“Old friend—”
Canis shook his head. “Your old friend is gone.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Not yet . . . but soon,” Canis said wearily. “Fighting the Wolf’s control over this body is a constant battle, one I am losing. When the war is over, it is best if I am under lock and key.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Daphne said as she pulled away from Granny and approached the cell. She reached through the bars and took Canis’s hand in her own, caressing it gently. His was big and strong with nails like railroad spikes. A memory flashed in Sabrina’s brain—once, not so long ago, the Wolf had been unleashed and had snatched Sabrina around the neck. He had promised to eat her. The memory made Sabrina shiver down to her toes.
Sheriff Nottingham ran his dagger against the cell bars again. “Time’s up!” he shouted. “Get out of my jail.”
Little John turned to Mr. Canis. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back.”
Canis crawled back into the shadows, into the corner of his cell. “Do not waste your time on me, Relda,” he whispered as they left.
That afternoon Robin Hood called to update Granny Relda. As he had predicted, Mayor Heart and Sheriff Nottingham came to the offices of the Sherwood Group with an order to seize the property and premises of the business. The merry partners were tossed out into the street. Robin and Little John were forced to continue their work from an empty table at Sacred Grounds, a coffee shop run by Uncle Jake’s girlfriend, Briar Rose. Much to everyone’s surprise, Robin and Little John were thrilled.
“He said he and Little John have never been happier,” Granny Relda explained when she hung up the phone. “They’re Nottingham’s biggest annoyance again. I don’t know if Briar’s coffee shop sells beer but they both sounded rip-roaring drunk.”
“Being merry as often as those guys are can’t be good for their livers,” Uncle Jake said.
Unfortunately, Robin’s newfound joy came with some very bad news. He and Little John were running into one roadblock after another. The Ferryport Landing justice system had collapsed since the days when Mayor Charming ran the town. Since Nottingham had become the sheriff, there had been few arrests other than Mr. Canis’s. Not a single official document had been filed regarding any crime, and it seemed as if the sheriff and the mayor were making up laws as they went along. No one ever got a trial, so there were no judges to ensure justice.
Worse still, there was nothing the family could do to help. When Granny offered, Robin informed her that the best thing they could do was to stay by the phone and wait for the lawyers to call with an update. So everyone tried to find ways to keep themselves busy. Uncle Jake searched the magic mirror for Goldilocks. Granny busied herself making earthworm crepes. Puck lay on the couch trying to break his personal record for most farts in an hour. Sabrina and Daphne turned their attention to the family’s enormous book collection to research everything they could find on the Big Bad Wolf.
Sabrina and Daphne’s father had kept fairy-tale stories out of their house, leaving the girls with a tremendous disadvantage now that their jobs were to investigate crimes in the Everafter community. Still, even Sabrina had heard the Wolf’s most famous story—Little Red Riding Hood. The way she recalled it, a really lousy mother sent her kid into the woods with a basket of food and everyone was supposed to be surprised when an animal attacked her. Sabrina was wondering what kind of lame parents Red Riding Hood must have had when she noticed the pale and nervous expression on Daphne’s face.
“No one told me this story,” Daphne said, pointing to the book she was reading.
“What story, liebling?” Granny Relda asked as she came in from the kitchen.
Daphne held up a dusty copy of Children’s and Household Tales, better known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “The story of Little Red Riding Hood,” she said. “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm called it the story of Little Red Cap. This version is . . . gross.”
Granny shook her head knowingly. “It is troubling, but don’t forget, Mr. Canis isn’t like the Wolf in that story.”
Puck, who had been ignoring everyone up until that point, leaped up and rushed across the room. “What did he do?”
“He ate Red’s grandmother,” Daphne said.
“Ate her?” Sabrina cried.
“That’s awesome!” Puck exclaimed.
Sabrina ignored Puck. “I thought he killed her.”
“The killing part usually happens when you eat someone,” Puck said matter-of-factly.
“That was a long time ago,” Granny said. “We weren’t there. Some of the story could be exaggerated.”
Daphne scanned the old book. “It says here that Red’s parents sent her into the forest with a basket of food. She was supposed to take it to her sick grandmother but along the way she met the Wolf. He asked her where she was going and she told him.”