Polly Shulman - The Grimm Legacy

I thought for a minute.

“ I forgo

Protection, knot.

Please let go,

And . . . thanks a lot,” I said, feeling very silly. But it worked: the knot collapsed as soon as I touched it.

I brushed the yarn off my wrist. So it really had some magic power, then! I’d assumed Jaya was just playing around. Did that mean it was actually protecting me? Maybe I should have thought harder before giving it up. Well, too late now.

“Very good,” said Doc, taking my hand and intoning once again.

This time the incantation worked. Something poured out of me, flowing weightily, like when you give blood. It had a complicated, patterned structure that seemed to take up more space than just the part I saw, as if it had extra dimensions. It flowed out and out—could that have been inside me?

Doc carefully balanced it on the edge of the desk. I worried that all the internal motion would make it fall, but it didn’t. It smelled appallingly intimate, like my own breath.

“Sign here,” said Doc.

I signed.

“Now the vow. Repeat after me:

Forfeit fair and given free,

I resign a part of me.

In exchange I’ll keep with care

What is given free and fair:

Potent, uncorrupt, and whole.

Else the bargain shall be null—

My pledge forfeit, or my soul.”

I looked at the intricate, throbbing blob balanced on the edge of the desk and hesitated. What a grim vow! But if this was what it took to borrow items from the Grimm Collection, so be it. “Can you say that again, slowly?”

“Sure. We can take it line by line,” said Doc.

Piece by piece I repeated the rhyme, as firmly as I could.

“Great! That’s it,” said Doc, scooping up my sense of direction, tucking it in the kuduo, and signing the call slip.

I felt strangely shaken. I guess it must have showed. “What you’re feeling is normal, Elizabeth,” Doc said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s hard to give something up, something that’s a part of you. I know a mermaid’s comb is a small thing, but this is a big step. I remember my first Grimm loan—I started small, like you, with a magic darning needle. I left my singing voice. I remember how I felt when I watched it go.”

“Did you get it back?”

“Of course, the very next day. And even if I hadn’t—because there have been things I’ve been asked to give up for good . . . Well, over the years here I’ve learned that sometimes a great loss is also a great gain.” Under the slowly swirling freckles, Doc’s face looked infinitely sad. Somehow I didn’t find that reassuring.

I had trouble getting back to Stack 6 to claim the mermaid’s comb. Somehow I got turned around on my way to the elevator, and then I got turned around again on my way out. I had to look at the fire evacuation map on the wall, and even then I took a wrong turn.

I was late to social studies on Wednesday—I went to the wrong floor first. Mr. Mauskopf squinted at me and frowned as I slipped into my seat, but he didn’t mark me late in his book.

I was late to my next class too. I started to wish I’d pledged my sense of humor instead of my sense of direction. Getting lost all the time was so annoying, I was starting to lose it anyway.

My phone rang that evening while I was doing my trigonometry.

“Elizabeth? It’s Aaron. Aaron Rosendorn.”

“Hi, Aaron. How—where did you get my number?”

“From Sarah, at the repository.”

Did he always have such a deep voice? He sounded different—older, but less sure of himself.

I waited for him to tell me what he wanted. He hadn’t been all that nice the last time we’d spoken, as I recalled.

He cleared his throat. “Did you figure out what’s going on with those objects from the Grimm Collection?” he asked.

He was calling me about the Grimm Collection? At home? How weird!

“No, I still have no idea what’s up with them,” I said. “Ms. Callender said she was just getting started looking into it. Do you know?”

“No, but . . . Do you think we should talk to Anjali? Maybe she could help figure it out.”

Oh. Of course. Of course that was why he was calling. He just wanted to talk about Anjali.

“I already talked to Anjali about it,” I said. “She input the objects into a spreadsheet and she’s working on finding a pattern.”

Aaron laughed. “That’s so like her! Maybe I should call her and see if there’s anything I might know that could help. What do you think?”

A wave of irritation swept over me. Why was he asking me ? “I don’t know. I don’t know what more you could tell her, but you can call her if you want. Or you could just talk to her next time you see her. I don’t think it matters.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

His voice disappeared. I was about to hang up when he spoke again. “Um, so how are you?”

“How am I?”

“Yeah. How are you?”

“Uh . . . fine?”

“Good.” I heard him swallow.

“How are you ?” I asked.

“I’m fine too.”

“Good. We’re both fine.”

Another pause.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Up to?”

“Yeah, what are you doing?”

“My trig homework. Why? What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Calling you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. “I guess I should get back to my homework,” I said eventually.

“Yeah. Well, thanks, Elizabeth. Call me if you figure anything out, okay? Or if . . . or if you just want to talk.”

Talk? About what? “Okay, I will,” I said.

“Okay, thanks. Bye.”

“Bye.” I pressed the off button on my phone and stared at the screen for a while. Then I stared at the wall for a while.

That was one weird conversation.

Well, it was a weird week, and he was a weird guy. I shrugged and went back to cosines and tangents.

Half an hour later he called back.

“Hi, Elizabeth, me again.”

“Hi, Aaron.”

“Listen, I was thinking. What if we asked some of the objects in the Grimm Collection to tell us what’s wrong with the other ones?”

“You mean ask the objects themselves? You think that would work?”

“It might. Some of them are pretty talkative. At least, they are if you talk to them in rhyme.”

“Tell me about it. But aren’t you the guy who thinks we shouldn’t touch anything or use anything?”

“Yeah. But what if . . . I don’t know, we could borrow them officially. That would be legit.”

“Hm. That’s not a bad idea, actually,” I said. “Which objects did you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought it through yet.”

“Okay. Well, maybe we should go through the card catalog and see if there’s anything useful.”

“Okay . . . Well, bye.”

“Bye.”

I had just finished a tricky math problem and was feeling proud of myself when the phone rang again.

“Elizabeth? It’s Aaron again.”

What on earth was going on with him?

“You don’t say,” I said.

He laughed uncomfortably. “Actually, I was wondering. What are you doing Friday?”

“I’m going to the basketball game,” I said. “There’s a big home game at my school. Why?”

“Oh.” His voice fell. “I just thought . . . never mind.”