The man cleared his throat and unfolded the paper. “We the jury find the accused guilty of murder.”
Sabrina gasped. Most of the audience cheered, though Sabrina heard some angry boos coming from their loyal friends. The noise banged against Sabrina’s eardrums like a wooden spoon on an old pot. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. Granny and Daphne looked no better.
“I see,” Hatter said when the crowd grew quiet. “Then I suppose we need to sentence him, and I tell you folks, I’m going to give him a full sentence. Not a sentence fragment but a whole sentence with a verb and a noun and possibly an adjective. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a conjunction in there as well. I can’t stand these judges who run around with their half-baked sentences. That’s how you get salmonella poisoning! Thus, I sentence the Wolf to death by hanging!”
The crowd leaped to its feet. Some were dancing and clapping; others laughed and howled with twisted joy. Only Sabrina, her family, Briar Rose, Snow White, and their Everafter friends were brokenhearted.
“Order! Order in the court!” Hatter cried, striking his head with his gavel again. “The Wolf will be hanged tomorrow in the center of town at noon. I believe we should make an example out of the monster. This case is over!”
Hatter leaped to his feet and rushed out of the room. Bluebeard, however, stood beaming proudly at the Grimms. Robin Hood and Little John pushed through the crowd to them. Their long faces spoke a thousand words of remorse. Granny thanked them for trying then moved to the front of the court where Mr. Canis was being dragged away by a dozen soldiers.
“Old friend!” she said.
“Old friend,” Canis said, his features now almost completely those of the Wolf’s.
“We’ll work on another way,” Granny said. “There’s no reason to worry.”
Canis shook his head. “It’s over, Relda Grimm. It is how I want it.”
He turned and allowed the guards to lead him out of the courtroom.
Daphne hugged her grandmother and wept into the old woman’s dress. Tears were rolling down Granny’s face as well. Even Uncle Jake was shaken and pale. Puck, however, was furious.
“I’m going to rescue him!” he shouted angrily. His wings sprang from his back and his eyes turned coal black. He snatched his sword from his waist and flew toward the door that Canis had been led through, but Granny pulled him back by his foot.
“No, Puck!”
“He needs our help, old lady!” Puck shouted.
“No! Not here. Not this way. If you go after him they will arrest you next. Stay with us, Puck. I can’t bear to lose another member of my family.”
“What now?” Sabrina asked her grandmother. For the first time since she had met the old woman, her granny was speechless. She seemed dumbstruck by something at the far end of the room. Sabrina followed her gaze and saw the man in the black cloak staring back at them. Bluebeard joined him and shook his hand, as did Heart and Nottingham. And then something so much more shocking occurred than even Canis’s death sentence. The man reached up and removed his hood, revealing his identity. The man in the cloak was Prince William Charming.
Snow White saw the unveiling as well. Her already pale complexion grew whiter. She bit her lower lip and a tear rolled down her cheek. She turned to Granny Relda. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t be here.”
Snow turned and ran out of the room. Charming watched her go, but then turned back to his new friends. Sabrina glared at the man like he was mold on the bottom of a toilet. She had never trusted Charming, but she had secretly hoped that Daphne was right about him. The little girl always believed he was a hero waiting for an opportunity. Even though he had come to the family’s aid occasionally, Sabrina had continued to have her doubts. It had never felt so miserable to be so right.
n the day the Big Bad Wolf was sentenced to die, it rained. Buckets of water spilled from dull, black clouds and flooded the streets. The town’s sewer system backed up and the water that didn’t make it to the nearby river flowed through the tiny hamlet without restraint.
Granny Relda wrapped herself in a rain jacket. Uncle Jake stood beside her holding an umbrella over her head. Sabrina recognized it as the same umbrella Mr. Canis had held over her the day she and Daphne arrived in Ferryport Landing. At first the children were told they had to stay home. Then Granny seemed to realize they’d sneak out anyway, and so she agreed to let them come along to say good-bye, but they were not to watch the execution. Sabrina knew it might be the last chance she had to apologize to the man who had been her family’s protector for almost two decades. She wanted to tell him how wrong she had been about him. He had never deserved her distrust.