The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1)

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Elvis woke the girls the next morning with loving licks on their faces. Luckily, Jack had not hurt the dog too badly. His ribs were bruised and he would have to wear a bandage on bis side until the veterinarian could remove his stitches. But the only thing that seemed to truly hurt was Elvis's pride. Daphne apologized to him for not paying attention to his clue and promised that his opinion would always be considered in the future.

 

Granny greeted them at the dining room table with more of her unusual culinary treats. That morning, they enjoyed blue scrambled eggs, some little orange nuts, home fried potatoes soaked in sparkly green gravy, and wedges of tomato. Mr. Canis was still in his room and Puck was nowhere in sight.

 

"Is Mr. Canis OK?" Daphne asked.

 

"He will be," Granny Relda replied. "I'm sure he'll be happy to hear you are concerned."

 

"Where's Puck?"

 

Granny Relda smiled. "He'll be here soon."

 

After breakfast, the three Grimms went to the mall and bought the girls a dozen outfits apiece. Even Granny found a new hat with a sunflower on it that matched a yellow dress she said she hadn't worn in years. Sabrina suggested they burn their orange monkey sweaters and blue heart-covered pants but Daphne refused. Granny took Sabrina aside and apologized for the outfit, saying that Mr. Canis might not have been the right choice to shop for girls. After all, he was color-blind.

 

When they got home, Granny had presents for them. The girls unwrapped them quickly and found they each had a brand-new, cloth-bound book, just like the one in which their father had kept his journal. The covers had their names stenciled in gold with the words FAIRY-TALE ACCOUNTS above them. When Sabrina opened hers, she found there was nothing inside, only hundreds of blank pages.

 

"As your father and generations of Grimms before him did, it is your responsibility to put on paper what you see, so that future generations can know what you went through," Granny said. "We are Grimms. This is what we do."

 

The rest of the day, the girls scribbled what had happened into the books. They picked each other's brains for anything they might have forgotten and when they were finished, Sabrina tucked the picture of her family inside her journal's pages. Together, the girls rushed downstairs and placed their books alongside their father's on the shelf reserved for their family.

 

"Girls, I'd like to show you something else," Granny said. The girls followed her up the stairs, where she unlocked Mirror's room. The little man's face was in the glass again and he smiled when the old woman and the girls entered.

 

"Good afternoon, Relda," Mirror said.

 

"Good afternoon. I do hope you are feeling better," Granny replied.

 

"Much better. The bruises look worse than they felt," Mirror said.

 

"That's nice to know," the old woman said. She turned to the girls and took their hands. "Would you like to see your parents?"

 

Sabrina's heart nearly jumped from her chest.

 

"Is it possible?" she asked.

 

Granny turned back to the mirror. "Mirror, mirror, near and far," she said aloud. "Show us where their parents are."

 

The mirror misted over and two figures slowly appeared in the reflection. When the mist cleared, Sabrina saw her parents, Henry and Veronica, lying on a bed in a dark room. They were very still, with their eyes closed.

 

"They're dead," Sabrina said, before she could stop herself.

 

"No, not dead," Granny Relda corrected her. "Just sleeping."

 

"We lost one of Dorothy's slippers," Daphne cried. "We could have used them to rescue Mom and Dad."

 

Sabrina's face flushed with regret.

 

"Liebling, don't you think I have tried the slippers and everything else inside the mirror?" Granny Relda sighed. "This Scarlet Hand, whoever they are, used strong magic to take your

 

 

 

mom and dad away from us, but we aren't going to give up. We'll find them, I promise."

 

The girls wrapped their arms around Granny Relda and hugged her tightly. Sabrina and Daphne sobbed, both tears of happiness that their parents weren't dead and tears of despair that they didn't know where they were.

 

"I hope you'll let me into your family until we can all reunite," Granny said, breaking into tears herself.

 

Suddenly, there was a knock at the downstairs door. The old woman took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the girls' eyes. Then she wiped her own and stuffed the hankie back into its home.

 

"Come girls, we have guests," she said as she exited the room. The girls watched the image of their parents slowly fade from the mirror and then stood for a moment, staring at their own reflections.

 

"We're home now," Sabrina said to her sister.

 

"Well, duh!" Daphne giggled.

 

The two left the room and closed the door behind them. Then they ran down the stairs to the foyer. Puck was already inside, carrying several boxes filled to the top with old toys, junk, and several dead plants. Behind him were Glinda, Hamstead, Boarman, and Swineheart.

 

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