by Joan Holub
The girls all gathered around to study the ball. “Where do you think it came from?” Snow asked.
“From Grandmother Enchantress’s cottage?” Red guessed, turning the ball over and over in her hands.
“Wolfgang must have put it in there. Maybe he stole it from her, like he tried to steal your basket,” said Cinda.
“How would he know it was there, though?” asked Red. She passed the ball to Rapunzel, who studied it for a few seconds, then gave it to Cinda.
“He could have accidentally found it,” Rapunzel suggested. She threaded her fingers through her long dark hair and began re-braiding it. It looked as if it had already grown several inches since she’d cut it that afternoon. “Or maybe he spied on Grandmother Enchantress. He does hang out in the woods a lot.”
“If this ball really does belong to the enchantress, wouldn’t she have put some kind of magical spell on it to protect it against being stolen?” Snow asked, leaning over to study it with Cinda.
“Hmm. Good question,” said Red. She also wondered why Ms. Wicked had wanted Wolfgang to steal her basket at all, unless she thought he could make its magic work for him. It was Red’s magical charm. Didn’t they know that meant its magic would work for her alone? Only how did the ball come to be in the basket if she was the only one who could make the basket work? It was all so confusing.
Woot-owt! Woot-owt! Suddenly, great big pairs of owl eyes peered at them from high in the darkness on all sides. They were surrounded!
“Let’s get going,” said Snow, looking creeped out.
“Yeah,” said Red, more than a little weirded out herself. She picked up her basket and set the crystal ball back inside it.
She was about to close its lid when, much to the girls’ surprise, a sparkly pink mist began to swirl inside the ball. From out of the mist appeared an ancient, lined face. When it actually spoke, all four girls gasped.
Red was so startled that she dropped her basket! Its lid snapped shut. “Oops! Sorry!” She bent and quickly pushed the lid open again, and the girls all stared down at the face in the crystal ball.
“Greetings, Grimm girls, I’m Grandmother Enchantress,” said the face. Her voice had a mystical, magical quality, and her intelligent gray eyes seemed to be studying them as hard as they were studying her. However, unlike the girls, she seemed unsurprised to see them. “I take it you have my crystal ball,” she said. Then she laughed. “Well, of course you do. Or I wouldn’t be speaking to you.”
For a moment none of the girls spoke. Then they all curtseyed to the enchantress at once. Despite her friendly tone they were completely in awe of her!
Finally, Red found her tongue. “Pleased to meet you, Grandmother Enchantress. I’m Red. Red Riding Hood, that is. And these are my friends, Cinda, Snow, and Rapunzel.” She pointed to each in turn. “We’re all in school together at Grimm Academy, and —” Worried that the enchantress might think they’d stolen her crystal ball, Red rushed to explain that they’d actually found it by accident.
But before she could utter another word, the enchantress interrupted. “There’s no time to lose, little Grimmlins,” she told them, peering up at the trees. “I can see that you’re in the forest and that the sky is dark. Neverwood becomes more dangerous at night. You must hurry! Wait! I’ll pop out of this ball and help you find your way back to the Academy.”
With that, the sparkly pink mist began to swirl inside the ball again, obscuring Grandmother Enchantress’s face. Then suddenly the mist was outside the ball and growing larger. All at once the mist vanished, and in its place stood the actual enchantress! Dressed in a long, flowing gown and cloak, she was taller than Red had expected, and quite thin, too. But then it was hard to gauge someone’s height when all you could see of them was a head inside a ball!
“Brr,” the enchantress said. “It’s cold out here in the real world.” She pulled the hood of her purple cloak over her hair and whipped the body of it more closely around herself. “It was much warmer inside my ball.”
“You mean you were actually inside it?” Red asked as she picked up her basket again. “Not just looking through it from somewhere else?”
“I can do both,” the enchantress informed them casually as if such amazing magical power was easy for her. “Now let’s get moving. Before we all catch our death of cold. Or meet some unpleasant fate out here.”
Following the enchantress’s lead, the Grimm girls scurried through the forest, with Cinda holding the lantern. Instead of walking single file, they all bunched up as much as they could, trying to stay warm. Despite her advanced years, the enchantress had no trouble keeping up. In fact, the girls had to quicken their pace a little to keep up with her!
When they came to a branch blocking their path, Rapunzel held it back so that the others could pass. The branch tried to curl around Rapunzel’s arm.
“Careful. Watch the trees around here,” Grandmother Enchantress warned, batting the groping branch back with a bony hand. “They can be a bit clingy.”
“I know,” said Red. “When I was lost earlier, one of them tried to give me the hug of death!”
Snow and the other girls gasped and glanced warily at the surrounding trees. “Well, maybe I’m being a little overly dramatic,” Red admitted. “But it did almost squeeze the breath out of me.”
“Hurry! We go left here. Then right,” said the enchantress, calling out turns as they came to forks in the path. When she wasn’t giving directions, she was asking questions.
The girls took turns explaining about Red’s basket, and how they’d become certain it must be her magic charm. And about the grand ball they’d attended at the Academy not long ago, and how Cinda’s magic charm slippers had helped them discover the mapestry under a loose stone floor tile in the Great Hall. And lastly, about the pumpkin they’d watched disappear off the edge of the mapestry.
“Magical charms only come to those of good heart,” Grandmother Enchantress commented in a wise tone. “And, yes, I know all about the mapestry. I helped Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm hide it in the Hall many, many years ago.”
“You did?” said Red, ducking under some low-hanging vines. “Why?” Thinking about what else the enchantress had said, Red was pleased to think that she and Cinda had been judged to have good hearts. But Snow and Rapunzel also had good hearts. She hoped their charms would appear soon, too.
“Why?” repeated the enchantress. “To keep it from falling into the wrong hands, of course. Why else does one hide things?” She smiled at Red and the smile made her look years younger. Not a day over a hundred, anyway.
Then suddenly her smile faded. “We’re almost back to the Academy. There’s not much time, so listen well to what I’m going to say. Your ability to discover the mapestry means that the spell I put on it long ago — at Jacob and Wilhelm’s urging — has been critically weakened. And that can only mean that a certain dark force is at work again.”
“E.V.I.L.,” Red said quickly.
“We know they’ve started up again,” added Rapunzel. “In fact, we think Wolf —”
But before she could finish saying that the girls suspected Wolfgang of being a member of E.V.I.L., the enchantress said, “I know you suspect him. I saw and heard everything back at the cottage.”
“Huh? How? We didn’t see you!” said Cinda, sounding as embarrassed as Red felt to realize that the enchantress must have seen them snooping.
Red thought for a moment. “The portrait on the wall!” she exclaimed. “When I looked at it, your eyes stared straight into mine. You watched us through it!”
The enchantress didn’t deny it, which meant Red had guessed right. But if the enchantress had been gazing through the portrait before Red’s friends arrived, it meant she’d watched and heard the conversation between Wolfgang and her, too. Double embarrassing!
“The Exceptional Villains In Literature Society is villainous indeed,” Grandmother Enchantress told them. “But someone outside the walls of Neverwood must be pulling their strings. The p
rotective spells that keep Grimmlandia safe from the outside world can only be weakened if magic from Grimmlandia is being spirited out. E.V.I.L. is getting help from someone or something beyond the wall that surrounds the realm. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know who or what is helping them.”
What does she mean by “we”? wondered Red. She had a million more questions besides that one, but by now they’d reached the edge of the forest. The Academy loomed up ahead of them. “What will happen if the protective spells around Grimmlandia grow too weak?” Red asked.
The ancient woman’s face twisted with a bleak expression. “It would mean the end of Grimmlandia,” she said in a voice full of dread. “We’d be swallowed up into the Nothingterror.”
The Grimm girls gasped in horror.
“Many of us are working to make sure that never happens,” the enchantress reassured them. “And you can help, too.”
“How?” asked Rapunzel. They’d drawn even with the Bouquet Garden and were approaching the drawbridge to Pink Castle now.
But the enchantress didn’t reply. As she stared toward the Academy, something caught her attention and her eyes narrowed with dislike. “I must go now,” she said hastily. “Talk to Wolfgang. See my crystal ball safely into his hands. It’s important.”
Before Red could protest that Wolfgang was exactly the wrong person to entrust the enchantress’s crystal ball to, the pink mist materialized again. It quickly engulfed the enchantress and then moved to hover over Red’s basket. As Red opened the lid, the mist streamed into the ball as if being sucked through a straw.
“Hide the mapestry. Guard it well,” said the enchantress’s voice, sounding far away now. Seconds later the mist evaporated and the ball was transparent again.
“Why do you think she left in such a hurry?” Snow asked worriedly as they crossed the drawbridge.
“Maybe there’s something or someone here she wants to avoid,” said Red.
“Or someones,” said Rapunzel. “Like members of E.V.I.L.!”
Exactly, thought Red. She wished the enchantress had said who was working with her to make sure Grimmlandia never got swallowed up by the Dark Nothingterror. The girls should have asked! Then they’d have known for sure who they could trust.
Gazing warily at the Academy, she slipped the mapestry into her basket. Good thing, too. Because no sooner were they through the drawbridge door than Ms. Wicked appeared. Had the enchantress somehow sensed that she’d been lurking here? Red wondered.
Her basket wriggled from her wrist to her elbow and hugged her side more closely as the teacher glanced its way. But then Ms. Wicked’s eyes went to Cinda’s lantern and from there to Snow. “Your hair is a tangled mess!” she snapped at her stepdaughter. “What have you and your little friends been doing out so late?”
Snow’s pale face flushed rosy pink. “I-I — we …” she mumbled. Actually, Red thought Snow’s hair looked kind of cute, all tousled and a bit wavy from the night air. But Snow had never been able to stand up to her stepmom. It must be mortifying to her that Ms. Wicked was so openly mean to her. Not to mention that she was likely a part of E.V.I.L., too!
“My fault,” Red blurted. “I went for a walk to pick flowers and got lost. Snow, Cinda, and Rapunzel found me.”
“And now we’re starving!” added Cinda.
“Yeah! See you, Ms. Wicked,” said Rapunzel.
“Last one to reach the dorm is a rotten goose egg!” Red said cheerfully. She grabbed one of Snow’s hands and Rapunzel grabbed the other. With Cinda close on their heels, they rushed Snow off to the grand staircase just beyond the entrance before Ms. Wicked could say anything else mean to her.
Or ask the girls another question they wouldn’t want to answer.
“Slow down,” yelled Rapunzel as they left the grand staircase and started up the twisty stairs that led from the fourth floor up to the dorm towers. Just making it this far was a challenge for her since she rarely ventured beyond the third floor.
Red looked back and saw that Rapunzel’s knuckles were white as she clung to the railing. She was truly terrified of going any higher.
“Sorry!” said Red. Handing her basket to Snow, she dropped back and took Rapunzel’s arm. Cinda and Snow moved two steps below them, so that Rapunzel could set the pace for all four girls.
“Take deep breaths,” coached Cinda.
“And think happy thoughts,” added Snow.
“Uh-huh,” said Rapunzel, her voice thready and frail with fear.
With one arm around Red and one hand on the railing, Rapunzel slowly climbed the stairs upward. Once Rapunzel was inside the dorm she’d be fine, Red knew, as long as she stayed away from windows and avoided the outside walkways.
After the girls reached the sixth-floor dorm in Pearl Tower, they crossed to the alcove Red shared with Gretel. On the way past one of the common-room tables, Red reached into the cookie jar on top. It was empty! Cleaned out by that cookie-scarfing Gretel, no doubt. Luckily, Red had anticipated such a possibility and hidden some cookies away in her room. If she was starving, the other girls must be, too. Dinner wasn’t served in the Great Hall until six thirty and that was still an hour away!
“Just a second,” said Snow. She darted into her room for something, and when she came out, Red saw that she held her hairbrush and was running it through her hair. Poor Snow! As usual, Ms. Wicked’s criticism must have struck a nerve. How awful to have a stepmom that was so mean!
Without saying why, Red gave the poor girl a quick hug. Snow sent her a sweet smile in return. As the four Grimm girls entered Red’s room, a bluebird flitted in from the window. It zoomed straight to Red and perched on her shoulder. It was holding a note! The written kind, but of course it was tweeting the musical kind as well. When she took the folded note, the bird flitted away again.
While Red opened the note, Snow took the basket and set it on her desk. “It’s from Wolfgang,” Red said in surprise. After silently scanning it first, she read it aloud. “ ‘Meet me at the library tonight at eight. Urgent. Signed, Wolfgang.’”
“He has a lot of nerve!” huffed Rapunzel. “Asking you to meet up after he stole your stuff and tricked you by pretending to be the enchantress?”
“Shh!” said Cinda peeking outside the curtain to check for eavesdroppers. “Okay, the coast is clear.” And luckily, Gretel wasn’t in, so the girls could talk in private.
It was nice to hear Rapunzel being indignant on her behalf, thought Red. Her feistiness must mean she’d already recovered from her trip upstairs! Nevertheless, the girls still sat on the rug so that Rapunzel wouldn’t have to climb the ladder to sit on Red’s tall bed.
Jumping up again, Red raided the cookie stash in her desk. “Fear not the pangs of hunger,” she intoned dramatically as she handed them around. “Think you that Red Robin Hood would stand by and see you starve?” She spread her arms wide. “Verily I say to you I would not!”
Her friends giggled. However, despite her dramatic mini-performance, no one mentioned the upcoming audition on Monday or urged her to reconsider trying out. It sort of hurt her feelings, actually. They knew that acting in a play had always been her big dream. Was it possible that after her failure on Friday they now doubted her talent?
“I’m sooo exhausted,” Snow announced. After tossing her brush aside, she took a big bite of cookie.
“Me, too!” said Rapunzel.
“Me, three,” added Cinda. She flopped back on her elbows and stretched her legs out in front of her. As she munched her cookie, she looked up at Red. “So are you going to meet him?” she asked, returning to the subject of Wolfgang’s note.
“Guess I’d better,” Red replied, nibbling her cookie. “I have to give him the enchantress’s ball, remember?” She didn’t want to hand it over, though. It seemed like a big mistake to trust him with it.
“Maybe we’d better come with you,” said Rapunzel. She’d scooted to sit cross-legged behind Cinda and was busily braiding Cinda’s hair.
“Won’t that make hi
m feel like he’s being ganged up on?” asked Snow before Red could reply.
Rapunzel frowned as she wove Cinda’s hair. “Who cares? Maybe he deserves it.”
“Grandmother Enchantress must trust Wolfgang though,” Cinda mused. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have asked us to give him her ball. So maybe we’re wrong about him being a member of the Society.” She looked over at Red. “Even if he did try to take your basket. And even if you did hear him talking to Ms. Wicked. There could be something else going on that we don’t know about. You could at least ask him.”
“Humpf,” said Rapunzel. “Maybe. But first he’s got some grimmajor explaining to do.”
“Definitely,” said Snow. Getting up from the rug, she went to Red’s desk and fetched the basket. “I want to see if the mapestry’s changed,” she told the others. But when she tried to open the lid of the basket it stayed firmly closed, just like it had for Gretel.
“I think it only opens for me,” said Red.
“Ah.” Snow passed her the basket. “Like how only Cinda can wear her glass slippers. It’s a magical charm thing. I get it.”
Rapunzel glanced over at Red. “If you’re the only one who can open your basket, how did the crystal ball get in there?”
Red had been wondering about that, too, of course. She thought harder about it as she opened the basket and pulled out the mapestry. Suddenly, an explanation came to her. “I left the lid open while Wolfgang and I were picking flowers. It was still open when he stole my basket. He must have found the ball and put it inside before shutting the lid!”
Appeased, Rapunzel nodded as Red quickly unrolled the mapestry on the rug between them all.
“Look!” said Cinda. “The X is gone from the enchantress’s cottage. Wait, I wonder if the crystal ball was what the mapestry — and the enchantress — wanted us to find? Maybe we weren’t meant to find the treasure. Not yet anyway.”
“I bet you’re right!” said Rapunzel.