The Unusual Suspects (The Sisters Grimm, Book 2)

"Uh, thanks," Sabrina said. "I'll save these for the next time I need to build a campfire."

"Child, those aren't ordinary matches!" Charming groaned. "They're the Little Match Girl's matches. I just handed you something people in this town would kill for."

Snow White gasped. "You told me they had been destroyed!"

"I was trying to protect you," Charming said. "If anyone knew these still existed, your life might have been in danger."

"Great, so you give them to us?" Sabrina groaned. "Doesn't everyone hate us enough?"

"Grimm, no one is going to know you have them, because you are going to use them right away," the mayor replied.

Sabrina peeked into the matchbox. Two small wooden matches lay inside. "What do they do?"

"I thought you two were supposed to be experts on fables and fairy tales. 'The Little Match Girl' is one of Hans Christian Andersen's most famous accounts."

"You've been in our house. There are like a million books in the bathroom alone. We don't know everything yet," Sabrina said.

"The Little Match Girl sold matches in the street for money," Snow White explained. "One day she came across a box of them and set out to make a little money to help feed her family. But it was horribly cold outside and she was forced to light one. The flame became a magical portal, leading to a room filled with food and a roaring fireplace. The girl realized she had just wished she were in such a place before striking the match. People have been looking for those matches for a hundred years. They'll take a person anywhere they want to go, Sabrina. All you have to do is wish."

"Like Dorothy's slippers?" Daphne asked. She and her sister had used them to pop up all over town, but they had lost one of them while running from a giant.

"These are more powerful than the slippers," Charming said. "They could take an Everafter to the other side of the barrier, or they could take you to your parents."

Sabrina stared down into the box and a tear rolled down her cheek. She didn't deserve such an amazing gift and she knew it. For weeks she had looked at every Everafter as a suspect in her parents' kidnapping. She had turned everyone against her and practically broken her grandmother's heart. And yet, here was the most obnoxious, untrustworthy of the bunch, handing her the key to finding her parents.

"Why would you do this for us?" Sabrina asked.

"We made a deal," Charming said, glancing at the pretty teacher.

"You could have used these to escape," said Snow White.

"There was something that kept me here," Charming said, staring into her eyes. The beautiful teacher leaned over and kissed the mayor. "Billy Charming, make me a promise."

"What kind of promise?" Charming asked, somewhat breathless.

"When all this is said and done," Snow White said, "Take me to dinner."

"As long as we can leave your seven chaperones at home," Charming said with a grin.

Mr. Seven grumbled in the front seat.

"Oh, it's so romantic," Daphne blubbered. "I think I'm going to cry!"

"I think I'm going to lose my lunch," Puck groaned.

Suddenly, the car came to a screeching halt.

"Seven, why have we stopped?" Charming demanded.

"The road is blocked, sir," the little man said, pointing out the window to where dozens of children were walking in the middle of the street. They were all wearing pajamas and had glassy looks in their eyes. "There are too many of them to maneuver around."

"The piper is controlling them," Sabrina said as they passed some of the kids.

Mr. Seven honked the horn, but it had no effect on the children.



"We'll have to walk from here," Sabrina said. They got out of the car, leaving Mr. Seven to guard it. Puck's wings sprang from his back and he lifted off the ground.

"What I wouldn't do for a carton of eggs," he said. "I'm going to go get some and play dive-bomber on these zombies."

Before he could fly away, Snow White grabbed his leg and yanked him back down to the ground. "We should stay together," she said. The boy looked extremely disappointed, but his wings disappeared nonetheless.

The group weaved in and out of the crowd until they were standing on the front lawn of the elementary school. As they approached the main entrance, Sabrina noticed that the front doors the giant mouse had plowed through were still lying on the ground. A steady stream of vacant-faced children were shuffling through the doorway, ushered in by a hulking girl with a pink ribbon in her hair. When Sabrina studied her closely, she realized that it was Natalie.