Chapter Twenty

A Damn Good Name

Outside, the gloomy cloud covering had parted and allowed the moonlight to lift the shadows. The trees stood still except for when their leaves fluttered in the breeze, calm and restful like a tree should be. After all these years of anxiousness, the ancient plants were getting the chance to be still once more.

When they once more reached the village everything appeared normal again. The figures that had been laying prone in the streets had retreated into their houses and candles flickered through windows as the families settled for the night. A few of them who spotted the entering party through the windows called cheerful good-nights to them before turning back in. There was a sense of ease and comfort that the brothers had never before known among these people.

Wilhelm shook his head. "I have never seen this place so relaxed, or even this close to normal since... since..."

"Since the last time we defeated the witch," Jakob finished for him and the two exchanged haunted glances.

Lorita looked between them and said, "Only this time their happiness will last." Both men gave her a grateful look and Wilhelm drew her closer to his side and kissed her lightly on the brow.

"You know, it's a good thing it is night and everyone has retired," Jakob added after a moment and his eyes panned over their group. "We make for a very odd sight." Jakob, his clothing tattered and his body peppered with cuts, was carrying his daughter with an exuberant smile on his face despite his poor appearance. Wilhelm, after not having been seen outside his house in weeks, was looking healthier even than the first time he had come to Marbaden although he was dressed in his only dirty pants, since the shredded fabric of his tunic had fallen away in the tower. Then in the curve of his arm was a beautiful young woman in a too small dress that none of the villagers would have recognized seeing, although if they looked closely enough they would have noticed something vaguely familiar in her bright eyes. They were most certainly a bizarre group.

Wilhelm, however, shrugged at the comment. "Don't be bothered, Jake," he said simply. "We are Grimms. They should be used to oddities from us by now and they would think nothing more on it than that." This drew laughter from them all and its effect was strong since none of the adults had known a genuine laugh in weeks.

As they drew nearer to Jakob's house, the younger Grimm's steps quickened and had soon put a great distance between himself and the other two. He needed to see his wife and know that she was safe as well. The moment he opened the door his eyes scanned the room for only one thing and when he finally found that person, standing near the fire, it felt as though everything was right once more. She ran to him and threw her arms around he and Aurora together and with his free arm Jakob pulled her closely to himself. They stayed in this way for several long minutes until Wilhelm and Lorita reached the house.

When the little family finally separated, Angelika's slightly teary eyes turned to the others. She surveyed Wilhelm in blank wonder for a long minute and it wasn't until he took a small step forward that her revere broke and she embraced him as well, muttering how wonderful it was to finally see him well. Jakob and Lorita's eyes, on the other hand, were on a fifth person who had yet to be addressed.

He was a worn looking man, clearly much older than the Grimms, with shaggy black hair and beard that were liberally streaked with grey. He had a cup of tea in front of him but it was forgotten as his eyes, red as though from tears, examined the group. They kept lingering for a second on Lorita before turning away once more with a look of grief, only to turn back again seconds later. Lorita herself was white and looked quite as though she had seen Death itself.

Angelika had released Wilhelm and her eyes looked to his female companion, her eyes confused. It was only after staring at her for several minutes that her eyes widened and she gasped out, "Lorita?"

This caused the man at the table's gaze to cease drifting and fix solely on the blonde young woman. Angelika was glancing between them as though she knew something more than had been said and the Grimm men could only stare as Lorita stepped forward and the man at the table rose. There was a thick silence as everyone stared, and at the same moment both Wilhelm and Jakob spotted the golden pendant on the man's throat.

"Papa?" Lorita asked in a whisper, as if afraid speaking louder would shatter the vision. The man smiled and in a second she had raced into his arms. When he set her once more on the ground Lorita trailed her fingers over his face and said in wonder, "Papa, how is this possible? You were dead."

"Just as I thought you were, dear child," the man said. "Oh Lorita, I so feared you were gone from me."

"Where have you been all this time?" Lorita asked. Her fingers slipped slowly from his cheek and found the pendant on his neck. She brushed it and then looked up at him in bewilderment. "It cannot be. You were with me all this time. You were Baldwinn."

The man's smile grew. "It was a wise choice in name on your part, dearest," he said and stroked her hair. "Yes, I came with you to watch over you. I could not bear to be parted with you, even if you did not know it was me with you. I could not stand the thought of you being alone in the world that judged you so unfairly."

Wilhelm suddenly began shaking his head. "Wait a moment, I'm not sure that I'm following this," he said. "I may just be slow from being dead for a while there, but could someone explain what on earth is going on here?"

The man's gaze turned on Wilhelm and his eyes narrowed. "You… you're the one who brought my daughter into all of this," he growled and took a step toward him. "You took her into that danger." The man was now walking menacingly toward Wilhelm, and the Grimm, clearly intimidated by the man so much larger than himself, backed against the wall.

"No, Papa, please," Lorita said and hurried to stand in front of her father. "This is not Will's fault, please." The man stopped but his gaze was still mistrusting. Lorita looked between Wilhelm and her father apprehensively and then glanced at Jakob and Angelika for help.

"Why don't we just sit down and talk this out from the beginning?" Jakob suggested and moved to the table. He sat down and settled Aurora on his lap, and when no one else moved he gestured for them to join him. Slowly and hesitantly, everyone else gathered around the table. Jakob stared across at Lorita's father and said, "We'll start." In a rush he quickly recounted everything that had been going on for the last two years, including the details of Wilhelm's condition as his brother had said them. He continued all the way until that night when he had reached the tower but then his voice faltered and he dipped his head. After a moment he looked up again and his face was clearly distressed.

"Sorry," he muttered. "It's – it's still all a bit vivid in my mind." He glanced sideways at his brother but Wilhelm shrugged.

"Sorry Jake, but I don't have any idea what happened," he said. "I – well, you know, I wasn't really in my right mind. I don't remember anything until the very end."

"I'll take it from here," Lorita said and she picked up the loose thread of the story. As she finished up the tale and the series of deaths were disclosed those who had not been present at the time looked horrified, even Baldwinn despite his obvious dislike of Wilhelm. Then she explained how she had sensed life in the elder Grimm and had put her blood into him to restore his life.

"But child, how did you know that would happen?" Baldwinn asked, mystified.

"I didn't, really," Lorita answered. "It was only a theory. You will know that while I've been travelling the country I've been learning everything I could about faerie lore. There were stories that said a faerie's immortality could be transferred to another creature through blood. If it is taken by force it kills the faerie, but if given willingly and with heart, the life force can be shared between the two beings. I surrendered my faerie spirit to give him new life."

"Of course," Baldwinn breathed suddenly and he looked up at Lorita with an abrupt understanding in his eyes. "This is how it happened, how I am here and you are alive."

"I am sensing another story coming," Jakob said with a quiet laugh.

Baldwinn gave the slightest indication of a smile at this comment, but kept his attention on his daughter beside him. "Lorita, I never told you the full story of the circumstances around your birth," he said slowly and there was a look of shame on his face as Lorita's eyes narrowed in confusion. "The bargain I made with the faerie was more complicated. She warned me, when I accepted her gift, that since you were not entirely human you could not live your days out forever in a place where you did not fit. I didn't understand what she meant at the time, so I blindly agreed with her.

"Then on the eve of your thirteenth birthday I went into the forest to gather wood. The faerie found me when I was deep in and told me that the day had come that she had forewarned me of. She said that you had been borne of a tree, and in the forest among the trees is where you belonged. That a life force had been taken from the forest to create you, and that now it was time the force was returned. She wanted to return you to the form of the tree from which you came, and you would spend the rest of your immortality that way.

"I was devastated. I knew your free spirit and that a life without motion or activity would be maddening to you. I tried to plead with her, to convince her to change her judgement but she would not listen to me. 'The imbalance needs to be repaired,' she said to me. I grew angry with her for not listening and I tried to brush her away. I told her that you were my child and you did not belong to her or her trees. This upset her and she told me that if your life would not be submitted to nature then my own would, to repair the imbalance. That was when she transformed me into a fox.

"I was confused at first why I did not become a tree, but she said this was not where my spirit had come from and therefore not where it could be sent. However she found a way to make it a punishment. I have spent the last eight years at your side, watching but unable to protect you as the world shunned you. I could not tell you who I was and watched as you grieved for me all these years. It was as much a torment as could ever be conceived. The faerie also attached one final point to her curse; that so long as my faerie child lived I would remain in the form of a creature of the forest. It was not until your death that I would know a human life again, because then your spirit would be returned to the trees and the balance corrected."

Baldwinn stopped and tugged at his beard, surveying his daughter with glistening eyes. "The pain I felt when I woke to find myself human again was unbelievable. I was certain that you were dead, dead in that cursed place and I had once again not been there to protect you."

"But I am alive, and you are here," Lorita said, touching her father's arms. "How is it so?"

"Because you are no longer my faerie child," Baldwinn said earnestly. "You have given up your faerie self. You are my human child and we are free of our debts to that forest faerie." He pulled her face close to his and pressed a kiss to her brow.

There was a stunned silence for a minute as everyone pondered over this and it was Lorita who finally broke the quiet. "You know, Papa, in a way you owe Will thanks," she said and Baldwinn frowned at this. "It was he who inspired me to give up my immortality, so it is because of him that you and I can be together like this again."

Everyone glanced to Wilhelm and as Baldwinn gave a non-committal grunt both Lorita and the elder Grimm simultaneously lifted a hand to hide amused smiles. Managing a calmer expression, Wilhelm turned to Baldwinn and said, very seriously, "I think it is I who owes you gratitude, sir. Your daughter is the reason I am still alive. Even before tonight she has been saving my life, especially over the past few weeks. She is the one who helped me cling to my sanity and stopped me from killing us all."

"Yes, why did you do that?" Jakob asked suddenly, turning to Lorita. "I mean not that I'm ungrateful, but I never thought you two were very keen on each other."

"We weren't," Lorita answered with a shrug, but she looked a little awkward now.

Angelika looked as sceptical as her husband felt and she raised an eyebrow. "Yet you daily risked your life to help a man you did not care for. Including what you did tonight, not knowing if the faerie lore was true and that it would not have terrible consequences for you."

"The game is up," Wilhelm said abruptly, grinning mischievously. "The truth is that as much as she hates me, Lorita is also madly in love with me."

"Will," Lorita sighed and shook her head but, although everyone waited for it, no denial of his statement came.

"No," Jakob and Baldwinn gasped together. Lorita's face turned very red. "I would never have believed it," Jakob continued. "Well at least not before tonight. And Will, do you - ?"

Every eye in the room, save Lorita's, turned to Wilhelm and it was his turn to look uncomfortable. For a long time they only stared while he opened and closed his mouth several times without uttering a syllable. Finally he looked over at Jakob and said, "Beans, brother. Your crazy tales. It happened just like you said it would, I fell in love with a pretty lass grown from a magic bean. You have my permission to be smug."

The smiles on Jakob and Angelika's faces were nothing to the one that lit up Lorita's visage. Wilhelm smiled back at her even though he appeared still embarrassed. Baldwinn looked sullen for a moment but after seeing his daughter's smile his expression softened.

Wilhelm slid closer to Lorita and took her hand in his. "What do you think, Miss Lorita, would you like to become a Grimm?" he asked her in a low whisper.

"Become a Grimm," Lorita repeated, putting on a thoughtful expression. "I'm not sure I can put up with you for the rest of my life." She paused but there was an impish smile on her face and she squeezed his hand. "It's a good name though, isn't it?"

Wilhelm's face split in a bright grin. "It's a damn good name."