Chapter Fifteen

Dinner Talk

Lorita walked slowly away from Jakob's house that evening, subdued by the day's events. As Wilhelm had requested, she had told Jakob that it would be best not to go near his brother for at least a few days, possibly longer. Jakob had not taken kindly to the news, continuing his ranting that it was all nonsense until Angelika finally managed to calm him down. It was only after Lorita explained to him the ways that this might help Wilhelm slowly regain his sanity that the younger Grimm agreed, on the condition that Lorita report to him daily with any changes.

"I hope this works," Lorita mumbled and Baldwinn, perched on her shoulder as always, rubbed his head against her cheek comfortingly. "I don't care which of them it proves wrong so long as things begin to return to normal. I cannot bear this tension."

The faerie girl stopped at the inn to leave an annoyed looking Baldwinn in her room and pick up the basket of food she had asked the innkeeper to prepare for her. Once this was done she made her way again to Wilhelm's house. This time when she knocked she only received a "Come in, Lorita," and she let herself in. Wilhelm was sitting at the desk, writing in his stained and battered journal.

Fearing what this meant, Lorita moved cautiously toward him. "Will, is everything all right?"

Wilhelm gave a dull rasp that she had learnt was as close as he could achieve to laughter anymore. "Don't worry, it's not her controlling my hand this time," he said, pausing in his writing long enough to glance over his shoulder at her before resuming his work. "I'm writing of my own accord."

"Another tale of magic?" Lorita asked, eager this time as she rushed to stand beside him and deposited the basket on the corner of the desk. She had read many of his tales over the past month and enjoyed every one. It had been a long time since he had penned anything besides the orders the queen had sent him, so the fact that he was working on his tales again must only be a good omen. "What is this one about?"

"A lonely woodsmen in want of a child," Wilhelm said and she could see his shallow smile, "who befriends a faerie. The faerie gives him a seed, which grows a tree, and from the tree emerges a beautiful daughter who does not age."

Lorita froze as Wilhelm set down his quill and turned to look at her. When she finally regained her voice, she asked, "You're writing of me?"

Wilhelm nodded. "Well, if it's alright with you, of course," he added. "But I was thinking of how you said you tell the truth and no one believes you, so I thought maybe if I included it in my tales people might be more willing to listen. People do usually believe any tale I spin. Or at least they used to. They don't as much anymore, so I suppose this might have a reverse effect..."

Before Wilhelm could say anything further, Lorita had thrown her arms around his neck. The elder Grimm choked in surprise and patted her back awkwardly with one hand. Lorita finally released him and stepped back, her cheeks flushed and a broad smile on her face. "Oh Wilhelm, this is certainly the most wonderful thing anyone has done for me," she said excitedly. "Thank you."

Feeling embarrassed, Wilhelm cleared his throat and shrugged. "It's repayment for you putting up with me all this time," he said off-handedly and then his eyes fell on the basket. "Is that the food? It smells good."

Smiling, Lorita carried the basket over to his dining table, which had grown dusty from disuse. After cleaning it off she set out the food and they sat down to a small meal, talking idly in a way more companionable than ever before. When the food was gone and the sun was fading, they continued to chat by the candlelight.

"How is Aurora?" Wilhelm asked quite suddenly, startling Lorita with his ill-disguised sombre tone.

"Well enough," Lorita answered. "She is still healthy and bright and so adorable. But she misses you a lot. You can sometimes catch her frowning when she thinks no one is looking, and Jakob says she cries in her sleep sometimes. She's really worried about you." She sighed and tugged at her hair. "The whole family is, really. They try to act normal and go about things but the stress is wearing on all of us. It just doesn't feel right without you being part of the group."

Wilhelm's eyes were dark with pain but he pushed on a guarded smile. "Us, is it? You seem to have meshed into the family well," he commented teasingly.

Lorita knew he was skirting the subject but she humoured him. "Yes, us," she said. "Angelika is my dearest friend and the closest thing I ever knew to a sibling. She is in many ways like a sister to me, and she and Jakob always do try to make me feel like family. It is a nice change after being so alone all these years."

The elder Grimm's expression softened. "I can't imagine what that would be like," he said sadly. "Being alone, I mean. I've always had Jake, since we were kids. I think I almost hated him there for a while when we were young, or at least I convinced myself that I did, but he's always been around. I never really appreciated that until now, now when I can't see him often. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to him."

"Why did you almost hate him?" Lorita asked curiously. Wilhelm had alluded to it before but had never actually told her what had brought it all about.

"When we were kids, we had a younger sister," Wilhelm said slowly and almost subconsciously his hand dipped into his shirt collar and pulled out the silver chain. The locket and ring glimmered mysteriously in the candle's glow. "Her name was Lotte. We were a poor family. Dad died only four years after Lotte was born, an accident at the mill where he worked, and Mother had to support us after that. When she was six, Lotte got the scarlet fever. Mother worked hard to save up money for a doctor and by the time she did Lotte was in terrible shape.

"Lotte was always very attached to me and I couldn't bring myself to leave her, so Mother gave the money to Jake and sent him to find the doctor. Well Jake was a dreamer, from the day he was born, and he met an old man who told him he would trade the money for some magic beans that would heal Lotte. When Jake came home with his beans I was furious. He had let his faerie tale nonsense get the best of him and only a week later Lotte died."

Wilhelm shrugged and tucked the necklace back into his shirt, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "For a long time I blamed Jake for Lotte's death," he said but there was a detached quality in his voice now as he attempted to block out his emotions. "Things were hard between us for a long time, especially after Mother died a few years later. We stuck together because we were all the other had, but we had a very rough time of it. It's gotten better now but there are still scars."

Lorita shook her head tragically. "So that's where 'beans' comes from," she whispered in awe. "It makes sense now."

Wilhelm gave a choked laugh. "It's what we say when something is unbelievable," he explained. "Like those stupid magic beans were. I used to say it to him all the time when he started rambling off into his nonsense stories that couldn't be true, to remind him what happened when he believed that stuff. Of course it all backfired on me with this mess with the witch queen. Jake proved all the faerie tales were true and for a while used beans against me like that. He still uses it against me but now it's back to the way it was, only now he's trying to tell me that what I believe is impossible." He laughed again and murmured, "Not sure if it's ironic or just tragic."

"We have to find some way to end this, Will," Lorita said, a surge of conviction filling her. "We have to end this once and for all. You need to be free of this and be able to be with your family, and they need you back. We need to get rid of her."

"She can't be killed," Wilhelm said despondently, slumping back in his chair. "She came back this time, she'll come back again. Besides, she's told me she can't die until I do, and I can't die either. She has me in some sort of immortal torture."

"Why will she live as long as you do?" Lorita asked in confusion.

"I'm not completely sure," Wilhelm replied, frowning. "She says that I am her heart, but I can't quite figure what that means. I suppose she has somehow tied her mortality to mine, although I don't know exactly how she could have done this. The first time her magic came from her mirror, so I guess she could find a way to link her life to another object. It seems only fitting that to kill her I must also die."

"I would consider that far from fitting," Lorita said and the colour had left her cheeks. She had no idea what magic they were facing but if conquering it meant also killing Wilhelm she was not sure it was a battle from which they could prevail. None of them would have the heart to kill Wilhelm. "There must be some other way."

"Doubtful," Wilhelm said with a cold, emotionless laugh. "That seems to be her way, to make things unbearable to face. I do not want to die, but I would rather die than face what she has planned for me. However I cannot kill myself, or else I would have done so by now. I can only die when my heart is dead and she has that."

"No, Will, we will find another way," Lorita said firmly. "If there is one rule to magic, it is that things are never as straightforward as it leads us to believe. There is some other way around this."

"No!"

Wilhelm's abrupt shout made Lorita jump and she looked at him in surprise. His body had quite suddenly gone rigid and his eyes were shut, a look of pain on his face. Lorita instantly understood.

"Stay with me, Will," she said and she reached forward to cup his face in her hands. Wilhelm groaned but he forced his eyes into a squint. "Focus on me. You can block her out. Ignore her."

"In my head," Wilhelm moaned through his clenched teeth. "She's talking."

"You can control this, Will, it's your head," Lorita said. "Stay with me. Don't leave me, Will." Wilhelm made a strangled whine but he fixed her in an intense stare and his hands closed around her upper arms as if to keep himself grounded. Lorita continued to talk to him as his eyes slid in and out of focus. He muttered partial sentences, but Lorita couldn't be sure whether he was talking to her or the voices in his head.

Quite suddenly his grip tightened around her arms like a vice and his body seized. There was a strange noise in his throat and a vibrant red trail escaped from his mouth, staining his pale ski. His eyes rolled back in his head until all Lorita could see was white. "Will! Wilhelm! Stay with me!" Lorita said frantically. The grip on her arms was becoming painful but no matter how she tried, she couldn't escape it. Perhaps she had underestimated Wilhelm's strength. Panicexplode inside of her.

Then just as abruptly as it had all started, Wilhelm's body relaxed everything but the grip on her arms.

"Will?" she ventured tentatively, her voice trembling.

Wilhelm slowly opened his eyes and Lorita gasped. She had never seen eyes as completely empty as Wilhelm's were now. There was no light; no thought; no emotion. It was as though they were dead.

"Will, what -?"

In a voice as desolate as his gaze, Wilhelm said, "She wants you." Before Lorita could react, Wilhelm brought his fist roughly into the side of her face. There was a brief moment of light and pain, and then there was nothing.