle.
Canis reached for the bars. Using his incredible strength, he bent them apart, wrestling with them until there was an opening big enough for Wilhelm to step through.
Just then, Sabrina heard Nottingham’s angry voice. “The prisoner is escaping, you fools!” he shouted. His furious bellowing was drowned out by the approaching feet of what sounded like four dozen guards.
“We’ve got to get out of here—now.” Granny said.
Canis stepped to the back wall, pulled back his fist, and slammed it into the concrete. It crumbled, shaking the rafters. A few cinder blocks completely collapsed, exposing the outside—and freedom—to the group. One more thump sent a spray of concrete and soot all over the room, but when the dust settled, there was a hole big enough for a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound man to step through.