Council of Mirrors (The Sisters Grimm #9)

Michael Buckley

Description

In the final volume in the Sisters Grimm series, Sabrina, Daphne, and the rest of the Grimms and their friends must face off against the Master to decide the fate of Ferryport Landingand the world. When Mirror fails to escape the barrier using Granny Reldas body, he turns to his plan B: killing all the Grimms so that the magical barrier collapses. In the meantime, Sabrina has gathered the other magic mirrors as advisors on how to deal with their mortal enemy. They tell her to join forces with the Scarlet Hand against Mirror, in exchange for offering all the citizens of Ferryport Landing their freedom. This final chapter is the end of the road for several beloved characters, but the conclusion is sure to satisfy devoted fans of the series.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781613123126
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ALSO BY MICHAEL BUCKLEY:
In the Sisters Grimm series:
BOOK ONE: THE FAIRY-TALE DETECTIVES
BOOK TWO: THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS
BOOK THREE: THE PROBLEM CHILD
BOOK FOUR: ONCE UPON A CRIME
BOOK FIVE: MAGIC AND OTHER MISDEMEANORS
BOOK SIX: TALES FROM THE HOOD
BOOK SEVEN: THE EVERAFTER WAR
BOOK EIGHT: THE INSIDE STORY
In the NERDS series:
BOOK ONE: NATIONAL ESPIONAGE, RESCUE, AND DEFENSE SOCIETY
BOOK TWO: M IS FOR MAMA S BOY
BOOK THREE: THE CHEERLEADERS OF DOOM

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-0186-3
Copyright 2012 Michael Buckley Illustrations copyright 2012 Peter Ferguson
Published in 2012 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [e-mail] or the address below.
115 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 www.abramsbooks.com
For Sylvie and Phoebe Sanders. Thanks for riding this flying carpet .
The Sisters Grimm would never have existed if not for my beautiful wife, Alison. She s as important to this series as Sabrina and Daphne, and her presence is written into every sentence. It s nice that she s my literary agent too. She s managed me through ups and downs, my insecurities, and temper tantrums and helped me grow this silly idea into a career.
There are three other people who have made outstanding contributions. The first is my editor, Susan Van Metre, who has been a friend and mentor to me. The second is my other editor, Maggie Lehrman, who came on board midway and has added a new layer to the stories. The third is Jason Wells-probably the hardest-working man in, well, anything. I have been blessed by his cleverness and understanding. They are backed by an army of talented and hardworking people at Amulet Books: Michael Jacobs, Chad W. Beckerman, Laura Mihalick, Chris Blank, and the sales and marketing departments. I am a truly lucky person to have such brilliant people helping me, holding my hand, and demanding the best from me. You have my undying respect, admiration, and loyalty.
I want to thank my family, Wilma and James Cuvelier, Michael and Kassandra Buckley, Douglas Lancaster and Beth Fargis-Lancaster, Paul Fargis and Rev. Dawn Sangrey, Chris Fargis, John and Vida Fargis, Edwin and Maria Buckley, and all the nieces and nephews both here in the United States and in China. I want to thank my good friends Joe Deasy and Josh Drisko. Thanks to Autumn Heard and Jannelle Purcell at Starbucks as well as everyone at Ted Honey s for the chair and the free Wi-Fi.
Many thanks to Peter Ferguson, who brought these books to life. At my house, Peter s drawings and paintings have always been received like Christmas presents. Thank you for your vision and inventiveness. Your pencil is forever linked to my laptop.
Thanks to Finn. I love you, son.
And to every teacher, librarian, student, professor, blogger, and kid who ever took a chance on this series. Reading takes time. I have appreciated all that you gave me. As Daphne would say, you are all very punk rock.

Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Two Weeks Earlier
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
13 Years Later
16 Years After That . . .
About the Author
O NCE UPON A TIME there was a sleepy river town called Ferryport Landing. It was nestled on the bank of the Hudson River in upstate New York, where mountains look over valleys and water runs down into the great river and on to the sea. Quaint little shops filled the town center, and trees freckled the landscape. The town s citizens bicycled along cobblestoned lanes and through community gardens. Apple pies cooled on windowsills, and few people locked their doors at night. If a person didn t know better, he might have suspected Ferryport Landing had been propped up on wheels and rolled out of a storybook .
But that was a long time ago .
Now it was dead. Its demise wasn t slow, like so many other tiny dots on the map that rust and decay when the mill closes or the steel plant shuts its doors. No, Ferryport Landing was murdered. Its citizens tore it to pieces. They smashed shop windows and looted goods. They spilled great heaps of trash onto its streets. They lit fires whose hungry flames still lapped at the few buildings left standing. They tipped over cars, leaving them scattered on the streets like the forgotten playthings of a huge child. The little town was wrecked and then abandoned .
The Grimm sisters stood over Ferryport Landing s poor, broken corpse to pay their respects to a fallen friend .
Is that it? Daphne said. Is that the end?
Sabrina nodded. Yes. And it s about time.
ctober 14
My name is Sabrina Grimm and this is my journal. My family has been bugging me to write in it for a while. I tried a few times, but to be honest I thought it was stupid. I never wanted to get involved. I wanted to be a girl who lived on the Upper East Side of New York City. I wanted to go to school and make friends and buy bagel sandwiches at the deli on York and 88th Street every morning. But that s not what happened .
If you re reading this, you re either Puck (stop snooping, stink-face!) or you re one of my descendants. If you re a descendant, then maybe you re like me and you kind of got dumped into this life where everything is upside down and nothing makes sense. Well, I need to fill you in on a few things, and you might want to sit down for this .
You know those bedtime stories your parents read to you at night? You know, the ones filled with fairies, giants, witches, monsters, mad tea parties, princes on white stallions, sleeping princesses, jungle boys, cowardly lions, and guys with straw for brains? They re not stories. They re history. They re based on actual events and actual people who are as real as you and me. They call themselves Everafters-real-life fairy-tale characters-and that s where our family comes in. We re Grimms, descendants of one-half of the Brothers Grimm, and we keep an eye on the Everafter community-which is no picnic. OK, I know you re probably thinking I ve been sitting too close to the microwave, but I m telling the truth .
Let me start at the beginning. Two years ago my parents, Henry and Veronica Grimm, disappeared. My sister, Daphne, and I were tossed into an orphanage and bounced around the foster care system for a while. For a long time we thought we had been abandoned, but it turned out Mom and Dad were kidnapped (long story). Enter Granny Relda, our long-lost and believed dead grandmother (another long story). Once she tracked us down, she brought us to live with her in a little town called Ferryport Landing. That s where a lot of the Everafters live .
You ve probably never heard of Ferryport Landing. As I write this, the town is being destroyed. There s an angry mob of ogres, trolls, talking animals, and assorted creeps running down its streets, terrorizing everyone. Anyone with any sense has left or gone into hiding-but not us. Oh no! Our family has no sense to lose, which means we re knee-deep in trouble and things don t look like they re going to get any better .
But you still need to know about Ferryport Landing and what happened here. Which gets me to another of the Grimm family responsibilities. According to tradition it s our job to keep a journal of everything we see and hear that involves Everafters. The journals might just help you out, and your journals might help out the Grimms that come after you. So, take it from me: just bite the bullet and do it. I can t count how many times the journals have saved my sister and me .
Of course, there may not be any more Grimms after me. I might die and then no one will be reading this. Like I said, things are pretty bleak .
But that s enough backstory for today. I ll write more when I can. For now I have to go save the world .
Sabrina snapped her journal shut and tucked it into the folds of her sleeping bag for safekeeping. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then got to her feet, stretching the stiffness from her aching body. Sleeping on the cold, marble floor of her bedroom was no fun.
Not that where she and her little sister, Daphne, were sleeping could actually be called a bedroom. A bedroom had a bed. A bedroom had a window. A bedroom had a place to put your clothes, a closet, a rug, and other things to make it comfy and homey. What the girls had was an empty space with walls of stone and an unforgivingly hard floor. Sabrina hoped the living situation was temporary, but to make sure, she knew she had to get to work.
Next to her sleeping bag she kept a rusty cowbell and a drumstick. She scooped them up and padded over to where her sister lay, still slumbering. First she called out to the little girl. She even gave her a few shakes, but Daphne could sleep through a tornado and rousing her meant Sabrina had to take drastic measures. She found that the most effective of those tactics was a cowbell ring to her sister s ear.
DONK! The cowbell clanged as the drumstick smacked its side.
Daphne did not stir.
DONK! DONK! DONK!
Nothing.

Wake up! We re under attack. Monsters and lunatics and weird dudes with pitchforks! They ll be h