“Wait for what?” Sabrina asked, then suddenly realized what they would be waiting for and had to fight to keep her breakfast down.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one,” Puck said as he reached his hand into a bowl of oatmeal and shoveled it into his mouth. Sabrina’s hand was dragged along and covered with the gooey cereal.
“How am I going to get dressed? Or take a bath?” Sabrina cried.
“Who needs a bath?” Puck said, wiping the extra oatmeal on his shirt.
“I suppose we could just take the two of you out in the yard and hose you down,” Uncle Jake said.
“Elvis loves it,” Daphne said.
Uncle Jake laughed so hard his scrambled eggs fell out of his mouth.
Daphne finished her breakfast, and for the first time ever, Sabrina watched the little girl push her empty plate away. There was no such word as full in her sister’s vocabulary. Since the girl had more of Sabrina’s clothes on, as well as high-heel shoes, she guessed that Daphne was still a “grown-up.” “I had a thought last night,” Daphne offered.
“Oh?” Granny said.
“There’s one eyewitness we haven’t talked to,” Daphne said. “The woodcutter.”
Granny’s eyes lit up. “Liebling, that’s good detective work. I totally forgot there was someone else at the grandmother’s house.”
“So, do you know where he lives?” Uncle Jake asked.
Granny shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t. There are thousands of Everafters in this town and I haven’t met them all. There’s also a chance that he doesn’t live here. As you know, some of the Everafters moved away before Wilhelm’s barrier went up, and others never came to America at all.”
“How can we find out?” Daphne asked.
Granny clapped her hands, jumped from her seat, and rushed to the family journals. “We need to get back to our research. Perhaps he does live here in Ferryport Landing. He could be a great help to our case.”
“I’ll help,” Sabrina said eagerly.
Granny cocked an eyebrow, obviously surprised by Sabrina’s enthusiasm. “You will?”
Sabrina nodded, though she didn’t feel entirely honest. The thought of freeing Mr. Canis terrified her, but she wanted to get back into the family’s good graces, especially her grandmother’s.
“Thank you, liebling,” Granny said.
Sabrina dragged Puck from his chair and pulled him into the living room, where she snatched a copy of the complete fairy tales of Charles Perrault. She dragged him back to the table and sat down. According to the copyright, Perrault was one of the first people to document the ghastly tale of Red Riding Hood. His book was published in 1697, and his account described a woodcutter who came to Red Riding Hood’s rescue. Sabrina was impressed with the man’s heroics. Not too many people had gone face-to-face with the Wolf and lived to tell the tale. Sabrina noted the story and continued her research.
All the Grimms who had lived in Ferryport Landing had kept detailed journals of their adventures. Even Sabrina and Daphne had filled a couple. It was the family responsibility to document anything unusual that occurred in the Everafter community. With this sizable collection at their fingertips, it was obvious to everyone that there were a lot of unusual occurrences in the sleepy river town. Sabrina scanned hundreds of entries. She read about a short-lived military overthrow of the mouse king of Oz. She found sheet music composed by a jazz trumpeter named Boy Blue. She even learned that the Three Blind Mice had once applied for seeing-eye dogs. Generations of Grimms had collected these stories, but Sabrina didn’t find anything else on the woodcutter or what had become of him.
She closed the last of her share of the journals and sat back in her chair. “I’ve got nothing.”
Granny sighed. “I didn’t find anything, either.”
Daphne looked up from her book. “What does the word mani . . . mani . . . fest mean?”
“You mean manifest. It’s a list of items that are shipped on a train, bus, truck, whatever,” Granny explained.
“Where’s your dictionary?” Sabrina asked.
Daphne stuck her tongue out and turned her attention back to Granny Relda. “Can it be a list of people, too?”
“Sure,” the old woman said. “What did you find?”
“This. It looks like a list of the passengers on Wilhelm’s boat,” the little girl said, handing several sheets of paper to her grandmother.
Granny took the papers. “Good work, Daphne. I should have thought of this. Let’s see if there’s a woodcutter on this list.” Granny perused the list. “Hmm, I’m not seeing anyone.”
Sabrina reached over and took the list from her grandmother. Sure enough, there was no “woodcutter” on the list. “If only we knew what his name is,” she said.
“Well, we don’t need that. We know everyone else’s name. Let’s go through the list and find the people we’ve never heard of,” Granny said. “Assuming that he got on Wilhelm’s boat.”
Puck wasn’t thrilled. “Is this going to take long? I have plans.”
“The handcuffs were your idea, buster. Any chance we’re going to see that key pop up?” Sabrina said.
Puck shook his head.
The Grimms went through the list, checking off everyone they knew by name. There were quite a number of people in Ferryport Landing who just had titles for names: the Mad Hatter, the Beast, the Sheriff of Nottingham, or the Queen of Hearts, for example. That made the search much easier. Soon, there was a list of only twenty citizens neither Granny, Sabrina, nor Daphne could identify. Seven of them had odd, almost unpronounceable names, and Granny guessed they were either witches, goblins, or trolls. Eight more were names that were obviously for animals, including Hans the Hedgehog and someone called the Sawhorse. That left five names, and two of them were women.
Just then, the phone rang. Granny answered it and cried out in excitement when she heard the caller’s voice. “Little John! We’ve been trying to track down another eyewitness. We believe the woodcutter might actually live in Ferryport Landing. What’s that? Oh, of course. We’ll be right there.”
Granny hung up the phone.
“What’s going on?” Uncle Jake asked.
“Bluebeard has a new witness and they’re starting the trial early today. We have to go over there now!”
“Who’s the witness?” Daphne asked.
“His name is Howard Hatchett,” Granny replied.
Sabrina sighed. “He’s on our list. Howard Hatchett is the woodcutter.”
The group drove up and down Main Street looking for a parking space. Granny commented that she had never seen the downtown area so busy, even when there were other humans living in town. While they searched, they passed the site where the bank had once stood.
“I’ve heard of people robbing banks, but I’ve never heard of anyone stealing the bank itself,” Uncle Jake said as Granny peered out her window at the vacant lot.
“That’s quite peculiar,” Granny said. “Unfortunately, it’s a mystery that’s going to have to wait.”
Daphne poked her head out the window and craned her neck for a better view. When she pulled herself back inside the car she looked panicked and nervous. She turned to Sabrina and mouthed the words, “What happened?”
Sabrina shrugged, though her heart burned for the betrayal she was committing. Sabrina knew what was going on in her sister’s mind. Daphne believed the weapon was lost. Sabrina knew she should tell, and from the look on Puck’s face, he agreed, but she wasn’t sure how to explain. When Daphne reached up to touch the necklace, Sabrina could almost hear the remorse running through her sister’s mind.