Authors' Note: Hey, guys. Sorry for not updating; we got caught up in Christmas stuff. Hope you all had a nice Christmas/ Holiday. Don't forget to review!HAPPY NEW YEAR! Even if you were forced into celebrating.
Chapter 25
The day after was more interesting, as it turned out.
It started out normally, with me walking into the kitchen. Sabrina and Puck were arguing about something really random, Red was eating a bowl of cereal, and Daphne… well, it looked like she was dancing, but had blissed out of reality and spilled tea all over the floor. I coughed loudly. Daphne snapped into reality and Sabrina stopped arguing with Puck.
"Oh, hi Basil," Daphne greeted. "Are you coming with us today?"
I looked at her, a little confused. "Why wouldn't I?"
"You had a weird look on your face yesterday," Sabrina explained. "A few minutes after we walked into the house, you started blushing and started avoiding eye contact."
"It was worse than when Sabrina used to say she hated Puck," Daphne giggled. Sabrina and Puck shot each other death glares.
Meanwhile, I probably had the same expression as yesterday. Was my face really that obvious? Luckily, the phone rang from the living room, giving me an excuse to leave the room.
"Hello?" I asked, answering it.
"Basil? It's me. Is anyone else there with you?"
"Uh, yeah. Sabrina, Puck, Daphne, and Red. Why?"
"Because I found some possibilities on what was used to kill her," she told me.
"It was a knife," I said, thinking that this should have been obvious. Rose sighed into the phone to emphasize this.
"I meant how the murderer could kill her with no one noticing."
"Ah." I thought for a second. "So, remember at your party, how we kiss—"
"Basil, I wanted to kiss you. I'm pretty sure you wanted to kiss me; is there anything else we need to say?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "So, if I like you and you like me, then where do we go from there?"
"Basil, who are you talking to?" Daphne walked into the living room.
"Rose," I told her, slightly annoyed. She had really terrible timing. I handed her the phone.
"Hi Rose," Daphne greeted cheerfully. "Did you find anything?" She and Rose talked for a few minutes. I didn't quite catch most of it, but whatever they were saying, it sounded pretty serious. "Mh-hmm," said Daphne after a while. She hung up. "Well, today should be interesting."
"Interesting like something cool, or interesting like something weird's going to happen?" I asked her.
"A little of both," she winked at me, and went into the kitchen.
..~0~..
A few minutes later, Daphne, Sabrina, Puck, and I were, once again, in the car heading to Rose's house.
"Where are Mom and Dad?" I wondered. "Aren't they supposed to yell at us for barging into a murder investigation?"
"Antiquing. And Uncle Jake and Canis are trying to track down some magical objects that we've lost over the years," explained Daphne.
"Yeah, that should take a while. At least a month," said Puck. "I think we've lost, like, half the old lady's original collection."
I wonder what they did when they first got here. They seemed to have single-handedly screwed up, saved, and generally caused annoyance to the entire town.
"Oh good, we're here," I said. The place was empty after all the confusion of yesterday. Rose opened the door for us and led us up a flight of stairs. We went into a spare bedroom, where Rose pulled a book off a shelf. The shelf moved, revealing a hidden flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was a long corridor. At the end of it, there was a painting of a castle. Rose pushed aside the painting and there was another room. Mr. and Mrs. Charming were sitting there, waiting for us.
It seemed to be a very old-fashioned sitting room. "Sit down," said Rose, gesturing to the velvety sofas.
"What's with all the secret passageways?" commented Sabrina.
"Didn't want to be overheard," explained Mrs. Charming.
"Okay, now what did you find?" asked Daphne.
"This," said Rose. She held out a small sprocket. "I found this in the corner of the room where Sophie was murdered. Look at what's on it."
"H-G-W," read Sabrina, looking at it closely. "Wait. The HGW?"
"I think so," confirmed Rose.
Sabrina, Daphne, Rose, her parents, and even Puck seemed to know what this meant. "Who's HGW?" I asked.
"H.G. Wells. You know, the science fiction author?" prompted Rose.
"Oh. Wait, his books were real, too?"
"Of course, stupid boy," said Mr. Charming. For some reason, his British accent made it sound more insulting.
"Anyway," continued Rose, "I thought about it for a long time, and finally realized that the only way to kill someone that quickly… well, you'd have to mess with time, wouldn't you? So I looked into some accounts of time-traveling stories. The more recent stories are mostly made up, so I tried looking at the older ones. Well, H.G. Wells was one of the first sci-fi authors, so I looked at his books. And I found the sprocket, and well... the Time Machine just fit the description of it all." She finished and sat there, waiting for us to say something. Wow, she was smart.
"So they have a time machine now? Cool," said Puck enthusiastically. Sabrina rolled her eyes.
"Time machines are serious business, though," said Mrs. Charming, frowning slightly. "If the Scarlet Hand has one, then that gives them a huge advantage. They could change the entire timeline and create some kind of alternate universe."
Oh, damn. That's not good. But I have another question. "That's bad. But we're missing an important question: Why did they bother to do this to Sophie? From what I hear, they're not the type to just randomly kill someone for no reason and risk being caught."
"You're right, Basil, they're not," said Sabrina. She exchanged a glance with Daphne. Daphne smirked. I found this a little strange, because Daphne wasn't really the smirking type.
"You mean, we get to—"
"Yes."
"Would you please tell the rest of us what you're talking about?" Rose asked. "We're not exactly in sync with your secret code."
"Breaking and entering," said Sabrina and Daphne at exactly the same time.
..~0~..
"Okay, so here's the plan," said Sabrina. "We pick the lock, read anything personal, and then get out as soon as possible."
"Isn't this kind of… I don't know, wrong?" I asked. It was the middle of the night, and Sabrina, Puck, Daphne, and I were hiding in the bushes near Sophie's house. Yeah, this isn't weird at all.
"No," Puck replied. I wasn't too sure about this. I mean, I wanted to go, but breaking into a dead girl's house (Which had been declared a 'no-access area' by the police) and reading her personal stuff sounded a bit illegal.
But I kind of felt like I had to prove myself, because when you think about it, I hadn't actually done anything yet. Not the kind of things Grimms are supposed to do.
Puck picked the lock on the back door in approximately two seconds. "Come on," he said.
"Hey, is that a new record?" asked Sabrina. "Usually, it takes four seconds." I found this disturbing. I wondered how many houses they had broken into.
We went in, and the place was covered in yellow 'Caution' tape. Daphne pulled out a small, floating glass ball. She squeezed it, and it lit up.
"Nice, where'd you get that?" asked Sabrina.
"A yard sale, actually. One of the witches in Macbeth was selling a magic potion, and I poured it onto this ball, and now it lights up!"
"Interesting. Why don't we split up?" asked Sabrina.
"Isn't that what they do in horror movies when there's a blackout, right before a psychopath comes and brutally murders the idiots who decided to make out in the dark?" Puck pointed out.
"Well, we'll just split you and Sabrina up," answered Daphne. "I'll go with Sabrina, and you can go with Basil. We'll search upstairs, and you can look around down here, or maybe in the basement."
"Sounds good," whispered Sabrina. "And does the word 'stealthy' mean anything to you people? Haven't you ever broken into a house before?"
Daphne and Puck mumbled in agreement. I felt kind of awkward.
Sabrina and Daphne tiptoed upstairs, taking the light with them, and I was left alone with Puck. "Okay, we'll check the kitchen. Oh, and try to be quiet."
I followed him into the kitchen. "What are we looking for?"
"Anything, really. Hopefully some cookies."
"Why do we need cookies?"
"We can't look for clues on an empty stomach." He opened one of the white cabinets and poked around. I didn't know how he could see anything, since it was so dark, but he somehow managed to find a package of Oreos. "Jackpot!" he whispered.
"I thought you were a dentist. Shouldn't you be discouraging this?" I wondered.
"If not for these, kid, I wouldn't have any business. Want one?"
I took the cookie. "Should we look for actual clues now?"
"Yeah, sure."
I ignored him and left the kitchen. I wandered around blindly in the dark, looking for something that could help. Something… anything... then I tripped. I landed near a sofa. Not on it, next to it. This turns out to be a good thing, because I noticed something underneath the sofa. I pulled it out, and found a laptop.
"Hey, I think I found something!" I said to an empty room. "Hello? Puck?"
"What?" he replied, coming into the room. He must have had good night vision, because he didn't fall and land on his face.
"I found a laptop!"
"That's nice. We'll show it to—"
The rest of his sentence was cut off by either Sabrina or Daphne screaming.
End of Chapter
Sorry for not updating, we've been busy. And don't worry, we're not going on an eternal hiatus again. The next chapter should be up in less than a week.
Lea and Cal Read Reviews
NoraeKaye: Basil and Rose aren't really going to be like Puckabrina. There's a lot less denial. It's just not in either of them to be mysterious about what they think. Basil's calm, Rose is outgoing and bubbly. And you're writing a book? Cool. Hope it turns out well. Thanks for the compliments.
RockSuperstar: Your theory about Rose fascinates me. Excuse me as I stroke my fake beard in interest. And Snow White and Charming are perfect for each other. We're just trying to look at it from Basil's POV, because he wasn't there through most of the books. So he would probably see it differently. That's also why we have Puck and Sabrina's relationship so… casual. See, he's not really around when they're romantic, so he doesn't get that part of their relationship. We know it's not much of an excuse, but still. It won't be that way forever, though.
ANannyMouse: Yeah, we really had to get the plot rolling. And we're so glad you appreciated it, we've been trying for so long.
The Flamer: What do you mean, we have nothing in common? Isn't a hate for Jerry Spinelli enough? You are very creative with your insults, I have to say. But if our writing really makes you want to gouge your eyes out, please don't read it. As much as we enjoy irritating you, we really don't want you dead.
GreekHuntress: I have a friend who read Maniac Magee and hated it. I loved Stargirl, I wanted to cry at the end. Oh, and good guess with the time-traveling thing.