“I guess,” Conner said. He was disheartened by the whole thing. He felt the Brothers Grimm deserved much more.
Bree seemed to find his disappointment charming. “I don’t think anyone gets remembered exactly the way they want to,” she said. “You just have to do the best you can with what you have and hope you’re recognized for it. But I doubt there’s anyone else in this cemetery that can draw a crowd this size.”
A horn sounded through the graveyard. Everyone turned to the chapel and saw a man dressed in ceremonial lederhosen blowing a trumpet on the porch. Noon had arrived and the readings were about to begin. The crowds of people scattered across the cemetery grounds migrated toward the front steps of the chapel, eager to hear the untold stories of the Brothers Grimm. Conner and Bree walked over together and regrouped with Mrs. Peters and the Book Huggers.
“I’m so excited,” Cindy said, and clapped her hands.
“I hope one of the stories is about an awful curse like in ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ” Mindy said. “I’ve always loved a good curse!”
“I hope one of them is a sequel or a prequel to one of their other stories,” Lindy said. “It would be amazing to hear what happened to our favorite characters before or after the stories that we know.”
Conner chuckled—he knew, but he wasn’t going to share it with them.
“Is something funny, Conner?” Mindy asked.
“Oh no, I’m just excited, too,” he said with a shrug.
A woman emerged from the chapel and the crowd greeted her with warm applause. Conner figured she must be a local celebrity. She was tall and plump with a round, rosy face. She wore a bright orange dress with large buttons that matched her short, curly orange hair perfectly. She stood at a microphone that had been placed next to the time capsule, and waved to the crowd.
She greeted the onlookers first in German, then in French, and then in English.
“Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to St. Matthäus-Kirchhof cemetery,” she cheerfully greeted in a German accent. “My name is Sofia Amsel and the University of Berlin has given me the pleasure of reading to you three brand-new fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm. They have never been heard before today.”
The English speakers in the crowd cheered. Sofia removed the wooden chest from the glass case and held it delicately in her hands.
“This chest was recently found in the archives of the University of Berlin from 1811. It was the will of the Brothers Grimm themselves that the stories inside be opened and read to the public two hundred years later,” Sofia announced. “I will read each story in German first, then in French, and finally in English. The stories will be translated into other languages and made available on the University of Berlin’s website. Now, it is my honor to read the first story.”
The crowd happily cheered. She gently opened the wooden chest and removed an aged scroll of parchment wrapped in a white ribbon. The man in the lederhosen carefully took the chest from Sofia and held it while she read the first story into the microphone.
As she had promised, Sofia read it first in German and second in French. Conner and the girls heard the German- and French-speaking people in the crowd squeal and laugh in delight as the story was read, clapping at the parts that tickled them the most.
Conner’s anxiety bubbled up more and more the closer she got to telling the story in English. He couldn’t wait to hear who or what the Brothers Grimm had written about, and wondered if it would be anyone he or his sister knew.
Sofia cleared her throat before beginning to read in English. “The first story is called ‘The Curvy Tree,’ ” she announced.
Conner’s face instantly went red. He gasped so quickly and so hard that he started coughing. He could feel Bree’s suspicious glare on the side of his face.
“How funny,” Conner said to her when he caught his breath. “That’s the name of my story. What a coincidence.”
“Yeah, a coincidence…,” Bree said. Her suspicion was short-lived, though, and soon faded away. After all, what else could it have been but a coincidence? She looked back at Sofia as she began reading from the scroll.
Once upon a time, in a faraway forest, there lived a tree that was different from all the other trees in the woods. While the other trees grew perfectly straight toward the sky, this particular tree grew in loops, twists, and turns. It was known as the Curvy Tree by all who saw it, and many humans and animals came from far and wide to see its splendor.
When the humans and animals were away, in a language that only could be heard by the plants of the forest, the other trees would taunt the poor Curvy Tree. ‘We hate your bark and your branches and your leaves that twist and turn! One day they will chop you into firewood and you will forever burn!’ It made the Curvy Tree very sad, and if you spoke Plant you would hear it cry itself to sleep every night.
Years later, on the last day of winter before spring began, loggers traveled to the forest looking for wood, not to burn, but to build with. They cut down every tree in the woods to build houses, tables, chairs, and beds. When they finally left the forest, only one tree remained, and I bet it will come as no surprise when I tell you it was the Curvy Tree.
The loggers had seen how its trunk and branches twisted and turned and they knew they could never use its wood to build with. And so the Curvy Tree was left alone to grow in peace now that all the other trees were gone. The end.
The English speakers met the conclusion of the tale with thunderous applause.
Conner kept his hands at his sides. “How amazing,” he said to Bree with a guilty chuckle. “I came up with almost the exact same story as the Brothers Grimm. I must be a better writer than I thought.” He was all fake laughs and smiles but he could tell this was no laughing matter to her.
Bree side-eyed him like she had on the plane. “Yeah… amazing,” she said through the corner of her mouth, but amazing was far from the word she was looking for.
Sofia retrieved the second scroll from the chest, also tied with a white ribbon, and began reading it in German. She eventually finished reading it in French, and began her English translation.
“The second story is titled ‘The Walking Fish,’ ” Sofia declared to the eager crowd.
Conner’s eyes grew twice in size—he was in serious trouble now. Bree shook her head; surely she had heard it wrong.
“Wait a second, did she just say the second story was called ‘The Walking Fish’—” Bree began, but before she could finish Sofia had already started the second story.
Once upon a time there was a fish who lived in a deep lake all by himself. Every day the fish would watch with envy as a boy from the nearby village played with the animals on the land. The boy would run with the horses, wrestle with the dogs, and climb the trees with the squirrels. The fish wanted so badly to play with the boy, too, but he knew that as a fish it was impossible.
One day a fairy flying high above the lake dropped her wand in the water. The fish, being the gentleman he was, retrieved the wand for the fairy.
‘As a reward for this kind gesture, I will grant you one wish,’ the fairy told the fish. He thought long but he didn’t think hard, for the fish knew which wish he wanted the fairy to grant him.
‘I want legs, just like all the animals on the land, so I, too, can play with the little boy from the village,’ the fish said. With one simple flick of her wand, the fairy magically turned the fish’s fins into legs and feet and he walked on land for the first time.
The next day when the boy appeared, the fish happily showed him his new legs. The two became very good friends and every day they ran with the horses, wrestled with the dogs, and climbed trees with the squirrels. However, one day the little boy was playing too close to the edge of the lake and fell into the water. The fish ran to the edge of the lake and tried to save him, but he couldn’t go in the water without his fins. The little boy couldn’t swim, either, and drowned in the lake.
The fish wished he had never wished for legs, because had he just staye
d the normal fish God had intended him to be, the little boy would still be alive to this day.
The English speakers, including Mrs. Peters and the Book Huggers, all made an aww sound at the sad ending. Conner and Bree were the only ones who didn’t make a sound. Both their mouths had dropped open while the story was read.
“Wow, another coincidence” was all Conner could say to Bree, but she didn’t respond.
“It’s a very sad story, but I think we can all agree that great lessons come from tragic tales,” Sofia said to the crowd. “ ‘Be careful what you wish for’ is what the Brothers Grimm are trying to tell us with this story, I presume.”
Mrs. Peters was inquisitively furrowing her brow. “I swear I’ve read these stories before somewhere,” she said to herself, and Conner’s pulse rose. “Didn’t you write similar stories, Conner?”
“I did!” Conner said, deciding it was in his best interest to seem excited about it. “My stories are creepily similar—it’s crazy.”
The Book Huggers unanimously rolled their eyes at him. Mrs. Peters smiled and patted Conner on the back, thankfully not spending any more thought on it.
Bree was as quiet as ever but her expression was so intense Conner could practically hear her trying to logically assess the situation. She was a girl who loved a good mystery, but this was baffling. How could Conner have known these stories before the rest of the world did? Bree must have known this was more than a coincidence.
Conner couldn’t believe his bad luck. What were the chances that two of the three stories the Brothers Grimm had locked away in their time capsule were stories Conner had tried passing off as his own? At least the odds were in his favor: The situation was so unlikely that the worst thing he could be accused of was psychic plagiarism. But from the way Bree was looking at him, he knew plagiarism was the last thing on her mind.
“Now it’s time for our third and final story,” Sofia regretfully told the crowd. “Since our English-speaking friends have been so patient, I will read this one in English first.”
Conner let out a long, heavy sigh, bracing himself for whatever trouble the third story might cause him. Sofia removed the last scroll from the chest. Unlike the others, this scroll was tied with a red ribbon.
“This must be a very important story if it was tied with a different ribbon from the rest,” Sofia said. She opened the scroll. “The last story is called ‘The Secret Castle.’ ”
Conner slumped a few inches with relief. He definitely had never heard or written a story about a secret castle. With any luck, the third story would be so good Bree would forget about the first two. He looked at his feet, wanting this whole event to end as soon as possible.
Sofia cleared her throat again and began reading.
Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived two brothers who liked to tell stories. Everyone in their village loved to hear their stories and thought the brothers were very creative, but the brothers had a secret. The stories they shared with their village didn’t come from them, but from someone else.
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 someth
ing 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.