Two Chapters in one day! Would've made it one, but I didn't know I'd have more time to write 2day. Lolz. Thnx 2 every1 who reviewed! (MyriadofWillows, Amaya2525, & shortyguurl)
8D smiles
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"Hey! Whaddaya think you're doing, punk?" shouted a voice from one of the closed rooms down the hall.
Chuck started, then turned and walked down the hallway. "Hello, Mirror," he said, going into one of the many closed rooms.
"Oh, it's you." The chubby face in the mirror looked disappointed. "Been a long time since you've been around here," he continued resentfully. "Bet you're like Veronica and Henry and didn't want your kid, or is it kids? to grow up here. Why does no one like us, anyway?"
Chuck bit his lip, and looked at the face in the mirror, who, having finished his rant, was glaring at him. "Umm…I dunno."
"Well you ought to. After all, you're the one who decided to leave. You gotta have some kinda reason." Leaving him to think about that, the face in the mirror disappeared, leaving the surface of the silvery mirror blank except for the reflection of the room it was in.
While not quite as exciting as a magic mirror, the room itself was very unusual. It was piled full of different-sized boxes, with all sorts of books and strange gadgets overflowing from the boxes onto the floor. But just as Chuck was looking at all the things he remembered from his childhood in Ferryport Landing, the door swung open, and the elderly woman who had been playing Relda Grimm came in.
"Thought I might find you here, Charles," she said. "You haven't told her, have you?"
Avoiding the gaze of his grandmother's eyes, he shook his head.
"I understand why you did what you did. Heavens, Henry and I did the same ourselves. But you can't escape it. And do you think she won't find out?" Without saying any more, Veronica Grimm gave her grandson a quick hug, then went downstairs and rejoined the Mystery Club.
Chuck followed her down the stairs, then went outside for a walk in the woods. He had a lot to think about.
--
After spending the whole day with the mystery club, searching for clues all around Fairyport landing and researching and discussing their findings surrounded by Granny Relda's vast collection of Fairytale resources, Sasha was eating a sandwich that she thought was probably similar to grilled ham-and-cheese while browsing through the different books on the over-full bookshelves.
An hour or so earlier she had asked the nice woman who ran Granny Relda's when closing time was. The worker hadn't really answered her question, saying only, "Oh, you can stay as long as you want, hon. But if you want to go back to wherever you're staying after it gets dark, I'll drive you there. Wouldn't want the pixies to get you!"
Sasha had answered politely and thanked her for the offer, but she wondered if the old woman wasn't really a bit crazy. Seriously, pixies couldn't possibly be real. The little lights in the forest were only fireflies.
Suddenly, the title on the spine of a book bound in green leather jumped out at her, interrupted her reverie. "Charles Grimm: Fairytale Accounts" it read. Sasha gasped. She had seen similar books for Daphne, Sabrina, and Henry Grimm, but this one had the name of her very own dad on it. But they'd only come yesterday! This couldn't mean – or could it? – that everything in the books was true? Were Daphne and Sabrina related to her, Sasha Emily Grimm?
"Okay, Dad," she said under her breath. "You've got some questions to answer."
Before going out the door, she glanced out the window. She judged that it wasn't dark enough for pixies. A few minutes earlier she had been convinced they couldn't possibly exist. But now…
She raced out the door and to the Farmer's Cabin where she was staying with her dad, sure she would find him there, reading a book or writing a magazine article; probably by flashlight since the cabin didn't have electric light. Instead, when she arrived after what felt like years, she didn't find him in any of the cabin's three rooms. She even looked under both the beds and inside the pantry, not that he would be either of those places. She was just about to go outside to look for him elsewhere when the beam of her flashlight caught the foot of her dad's bed. On the footboard was the imprint of a blood-red hand.
"DAD!" she screamed "DADDY!"
She kept calling his name, and probably waking up everyone in Fairyport Landing until she was hoarse. Finally she sat down in the middle of the almost-empty cabin, and her screams turned to soft sobbing. She was alone, and what was worse, all the horrible Everafters, who had taken her dad and probably hated her too, were real. Really real.
