CHAPTER NINE

ABANDON TRIP

Conner spent his last two days in Germany locked in his hotel room pretending to be sick. While his principal and schoolmates went to museums and historical landmarks, he worked around the clock trying to contact his sister. He lived off sandwiches and sodas from a vending machine down the hall and twenty-minute naps when he needed them.

He had never been so angry with his sister before in his life. He knew Alex was busy preparing for the Fairy Inaugural Ball but it couldn’t have been going on for all of the past three days. When he finally got ahold of her—if he ever got ahold of her—she’d better have a good reason for why she had been ignoring him.

Unfortunately, the day of their departure finally came and Conner had no choice but to travel home with the others. He regretted leaving—somehow being close to the grave sites of the Brothers Grimm made him feel closer to the issue.

Their group loaded into the van and said good-bye to Berlin as they drove to the airport. Once they arrived at the airport Conner wouldn’t let the woman behind the counter check Betsy. His piece of magic mirror was inside and he didn’t want to be away from it in case Alex tried contacting him. His unexpected clinginess to the suitcase didn’t go unnoticed. Everyone in his group raised an eyebrow, but no one’s eyebrow rose higher than Bree’s. She was carefully watching every move he made.

They landed in London’s Heathrow Airport and found seats by the gate for their connecting flight home.

“Oy, governor! Oy, governor!” Cindy said in a horrible cockney accent to all the British people that passed them by. “That’s how you say hello here,” she whispered to the others like she was filling them in on a secret.

“No, it’s not,” Bree said, embarrassed for her.

The Book Huggers had been giving Conner dirty looks ever since they left Berlin but Conner was unaware of it. He had been staring off into space the entire time, clutching Betsy to his chest as if he were expecting someone to rip the suitcase out of his hands.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Bailey?” Mrs. Peters asked him as she read a newspaper.

“Better,” Conner said, without looking up.

“I’m so sorry you missed out on all the other activities; you would have enjoyed them,” his principal said.

“Next time” was all Conner could reply.

The gate’s intercom buzzed as an announcement was made. “Attention, all travelers leaving on international flight 527, we will be boarding the plane in ten minutes, starting with our first-class passengers.”

“Oh wonderful,” Mrs. Peters said, and folded up her newspaper. “We’ll be in the air on our way home in no time.”

Conner knew it would be difficult to use the piece of magic mirror once he was on the plane. He decided to try reaching Alex one more time before boarding.

“I’m going to use the restroom before we get on the plane,” Conner announced to the girls. He hurried across the waiting area to the nearest bathroom with Betsy in his arms.

The Book Huggers rolled their eyes at Conner just like every time he had said or done anything on the trip. Bree watched Conner as he went, curious about why he needed his suitcase to use the restroom.

Conner entered the men’s room and looked under all the stalls to make sure he was alone. He locked himself inside one, put the toilet lid down, and had a seat. He opened Betsy on the floor in front of him and retrieved the piece of mirror. He pressed the glass with his finger and watched it shimmer for a few moments but had no luck reaching Alex. He was so frustrated and disappointed.

However doubtful he was about getting a different result, Conner decided to tap the glass one more time before calling it quits. The glass shimmered for as long as it always did and right when Conner was about to put the piece of mirror away, his heart dropped. A face appeared in the mirror—but it wasn’t the person he was expecting.

“Oh, C-Dog, thank God it’s you,” Mother Goose said. “Listen, we need to talk. I need your help.…”

Conner was so excited to finally be in contact with someone he almost fell off the toilet. “Mother Goose! It’s so good to see your face!” He was in hysterics.

“If I had a gold coin for every time someone said that, I would be in debt,” she cracked. “Listen, I have to talk to you about something very important.”

She seemed just as flustered and worried as he was, but Conner figured her concern could wait, compared to the news he had to share.

“No! I have something I need to tell you that’s more important,” he said. “Something major has happened and I need to tell someone in the fairy-tale world about it!”

Mother Goose eyed him strangely. “Kid, are you in a bathroom?” she asked. “Because if so, I think you should maybe talk to a doctor about this and not me—”

“I’m in a bathroom because I’m trying to hide!” Conner said. “I’m in Europe on a class trip! This was the only place I could get privacy!”

“Europe?” Mother Goose asked. “Okay, kid, calm down and slowly tell me what’s going on before you have an accident.”

Conner took a deep breath and started from the beginning. “I was in Germany for this thing with my principal and a couple other kids. The University of Berlin found three brand-new fairy tales in a time capsule left by the Brothers Grimm. They included careful instructions not to publicize or publish the stories until two hundred years later. We and a bunch of other people went to the cemetery where the Brothers Grimm are buried, and there was a special reading of the stories. The first two weren’t important but I think the third one was a warning in disguise.”

“A warning?” Mother Goose asked. “A warning about what?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” he said. “The story was too similar to real life not to have a bigger purpose.”

“Tell me what the story was about,” she prompted.

“It was about a pair of brothers who told stories just like the Brothers Grimm. They got their stories from a fairy who lived in a secret castle, just like the Brothers Grimm got their stories from you, and from Grandma and the other fairies. One day a greedy king forced the brothers to provide him with a map to the secret castle so he could conquer it. A magical bird that also lived in the secret castle, who I’m assuming is supposed to be you, gave the brothers an enchanted map to give to the king, so that it would take him two hundred years to get to the castle, leaving the people and magical creatures lots of time to prepare a defense. The brothers in the story were afraid the magical bird would forget to warn the others in the secret castle about the approaching king so they wrote a story about it, hoping the story would reach the secret castle before the king’s army of thousands did.”

“Wait, can you say that last part again?” Mother Goose interrupted.

“I said, they hoped their story would reach the secret castle before the king’s army of thousands did, in case the magical bird had forgotten to warn the others,” Conner repeated.

All the blood drained from Mother Goose’s face and her eyes drifted off into a fearful trance. “But it’s impossible,” she said softly to herself.

“What’s impossible?” Conner asked. “Does this story mean something to you? Because it sounds like something bad started two hundred years ago and the Brothers Grimm are warning everyone about it now.”

Mother Goose didn’t respond. All she could do was shake her head from side to side as she thought about what he told her.

“Mother Goose, if this story is real, then I’m afraid something horrible is about to happen in the Land of Stories and we need to stop it,” he said.

She finally looked up and made eye contact with him again. “I’m afraid their story is based on something that is very real,” she told him in a stricken tone.

Conner felt his heart descend deeper into his stomach. “What happened?” he asked.

Mother Goose sighed and then told Conner a secret she had managed to keep to herself for years—until this moment.

“Two hundred years ago in Otherworld time, there was a man named Jacques Marquis, a general in the French Empire’s Grande Armée,” she said. “General Marquis was a smart man; he knew the Brothers Grimm stories about mythical creatures and kingdoms were more than just fiction. He had them followed and discovered the truth about where their stories came from. He wanted to conquer the magnificent lands he read about, in the name of the French empire. So, he kidnapped the Brothers Grimm and demanded they provide his army with a portal into the fairy-tale world or he would kill their family.”

“And did they give him one?” Conner asked.

“That’s where I come into the story,” Mother Goose said. “I never gave them a map like the bird in the story, but I told the Brothers Grimm of a portal they could lead General Marquis and his army of five thousand men to. But I bewitched the portal before the army arrived so that it would take them two hundred Otherworld years to cross through it and into the fairy-tale world.”

“And that was two hundred years ago!” Conner exclaimed. “So why haven’t they crossed into the fairy-tale world yet?”

“Because, after the Enchantress was defeated, your grandmother closed the portal between worlds, and just in the nick of time,” Mother Goose said. “Thank God she did, because it meant I never had to tell her about the approaching army. I loved the Otherworld so much but I couldn’t object to closing the portal since I knew that it would prevent that awful man and his soldiers from entering our world.”

“Didn’t anyone wonder where a group of five thousand soldiers disappeared to?” Conner asked.

“No, because shortly after, in the winter of 1812, Napoleon and the Grande Armée also invaded Russia,” Mother Goose explained. “The French soldiers couldn’t stand the cold and the retreating Russian soldiers hadn’t left them any crops or livestock to survive on. The death toll was catastrophic and everyone assumed General Marquis and his men were among those that perished.”

Conner sighed a deep breath of relief. “That’s wonderful news,” he said. “That means the army is still stuck in the portal and will never reach the Land of Stories, right?”

He expected Mother Goose to confirm his relief but instead her eyes drifted off again into another concerned gaze.

“The portal is closed permanently, isn’t it?” Conner asked.

“It was,” Mother Goose said. “But there is a chance the portal between the worlds may be… re-opened.”

“How?” Conner asked.

Mother Goose knew the answer but decided it wasn’t her place to tell him yet. “I can’t tell you why or even that it will for certain, all I can tell you is that there is a chance,” she repeated. “And the only way we’ll know for sure is if we check whether or not the portal is working. If it can be opened from the Otherworld side, that means it can be opened on the Land of Stories side as well, and the Grande Armée may cross into the fairy-tale world after all this time.”

“Then tell me where it is! I’ll check it myself,” he pleaded.

“Absolutely not,” Mother Goose said firmly. “I still haven’t forgiven myself for telling Alex about the Enchantress—I couldn’t live with myself if I sent you off on a dangerous chase as well.”

Conner was so frustrated he wanted to throw the piece of mirror across the bathroom. He was still being treated like a child after all this time. But Mother Goose raised a hand to silence him before he could argue.

“But I may know someone else who can tell you,” she said with a mischievously raised eyebrow.

“Who?” Conner said. “Someone in this world?”

“Yes,” she said. “Where exactly in Europe are you?”

“I’m at an airport in London,” he said.

This made Mother Goose extremely happy and she made an excited fist with her free hand. “Terrific, I have a friend in London—”

“It’s not the queen, I hope,” Conner said. “She’d be difficult to get to.”

“No, the queen and I haven’t spoken in years.” Mother Goose waved off the idea. “This friend is very old but has been a confidant of mine for a very long time.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s more of a what than a who,” Mother Goose explained. “Find the lion from the Red Lion Brewery. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“The lion from the Red Lion Brewery?” Conner repeated to make sure he had heard her correctly. “Is he a real lion?”

“He’s a statue,” Mother Goose said. “He was the mascot of the brewery I spent most of the 1800s at—I met a lot of my closest drinking buddies there. Now I really need to go before your sister catches me in her room. We shouldn’t tell anyone else about this unless we know for certain the portal has been re-opened. I don’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits around here if there’s nothing to worry about.”

“And what if it’s open?” Conner said.

Mother Goose gulped. “Then we’re in big trouble,” she said. “Good luck, kid—oh and one more thing, do you still have that poker chip I gave you?”

“Yes, I take it everywhere with me,” Conner said.

“Good—you’ll need it,” Mother Goose said, and then she faded from the piece of mirror in his hand.

Conner’s head was spinning but he knew there was no time to waste. He quickly created a plan based on the tasks Mother Goose had given him. First, he had to sneak out of the airport and find a way into the city. Then he had to find the Red Lion Brewery and the lion and ask it where the portal was and how to check whether it was still closed. If the portal could be opened from the Otherworld side, then that meant it was open to the fairy-tale world, and the Grande Armée could be moments away from crossing over. His plan seemed straightforward. He packed the piece of mirror into Betsy and left the stall not wanting to waste another moment. However, his momentum came to a screeching halt as soon as he realized he wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

“Bree?” Conner said in horror. Bree was standing just outside the stall and, judging from the bewildered expression on her face, she had heard every word of his and Mother Goose’s conversation. “What are you doing in the men’s bathroom?”

“They started boarding early,” Bree said. “Mrs. Peters wanted me to check on you. When I got close to the bathroom I heard voices. I know you don’t have a cell phone so I came in to see who you were talking to—and now after saying that out loud I realize how many privacy laws I just broke.”

“How much of my conversation did you hear?” Conner asked.

“Enough,” Bree said blankly.

Conner had no idea what to say to her. “Well, thank you for coming to check on me but I’m not going home,” he said.

“I gathered,” Bree said.

“Please don’t tell Mrs. Peters where I’m going,” Conner pleaded with her. “There is someone in London I really need to meet. It’s really important.”

Bree’s face finally returned to normal. She quietly bobbed her head as she contemplated the situation. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “Because I’m going with you.”

Conner shook his head in disbelief. “What? You can’t go with me—you don’t even know what’s going on.”

Bree crossed her arms. “I’ve known something was going on since the plane ride to Germany. Your sister disappeared last year with almost no explanation, you knew the plots of fairy tales that hadn’t seen the light of day in two hundred years, and I just caught you somehow communicating with a woman called Mother Goose about an army invading another dimension.”

Conner closed his eyes—there was no coming back from it now.

“With all that in mind, my best guess is that you are somehow connected to the fairy-tale world, and now you have to make sure an army from the 1800s isn’t going to cross into that world and put your sister and grandmother in jeopardy. Did I miss anything?”

Bree said the whole thing in one breath without blinking. Conner was stunned. Reading all those mystery novels had paid off.

“Okay, I guess the dots aren’t that hard to connect,” Conner said. “But there’s no way you’re going with me. Do you know how much trouble you’d get into?”

Bree tipped her head back and grunted toward the ceiling. “I can live with trouble. I’ll tell you what I can’t live with—hearing one more conversation between the Book Huggers about a boy band or a fictitious relationship from a novel. I have three younger sisters—I went to Germany to escape all that and to have a European adventure. So far it seems you’re the only person who can supply that and you could probably use help so I’m going with you, like it or not.”

Conner’s mouth and eyes were wide open. It was the most excited he had ever seen Bree get.

“How are you taking all of this so well?” he asked. “Don’t you think the idea of another dimension seems insane?”

“Not at all,” Bree said. “I’m a writer, too, Conner, and the reason I write is because I’ve always believed there is more to life than most people are willing to believe. You’re just the first person to prove it to me.”

Conner recognized the excitement in her eyes; he had seen it every day in his sister’s eyes after their first trip into the Land of Stories. Now that Bree knew the truth, how could Conner tell her she couldn’t go with him?

“All right, you can come,” Conner told her. “As long as you promise never to share with another soul anything you’ve found out or anything you might see.”

Bree slowly nodded, smiling the biggest smile ever. “I promise,” she said, and Conner knew he could trust her.

“Good, now let’s sneak out of the airport,” he said.

They peered out of the men’s restroom and glanced at the gate where their principal and schoolmates stood. The five of them were impatiently waiting for Conner and Bree to return before joining the line to board the plane. Mrs. Peters scanned the lounge, trying to see where they had gone. Then she looked down at her watch and Conner and Bree took it as a cue. They held on to their luggage as tightly as they could and bolted out of the bathroom, running down the terminal before she looked up. They followed the exit signs and went into customs.

“We got this—just follow my lead,” Bree said. They got in line, keeping their heads down in case Mrs. Peters came looking for them. When it was Bree’s turn, she walked up to the customs officer in the booth and presented her passport.

“Are you here for business or pleasure?” the officer asked her.

“Pleasure,” Bree said casually. “I’ve come to visit my aunt and see a few shows in the West End.”

She was good at this deception thing. The customs officer stamped her passport and sent Bree on her way. Conner went next, confident he had nothing to worry about.

“Are you here for business or pleasure?” the officer asked him.

“Pleasure,” Conner replied. “I’ve come for the food.”

The customs officer flinched and looked up at him awkwardly. “The food?” he asked.

Bree slapped her hand against her forehead. Conner wanted to put his whole leg in his mouth. Of all the things to say, he’d picked possibly the only thing Great Britain wasn’t known for. Conner panicked, thinking fast.

“You’ve never heard of the Food?” he went on. “They’re only the greatest singing quartet of chefs-turned-tenors on the planet! They have a concert at the Buckinghamshirevilleton Coliseum. Here, let me give you one of their albums.”

Conner reached for his suitcase but the customs officer held up a hand to stop him. “Please don’t,” he said. He stamped Conner’s passport and then sent him on his way, too. Conner had never been so thankful to be perceived as just a stupid kid.

Bree was appalled by Conner’s stunt. “Buckinghamshirevilleton?” she whispered. “Are you out of your mind? How are you supposed to save another dimension when you can’t even get out of an airport?”

“Give me a break—obviously I’m under a lot of pressure!” Conner whispered back.

They made it outside the airport and looked around at the sea of cars, taxis, and buses around the pickup zone.

“How are we going to get to central London?” Bree asked. “Are we old enough to take a taxi by ourselves?”

Conner looked down the curb and saw something that gave him an idea. A large group of obnoxious American teenagers was boarding a bus. They were looked after by only one chaperone that Conner could see and she was practically pulling her hair out trying to manage. “Everyone settle down and get on the bus!” the chaperone screamed. “I have your parents’ phone numbers and I will use them!”

Conner gestured for Bree to follow him. “Keep your head down, I’ve got an idea,” he said. They both looked at the ground and joined the line of students boarding the bus. The line was moving so quickly the chaperone couldn’t keep up with checking the names on her clipboard and finally just gave up. Conner and Bree boarded the bus effortlessly and took a seat in the very back.

“All right, that was a good one,” Bree said. “It almost makes up for Buckinghamshirevilleton.”

“Thanks,” Conner said. “This should get us into the city without a hitch.”

The other teenagers aboard the bus were so busy taunting each other and taking pictures of themselves they didn’t even notice the strangers in the back. The bus pulled away from the airport and headed into town.

“All right, I want to hear the whole story, and don’t skip any details,” Bree said to Conner.

“About what?” he asked.

“Everything I need to know before venturing out on this adventure with you,” she said. “About you, your sister, that goose lady, and this dimension we’re about to save.”

Conner didn’t know where to begin. “Okay, but it’s a long story,” he warned.

“Great,” Bree said. “Long stories are my favorite.”

Conner figured there was no use in keeping anything from her now. He told Bree his and Alex’s whole story, starting with when they were magically transported into the Land of Stories for the first time and ending with their last good-bye when the portal between the two worlds was closed.

Bree hung on every word he said. It felt so therapeutic for Conner to talk to someone about it besides his family. He was very glad Bree had insisted on coming on this new escapade of his, and as Conner knew all too well, adventures were always best when there was someone to share them with.