Worlds Collide (The Land of Stories #6)(86)

However, tonight’s entertainment had nothing to do with her parents or their pending divorce. Charlie was hanging on every word of a conversation between her mother and her uncle Matthew, and from the little she’d heard so far, they were talking about her beloved Grandpa Conner.

“I went to Dad’s house around eight o’clock tonight to check on him,” Matthew said. “When I arrived I found him in his study reading, just like normal, but when I took a closer look I saw he was reading one of his own books. I asked him what he was doing and he said trying to remember.”

“But trying to remember what?” Charlie’s mother asked. “Did he forget about something in his books?”

Matthew sighed. “It’s way worse than that, Elizabeth,” he said. “Remember the question he got asked on his birthday about Aunt Alex? Well, his answer wasn’t a joke—Dad genuinely forgot where she was. But instead of asking one of us, he thought he could find the answer in one of his stories.”

“What? But that doesn’t make sense.”

“He convinced himself that the whereabouts of his eighty-year-old twin sister could be found in one of his children’s books. He’s been rereading the Fairytaletopia series, trying to find it.”

“Oh my gosh,” Elizabeth said. “I knew he was having trouble remembering things, but this isn’t memory loss, this is classic dementia.”

“Dad tried to tell me all his books were autobiographical—just like he always does with his readers,” Matthew said. “All his stories about the fairy-tale world and his adventures in classic literature were fun when we were kids, but now they’re really concerning. I think Dad has lost his grip on reality. Last month, he told Ayden and Grayson that magic was real—it took Henry and me a couple of days to convince them Grandpa was only teasing them.”

“All right, I hear what you’re saying,” Elizabeth said. “Dad needs help, that much is clear. But what are we going to do to help him?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have time to deal with this ourselves,” Matthew said. “We’ve got kids, jobs, even divorces to worry about. So on my way here, I spoke with the manager of Sunset Crest—it’s an assisted living community up the interstate. They’ve got people who are trained to handle this sort of thing. The manager said they can take him as early as Wednesday.”

Charlie’s mouth dropped open and her bottle-cap necklace fell from her mouth. She couldn’t believe her uncle wanted to put her grandpa in an assisted living place. Her grandpa had always been wacky, that was why she loved him so much, but he was far from being a danger to himself.

“That’s in two days, Matt,” Elizabeth said. “We can’t ship Dad off to some facility with such little notice. That’s just cruel.”

“It would be crueler if we did nothing,” Matthew said. “Look, I love Dad more than anything—that’s why I want to help him before it’s too late. I know a judge downtown who’ll give us power of attorney so we can make this as easy a transition as possible.”

“I suppose if the roles were reversed, Dad would do anything he could to protect us, and this is just returning that favor. But it’s going to break poor Charlie’s heart. She and Dad are so close. I hope she can handle not having him around.”

Before her mother finished her sentence, Charlie already knew exactly how she was going to handle it. She quietly stepped out of her bedroom window, climbed down the branches of a tree, and hopped on her bike. She pedaled as fast as she could across town to Grandpa Conner’s house so she could warn him about his children’s terrible plans.

Her grandpa lived in a large brick house that sat on top of a hill and was surrounded by an iron gate. Charlie climbed over the gate and ran up the winding driveway to the front door. She rang the doorbell a dozen times and pounded on the door as if her life depended on it. A few moments later, Mr. Bailey answered the door in an awful fright.

“Charlie?” he asked. “What on earth are you doing out at this hour? Are you hurt?”

“I’m sorry for coming so late, but it’s an emergency!” Charlie announced. “We need to talk right away.”

Charlie stormed into the house and headed for her grandpa’s study. She took a seat in the red armchair by the window, and he took the blue chair by the fireplace—their usual spots.

“Now tell me, what’s so urgent?” Mr. Bailey asked.

“Mom and Uncle Matt are going to put you in a home,” Charlie said. “They think you’ve gone crazy because you believe in magic and think your stories are real. They made plans to take you away on Wednesday and they know a judge who’s going to give them power of attorney.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Bailey asked with a blank expression.

“I heard the whole thing from the stairwell,” Charlie said. “I’m not sure what power of attorney is, but if it’s anything like the attorneys handling my parents’ divorce, it can’t be good.”

Charlie was very surprised to see how calm Mr. Bailey was. Her grandpa just sat quietly in his chair and thought.

“Well?” Charlie asked. “What are you going to do? Are you going to run away to the circus? Are you going to flee to Mexico? You’ve got to do something before they take you, Grandpa—you’re the only friend I have.”