A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (15 page)

Andi caught a glimpse of an odd spud-shaped nose as he shook his head. "Nope, money won't do, ‘specially if you're willing to give it away easily. I want something valuable to you. Got any magical items? I’ll take a needle that will sew any object. Or a magic mirror," he offered. He narrowed his eyes at Andi. "What do ya got in there, missy?"

She clutched her bag to her chest, alarmed at the sudden turn of events asking directions had taken. All she had was her grandmother's cloak, her shoes, the book; she wasn't about to part with any of them.

Dylan took both girls by the arm and gently steered them away from the window. "Look." Nodding his head past the station, a single dirt track wound away from the platform and disappeared into the evergreen trees. "There's only one way to go, and we can walk. This place is tiny, I'm betting it's not far to the town. We can ask again when we get there. There's no reason to negotiate with this goon." Dylan raised his voice at the end, the man’s beady eyes watched them from the window and he was sure to have heard the last part.

Andi relaxed. He was right; they didn't have to let themselves be bullied. "Okay, lead the way," she said.

The four of them hopped off the platform into the dusty ruts that passed for a road here.

"Wait!" The odd little man from the ticket booth crashed as he fell off of something and tumbled through a door in the back of his booth.

Now that Andi could see all of him, his appearance was even stranger. Not much taller than Harland and Cob, his head was bare except for three or four wispy white strands. In addition to the bright, dark eyes and oversized nose, his ears were large and droopy, making him like a miniature elephant. A short squat body and long slender arms gave him a disproportionate look.

"Wait!" he gasped again, hurrying after them with an odd hobble in his gait. "I'll take you!"

"No, we'll walk," Fredrick told him shortly.

The sudden change in his attitude made Andi uncomfortable.

"I'll do it for the money you offered,” he said.

Quinn narrowed her eyes at him. "How much?"

He considered. "Forty Deutschmarks."

"Ten,” Quinn countered.

"What! Twenty then,” he told her.

"Fifteen, or we walk," Quinn said with finality in her tone.

Grinning suddenly, he revealed a mouth full of rotting teeth. "Fifteen it is. Yours was the last train today. I'm heading home anyway, so I'll drop you on my way."

He turned back to the station as the others trailed behind.

Hitched to the back of the ticket booth was a horse and cart that should have been retired at the turn of the century. The horse's head was bowed to his knees and had a noticeable dip in his back from years of overuse. The cart was missing several planks and the wheels tilted in at alarming angles.

"Is that going to hold us?" Andi circled the cart slowly, hands on her hips.

"It’s stronger than it looks. Get in,” the odd little man said.

The four of them carefully piled into the back as the cart wallowed lower to the ground. The ticket booth operator climbed quickly into the driver's seat, slid on a pair of aviator sunglasses, and grabbed the reins. With a quick flick, they lurched forward. The wagon dipped and swayed as if they were on the deck of a moving ship as they wound through pines identical to the forest boa
rding Mr. Jackson's estate.

"So, what do we call you?" Andi asked, not so much to be friendly, but trying to ferret out more information about characters they could connect to the book, and in turn, to her family.

"HA!" The little man half turned in his seat, keeping one eye on the road. "She's good, I'll give her that. Get's more cunning every year." The last part was mostly spoken to himself. “Why don't you call me... Paul. Yes, Paul will do nicely." He winked back at them.

"Okay... Paul." Andi said wondering who the ‘she’ he spoke of was. "Have you been working at the train station long?”

"This is something I do part time." He picked at a spot on his nose. "I have a full time gig that’s seasonal, spinning straw you know, and it's a slow time right now. Where’d you say you were from, again?”

"We’re visiting from the city," Fredrick said

Paul sat slouched on the seat, staring straight forward. "Since we're being so friendly and all, you won’t mind me asking… How’d you do it?"

Andi traded looks with the others; something they were getting very good at.

"Do what?" Fredrick asked.

"Walk away like that!" He was working himself up now. "Walk away from a deal involving my services!"

"I’m not following," Fredrick said.

"No offense, but your deal wasn’t great," Dylan put in.

"It doesn't matter how good it was! People I offer to make deals with don't choose a different way!" Paul said.

"Why not, if your deals are crummy?" Dylan asked.

"They just don't.” It was hard to read his expression behind the sunglasses, but he was clearly angry enough to let their logical remark rob him of any comeback.

Houses popped up at intervals along the route with no discernible rhyme or reason to their layout. A small sheepherder's cottage could be next door to a mansion, a lone tower mostly obscured by trees down the road from a stately castle.

"Does it seem to you there are a lot of castles here?" Quinn asked in a whisper.

Andi lifted one shoulder. "Think about where the characters come from in most of the stories."

The cart slowed and rattled to a stop in front of a large house in one of the few clearings they saw on the short ride from the station. It hunkered in front of the forest, making room for itself and surrounding land. It wasn't the mansion Mr. Jackson lived it, neither was it a shepherd's cottage.

Gray and imposing, it was a stone box of a house with a flat front; the only relief from a straight plane was the step in front of the door. An extensive garden stretched on either side, giving green wings to the ugly structure. Where Mr. Jackson's gardens were ornamental, the bushes and trees of this home were all functional. Something edible grew on everything, from the fruit trees to the tidy vegetable garden and the green summer hay waving in the distant fields.

Piling out, Quinn thumbed through the unfamiliar currency and handed their driver two bills labeled five and ten. Paul flicked his reins and drove away, humming.

They stood together in the dust of the doorway. Inhaling slowly, Andi reached out a hesitant hand and knocked.

“If that wasn't an ugly stepsister, I don't know what is."
             

Andi took a step back when the door wrenched open. A teenage girl stood there, looking like someone shoved a rotten rutabaga under her nose. Charitable people would have referred to her as plain or simple. Andi, with no aversions to the truth, thought her just plain ugly.

Attempting to cover this up this fact, the girl had plastered on make-up and stuffed herself into a Chanel strapless dress Andi had drooled over at the mall just a month ago. But her clothes did nothing to hide her spoon shaped figure, too narrow
on top and too wide on bottom.

Behind the lipstick and mascara, her eyes were bulbous and sunken into her head, her lips thin and twisted. Her chin jutted forward and her forehead was too high and broad beneath the vibrant shade of orange she’d dyed her hair, which was only natural on pond koi. Her clothes did nothing to hide a spoon shaped figure, too narrow on top and too wide on bottom.

The girl stood with a slight gape in her mouth revealing crooked teeth.

"Cynthia?" she whispered. Her face paled and her eyes grew wide until their perfectly round shape made the resemblance to the pond koi remarkable. She reached a hand out but paused, as if thinking better of it.

"No, I'm Andi." She sighed, wondering when she’d get used to people mistaking her for her grandmother. "Did you know her? Cynthia Wellington?"

An odd change flickered over her unattractive face; fear, relief, and then a hard bitterness drew her thin eyebrows together, puckering her entire face.

"Where’ve you been, you little maggot?" she growled through clenched teeth.

Grabbing Andi by the arm, she dragged her inside, slamming the door behind her. Twisting a key in the lock, she separated Andi from the other three outside. "You’ve years worth of chores waiting for you!" she said with a positively gleeful look.

The others pounded and shouted on the other side of the door, but the girl ignored the noise and pocketed the key.

"No! There’s been a mistake. I'm just looking for information about my grandmother."

Disbelief crossed the girl’s face at the word ‘grandmother,’ but she quickly quashed it. "Lies will only make it worse for you. You remember that, don't you Cindy?” She reached for Andi's bag. “Now, what did you bring me?"

She jerked the bag from Andi's shoulder, but Andi wasn't letting go of her grandmother's things easily. She yanked back, stamping on the girls toes with the heel of her boot. The girl yowled, landing hard and inelegantly on her rear as Andi reclaimed her bag. The banging on the door stopped. Andi wondered where they’d gone, but she refused to believe the others abandoned her.

The girl’s eyes narrowed and she glared at Andi from her place on the floor. "You'll regret that." Tossing back her head she bellowed, "Mother!"

A voice from deep in the house shrilled back, "Goodness sakes, Coriander! What is it now!?"

The clicking of heels on the stone floor approached and a woman strutted into the room. With her tight leopard print pants, slinky heels, and teased red hair, the gaudy family resemblance was unmistakable. Andi could see where Coriander had not gotten her good looks.

As soon as she saw her mother, Coriander's face melted into a pout and she wailed. "She attacked me! Threw me down, and, and…" She grasped her face with both hands and increased the volume of her sobs.

Her exaggerated overreaction put Andi on immediate defense. She opened her mouth to argue, only to find the woman gaping at her.

"Cynthia?" she breathed.

At least she knew she was in the right place, if she could only figure out what was going on. Maybe she should just pretend she was her grandmother. There would be a lot less explaining involved.

“I'm not Cynthia. I'm her granddaughter. I'm trying to find some information about her,” Andi said.

Coriander’s mother looked like she swallowed something nasty lodged in her throat. She gulped several times before gasping out, "
Granddaughter
?"

She looked down at the sobbing Coriander as if she could confirm this claim. Catching the look she shot her mother from between her fingers, her mother’s entire demeanor changed.

"Your time away must have made you forget your place." Her acid tone gave Andi a sense of unease. Clicking across the floor, she bent down to her daughter as Andi scanned the room for a way to escape. "Pumpkin! Where does it hurt? Tell Mummy." Andi rolled her eyes at the display; the girl’s mother hadn’t even bothered to touch her.

"My ankle, I think it's sprained." Coriander looked tearfully into her mother's face, clearly trying to look pitiful but coming across as pathetic.

"Portia!” the woman screeched at the ceiling.

Andi eyed the poker in the fireplace. No, she wouldn’t break a window—yet. An empty hallway just right of the staircase looked promising. Andi edged in that direction slowly.

She heard the creaking of strained floorboards behind her and a large girl huffed down the last few stairs, her arms held awkwardly out from her sides.

Portia was as lovely as her sister was revolting, with silky brown curls and flawless rose-colored skin. But rolls of fat wobbled as she waved her hands, blowing on her nails. Her round face puffed out in double chins and Andi grimaced at her too tight jeans and halter-top.

"This better be good, I was in the middle of a manicure." Portia crossed her arms, fingers splayed.

"Your sister's been injured. Help her to bed, muffin?” her mother asked with a simper.

“But Mother! My nails are wet!”

"Now!"

"Fine." Portia crossed the room to Coriander, still fanning her fingers awkwardly to protect her nails.

Portia noticed Andi ready to bolt down the empty corridor with a death grip on her bag. Andi braced herself for the blanched look and mistaken identity, but Portia’s eyes flicked over her in a brief, bored manner.

"Who's she?"

"Don't tell me you don't remember our very own Cindy? She's come back to us at last." The woman fixed herself in front of the empty doorway, planting her hands on her Lycra clad hips. It was as if she knew exactly what Andi was thinking.

The fire poker option was looking better and better.

Portia grunted noncommittally as she stood behind Coriander and levered her to her feet. Coriander whimpered, limping unconvincingly toward the stairs with the larger girl wedged under her arm as a crutch.

Once Andi was alone with the two girls’ mother, the woman underwent a personality transplant. "Welcome back,” she said warmly, reaching out and hugging Andi, who remained stiff and shocked at the gesture. “I'm sure you're anxious to get settled. Let me help you to your room."