Bree, Frenda, and Wanda were horrified. It was like Cornelia had a death wish or something!
“What? But I’ve never landed a plane before!” Bree said.
The plane was getting closer and closer to the ground—someone had to land it before it was too late! Cornelia looked over her glasses at Bree with total faith in her eyes.
“Sometimes, if we enter situations that scare us with both hands on the wheel, they don’t seem as frightening,” she said as calmly as ever. “Or in this case, with both hands on the controls.”
Bree couldn’t believe Cornelia was making her do this. She could feel her heart beating in the back of her throat. One wrong move and they would all be dead!
Carefully and quickly, Bree turned the red gear to Landing Mode, pulled up on the green lever, turned the black knob to put the wheels down, and held up the controls to make the plane parallel to the ground.
“We’re gonna crash!” Wanda yelled, and vigorously crossed her chest.
“Wanda, you’re not Catholic!” Frenda said.
“I know, but we’re gonna need all the help we can get!”
The wheels slammed into the grassy field and the plane landed like a rock skipping across a lake. It tore up large strips of earth, as if leaving a long message in Morse code. Finally, the plane decelerated and rolled into a shaky, sudden stop.
“Oh my God,” Bree said in disbelief. “I just landed a plane!”
“Mother, how could you let a fifteen-year-old land a plane!” Frenda said.
Cornelia burst into a fit of giggles. “You’re all so gullible,” she said. “I had the autopilot on the entire time!”
The others didn’t find this funny at all.
“You mean, all that was for nothing?” Bree asked with an angry scowl.
“No, no—you did quite well,” Cornelia said. “Had the autopilot failed, we would have had a successful landing. My father did the same thing to me on my first flight. The best lessons are learned when it’s sink or swim, and you’re quite the swimmer!”
Once their hearts settled to a normal pace, Bree and the Sisters Grimm locked up the plane and headed for Emmerich’s house. Bree thought leaving the plane unattended in a field was a strange thing to do, but Cornelia assured her that planes were very difficult to steal.
Bree led the women through the outskirts of Füssen and into the little village just below Neuschwanstein Castle called Hohenschwangau. Since Cornelia walked with a cane, Bree was worried the journey would be too much for her, but the old woman hobbled along, excited to be on another Sisters Grimm adventure. They walked past all the souvenir shops, restaurants, and inns dedicated to the castle, and found the Himmelsbachs’ tiny home on the edge of town.
“There it is,” Bree said, and pointed to the front steps. “That’s where Conner and I met him.”
The sight made Bree feel remarkably nostalgic. It seemed like just yesterday that she and Conner had told Emmerich they were secret agents so he’d take them into the castle after visiting hours. They hadn’t been friends for long, but Bree and Emmerich had shared such an incredible once-in-a-lifetime adventure, she couldn’t believe there was a time when the little German boy was a stranger. She just hoped they could bring him home, wherever he was.
“Here goes nothing,” Bree said. “I hope Frau Himmelsbach is better at answering her door than she is her phone.”
They walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell. They waited, but no one answered. Bree rang the doorbell again, holding it down longer. A moment later, Frau Himmelsbach answered the door.
“Kann ich Dir helfen?” she asked.
If Bree hadn’t recognized her voice from the phone, she wouldn’t have thought it was Emmerich’s mother. The woman had brown hair and olive skin, very different from her son’s pale skin and rosy complexion. She had puffy eyes and sunken cheeks, like she had been crying and not eating much. She wore a big black robe over a nightgown and probably hadn’t changed clothes in days.
The woman wasn’t what Bree was expecting, but she definitely looked like the mother of a missing child.
“Frau Himmelsbach, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Bree said. “I’m Bree Campbell, your son’s friend from the United States.”
Emmerich’s mother was not happy to see her, and especially not happy to see she had brought friends with her.
“What is wrong with you, child?” the Frau said. “I told you to stop calling me and now you’ve come to my home?”
“I’m sorry,” Bree said. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I couldn’t stay away. These are my cousins, Cornelia, Frenda, and Wanda. We’ve traveled all this way because we want to help you find your son.”
Frau Himmelsbach crossed her arms and shook her head. She wasn’t easy to convince.
“You Americans and your egos,” she said. “What can you do that the Bavarian police cannot?”
Bree looked to the Sisters Grimm, hoping one of them would have an answer.
“We’re private investigators who specialize in child abduction,” Cornelia said. “We’ve brought special equipment along with us that may point us in the direction of whoever took your child.”
“The police searched every inch of my home,” the Frau said. “They didn’t find a single clue.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Wanda said, “the Bavarian police can’t find clues like we can. Please, may we come inside?”
The distressed mother looked back and forth among the women and tried to think of a reason not to let them, but she couldn’t.
“Fine,” she said. “I apologize, my house is a mess.”
Frau Himmelsbach escorted Bree and the Sisters Grimm inside her home. The Frau offered them a seat in the sitting room and Cornelia and Bree happily accepted. From the sofa they could see into Emmerich’s bedroom through an open door in the hall. The walls were covered in posters of superheroes. Bree remembered him saying he wanted to visit the United States because that’s where all the superheroes lived. The memory made her miss him even more.
“May we have a look around?” Frenda asked.
“As you wish,” the Frau said.
Frenda and Wanda went to work right away. They each removed a cross-dimensional emission-tracking device from their purse; the device looked like a long microphone connected to an old radio. They waved the microphone parts around the house and the radio parts beeped as they went.
They searched the sitting room and kitchen, but didn’t find anything. The search continued in Emmerich’s bedroom, and when they scanned the area by his window, the machines beeped like crazy. Wanda looked to Bree and Cornelia and with one nod she said a thousand words—someone from the fairy-tale world had definitely been there. Bree’s hunch was right.
“Was Emmerich taken through the window?” Frenda asked.
“Yes,” Frau Himmelsbach said, surprised they knew. “The night it happened, Emmerich was sleeping in his bedroom while I was in here reading. I heard a noise, so I checked on him. His window was open and in the distance I saw someone in a black cloak running away with Emmerich over their shoulder.”
She broke into tears recalling the terrifying sight and Cornelia offered her a handkerchief.
“I chased them, but they disappeared into the night,” the Frau said. “I called the police and they came to the house every day for a week. They never found anything, not even a fingerprint. How did you know he was taken from the window?”
If they were going to tell the Frau the truth, Bree figured it was best to start at the beginning.
“Shortly before Emmerich was taken, he and I made a crazy discovery,” Bree said. “We did this thing, like a blood test, and it proved he and I are actually related. Our blood matches DNA from the Brothers Grimm.”
“The Brothers Grimm?” the Frau asked.
“Yes,” Bree continued. “Which means Cornelia, Frenda, Wanda, and myself are either related to you or to Emmerich’s father.”
The Frau was very confused. “I wouldn
’t know either way,” she said. “Emmerich isn’t my biological son—he was adopted.”
“Adopted?” Bree said in shock. “He never mentioned that.”
“That’s because I never told him,” Frau Himmelsbach said. “He was abandoned when he was a baby. I didn’t want him living life thinking he was unwanted.”
Everything Bree thought she knew suddenly changed. She quickly abandoned her plan to tell the Frau about the fairy-tale world—clearly she didn’t have all the facts straight.
“Where was he found?” Bree asked.
“Neuschwanstein Castle,” she said. “My father used to work nights there as a security guard. One night, as he was patrolling the halls, he heard crying. He followed the cries to the Singers’ Hall and found Emmerich wrapped up in a blanket in the middle of the floor. Someone must have left him during a tour earlier in the day. It was very strange, because my father swore he had checked the room multiple times earlier that night and never saw the baby.”
Bree and the Sisters Grimm were all thinking the same thing: Emmerich wasn’t related to the Brothers Grimm after all—he was from the fairy-tale world! Someone must have crossed through the portal in the Singers’ Hall and left him in the castle!
The Frau’s eyes suddenly grew wide and she covered her mouth fearfully.
“Wait a moment,” she said. “That reminds me of something I completely forgot! There was a note pinned to his blanket the night he was found. Let me see if I can find it.”
Emmerich’s mom went down the hall to her bedroom. They heard her searching madly through all her drawers and belongings. A few minutes later, she returned with a piece of parchment. Her hands were shaking, as if she were holding a ransom note. She handed it to Bree, and the Sisters Grimm gathered around her to read the note.
To whoever finds this child, please take him to a loving home that will offer protection. His father is a very dangerous man and the child is not safe with his mother. Should the father learn of his son’s existence, the child will be in grave danger.
It appeared that Bree and the Sisters Grimm had helped the Frau uncover a suspect in her son’s disappearance—Emmerich’s biological father!
“It was so many years ago, I forgot the note existed,” Frau Himmelsbach confessed. “Even then, I didn’t take it seriously. I never thought they would find him.”
“Should we take this to the police?” Wanda asked.
“No, we can’t!” the Frau exclaimed. “You see, I never legally adopted Emmerich. I fell in love with him the minute my father brought him home. At the time, we were very poor. I was afraid he would be taken away if we called the police, so we kept it a secret. If they found out now, I would never see him again.”
Bree had so many questions, she could barely see straight. She always loved a good mystery novel, but she never thought her life would turn into one.
“If you’re related to him, do you have any idea who Emmerich’s parents are?” Frau Himmelsbach asked. “Do you know where they might have taken him?”
“I’m afraid not,” Bree said. “But I know someone who might.”
CHAPTER SIX
A BEWITCHING OFFER
The Masked Man was awoken by a throbbing headache. He opened his eyes and discovered he was somewhere in the forest, but he had no recollection of how he had gotten there. Even stranger, when he looked around he noticed the ground was above his head and the smoky sky was below his feet.
After further inspection, he realized he was upside down. His cape was caught on a tree branch and he was hanging several feet in the air. As he slowly returned to full consciousness, the Masked Man remembered that flying monkeys had dropped him there. He wasn’t sure how long he had been hanging in the tree, but since he was still alive, he assumed his cape must have broken his fall.
He reached toward the branch piercing his cape to set himself free. The motion sent excruciating pain through his entire body and he screamed. The pain was so bad, he couldn’t tell where it began or ended. Clearly, he had hit more than one branch on his way down. The Masked Man tugged on his cape and it ripped in half. He fell to the ground and landed on his back with a thud.
After a few minutes of lying on the ground, the Masked Man had a better idea of where the pain was coming from. His left arm was definitely broken, one of his right ribs was most likely cracked, and his right ankle was sprained at best. Half his mask had been ripped off by something he collided with during the fall, and bloody scratches covered one side of his face. Still, it was a miracle he had survived.
He moaned as he struggled to his feet. All the blood in his head rushed to the other parts of his body, making him woozy. He removed his damaged cape and ripped his suit jacket into strips to make a sling for his arm.
The physical pain was unbearable, but he was almost thankful for it—it was the only thing distracting him from his mental anguish.
The Masked Man was not a stranger to disappointment, but losing an empire was one colossal setback he never saw coming. After a lifetime of meticulous planning, he had finally achieved the power he had craved since childhood. Only to then have it yanked away like a rug from underneath him.
After such a narrow escape from death, a different man would have abandoned his quest for supremacy, but the Masked Man’s need for power was like a disease—and fulfillment was the only cure. Like a phoenix, he immediately began calculating his path out of the ashes. Somehow, some way, he would reclaim his power and destroy the literary villains who had taken it from him. But first, he needed to find a path out of the forest.
The Masked Man had no idea what part of the forest he had been dropped in, so he hobbled through the trees in search of an indication. After hours of limping aimlessly through the woods, he only found more and more trees the farther he went. Since the mythological creature had escaped captivity in the Northern Palace dungeon, the Masked Man was as cautious and quiet as possible just in case it was also wandering through the forest.
Eventually he stumbled upon a small clearing with three unusual boulders. They were tall and stuck out from the ground like trees themselves. The Masked Man had a seat against one of the boulders and tightened his makeshift sling. But his rest was short-lived.
A commotion traveled through the woods nearby. The sound became louder and louder as it moved closer and closer. It was a repetitive tremor, like the marching of several pairs of metal boots—Winkie soldiers were approaching! The Masked Man assumed the villains must have sent the soldiers to retrieve his body. He was too wounded to outrun them, so he dived into the bushes beside the boulders and was hidden from view.
A few moments later, two rows of a dozen Winkie soldiers entered the clearing, but they weren’t alone. The soldiers were escorting the Wicked Witch of the West, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook through the forest. The sight of the literary villains sent a rage through the Masked Man that was so powerful, his injuries were temporarily numbed. There wasn’t a word in existence to describe the anger coursing through his veins.
The Wicked Witch of the West, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook paced around the clearing like they were waiting for something to happen. They didn’t appear to be looking for the Masked Man, so he wondered what on earth they were doing in the woods.
“Well?” Captain Hook growled. “Where is she?”
“Are we certain we’re in the right place?” the Queen of Hearts asked.
The Wicked Witch of the West unrolled a scroll of parchment she held tightly in her hand.
“I’m positive,” the Wicked Witch said. “Her instructions say, ‘Take the path four miles into the Dwarf Forests and wait for me in the clearing of the three stone trees.’ There hasn’t been another clearing for miles. This must be it.”
As the Masked Man knew all too well, patience was not the villains’ forte. The Wicked Witch, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook became more restless by the second.
“Well, whoever she is, I don’t like her,” Captain Hook snarled. “She has some n
erve to keep us waiting like this.”
“I want to hear what she’s offering,” the Queen of Hearts said. “But if it isn’t appealing, and we’ve come all this way for nothing, I say we capture her and—”
“Cut off her head?” the Wicked Witch asked mockingly. “There are other ways to execute someone, you know—most of which are more entertaining and far less messy.”
“Like dropping the Masked Man to his death?” Captain Hook said with a nasty grin. “Watching him squirm and scream as he fell was rather fun, wasn’t it? If only gravity affected everyone—my hook would be covered in Peter Pan’s blood by now!”
The Queen of Hearts rolled her eyes. “I’m so sick of hearing that boy’s name!” she hollered. “He’s a child, Captain! Let it go! From the way you obsessively talk about him, I’d say he’s taken much more from you than just your hand!”
Captain Hook intended to respond with a snippy comment, but the pirate went quiet. He leaned against one of the boulders and placed his hook on his hip, thinking about what the Queen of Hearts had just said.
From the bushes just beside Captain Hook, the Masked Man had a perfect view of a revolver dangling from the captain’s belt. He was drawn to the weapon like a moth to a flame. If he got his hands on it, with three quick shots he could terminate the literary villains before the Winkie soldiers knew what was happening!
Carefully, when they were all looking in the opposite direction, the Masked Man reached his good hand toward the captain’s waist and unfastened his holster.
It was a painful effort with his cracked rib and it took everything in him not to scream. Slowly, he removed the revolver from the holster with the captain none the wiser.
The Masked Man examined the gun—it had three bullets! He had exactly what he needed to shoot the villains! He cocked it and aimed the weapon back and forth at the three of them, indecisive about which one to kill first.
Captain Hook became agitated and started stomping around the clearing.
“I knew it was a trick!” he said in a huff. “We’ve been fooled! No one is meeting us in the woods today!”