A/N: I have returned from the evils of sleeping under canvas ready to write new chapters! I'm really sorry this took so long, and you'll probably have a long wait until Chapter Twelve, as I'm off to Spain for a week.

To ttoes555: I'm sorry you found last chapter boring, it is important in the grand scheme of things, and tells you a lot about both Sabrina and Charlotte.

To obsessedwithbooks: I realised that after going through the seventh book again, but I'm going to keep her green-eyed in my story because it's one detail in the last book, and up until then, I'd always thought of her as green-eyed.

Thanks to DeDe and Scadenfreude62 for more fantastic reviews.

Chapter Eleven

"Charlotte?" Sabrina said hesitantly,

The older girl looked up from her book, "Yes?" she replied, swinging her legs down from the window-seat where she was perched, and patting the space beside her. Sabrina obediently sat on the soft cushion. She didn't want Charlotte to be irritated before she'd even begun to ask questions that would probably annoy her to the point of wanting to kick her out of the room.

"At the beach, Chandra told me I don't trust people enough. Why does everyone think that?" Sabrina asked. At one point or another during all her adventures, someone, be it her sister, her grandmother, or Puck, had said this to her. Now, she wanted to know why.

Charlotte smiled wryly, "I was wondering when you'd pluck up the courage to ask me that. I thought he'd put you off asking me any questions ever again. I'm secretive, sure, but I need your trust more than I need my secrets. To answer your question, I've been watching you for your uncle since before you came to Ferryport Landing. Time after time, you saved both your sister and yourself from the cruel, the evil, even the insane foster parents that psycho social worker sent you to. You were so brave, far braver than I could have been in such circumstances.

However, as I watched you drift from foster home to foster home, I could see you change, getting more and more mistrustful of those who offered you help. When your grandmother brought you to Ferryport Landing, you were too suspicious to be able to settle in properly, so you've had trouble dealing with the mysteries you've discovered there," she sighed, twisting a lock of her mahogany hair round her finger, "I won't pretend I know everything about you, but I do know that you can't carry on without trusting anyone. I know you aren't a lost cause, Sabrina. You can trust people, you just don't want to."

"How do you know?" Sabrina whispered. The other girl's words were painful to hear, but she could see the truth in them. She didn't want to trust people anymore; she felt the pain too much when they betrayed her. So how could the other girl maintain such belief in her?

"Do you remember when I saved you from being made into a mirror guardian?" Sabrina nodded as Charlotte continued, "You didn't know anything about me, but you took my hand and trusted me anyway."

"I can't…" she murmured, "Too many people left me. What if you abandoned me after I trusted you?"

"I won't abandon you. Never," Charlotte said, fiercely,

"Why not?" Sabrina asked, feeling like a child,

"It's a long story," she began, wrapping her arms around herself, "When I was twelve, I met a boy at school who basically seemed perfect. He adored me and all my friends were jealous. Pretty soon, he was the most important thing in my life.

Then I came home to find my parents dying. I didn't want to believe it at first, but he killed them. He was a member of the Scarlet Hand, an Everafter. His dad was Bluebeard; they share similar… tastes." Her sapphire eyes were glassy, as if the words flowing from her lips were coming from a place outside her mind,

"Tastes?" Sabrina asked in as hushed a voice as she could, not wanting to break the strange spell Charlotte seemed to be under.

"He had charisma that was supernatural. He could make almost any girl on Earth fall for him with a smile. I fell for that smile, and so did so, so many other girls. It was the smile that killed them, the smile that could have killed me. He took everything they had, so that they thought he was the only thing they had in the world, and then killed them. Sometimes, if they were particularly interesting to him, he'd toy with them, like a cat with a mouse.

Those were the ones who had it worst. He'd set them on the road to what seemed like a happy ending for them, maybe even propose, but kill them just before the wedding. That would have been my fate, if I hadn't got home before my parents died, and if my mother hadn't told me to call Rhiannon. If I'd arrived to find them already dead, he would have turned up and pretended to be my rescuer, only to kill me too, eventually," she said. Her voice was dull, as though she were only reading the bitter words off a page. It was by far more terrible than when she had wept over them, as though the electric spark of life inside her had died. This dreadful emptiness seemed to be something that could be neither healed nor comforted.

"Oh, Charlotte," she whispered, knowing now why the older girl had shown her such understanding when she first arrived. Gently, she placed a hand on her arm.

"You're probably wondering what this has to do with your question…" Charlotte said, her voice slightly more animated than it had been while telling her tale.

"A bit," Sabrina admitted, sheepishly,

"I've never had anyone to whom I could tell this whole story to before. I left my friends in London behind when my parents died. Most of the people here are lovely, but I can't tell them that I not only led the wolf to my door, I let him in and laid him a place at the table. Sure, they'd nod and smile, but secretly they'd wonder how I could possibly be such an idiot. Rhiannon was my mother's best friend, she'd be heartbroken if she realised that her daughter of all people was responsible for her death. Meera's sweet, but she's always sunny and bright. She can't be unhappy; it's not in her nature. As for Chandra… He'd try to tell me it wasn't my fault, even partially. He always believes the best of me," She smiled crookedly, "He deserves a lot better than a messed-up girl like me, and until I can de-mess myself, the best I can do is be his friend, nothing more.

As you can probably tell, I've been feeling very lonely, so you were kind of a combination of the sister I never had, and an imaginary best friend. When ever I felt like an outcast, I'd get Meera to show me you. Sometimes, if you weren't in trouble yourself, I'd talk to you. I know it sounds crazy, that the person who I thought of as my best friend didn't know of my existence until two days ago but I needed someone who wouldn't just listen to me out of pity or affection, but who would just understand. Somehow, I get the idea you need the same thing," she sighed. Sabrina didn't know what to say. The closest thing she'd had to a friend in Ferryport Landing had been Puck. But did she really want to be friends with the girl who even a boy who was in love with her called 'messed up'? The answer shocked her with its strength: Yes. No matter how messed up Charlotte Perrault was, Sabrina could tell that she'd make a good friend.

However, as she opened her mouth to say these words, a loud shriek startled them, making them jump to their feet. Charlotte immediately began running down the staircase. Sabrina followed her quickly, first down the spiral steps, then along a corridor. The screaming continued, growing louder and louder with each step they took. Suddenly, Charlotte threw open a door to reveal a wild-eyed young woman knelt on the floor of a dark bedroom. The agonised howls were coming from her mouth, sounding as though she were in terrible pain. She was shaking hard, her breath coming in loud gasps. Charlotte knelt beside her, trying to soothe her cries. Sabrina joined her, but the two girls could do nothing to calm her. If anything, the shaking grew worse, and the screams that seemed to tear her throat apart grew hoarser.

Suddenly, gentle hands took hold of Sabrina's shoulders, tugging her and Charlotte away from the woman. It was Rhiannon, her hazel-gold eyes worried. She took Sabrina's place, her long, copper hair half-shielding the woman from the younger girl. In Charlotte's, Chandra knelt. Craning her neck, Sabrina could see that the screaming woman had collapsed backwards, so that her head was rested on Rhiannon's lap. The flame-haired woman lifted her head up with one arm, while with the other hand she tipped a flask of lilac liquid down her throat. Immediately, the woman's trembling and screaming ceased, her entire body going limp. Rhiannon gently lowered her head back to the floor. Then she stood back with Sabrina and Charlotte.

"Charlotte, you and Sabrina don't need to be here," she whispered to them, as they watched the now quiet woman's eyes flicker,

"Chandra needs me!" Charlotte argued,

"And Sabrina?" Rhiannon half-smiled at her charge's argumentative ways. Charlotte stood on her toes to whisper something too quiet for Sabrina to her, "Oh, I see. Stay for the time being, then."

The woman on the floor suddenly groaned, hauling herself upright.

Chandra asked the woman something anxiously in a strange language, taking one of her hands in his as though she was incredibly breakable. Sabrina realised with a gasp that this must be Chandra's mother. 'Poor Chandra!'' she thought

The woman replied in the same language, as calmly as if she hadn't been screaming her head off a few moments ago, so calmly that you might believe she had never screamed so in her life.

"She wants to know who we are," Rhiannon translated, though her eyes never moved from the mother and son speaking rapidly in a language Sabrina and Charlotte could not understand. In the next sentence Chandra spoke, Sabrina heard her own name, Charlotte's, and Rhiannon's. His mother replied with curious glances at the teenage girls.

Chandra nodded to her, before looking at the girls, "She wants to read your fortunes, Sabrina first," Sabrina cautiously took a few steps towards the woman. She was afraid to go near her; it wasn't as though she had any experiences that would make her even slightly at home around the mentally unstable, "Remember what I said about trust, Sabrina. You don't believe Charlotte and I would let her hurt you, do you?" Chandra said softly, moving aside. This reassured her slightly. Charlotte gave her a gentle push, making her stumble the last few steps towards the woman. She knelt so their faces were level. The woman held up her hands so that her palms were facing towards Sabrina. Carefully, Sabrina placed her palms against them as though they were playing a clapping game.

"You are Sabrina Grimm?" the woman asked, in hesitant, thickly accented English. Sabrina nodded, "Good. Hear what I say, girl, and remember well." He voice changed suddenly, as if there were a choir of angels in her throat.

"To survive the darkness, you must remember three things,

First, the princess is not dead, but sleeping, to be woken by birdsong,

Second, fear of the flames will make you follow in your namesake's steps,

Third, the words of foxes are the sweetest poison, but love can conquer death."

Sabrina gasped, pulling her hands back as though she had been stung. She sprang to her feet, and ran from the room, not waiting to here Charlotte's fortune. Something about the woman's mysterious words had chilled her to the bone with fear.

She fled up the spiral staircase, collapsing on her bed in Charlotte's room. 'This is stupid!'' she thought, furiously, 'I'm getting freaked out about something a lunatic said to me.' All the same, she stayed curled on the bed until her heart-rate had gone back to normal.

She made her way back down the stairs to find Charlotte. She didn't have to look far, as she and Chandra were stood in the corridor below the stairs. He was holding her close, as strangulated sobs tore from her throat. He stroked her hair gently. Looking up, he saw Sabrina leaning over the banisters, watching them. He beckoned her down.

"Why is she crying?" Sabrina asked him, as Charlotte was too tearful to speak,

"Her prophecy," Chandra replied. His voice and face were more solemn than she had ever seen anyone before, "Read this. I don't think I can say it aloud."

He handed her a scrap of paper covered in scrawling handwriting. It read:

Brave maiden, death has dogged your footsteps for two years, and now it draws closer,

You will leave your home and those who love you on a great journey,

You will save many lives, and prove yourself a heroine many times over,

Yet you sacrifice yourself for another,

You will suffer great torment,

And you will murder and die before the autumn comes.