Format: Paperback, 400 pages
Release Date: March 25, 2025
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Dark Fantasy / Legends, Myths, Fables
In this spellbinding sequel to Kathryn Purdie's bestselling dark fairy tale, Clara and Axel must return to the forest—and its monsters—if they have any hope of finally breaking the curse on their village.
Emerging from the shadows of the Forest Grimm, Clara and Axel return to their village, the one place they can be safe behind the forest's border. But when the woods begin luring villagers into the forest, it becomes clear that the darkness they battled was merely a whisper of the true horror lurking there.
Burdened by unsettling visions and bound by a love as perilous as the cursed woods that call to them, Clara and Axel must once again enter the forest to unearth the sinister secret at its heart. As they fight murderous woodsmen wielding riddles sharp as blades, spectral maidens who threaten to drag them into an eternal dance, and phantoms able to use the very essence of the forest against them, Clara and Axel realize the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t break the curse once and for all, they may not have a home to return to…
The Deathly Grimm is the second and final installment in author Kathryn Purdie's The Forest Grimm Duology. This sequel picks up where The Forest Grimm left off, delivering a haunting blend of Grimm-inspired horror, romance, and a satisfying resolution to Clara and Axel’s cursed journey. The story thrusts us back into Grimm’s Hollow, where Clara Thune and Axel Furst, fresh from defeating the Wolf, thought they’d secured safety behind the forest’s borders. But the Forest Grimm has other plans.
After surviving the Forest Grimm and the dangers that lie within, Clara and her friends are devastated to find that they have not fully broken the curse. They must find the missing page from Sortes Fortunae, the Book of Fortunes and find who was responsible for killing Bren Zimmer. When villagers start vanishing into the woods, lured by an escalating curse, it’s clear the duo only scratched the surface of the darkness in book one. Armed with unsettling visions of the past and navigating their fragile new romance, Clara and Axel re-enter the forest to uncover the murderer whose actions birthed the curse centuries ago.
What follows is a gauntlet of murderous woodsmen spouting riddles, ghostly maidens threatening eternal dances, and phantoms wielding the forest itself as a weapon. Purdie incorporates fairytale motifs like Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, and even Princess and the Frog twisted into something sinister yet enchanting. Clara’s visions add a fresh layer of mystery, driving a plot that’s equal parts murder investigation and survival quest.
Her growth from a determined dreamer to a fierce, flawed heroine is compelling, while Axel’s steadfast loyalty and princely charm make their slow-burn romance a beating heart amid the chaos. Will they be able to find the missing page for the magic book and bring it home along with the murderer to break the curse? Which villager is responsible for the chaos that has engulfed the village for three years? Supporting characters like Ollie bring a bit of feelings and emotions to the novel, especially the ending. The murder mystery unfurls cleverly, tying back to the duology’s origins with a satisfying, if slightly predictable, reveal.
Purdie weaves in new fairytale elements seamlessly; however, the middle occasionally lags with repetitive forest perils, and a few side characters feel underutilized, their arcs left dangling like loose threads in a tapestry. The romance, while sweet, might not fully satisfy readers craving more heat after book one’s buildup. The ending ties up the curse’s loose ends beautifully, offering triumphant and bittersweet closure, though a touch was clichéd in its happily-ever-after vibes. At 352 pages, the story is not flawless, but its eerie beauty and emotional resonance make it a worthy farewell to the Forest Grimm.
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1SIX YEARS LATER
I stand outside the village meeting hall, perspiration soaking the linen of my day dress as I await the call to be admitted into the inquisition. I wish Grandmère were here. I could use her courage. Still ill and barely coherent, she’s the only company I’ve had this week. The council hasn’t allowed me to see any of my friends. They don’t want us comparing and later corroborating one another’s stories about what happened in the Forest Grimm.
Beside me, Karl Wagner, a middle-aged farmer, serves as my guard. Tan lines surround the wrinkles radiating from his eyes. He removes his straw hat and rubs the mark it left on his brow. “My Geraldine,” he hisses, his voice warbling with grief. “Did you ever see her in the forest?”
My chest sinks. Since I’ve returned, he isn’t the first person to ask about a Lost loved one. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see many villagers.” I won’t tell him about the ones I found dead, most of them unrecognizable. The ones my mother killed.
What little light is left in Karl’s eyes extinguishes.
“Perhaps your wife is still alive,” I say. The old Clara would have sounded more hopeful. But this Clara, the Clara who killed her mother and brought back a book that couldn’t break the curse, can only offer him weak reassurance.
One of the doors to the meeting hall cracks open. Karl turns his empty eyes on me. “It’s time.”
Before I can take a calming breath, the double doors open wide. It’s a sweltering day, and the stench of sweat and wood polish hits me square in the face, along with the gazes of over fifty villagers sitting in the pews.
This must be what a bride feels like on her wedding day. Except if the aisle I’m about to walk down led to an altar, it would be for a slaughter.
No one will believe the truth. I can already see it in my best friend Henni’s eyes, bloodshot from crying, and the look Axel gives me, strained with worry.
“Clara Thurn, come forward and take your seat,” Herr Oswald, chairman of the governing council, commands. He smooths his thinning hair with bony fingers and indicates the chair, positioned to face the assembly. To its right sit the five members of the council.
I walk the aisle, feeling my doom descend, a strange sort of fear since I’ve been confronted by far more dangerous people in the forest.
Then why am I so afraid?
The chair is unforgivingly hard and wobbles as I shift to sit taller. Look confident for Henni’s sake. This inquisition has, overall, been targeted at her. The gratitude first shown us when we returned from the forest was rescinded the moment Henni’s one wish on the Book of Fortunes failed to break the curse on Grimm’s Hollow.
It wasn’t enough that we partially lifted the curse, the result of my one wish gone awry. Because of it, more rain falls. More crops flourish. But what everyone really wants is for their loved ones to return home from the forest. And for that, the curse must fully break.
Herr Oswald sits in the center of the councilors behind a long table. He dons a pair of wire-framed spectacles and peruses his notes. “Clara, since the day the curse fell three years ago, you and your friends, Axel Furst and Henrietta Dantzer, are the only people to ever enter and return from the Forest Grimm.”
“Aside from Ella Dantzer, Fiora Winther, and Fiora’s children, Hansel and Gretel,” I reply, spotting Ella and Fiora in the crowd. Ella is seated next to Henni, her hand over her sister’s, and Fiora is two rows behind. Hansel and Gretel appear to be absent, which is a relief. This is no occasion for children.
“True, true,” Herr Oswald concedes. “Although we consider them to be among the Lost, thankfully found, unlike you, Axel, and Henni. I believe we can agree you three were never Lost?”
I nod, not wanting to hash out how we actually became lost—though only lost in our travels, not Lost to ourselves. Being Lost like that changed Ella into Cinderella the poisoner, Fiora into Rapunzel with miles of strangling hair, and Hansel and Gretel into cannibalistic captors.
“Very well. Back to the matter at hand.” Herr Oswald’s voice is neither kind nor condescending. He can rule pragmatically as the closest person we have to a mayor. “Will you explain how you three accomplished the feat?”
“I can try.” I clear my throat, stalling. Henni and Axel have already been interrogated. How much would they have shared? “Before my mother went Lost, she made me a cape.”
Henni rounds her eyes. Axel shakes his head slightly. They didn’t share about the cape’s magic, then—how my mother dyed it with protective red rampion, which allowed me to enter the forest. They achieved the same with a scarf and a kerchief I made from my cape.
“The cape is vibrant red, and I hoped my mother could find me if I was wearing it,” I go on, improvising a new excuse. “Perhaps the forest let me enter because it sensed that connection to her. She had already been welcomed, when I had not been, not until then.”
“And how do you account for Henni and Axel being welcomed?” Herr Oswald asks.
“We traveled together, so perhaps the forest viewed us as an entity.”
Hazel Roth, a councilwoman, harrumphs, her frown accentuating her double chins.
“Isn’t that explanation a bit far-fetched?” Herr Oswald asks.
“Possibly.” I fold my hands in my lap to hold down my trembling knees. “I’m only speculating, sir. But my best guess is the forest finally wanted the Book of Fortunes to be found, so it gave us passage. It must have wanted all three of us to accomplish the task.”
Herr Oswald peers at the other council members, and as there are no more harrumphs among them, he moves on to his next points of interrogation: where I found the book, how we discovered the Lost Ones we brought home, and how we managed to come home at all.
I’m honest about the book’s location near a subterranean waterfall, as well as how we navigated the forest following rivers and streams. As for Ella, Fiora, and Hansel and Gretel, I share how we came upon them, but not how they tried to kill us and likely killed others. They’re innocent of any monstrosity triggered by the forest’s tainted magic.
“So you set out on your journey in search of your mother, Rosamund Thurn,” Herr Oswald continues. “How did that search end?”
I see myself as a ghost hovering over my own dead body, a terrible gash at my neck and blood blooming from the wound. “I found her but couldn’t save her.” Axel’s and Henni’s expressions are pensive but supportive. I trust they haven’t betrayed the killer my mother was, deadlier than any of the Lost we encountered. “She was living in an abandoned fortress and…” Axel nods at me. Henni’s eyes well with fresh tears. “… it was unstable. It collapsed and buried her in the rubble.”
Herr Oswald studies me for a drawn-out moment, his wiry brows lifted. “If that is true, child, you have our deepest condolences.”
I sink a little in my chair. Perhaps I’ll get out of this inquisition unscathed—and more importantly, my friends will.
“Now about the villagers you didn’t find. Are we to believe, of the sixty-seven villagers who have gone Lost, you only met with five?”
“The forest is vast, sir. A difficult place to survive in, even when you’ve been admitted. We barely had food to eat. Deer hid from us. Fish were scarcely found. Many villagers must have already…” I lock gazes with Karl Wagner. His face is haunted, devastated, a reflection of so many. Everyone has a Lost loved one. “They would have had great trouble staying alive.”
“Yet you found no graves, no markers from other villagers who might have buried them?”
“No graves, sir.”
“Nothing in the trees, then?” he prods, one eye squinting.
Why is he mentioning the trees? Someone must have revealed the truth about them. A quick glance at Henni confirms it was her. Sorry, she mouths, though she has no need to apologize. We weren’t allowed to correspond, to decide what to share or keep secret.
Unfortunately, the more bizarre our stories are, the more unlikely the council is to believe the fundamental reason we’re here: to explain why Henni couldn’t break the curse.
“We did see faces in the trees,” I answer reluctantly. “It was as if the dead had been absorbed in them.”
A woman in the crowd gasps.
“But they could not be identified,” I rush on. “They might have been fallen soldiers, like in the legend.” The legend no one really believes in. A scary story shared when people gather around hearth fires and want a thrill. It speaks of a great battle that took place long ago, in which every dead soldier became a tree, and those trees became the forest.
I believe that story now.
Herr Oswald gives a small grunt. “That brings us to Henni’s wish ceremony.” My heart gives a hard thud. “You say the forest allowed you entrance because it wanted the Book of Fortunes to be found. One would therefore assume it wanted the curse to be broken. How do you explain why it wasn’t?”
Henni clasps her hands, as if in prayer. Axel leans forward, his elbows on his knees.
“I’m unsure how to answer, as I don’t know what Henni wished for.” This time my words are calculated. I’ve prepared myself for this line of inquiry, and I’ll begin by throwing a village law in the faces of the council: “Sharing what one wishes for is forbidden, after all. Henni would never tempt fate by breaking that rule, even for me.”
Herr Oswald knows as well as I do that she would have wished to break the curse. Henni’s too good-natured to do otherwise, being the only person of age in Grimm’s Hollow who hasn’t made her one wish, the only one the village can depend upon to end their suffering.
Herr Oswald levels a glare at me. “Very well, then, Clara. Recount for us what you witnessed that day.”
“Do you mean from the time you let me go behind the pavilion curtain to join Henni?” I answer, careful to keep my tone courteous. This was another breaking of customs, and Herr Oswald was the one who allowed it.
His face reddens as the other council members grumble. “Continue,” he says past thinning lips.
“Henni was in a state of shock. She said she’d kept making her wish, but every time she opened the book for an answer, Sortes Fortunae kept turning to a spot where a page was missing. I saw for myself the remnants where it had been torn out.”
“Then you didn’t see any words on the page?” Herr Oswald squints one eye again, like he’s trying to hint at what someone else revealed.
Axel wouldn’t have said anything. He doesn’t even know what happened. I haven’t been allowed to speak with him. And Henni wouldn’t have exposed that I did something forbidden.
I made a second wish on Sortes Fortunae. Second wishes are unspoken of, unforgivable, the worst way a person can tempt fate. Nothing is more sacred than the Book of Fortunes, especially now that it’s finally back in Grimm’s Hollow.
But when I made my second wish, I wasn’t thinking about laws or blasphemy. I’d felt strangely bold and untouchable—even angry. I was someone who’d died and come back again, someone who’d killed her own mother, and I wasn’t going to allow the curse to remain unbroken because of a missing page. So that’s what I wished for:
I wish to know where your missing page is. The one meant for Henni.
“When I found Henni, no words were written in the book,” I answer carefully.
“And after you found her?”
I briefly close my eyes, and the magicked green ink of Sortes Fortunae seems to burn through my lids, a blazing reminder of the answer it wrote on a page that wasn’t missing:
Only one page holds the secret to finally restoring peace.
Only one person is to blame for breaking it.
Both must be found, for one has the other,
And together they hide in the Forest Grimm.
“The book made it clear that it wouldn’t give Henni an answer until the missing page was restored.”
Henni breaks into a coughing fit. Her eyes are overbright as she stabs me with a look that says I’ve confessed too much.
“And how exactly did the book make this clear?” Herr Oswald demands.
Henni coughs again. Herr Oswald motions for Karl Wagner. “Escort Miss Dantzer from the room.”
“I’ve told you already,” I reply, trying to stall him. “The book is missing a page. It’s simple enough to draw the conclusion that it needs to be whole to answer Henni.”
What I can’t explain, even to myself, is why the book answered me, though I believe in my bones that if I’d asked to break the curse, I would have been met with the same missing page.
I’m convinced the curse won’t be broken until the person who murdered Bren Zimmer is found and the page is returned. That’s what the riddle must mean. Whoever brought about the curse by using our sacred book to make a murderous wish to kill the prominent blacksmith of our village is in the forest with the missing page, and they need to be brought to justice.
Karl reaches Henni and prods her back.
“She isn’t leaving.” Ella clutches her sister’s hand. “Clara is the last one being questioned. Henni has every right to hear her testimony.”
Councilwoman Hazel Roth raises her double chins. “It is we who give permission to stay, and Henrietta’s time is up.”
Ella looks to her parents for help, but they urge her to let Henni leave. I see the fear in their eyes. They don’t want to make matters worse for their youngest daughter. I’ve been told Henni was questioned for three days. Shy Henni, sweet Henni, barely sixteen-years-old Henni, was relentlessly interrogated over something that wasn’t her fault.
It’s more than ridiculous; it’s insulting. What does the council imagine her ulterior motive could be? Or any of ours? They’re acting as though we returned to Grimm’s Hollow, Book of Fortunes in hand, to bring our village into utter ruin.
Ella releases her sister’s hand, and Henni rises. I ache to see how wilted she looks, especially when she’d grown so much bolder on our journey.
“She’s done something to offend the book!” a woman calls. “Now the forest is angrier! I’ll never see my son again!”
A man whips a finger at her. “She’s made the curse worse!”
“What? No!” Henni blanches. “I tried to make a wish.”
“She needs to be punished!” yells another man.
I jerk up from my chair. “She needs to be protected! She’s the only one who can break the curse. No one else will come of age for another year.”
More shouts erupt. More people cry for Henni to be reprimanded. They weep over their Lost Ones. They rage that Ella and Fiora, with her illegitimate children, have returned, but not anyone else. They see our coming back as a conspiracy. The unbroken curse is proof.
“Order, order!” Herr Oswald calls, but no one listens. Everyone is on their feet now. Karl struggles to escort Henni outside while villagers elbow closer. Fists clench. Spittle flies. Faces redden.
I bolt for Henni, but two council members hold me back while the others struggle to calm the assembly. I watch, open-mouthed, as the chaos intensifies. My once gentle neighbors, farmers and craftsmen, millers and tradesmen, morph into a terrible mob. If only they could see themselves, the monsters they’re becoming, worse than any Lost Ones.
“Stop! Please!” No one hears me. Not until I hurl my chair against the wall. “You’re acting no better than murderers! Have you forgotten why our village was cursed in the first place? And that was due to one murderer. What do you think the forest will do if you all become killers?”
Heads lower. People shuffle back. Not everyone has the grace to look ashamed, but I’ve at least given them pause, and that brief time allows Karl to finish escorting Henni from the meeting hall. Ella and her parents swiftly follow. Axel weaves his way to me and pulls me into his arms. Only then do I realize I’m shaking and clawing at the rose-red strip of wool I wear around my wrist. My remembrance of my mother from the Tree of the Lost.
I can’t have any more death on my hands.
Over Axel’s shoulder, I take in the crowd through my blurred-hot eyes. If any of them did harm Henni, would I hold them as blameless as my mother? The curse drove her to madness until she was no longer Rosamund, but Briar Rose, a blood-sucking monster, the Fanged Creature my grandmother had foreseen in her cards.
I couldn’t save her, but I can save this village. If I do, maybe I’ll find some redemption. Maybe my mother will.
I will return to the forest. I’ll discover the murderer. I’ll bring that person back—and with them, the missing page. I’ll save Henni, and Henni will break the curse.
CHAPTER 2SEVEN WEEKS LATER
Though the night is dark and this room is dim, I veil my face in black and struggle to conjure a vision of the past. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of Grandmère’s bedroom in our cottage. Her snores drift to my ears, but I imagine the rattle in her chest isn’t wet from the cough in her lungs. It’s the sound of a summer storm or the rustle of wind through damp autumn leaves. Nothing to worry over.
I concentrate on the fortune-telling cards I’ve spread facedown and the token clutched in my left hand. This is how Grandmère divines someone’s future, or at least as close as I can replicate. If my magic is anything like hers, then her trick for sparking her ability should also spark mine.
I won’t think about how many times I’ve attempted this ritual and failed. Since I returned from my journey, I haven’t had any more glimpses of the past. But I’m determined to change that. I need to if I’m to solve who murdered Bren Zimmer.
In the weeks since the inquisition, I’ve worked endlessly at having visions and gathering clues. I have so much more work to do, so many more skills to develop, but I feel my time running short. I hoped Grandmère would recover first, but I can’t delay my second journey much longer. The village has reached a tentative peace with me and my friends, but it’s like a broken teacup pieced together without glue. A sneeze could shatter it again.
I refocus on the vision I’m trying to summon. When Grandmère reads someone’s fortune, they place their hand atop hers. Through that touch, she feels their blood “sing,” which guides her to pick each card. She does so blindly, veiled in opaque black, like I’m veiled now.
I don’t have the luxury of someone’s touch—not when I’m trying to connect to Lost Ones—so I’ve been experimenting with tokens, tangible items special to that person.
Johann Schade is the Lost One I’m currently trying to channel. I picture his long, gaunt face. His lanky frame. According to the glassblower he apprenticed for in Grimm’s Hollow, the green marble I’m holding was his prized possession: a beautiful clear globe with a ribbon swirl of green in its core.
I’m not sure how closely Johann knew Bren Zimmer. Johann was a quiet man in his midtwenties who kept to himself, though he attended occasional festivals. In the days before the curse, celebrations were held frequently. Johann never danced at them, but he watched the couples with a furrowed brow and his hat bent from wringing the brim.
I squeeze the green marble. “Speak to me,” I murmur to Johann, or his marble, or the cards—anything that might open my mind to see his past.
Johann went missing in the second year of the curse, after he journeyed into the forest of his own accord, for what reason I can’t say. Back then, the forest admitted people on occasion, though I never understood why some were allowed while others were barred, like Axel was when he ran after Ella on the eve of their wedding. Like I was every time I ventured past the ash-lined border until I had the protection of red rampion.
I strain harder to focus. A headache throbs between my pinched brows. I glide my hand over the cards. I wait for any unusual sensations. A firing nerve. A rush in my veins. A flutter in my belly. Grandmère never clarified how she felt blood “singing.”
I crack one eye open to peek at her, as if that can help solve my dilemma, but I can’t see anything past my silken veil.
One minute passes. Two. The clock in our front room cuckoos eight times.
No one’s blood is singing. If it did, I’ve missed it.
I’m probably overthinking this.
Just draw the cards, Clara.
I flip over three, lift away the veil, and stare at what I’ve chosen. The Fanned Tail for irrepressible confidence. Coins in a Pocket for a sudden inflow of wealth. The Lady with the Lily for untarnished beauty.
I burst into laughter, but the sound is mirthless, pathetic. I couldn’t have picked cards more at odds with Johann. How will I ever discover the person who committed murder and triggered the curse? My magic is the only advantage I have in this impossible task.
Grandmère coughs and shifts uncomfortably. I go to her bedside table and pour a spoonful of elderberry syrup, which is more like strained puree, as we have no honey. Hopefully it still helps.
I sit on her mattress and bring the spoon to her mouth. She grimaces but forces down the concoction. A few moments pass, and her cough settles. She relaxes into a deeper sleep.
I smooth her flyaway gray hairs into the long braid resting atop her patchwork quilt. When Grandmère was in the body of the Grimm wolf, she was injured, and while that wound healed, she’s been ill ever since.
My hand gravitates to the rose-red strip of wool I’ve fastened around my left wrist. Mother isn’t Lost anymore, I remind myself. She isn’t the monster who attacked her own mother and killed me. I found her like I’d set out to do, and for one beautiful moment she recognized me before she died.
Grandmère said I saved her. But perhaps she only meant to console me, her last remaining family member, even though I killed her daughter.
The candle flame on the bedside table flickers, its light reflecting in the leaded glass of the casement window. My gaze lifts to my own reflection, a younger copy of my mother, the same green eyes and sable hair. It hangs loosely about my shoulders, but doesn’t hide the scar on my neck, where Briar Rose bit me and drank my blood dry.
With shaking fingers, I touch the scar. It’s not a simple imprint of teeth; Briar Rose tore a chunk of my flesh away. She killed me … but did that justify me killing her?
My fingers trail down to another scar, one I can’t see but can feel past the linen of my dress. Axel brought me back to life by plunging a red spindle into my heart, a piece of my magical cape with it. But what brand of madness made me believe I could save my mother from her Lost spell by doing the same? She was alive, not dead like I’d been.
Deep down, did some part of me want her to die?
No, how can I think that?
I blow out the candle, and my reflection vanishes. I look through the window and see one of the sheep pastures in its place. A few ewes are grazing on the scant grass. Past them, in the distance, stand the trees bordering the Forest Grimm, only hazy silhouettes in the dark of the night, yet the longer I stare, the more that darkness sharpens and separates into different casts of gray.
Then the gray moves.
It sneaks, skulks, stalks. I see a tail, a snout, peaked ears.
My heart kicks a heavy beat.
The Grimm wolf.
I stand outside the village meeting hall, perspiration soaking the linen of my day dress as I await the call to be admitted into the inquisition. I wish Grandmère were here. I could use her courage. Still ill and barely coherent, she’s the only company I’ve had this week. The council hasn’t allowed me to see any of my friends. They don’t want us comparing and later corroborating one another’s stories about what happened in the Forest Grimm.
Beside me, Karl Wagner, a middle-aged farmer, serves as my guard. Tan lines surround the wrinkles radiating from his eyes. He removes his straw hat and rubs the mark it left on his brow. “My Geraldine,” he hisses, his voice warbling with grief. “Did you ever see her in the forest?”
My chest sinks. Since I’ve returned, he isn’t the first person to ask about a Lost loved one. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see many villagers.” I won’t tell him about the ones I found dead, most of them unrecognizable. The ones my mother killed.
What little light is left in Karl’s eyes extinguishes.
“Perhaps your wife is still alive,” I say. The old Clara would have sounded more hopeful. But this Clara, the Clara who killed her mother and brought back a book that couldn’t break the curse, can only offer him weak reassurance.
One of the doors to the meeting hall cracks open. Karl turns his empty eyes on me. “It’s time.”
Before I can take a calming breath, the double doors open wide. It’s a sweltering day, and the stench of sweat and wood polish hits me square in the face, along with the gazes of over fifty villagers sitting in the pews.
This must be what a bride feels like on her wedding day. Except if the aisle I’m about to walk down led to an altar, it would be for a slaughter.
No one will believe the truth. I can already see it in my best friend Henni’s eyes, bloodshot from crying, and the look Axel gives me, strained with worry.
“Clara Thurn, come forward and take your seat,” Herr Oswald, chairman of the governing council, commands. He smooths his thinning hair with bony fingers and indicates the chair, positioned to face the assembly. To its right sit the five members of the council.
I walk the aisle, feeling my doom descend, a strange sort of fear since I’ve been confronted by far more dangerous people in the forest.
Then why am I so afraid?
The chair is unforgivingly hard and wobbles as I shift to sit taller. Look confident for Henni’s sake. This inquisition has, overall, been targeted at her. The gratitude first shown us when we returned from the forest was rescinded the moment Henni’s one wish on the Book of Fortunes failed to break the curse on Grimm’s Hollow.
It wasn’t enough that we partially lifted the curse, the result of my one wish gone awry. Because of it, more rain falls. More crops flourish. But what everyone really wants is for their loved ones to return home from the forest. And for that, the curse must fully break.
Herr Oswald sits in the center of the councilors behind a long table. He dons a pair of wire-framed spectacles and peruses his notes. “Clara, since the day the curse fell three years ago, you and your friends, Axel Furst and Henrietta Dantzer, are the only people to ever enter and return from the Forest Grimm.”
“Aside from Ella Dantzer, Fiora Winther, and Fiora’s children, Hansel and Gretel,” I reply, spotting Ella and Fiora in the crowd. Ella is seated next to Henni, her hand over her sister’s, and Fiora is two rows behind. Hansel and Gretel appear to be absent, which is a relief. This is no occasion for children.
“True, true,” Herr Oswald concedes. “Although we consider them to be among the Lost, thankfully found, unlike you, Axel, and Henni. I believe we can agree you three were never Lost?”
I nod, not wanting to hash out how we actually became lost—though only lost in our travels, not Lost to ourselves. Being Lost like that changed Ella into Cinderella the poisoner, Fiora into Rapunzel with miles of strangling hair, and Hansel and Gretel into cannibalistic captors.
“Very well. Back to the matter at hand.” Herr Oswald’s voice is neither kind nor condescending. He can rule pragmatically as the closest person we have to a mayor. “Will you explain how you three accomplished the feat?”
“I can try.” I clear my throat, stalling. Henni and Axel have already been interrogated. How much would they have shared? “Before my mother went Lost, she made me a cape.”
Henni rounds her eyes. Axel shakes his head slightly. They didn’t share about the cape’s magic, then—how my mother dyed it with protective red rampion, which allowed me to enter the forest. They achieved the same with a scarf and a kerchief I made from my cape.
“The cape is vibrant red, and I hoped my mother could find me if I was wearing it,” I go on, improvising a new excuse. “Perhaps the forest let me enter because it sensed that connection to her. She had already been welcomed, when I had not been, not until then.”
“And how do you account for Henni and Axel being welcomed?” Herr Oswald asks.
“We traveled together, so perhaps the forest viewed us as an entity.”
Hazel Roth, a councilwoman, harrumphs, her frown accentuating her double chins.
“Isn’t that explanation a bit far-fetched?” Herr Oswald asks.
“Possibly.” I fold my hands in my lap to hold down my trembling knees. “I’m only speculating, sir. But my best guess is the forest finally wanted the Book of Fortunes to be found, so it gave us passage. It must have wanted all three of us to accomplish the task.”
Herr Oswald peers at the other council members, and as there are no more harrumphs among them, he moves on to his next points of interrogation: where I found the book, how we discovered the Lost Ones we brought home, and how we managed to come home at all.
I’m honest about the book’s location near a subterranean waterfall, as well as how we navigated the forest following rivers and streams. As for Ella, Fiora, and Hansel and Gretel, I share how we came upon them, but not how they tried to kill us and likely killed others. They’re innocent of any monstrosity triggered by the forest’s tainted magic.
“So you set out on your journey in search of your mother, Rosamund Thurn,” Herr Oswald continues. “How did that search end?”
I see myself as a ghost hovering over my own dead body, a terrible gash at my neck and blood blooming from the wound. “I found her but couldn’t save her.” Axel’s and Henni’s expressions are pensive but supportive. I trust they haven’t betrayed the killer my mother was, deadlier than any of the Lost we encountered. “She was living in an abandoned fortress and…” Axel nods at me. Henni’s eyes well with fresh tears. “… it was unstable. It collapsed and buried her in the rubble.”
Herr Oswald studies me for a drawn-out moment, his wiry brows lifted. “If that is true, child, you have our deepest condolences.”
I sink a little in my chair. Perhaps I’ll get out of this inquisition unscathed—and more importantly, my friends will.
“Now about the villagers you didn’t find. Are we to believe, of the sixty-seven villagers who have gone Lost, you only met with five?”
“The forest is vast, sir. A difficult place to survive in, even when you’ve been admitted. We barely had food to eat. Deer hid from us. Fish were scarcely found. Many villagers must have already…” I lock gazes with Karl Wagner. His face is haunted, devastated, a reflection of so many. Everyone has a Lost loved one. “They would have had great trouble staying alive.”
“Yet you found no graves, no markers from other villagers who might have buried them?”
“No graves, sir.”
“Nothing in the trees, then?” he prods, one eye squinting.
Why is he mentioning the trees? Someone must have revealed the truth about them. A quick glance at Henni confirms it was her. Sorry, she mouths, though she has no need to apologize. We weren’t allowed to correspond, to decide what to share or keep secret.
Unfortunately, the more bizarre our stories are, the more unlikely the council is to believe the fundamental reason we’re here: to explain why Henni couldn’t break the curse.
“We did see faces in the trees,” I answer reluctantly. “It was as if the dead had been absorbed in them.”
A woman in the crowd gasps.
“But they could not be identified,” I rush on. “They might have been fallen soldiers, like in the legend.” The legend no one really believes in. A scary story shared when people gather around hearth fires and want a thrill. It speaks of a great battle that took place long ago, in which every dead soldier became a tree, and those trees became the forest.
I believe that story now.
Herr Oswald gives a small grunt. “That brings us to Henni’s wish ceremony.” My heart gives a hard thud. “You say the forest allowed you entrance because it wanted the Book of Fortunes to be found. One would therefore assume it wanted the curse to be broken. How do you explain why it wasn’t?”
Henni clasps her hands, as if in prayer. Axel leans forward, his elbows on his knees.
“I’m unsure how to answer, as I don’t know what Henni wished for.” This time my words are calculated. I’ve prepared myself for this line of inquiry, and I’ll begin by throwing a village law in the faces of the council: “Sharing what one wishes for is forbidden, after all. Henni would never tempt fate by breaking that rule, even for me.”
Herr Oswald knows as well as I do that she would have wished to break the curse. Henni’s too good-natured to do otherwise, being the only person of age in Grimm’s Hollow who hasn’t made her one wish, the only one the village can depend upon to end their suffering.
Herr Oswald levels a glare at me. “Very well, then, Clara. Recount for us what you witnessed that day.”
“Do you mean from the time you let me go behind the pavilion curtain to join Henni?” I answer, careful to keep my tone courteous. This was another breaking of customs, and Herr Oswald was the one who allowed it.
His face reddens as the other council members grumble. “Continue,” he says past thinning lips.
“Henni was in a state of shock. She said she’d kept making her wish, but every time she opened the book for an answer, Sortes Fortunae kept turning to a spot where a page was missing. I saw for myself the remnants where it had been torn out.”
“Then you didn’t see any words on the page?” Herr Oswald squints one eye again, like he’s trying to hint at what someone else revealed.
Axel wouldn’t have said anything. He doesn’t even know what happened. I haven’t been allowed to speak with him. And Henni wouldn’t have exposed that I did something forbidden.
I made a second wish on Sortes Fortunae. Second wishes are unspoken of, unforgivable, the worst way a person can tempt fate. Nothing is more sacred than the Book of Fortunes, especially now that it’s finally back in Grimm’s Hollow.
But when I made my second wish, I wasn’t thinking about laws or blasphemy. I’d felt strangely bold and untouchable—even angry. I was someone who’d died and come back again, someone who’d killed her own mother, and I wasn’t going to allow the curse to remain unbroken because of a missing page. So that’s what I wished for:
I wish to know where your missing page is. The one meant for Henni.
“When I found Henni, no words were written in the book,” I answer carefully.
“And after you found her?”
I briefly close my eyes, and the magicked green ink of Sortes Fortunae seems to burn through my lids, a blazing reminder of the answer it wrote on a page that wasn’t missing:
Only one page holds the secret to finally restoring peace.
Only one person is to blame for breaking it.
Both must be found, for one has the other,
And together they hide in the Forest Grimm.
“The book made it clear that it wouldn’t give Henni an answer until the missing page was restored.”
Henni breaks into a coughing fit. Her eyes are overbright as she stabs me with a look that says I’ve confessed too much.
“And how exactly did the book make this clear?” Herr Oswald demands.
Henni coughs again. Herr Oswald motions for Karl Wagner. “Escort Miss Dantzer from the room.”
“I’ve told you already,” I reply, trying to stall him. “The book is missing a page. It’s simple enough to draw the conclusion that it needs to be whole to answer Henni.”
What I can’t explain, even to myself, is why the book answered me, though I believe in my bones that if I’d asked to break the curse, I would have been met with the same missing page.
I’m convinced the curse won’t be broken until the person who murdered Bren Zimmer is found and the page is returned. That’s what the riddle must mean. Whoever brought about the curse by using our sacred book to make a murderous wish to kill the prominent blacksmith of our village is in the forest with the missing page, and they need to be brought to justice.
Karl reaches Henni and prods her back.
“She isn’t leaving.” Ella clutches her sister’s hand. “Clara is the last one being questioned. Henni has every right to hear her testimony.”
Councilwoman Hazel Roth raises her double chins. “It is we who give permission to stay, and Henrietta’s time is up.”
Ella looks to her parents for help, but they urge her to let Henni leave. I see the fear in their eyes. They don’t want to make matters worse for their youngest daughter. I’ve been told Henni was questioned for three days. Shy Henni, sweet Henni, barely sixteen-years-old Henni, was relentlessly interrogated over something that wasn’t her fault.
It’s more than ridiculous; it’s insulting. What does the council imagine her ulterior motive could be? Or any of ours? They’re acting as though we returned to Grimm’s Hollow, Book of Fortunes in hand, to bring our village into utter ruin.
Ella releases her sister’s hand, and Henni rises. I ache to see how wilted she looks, especially when she’d grown so much bolder on our journey.
“She’s done something to offend the book!” a woman calls. “Now the forest is angrier! I’ll never see my son again!”
A man whips a finger at her. “She’s made the curse worse!”
“What? No!” Henni blanches. “I tried to make a wish.”
“She needs to be punished!” yells another man.
I jerk up from my chair. “She needs to be protected! She’s the only one who can break the curse. No one else will come of age for another year.”
More shouts erupt. More people cry for Henni to be reprimanded. They weep over their Lost Ones. They rage that Ella and Fiora, with her illegitimate children, have returned, but not anyone else. They see our coming back as a conspiracy. The unbroken curse is proof.
“Order, order!” Herr Oswald calls, but no one listens. Everyone is on their feet now. Karl struggles to escort Henni outside while villagers elbow closer. Fists clench. Spittle flies. Faces redden.
I bolt for Henni, but two council members hold me back while the others struggle to calm the assembly. I watch, open-mouthed, as the chaos intensifies. My once gentle neighbors, farmers and craftsmen, millers and tradesmen, morph into a terrible mob. If only they could see themselves, the monsters they’re becoming, worse than any Lost Ones.
“Stop! Please!” No one hears me. Not until I hurl my chair against the wall. “You’re acting no better than murderers! Have you forgotten why our village was cursed in the first place? And that was due to one murderer. What do you think the forest will do if you all become killers?”
Heads lower. People shuffle back. Not everyone has the grace to look ashamed, but I’ve at least given them pause, and that brief time allows Karl to finish escorting Henni from the meeting hall. Ella and her parents swiftly follow. Axel weaves his way to me and pulls me into his arms. Only then do I realize I’m shaking and clawing at the rose-red strip of wool I wear around my wrist. My remembrance of my mother from the Tree of the Lost.
I can’t have any more death on my hands.
Over Axel’s shoulder, I take in the crowd through my blurred-hot eyes. If any of them did harm Henni, would I hold them as blameless as my mother? The curse drove her to madness until she was no longer Rosamund, but Briar Rose, a blood-sucking monster, the Fanged Creature my grandmother had foreseen in her cards.
I couldn’t save her, but I can save this village. If I do, maybe I’ll find some redemption. Maybe my mother will.
I will return to the forest. I’ll discover the murderer. I’ll bring that person back—and with them, the missing page. I’ll save Henni, and Henni will break the curse.
CHAPTER 2SEVEN WEEKS LATER
Though the night is dark and this room is dim, I veil my face in black and struggle to conjure a vision of the past. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of Grandmère’s bedroom in our cottage. Her snores drift to my ears, but I imagine the rattle in her chest isn’t wet from the cough in her lungs. It’s the sound of a summer storm or the rustle of wind through damp autumn leaves. Nothing to worry over.
I concentrate on the fortune-telling cards I’ve spread facedown and the token clutched in my left hand. This is how Grandmère divines someone’s future, or at least as close as I can replicate. If my magic is anything like hers, then her trick for sparking her ability should also spark mine.
I won’t think about how many times I’ve attempted this ritual and failed. Since I returned from my journey, I haven’t had any more glimpses of the past. But I’m determined to change that. I need to if I’m to solve who murdered Bren Zimmer.
In the weeks since the inquisition, I’ve worked endlessly at having visions and gathering clues. I have so much more work to do, so many more skills to develop, but I feel my time running short. I hoped Grandmère would recover first, but I can’t delay my second journey much longer. The village has reached a tentative peace with me and my friends, but it’s like a broken teacup pieced together without glue. A sneeze could shatter it again.
I refocus on the vision I’m trying to summon. When Grandmère reads someone’s fortune, they place their hand atop hers. Through that touch, she feels their blood “sing,” which guides her to pick each card. She does so blindly, veiled in opaque black, like I’m veiled now.
I don’t have the luxury of someone’s touch—not when I’m trying to connect to Lost Ones—so I’ve been experimenting with tokens, tangible items special to that person.
Johann Schade is the Lost One I’m currently trying to channel. I picture his long, gaunt face. His lanky frame. According to the glassblower he apprenticed for in Grimm’s Hollow, the green marble I’m holding was his prized possession: a beautiful clear globe with a ribbon swirl of green in its core.
I’m not sure how closely Johann knew Bren Zimmer. Johann was a quiet man in his midtwenties who kept to himself, though he attended occasional festivals. In the days before the curse, celebrations were held frequently. Johann never danced at them, but he watched the couples with a furrowed brow and his hat bent from wringing the brim.
I squeeze the green marble. “Speak to me,” I murmur to Johann, or his marble, or the cards—anything that might open my mind to see his past.
Johann went missing in the second year of the curse, after he journeyed into the forest of his own accord, for what reason I can’t say. Back then, the forest admitted people on occasion, though I never understood why some were allowed while others were barred, like Axel was when he ran after Ella on the eve of their wedding. Like I was every time I ventured past the ash-lined border until I had the protection of red rampion.
I strain harder to focus. A headache throbs between my pinched brows. I glide my hand over the cards. I wait for any unusual sensations. A firing nerve. A rush in my veins. A flutter in my belly. Grandmère never clarified how she felt blood “singing.”
I crack one eye open to peek at her, as if that can help solve my dilemma, but I can’t see anything past my silken veil.
One minute passes. Two. The clock in our front room cuckoos eight times.
No one’s blood is singing. If it did, I’ve missed it.
I’m probably overthinking this.
Just draw the cards, Clara.
I flip over three, lift away the veil, and stare at what I’ve chosen. The Fanned Tail for irrepressible confidence. Coins in a Pocket for a sudden inflow of wealth. The Lady with the Lily for untarnished beauty.
I burst into laughter, but the sound is mirthless, pathetic. I couldn’t have picked cards more at odds with Johann. How will I ever discover the person who committed murder and triggered the curse? My magic is the only advantage I have in this impossible task.
Grandmère coughs and shifts uncomfortably. I go to her bedside table and pour a spoonful of elderberry syrup, which is more like strained puree, as we have no honey. Hopefully it still helps.
I sit on her mattress and bring the spoon to her mouth. She grimaces but forces down the concoction. A few moments pass, and her cough settles. She relaxes into a deeper sleep.
I smooth her flyaway gray hairs into the long braid resting atop her patchwork quilt. When Grandmère was in the body of the Grimm wolf, she was injured, and while that wound healed, she’s been ill ever since.
My hand gravitates to the rose-red strip of wool I’ve fastened around my left wrist. Mother isn’t Lost anymore, I remind myself. She isn’t the monster who attacked her own mother and killed me. I found her like I’d set out to do, and for one beautiful moment she recognized me before she died.
Grandmère said I saved her. But perhaps she only meant to console me, her last remaining family member, even though I killed her daughter.
The candle flame on the bedside table flickers, its light reflecting in the leaded glass of the casement window. My gaze lifts to my own reflection, a younger copy of my mother, the same green eyes and sable hair. It hangs loosely about my shoulders, but doesn’t hide the scar on my neck, where Briar Rose bit me and drank my blood dry.
With shaking fingers, I touch the scar. It’s not a simple imprint of teeth; Briar Rose tore a chunk of my flesh away. She killed me … but did that justify me killing her?
My fingers trail down to another scar, one I can’t see but can feel past the linen of my dress. Axel brought me back to life by plunging a red spindle into my heart, a piece of my magical cape with it. But what brand of madness made me believe I could save my mother from her Lost spell by doing the same? She was alive, not dead like I’d been.
Deep down, did some part of me want her to die?
No, how can I think that?
I blow out the candle, and my reflection vanishes. I look through the window and see one of the sheep pastures in its place. A few ewes are grazing on the scant grass. Past them, in the distance, stand the trees bordering the Forest Grimm, only hazy silhouettes in the dark of the night, yet the longer I stare, the more that darkness sharpens and separates into different casts of gray.
Then the gray moves.
It sneaks, skulks, stalks. I see a tail, a snout, peaked ears.
My heart kicks a heavy beat.
The Grimm wolf.
No comments:
Post a Comment