The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now)

by Stephen Carpenter

  A moment later, headlights appeared in the rear window of the truck, and Rachel’s Range Rover pulled up behind them and stopped. Neither Rick nor Kara saw Rachel’s misshapen silhouette approach them, backlit against the Range Rover’s headlights. And neither of them stirred, a moment later, when Rachel’s hand smashed out the glass in Rick’s window.

  Rachel reached down and opened Rick’s door. Then Rachel’s hand—and her entire arm, all the way up to her shoulder—became a thick, dark green snake, which curled around Rick’s body and pulled him out of the truck with immense strength. Rachel held Rick tightly with one of her snake-arms, then reached in with her other arm—now also a thick green snake—and hauled Kara from the cab of the truck as well.

  Rachel smiled as she easily held the two teens aloft with her mighty snake-arms. Three small snakes hissed and poked their heads out from under her bandana, and Rachel hissed back, her tongue forked, then she turned and walked back to the Range Rover and dumped Rick and Kara into the back.

  Sleep, Rachel thought. When you wake, you’ll feast. And soon, so will I.

  Rachel slammed the back door of the Range Rover, then got behind the wheel. Her hands had returned to normal, although they were gray-green and covered with festering warts.

  Rachel started the Range Rover and sped off, toward home. She would dump these two in the well and, while they slept off the sprite-green brownies, Rachel had one last little task to perform before she could truly feast in peace, and all hell would break loose in the town of Woodland.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Gorgon Comes To Kill Me

  Madeleine and I spent several minutes hunched over the will on the big dining room table, me with the mirror in my hand, trying to read in the dim light of an old electric lamp we found in the parlor.

  “You’ll never get anywhere like that,” Madeleine said, and she took the mirror from me and put it on the table. “You have to learn to read without the mirror.”

  “It’s backwards,” I said. “I’m used to reading regular.”

  “You can do it without a mirror,” she said. “Look past the words, look into the meaning. Read that first sentence.”

  “I, Eustace…” I began.

  “No,” she said. “Past that. Read this part. Don’t look at the letters, or even the words, look at the sentences. Look for the meaning,” she said.

  I looked. And after a few moments, I began to read. It was like stepping back a few feet to look at a painting—the letters became words and the words slowly became sentences and I was slowly beginning to learn to read backwards.

  As I did, Madeleine hurried into the parlor and began measuring the jaws on the wall with a small ruler, then comparing them with the pics she had shot with her phone—pictures of her mother’s hands, measuring the bite marks on the bones.

  “A Gorgon,” Madeleine murmured, after several minutes of measuring the jaws and examining the pictures.

  “A what?” I said

  “That can’t be,” she said to herself. “Eustace said there were no Gorgons in Woodland. He killed both of them.”

  “He killed who?” I said.

  Madeleine came over to me.

  “Years ago, before you and I were born, he killed two Gorgons,” she said. “He said there were no Gorgons left now, but the bite marks match the Gorgon jaw molds on the wall.”

  “Those jaws on the wall are…” I said.

  “Jaw molds Eustace made of the Otherworlders,” she said, as she flipped through the will. “There’s an index…in the back.”

  She found the index, the final section of the will, on page 1466. She scanned down the listings until she found the word ‘Gorgon.’

  Then she flipped to a section of the will entitled The Forms And Feeding Habits Of The Gorgon.

  “What is a Gorgon, exactly?” I said.

  “A witch,” she said. “A child-eater, specifically.”

  “A witch who eats children,” I said. “Hansel and Gretel.”

  Madeleine nodded, her eyes darting over the section on the Gorgon. She read quickly, expertly. I wondered for a minute how much she had learned from my great uncle. How much time had she spent dealing with him, learning about all of this—this world within a world? For a second I felt a flash of anger—anger that my great uncle had not decided to show me such attention and care. Why? And my parents? Madeleine had said my father died protecting the will, but what about my mother?

  I opened my mouth to ask about my father, about both my parents and Eustace and my family—but then Madeleine turned the page and there, taking up the entire next page, was an illustration that sent a shiver through me. The heading above the illustration read Woodcut Of Mature Gorgon In True Aspect.

  The picture was an elaborate print, from an old woodcut, of a horrifying-looking witch—but I’m not talking about pointy hats and broomsticks. This creature had a female form, although it was immensely…well, FAT, for one thing. Instead of hair it had dozens—maybe hundreds—of snakes sprouting out from its head. Dozens of other snakes were slithering around its body—where THEY came from I didn’t want to know. The Gorgon’s jaws were open, showing two sets of long, sharp, powerful-looking teeth—just like the jaw molds Madeleine had been studying on the wall. One of the Gorgon’s arms looked human, but skinny and frail, like the little arms on a giant T-Rex; but the other “arm” was a long, thick snake, with its jaws wide open. The eyes of the Gorgon were narrow slits, like the vertical slits of a snake’s pupils.

  On the opposite page was a smaller picture, titled The Gorgon In Human Form. The picture showed a pretty young woman with long, flowing hair and a sweet, innocent face. Madeleine saw me staring at the picture of the young woman.

  “That’s how the Gorgon appears when she’s taken human form,” Madeleine said. “The opposite of her real form. They can live for years like that, as long as they don’t…feed. She must have kept from feeding for a long time, which means she’s starving and…”

  “And?” I said.

  “And she’s due for a binge,” Madeleine said, reading the next page, her eyes darting back and forth, over the backwards text. She murmured passages of it as she read.

  “There are only two weapons with which to fight the Gorgon,” Madeleine read. “The first is the Gorgon’s own reflection…a mere glance into a mirror will boil the eyes of the witch…even flashing the mirror up to capture its reflection will burn its flesh…”

  I was trying to keep up with Madeleine’s reading, but gave up and listened to her as she read on.

  “The second weapon is fire, and fire is the only way to destroy the Gorgon entirely…it must burn until every particle of flesh has become one with the air, and all that remains is ash. The ash must be disposed of properly…see section 188b…”

  Madeleine thumbed back to the index and I stood up, rubbing my head, which was hurting; I realized it had been hurting—pounding—for a long time. I was moving into the second stage of what I can only call TOTALLY FREAKING OUT. I had stopped shaking, but my head was throbbing and spinning like a top. I stared out through the window of the dining room, into the thick trees at the edge of the forest, the moonlight casting shadows of the tall trees across the weed-choked lawn.

  Madeleine continued flipping through the pages of the will, murmuring to herself.

  “The mirror…” she said. “I was wondering why there was a mirror here…Eustace didn’t need it to read or write…the Gorgon must have come here…” She found what she was looking for and began to read to herself.

  I looked over her shoulder for a moment, at the will, and then turned back to the window, my mind racing with a jumble of confused thoughts as I stared at the dark woods outside.

  Eustace had died four days ago, the lawyer Smith had said. That meant he died the day I left Van Nuys. I thought of the old homeless guy and the strange voice I had heard in my head. Come home, Jacob. I suddenly realized that those words were spoken by Eustace, possibly right at this very table, on that very mor
ning, at that very moment…

  Had Eustace really come face to face with this…thing? This Gorgon? Right here?

  Something outside caught my eye. A tiny light blinked—no, two tiny lights. I strained to peer into the dark woods and saw nothing at first, but then I noticed some of the brush rustling, and some low branches moving.

  There it was again. Blink. Two yellow-green…eyes.

  Blink. They were moving…moving toward the house…

  “Madeleine,” I said.

  She ignored me, reading on through the will on the table.

  Blink. Coming closer.

  “Madeleine,” I said, louder.

  “Just a minute,” she said.

  Then, just as I was about to turn and grab Madeleine and pull her to the window, a small tree snapped right in half at the edge of the woods and a giant snake came slithering out of the woods toward the house, FAST. It wasn’t so much slithering as shooting out from the woods, like it had been fired from a gun—shooting straight at me, crossing the weeds of the lawn in less than a second, and then, SMASH! The snake burst right through the window I was looking through—

  I turned, but it was too late—the snake had crossed the lawn so fast I had barely had time to move—and the giant, slimy thing whipped around my neck and tightened, hard.

  I heard Madeleine shriek a short, sharp scream, and I saw her leap up from the table. Then the head of the snake rose up in front of me, right in my face—the head was massive, as big as my own—its yellow-green eyes blinked once at me and it opened its jaws with a horrible hiss, revealing long, sharp, dripping fangs, and then it reared back to strike…

  It all happened so fast that I only had time to close my eyes as I tried to turn, tried to pull the thing off me, just as the snake lunged at my face and I prepared myself to feel its long fangs to sink into me—

  WHAM! Madeleine rose up behind the snake and smashed its head with the base of the heavy old lamp from the table. The snake was stunned for a moment, and its coils loosened a little around my neck and I was able to take one breath before the snake came to its senses.

  CRASH! A second, identical snake burst through the window next to me and shot across the room and wrapped its thick body around Madeleine’s waist and pulled her toward the window. She grabbed the leg of the heavy dining room table and the snake dragged her AND the table across the dining room, toward the windows, and slammed to a stop with Madeline holding on to the table leg tightly.

  The coils tightened around my neck again and I couldn’t move or breathe. I looked down, at the dining room table, which was bumping against the window frame next to me. The dagger. I reached down for the ornate dagger I had used to cut the seal on the will. It was just out of reach. The coils tightened and I began to see spots as I felt my eyes bulge, like they were about to pop right out of my head.

  Wham! Wham! The snake holding Madeleine pulled harder on her, slamming the dining room table against the window frame again, and the dagger slid closer to me. I snatched it up and stuck it, with all of the strength I could muster, into the snake’s scaly skin, near the head. The knife blade barely went in—like the snake was made of some kind of thick boot leather. Then the snake opened its jaws and reared back to bite me in the face and I suddenly jammed the dagger into its open mouth, with the tip of the blade pointed up. The snake bit down and the tip of the dagger blade sunk into the roof of its mouth.

  The snake went wild, whipping around, and I heard the most horrible SCREECH—but it didn’t come from the snake—it came from behind me, outside the window.

  I tried to turn and look behind me, outside, but the coils were still too tight around my neck. The other snake was flailing around wildly as well, whipping around the room with Madeleine firmly in its coils, sending her slamming and banging around the legs of the table.

  It was then I smelled the foulest stench you could ever imagine, and I heard a gurgling, hissing, breathing sound, right behind me, from outside. I gagged from the smell, already choking from the strangling coils. It was like an open sewer had just spilled into the room. If I could have breathed I know I would have puked right there. But I couldn’t breathe, and I began to feel like I was going to pass out.

  I felt hot, damp, putrid breath on the back of my neck, and the breathing sound behind me became louder. And then came the voice:

  “Nice try, young clod,” the thing said. “But you don’t have the strength of a real Huntsman, do you?”

  The coils tightened even more, and the room got dimmer and I knew I would be dead in a matter of seconds. I struggled and fought like hell, I can tell you, but the thing holding me was way stronger than you could believe. I didn’t have time to think—it had all happened so fast—and it was like my mind had gone totally blank from sheer terror.

  “Oooh, this is going to be even more fun than when I killed your uncle Eustace,” the thing breathed on me. I felt something slimy on the back of my neck—its mouth?

  “I can’t believe it…the last Grimm. No more Huntsmen. I am going to get sooo FAT!” the thing began to laugh its horrible laugh, right in my ear.

  Just then, as Madeleine was whipped around under the table, I noticed her grab the hand mirror on one of her banging, scuttling slides along the floor. She held on to the table leg with one hand, and with the other, she raised the mirror.

  And then I saw it—the thing that was behind me, holding me, breathing down my neck—I saw it, reflected in the mirror.

  The Gorgon.

  I only saw its image in the mirror for an instant, in the darkness—the lamp having been smashed when Madeleine hit the snake—but what I saw was WAY worse than the picture in the will—

  —Glowing green snake-eyes, jaws hanging open and dripping with some kind of slime, and snakes everywhere—whipping around its head, growing out of its head, each little snake hissing, in a chorus of hisses which were instantly drowned out when the Gorgon saw its reflection and its eyes began to boil.

  I will never forget the sound that the thing made as its eyes boiled, smoke spewing out from the two sockets in its head, but for the life of me, I can’t really describe it. It was low and loud enough to rattle the walls of the house, but high and piercing enough to make you feel like your ears were about to split open.

  Instantly, Madeleine and I were released, and the snakes slipped back out through the windows as fast as they had burst in. I stumbled to the floor, gasping for air, and by the time I looked up over the window sill, the Gorgon was gone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Aftermath

  I don’t know how long I crouched at the window, staring out into the dark woods. Probably only a few seconds, even though it felt like time had just completely STOPPED—except my heart wouldn’t slow down and I was still seeing spots in front of my eyes. I realized my neck was hurting terribly and my throat was so swollen that I was having trouble breathing. I tried to calm down and think clearly and take slow, deep breaths, and then I heard a small, soft moan from under the table.

  Madeleine was passed out on the floor. There was blood on her temple. I crawled over to her and said her name over and over but she didn’t wake up. I got up and went to the kitchen and turned on the tap. Rusty water spit from the faucet while I looked around and found a bowl and a towel and I filled the bowl with water and brought the bowl and the towel over to Madeleine and gently dabbed her face with the cold water. After what seemed like forever, she slowly opened her eyes and stared at me.

  “Madeleine?” I said, and dabbed the cut on her temple with the towel. She jerked away—the cut was pretty deep and she was in pain and for a few seconds it seemed like she didn’t know who I was.

  “It’s me, Jake,” I said. “Can you—?”

  She sat up suddenly, as her senses seemed to come back to her, and before I could say anything more she was back up at the table, looking through the will. She didn’t say a word—she just went into action.

  “That was…that was it—that thing—it was…” I tried to t
alk, but I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, so I could only manage a word or two at a time.

  “The Gorgon,” she said, in her calm, flat voice, as she looked through the will.

  I couldn’t believe she could act so calm after what had just happened. She seemed to slip into some kind of very strict way of focusing on the problem, and not on her feelings—like a doctor who treats people in the ER with horrible injuries. No emotion, just action. I guessed that she got part of this from her mother, the EMT, who had to deal with emergencies all the time…but her mother never had to deal with a Gorgon, that much I could also guess. It was definitely weird to see someone so calm after what had happened, but it was also kind of comforting. I decided to try and be like her, if I could. What the hell else is a kid supposed to do when a vicious, child-eating snake-woman attacks you and tries to kill you? It was like I had a choice: I could try and calm down or I could stay freaked out—but if I stayed freaked out I would useless, just like Madeleine had said before.

  “She knows who you are, and she knows you’re uninitiated,” Madeleine continued, talking as she read. “We have to find her. If she’s bold enough to attack you—and me—then she knows she can attack anyone, anytime, and she will. If she hasn’t already.”

  “Where’s your phone?” I said, and began looking around for it.

  “Forget the phone,” Madeleine said. “WE have to find her, and find her right away.”

  “We?” I said. “What can we do? We need help—we need—”

  “YOU need to calm down,” Madeleine said. “There’s no time to be afraid, and there’s no one else who can help us. The Otherworlders feed off of human fear, and if we cause a panic it will only make them stronger. You have to push your fear aside and work with me, do you understand?”

  “But if she looks like that other people will see her and—” I said.

  “She WON’T look like that,” Madeleine snapped. “Pay attention. She’ll take human form—like the other picture you saw.”