Polly Shulman - The Grimm Legacy

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said. “I don’t trust that guy. What’s he going to do with it? Sell it, like he sold Anjali? Or use it somehow, like the cudgel? That kuduo is powerful. I think we should ask Doc for help.”

“No! That’s the worst plan possible,” said Marc. “Our only hope of finding Anjali is the kuduo, and Doc would never let me take it.”

“But you can’t take the kuduo ! It’s too dangerous—and it’s full of important things! We need help. Jaya, what about your parents? Can we tell them?”

“No,” said Jaya. “We have to get Anjali back ourselves. They would kill her if they find out about . . .” She looked at Marc. “About all of this. They would ground her for decades.”

“I would rather be grounded and safe,” I said.

“Anjali wouldn’t. Not when she could be safe and not grounded instead. Let’s just go get that thing Stone wants right now and rescue her.”

Marc looked at his watch. “Too late now,” he said. “The repository’s closed, and we don’t have the key. We’ll have to get it tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’ll tell my parents Anjali’s staying at your place tonight.”

“I guess,” I said. “I still think it’s a terrible idea to steal the kuduo. ”

“Can you think of any other way?”

“Not if you don’t let me tell the librarians,” I admitted. I still thought that was a better idea, but I could see Marc’s point. There was a chance that one of them could be in on the thefts themselves, and even if they weren’t, I couldn’t imagine them agreeing to trade away the kuduo. If that was the only way to get Anjali back, we had to try it. “I’ll see you at the repository tomorrow,” I told Marc.

Maybe we could even find a way to empty out the contents, like my sense of direction, before we turned it over to Mr. Stone.

After dinner, my phone rang.

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

My heart did a little funny flip, like Doc’s mini acrobats. Stop it, heart , I told it. You have more serious things to think about than Aaron Rosendorn. “Hi, Aaron,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Can you come over to my place? There’s something I want to show you.”

“Really? What?”

“It’s just . . . an idea I had.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where do you live?”

“On West Eighty-first Street, down the block from the Museum of Natural History.”

“I have a bad sense of direction these days. I’m not sure I can find it.”

“Of course you can. It’s not that hard.”

“No, really. I get lost in my own bedroom.”

“You can at least get to the Museum of Natural History, can’t you? The subway goes right to the door. Tell you what, I’ll meet you there,” he said.

I found my way to the subway okay and managed to get off at the right stop. Then I had to circle the entire museum before I found the entrance where Aaron was waiting for me.

He was leaning against the pedestal of the statue of Teddy Roosevelt, his cheeks red with the cold. It was the first time I’d seen him since that embarrassing dream.

“So what’s at your place? The thing you want to show me?” I asked.

He looked around at the people on the museum steps: a school group, some nannies with their charges, a pair of older men. “Something from the GC,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Something you borrowed?” I asked.

He nodded.

“What?”

“Not here,” he said.

He steered me by the arm, preventing me from making at least three wrong turns. Even through my coat sleeve, I was very aware of the spot where he was touching my arm.

He lived in an old apartment building from the same period as Anjali’s, but less fancy.

“Hi, Aaron,” said the doorman.

“Hi, Jim. Is my mom home?”

“No, not yet,” said the doorman. “You have the place to yourself.” To my embarrassment, he winked at me.

We took the elevator to the seventh floor. Aaron unlocked a door and I followed him down a long, dark hallway, through a cluttered living room, to a small, dark room behind the kitchen.

He held the door open and cleared his throat. “So. Come in,” he said.

His room was neater than mine, but not by much. I wondered whether he usually kept it that way. Or had he cleaned it up for me? He took off his coat and I handed him mine. He put them both down on the bed, which was made, if sloppily.

I looked around for somewhere to sit. I had a choice of the bed, a beanbag chair, and his desk chair. I chose the desk chair; Aaron leaned against the wall, his knees bent.

“Did you borrow that invisible chair from the GC? Is that what you wanted to show me?”

He laughed nervously and stood up straight.

I felt nervous too. Something wasn’t quite right in the room. Slowly I figured out what: the place reeked of magic, the scary kind. It was laced with undertones of awfulness, the way air freshener might claim to smell like strawberries, but you would never willingly put it in your mouth. It smelled like Mr. Stone’s loft or the worst items in the Grimm Collection, the murky picture or the Snow White mirror.

No wonder. There on the wall over the dresser hung the Snow White mirror.

“Is that what I think it is?”

He nodded. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”

“You borrowed it?”

He nodded again.

“Did you leave a deposit in the kuduo ?”

“Of course! What do you take me for?”

“What did you leave? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“My firstborn child.”

“But you don’t have—”

“My future firstborn child, silly.”

“Wow.” For some reason the thought of that gave me the shivers. I turned to the mirror. “Why did you take this creepy mirror home? Why not just talk to it at the repository?”

“It’s not safe to talk to it there. I’m not sure it’s even safe to talk to each other there. Things keep disappearing, and I don’t know who to trust.”

But he thought he could trust me.

I felt flattered and a little guilty—I might not have lied to him exactly, but I hadn’t been entirely open with him either. I decided to tell him about Anjali’s disappearance and our trip to Mr. Stone’s. I left out the part where Mr. Stone told Marc to steal the kuduo, though. I didn’t think that would get a very positive reaction from Aaron.

“Anjali vanished ?” The concern in his voice was painful to hear. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What do you mean? I just did.”

“But why didn’t you tell me right away? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know, Aaron. It’s not like I was hiding it, it’s just . . .” What could I say? I couldn’t exactly tell him that it didn’t occur to me to tell him, and if it had, I might have been too worried he would blame Marc.

“I can’t believe it, Elizabeth! What am I supposed to do?”

“Help us find Anjali.”

“I meant, what am I supposed to do about you ? Can I trust you? I thought I could. The mirror says I can.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Watch.” He turned away from me toward the mirror. His handsome face looked sinister enough in real life; his reflection was so bitter it scared me. I wondered what he must be seeing in my face in the mirror. That mirror could certainly put its own twist on what it saw.