"It's happening again?" Hamstead said when he stepped into the room and saw the old man.
"No, it is different this time," Mr. Canis said as his blue eyes flashed in the dark room. He pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the wall. "The explosion changed some things in unexpected ways. I have access to the Wolf's abilities but my control over him is… fading. I am also having some difficulties completing the change to my human form."
He turned slightly to show the bushy brown tail sticking out the back of his trousers.
Sabrina turned to her grandmother. "Did you know he was still alive?"
Granny Relda nodded. "Yes."
"You lied to us!"
"Because I asked her to," Canis said. "I wanted to save you from having to mourn my death twice."
"I don't understand," Daphne said.
"He means he was going to kill himself," Sabrina said.
"Why?"
"Because I would rather die than let the Wolf loose again. Every one of his victims lives inside my mind. I hear them beg for mercy that never came. I see the terror in their faces as they died. I will never let him free again. His crimes are still destroying lives, including your own. You've seen today the repercussions of his violence."
"You drove Little Red Riding Hood insane," Sabrina said.
"I took her family from her," Mr. Canis whispered. The old man hung his tired head.
Sheriff Hamstead turned to the girls. "Red Riding Hood has never been the same. When the Everafters from Europe came over on Wilhelm's ship, she spent the entire voyage raving to herself, drawing these horrible pictures, and screaming through the night. Even the ogres were terrified of her. When we all got settled in Ferryport Landing, our first order of business was finding a place to keep her. We built the asylum at the top of Mount Taurus, hired a few Everafter doctors and nurses to look after her, and basically forgot about her. But she kept finding ways to escape, so something had to be done."
"Spaulding Grimm went to Baba Yaga and asked her to cast the same spell on the asylum that she'd used to trap everyone in the town," Granny Relda said. "It was a brilliant idea. Anyone who became a serious problem got sent to the asylum."
"That's where we put the Jabberwocky, as well," Sheriff Hamstead added.
"But the spell that keeps everyone in the town is big-time magic. How did Red Riding Hood get loose again?" Sabrina asked.
Granny Relda turned to Uncle Jake. He seemed to sink into his clothing.
"Tell them, Mom. Tell them everything," he said.
Granny's face looked pained but she took a few deep breaths and stood up from her chair. She turned to a framed photo on the wall. It was of her and their grandpa Basil when the two were much younger. Sabrina guessed they were in their mid-twenties. Even though the photo was in black and white, it couldn't hide the color in their faces. Their eyes and cheeks glowed. They were young and in love. Granny took the photo off the wall and looked at it lovingly.
"Oh, where to start? I guess at the beginning. When I was twenty-six I met a man at a party in Berlin. A week later I married him. His name was Basil Grimm.
"I didn't know anything about the Grimm family really, other than what I had learned about Jacob and Wilhelm in school. All I knew was that Basil was a handsome, adventurous, slightly arrogant American who swept me off my feet. He told me we were going on vacation. It would be the last vacation we ever took, but we packed memories into it that would last a lifetime. We traveled the globe together on a two-year honeymoon.
"We went everywhere: Istanbul, Hawaii, Alaska, the Amazon, South Africa, the Galapagos Islands--it was exhilarating. Every morning we woke up in a strange new land, hungry to explore. These were some of the happiest times of my life. A year into the trip I got pregnant with your father, but it didn't stop our adventure. We continued to travel even after he was born."
Granny put the photo back and crossed the room to where another framed photo hung. This one was of the couple in a snowy landscape, running a dogsled. She took it off the wall and admired it.
"Before the two years were quite up, Basil got a letter from his sister Matilda telling him he had to come home. His brother, your great-uncle Edwin, had passed away, so we came to Ferryport Landing as quickly as we could. And then I was introduced to the family business."
Granny put the photo back on the wall.