A Grimm Warning

  “But I’m the queen…,” she cried into Froggy’s arms. “I’m the queen… I’m the queen.…”

  Seven days, one thousand dresses, eight hundred pairs of shoes, five hundred paintings, twenty-eight statues, and one wolf later, the entire castle had been cleared of any trace of Red Riding Hood. She spent her last moments in the castle alone in her empty bedroom looking at the bare walls she had once called home. She was so depressed all she wore was a simple red dress and a matching overcoat.

  There was a soft knock on her door and Froggy peeked inside. “All the carriages are loaded, darling,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

  “All right, then,” Red said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. She stood up and somberly left the room. She shut the door behind her, not only to her old bedroom, but to her life as queen.

  Froggy gave her his arm and escorted her down the grand staircase and through the castle. All of the servants lined the walls as she passed. They respectfully bowed to her one final time. Red and Froggy walked outside, where a parade of twelve carriages jam-packed with Red’s belongings was waiting for them.

  The carriages were very plain wooden—much different from the luxurious ones Red was used to traveling in.

  Froggy and Clawdius climbed into the first carriage and waited for Red. She looked up at the castle and admired the towers and windows she had personally designed. She thought about the happy and not-so-happy memories she had lived through inside and said good-bye to it all.

  The parade of carriages left the Red Riding Hood Kingdom and traveled into the Fairy Kingdom to the Fairy Palace. Alex had invited Red to stay with her for a few days while she figured out what the next step in her life would be. Alex had to magically shrink Red’s belongings so she could place them inside a tiny cupboard; otherwise they never would have fit in the palace.

  Alex took Red, Froggy, and Clawdius up to the grand balcony of the Fairy Palace, hoping the remarkable view might cheer Red up.

  “I suppose I took things for granted,” Red said. She hadn’t looked at the view once, her eyes cast down at the floor. “Just like I expected the sky to always be blue, I expected to always be queen.”

  “We have to take some things for granted every now and then,” Alex told her friend. “Otherwise we would live life afraid of losing everything.”

  Clawdius whimpered on the floor at their feet—even he missed the castle. Froggy had been quiet since they arrived and hadn’t been acting himself. He looked like he was getting sick but didn’t have any symptoms yet.

  “Are you feeling all right, Froggy?” Alex asked him.

  “I’ll be just fine,” he said. “I’m a tad dizzy, that’s all. I think the week is catching up to me.”

  He walked a little ways away from them, clutching the balcony tightly as he went, but Alex didn’t press the matter. She tried to think of something to talk about that would take Red’s mind off her troubles.

  “At least while you’re here I can introduce you to Rook,” Alex told her.

  Red nodded but then quickly looked confused. “Sorry—who?” she asked.

  Alex sighed. Red had been through such a wringer she couldn’t fault her for not remembering his name.

  Emerelda suddenly rushed onto the balcony and went straight to Alex.

  “Alex, you need to come with me,” she said in a serious tone.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “It’s your grandmother,” Emerelda said. “She’s sick.”

  Alex didn’t know what to say to this. As far as she knew, her grandmother had never been sick in her entire life. Could Fairy Godmothers even get sick?

  A croaking sound unexpectedly came from the end of the balcony and interrupted her train of thought.

  “Would this by chance have anything to do with my current situation?” Froggy asked.

  They all turned to look at him by the railing and Red screamed. Without warning or reason, Froggy had transformed back into a frog.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE ARMÉE ARRIVES

  Conner was spinning through a world of light. It was so bright he could barely see anything. He couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice, either—all he heard was the air rushing around him. Occasionally he saw Bree or Emmerich fly past him. He reached for them but couldn’t reach far enough to catch them. He knew they were in the space between dimensions; he had been here before when he and his sister traveled through the Land of Stories book two years ago. Only it seemed to be taking much longer to arrive than it had the last time.

  Conner saw a flash and felt something brush by him as if he were falling through a curtain. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back looking up at a hazy night sky. He stayed there for a moment and didn’t move, waiting for his senses to catch up with him.

  There were two more flashes nearby and he felt thuds on the ground—Bree and Emmerich had landed beside him. Conner sat up to check on his friends and saw that they were as discombobulated as he was.

  “Well, now we know the portal is definitely open,” Conner said.

  Bree pulled herself up to a seated position. “Is it always this rough getting here?” she said.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know why that was so tough.”

  Emmerich was so dizzy he could barely speak. “I don’t think we’re in Hohenschwangau anymore,” he said, and his head bobbed up and down.

  Conner got to his feet and looked at the forest around them. The trees were tall and their branches stretched wide into the sky. But they were bare of leaves and almost looked dead. It was foggy so he couldn’t see very far into the distance.

  Bree got to her feet, too. “So this is it, huh?” she asked.

  “A part of it,” Conner said. “Although I’m not sure where.”

  Emmerich tried getting to his feet but kept falling. Conner and Bree dragged him to the closest tree and propped him up against the trunk.

  “Will one of you please tell me where I am?” Emmerich asked. “And what happened in Neuschwanstein?”

  “I told you it would be cooler than being secret agents,” Bree said playfully.

  “We’re in the fairy-tale world, bud,” Conner explained. “We accessed a portal that was hidden inside Neuschwanstein.”

  Emmerich looked around the forest with large amazed eyes. “The fairy-tale world?” he said. “As in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel—”

  “They’re all here,” Conner said. “My grandma and sister live here, too. The portal between this world and ours had been blocked for a while but a friend of mine asked me to check if it had been re-opened—and here we are.”

  Emmerich had so many questions he didn’t know what to ask first. “Why did your friend ask you to check it?” was the question he chose.

  “To make sure some bad people couldn’t get in,” Conner said.

  Bree turned her head and looked at the forest around them. “Speaking of, if we got through the portal into the fairy-tale world, doesn’t that mean the French—”

  Bright lights abruptly flashed all around them. With each flash, something extremely heavy appeared in midair and crashed to the ground. Bree screamed when she realized most of the objects were human. Conner was afraid something or someone would fall on them and looked for someplace to take cover.

  “Hurry! Climb the tree!” he yelled. They helped Emmerich to his feet and the three of them dashed up the tree, climbing as high as they could. From the treetop they got a better view of what was happening. It was as if a lightning storm had swept over the forest and was raining cannons, carriages, horses, swords, long pointed guns, and soldiers.

  “It’s the army!” Conner whispered to his friends. “They’re here!”

  The storm of soldiers didn’t show any sign of letting up. From the top of the tree the three kids saw flashes in the fog for miles around. The hundreds of men and pieces of equipment that rained from the sky turned into thousands as the storm increased. Many soldiers barely missed being crushed by the c
arriages or cannons or horses that fell beside them.

  Eventually the storm dissipated and the thunderous crashes around the forest came to a stop. The sounds of thousands of men moaning and grunting took its place. The soldiers twitched and turned on the ground—they were a hundred times as discombobulated as Conner, Bree, and Emmerich had been. Most of them held their heads in agony or vomited.

  They all wore black boots, white pants, and blue jackets. Most of them wore plain hats while others’ were decorated with colorful accessories and feathers representing their rank. They stayed on the ground for a long while without attempting to stand.

  One man appeared through the fog in the distance. He was smaller than the average man and wore a large curved hat. He gazed around at the suffering soldiers with disgust. A musky cologne smell filled the air as he got closer to the tree where Conner, Bree, and Emmerich were hidden. Although Conner and Bree had never seen him before, they were certain he had to be General Jacques Marquis, who Mother Goose had warned them about.

  The general apparently had a much stronger stomach than the soldiers and wasn’t affected by the arrival. “Debout!” he shouted at the anguished men on the ground. “Vous êtes une honte pour la France!”

  “What did he say?” Conner whispered to the others.

  “He said, ‘Stand up, you’re an embarrassment to France,’ ” Emmerich translated.

  “You speak French?” Conner asked.

  “I can speak German, English, French, and Danish.”

  Conner was floored. “Wow, I’m still struggling with English.”

  Bree covered their mouths with her hands. “This is not the time to be comparing party tricks!” she snapped, and they both stayed quiet.

  Many of the soldiers stumbled to their feet as their general commanded. Emmerich quietly translated what they were saying for Conner and Bree.

  “Walk it off like men,” the general told his nauseated soldiers. “This is nothing compared to the battle ahead.”

  Another man appeared through the fog. He was a very tall and broad man and wore a rounded hat just like the general’s but it was turned to the side.

  “General Marquis—congratulations, sir, we’ve arrived,” Colonel Baton said.

  “Yes, Colonel, I can see that,” the general barked. “But there is no use congratulating me until we know exactly where we are.”

  Two other soldiers hurried through the forest to the general and colonel. They were dragging another man who didn’t look like a soldier at all.

  “General Marquis! Colonel Baton!” Captain De Lange said. “We’ve found someone!”

  “This man was walking through the forest when we arrived!” Lieutenant Rembert said.

  They pushed the weak old man onto the ground in front of General Marquis. He was terrified and looked around at the soldiers in complete shock. “I saw you all fall from the sky!” he said, trembling. “What kind of magic is this?”

  The general had no time for his befuddlement. “Tell us where we are and you may keep your life,” he said.

  “Why… why… you’re in the Eastern Kingdom, sir,” the old man said.

  Conner locked eyes with Bree; this was good information for them to know, too.

  “And what is near here other than trees?” the general asked.

  “The border of the Fairy Kingdom is west of here, but Pinocchio Prison is closer, just to the east,” the old man said.

  The general stepped closer to him, looking intrigued. “A prison, you say?” he said. “Home to what kind of criminals?”

  “The worst criminals in all the kingdoms,” the old man said, surprised the general did not know.

  General Marquis’s forehead went very smooth and the corners of his mouth curled to form a sinister smile. “Gentlemen,” he said to his soldiers. “The gods have smiled down on us! Soon we shall have the fairy-tale world in the palm of our hands! Napoleon will be so proud!”

  The soldiers mustered up enough energy to cheer.

  “You’re here to take over the world?” the old man asked. “Who are you people?”

  The general bent low to look the man in the eyes. “Unfortunately, you already know too much,” he said. “Get rid of him.”

  The old man screamed. “No! Please! I have a family!” he pleaded, but it was no use. The general didn’t have an ounce of mercy to spare. Captain De Lange and Lieutenant Rembert dragged the old man into the foggy woods and his screams echoed through the trees around them. A moment later a gunshot was heard and the woods were silent again.

  Bree had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming. Emmerich gazed around the woods like he had found himself in a nightmare. Conner looked at them with a grave expression in his eyes—they had to stay as quiet as possible or they could be next.

  “Colonel Baton, we need to regroup with our men immediately,” the general instructed. “Half will stay in the woods and set up camp, the other half will accompany us to the prison. We strike at dawn.”

  “What are we doing at the prison, sir?” Baton asked.

  “Recruiting,” the general said.

  They walked back through the trees in the direction they had come from and disappeared into the fog. The other soldiers gathered their weapons that were scattered around the trees, hitched the horses to the wagons, and followed them into the woods. Conner, Bree, and Emmerich were the only ones left in the area.

  Conner gestured to the others to stay quiet as he climbed down the tree. Once he made sure the coast was clear, he signaled for them to join him.

  “That poor old man,” Emmerich said with his eyes full of tears. “I can’t believe the general would do that to him! I always thought if someone needed help I could save them like a superhero in the movies, but I guess I was wrong.”

  Bree placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  Conner’s mind was racing as he thought about something the general had said. “Did you hear what he told the soldiers?” Conner asked the others. “He said, ‘Napoleon will be so proud.’ ”

  The same thought had occurred to Bree. “Yeah,” she said. “Napoleon’s been dead for, like, two hundred years. I don’t think they realize how long they were in the portal.”

  “Then how do we know how long we were in the portal?” Emmerich asked.

  Conner and Bree looked at each other and chills went down their spines. Could they have been stuck in the portal for longer than they realized, too? It was all the more reason to find someone they knew as quickly as possible.

  Conner felt so guilty for exposing Bree and Emmerich to this; it almost brought him to tears. He knew he should get them out of the Land of Stories as soon as he could.

  “I’m not going to lie; these guys are really scary,” he said. “And right now we need to get to the Fairy Palace pronto so I can warn my friends that the army is here. Once we’re at the palace, I promise I’ll find a way to send you back to the Otherworld.”

  Bree and Emmerich both nodded.

  “Now follow me,” Conner said. “We have to travel west into the Fairy Kingdom—and we have to move fast.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A BITTERSWEET REUNION

  Alex sat by her grandma’s bedside holding her hand. The Fairy Godmother had been sleeping peacefully since she got there. She didn’t look like she had a care in the world, but Alex knew this was her favorite façade to keep; even as she slept she couldn’t be trusted to show her true feelings. Something was very wrong and Alex could sense it.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s the matter with her?” Alex asked. “Or are you just going to sit there and make me figure it out on my own like everything else?”

  Emerelda and Mother Goose sat on the other side of the bed keeping to themselves. Red and Froggy were there, too; they stood at the foot of the bed wishing there was something they could do to comfort their friend. The week had proven to be a difficult one for all of them.

  “Your grandmother has been feeling very tired for a long time,” Mother Goose said. ?
??She asked me not to tell anyone—and then today she didn’t wake up.”

  “Today is the first time I’m hearing about this, too, Alex,” Emerelda said. “She was keeping it from everyone.”

  “But what does tired mean?” Alex said, becoming frustrated. “Does she just need to rest? Is there anything I can get or give her to wake her up? Or is she… is she…”

  Alex couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing any of us can do,” Mother Goose said.

  “So she’s dying,” Alex finally said. “If that’s what’s happening why can’t either of you just tell me?”

  Emerelda sighed, not for Alex, but for herself. “Yes,” she confirmed. “We believe the Fairy Godmother is dying.”

  Tears immediately ran down Alex’s face. She had always known her grandmother wouldn’t be around forever, but she’d never expected to lose her so soon.

  “I am so sorry, Alex,” Red said.

  “Please let us know if there is anything we can do,” Froggy said.

  Alex didn’t say anything. Of course there wasn’t. The only thing that would comfort her now would be if her grandmother woke up.

  “I haven’t even lived here a full year yet,” Alex said through her tears. “My grandma is the only family I have. I just don’t understand why this is happening.…”

  Mother Goose hoped it would supply the young fairy with a little comfort if she explained.

  “Your grandmother has been around for a very long time, Alex,” Mother Goose told her. “She’s worked very hard to make the fairy-tale world what it is. She knew she wouldn’t be around forever and over the past couple of centuries she’s looked for someone to continue her work when she’s gone. She’s had many apprentices and all of them have failed but you. In you, she finally found someone she knows will continue her legacy and continue it well. And knowing this, she’s given her soul permission to move on.”

  This only made it much worse for Alex. “So what you’re saying is, it’s my fault,” she said. “Had I never come to live in the Land of Stories or joined the Fairy Council, she would still be looking for a successor and wouldn’t be in this bed. I’m killing her.”