If you’re reading this, you’re either Puck (stop snooping, stink-face!) or you’re one of my descendants. If you’re a descendant, then maybe you’re like me and you kind of got dumped into this life where everything is upside down and nothing makes sense. Well, I need to fill you in on a few things, and you might want to sit down for this.
You know those bedtime stories your parents read to you at night? You know, the ones filled with fairies, giants, witches, monsters, mad tea parties, princes on white stallions, sleeping princesses, jungle boys, cowardly lions, and guys with straw for brains? They’re not stories. They’re history. They’re based on actual events and actual people who are as real as you and me. They call themselves Everafters—real-life fairy-tale characters—and that’s where our family comes in. We’re Grimms, descendants of one-half of the Brothers Grimm, and we keep an eye on the Everafter community—which is no picnic. OK, I know you’re probably thinking I’ve been sitting too close to the microwave, but I’m telling the truth.
Let me start at the beginning. Two years ago my parents, Henry and Veronica Grimm, disappeared. My sister, Daphne, and I were tossed into an orphanage and bounced around the foster care system for a while. For a long time we thought we had been abandoned, but it turned out Mom and Dad were kidnapped (long story). Enter Granny Relda, our long-lost and believed dead grandmother (another long story). Once she tracked us down, she brought us to live with her in a little town called Ferryport Landing. That’s where a lot of the Everafters live.
You’ve probably never heard of Ferryport Landing. As I write this, the town is being destroyed. There’s an angry mob of ogres, trolls, talking animals, and assorted creeps running down its streets, terrorizing everyone. Anyone with any sense has left or gone into hiding—but not us. Oh no! Our family has no sense to lose, which means we’re knee-deep in trouble and things don’t look like they’re going to get any better.
But you still need to know about Ferryport Landing and what happened here. Which gets me to another of the Grimm family responsibilities. According to tradition it’s our job to keep a journal of everything we see and hear that involves Everafters. The journals might just help you out, and your journals might help out the Grimms that come after you. So, take it from me: just bite the bullet and do it. I can’t count how many times the journals have saved my sister and me.
Of course, there may not be any more Grimms after me. I might die and then no one will be reading this. Like I said, things are pretty bleak.
But that’s enough backstory for today. I’ll write more when I can. For now I have to go save the world.
Sabrina snapped her journal shut and tucked it into the folds of her sleeping bag for safekeeping. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then got to her feet, stretching the stiffness from her aching body. Sleeping on the cold, marble floor of her bedroom was no fun.
Not that where she and her little sister, Daphne, were sleeping could actually be called a “bedroom.” A bedroom had a bed. A bedroom had a window. A bedroom had a place to put your clothes, a closet, a rug, and other things to make it comfy and homey. What the girls had was an empty space with walls of stone and an unforgivingly hard floor. Sabrina hoped the living situation was temporary, but to make sure, she knew she had to get to work.
Next to her sleeping bag she kept a rusty cowbell and a drumstick. She scooped them up and padded over to where her sister lay, still slumbering. First she called out to the little girl. She even gave her a few shakes, but Daphne could sleep through a tornado and rousing her meant Sabrina had to take drastic measures. She found that the most effective of those tactics was a cowbell ring to her sister’s ear.
DONK! The cowbell clanged as the drumstick smacked its side.
Daphne did not stir.
DONK! DONK! DONK!
Nothing.
“Wake up! We’re under attack. Monsters and lunatics and weird dudes with pitchforks! They’ll be here any second!”
Still nothing.
DONK! DONK! DONK! DONK! DONK! DONK!
Finally, Daphne poked her head out from underneath the flap of her sleeping bag, as did the humongous brown snout of Elvis, the family’s two-hundred-pound Great Dane. Both of them eyed Sabrina sourly.
“You are a terrible human being,” Daphne croaked.
“Woof!” the dog agreed.
“C’mon. Get up. We’ve got to get to work,” Sabrina said.
Daphne scowled but did as she was told. When she and Elvis were on their feet, they stretched and yawned in unison. Sabrina noticed a huge book hiding in the folds of her sister’s sleeping bag, and she frowned. It was called the Book of Everafter, and it was a collection of magical fairy tales. A person could do more than read it, though. They could actually go inside and visit the stories they loved. It gave people powers, too—dark powers, like the ability to rewrite the past and entrap people in its literary prison.
“You shouldn’t leave that lying around,” Sabrina said. “I told you when we took it out of its room that you had to be careful with it. Haven’t we had enough trouble without that thing falling into the wrong hands?”