After breakfast, Sabrina, Daphne, Granny Relda, and the odd food-tasting creature (who insisted on coming along as protection) sailed over Ferryport Landing aboard Aladdin’s flying carpet. The carpet was just one of a number of magical items the family possessed. Sabrina’s first experience riding the enchanted rug had nearly given her a heart attack, but Granny seemed to have more experience steering it and the trip went without incident.
Along the way, Sabrina gazed down at the town. Everything was changing. Once-thriving neighborhoods had been abandoned, and many homes were facing the wrecking ball. In their place, odd buildings were erected—castles surrounded by alligator-infested moats, mansions made from gingerbread and candy. Mr. Applebee’s farm, the site of their first detective case, had been bought and converted into a gigantic chessboard reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. The changes made Sabrina uncomfortable. They reminded her that she and her family were the only humans left in town.
Sabrina’s world hadn’t always been so bizarre. Long before magic mirrors, flying carpet rides, and toilet leprechauns, the Grimm sisters had lived normal, quiet lives in New York City. When their parents disappeared they bounced from one foster family to the next, eventually landing in the home of their real-life grandmother, who lived in a sleepy river town called Ferryport Landing. Sabrina remembered the day she and Daphne came into town by train. Ferryport Landing seemed like the most boring place in the world. But it had a shocking secret: Ferryport Landing was a settlement for fairy-tale characters, founded by her great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Wilhelm Grimm, one of the world-famous Brothers Grimm.
Sabrina guessed that most kids would love living among their favorite fairy-tale characters. Knowing Snow White lived down the street or that the Little Mermaid was swimming in the river might be a dream come true for some, but to Sabrina it was more like a nightmare. Most of the fairy-tale folks, who now called themselves Everafters, despised her family. The root of their hatred lay with Wilhelm, who, with the help of a decrepit old witch named Baba Yaga, constructed a magical boundary around the town to prevent a band of rebel Everafters from attacking nearby communities. The end result was “the barrier”—an invisible prison that trapped the bad Everafters, as well as the good, in Ferryport Landing forever. Naturally, the townsfolk were bitter, but they failed to realize that Sabrina and her family were stuck in the town, too. The spell would be broken if the Grimms died or abandoned Ferryport Landing, but with the steady stream of outlandish crimes to solve and the rogues’ gallery of monsters, lunatics, and evil witches to combat, Wilhelm’s descendents weren’t going anywhere.
Lately, Everafter resentment of the Grimms was at an all-time high. Most of the bad feeling was fueled by the town’s new mayor, the Queen of Hearts. Mayor Heart and her notorious Sheriff Nottingham had made it all too clear that humans, especially the Grimm family, were not welcome in Ferryport Landing. They raised property taxes so high that they were impossible for most people to pay. Humans were forced to abandon their homes and leave town.
When Granny and the family managed to scrape together the money for the tax bill, Heart and Nottingham tried another approach to rid themselves of the Grimms. They arrested the family’s protector, Mr. Canis. Canis, who happened to be the Big Bad Wolf, was dragged off to jail as the sheriff, mayor, and dozens more Everafters—some the family had considered friends—revealed themselves to be members of a shadowy group known as the Scarlet Hand. The Hand wanted nothing short of world domination, and they were also responsible for much of the family’s grief. Led by the still mysterious “Master,” they committed dozens of bizarre crimes, including the kidnapping and spellbinding of Sabrina and Daphne’s parents. Staying one step ahead of the Hand was a full-time job, one Sabrina’s grandmother had undertaken with the help of Mr. Canis. And now they needed to find a way to get him back.
“There’s Main Street!” Daphne shouted above the wind.
Seconds later, the flying carpet gently touched down outside an office building on the edge of town. Once everyone had stepped onto the sidewalk, the rug neatly rolled itself up, and Daphne hoisted it onto her shoulder.
“Wait here,” the pig-snouted creature said. “I’ll scout the neighborhood. It’s best to stay out of sight. There could be snipers in the trees.”