Tales from the Hood (21 page)

“Then we don’t have to go back to the library with that booktossing idiot?” Puck said, as he began to scratch himself at the memory.

“Not at all. We can go straight to her,” Uncle Jake said.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Sabrina asked as she stepped toward the traveler’s chest.

“Uh, when I said we, I didn’t mean you,” Uncle Jake said.

“What? Why?” Sabrina asked.

“You happen to be handcuffed to an Everafter, and as we know, Everafters can’t leave the town. You’re going to have to stay here with Puck and Briar,” Uncle Jake explained.

Sabrina could have strangled the fairy boy. Especially when he smirked at her. “But I can go?” Daphne asked.

Uncle Jake nodded. “Yes, but you’ll have to stay close to me. It could be dangerous.” He reached into his pocket and handed the little girl a key. “You want to give it a whirl this time?”

Daphne looked at it like it was a precious jewel. She repeated the address Uncle Jake told her, then inserted the key. When she turned it, the lid opened, revealing a spiral staircase.

“I’m so jealous!” Briar said. “I haven’t been to Paris in hundreds of years.”

“We’ll bring you back a souvenir,” Daphne said.

Uncle Jake took his girlfriend by the hand. “If I could take you with me—”

Briar kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t talk to any French girls.”

Uncle Jake winked at Briar, then turned to Daphne. “Let’s scoot!”

Sabrina was livid but forced a smile to her face. “Be careful,” she told her sister.

“I’ll be fine,” the little girl said impatiently, and rolled her eyes.

A moment later, she and Uncle Jake were gone.

“He said we could watch them from the magic mirror,” Briar said.

Mirror’s face appeared in the reflection. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen. What can I show you this evening?”

“We want to watch Uncle Jake and Daphne in Paris,” Sabrina said.

“Coming right up,” Mirror replied. “Just say the magic words.”

“Mirror, Mirror for goodness sake, let me watch Daphne and Uncle Jake.”

Mirror smiled. “That’s more like it.” His face dissolved and the mirror’s surface revealed a narrow avenue lined with elegant apartment buildings. Each building had a smoky bar, or a cozy restaurant, or a little boutique on its ground level. People were spilling out of all of them, drinking wine and gazing to the heavens. High above, fireworks filled the sky. Streams of blues, greens, reds, and whites shot across the horizon, then fizzled before the next round. In the distance, an enormous steel tower hovered above it all. It was illuminated by thousands of little lights, and at its top a beacon flashed a brilliant spotlight three hundred and sixty degrees.

Sabrina turned to Briar to gauge her reaction. The woman was awestruck. “That’s the Eiffel Tower,” she said. “It’s amazing.”

Sabrina suddenly realized what Briar must feel. She had been trapped for more than two hundred years in a little town. Now, all at once, she could see the outside world so vividly it seemed real. Paris was a place, Sabrina suspected, Briar never expected to see again.

Uncle Jake and Daphne stepped out of a doorway and gaped at their surroundings. They stood still for a moment in awe of the city.

“There she is!” Briar said, pointing at a woman walking down the street. Sabrina searched the crowd. It was indeed Goldilocks, their elusive savior. She was grinning from ear to ear, obviously enjoying the sights and sounds of the city of lights.

“She’s there, Jake!” Briar cried.

“Sorry, he can’t hear you,” Sabrina said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“How frustrating,” Briar complained.

Luckily, Uncle Jake seemed to spot Goldilocks as well, and they watched him and Daphne follow the woman down the street.

“I’m not sure how she’s going to react,” Puck said. “If they asked me to come back here I don’t think I would. They’d have to stuff me in a sack and drag me back against my will.”

Sabrina was unnerved by Puck’s words. She had never once thought that Goldilocks might not want to come back to Ferryport Landing, but the more it spun around in her head, the more troubling the idea became. Why would she want to come back? The town was controlled by the Scarlet Hand. She would be trapped inside the barrier again. Her true love was married with children, and from a letter of Goldilocks’s that Sabrina had read, the woman seemed to believe she was responsible for the death of their grandfather, Basil Grimm. If the roles were switched, would Sabrina return? She realized the answer was no. An army couldn’t drag her back to this horrible little place. What would they do if Goldilocks refused?

Just then, a black motorcycle tore down the street. The hair on the back of Sabrina’s neck stood on end. The driver was the same man they had seen in Venice—the same man who was terrorizing Goldilocks.

“What’s going on? Who’s that?” Briar asked.

“That dude in black is following her everywhere,” Sabrina explained. “He’s one of the Scarlet Hand.”

Sabrina watched her sister and uncle bolt down the street, weaving in and out of pedestrians and knocking a waiter carrying coffee cups to the ground. Sabrina shouted for them to be careful, knowing full well they couldn’t hear her. Still, it made her feel better to try.

Goldilocks spun around in the street. She must have spotted the motorcyclist, because she quickly hailed a taxicab and got inside—moments later she and the cab were roaring away.

“If we were there we could track her by air,” Puck said.

Sabrina nodded. She should be there, helping her sister, making sure she was safe. She felt an incredible anxiety rip through her. She realized that this was the first time she and Daphne had been separated in a very long time. Daphne could be injured. This lunatic on the motorcycle might hurt her. Anything could happen.

Briar seemed to sense her fear. She reached out and squeezed Sabrina’s hand. “They’ll be fine, Sabrina.”

Sabrina nodded and watched Daphne and Uncle Jake jump into their own taxi in hot pursuit. With the image focused on her family, Sabrina couldn’t see Goldilocks, but she saw the motorcycle race past their cab. She watched Daphne roll down the window and crane her neck out to see where he was headed. When the cab made a sudden turn, she nearly fell out and Sabrina screamed.

“That was a close one,” Puck laughed but stopped when both Sabrina and Briar flashed him an angry look. “What? It was funny.”

Suddenly, like water flowing from a broken dam, a herd of stray dogs poured out of every alley and doorway. There were rottweilers, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, pit bulls, wolfhounds, beagles, poodles, golden retrievers, Shih Tzus, West Highland white terriers, and dozens more in hot pursuit. They barked and snapped at the black-clad rider’s feet, causing him to swerve all over the road.

“She’s called some friends,” Sabrina said.

“She can talk to animals?” Puck said. “That rules.”

The dogs gave the rider as much trouble as they could, but his bike was faster than all of them. Soon, they were left behind, causing traffic to back up all over Paris. Luckily, Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab was undeterred and their driver raced on, steering the car into a circular street called Place Charles de Gaulle. At its center was an elegant arch decorated with statues and finely carved reliefs. Cars whipped around the circle from all directions. Without any traffic lights or signs, the circle was pure chaos, and there were several times Sabrina was sure her family would die in a head-on collision. But the driver was quick, and he steered the car out of traffic at the last possible second and darted down a tree-lined road bordering a park.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Sabrina wondered aloud.

“Exactly where I’d go,” Briar said, pointing at the approaching metal tower rising like a giant on the Parisian horizon—the Eiffel Tower. The tower was an incredible work of engineering made from huge steel girders and stood more than a thousand feet tall. It was quite a bit bigger than Sabrina had imagined, and she suddenly felt envious of her sister for seeing it in person without her.

Sabrina watched Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab come to a stop. They paid the driver and leaped out just in time to watch Goldilocks dashing toward the entrance to the tower.

“Why would she go up there?” Briar said. “There’s no way off that thing once she gets to the top.”

“She’s probably going to pull the talking animal stunt again. When we tracked her down in Venice, she had a bunch of pigeons fly her to safety. I bet she wants motorcycle boy to follow her up there so she can do the same thing. It would be a great way to lose him.”

“Except I doubt it will work. The wind has to be crazy powerful up there,” Puck said. “I don’t think my wings could take it. I doubt a bird could do it, either.”

Sabrina gasped. “So there’s no way off that thing if he catches her?”

Puck shook his head. “Not unless your uncle and sister can rescue her from that lunatic.”

“Speak of the devil,” Briar said as they watched the deadly motorcyclist skid to a stop nearby. He leaped off his bike and pulled a silver dagger from his boot; then he raced through the entrance to the tower. Sabrina saw Daphne pointing at the motorcycle. Without a word, she dashed through the entrance to the tower. Uncle Jake tossed the entrance fee to a clerk, and he and Daphne hurried into an elevator, just as it was about to shut. Sabrina scanned the tightly packed crowd around them. The man in black wasn’t there, but neither was Goldilocks. She imagined the poor woman, standing at the top, backing away from the dark rider with his deadly blade. She tried to force the vision out of her head. They would get there in time. They had to.

They reached the first of the tower’s three platforms and tumbled out of the elevator. Daphne pointed at a sign leading to the elevator that would take them to the next level. She and Uncle Jake pushed through the crowd and made their way onto the next elevator. Soon, they were rising even higher above the Paris skyline.

The second level was much higher, and a few people lost their hats in the strong wind. Puck had been right. Nature’s forces were brutal at that height, and it wasn’t even the top of the tower.

“Look!” Puck cried as the mirror’s reflection showed the murderous motorcyclist entering the final elevator. Sabrina could almost hear the chaos when he pulled out his dagger and demanded that everyone get off. People nearly trampled one another to get away from the mad man. She watched him push a button and the doors closed, just as her sister and uncle approached. The two Grimms could only stare as the elevator rose to the top of the tower where Goldilocks had fled.

Sabrina watched the rising elevator. It disappeared from view for several moments. The ascent to the top would take a long time. By the time it came back down, who knew what the villain might have accomplished. It wasn’t fair! Somebody had to stop him.

“There will be another one,” Briar said to Sabrina. “Don’t worry.”

But she was wrong. Suddenly, the elevator came crashing down from above. People were screaming and smoke filled the air.

“Daphne! Uncle Jake!” Sabrina cried frantically, but quickly spotted them. Daphne had fallen, but Uncle Jake helped her up. Together they studied the wreckage. The man in black had somehow cut the cables.

“He’s diabolical,” Briar said.

“And not in the good way,” Puck replied.

“There’s no way up to the top,” Sabrina said. “They’ll never get to her in time. Goldilocks is up there, alone. He’s going to kill her!”

“If only I could go,” Briar said, reaching into her pocket and removing a small seed. “With one of these I could get Jacob to the top in a flash.”

“Uh, I’m glad you are so excited about gardening, Briar, but we’ve got an emergency on our hands,” Sabrina said.

“No, let me explain. When I was a kid, a witch put a spell on me that said if I ever pricked my finger on a spinning wheel I would die. Well, luckily I had a couple of fairy godmothers and they fixed the spell so I would fall asleep. To keep me safe from wild animals and nutcases, they also created a magical rosebush that covered the castle so no one could get at me. When William Charming managed to cut his way through and woke me up, the first thing I did was cultivate some of the rosebush’s seeds. The seeds grow like crazy, and they seem to understand how I want them to grow, too. They come in handy from time to time. All you need is a handful of dirt.”

“I have a handful of dirt,” Puck said, reaching into his filthy pants pocket. When he pulled out his fist, he had a handful of crumbly soil. A fat earthworm was squiggling in the dirt.

“You carry dirt with you?” Sabrina asked.

“Sure, doesn’t everyone?” Puck replied.

“What good is this going to do? We’re in Ferryport Landing. The trouble is half a world away! Unless I can get out of these handcuffs, Goldilocks is going to die.”

Briar and Sabrina turned their gaze to Puck.

“Listen, I swallowed the key,” he stammered. “We have to let nature take its course.”

Disgusted, Sabrina turned to the mirror. “Mirror, do we have any lock-picking stuff in the Hall of Wonders?”

Mirror’s face appeared. “Starfish, I’m increasingly concerned about your life of crime.”