The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 by Ken Brosky, Isabella Fontaine, Dagny Holt, Chris Smith, Lioudmila Perry Page A

such a fickle beast. One must be ever so careful, and there are few eighteen-year-olds who are responsible enough …”
    “Seventeen.”
    “Pardon?”
    “Seventeen,” Seth said sadly. “She doesn’t turn eighteen for another month.”
    We were silent at that. It was easy to forget Trish was still seventeen. It seemed so much younger than eighteen. But what was “18” besides a number? Another birthday doesn’t make you any more mature. It’s your experiences and knowledge that do it. And for Trish, there were a lot of “experiences” but not much knowledge coming from them.
    I opened my eyes, glancing left. Briar and Seth were fast asleep. Briar was clutching his half-empty bag of marshmallows. They looked so peaceful.
    I closed my eyes again.
     
    Screams.
    No laughs this time. Only screams.
    I tried to follow the sounds, but I found myself floating once again through the same mysterious hallway. I made my way into the living room, a large room filled with tall bookshelves and an old red velvet sofa with intricately carved wooden trim. There were two windows along the wall, each of them covered by heavy blood-red drapes.
    Drapes that were moving. Breathing, almost, caught by a breeze no doubt coming in from outside. I could feel the cool breeze. I tried to move closer. This seemed important.
    A shadow moved across the wall, followed by the sound of bare feet padding on the wooden floor. I turned slightly just in time to see him: a boy, no older than six or seven, hurrying his way toward the drapes. He had soft blond hair and chubby cheeks and was wearing a pair of blue overalls and a white long-sleeved shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days. There were holes, too, near the cuffs, and before the boy passed me I noticed both his little hands were crumpled into fists.
    From somewhere inside the house, there came a roar. The boy flinched, stopping a few feet from the drapes, one hand squeezing the wooden frame of the couch. He looked over his shoulder, his sweet little brown face scrunched into a look of pure terror. He turned back to the windows, pulling aside the curtains.
    “No!” he gasped.
    Bars. There were iron bars in front of the windows.
    The boy grabbed them, pulling with every ounce of strength in his little body. But it wasn’t enough. He had little strength to begin with—that much was clear just by the outline of his bones underneath the shirt.
    “Alex,” came a grisly female voice. The boy turned, and his thin face turned pale. His eyes widened.
    Turn , I commanded. Turn ! Nothing happened. I was stuck staring at the terrified boy, unsure of who—or what—was behind me. A shadow crept across the boy’s face, tall and ghoulish-looking as it spread over the drapes. It shrank as the woman stepped closer to the boy.
    She was tall. That was the first thing I noticed. In addition to being tall, her dry, bristly gray hair was done up in a thick bun that made her even taller. She had a pointed nose and wrinkled skin that hung from her cheekbones like slabs of rotten meat. She was wearing a dark purple dress buttoned tightly up to her neck, with white frilly cuffs. Around her waist was a belt and from the belt hung a single keychain filled with skeleton keys.
    “This room is off-limits. How did you get out?” the woman snapped.
    “The door was unlocked,” said the boy named Alex.
    The woman’s face darkened. Her upper lip curled just a bit. I tried to take a step back, willing myself to move. Nothing happened.
    “You’re lying to me.” She reached out, grabbing Alex by the collar of his shirt. “Do you think you can escape this place? Do you think there is something out there for you?”
    The boy stayed silent, not struggling with the woman’s iron grip. Her long, bony fingers dug easily through the worn fabric of his shirt.
    “Answer me, boy!”
    “I can’t work anymore,” the boy said. “My … my fingers hurt and my tummy is sore.”
    I felt a pain of remorse at the