The Sisters Grimm: Book Eight: The Inside Story (6 page)

“I know the fairy: Puck, Trickster, Imp, the Pooka,” the old man said as he gestured to Puck. Then he turned his tiny eyes toward the girls. “You two I do not know.”

“We’re Sabrina and Daphne Grimm,” Sabrina said.

“Did you say ‘Grimm’?”

“Yes, sir. What story is this?” Daphne asked.

Sabrina looked down at her own clothes to see if she and her sister had new outfits, but both she and Daphne were wearing their own clothing again. Even the silver slippers were gone. She looked up and saw that Dorothy’s shoes were resting on a tray. The old man placed them in the mouth of the reviser next to his chair.

“Prepare these for reinsertion into the story,” he said, and then turned his attention back to the children. “You are not in a story. You are in my library—a place few humans or Everafters have ever seen. I have been forced to bring you here to protect the sanctity of the Book you and your comrades are sullying. Running around in my pages causes quite a bit of damage.”

“You’re the Editor,” Sabrina said.

Four more of the pink creatures crawled out from beneath the old man’s chair. He treated them like pets, scratching affectionately at their grotesque heads and bellies. “The characters in the Book of Everafter are difficult enough to manage without the interference of visitors. You’ve made a complete mess out of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. You skipped over parts, you butchered the dialogue, and you changed the climax. I don’t remember the Witch begging Dorothy to kill her. My revisers will have quite a bit of work ahead of them to put things back to the way they really happened.”

The old man rose from his chair and crossed the room to the door the children had just stepped through, which was still standing open in the middle of the floor. The pink monsters followed him there, and when he knelt down they grinned and squeaked. He waved a hand as if to calm them and then spoke softly.

“I’m afraid I need more than the five of you,” he said. “I’m thinking
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
needs a complete page-one rewrite. We’re going to start over with this one. No use discovering we have a problem later.”

The little pink monsters hopped forward to lick the man’s hand with their long, white tongues and then scurried back. To Sabrina’s amazement, the five divided themselves into ten, then twenty, then forty, and on and on and on. They were like bacteria in a petri dish, reproducing at an alarming rate, until there were hundreds of them. They scuttled through the open doorway with their huge, fanged mouths open wide, and then the doorway closed.

“What are they going to do?” Daphne asked.

“They are revisers, child. They are going to fix the changes you have made—which have been numerous.”

“And how do they do that?” Sabrina asked suspiciously.

“They’re going to erase everyone and everything.”

“Erase?”

“I suppose a more accurate word would be ‘eat.’ ”

“Those things are going to eat everyone we met in Oz? Because of us?” Daphne cried.

“Can I watch?” Puck said.

“That’s what a reviser does,” the Editor said. “When they are finished, I can re-craft the story so that it matches what happened at the actual event. You seem troubled, but if I were to allow the changes you made to stay in place . . . well, it would change history—real history. Dorothy might have been trapped in Oz for good. The repercussions could be unpredictable and dangerous. Luckily, I’m here to put it back the way it has always been.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sabrina said.

The Editor sighed impatiently. “Just like a Grimm to leap into a magic book without knowing how it works. Let me explain this in simple terms. A hundred years ago the Book of Everafter was created by the Everafter community as a sort of history book of its people—a living, breathing diorama of the places and events cherished most by the fairy-tale folk of Ferryport Landing. Many of the stories mirror those documented by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, L. Frank Baum, Hans Christian Andersen, et cetera, but unlike the writings of those men, a person can actually walk into this history book and interact with the characters. This provided the community with the opportunity to vacation away from the town and its barrier, if they so desired—reliving their glory days, as it were. For nearly four decades, it was enjoyed by many, until an Everafter abused the privilege and altered the magic for her own personal gain. She turned the Book’s magic into something its original creators never imagined.”

“What did she do?” Daphne cried.

“She linked it to real history.”

“Huh?” Puck said.

“Pay attention!” the Editor snapped. “The changes she made were very dangerous. Now when someone steps into the Book of Everafter, they can choose to change things they don’t like, and history, in the real world, is forever changed. They can marry a different princess, choose not to kiss a frog, or arrive in time to make sure the Wolf does not eat their grandmother. Whatever they change in these stories will change history. The real world will bend and twist to fit the changes. No one will remember that anything is different. This Everafter did just that—she went into her story, caused havoc, and her changes changed history.”

“Who was it?” Daphne asked.

“That is privileged information. All I will say is that her tale was tragic and heartbreaking and now, it is not. Needless to say, the woman made a mess and couldn’t put the story back together in a way that made any sense. So she created me, and the revisers, to help her fill in the holes. Since then, it has become my duty to clean up any further changes made by visitors, and to keep the status quo. But you fools are messing things up. Every little change you make changes reality—that is, if I don’t fix it back before it’s too late.”

“We didn’t know!” Daphne cried.

“Clearly,” the Editor said.

Sabrina scowled. “We’re not a bunch of meddlesome kids joyriding in your stupid book. We’re trying to rescue a member of our family. Once we find him, we’ll go.”

The Editor frowned as he sat back in his big chair. “I can feel his presence, as well as two others—the Magic Mirror, and Pinocchio, the marionette who wished to be a real boy.”

“Pinocchio helped Mirror kidnap our brother,” Daphne said.

“Regardless of their real-world transgressions, you do not belong here.” The old man gestured to the other side of the room and another doorway materialized. The door swung open. On the other side stood Granny Relda and the girls’ parents in the Hall of Wonders, looking down into the Book of Everafter. From their confused expressions, Sabrina could tell they couldn’t see the girls or the library in which they were standing.

Sabrina considered the Editor’s explanation. Perhaps one of the adults might do a better job than she would. If she went back, her mother or father could step in and take up the hunt. Granny Relda would know what to do. The temptation to let someone else make the big choices was incredible.

“We’re not going without our brother,” Daphne said, jarring her sister from her conflicted thoughts. “Mirror is planning on stealing his body. We won’t go until he’s safe. I don’t care if we wreck every story in this book.”

The Editor shifted in his chair. His face showed anger and surprise. “Leave now or my revisers will devour you,” he seethed.

Puck shrugged. “I’ve been eaten before. It’s no big deal.”

Daphne pulled Puck and Sabrina back toward the doorway they and the revisers had just stepped through. She opened it and faced a terrible wind layered with heat and humidity, and smelling like something untamed and dangerous.

“You are making a terrible mistake!” the Editor shouted over the sound of the wind.

“If I had a nickel for every time a bad guy told me that, I’d be a rich detective,” Daphne said. She pushed everyone through, and suddenly there was a stomach-dropping moment, and then the Editor and his creepy pets were gone.

Sabrina stood on a large, flat rock beneath an inky night sky. The air was hot and humid and heavy with the musk of wild creatures. Jungle trees dipped down overheard and the full moon’s light lit up the ground. In her hand was a torch, which she held above her head. Its light revealed savage beasts surrounding her—a pack of wolves. Each held its haunches high, but their eyes were on the ground and many were trembling in fear. The torch also illuminated the dirty loincloth that barely covered her.

“Thou art the master,” a voice said from the trees above her head. It was smooth and serious, and when she looked up at it she realized its owner was a black panther nestled in the branches. “Save Akela from the death. He was ever your friend.”

Terrified, Sabrina screamed and stumbled backward. When the panther did not pounce, she tried to calm herself. She told herself over and over again that she was in a story and story animals were not the same as their man-eating real-life versions. At least, she hoped they weren’t. The fact that the panther was talking boded well too. Most of the talking animals in Ferryport Landing weren’t savage—annoying for sure, but not bloodthirsty. Still, there was no sign of Daphne or Puck. Perhaps they had been the appetizers and she was about to become the main course. “Daphne? Puck? I could really use some help here.”

An old gray wolf stood nearby, its head bowed in obedience. When she spoke, he looked up in confusion. “What did the man-cub say?”

“I have no idea,” another said.

“Could the man-cub repeat what he just said?”

“Man-cub?” Sabrina said, confused.

Then a figure on hands and knees crawled toward her. It was Daphne and she was giggling. “We’re in
The Jungle Book
!”

Sabrina had not read
The Jungle Book
. Granny Relda had told her that its main character, Mowgli, was a good kid, so she had flipped through the book quickly and moved on to the next. Looking back, that hadn’t been the best strategy.

“I’m a wolf,” Daphne said, letting out a goofy howl at the silver moon. It sounded less like a wolf and more like a wounded house cat. “Guess who you are! You’re Mowgli!”

Sabrina searched her memory for facts about Mowgli. He was a boy from India who was raised by wolves—he had a friend that was a sloth bear and another that was a panther. She seemed to recall there was something else about a tiger, but she couldn’t remember anything specific. Was the tiger really annoying and bouncing around a lot? Maybe that was another story.

“Where’s Puck?” Sabrina asked.

Daphne shrugged as she got to her feet. “He’s around here somewhere.”

Sabrina frowned as she studied the wolf pack nervously. “Any idea what we’re supposed to do before we’re turned into dog food?”

“Pardon me?” one of the wolves cried. “We are not dogs. We are wolves!”

“Proud ones at that!” another shouted.

Just then, a huge animal lumbered onto the rock. It was orange and white and all muscle. Sabrina nearly dropped her torch in fright when she realized it was a Bengal tiger. This particular animal hobbled on a lame foot, but that did nothing to detract from its menacing presence.

“Enough!” it roared. “This is not how things went. You are supposed to grant Akela a pardon from the death and then accept your banishment from the pack and the Council. Then you are supposed to attack some of the wolves with your torch and then attack me. You must stick to what happened, or the revisers will come. Follow the original events or I will kill you where you stand, man-cub.”

“First, I’m not a ‘man-cub.’ If anything I’m a woman-cub,” Sabrina said. “Secondly, I don’t know this story well enough to follow it, so you’re going to have cut me a break.”

“Perhaps I should just cut you,” Shere Khan said, flashing the claws on his good paw.

A figure dropped out of the sky and landed between the girls and the tiger. “Keep your paws off my fiancée, you flea-ridden stray,” Puck shouted.

“By the lock that freed me,” the panther cried as he craned his neck to eye the boy fairy. “Who are you?”

Puck put his hands on his hips and puffed up his chest. “I am the Trickster King. Leader of the Lazy, Master of Mayhem, Savior of the—surely you’ve heard of me.”

The wolves looked at one another and then shook their heads. “Are you one of the monkey people?”