“Enough,” said the fox. He finished his last bite of pancake. “Perhaps a story would work best, given our unique origins.”
“That would be much less boring than an explanation,” Seth said, nodding seriously.
“Right. So. Where to begin …” The fox sat and scratched behind his ear.
“The beginning,” I whispered.
He nodded. “Two hundred years ago, the Brothers Grimm brought their stories to life. Shortly thereafter, heroes began to emerge to destroy them. Familiar enough?”
“Too familiar,” Sam grumbled.
“And so after the first few Corrupted were killed on earth, they ended up in this place. They eventually realized what it was, and set about making a new life. No doubt they were happy to be somewhere the hero couldn’t follow. But then something strange happened. A man arrived, horribly scarred, his face disfigured and swollen—”
“—Like a warg,” Seth said, eyes wide.
The fox shrugged. “Not sure what that means, but all right. Regardless, something was quite wrong with this man, and the others avoided him. But they could not avoid him for long, because the evil inside him refused to leave them be. He harassed their town, stealing their cows and setting their homes on fire. He tried to kill them, but they couldn’t be killed. So instead he knocked them unconscious and carried them miles away and left them. His evil grew. Whatever Corruption had traveled to this place with him was now controlling him.
“But then a fairy arrived. Free of the Corruption, she immediately recognized what was happening. Unable to confront the force herself, she blessed three swords and gave them to three of the townsfolk. With these weapons, the townsfolk stopped the evil man by striking him with one of the enchanted swords. The evil one fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, the Corruption was gone. And they lived happily ever after.”
“But more had to have come,” Sam said, tapping his fork on the table. “No doubt it’s happened numerous times.”
“Yes,” said the fox. “And based on the stories I’ve heard, the people who live in this place have always been able to stop the Corruption from spreading.”
“Of course,” said Flick. “They show up, they cause trouble, then whack! A good bump with an enchanted sword and everybody’s friends again.”
The fox nodded. “But Agnim … oy, oy, oy. He’s a magician. He carries the Corruption and he knows how to spread it. Worse, all I’ve heard are rumors. Agnim has laid a black blanket over the north and guards his secrets with ruthless efficiency.”
“We have to stop him.” Sam turned to me. He cocked his head. “Are you listening, Alice? Alice?”
It was as if I’d fallen back into that dark hole. I could see what was happening, but I couldn’t control my mouth or my arms or my feet. Every part of my body was waiting for orders, getting restless, thinking about taking control of the situation. My legs wanted to run. My hands wanted to clench into fists and pound something. My mouth … well, my mouth wanted to just drool.
It took every ounce of willpower to keep the drooling from happening, and I counted it as a small victory.
But even so, I could feel myself slipping once again.
Hero!
I blinked, moistening my eyeballs enough to look around.
Hero, you are stronger than this.
Briar’s voice.
“We should find Agnim and smash him,” Flick said. “That’s the best way to do it. Then we’ll force him to send the two humans home.”
“Not the worst idea,” Sam said. “But we know nothing of his strength or his intentions.”
“His intentions are to make everyone evil,” Seth said. “Right? I mean, come on: he’s Corrupted. And he’s always ticked off and mad at the world. But, like … OK, can we be careful going about doing this? Cause unlike you guys, Alice and I don’t get to take a beauty nap when a sword connects with our head.”
No one ever said this would be easy, hero.
“I know,” I whispered. I could still feel myself sinking into darkness.
You know what you need to do, hero.
I knew. I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to stay here, in Briar’s home. I didn’t want to go home because that meant I would have to eventually face Briar. I wanted to hide forever in a dark hole and sleep. I didn’t want to face reality or un-reality. I wanted darkness.
We are all broken, hero. But we can choose to mend our breaks.
Ernest Hemingway. Briar had mentioned the author once while we were training. Running through the forest, chasing after him while he spouted off all sorts of advice for dealing with monsters I couldn’t even imagine outside of one of Seth’s horror movies.
“The boy has a point,” Flick said. He turned to his brother. “It’s not their fight. We can’t ask their help. Hell, I think we’ve done enough to ruin their lives already, don’t you think?”
“Woah,” Seth said, lifting up his fork. “I didn’t say we can’t help. We just gotta be careful is all. We can help.”
Sam looked down at his pancakes, then at me. “My brother is right. This isn’t your fight, Alice. We must find a way home for you first.”
“No,” I blurted out. My fingers clutched the edge of the table, grounding me in this place. Keeping me from sinking deeper into the darkness. Each of the next words came out with a fight, numbing my tongue: “We stop Agnim first.”
Seth grinned.
“Are you certain?” the fox asked. “The stakes are high.”
I nodded my head slowly. “If Agnim succeeds in Corrupting everyone, this place will never be the same again. We stop him now.”
“But we can’t kill him,” Seth said, clutching wildly at the air. “What are we gonna do? Use harsh language?”
“All I need is to get close enough with the enchanted sword,” I said. “When he wakes up, he’ll be just like them.” I pointed to the two young women sleeping peacefully on a red blanket beside the bed. Still asleep. No longer Corrupted.
The fox cocked his head. “A hero fighting for her once-enemies?” he chuckled. “Now that’s a story for the ages.”
“Alice.” Sam narrowed his eyes. Studying me. No doubt seeing the strain on my face as I forced away the darkness that threatened to cloud my thoughts. “Are you sure about this? I mean to keep my promise … if you want to escape this place with Seth, I’ll help.”
And miss a chance to wallop Agnim again? Briar’s voice asked. Hooey!
“Agnim first.” I licked my dry lips. Swallowed. Dug my nails into the soft wooden surface of the table. I could feel my strength returning. The darkness was receding. Whatever was going to happen with Briar … I would have to deal with it. But not here. Not now.
Courage, hero!
“Courage,” I whispered.
Sam raised an eyebrow.
I shook my head, clearing away the last few clouds. Here we were, inside Briar’s home. There were two sleeping princesses on the floor. A fox sitting by my feet. Two dwarfs, one of whom could make incredible pancakes.
And Seth.
“We’re going to see Snow White,” I said. “And we’re going now.”
“Finally,” Flick said, pounding the table.
“Is her castle far?” Seth asked the fox. “I hate walking.”
“Not far,” the fox said. “Not at all. Five kilometers to the north.”
“And … uh, in miles?”
“About three miles,” Sam said.
“Then let’s not wait around a minute longer!” Flick reached out for the last two pancakes sitting on the plate in the center of the table. I grabbed his rough hand.
“Wait. Leave those.”
He raised one bushy eyebrow, just like his brother always did. “Why?”
“Because,” I said, “those are for the owner of this place.”
Chapter 7
We met up with the road at the northern end of the forest, opting to avoid the thick trees for rolling hills with ankle-high green grass, weav
ing our way around little groves of cherry trees with blossoming pink and red flowers whose intoxicating smell hung in the air. The entire area looked like a green blanket with little cats underneath it—nothing but rolling hills of lush grass and tall solitary trees. The grass was nice on my feet. I hadn’t been able to find the shoe I’d lost the night before, and so I opted instead to walk barefoot to avoid favoring one foot.
We stopped, three times, so that Sam and Flick could survey the land. They were convinced there was gold in them thar hills.
Snow White’s castle was in our sights almost immediately after climbing the first hill. It sat on a hillside with a steep rocky face that looked as if some giant bear had tried to climb it, clawing at the cream-colored rocks and leaving deep vertical gashes. Along the other side of the hill were little houses, hundreds of them, each with a brown roof and brick exterior and tall wooden beams. Some of the chimneys were spewing smoke; between certain houses were lines strung with bright clothes, swinging in the breeze.
There were other buildings, too. More modern-looking buildings with lots of glass windows and jagged architecture, the kind you see on twenty-first-century skyscrapers. One was three times as tall as the houses around it, a rectangle that had swallowed a few odd-sized squares that bulged out of the sides.
“Castle White,” Flick said.
Sam nodded, breathing heavily. “She’s done well for herself.”
“Always was a smart gal.”
“Except for all the times the evil queen tricked her.”
“Smart ... but perhaps a little too trusting.”
Sam grunted. “Here’s to hoping she’s learned her lesson. The last thing we need is a squad of Agnim’s soldiers waiting for us.”
Far beyond the castle were rolling mountains with sharp snow-covered peaks. The range was divided by a low-sloping valley with a river that slid past the western edge of the town and forked, leading southwest. The river was wide, and more than a few ships with tall masts and heavy white sails sat parked at the wooden docks where people hurried from vessel to vessel.
The castle itself was like … well, right out of a fairy tale. It had tall white towers and a keep that was shaped like a giant mansion, with tall arched windows and a blue shingled roof and blue banners hanging from bronze poles at each corner. There were four towers attached to the keep, only they’d been modified somehow so that instead of a steeple-like tower, a giant windmill spun near the top. The wooden blades turned slowly.
It looked like the Castle of the Knight of the Swan—the Disney Castle. Only with a twenty-first century twist.
“Wind turbines,” Sam murmured, stopping beside me.
“Good,” said Flick. “Now all we need is a computer and we can start counting our gold.”
“What we need is a high-pressure hose to blast those rocks in the valley,” Sam said. “Then we can get at the gold.”
“Bah! Let’s find our brothers and use pickaxes. Technology was never a match for our strength.”
A tall curtain wall made of dark gray stone surrounded the beautiful keep. Green vines clung to the stones, creeping upward. It looked pretty indestructible. The kind of castle that might just be able to withstand whatever Agnim could throw at it.
“Well, no point in gawking at it,” I said. “Let’s go get a close-up.”
We followed the road to the town at the base of the hill, where a handful of smaller wooden houses were spread out a good two hundred feet from each other. Each house had a pasture full of sheep and horses and cows, and each pasture was divided by barbed-wire fences.
“Interesting,” Sam said. “There’s more than a little touch of modern to this place.”
Interesting wasn’t the half of it. The road turned to cobblestone inside the town, well-manicured except for a few stray weeds here and there. As we traveled deeper inside, it was obvious this town was even more impressive than at first glance. The houses got closer together. Taller, too. They were a mixture of medieval—like you’d find in a fairy tale—and modern. Some houses were made of brick, reinforced with wooden beams and had stone roofs just like in the last town where I’d knocked Edward unconscious. In addition to the boxy, three-story “skyscraper” with tall panes of glass, there were other smaller buildings made of a gray concrete mixture, with square windows and flat roofs and iron rain gutters. On the front of one, between two stained-glass windows, was a massive circular clock with fat brass hands.
That wasn’t all. Old gas-powered street lamps hung from posts on either side of the road. The box-shaped glass was slightly cloudy, burnt by the flames. The posts were a tarnished green, like the Statue of Liberty.
As we passed the first post, Sam knocked on it with his knuckle. “Copper skin. Probably an iron core, though. Very decorative.”
“Yup,” said his brother, stroking his black beard appreciatively. “No doubt Snow White’s decision. She had an eye for design.”
“Man, this place is like Frank Lloyd Wright meets King Arthur,” Seth said, staring up at the clock.
“There,” Sam said, pointing ahead to one of the older-looking buildings made of thick wooden beams and cream-colored brick. Above its front door was a horizontal post with a simple wooden board hanging from it. Written in bright red were the words Milton’s Pub.
“I could use a pint myself,” Flick said, licking his lips.
“A pint would do,” Sam said, “but so would a horse or two so we can get up to the castle so that our hero doesn’t develop a limp.” He nodded down to my bare feet.
“Just in case things aren’t as they seem,” I said. He gave me a knowing nod.
“Oh come on. Look around!” Seth waved his hands to the people walking on either side of the road. They looked totally normal, except for their varied clothing. On the other side of the street, a woman wearing a simple brown ankle-length dress was doling out little coins onto a merchant’s table while the merchant watched, one hand on the little basket of cheeses and sausage sitting between them. The merchant, bald, squinting in the sunlight, had opted for a more “contemporary” dress: a scratchy-looking matte black suit coat with a fat collar.
“I’d like to know that man’s tailor,” Sam said, watching the exchange with his calculating look.
I grabbed the door to the pub and held it open. “Let’s make clothes shopping number two on our to-do list for now.”
Inside, the pub smelled like pretty much any pub ever: stale beer, body odor and ...
One more sniff to be sure. Yup—that’s urine all right.
Flick inhaled through his nose. “Ah. Now that’s what a pub should smell like. I feel at home already.”
The bar was at the far end, and to our right—just beyond a half-dozen wooden tables with chairs—was a big stone fireplace. The windows were open, letting in flies to feast on the scraps of meat sitting on metal plates that a handful of men and women had temporarily forgotten about. They were too enthralled with a big game of chess. Or, what looked like chess. Only there were twice as many pieces and the game board had been carved into the surface of the table. They had ten horses per side and eight castles, and the rest were pawns carved into the shape of a human being. When they needed to, they moved their metal mugs to accommodate a piece.
There were lights, too. As in: actual electric light bulbs. Three of them, hanging on the wall behind the bar and casting a dull yellow glow over the bottles of wine. Mugs hung from hooks on the beam above the bar. A single candle sat in the middle of each table.
“Yeah, I can see why you might like this place,” Seth said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Notice those?” Sam asked, pointing to the lights.
I nodded.
“Now all we need is a working telephone,” Sam said, “and our journey gets a whole lot easier.”
“What, you think we can just call a bunch of random numbers until we get someone who knows what the heck is going on?” I asked.
“It would make it easier to find allies,” Sam pointed ou
t, glancing over at the table of “chess” players as they erupted in cheers. “Something we’re going to need.”
We stepped up to the bar. I nearly gasped when I recognized the face of the man on the other side: the bartender from the Corrupted bar in Minneapolis. He’d grown a beard, but I recognized that ugly mug anywhere.
I spun around to avoid detection, then felt my stomach hollow out.
There was only one other person in the pub: a single, solitary man sitting alone at a table beside the empty fireplace. A man with bluish skin and elfish ears and sharp features a shaved head and—oh yes—little horns protruding from his forehead.
An image flashed through my mind, hitting me so fast and so detailed that I nearly blacked out. Young, immature Alice was skulking her way through an old tunnel with the sound of Lake Michigan at her back. She entered a little room, where a brutish man/creature rose from where he’d been crouching and walked over. Alice’s foil shook in her hand (had I been so scared?), and the creature’s eyes fell on the tip, not afraid. Relieved.
On earth, he hadn’t had horns. Right? No, that wasn’t entirely true—he’d had marks on his forehead but I hadn’t even given them a second look. I’d just assumed they were scratches of some kind. They’d been what was left of his horns, no doubt filed down so he could more easily fit in when he wasn’t hiding away in abandoned sewer tunnels. Stupid kid! You should have been more conscious of your surroundings!
Was he Corrupted, spying here for Agnim? Or just enjoying his tankard of ale?
“Seth,” I whispered, reaching out and blindly grabbing his shoulder.
“What?” he asked. “I’m not going to have a beer if that’s what you’re going to nag me about—”
“The guy in the corner …”
“Who?”
“Don’t look don’t look don’t look!”
“Oh my crap,” he turned to face me, eyes wide. “I totally looked! And he looked up. We made eye contact holy crap he’s some kind of demon he’s going to eat my heart what are you doing why aren’t you killing him yet!”
The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4 Page 20