The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now)

by Stephen Carpenter

  It hurt like hell to talk, and I was still having trouble breathing, so I went back to the kitchen and drank from the faucet in small, slow sips. I ducked my head under the cold water and it helped a little. As I dried my hair with a towel, Madeleine read quickly through the will—the section about the Gorgon.

  “She’ll look like the opposite of what she really is,” Madeleine said. “She’ll be pretty and young and thin…but she’s bold enough now to start binging. She’ll find two more victims and start to feast, and she won’t wait. Gorgons are impatient…very impatient, especially once they start binging after a long period of fasting.”

  Madeleine continued to read out loud: “The Gorgon lures her victims with food…victims are always children—or teens—so she will probably be around young people…a teacher, a coach, or a counselor. She’ll be single, she’ll live in the woods, or as close to them as she can get. She’ll live alone, with no children of her own. If Gorgons mate at all they eat their young…”

  I came over to her and looked down at the picture of the Gorgon in human form—a thin, pretty young woman with long hair.

  Madeleine’s phone chimed, from across the room. She ran to it and answered. She listened for a moment.

  “It’s okay, mom,” Madeleine said. “We’re okay. We’re at Eustace’s—at the house. Okay, I will. I’ll tell him.”

  Then Madeleine grew very still, and her eyes grew very wide. When she spoke again, her voice was tight with fear. It was the first time I had hear her sound really afraid.

  “Okay,” she said to her mom. “Okay, we’ll be home soon. Okay, Mom. I promise. I love you, too. See you in a little bit.”

  Madeleine hung up and looked at me.

  “Rick and Kara never made it home from the vigil,” she said, her voice still tight and strained. “They found Rick’s truck, smashed against a tree. There was no sign of Rick or Kara anywhere.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In The Well Of The Witch

  Kara woke up first. Her face was against something wet and gritty, and it hurt her cheek. Her clothes felt wet; she was lying on a cold, damp floor, and she was shivering. She couldn’t see anything at first, but she felt Rick’s warm body close to her. She crawled over next to him and whispered his name, but he didn’t move.

  There was a sound, above her, a creaking, mechanical sound. Kara looked up: she could see, dimly, above her, the circular opening of the mouth of the well. Firelight was flickering around the ceiling above the well, and silhouetted against the firelight was a figure of a monster—a lump of a woman, with writhing hair…

  The creaking thing was some kind of contraption of ropes and pulleys, which were lowering a large platter of something down to the floor of the well. The platter came to rest beside Kara and she smelled food—a mound of delicious, piping hot food. The sound of the platter thumping on the floor of the well made Rick stir, and then he woke when he smelled the food. He pressed close to Kara and looked up at the Thing at the mouth of the well. Neither of them had any idea where they were or what was happening, but they were cold and wet and terrified…and hungry.

  “Eat,” the Thing above them said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Eustace’s Computer

  Madeleine finished reading the section on the Gorgon and then quickly snapped photos of each page with her phone. As she photographed the last page, she saw something—a footnote on the bottom of the page. It read: “For further details on the Woodland Gorgon population, consult files in the computer.”

  “Eustace had a computer?” I asked. It seemed odd, especially since even the newest electrical appliances in the house were older than Madeleine and me combined.

  “Upstairs, in the study,” Madeleine said, already on the move. I followed her, taking two steps at a time.

  “I’ve seen it,” Madeleine said, as we headed down the long, narrow upstairs hallway. “But I never saw him use it. He didn’t use email or texting or anything…nothing modern. He didn’t trust it.”

  I followed her to the study at the end of the hall, passing rooms that gave me quick flashes of near-memories…familiar feelings, like the picture of me I had seen when I first reached the house. Were one of these rooms along the upstairs hallway my old room? Had I slept in my crib in one of these rooms as a baby? Had I run down this hallway before, as a toddler…?

  I didn’t have much time to think about that because we quickly reached the study—a cramped, musty, book-lined room with an old roll top desk against one wall. Madeleine took a key from her pocket and raised the roll top, revealing the most ancient desktop PC I had ever seen. It was the size of a large microwave oven, with a tiny screen. It had to be at least thirty years old. Madeleine fumbled around, looking for a switch to turn it on, but I found it right away. I muttered something about knowing computers and we waited forever for the old machine to boot up.

  Finally, the small screen flickered to life, and a tiny “C” prompt blinked slowly at the top corner of the screen. My old hacker friend Mike Wong had shown me how to work with DOS operating systems, and I entered “DIR” to access the computer’s directory. There was nothing—a basic operating system program, that was about it.

  “There aren’t any files,” I said, typing away at the dusty keyboard. “No document files, anyway. He didn’t even have email or a dial-up program to go online…”

  “There has to be something,” Madeleine said.

  I tried everything I could think. I restarted the computer, read the primitive source code, scanned the hard drive…it was like an empty shell.

  “There’s just…nothing,” I said.

  “You’re wrong. Keep looking,” Madeleine said. “You said you knew all about computers…”

  “I didn’t say I knew all about computers,” I said. “There’s just nothing here.”

  “Eustace wouldn’t have written that footnote if there was nothing here,” Madeleine said. “He wasn’t like that. Everything he did had a purpose.”

  “Well, then YOU look,” I said, feeling angry all of a sudden. “Since you’re the one who knew Eustace so well. I don’t know how his mind worked. I never even knew him. Guy sends me away, ignores me for ten years, and then leaves all this for me to figure out. He didn’t give a damn about me.”

  “You’re wrong, Jake,” Madeleine said. Then she went to a shelf and pulled out a thick photo album and opened it on the desk. “All he did was talk about you. Look.”

  I looked at the album. I stopped typing at the computer and started turning the pages of the album. I was pretty shocked, I can tell you.

  There, spread before me, were pages and pages of photos of me, all through my childhood—even a bunch of pictures from Van Nuys: all of birthdays, all of my school pictures—Heather must have sent them, I suppose. My throat tightened a little, but not from the strangling I had received earlier.

  “Why didn’t he—why didn’t he ever talk to me? Or call? Or even send a damned birthday card?” I said.

  “Because he wanted to keep you away from all of this,” Madeleine said. “He never intended for you to have to deal with it. He was trying to put an end to it, and he would have, if he’d had time. The only thing he did wrong was die before he could end the curse. He was trying to protect you. He hated being apart from you,” she said, then kneeled beside me and put her hand on my arm. “He loved you, Jake.”

  I looked at the pictures, and my eyes started feeling hot with tears. Madeleine kept her hand on my arm, and squeezed it tightly.

  “After my dad died, my mom was kind of overwhelmed, and Eustace took care of me,” she said. “He used to tell me that kids who lose a parent have to grow up faster than other kids—especially an only child, like me. And you. He said he thought you would be like that—more grown up than other kids. Anyway, that’s how come he made me his apprentice. He said he believed you and I would be a lot alike.”

  She gently took the photo album from me and put it back on the shelf. Then she came back and kneeled beside me
again.

  “There must be something here,” she said softly. “Eustace taught me that you have to force back your feelings and think, Jake. Concentrate. We can talk all about Eustace later, but we don’t have time to do it now.”

  “Think,” she said again.

  I looked at the computer screen.

  Think, think…

  “Give me your phone,” I said. She gave it to me and I looked at the picture she had snapped of the last page. The words were too tiny to read, especially backwards, so I clicked on the “flip photo” icon and the picture flipped backwards—making the words on the screen appear normal.

  “For further details on the Woodland Gorgon population, consult files in the computer.”

  I read the sentence out loud.

  And then, out of nowhere, it hit me.

  I got up and yanked the power cord from the back of the computer and grabbed a letter opener from the desk and started prying open the side panel of the CPU.

  “What are you doing?” Madeleine said.

  “Consult files IN the computer,” I said.

  Madeleine looked at me like I was crazy, but she didn’t say anything as I pried open the CPU.

  There, inside the dusty, cobwebbed guts of the old computer was a thin manila file folder. I grabbed it and spread it out on the desk and Madeleine and I read the single page inside. The page was yellowed and curled up at the edges, and it was written in Eustace’s backwards hand. Madeleine started reading it, and, after struggling for a few seconds to read backwards, I snapped a photo of it, flipped the photo, and read from the phone:

  “Below are four names of the only remaining potential Gorgon inhabitants of Woodland. Be advised, these women are merely persons of interest, given their general profile, i.e., their habits and appearances. To the best of my knowledge at this time, there is no evidence that they should be treated with any overt suspicion, only cautious regard, and make no assumptions. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING CONFRONTING ANY OF THESE WOMEN, PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION.”

  I read the names out loud to Madeleine.

  “Cynthia Mason?” I said.

  Madeleine shook her head. “She got married and moved to Seattle a year ago,” she said.

  “Dorothy McFarland?” I said.

  “She died in a fire…her house burned down when I was a little kid.,” Madeleine said.

  “Beatrice Caruthers?”

  “Don’t know her,” Madeleine said.

  “Rachel Eaton?”

  “Miss Eaton?” Madeleine frowned. “She’s the yoga instructor at the rec center. She’s really nice…”

  “What’s she look like?”

  “Thin, blonde, pretty…” Madeleine trailed off, looking at me. “She teaches the youth class, and has a catering company…weddings, kids’ birthday parties…”

  We stared at each other for a second.

  Then we got up and got the hell out of there, running back down the hallway.

  “I don’t know where she lives,” Madeleine said, as we ran down the stairs.

  “I’m on it,” I said, as I entered Rachel Eaton’s name in a search directory on Madeleine’s phone as I ran. As we reached the bottom of the stairs a caller ID appeared on the phone screen: “Jenna O’Hara.”

  “Your mom again,” I said, holding up the phone for Madeleine to see.

  “Ignore it,” Madeleine said.

  I waited for the call to go to voicemail, then I re-entered Rachel Eaton’s name in the search engine and we waited. Finally, an address appeared on the phone’s screen.

  “4142 Forest View Drive,” I said.

  “That’s all the way on the other side of town,” Madeleine said. She looked at her watch. “It’s after midnight. Gorgons feed at dawn. We have to hurry.”

  I followed her to the door, then I stopped and turned back to the dining room. Madeleine started to say something but she stopped when she saw me pick up the hand mirror and tuck it into my waistband.

  “Right,” she said, with a look of approval in her eyes.

  “If we find her—it,” I said. “The mirror isn’t enough to kill her…”

  “No,” Madeleine said. “Only fire can destroy a Gorgon. We’ll just have to figure that out once we find her. But if she has Rick and Kara we can at least use the mirror to fend her off long enough to get them away from her.”

  I nodded, and pushed away the thought of fighting that horrible thing again…

  “There’s one other thing,” Madeleine said, looking away awkwardly. “The Gorgon can only be killed by a virgin.”

  “Oh,” I said, and I looked away, too. “Well, I guess I can do it.”

  “Me, too,” said Madeleine. Our eyes met for a second, then she turned and headed out, and, once again, I followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Into The Woods

  We ran through the dark, deserted streets of Woodland for nearly an hour, across the square, past the school, through the neighborhoods surrounding the square, and then, just as we reached the road that led to Forest View Drive, Madeleine stopped.

  Ahead, driving right toward us, was a small compact car. Madeleine pulled me into the brush by the side of the road.

  “My mom,” she whispered, as we hunkered down in the brush. I watched as the car approached slowly. As the car passed, I could see Jenna behind the wheel, her phone at her ear. Madeleine’s phone chimed and I quickly hit the button to silence it. It was the third time Jenna had called since we left the house.

  “She’ll be out looking for us all night,” Madeleine said. “And she’ll have the sheriff out looking, too. We have to stay off of the streets.” Madeleine looked around. As soon as Jenna’s car disappeared around a curve, Madeleine dashed across the road, heading for the woods.

  I hesitated for a second, then followed her.

  Everything in me wanted to stay OUT of those woods, but I did my best to force back the fear and I ran into the woods after her.

  It was a long, scary, stumbling slog through those woods, I can tell you. Madeleine and I hardly said a word as we pushed through branches and brambles and brush. There was no trail, nothing to guide us, and the moon was hidden behind the clouds that were gathering in the night sky. At one point, Madeleine stopped.

  “I’ve never been in this part of the woods. I’m not sure which way…” she said, looking around.

  “Wait,” I said. Then I clicked on Google maps and targeted 4142 Forest View Drive and turned on the GPS. After a moment, a little arrow appeared, pointing us in the right direction, and we headed off, following the glowing guide in my hand.

  It seemed like the woods went on forever, especially when I heard a rustling sound behind us, or saw a shadow tracking us through the dim, moonless forest. But I kept my focus on the phone’s glowing screen.

  No fear…no fear…

  At least a hundred times I thought of stopping, turning back, and getting the hell out of there. All of this had happened so suddenly, it seemed like a nightmare—like it wasn’t really real. It was crazy, all of it. Impossible. But the swelling pain around my throat was real; and when I looked at Madeleine I could see that the cut on her temple was real. Still, it seemed like total insanity to jump right into this crazy adventure with this pushy girl and the crazy will and…

  …And yet, as we pressed on, a different kind of feeling started to come over me. It’s hard to explain, but I think it was the beginning of the feeling I was supposed to have—the power of the Huntsman. That’s what I was, right? Even though I hadn’t taken the vow, or read the whole will, I had read part of it; I had fought with the Gorgon and survived. I began to feel…stronger, I guess. I began to doubt less. At one point, when I hesitated, Madeleine had taken my hand and said, “It’s okay to feel fear, just act like you don’t, and the fear will go away.”

  Fake it till you make it, I thought. I had read those words somewhere before, and believe me, I was faking it. But Madeleine was right: the more I pretended not to be afraid, the more the fear went away,
and I felt stronger. I thought of the Peyton twins, and Rick and Kara, and for the first time in my life, I felt like there was something bigger than me, more important than me, something that meant more than just my own survival. There were people whose lives depended on me—on me not screwing up, or being afraid, or turning back. I thought of Eustace, and my father. They must have felt afraid, too, and as I pushed on through the woods, I felt for the first time like I had someone or something to live up to. Something was expected of me. Something was changing in me, and I realized much later that, for the first time, I was beginning to feel like my father must have felt, and his father before him. All of my life I had only felt anger and disappointment and confusion when I thought of my real father. But, although I didn’t know it at the time, I was becoming my father’s son. I was becoming a man. I was becoming a Grimm.

  Finally, we reached the end of the woods and looked out at the small cluster of houses in a hollow below. A streetlight near us flickered and then went out, and I looked up and saw that the sky was growing light. We must have been in the woods for hours, because it was nearly dawn.

  Madeleine noticed it, too.

  “We’re out of time,” she said. “Gorgons are reptilian, so they crave sunlight and warmth, and they feed at dawn.”

  I looked down at the phone and saw the arrow pointing in the direction of one particular house in the small group of houses. It was a big house, and it had lots of windows and large skylights, and thick, heavy smoke was bellowing from the chimney.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked Madeleine. She nodded.

  “Come on,” she said, and we headed for the house.

  The house was backed up against the forest, so we approached it from behind. We tried to stay out of sight, but there wasn’t much to hide us as we crossed the wide, deep lawn behind the house in the early morning light. We made a mad dash for the back of the house and stood against it and listened. No sound came from inside. Madeleine took my hand and led me around the side of the house, and then to the front. There, next to the door, was the number 4142. We hid behind a large hedge, just under the front windows.