They reached the first of the tower’s three platforms and tumbled out of the elevator. Daphne pointed at a sign leading to the elevator that would take them to the next level. She and Uncle Jake pushed through the crowd and made their way onto the next elevator. Soon, they were rising even higher above the Paris skyline.
The second level was much higher, and a few people lost their hats in the strong wind. Puck had been right. Nature’s forces were brutal at that height, and it wasn’t even the top of the tower.
“Look!” Puck cried as the mirror’s reflection showed the murderous motorcyclist entering the final elevator. Sabrina could almost hear the chaos when he pulled out his dagger and demanded that everyone get off. People nearly trampled one another to get away from the mad man. She watched him push a button and the doors closed, just as her sister and uncle approached. The two Grimms could only stare as the elevator rose to the top of the tower where Goldilocks had fled.
Sabrina watched the rising elevator. It disappeared from view for several moments. The ascent to the top would take a long time. By the time it came back down, who knew what the villain might have accomplished. It wasn’t fair! Somebody had to stop him.
“There will be another one,” Briar said to Sabrina. “Don’t worry.”
But she was wrong. Suddenly, the elevator came crashing down from above. People were screaming and smoke filled the air.
“Daphne! Uncle Jake!” Sabrina cried frantically, but quickly spotted them. Daphne had fallen, but Uncle Jake helped her up. Together they studied the wreckage. The man in black had somehow cut the cables.
“He’s diabolical,” Briar said.
“And not in the good way,” Puck replied.
“There’s no way up to the top,” Sabrina said. “They’ll never get to her in time. Goldilocks is up there, alone. He’s going to kill her!”
“If only I could go,” Briar said, reaching into her pocket and removing a small seed. “With one of these I could get Jacob to the top in a flash.”
“Uh, I’m glad you are so excited about gardening, Briar, but we’ve got an emergency on our hands,” Sabrina said.
“No, let me explain. When I was a kid, a witch put a spell on me that said if I ever pricked my finger on a spinning wheel I would die. Well, luckily I had a couple of fairy godmothers and they fixed the spell so I would fall asleep. To keep me safe from wild animals and nutcases, they also created a magical rosebush that covered the castle so no one could get at me. When William Charming managed to cut his way through and woke me up, the first thing I did was cultivate some of the rosebush’s seeds. The seeds grow like crazy, and they seem to understand how I want them to grow, too. They come in handy from time to time. All you need is a handful of dirt.”
“I have a handful of dirt,” Puck said, reaching into his filthy pants pocket. When he pulled out his fist, he had a handful of crumbly soil. A fat earthworm was squiggling in the dirt.
“You carry dirt with you?” Sabrina asked.
“Sure, doesn’t everyone?” Puck replied.
“What good is this going to do? We’re in Ferryport Landing. The trouble is half a world away! Unless I can get out of these handcuffs, Goldilocks is going to die.”
Briar and Sabrina turned their gaze to Puck.
“Listen, I swallowed the key,” he stammered. “We have to let nature take its course.”
Disgusted, Sabrina turned to the mirror. “Mirror, do we have any lock-picking stuff in the Hall of Wonders?”
Mirror’s face appeared. “Starfish, I’m increasingly concerned about your life of crime.”
“Mirror! It’s an emergency!”
Sabrina handed him her set of keys and moments later he returned with a small leather case. Inside were the kind of tools Sabrina had only dreamed about when she and her sister were wards of the state. There were picks of all shapes and sizes, and she tried each one until the handcuff snapped open. Free, she rubbed her sore wrist, and turned to Briar.
“Maybe we should wake your grandmother?” Briar said as she hesitantly handed over her magic seed.
“No time,” Sabrina said, and turned to Puck. “Hand over the dirt.”
Puck did as he was told and Sabrina approached the traveler’s chest.
She knew if she walked down the steps now, she’d wind up outside of the Hotel Thérèse, far from where she needed to be, so she closed the lid and removed the key. “I want to go to the second-floor observation deck of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France,” she said aloud. Then she inserted the key and opened the lid. Inside she found a completely different set of stairs.
“Be careful,” Briar said. “And tell your uncle to do the same.”
“I will,” Sabrina said as she descended. She hurried down the stairs and into the dark until she found the door, but this one did not have a doorknob. Instead, she found a button. She pushed it and it lit up, but nothing happened. She was considering turning back when the door slid open. She immediately saw her sister and uncle.
Sabrina stepped out, realizing she had just gotten out of the elevators on the second level.
“What are you doing here?” Uncle Jake asked.
“Your girlfriend sent me with some help,” Sabrina said as she hurried her family to the broken elevator shaft. There she took Puck’s dirt and placed it in a heap on the floor. She then took Briar’s crusty brown seed and buried it in the small pile of earth. Then she stood up and dusted herself off.
Before she was finished, a tiny green sprout appeared in the dirt. It grew and grew, becoming plump and fat until it was as thick as a tree trunk and covered in roses. In no time it was as tall as Uncle Jake and had pointy thorns sprouting out of its sides.
“My girlfriend is full of secrets,” Uncle Jake said as the bush rocketed into the air. He grabbed Daphne in his arms and reached out for a branch. “See you at the top, ’Brina.”
A moment later, he was yanked off the ground and sailing skyward as the rosebush grew at an impossible rate. Sabrina grabbed a vine. The strength of the growing bush was incredible. She wondered if her arm might be yanked from the socket, but she held on with all her strength. Sabrina sailed higher and higher and faster and faster until she reached the top of the Eiffel Tower, where the rosebush stopped and the branch eased her gently to the platform.
Sabrina stood for a moment, trying to regain her bearings and feeling the building sway in the powerful wind. She didn’t like heights, especially heights moving under her feet.
“She’s here!” Daphne cried as she raced across the platform. Goldilocks lay on her back, motionless. Sabrina dashed to her side, with Uncle Jake in tow.
“Is she—?”
“She’s alive,” Uncle Jake said as he knelt to find a pulse. “It looks like she’s unconscious.”
“But how?” Sabrina asked.
Her answer came in the sound of running feet. Before anyone could react, the menacing motorcyclist had charged across the platform and tackled Uncle Jake. Caught off guard, Jake was helpless and took several brutal punches to the face and stomach. Sabrina watched him try to defend himself, but the dark rider was fast and fierce.
Sabrina and Daphne rushed to help him, but they were nothing more than mosquitoes to the mysterious villain. He slapped Sabrina with a vicious backhand that sent her tumbling to the floor. When Sabrina righted herself, she realized Daphne was injured as well.
“Uncle Jake!” Sabrina shouted as she watched the two men circle one another. Jake assured her that everything would be fine, but he never took his eyes off the mysterious man.
“You must think you’re pretty tough, hitting women and children,” Uncle Jake said to the man. He replied by lunging with his knife, slashing and striking out, but Sabrina’s uncle was fast and leaped away from every deadly attack.