Conner’s eyes shot straight up toward Sofia. There was something very familiar about this story—something too familiar.
Every day the brothers traveled into the forest where they would meet a beautiful fairy. Each time they met, the fairy gave the brothers a new story to share with the people in their village. The fairy lived in a Secret Castle far away from anywhere man had ever been, and her stories were usually about one of the many magical creatures that lived with her in the castle. The brothers were very grateful to the fairy and never told a soul that she and her castle were real.
Conner could feel his heart beating in the back of his throat. He was listening so intently he forgot about everyone in the crowd around him. Many troubling thoughts filled his head as the story became more familiar. Had the Brothers Grimm staged this whole event to come clean about the origin of their stories? Were they about to admit to the world that the Fairy Godmother was real and had supplied them with their greatest work?
One day the king got word of the brothers’ stories. The king was very smart and had a hunch that there was truth to their tales. He had his soldiers follow the brothers into the forest the next time they met the fairy, and their secret was unveiled. The king ordered the brothers to come to see him at his palace and demanded that they take him and his army to the Secret Castle where the fairy lived so they could conquer it.
The brothers pleaded with the king, and told him they didn’t know where the Secret Castle was. The king showed them no mercy and said that if they didn’t supply him with directions to the Secret Castle he would have everyone in their village killed.
Not wanting to trouble the fairy who had been so kind to them, the brothers asked a great magical bird that also lived at the Secret Castle for help. The magical bird gave the brothers a map to give the king, showing a way to the Secret Castle. But what the king didn’t know was that this map was of an enchanted path; it would take him and his army of thousands two hundred years to reach the Secret Castle.
The magical bird assured the brothers that by the time the king and his army arrived at the Secret Castle, it would be prepared to face them. The brothers gave the map to the king and he and his army immediately began their quest to find the Secret Castle.
With the king and his army gone, the brothers’ village was saved from the greedy king’s wrath. However, the brothers never saw the magical bird or the fairy again. As time went by, the brothers worried that the magical bird, being old and careless, would forget to warn the other magical creatures in the Secret Castle that the army was coming. So the brothers decided to write their last known story themselves and they knew it would be the most important one they would ever tell.
The brothers wrote a story similar to their own lives, about a Secret Castle and magical creatures and a greedy king who wanted to conquer it all. They spread the story across the land, from one generation to the next, hoping the tale would eventually reach someone who would recognize it for what it really was—not a fairy tale, but a warning in disguise.
There was a long pause before the crowd realized the story was over. Their applause was as confused as their expressions—it seemed like such an odd, unfinished story.
“That is all there is, I’m afraid,” Sofia said. “I certainly hope the Secret Castle was warned of the approaching army. Perhaps the Brothers Grimm purposely left their last story unfinished, so that we would all finish it ourselves in our own imaginations. Now I will read the story in French.…”
Conner felt light-headed and sick to his stomach. His mind was racing with so many questions he couldn’t focus. He didn’t even hear Sofia read the story in French or German; everything was white noise around him. He replayed the story again and again in his head—everything the Brothers Grimm had written in the third story was so obvious and so carefully planned. They were the brothers in their own story, the fairy was Conner’s grandmother, the magical bird must be Mother Goose or one of the other fairies, and the Secret Castle was the Land of Stories. And just like in the story, the story wasn’t actually a story—it was a warning.
The Brothers Grimm were trying to warn someone that something was on its way to the Land of Stories. And since they had so carefully planned for the story to be heard two hundred years later, whatever was approaching the Land of Stories must be arriving soon.
It was all so blatant; Conner looked around the crowd hoping to see someone else who had interpreted the story for what it was, but there was no one who had interpreted it like he had. The fairy-tale world was in great danger and he was the only one in the Otherworld who realized it.
“Conner, are you okay?” Bree asked him. “You just went from bright red to pale white in a couple seconds.”
“I’m fine,” Conner lied. “It’s just that story… it was just so strange…”
“Was it coincidentally close to something you were planning on writing?” Bree asked him playfully, but she knew from the look on his face that something was terribly wrong.
Conner was looking right at her, but none of his thoughts had anything to do with her. He didn’t care if she knew he had a crush on her, and he didn’t care if she or the Book Huggers were close to finding the truth about his sister; all he cared about was warning his grandmother and his sister that they were in danger.
Before he knew it, Sofia had finished reading the story in the other languages and the Grimm-Fest had come to an end.
“On behalf of the University of Berlin, I’d like to thank you for joining us today,” Sofia said. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the festivities today as much as I have.”
She placed the third scroll back into the chest the man in lederhosen held for her and together they disappeared into the chapel. The crowd began heading out of the cemetery and Mrs. Peters rallied her group to do the same.
“Wasn’t that a remarkable reading?” Mrs. Peters asked. “I’m certain to remember it for the rest of my life.”
“Mrs. Peters, I’m starving! Can we get something to eat?” Mindy asked.
“Of course,” Mrs. Peters said. “Mrs. Weiss was just recommending we meet up with her and her students at a little café near our hotel if no one objects—”
“Mrs. Peters!” Conner interrupted. “Can I just go back to the hotel? I’m not feeling very well and I think I need to lie down for a bit.”
Mrs. Peters was disappointed but not surprised to hear this given the look on his face. “I’m so sorry, Conner,” she said. “Of course you may. I’ll have the driver drop you off before he takes us to lunch.”
The van couldn’t drive back to the hotel fast enough. Conner even thought about faking a few dry heaves to speed things up. As soon as they pulled up to the hotel Conner jumped out and ran inside before anyone could say good-bye. He zoomed through the lobby, almost knocking into three guests on his way, and ran up the four flights of stairs to his room—he didn’t want to waste any time waiting for the elevator.
He burst into his room and locked the door behind him. He immediately searched through Betsy until he found his piece of mirror. He impatiently tapped the glass and anxiously waited for it to connect him to his sister. Conner prayed Alex would be available. Unfortunately the only reflection he saw in the mirror was his own.
“Come on, Alex!” Conner said. “You’ve got to answer! Trust me, nothing is more important than this right now!”
He tapped the mirror again and again, trying to reach his sister, with no luck. He spent the rest of the day trying—and still, no result. They were the most frustrating hours of his life. In the evening Conner heard a knock on his door. Mrs. Peters had come to check on him. She and the girls had returned from their bike tour of Tiergarten Park.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Bailey? Any better?” she asked at the door.
“I’m all right, just really nauseated,” Conner told her. “I think I caught a bug at the cemetery.”
“Do I need to call for a doctor?” she asked.
“No, I think I’ll feel better in the morning,” Conner said. “I should be fine as long as I get some sleep.”
“I certainly hope so,” Mrs. Peters said. “I would hate for you to waste your whole trip locked in your hotel room.”
She left him alone to rest, but rest was the last thing Conner got that night. After trying to reach his sister for a couple more hours, he couldn’t stand being in the hotel room any longer. He couldn’t sit around while he knew something very wrong was going on somewhere.
Conner decided to go back to the cemetery, for clarity if not for answers. He grabbed his coat and quietly left his room. He took the stairs again, trying to avoid as many people as possible. He snagged a map from the pamphlet rack in the hotel lobby and followed it all the way back to the cemetery. It took him an hour to walk there in the dark, and to make matters worse it also started to rain.
When he reached St. Matth?us-Kirchhof cemetery all the posters had been taken off the gate and all the guests were gone. It was so much more peaceful now that it was empty. He retraced his steps to the modest graves of the Brothers Grimm. The ground around the graves was littered with flowers and gifts from the attendees of the readings earlier that day.
Conner squinted at the graves as if he were looking not at two big blocks of stone but rather two very silent people.
“So that was some story,” he said to the graves. “Was there anything else you failed to mention? Were there any clues you forgot to include?”
The rain increased with Conner’s frustration. He was actually upset that the graves weren’t responding.
“What army is approaching the fairy-tale world? Where did it come from? Are my grandmother and my sister in danger? Please, I need to know,” Conner said, this time asking the rainy sky above him.
Unfortunately, there was no sign for Conner to witness. He had to rely solely on what his gut was telling him. Conner knew he had been meant to be in the cemetery earlier that day, he had been meant to hear and correctly interpret the story, and now he was meant to warn the fairy-tale world of the approaching danger.
He just didn’t know how.