“These are simple folk,” Flick concurred, slipping his thumbs underneath his suspenders. “Seem to prefer it that way, too.”
Seth nodded, smiling. “Don’t you see what’s going on here?”
I shook my head.
“This,” Seth waved his arms around, “is where the Corrupted go after they die. This place is in some other dimension! Like, we’re talking some serious Twilight Zone crap here, dudette. Flick and Edward and everyone else the Brothers Grimm brought to life … this is where they end up!”
“After the hero kills them,” Flick added. “Now! Who wants pancakes?”
I felt a stinging sensation right between my eyes. I pinched the bridge of my nose to relieve the pain. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Seth pulled me out of the bed. I grabbed his shoulder, dizzy for a moment. He reached out awkwardly and grabbed my sword, handing it over. “You’ll want to hold onto this. It’s an enchanted sword.” He was smiling; it made me smile, too. My best friend. Here. Smiling his doofus smile.
“It’s good to see you, pal.”
“Ditto, dudette. Come on.”
I followed them down the stairs, into a large room that tripled as a kitchen and a dining room and a living room. Pancakes sat stacked on a plate on the long wooden table near the iron stove in one corner, and Sam sat at the head of the table. Pantsless.
“Normally,” I said, “I like to get a good idea of my surroundings before I make any snap decisions. But maybe in this one instance I should make an exception and ask you straight up why you’re sitting around in your boxers.”
Sam cleared his throat, reaching up and tugging on his black-striped tie. He looked like a child at the table, and—like a child—he hadn’t bothered waiting for us to dig in on the pancakes.
“You’ve been unconscious for the entire day,” he said. “I had enough time to go out and find my missing shoe, which wasn’t easy by the way. My brother kindly offered to clean my pants—as best one can clean horse dung from fine wool imported from Italy—and they are drying outside.”
“Maybe I’ll just go outside and fetch those for you,” I offered, jamming a thumb toward the open door. “You know, so it’s a little less weird here.”
“By all means,” he said, using his metal three-pronged fork to stab another pancake and slide it onto his plate. “And take your time getting a better idea of your surroundings.”
I crossed the large room, aware of the creaking wooden floorboards beneath my feet, aware that his house had a familiar feel to it—right down to the flowery paintings hanging on the walls and the plush wave-like couch beside the brick fireplace and the two wooden columns in the middle of the room that held up the second floor. It felt like the kind of medieval home you read about in a fairy tale.
I stepped through the front entrance, spotting Sam’s gray pants hanging from a clothesline that ran from a hook in the exterior of the house to one of the thick wooden beams holding up the extended second floor.
“Like a little patio,” I said, grabbing the dry pants. “Or a perfect little place for a market stall …”
Passing bodies caught my eye and I turned toward the road. Two of the young male townsfolk, both wearing worn light brown leather armor, glanced in my direction and exchanged hushed words. Each held a pitchfork. Not exactly a professional soldier’s weapon. But then again, you two aren’t soldiers, are you?
No—just emergency guards. I looked down at the road and felt my muscles tense. There, laying on the gravel: Edward and his merry band of misfits. Unarmed. Hands resting on their stomachs, their armor stripped off so all that was left was their black undergarments. Black pajamas. Edward’s skin had turned from gray to a downright rosy pink. The weird little brown hairs on his neck were gone, too.
“Ma’am?” the younger of the two guards asked nervously. He nodded to Edward’s friends. “Would you mind giving them a whack?”
“Um …” I raised my sword, examining it. The steel seemed to be reflecting the blue sky at an impossible intensity. Seth said it was enchanted. What did he mean?
“We have no enchanted weapons in this town,” said the young guard. “If you could strike each of them, we would greatly appreciate it.”
I stepped onto the road, feeling the gravel slip between my bare toes. I raised the sword over the first of Edward’s misfits: a middle-aged balding man with long, elf-like ears hideous boils covering his cheeks. He looked like he’d recently drank a cup of Orc Juice and was in the process of reaping its nutritional benefits. “So … I just stab him?”
“Aye,” said the young man. “Be ready for the spark.”
I stabbed down. A bright spark exploded between the tip of the blade and the man’s chest. I blinked a few times. He was unharmed, but the gray tint to his skin had begun to slowly fade. The boils on his skin bubbled, then began retreating. I stabbed each of the others, getting the hang of the forceback from each spark. Slowly, their most distinguishing monstrous features—scars, boils, sores, patches of sandpapery skin—began to retreat.
When I was done, the two guards thanked me. They looked relieved, maybe because their prisoners looked a little more human now.
I went back inside. Seth and Flick had joined Sam at the table. When Seth saw me, he smiled and motioned to the plate opposite him. It was loaded up with two fat pancakes infused with blueberries.
“We’ve got fresh milk,” Flick growled, pouring a little cup of maple syrup over his stack of pancakes. He stabbed them with his fork and they broke apart, falling back onto the plate. I watched for a moment, entranced. What was it Briar said? A proper pancake should be soft enough that it flakes apart …
“Fresh milk is actually pretty gross,” Seth added. “It’s warm and fatty.”
“It’s delicious,” Sam said. He chuckled. “Flick, remember our years in France? We sold goat milk at twice the going price.”
Flick chuckled, stabbing the smaller chunks of pancake. “Magic milk. Infused with special properties passed down by dwarves. Tall people believed anything we’d say.”
“For a time,” Sam said. “And then when something bad happened, they blamed us for that too.”
I handed him his pants. “So Edward is just lying out there, if anyone cares.”
Seth nodded, stuffing his mouth with half a pancake. “You got him good!”
“Yeah, but he’s just unconscious. I didn’t kill him. I don’t think I even … like, there’s no gross hole and he didn’t burn away and all that Corrupted stuff.”
Flick shook his head, smacking his syrupy lips. “You already did that, girl. Can’t kill him twice.”
“He’s right,” Seth said. “This place has totally different rules! It’s like some weird afterlife or something.”
“Allow me to explain,” Sam said. “They’ve already given me the gist of it, shouting over one another with all the excitement of a pair of schoolgirls.”
“Put on your pants first,” I ordered.
He frowned, then stood and put his pants back on. His brother had done a pretty good job removing the greenish-brown stain on the pant leg, but not well enough that Sam would ever consider wearing the pants to a business meeting.
Not that he needed to worry about that anymore.
“People here don’t die,” Sam explained. “If a person is seriously harmed, he or she falls into a deep sleep. You stabbed Edward. There was a spark of light that protected him, and also knocked him unconscious.”
“… And knocked you on your butt,” Seth added.
Sam nodded. “He’ll wake, eventually.”
“And that’s not even the weirdest part,” Seth said, leaning forward like an excited kid. “That sword you used? It’s been blessed by a fairy. It has a positive charge.”
“Like a magnet?”
Flick shook his head vigorously. “Nay. It means the sword is a bringer of good. When Edward wakes up, he’ll no longer be Corrupted.” He grunted. “The boy will probably still be a sniveling ass, but at least h
e won’t want to go around attacking people.”
“And he won’t serve Agnim anymore,” Seth added.
“I think my head’s going to explode.”
“I felt the same way when they told me,” Sam said. “Allow me to provide some exposition that’s not nearly as complicated. Edward has an evil sword. You have a happy sword. When Edward hits people with his evil sword, they fall asleep and then wake up later in a bad mood. When you hit people with your happy sword, they fall asleep and wake up later in a good mood.”
Seth stared, slack-jawed. “Wow. That about sums it up, actually.”
“My brother was always good at putting two and two together,” Flick said admirably.
“But I killed Edward,” I said, pacing on the little brown rug next to the table. I had so many questions about this place. Questions that were all aimed in one direction: getting out of here with Seth. “Flick drank from the magic vial that brought Death. So did I. So did Sam.”
“You drank from the vial? Holy crap!” Seth set down his fork. “That was probably scary as all get out. And stupid, too.”
A thought occurred to me. Tears welled in my eyes. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?”
“The dwarf tried to shoot Sansa. I got in the way.” He shrugged. “What’s to know?”
“Seth … I tried to bring you back. I poured the contents of the magic vial into your mouth. And … and Death came for you.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Deep. Totally deep.”
“And then the Malevolence went for Sansa—”
“Sansa!”
“—But she killed it. She rejected its presence and without a host for protection, the ancient spell cast on the castle finished the job.”
He exhaled. “I knew it. I don’t know how, but I totally knew she was all right.”
“A valiant act of heroism,” Sam admitted. “Though I truly wish I hadn’t played such a vile role in it.”
Seth shrugged, returning to his half-finished pancake. “It’s … crap, it just is what it is. We have bigger fish to fry.”
“Sure do … we need to get out of here,” I said, not fully sure I was so ready to forgive Sam Grayle’s part in all this. I realized Seth and Flick were both watching me. “What?”
“Well, what’s the plan?” Seth asked.
“Oh. I don’t really have one.”
His face reddened right up to his blond hairline. “You don’t have any plan at all? Alice, you let Death swallow you up and you don’t have a plan to get back?!”
“Well, I didn’t think I’d end up in a magical Neverland place full of people I’ve already killed! Duh, Seth!”
Sam raised his hands and cleared his throat. “I believe that’s why Alice brought me along.”
I winced. That was definitely the primary reason. Although getting him off earth was a close second.
“So,” Sam said, “it’s clear that no matter how a Corrupted dies, they end up here. Whether the hero kills us or whether Death comes for us, we end up in this place.”
“Aye,” said Flick. “Almost like a fairy tale heaven, as it were.”
“I like alternate universe better,” Seth said.
“Either way, Seth is here. And Alice. Which means it’s something more.” Sam got out his chair and began pacing from the table to the front door. He looked out, paced back to the table, paced back to the door, and looked out again. He scratched absently at his whiskers. “This place is like earth.”
“Very much so,” Flick said. “Like Germany, to be precise.”
“And that should come as no surprise.”
“Why?” I asked, following his gaze. He was staring at the bodies of Edward and his men lying in the road. The two guards were still there, keeping watch. Across the street, a woman wearing a long black dress filled a horse trough with water. She patted the neck of a white pony as it bent down for a drink.
“When you use the magic pen to create,” Sam said, “you must think about what you’re creating, no?”
“Yup.”
“And so it is.” He waved his hand outside. “The same magic that brought us to life brought this place to life, too. Because the Brothers Grimm imagined it. But the Malevolence’s magic made us appear on earth instead of this place. And the Corruption began to change us.”
“This is where you were supposed to go.” The words escaped my mouth like a rolling fog. My eyes glazed over.
This place is the answer. I just need to find the right questions …
Seth and Flick reached us at the doorway, each clutching a folded-up pancake.
“When will they wake up?” I asked. Just seeing Edward lying there so peacefully … what would he be like when he woke up?
Probably still conceited and insufferable, but minus the whole let’s-wreak-havoc mindset.
“Depends,” Seth said. “We’re kind of new to this, too. But what we saw in Windendale …”
Flick groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that place right now.”
I looked down at Sam, who was still staring at the sleeping bodies. Calculating. “So what are you thinking?”
“We find Snow White,” he answered simply.
“Why?”
Sam glanced at Flick and cracked a smile. “Because she owes us a favor.”
Chapter 4
There wasn’t any need to get directions. In the middle of town at the intersecting dirt road were four wooden signs, each carved into a crude arrow. The writing was plain enough to read:
North—The Castle White
South—Towne of Glaucester
East—Chateau Bromme
West—The Blighted Land
“The Blighted Land” had been written in over “Riverend,” which was crossed out with black paint.
“Holy crap I would love a White Castle burger right now,” Seth said, rubbing his stomach. “Like, a dozen of them. And fries. And a lagoon of ketchup.”
Flick shook his head. “Sorry, boy … the Castle White is not of that sort.”
“I guess German went out of style,” I said.
“No doubt most of the Corrupted learned English over time,” Sam remarked, staring up at the signs. “In the 1800’s, there were many German dialects. By the twentieth century, English was a shared second language every Corrupted could understand.”
“You conspired,” I said.
“More than you could imagine,” Sam answered, a tinge of regret in his voice.
“We’ll be wanting the Castle White,” Flick said. “Obviously. And we’ll be wanting to hurry, too. There’s precious daylight left and we don’t want to be traveling at night.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Flick thumbed his suspenders, grunting. “Because the heroes have killed their fair share of monsters, and I don’t want to be running into any of them at night.”
“He’s right,” Seth said. “Flick and I have seen enough spooky things already. It’s weird, but it seems like some fairy tale folk show up here good and some show up Corrupted. Flick showed up good for some reason.”
“Just cause I got a temper doesn’t mean I’m evil to the core!” Flick barked.
“Just settle down,” I said. “Seth, are you sure the mayor is going to help us?”
“Indubitably!” he said, snickering.
“Why?” I glanced around the empty street. “This place isn’t exactly the most bustling town I’ve ever visited.”
“They’re just laying low,” Flick said. “Don’t nobody wanna go out frolicking while rumors of Agnim spread.”
“And they just revolted against his henchmen,” Sam finished. “Is that what you’re saying, brother?”
“Yup.” Flick started walking in the direction of Castle White, a direction he argued was “north” based on the position of the afternoon sun. It was a pretty good hypothesis … but this wasn’t earth. And my Hero Sense had begun tingling something fierce, too. There was more to this world just waiting to reveal itself, most likely in the dead
of night when the word “scary” could reach epic proportions.
“The mayor’s up here,” Seth said. “Last house on the right.”
We kept walking, past two more horses that were hitched to a post outside a small house. The house’s exterior was mostly stone, but with a timber front, with tall wooden beams holding up the second level, which extended out over the first level to create a little porch. Inside, I could see a middle-aged man with a mustache laboring in front of a wood-fired oven. He stopped to stare at us, wiping sweat from his brow. Loaves of bright brown fresh-baked bread were laid out on the wooden counter. Their smell was intoxicating, beckoning me closer. But the man’s cautious expression was less inviting.
Who had killed him? Which hero? Had he been as Corrupted as some of the monsters I’d faced off against? Or had he been just a man, hunted down by a hero who knew he didn’t belong? The questions swirled in my head.
“This architecture is medieval,” Sam noted. He pointed to the houses across the street. They all had timber fronts and the rest of the exteriors were made of stone and some brick. The windows were arched at the top, made of small pieces of glass that fit between cross-hatched strips of wood. Most had stone roofs, but a few had thatch or long tiles. All of them had chimneys.
“With just a hint of the modern,” I added.
Sam nodded, slowing as his eyes fell on the last house to the right. It was longer than the other houses, with a dozen windows along the front and two big wooden doors. It had a cream-colored brick exterior, and just beyond it—at the edge of town—was a small grove of cherry trees with long branches reaching upward, their pink flowers so bright that they burned my eyes.
“The Brothers Grimm no doubt imagined all of their fairy tales to take place in medieval times,” Sam said. “I remember the shock when my brothers and I traveled to the city of Munich for the first time. It was as if our fairy tale had played out, and then we’d fallen asleep for hundreds of years and woken up.”
“We need more answers,” I said. “How sure are you that Snow White is going to give you the time of day?”
The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4 Page 16