Polly Shulman - The Grimm Legacy

She combed. At each stroke, her hair shone with the rainbow darkness of a starling’s feathers. It waved like a midnight river, smooth and cold and singing with ripples, stars dancing on its surface and death in its depths. If it had been a river, I would have thrown myself in and let the torrent dash me against the sunken rocks.

She raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “Well?”

“Your hair looks fantastic,” I said. “But then, it always looks fantastic.”

“Here, you try it.” She tossed me the comb. I sniffed it and nodded in recognition. That smell—that wild, shifting, unmistakable smell of magic, overlaid with the floral musk of Anjali’s hair.

“Aren’t you going to use the comb?” she said.

I shrugged. There didn’t seem to be any point.

“Go on, I want to see what it does.”

I shrugged again and lifted the comb.

The door gave a great rattling shudder. “AANNjaliiiiiiii!”

Jaya.

“Open up, Anjali! You’ve got Elizabeth in there, I heard you! And you’re doing your hair ! I want to heeeeelp!” she wailed.

“Oh, brother,” said Anjali, but she opened the door. “Go away, Jaya,” she said.

Jaya ignored her. “Hi, Elizabeth,” she said. “Want me to do your hair?”

I handed her the comb.

I expected painful tugs, but Jaya was surprisingly gentle, or maybe it was the comb. My scalp tingled with delight. I closed my eyes and murmured, “Mmmmm.”

“You have nice hair, Elizabeth. Want me to make you a French braid?”

“Sure.”

Her quick fingers parted and pulled and tightened my hair, combing each section as she joined it into the braid. When she reached the end of the braid, she fastened it with a scrunchy that she took out of her own hair. “Go look,” she said, pointing to the mirror on Anjali’s dresser.

Usually my hair wisps out of braids and updos, but this time it lay gleaming and orderly. It flattered the shape of my face. For once I actually had cheekbones.

“Nice,” I said. “Thanks, Jaya. I guess the comb still works.”

Anjali glanced at Jaya and frowned at me.

“Don’t worry, Anji, I already know all about it,” announced Jaya. “I was listening at the door. This is a magic comb, and some magic objects aren’t magic anymore, and you’re trying to catch the bad guys. Let me help! You know I’m good with spreadsheets—Daddy says so.” She started to comb her hair.

“Jaya, you are such a pest,” said Anjali wearily.

“Is that a good idea, Jaya?” I said.

“Of course it is! I could help you find the bad guys, and I could tie them up for you,” Jaya said.

“No, I mean using that comb.” Her hair still looked like a cloud of spikes, but an increasingly attractive cloud of spikes. “You’re kind of young for that kind of thing.”

Jaya looked insulted. “I borrow Anjali’s makeup all the time!”

“You what ?” The clouds gathered on Anjali’s exquisite brow.

“Don’t worry, I always put everything back.” She found a knot in her hair and tugged at it with the comb.

“Be careful with that, Jaya!”

“Give Elizabeth the comb, Jaya,” said Anjali. The thought of her sister meddling with her makeup must have been what gave her voice such a cold edge. She could be surprisingly scary sometimes, I thought.

“Fine. I’m done with it anyway.” Jaya handed me the comb with dignity.

“Thanks, Jaya,” I said, putting it away in my bag. “Okay, so the comb still works. What does that prove?”

“Nothing yet,” said Anjali. “Maybe it doesn’t lose its magic until after you return it. Maybe somebody’s planning to take it away from you. What about that bird? Maybe they’re going to send it to get the comb. Or do you have an uncontrollable urge to give the comb to someone from Benign Designs?”

“What’s Benign Designs?” asked Jaya. Anjali ignored her.

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “The only people I’ve given it to so far are girls in the Rao family. You don’t work for Benign Designs, do you?”

“What’s Benign Designs?” said Jaya again.

“We don’t know yet,” I said. “We need to find out.”

Anjali said, “Let’s do a search.” She went back to typing on the computer.

“Let me help, I’m good at finding things,” said Jaya, inserting herself between my shoulder and Anjali’s legs to peer at the screen.

Anjali batted her away. “If you break my computer, Dad will be very angry,” she said.

“I’m not breaking anything,” said Jaya, but she subsided next to me on the floor. She glanced at my wrist, then pushed up both my sleeves. “Hey, what happened to the knot I made you?” she said accusingly.

“I . . . It came off,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not supposed to. Maybe I didn’t do it right. I better make you another one—you’re not safe out there, with monsters and Benign Designs and everything.”

“Leave her alone, Jaya,” said Anjali. “Elizabeth doesn’t want to wear some ugly piece of yarn to the basketball game.”

“Why are you so mean to me? All I’m doing is trying to help! I hate you!” Tears hung in Jaya’s enormous dark eyes. The contrast between her pouting face and her glamorous hair was comical but heartbreaking.

“You can make me a new knot, okay?” I said quickly.

Jaya turned the pout on me. “Don’t pretend to be nice! You’re just as bad as my sister.”

“Please? I really would feel much safer.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll do your ankle so the ugly knot won’t show. Which foot?”

I held out my left. Or was it my right? Without my sense of direction, it was hard to tell.

Jaya got a piece of yarn and began the lengthy ritual. “But I’m not making you one, stinkhead,” she said to Anjali. “The monsters can eat you for all I care. If they do, you’ll probably poison them.”

We got to the Fisher gym in plenty of time and claimed seats in the third row, far enough from the band not to blow out our eardrums. Anjali insisted on wearing the Fisher colors: white and an unflattering shade of purple. She achieved this by borrowing an old blazer of her mother’s that would have made anyone else look like a Halloween version of a newscaster, but this was Anjali—Anjali aglow with the mermaid glamour. All the girls raked her with appraising glances. All the guys raked her with the other kind of appraising glances and held out their hands to help her over the bleachers.

Anjali took it in stride. I don’t think she even really noticed. She focused completely on Marc, grabbing my arm so tightly it hurt when he missed a layup, roaring “Mer-RITT! Mer-RITT!” with the rest of the crowd when he stole the ball back and nailed a three-pointer from the top of the key.

The distraction didn’t seem to bother Marc. In fact, I’ve never seen him play better. Once, he turned our way and gave a little bow before leaping onto an escalator in the air and allowing himself to be borne gracefully aloft within inches of the basket. He sank the ball like a lump of leaden butter over the fingertips of the snarling World Peace center and winked at Anjali as he landed. The gym went wild.

Friends, ones I didn’t know I had, clustered around us at the end of the third quarter.

“Are you guys coming to Jake’s Joint afterward?” Sadie Cane asked Anjali.

“Jake’s Joint?”