A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(47)

“Wait, can you say that last part again?” Mother Goose interrupted.

“I said, they hoped their story would reach the secret castle before the king’s army of thousands did, in case the magical bird had forgotten to warn the others,” Conner repeated.

All the blood drained from Mother Goose’s face and her eyes drifted off into a fearful trance. “But it’s impossible,” she said softly to herself.

“What’s impossible?” Conner asked. “Does this story mean something to you? Because it sounds like something bad started two hundred years ago and the Brothers Grimm are warning everyone about it now.”

Mother Goose didn’t respond. All she could do was shake her head from side to side as she thought about what he told her.

“Mother Goose, if this story is real, then I’m afraid something horrible is about to happen in the Land of Stories and we need to stop it,” he said.

She finally looked up and made eye contact with him again. “I’m afraid their story is based on something that is very real,” she told him in a stricken tone.

Conner felt his heart descend deeper into his stomach. “What happened?” he asked.

Mother Goose sighed and then told Conner a secret she had managed to keep to herself for years—until this moment.

“Two hundred years ago in Otherworld time, there was a man named Jacques Marquis, a general in the French Empire’s Grande Armée,” she said. “General Marquis was a smart man; he knew the Brothers Grimm stories about mythical creatures and kingdoms were more than just fiction. He had them followed and discovered the truth about where their stories came from. He wanted to conquer the magnificent lands he read about, in the name of the French empire. So, he kidnapped the Brothers Grimm and demanded they provide his army with a portal into the fairy-tale world or he would kill their family.”

“And did they give him one?” Conner asked.

“That’s where I come into the story,” Mother Goose said. “I never gave them a map like the bird in the story, but I told the Brothers Grimm of a portal they could lead General Marquis and his army of five thousand men to. But I bewitched the portal before the army arrived so that it would take them two hundred Otherworld years to cross through it and into the fairy-tale world.”

“And that was two hundred years ago!” Conner exclaimed. “So why haven’t they crossed into the fairy-tale world yet?”

“Because, after the Enchantress was defeated, your grandmother closed the portal between worlds, and just in the nick of time,” Mother Goose said. “Thank God she did, because it meant I never had to tell her about the approaching army. I loved the Otherworld so much but I couldn’t object to closing the portal since I knew that it would prevent that awful man and his soldiers from entering our world.”

“Didn’t anyone wonder where a group of five thousand soldiers disappeared to?” Conner asked.

“No, because shortly after, in the winter of 1812, Napoleon and the Grande Armée also invaded Russia,” Mother Goose explained. “The French soldiers couldn’t stand the cold and the retreating Russian soldiers hadn’t left them any crops or livestock to survive on. The death toll was catastrophic and everyone assumed General Marquis and his men were among those that perished.”

Conner sighed a deep breath of relief. “That’s wonderful news,” he said. “That means the army is still stuck in the portal and will never reach the Land of Stories, right?”

He expected Mother Goose to confirm his relief but instead her eyes drifted off again into another concerned gaze.

“The portal is closed permanently, isn’t it?” Conner asked.

“It was,” Mother Goose said. “But there is a chance the portal between the worlds may be… re-opened.”

“How?” Conner asked.

Mother Goose knew the answer but decided it wasn’t her place to tell him yet. “I can’t tell you why or even that it will for certain, all I can tell you is that there is a chance,” she repeated. “And the only way we’ll know for sure is if we check whether or not the portal is working. If it can be opened from the Otherworld side, that means it can be opened on the Land of Stories side as well, and the Grande Armée may cross into the fairy-tale world after all this time.”

“Then tell me where it is! I’ll check it myself,” he pleaded.

“Absolutely not,” Mother Goose said firmly. “I still haven’t forgiven myself for telling Alex about the Enchantress—I couldn’t live with myself if I sent you off on a dangerous chase as well.”

Conner was so frustrated he wanted to throw the piece of mirror across the bathroom. He was still being treated like a child after all this time. But Mother Goose raised a hand to silence him before he could argue.

“But I may know someone else who can tell you,” she said with a mischievously raised eyebrow.

“Who?” Conner said. “Someone in this world?”

“Yes,” she said. “Where exactly in Europe are you?”

“I’m at an airport in London,” he said.

This made Mother Goose extremely happy and she made an excited fist with her free hand. “Terrific, I have a friend in London—”

“It’s not the queen, I hope,” Conner said. “She’d be difficult to get to.”