Now, wasn't that wonderful children? Jakob and Frederick defeated the evil witch together and all the girls were set free! My yes, Jakob and Katherine are very happy together. Oh, I remember him like it was yesterday! He was so gentle and ever so clever. You know, I...Oh please forgive me, I've quite gotten off track now haven't I? Wilhelm? Not to worry, I'll tell you what happened to him soon enough, but now comes that part of the story about how they all got home and how they found out about...

The 97 Bridegrooms

The sun had set by the time all the girls had been freed and a large; full moon was rising in the East. Frederick had finally found his Princess and he was wearing a permanent blush as she gushed over him for being her hero.

Jakob had thrown open the front doors of the castle and all the girls came pouring out into the moonlight. He explained that they were going to have to travel through the forest at night in order to reach the enchanted lake, for he had a promise to fulfill before taking them all home. How he was going to get them all home in time to save his brother he wasn't sure, but he'd had faith that he would finish the task. Now he had to have faith that all would work out in the end. Jake knew Will would have called him seven kinds of fool about now for not planning an exit strategy, but he would just have to make do.

"I've spread those lentils I had in my pack to mark the way back to the lake", he told Kate, "but even in the bright full moon we have at our disposal this evening, I'm not sure I'll be able to see them."

"Don't worry", she replied, "my eyes are sharp. I'm sure I can follow the trail."

Jakob and Katherine wandered about for a few moments until he was sure he had found the place where he had left the forest to go in search of the alternative entrance and Kate began to look for the trail of lentils. After picking their way around for a few minutes, Jake stopped cold in his tracks and grabbed Kate by the arm to get her attention.

"Kate, look!" he said pointing ahead.

A wonder met their eyes. Long, silvery, green vines had sprung up and marked the trail through the forest in the moonlight. Jakob knelt down to touch them to make sure they were real.

"The lentils, they've sprouted in the moonlight", said Kate in awe as she knelt beside him.

The girls all pointed at them and murmured amongst themselves surprised to see the wondrous sight.

"Magic beans!" she whispered, "Oh Jakob, it's wonderful!" She reached up and gave him a quick hug, "Such amazing things always seem to happen around you!"

"Amazing things happen every day", he said smiling as he gently touched her cheek, "all you have to do is open your eyes and look for them."

Jakob couldn't believe it. Will had told him his entire life that there was no such thing usually punctuated with some sort of physical exclamation, but there they were, right before his very eyes. To top it off, he had over a hundred witnesses to back it up! Now what would his brother have to say about all this, he wondered. He rose and called to Frederick.

"We will have to follow the trail of vines through the forest to get back to the lake, but we must hurry and get there before the moon sets", he explained, "If these truly are magic and I suspect they are, they will no longer be there when the sun rises and we will be lost in these woods."

He told Frederick to spread the word among the girls, so he lined them up counting them off ten at a time, then Fred brought up the rear to make sure no one wandered off the trail. With Jake and Kate in the lead, they made their way back to the lake as quickly as they could.

They arrived at the lake just as the moon was setting and the thick, white mist still surrounded it giving it an other worldly glow. They were all grateful that the clearing was warm for the forest at night had been terribly cold. As they sat and rested, waiting for the sunrise Jakob told them all the story of everything that had happened up till then with Frederick adding some things in to make himself look brave in front of the Princess.

When the sun had finally risen, they found that the geese were back again surrounding them as if they were protecting them. Soon the geese began waddling in and out amongst the girls, honking and flapping their wings. Jakob still wasn't clear on why they needed to come back to this particular place or what to do about the geese. The one thing he did know was today was the day that he desperately needed to be back at the castle with the Princess in order to stop his brother's execution.

"What am I supposed to do now", Jakob lamented in the midst of the confusion, "The castle is several days journey away, we'll never get there in time and I have no idea what to do about these incredibly noisy geese! Gah! I can't think with all this going on!"

"What about the little man you told us about?" offered Frederick, "As I recall from your story, don't you have one wish left?"

"Your right Fred", said Katherine, "Jakob, you could ask the little man to send us all home!"

"Why of course, the blue light", said Jake as if it were obvious. He was feeling a bit stupid for not thinking of it himself.

He reached into his satchel, pulled out the glass box and opened the latch. The little man promptly appeared in front of them. Kate and Fred were amazed at this and the girls closest to them gasped and back away at the sudden appearance of the ugly little man dressed in black.

"What is your final wish Master?" the little man asked.

Jakob carefully phrased the wish that he would like to have them all safely returned to the Princess' castle.

"Very good Master", the little man replied, "but first there is something that you must to do in order to return."

Jakob had learned it was best to do as the little man said and not be thick about it in order for the wish to work properly, so he listened carefully.

"First each girl must pick out one goose from the flock and be sure to tuck it under their arm well, so as not to have it fly free. Present company accepted of course", he instructed nodding at Katherine, "Then I will instruct you further as to what to do next."

The girls did as they were told. Jake expected this to be an exercise in chaos, however it went rather smoothly and it almost appeared that each goose was making them self available to one particular girl. In the end they had all caught a goose save the Princess and a young blond girl named Greta. Standing before them were a total of ninety-seven pairs of girl and goose.

"Don't worry my dears", he said to Greta and the Princess, "your turn will come soon enough."

He surveyed the girls with their geese and then in a very flat, matter-of-fact tone he said, "You must all now kiss your goose."

This order was met with protest dispersed with girlish giggles. None of them wished to do so as complaints that the geese were ugly and smelled of the fishy water from the lake were heard, Jakob rubbing his hand on the back of his neck turned and looked over his glasses at Kate with a bemused smile trying to keep from laughing at all these silly girls. He had begun to catch on to what the little man was doing and he knew that breaking spells sometimes required doing something that you would not normally be happy about doing, but that was the whole point. Sometimes you have to do the hard thing to get what you desire.

"I suggest you get on with it or we will be stuck here forever", cautioned the little man.

All of the girls were still balking at the idea of kissing a goose except for one girl who just wanted to get this over with and return home. Upon kissing the goose she held under her arm, a wonderful thing happened. Instantly a handsome young lad stood before her with a smile as bright as the sun above. The girl was thrilled with her new beau and they instantly took to each other. When the others saw what had happened, they all began kissing their geese and each soon had their own handsome young man to call their own.

Everyone seemed happy with this turn of events except for Greta and she had begun to cry because she had no one of her own. 'Poor thing', thought Frederick as he came to comfort her.

"Oh don't cry", he said as he took he hands in his, "There will be someone who's meant just for you that will come along soon, I'm sure of it! Someone as pretty as you are couldn't be left alone for very long."

Greta smiled at Fred and it seemed the longer they talked, the more enamored of each other they were becoming. Katherine held onto Jakob's arm, gave it a squeeze and smiled as she watched them. Jake put his hand on hers and smiled as well. He knew that wonderful feeling they were discovering very well indeed. However, the Princess could only frown at seeing her childhood love with another even though she knew they could never be together because of their different stations in life. She supposed that when she returned, she would have to resign herself to marrying whomever it was her father had chosen and that would be that.

"As you can see", explained the little man, "these are the young men who set out to rescue these lovely young maidens. The witch had them turned into geese and put then here so they couldn't escape then she could have her pick and eat them later. However, with the three of you causing her such a distraction, she had quite forgotten about them. Now if you're ready to go, I believe it's time to return you to your home and in doing so fulfill the final wish."

The little man instructed them to all gather together as closely as they could, at least as close as two hundred people could and as they did the mist from the lake filled the clearing becoming thicker and thicker. Jakob and Katherine held onto each other tightly not wanting to risk loosing site of each other again and soon the thick mist had engulfed them all. In only a few short moments, the mist began to fade once again and they found that they were all standing in front of the drawbridge of the Princess' castle.

"My job is now complete and all of your wishes have been granted", said the little man to Jake, "I only have one thing to request of you and that is that you give me the glass box that contains the blue light which once held me prisoner."

Jakob took the box from his satchel, handed to the little man with a gracious bow and thanked him for all of the help he had given him along the way.

"Your thanks are appreciated Herr Grimm, but it was a duty I little choice but to perform being at the mercy of the magic of the blue light", the little man replied taking the box, "However, I would have gladly done so even without it for reasons you do not yet fully understand."

"Would it be rude of me to ask just what those reasons might be?" asked Jakob, curious to add to his notes so as to make the little man's story more complete when he wrote it.

"You shall soon see", he replied, "but I do believe you have some more important business to attend to at the moment, do you not?"

It now occurred to Jakob as he listened to the church bells chime a quarter past eleven that the drawbridge to the castle had not yet been opened as they should have and he wasn't sure why they hadn't. Had something gone wrong in breaking the witch's spell over the land or was the King proceeding with the execution beyond the door not knowing it was over? He had to get in before it was too late and he had to find a way to get someone's attention inside.

Jakob looked around him for something that would help him make enough noise to be heard inside through the thick wooden door. He found it in a pile of hand sized stones that were left over from the construction of a short garden wall. He thanked God the stone masons had been lax in cleaning up after themselves on that particular project and picked up one of the stones. Jake hurled it at the drawbridge with all his might and it landed with a loud "thonk!" against the wood.

"Hello!" he shouted as loudly as he could and he picked up another stone and tossed it as he did the first. "Hello!"

All of the others followed suit tossing the stones and began shouting, resulting in raising quite a ruckus in front of the castle. The inhabitance would have to have been deaf or dead not to hear. Jakob just hoped that when they opened the drawbridge it wouldn't be too late.

**********

"Seize him!!" demanded the King.

Two guards scooped up Will under the arms and somewhat roughly escorted him before the throne.

"Well, well, well, It seems your brother has failed", said the Chamberlain sounding very self-satisfied, "As I said before your Majesty, nothing but conmen!"

"Very well", said the King solemnly as his hands formed a steeple before him, "Wilhelm Karl Grimm, you are hereby sentenced to be-headed on this day for your failure to honor your obligation to the Crown."

"What? No!" Wilhelm yelled as sheer panic set in. He desperately looked around the room for help, but none was forthcoming. The men stood silent looking at their boots and the young girls huddled in a tight group crying and wailing into their lace handkerchiefs. The poor Lady Rosalind could do nothing but watch her new found love wait to meet his fate all the while leaning on her lady-in-waiting as if she were about to collapse at any moment.

There was a deep silence in the room as a large chopping block was brought in and placed in the center of the room. This was followed by the executioner, a man who was well over six feet tall with broad shoulders and muscular arms. He wore a black hood and was carrying a rather large, sharp and nasty looking axe. The girls wailed loudly at the sight and poor Lady Rosalind promptly fainted causing a stir in the crowd as some of the courtiers rushed to help her.

"Such a dreary business, what?" said the King as he yawned nonchalantly.

The Chamberlain nodded in reply with an extremely evil grin upon his face. As far as he was concerned Wilhelm was just another castle pest and he couldn't wait to be rid of him.

"Proceed!" declared the King.

Will's hands were bound behind his back and as he was pushed down onto the block, the room became deathly silent.

"Stretch him out well", ordered the executioner in a rather deep basso voice that matched his size.

One guard stepped up behind Will and pulled back on his arms while another stood in front grabbing two handfuls of hair and pulled forward, baring his neck fully extended. Will squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced trying to wiggle free, but it did no good. One of the young girls screamed and another fainted joining the Lady on the floor. The executioner spread is legs to center his weight and leaning the axe on one leg, he spit on his hands to better his grip. Taking good hold of the axe, the executioner raised it above his head and brought it back down to touch Will's neck in order to take good aim, then raising it high in the air above his head, he readied for the final blow.

Yes, I know, cliffhanger again. Sorry about that, but it just happened that the chapters had to be broken up that way. Anyway, we're down to the wire and there are only two chapters left! I hope you liked this chapter and the rest of the story as well. I'd love to hear what you think, so reviews are always welcome.