The Grimm Legacy

Andre ducked behind Jaya. “The birdie that got hurt,” he said, pointing. 

He was right. It was the bird from Mr. Stone’s. Its throat had stopped bleeding, but blood stained its feathers and its wing still lay at an impossible angle. It shrieked and shrieked. 

“Put down the globe, Jaya! I think that’s what’s making the bird scream,” I said. 

She dropped the globe on the grass and the light went out. The bird stopped shrieking, but it went on making soft growling noises. 

“Do you think touching the globe summons the bird?” Aaron asked. 

“Must be,” I said. “That poor bird looks terrible!” 

The bird was trembling. “The birdie got a big ouchie,” said Andre, still keeping Jaya safely between himself and the bird. 

I dipped my bandana in the fountain and used it to wipe away some of the blood. 

“What are you doing that for? It tried to kill us, remember?” said Aaron. 

“Can’t you see it’s in pain?” I rinsed the bandana and dabbed at the wound in the bird’s neck. It growled, but it didn’t bite me. “Nice birdie. There, there,” I said, washing its wounds. 

“Nice birdie? Way, way, way too nice, Elizabeth,” said Aaron. “Never mind the bird, let’s find that flower and disenchant Doc.” 

“Okay, here goes,” said Jaya. She flourished her dandelion like a stage magician’s wand, then tapped the globe with it. 

Nothing happened. 

“I guess it wasn’t a magic dandelion,” said Aaron. 

“You don’t know that,” said Jaya. “Maybe that’s just not what its magic does.” 

“Whatever,” said Aaron. “Let’s go find more flowers.” He walked off around one side of the fountain. 

I filled my water bottle at the fountain and poured some in the bird’s beak. I found an orange left over from lunch in my backpack and put it near the bird’s head. The bird snapped it up in three bites, peel and all, spurting juice on the grass. I shuddered to think what that beak might have done to my hand. 

“Hang in there, I’ll be back soon,” I told it. 

“Bye-bye, birdie,” said Andre, putting Marc down in Anjali’s shadow and taking my hand. 

The fountain spouted in four directions; each spout let out a torrent that turned into a stream. Ducking under the first one before it hit the ground, we went into the woods. It was fall there, like in the western Tiffany window —the perfect, peak-leaf October moment when every maple tree is aflame with orange and red. We found purple asters, and Indian paintbrushes with tall, fuzzy black stems that hurt my hands to break, and a rose. It smelled wonderful, but it didn’t disenchant Doc when we got back to the fountain and tried it. Neither did any of the others. 

The bird had gotten up and was perched on the edge of the fountain, its head tucked under its good wing. It seemed to be sleeping, which I took as a good sign. 

Next we went around behind the fountain, ducking under two torrents this time to the winter side. The stream from the fountain froze into complicated icicles. Shivering, we found witch hazel, winter sweet, and white, waxy bells on an evergreen. None of them disenchanted Doc. The bird didn’t wake up when we hit the crystal ball with a flower and made the ball flash light—it just stirred uneasily on its perch. 

“Any luck?” asked Jaya, coming back from the spring sector with her arms full of daffodils and crocuses, tulips, branches of forsythia, and hot-pink azaleas. 

I shook my head. 

Aaron came back from his search with armloads of summer flowers, which he tossed on the grass beside the globe. He started poking it systematically. 

“Roses don’t work,” I told him helpfully. 

“Oh. You can have this one, then.” He thrust the rose he’d been hitting the crystal ball with under my nose and wiggled it. 

“Stop it! That tickles!” I said, shaking my head to get away. 

He went on wiggling the rose. I grabbed his wrist. He twisted it away from me. “Hold still,” he said, and tucked the rose in my hair. 

“Thanks,” I said. 

“Will you guys quit it with the mushy stuff and concentrate?” said Jaya. 

“What mushy stuff?” 

“Just test the flowers already.” 

None of them worked. 

“I guess we better go find more,” said Aaron. 

Andre had gone back to playing with the grass near the fountain. “Pretty flower,” he said, waving a minty- looking weed with tiny white blossoms on a tall stalk. 

It wasn’t particularly pretty, in fact. I doubt I would have noticed it myself. 

“What’ve you got there, Andre?” asked Jaya. 

“My turn,” he said. He ran over to the crystal ball and thumped it with the flower upside down in his fist. 

The bird gave a loud squawk. The ball burst open like a popped bubble. Drops flew everywhere and sprayed the grass. Doc sprang upward like a spaghetti pot boiling over, regaining full size so fast that I could barely see it happening. 

“I popped the ball!” said Andre. 

“Well done, young Merritt,” said Doc. “Circaea lutetiana, yes? Enchanter’s nightshade?” 

Andre nodded solemnly. 

“Thank you. I was getting very uncomfortable in there.” 

“Wow! Way to go, Andre!” I exclaimed. “Welcome back, Doc. Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I think so, thank you. You’ve brought the kuduo, I see. Good job! Ah, and there are Anjali and Marc. He makes a great-looking mrammuo, doesn’t he?” 

“What’s a mrammuo?” I asked. 

“An Akan brass weight. The Akan people measured their gold by weighing it against mrammuos, brass weights in the shape of men and animals, so naturally one of their princes would take that form. Interesting subject, the gong beater. A symbol of dutiful public service. I wonder if it’s prophetic?” 

Something was different about Doc’s face, but I couldn’t figure out what. “How did you get stuck in that bubble?” I asked. 

“Someone trapped me.” 

“But who?” 

“I didn’t see—they came up behind me. One of the librarians, I think. I was in my office.” 

“So Mr. Stone was right! He told us not to trust the librarians. He told us not to trust you,” I said. 

“I bet it’s Ms. Minnian,” said Aaron. 

“Why,” I said, “because she wears her hair in a bun?” 

“Because she never smiles.” 

“I would hate to think it was Lucy—or Martha, or any of them,” said Doc. “But I’m afraid it probably is. I imagine Wallace Stone had some hold over whoever it was.” 

I stared at Doc’s face. Doc’s freckles! That was what was different—they were gone. 

“We’re safe here for the moment,” continued Doc, freckle free. “Let’s deal with Anjali and Marc first.” 

“Let me do it,” said Andre. He ran over to the brass figurine and hit it with the enchanter’s nightshade. Nothing happened. 

“Good try, Andre, but it’s not that kind of spell,” said Doc. 

“Enchanted princes and princesses are a special case.” 

“How do we disenchant them?” I asked. 

“The customary method is the Kiss of True Love.” 

Aaron and I looked at each other. “You better kiss Anjali,” I said.