The Grimm Chronicles, Vol.1 (10 page)

His eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror. “We could go to my place.”

“No,” I said, maybe a little too quickly. I forced a little half-smile. “I’ll come over on Sunday. For my birthday.”

“But your birthday is on Monday.”

“I know,” I said. “Twelve a.m., to be precise.”

He smiled back. “You OK, Trish?”

Tricia, eyes half-closed, gave him a thumbs-up.

“What did they do to her?” I asked Edward.

He shrugged. “She wanted to drink. So she drank.”

I was angry. Intensely angry. Tricia had her head pressed against the window, her eyes closed. She looked like a fool, sitting there with nothing but a bra covering the top half of her body. This was what the cool kids considered fun?

“Are you drunk?” I asked Edward.

“No,” he said. “I stopped after the one drink. I try to make a point of being responsible.”

Well, aren’t you just perfect, I thought. There was a time when those types of things just sent my heart aflutter. Now? Now, I didn’t know. Everything he said sounded
suspicious
. Who was the murderer from my dreams? Did Edward know him? Did they have Corrupted slumber parties and discuss their evil intentions?

Back at my house, I gently woke Tricia up and helped her out of the car. She mumbled a goodbye to Edward.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered to me through the open window.

“Tomorrow,” I told him, hugging Tricia close. Holding her up, too. “Come on, you big dummy,” I told her, pulling her across the driveway.

Edward’s headlights illuminated the side of my house, then the yard as he pulled out. We were blanketed in darkness. Above us, clouds covered the stars.

“Spoooooooky,” Tricia mumbled.

“Be quiet,” I whispered, ushering her into the pitch-black house.

“I will,” she said. “I love you, dear.”

“Right back at you, darling. Step. Step.” We ascended the staircase slowly, then snuck into my room. I got her a dry shirt from my closet. “Pink pandas,” I whispered to her, helping her into it. I unhooked her bra and pulled it out from under the shirt, setting it on the desk chair so it could dry. It smelled like Lake Michigan and dead fish.

“Pink pandas,” she murmured, falling over on my bed. “I remember when you bought that shirt.”

I took off my shorts to change into pajama bottoms. The note slipped out of my pocket, landing on the floor. I grabbed it and opened it next to the window so I could read the old writing. It was from Juliette, I was sure of it. The man/creature had held onto it for decades:

Alice,

Deny him.

I sighed, grabbing one of the pillows and setting it on the floor. I hid the note under the pillow.

“Trish …”

I wanted to tell her everything that had happened. But Tricia was already asleep and snoring, and I had a funny feeling we wouldn’t be able to go back to that easier time when the two of us stayed up late drinking hot cocoa and rifling through clothing magazines.

For a lot of reasons.

Chapter 7

We got lucky. My parents spent every free morning golfing, and as such managed to entirely miss the wonderful “day after.” It was a learning experience, to say the least. I learned that drinking too much can make you vomit. I learned that it was especially helpful to have someone hold back your hair while you did it. I even learned that you might regret the things you did while drunk.

Tricia learned all this the hard way. I was the passive observer who helped her through it.

“You brought this on yourself,” I said, holding her hair back.

Her response was something along the lines of “Blaaaaaarg!”

I flushed the toilet. “You took your shirt off. Do you remember that?”

She shook her head. Her skin was puffy around her bloodshot eyes. “My head hurts.”

“You brought this on yourself.”

“OK, I get it!” she said. “I got out of control! Can you please … please …”

“What?” I asked. “Do you want an aspirin?”

She answered with another “Blaaaaaaaarg!” That, I decided was the end of the conversation. And the end of my mothering. If Tricia wanted to do this again, she could. But I wasn’t going to go out of my way to help her. This was not how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning.

“I need to go home,” Tricia said after finishing in the bathroom. She located her lake-soaked bra and put it back on. “Ewwww, it feels slimy on my skin.”

I followed her to the front door. “Do you want to wait until my parents get home so I can drive you?”

“No,” she said, opening the door. The sunlight hit us. She squinted fiercely, glaring up at the sky with an intense hatred. “Just push me in the right direction.” I did, surprised at my own strength as she stumbled north, toward her house on the other end of the suburb.

When I returned to my bedroom, the rabbit was waiting for me.

“There you are,” I said. “Could have used your help lifting my trashed friend up the stairs.”

Briar straightened. “Your bedroom smelled like alcohol. It was making my stomach turn. I’d recommend airing it out before your parents get home.”

“Good idea,” I said, walking over to the window. It was stuck. I tried unlocking it but it was already unlocked. I tried again, hiccupped once, then began crying.

“I can’t even get the window open,” I sobbed. “How am I going to
kill
some creepy human-juice-sucking murderer?” A gentle paw rested on my shoulder. I laughed. “And now a rabbit is comforting me.”

“You had a dream.”

I nodded, wiping at my eyes with one finger.

“I don’t pretend to have the answers, child.” Briar sighed. “I can’t even help you open the window. No thumbs. But I can tell you this: the last hero, Juliette, she once felt exactly how you felt. And you’d better believe she had a plan.”

“So what should I do?” I asked. “Tonight? I’m supposed to meet with Edward, and I know he’s one of them.”

“Don’t know,” Briar said. “But when the time is right, you
will
know.”

“Come with me.”

He clicked his tongue. “Can’t. You have to do this on your own.”

“But what do I
do
?” I asked, turning to him.

The rabbit, for once, was silent.

I sat in my room the entire day, running through every single outfit combination in my wardrobe. Jeans? Too casual. Skirt? Too skimpy. Dress? Too obstructive. What does someone wear to their potential impending doom? What might I like to be found dead in? It wasn’t a question my closet was prepared to answer. And here I thought I’d arranged my clothes in such a logical sort of way.

I settled on a red button-down blouse that had deep pockets, perfect for hiding the pen and my cell phone. I dressed in black leggings, something casual enough to sleep in just in case I did happen to wake up from this absolutely insane dream and Edward was for real. Like, for real
real
. Not something out of a story book.

And through it all, Briar stayed with me. Turning around when I dressed. Holding different outfits while I scrutinized. Telling me tales of heroes long gone and the Corrupted they’d done battle with. I was glad to know someone had already done away with one of the evil mothers. One of them, at least. And the big, bad wolf was gone too. Well, one of them. It turned out the Grimms had no shortage of wolves in their stories.

“But the one you should really worry about is little Red-Cap,” Briar told me in the late afternoon. “Otherwise known as Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Why?” I asked. “At the end of the story, it says she never harmed anyone again.”

He looked at me curiously.

“I read the book,” I told him. “You told me to read the Brothers Grimm book, so I read it.”

“Well I’ll be,” said the rabbit. “There may be hope for you yet.”

“OK,” I said, bouncing around on my feet. “He’s going to pick me up any minute. Gawd, what do I say to my parents?”

Briar licked his paw, rubbing the white fur around his mouth as he stared at his reflection in my closet mirror. “Goodbye would suffice.”

“Goodbye? I may never see them again!”

“Oh dear me,” the rabbit exclaimed. “Tell you what: why don’t you just trust old Br’er Rabbit this one time?”

I grabbed his vest, melodramatically melting to the ground. “But how can you be sure?”

“Because,” he said in all seriousness, “Juliette believed in you. She never even met you. You weren’t even born yet. And still she knew you were going to be something special.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll … see you when I see you, then.”

The rabbit nodded. “That you will. Hero.”

I walked to the door, checking my pocket for the pen. The moment my fingers wrapped around it, I felt an intense heat flash through my arm. I could do this. Whatever this was.

In the living room, my parents were sitting on the couch watching a movie with a green plastic bowl of popcorn between them. They both glanced at me.

“I just want you to know I love you both,” I told them, feeling myself choke up.

“Have fun at Tricia’s,” Dad said.

Right. Tricia’s. I stepped out of the house, following the sidewalk south toward the entrance to the suburb.

“My last night on earth,” I said to the dark sky, “and I had to lie to my parents about where I was going. Some daughter.”

There was no time left to ruminate. I could see Edward’s car parked along the street up ahead. The taillights seemed to bask the entire neighborhood in a blood-red glow. Another world. Some place darker, with no hope. Except: the trail. The golden trail indicating where he’d come from. A trail that led back to his parents’ mansion.

His parents!

“Are your parents home?” I asked him, stepping into the car.

He smiled. “Hello to you, too.”

We locked lips. A quick, final peck goodbye to my first real relationship. OK, so I’m being a little dramatic here. Still, I had this
feeling
. Edward was more than he seemed. Maybe he wasn’t the murderer in my dreams, but he was still one of the Corrupted. “Seriously, though. Are your parents home?”

“No,” he said, putting the car into drive. “They’re at a banking conference in New York.”

“Oh. OK.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel … great. Awesome. Top of the world.”

He smiled. “You’re lying.”

“Only a little.” I rolled down the window for some fresh air. The warm breeze fluttered my hair. I wished I’d tied my hair up.

“Do you volunteer at the library tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Not early, though.”

“Do you like it so far? I feel like we haven’t talked about it at all.”

“Yes, I like it. I love books; you know that.”

He shrugged. “Just thought you might get sick of them is all.”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

“That’s good. That’s a good quality to have. Books are gateways to other worlds.”

My heart sank. “You’re telling me.”

He put his hand on my leg, giving it a soft squeeze. I could feel the strength in his hands. “Listen. I know what you’re feeling. Please, just leave everything up to me. Don’t think about anything. Tonight, I want to treat you like the princess you are.”

“OK.” I closed my eyes, trying to will his hand off my leg. But it stayed there right up to the moment the car stopped and the engine shut off. The ride felt like five seconds. Five seconds! I barely had time to gather my thoughts.

“Come, my princess.”

I got out of the car and took his hand, walking with him into his giant mansion, through the living room and the statue room and the art room and up the stairs and then there we were, inside his bedroom, standing in front of his giant bed. The lights were off but I could see rose petals, hundreds of them, spread across the bed. He leaned down and kissed me passionately on the lips.

“Edward,” I said.

“I will love you forever,” he whispered.

Forever. The word meant something entirely different to each of us.

“You are the love of my life. My soul mate.”

He’d come into my life out of nowhere. And instead of going after one of the prettier, more popular girls, he’d zoomed in on me. It had been a dream come true. It had been the perfect beginning and he was the perfect guy.

“You’ll remember this the rest of your life.” He kissed my neck again.

What had the girl in my dream said as they’d walked into the parking structure? “I can’t believe you danced with
me
.” Yes! As if she’d been surprised he’d picked her that night. Wait … no! No no no no! It couldn’t be Edward. The murderer hadn’t sounded like Edward. He hadn’t!

The note! Juliette’s note had warned me!

“Edward,” I said. He stopped, cupping my face in his hands, looking into my eyes. “I’m not having sex with you. I never will.”

“Why not!” The words knocked me back, putting a foot of space between us. I couldn’t speak. All of my courage had slipped away. His face had grown as dark as the night sky and the hint of golden glow underneath his skin dimmed. “Why! Not!” he screamed, breathing heavily.

“I … I …”

A growl escaped his lips and he walked to the far end of his room. He punched the wall with his fist and I heard a sickening crack—the drywall and his knuckles broke at the same time. He pulled back and stared at his hand, laughing. “Well, my hand is broken.”

I stepped closer. With the soft moonlight coming in through the window, I could see his two gnarled knuckles. My hand instinctively reached for the pen. I could stab him right now … if I could just get the cap off without him noticing.

“Listen to me,” Edward said. His voice had lowered and octave and roughened around the edges. He tightened his broken hand into a fist. “We’re going to have sex, do you understand? I’ve waited a long time for this. Ever since I saw you sleeping on that bench the first time we met.”

Just like Snow White, I thought. My hands trembled.

Edward grabbed my jaw and lifted my head. “Hey. Focus. Do you understand? But you need to calm down. You need to not fight it. Otherwise, you release too much adrenaline. And I don’t like the taste of adrenaline. It’s bitter. Do you hear me? No, of course you don’t.”

“You want to kill me,” I said.

He laughed. “No, first I want us to have sex. Then, while we’re having sex, I want to drink all of the delicious innards inside your body. Just. Like. A. Spider.”

I ran to the door. Behind me, he laughed but didn’t immediately follow, and as I stumbled through the dark hallway to the staircase, I told myself I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this!

“Come back, my love!” he called out in a mocking voice. I ran through every room, not stopping until I reached the front door. It was locked.

“My love!” he called out from the other side of the house, laughing again.

“Come on,” I whispered, fumbling with the lock. It was no use. There was no handle-thingy to turn and disengage the lock. It was captive-proof.

But I could draw one! I pulled out my pen and uncapped it, then pressed it to the solid metal mechanism. I tried to imagine it working. It was simple … wasn’t it? I’d seen them a thousand times before. You turn left, the little metal lock thingy pulls away. You turn right, it sticks into the door frame. Easy!

Finished, I turned the lock. There was a click. My heart beat faster and I grabbed for the doorknob again. Nothing happened.

“Come on!” I screamed.

“Darling,” he called out. He was on the first floor now, his bright voice echoing through the large rooms. “Darling, come back to bed!”

I ran around the other side of the house, into the kitchen. I tried the back door. Locked. No way to unlock it. Gawd, if only I knew how a simple door lock really worked, I could draw my way out of this …

The basement! I thought. There was a basement door leading outside. Whatever “captive-proof” electronic lock mechanism Edward had installed couldn’t possibly be connected to that beat-up old door. I ran past the refrigerator to the door, opened it, and slipped inside.