“He’s right,” Agnim said. “Death no longer serves the Grimms’ purpose. The Corruption has cursed him. All these people,” he waved a hand to the masses of people still standing like zombies behind the Juniper Tree, “are human. Death took them and brought them here. They congregated to this place because they could feel the pull of the Juniper Tree.”
“I felt that, too,” Seth said. He raised his head proudly. “Didn’t pay much attention, though. Too busy helping save the day and all that jazz.”
Agnim smiled. “You have done something great here. Even if no one on earth will ever know.”
“Then I guess this is it.” I reached out and touched the soft bark of the tree. The trunk split in half with a deafening crack, revealing a pitch-black opening. The zombie-like people shimmered like ghosts, slowly drawn into the darkness. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all taken by Death and deposited in this place they didn’t belong in. People wearing dresses and clothes from different periods in time, all the way back to the early 1800’s. Death had taken so many.
I grabbed Seth’s hand. He squeezed it tightly.
“I’m not going your way,” he said.
“What do you mean? Of course you are. We’re going home.”
He shook his head, grimacing. “I’m dead, remember? Six feet under. Probably worm meat by now.”
Tears immediately welled up in my eyes. “Don’t …”
“Sorry, sorry. Morbid joke. My point is I can’t go back. I’m going somewhere else.”
“But where?”
He shrugged. “Wherever all these other people are going, I figure.”
“I knew it.” My hand found my cheeks, wiping off a mixture of tears and rainwater. “I always knew, deep down. Seth … you …” I searched for words. My entire body felt numb. I was losing him all over again and I couldn’t keep from sobbing. “You’re my best friend, Seth. I never said—”
He shushed me, putting a finger to my lips and smushing them together, just like he used to do when we were kids and he was sick of me babbling. “Dudette. We’ve been best friends since we were pooping in diapers. You don’t have to tell me anything. I know.”
“But—”
“I know. And deep down, you know how much you’ve meant to me, too. Goodbyes are never perfect. But they don’t have to be.” He gave my hand a pull. “Come on.”
We stepped into the black void. I held onto Seth’s hand for as long as I could, but the spinning through the darkness was too disorienting. I let go and suddenly I was all alone, willing my body to follow the soft song of the Juniper seed back on earth.
I was going back.
A Dance With Death: Part 2
Chapter 1
I woke in Sam Grayle’s office, my throat dry and my stomach aching. I rolled onto my stomach, forcing my numb legs to crawl closer to the table. I reached out, grabbed the edge of the table with my fingers, then pulled myself closer. My legs were asleep. My arms felt as if they’d been tucked under my head at an awkward angle and then left there for a decade.
“Come on,” I said in a raspy voice. “Reboot already.”
I rolled onto my back, suddenly aware that I needed to pee. Like, really, really bad. I needed to get to Sam’s private bathroom. To do that, I needed my legs to wake up. I lifted them slowly, wiggling my toes a few times. At least, I thought I was wiggling my toes. I had to look down just to be sure, and even then it was no help: my shoes were on and I couldn’t gather enough strength to kick one off.
“No time,” I whispered, crawling on my elbows to the open door on the other side of the office. There was clearly a toilet in there—and quite frankly, even if there wasn’t, I probably would have done my business in there anyway. It wasn’t as if Sam was coming back, after all.
I pulled myself up onto the toilet. It was shorter than most porcelain thrones to accommodate Sam’s small stature. Of course. The world accommodated him, not the other way around.
But in the end, that wasn’t really true. I sat on the toilet, thinking back to everything that had happened. It didn’t feel like a dream. The memories inside my head were as real as any other memories of events that had happened on earth. It was weird: one moment, I was thinking about Sam’s devilish deal he’d offered me that first night we’d met. The next moment, I was thinking about Sam fighting off the lions so I could escape. That the Corruption could have changed him so much …
The pins and needles gradually ceased. I stood on wobbly feet and went to the little sink and washed my hands, then bent down and filled my mouth with cold tap water. I swished the water around in my mouth a bit before swallowing. The muscles in my legs felt wrapped in knots. My left heel hurt. I could feel the cuts on my back—they stung like fresh paper cuts. I ran a hand across the back of my arm, finding one. Dried blood ran in a narrow line about an inch long.
At least a day had passed.
I stumbled back into Sam’s room and grabbed the digital clock on his desk. It was 12:00 pm. Two days had passed.
“Home,” I whispered. My stomach ached. I needed food and more water. I needed fresh clothes.
Mom … Dad … Chase.
I grabbed the gladius I’d come in with, now consciously aware of a terrible truth: Sam Grayle had been a powerful, powerful man. He would be missed by a lot of people. Walking out of here with a sword would draw excess attention.
Walking out without a sword isn’t going to be that much easier.
I used my shirt to wipe off the hilt of the gladius, then tossed it on the floor and went back to the bathroom for more water. I grabbed a small blue hand towel and used it to wipe down everything I’d touched, including the desk and the clock. I was trying to think like a murderer, aware that a creepy numbness had begun running through my body. Like I was stuck in a freezer wearing just a sweatshirt, aware of the cold seeping in and infecting my skin. Like I was forgetting something.
“Briar,” I choked. Briar … Agnim … Death. If Agnim had been right about the Grimm brothers’ intentions, then I needed Briar’s help to kill Death and end the Corruption once and for all. But that meant Briar would be gone, too.
If he’s not already Corrupted.
There was no time to dwell on it. I needed to get out of the tower as soon as possible, before my luck ran out and someone decided to pop in on their boss. I went to the elevator. There was still one lift waiting at the top floor. The rest were waiting on the first floor, according to the green digital displays above the doors.
Good. Maybe everyone in this building uses the staircase for exercise.
The elevator took me to the first floor. I turned left, recognizing the hall well enough from the last time Seth and I had infiltrated the place. No one stopped me; the halls were empty. I went through the doors that led to the underground parking structure.
Empty.
“You weren’t kidding about waiting for me to come kill you, were you, Sam?” My voice echoed down the dimly lit structure. I followed the ramp back up to the surface level, slipping out onto a moderately busy downtown street and a warm sunny afternoon. None of the people driving by took a second look at the slightly disheveled girl in black yoga pants and a violet shirt walking down the street. Nothing to see here, folks … I definitely didn’t just dispatch one of the most powerful men in the country and then take a two-day nap in his office.
I flagged down a taxi and convinced him I could pay for a trip across town and into the suburbs. I kept my head back on the seat, trying not to think about the hunger pains in my stomach and the cuts on my back that were rubbing against the fabric of my shirt. I needed new clothes. A new sports bra. A whole lot of hydrogen peroxide on those cuts. And a long, glorious, hot shower.
When the taxi pulled up in front of my house, that same numbing feeling crept over me. Chase’s car wasn’t sitting in the driveway, but my parents’ old green minivan was. I ran in the house, calling out for them at the top of my lungs.
But the house was empty.
I took the steps two
at a time, grabbed a couple twenties from my emergency funds bank under my bed and ran back out to pay the driver. After he pulled away, I turned back to the house. Something in my memory didn’t fit.
My desk. My desk!
I ran back inside, taking the steps three at a time, feeling my leg muscles finally begin to truly wake up. In my bedroom, I sifted through the stacks of paper and old Hunger Games folders I’d been using for schoolwork. I lifted my laptop. I bent down and looked under the bed. I tore away the covers, then tossed aside the pillows, then checked the closet.
“No. No. No. No. No. No.”
My pen was gone.
“Chase,” I whispered, standing in the doorway of my closet and running a hand through my greasy hair. “Where did you leave it?”
There was only one other place I kept the pen: the top drawer of my desk. But Chase didn’t know about that. No one knew about that except Briar. Would Chase have just guessed?
I walked over to the desk, heart pounding, the combination of anxiety and hunger creating a pain in my stomach so deep and sharp that it forced me to double over just a bit. I reached out and opened the drawer.
No pen. Just a note.
Go to the library.
And be careful …
- Br’er Rabbit
Chapter 2
I stood in front of the clean kitchen countertop, spreading peanut butter over honey wheat bread. Be prepared. That’s what Briar had always told me. Too many heroes hadn’t bothered looking before they leapt, leaving Briar with numerous instances where he was forced to figure out a way to transport the magic pen from the corpse of a hero to someplace a little safer.
And through it all, the magic pen always finds its next victim.
There was no dwelling on that now. What mattered now was making sure Chase and my parents were safe, and then finding Briar.
And then … killing him? Can you do it?
I stopped spreading peanut butter. I stared absently into the chunky spread, wondering. Could I do it? Mentally, could I do it? Physically, could I do it? Briar was clever. He was fast. And what on earth would a Corrupted Briar look like?
Like your friend.
That was the thought that scared me most. What if Briar still looked like good old Briar, my trusty companion? My eyes burned with tears. I wiped them away with the palm of my hand and finished spreading the peanut butter, then added jelly and smushed the two pieces of bread together. I ate slowly, testing my stomach, aware of the weak feeling in my bones. My body, once a finely tuned iMac, had degraded in two days into a virus-laden, decade-old PC.
I picked up my phone and called Chase again. No answer, just like the last five times I’d called. I tried my parents. It was a long shot my dad would answer his phone—he could barely work it and it wasn’t even a smartphone—but my mom always answered hers. Instead, I got her voicemail.
Focus, hero! Focus on one thing at a time. Make sure you’re at your best.
More. I needed more energy. In the fridge was a little dish of leftover spaghetti and meatballs—my dad’s favorite meal to cook. The sauce was rich and the meatballs were made of ground chuck. Maybe not the healthiest of food, but perfect for a recently awakened sleeping beauty.
I heated it up and forked as much into my mouth at a time as possible, taking it with me back upstairs. I felt a nerve-rattling sense of urgency, pressing me to move faster, faster, faster.
And Briar’s voice, in my head, urging me to slow down. Patience. You’re no good if you show up exhausted and in pain. Whatever’s waiting for you at the library …
I went into the bathroom, setting the half-finished plate of spaghetti next to the sink. I jumped into the shower, soaping down my entire body and moving slowly across every cut I could find. The warm water soothed my eyes. Invigorated my skin. When I was finished, I grabbed the hydrogen peroxide from the cabinet under the sink. I stood in the bathtub and poured it down my back. The cuts tingled. Bubbles popped painfully on each wound like a pinprick.
Not too much … just enough to clean any dirt from the wounds. Remember, hydrogen peroxide can slow down the healing process.
“Good job, girl,” I told myself, turning the shower back on and rinsing off my back. “Way to keep your head on straight.”
I toweled off, finished the spaghetti, and went into the bedroom. I could feel the food settling in my stomach. The hunger pains were gone, but I wasn’t so full that I felt sluggish. The spaghetti and meat sauce had a good combination of protein and carbs; I began to feel my energy return almost immediately. Briar had been so careful about this … always making sure my diet was optimized for peak performance. Now all his advice seemed secondhand. Obvious.
I threw on a fresh pair of black yoga pants and a new sports bra and a violet tank top with a pair of black crows swooping down toward my waist. Comfortable but stylish. Normal-looking enough that I wouldn’t stand out in anyone’s memory if the crap hit the fan.
Back downstairs, I gulped down half a cup of milk. I took one last look around the empty house. There was still a folded brown blanket and two pillows sitting on the couch where Chase had slept all year. My parents had moved their bags of golf clubs into the living room—they’d probably been considering a golf outing when Chase had shown up two days ago and convinced them to leave. A DVD case sat on the coffee table: Lord of the Rings, a favorite of Seth and Briar.
Moreso than at any point since I’d first found the magic pen, I felt like I might never see this place again.
Outside, it was hot and overcast. The muggy air clung to my skin. I instinctively reached into my pocket, finding the Juniper seed instead of the magic pen. I pulled it out, listening to its soft song. The step-mother from the Orphanage of Doom had wanted this so bad, to bridge the gap between earth and the fairy tale world. The Corruption had no doubt convinced her it was a totally awesome idea, too.
I walked onto our front yard and knelt down in the grass. I used my fingers to dig into the soft earth, pulling away a chunk of grass and some black soil. I buried the seed, then covered it with dirt and went over to my mom’s little flower garden along the house, grabbing four red bricks and putting them around the seed. The sound disappeared.
There was nothing left to do. The food had settled in my stomach. My clothes were fresh. My wounds were as disinfected as they could be. My pen was missing. My left foot ached when I put pressure on the ball. My loved ones were missing.
Fight through this.
I started at a jog, breathing slowly, taking it easy for two blocks. I turned left at Parmenter Street, heading toward the library. My legs picked up the pace. My muscles tensed, then began to loosen as they warmed up. Adrenaline spread through my body. I felt compelled to run faster but a voice told me no, just keep this pace. There was no telling what was waiting for me at the library.
Chase. Mom. Dad.
Focus, hero. Deep breaths. Moderate pace. Use your head.
Cars passed me on the street, on to human destinations to engage in human activities and maybe end up solving very human problems. Kids fighting about a toy. Parents worrying about a car payment. The mailman, struggling to read someone’s bad handwriting.
Me, about to jump weaponless into certain danger. Me, thinking about nothing else than finding my loved ones and then hunting down the living manifestation of Death himself.
I reached the library, approaching slowly when I saw the middle-aged woman and her son at the front door. They were peering in through the glass, confused. When the mother saw me, she frowned and pointed to the front doors.
“The library’s open on Mondays usually, right? I mean, I’m not going crazy, am I?”
“You’re always crazy, mama,” said her son.
She shushed him. “Is it Sunday? I thought yesterday was Sunday.”
“It’s Monday,” I said. “You’re right. It’s supposed to be open right now.”
“Should we call someone?” She narrowed her eyes. “Wait, don’t you work here?”
“I’ll call the head librarian,” I said, thinking fast. “She wasn’t feeling well on Saturday.”
“Oh, that poor dear. Please just tell her to get well.” The mother pursed her lips. “But also tell her that people want the library open, too. So maybe someone else could show up tomorrow.”
I forced a smile. “I’ll do that.”
They returned to the red Toyota Camry parked in the parking lot. I smiled and gave a wave, doing my best to hide my dread—Mary’s little blue Prius was parked in the lot. And so was Fran’s much older station wagon.
“Come on,” I whispered through my smile, watching the mother very slowly pull out of the lot. “Put the pedal to the metal, lady.”
She turned onto the main road. From the backseat, her son gave me a little wave. I waved back, then fished the library key out of my pocket and unlocked the door, locking it behind me.
The lights were out. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, revealing only empty rows of shelves and an empty table of computers. A dozen books sat on the check-out desk, their glossy plastic dust jacket covers reflecting the sunlight.
Silence.
Not library silence, either. It was more of a creepy, waiting silence. All I needed were some soft violins playing somewhere and this could be a horror movie. The contents of Mary’s purse were spread out on the desk inside the little librarians’ office that she shared with Fran. Lipstick, keys, a napkin, a little blue wallet that looked decades-old. I reached out, flipping it open with my finger. Her money was still inside.
“Briar!” I whispered, looking around. How had he escaped? What condition was he in? And why the crap couldn’t he leave me a more detailed message?
“Nobody ever leaves me a simple, clear message,” I muttered, leaving the office and creeping over to the table with computers. I made a slow circle, checking all of the rows of bookcases. “The messages are always cryptic because hey, why not mess with the hero’s brain?”
The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4 Page 32