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"Wassup?" the boy said,
"You have my old bedroom," Daphne said, quietly.
Phil raised his eyes and nodded, then put his headphones back on and wandered out of the room.
"I'm sorry. Since we bought him that game we can't get it away from him," his mother said. "Can I take your coats?
"We can't stay," Gra
"Oh, we really love the apartment. I hope you think we're taking good care of it," Mrs. Frank said.
Sabrina didn't answer. She kept glancing around the room, trying to find something she recognized. The whole experience was making her dizzy.
"Mrs. Frank, there is one other thing. We were wondering if you happened to find anything in the apartment when you moved in, say, for instance, a journal or a book of stories about fairy-tale characters?" Gra
"Oh, we found a few things when we redid the kitchen and the closets," the woman said. She rushed out of the room and returned with an old shoebox. "My husband told me I was crazy to keep this stuff. He says I'm a pack rat, but they seemed personal and, well, it felt wrong to throw them out."
Sabrina took the box and flipped open the lid. Inside were a few yellowing love letters their father had written their mother, some scattered pictures of Sabrina and Daphne in the bathtub when they were little, and a ladies' wallet with pink roses sewn on the front.
"No journal," Daphne said with a sigh.
"Oh, dear, it's not here," their grandmother said. "Do you think you might have overlooked it?" she said to Mrs. Frank.
Gloria Frank shook her head. "We did a lot of work on this place when we moved in. If there were a journal, we would have found it. I'm sorry."
"Well, we appreciate you hanging onto these things," Gra
"It was so nice to meet you," Mrs. Frank said. "Don't worry, we'll take good care of this place."
Gra
Back at the hotel, the little group waited for the elevator. When the doors opened, they were startled to see Mr. Hamstead and Bess inside, locked in a passionate kiss. When the couple finally noticed everyone staring, Hamstead's face went pink and his snout popped out. He quickly put his hand over it, eyeing Bess nervously as if he didn't want her to see. Bess on the other hand was gri
"Uh, hello," Gra
"Yes," Hamstead said, his face still pink. "He's in his room and wants to speak with you. I asked him if everything was OK and he nearly bit my head off, literally." He blushed even more brightly when he noticed that Daphne was giving him playful winks.
"We just stopped by for some hot cocoa," Bess said. "Wall Street was a bust. It's incredible how fractured our community is. We live such separate, secret lives. We're going to try SoHo and Chinatown next." The blonde lady turned to Hamstead and gave him a big, over-the-top smooch on the cheek. "Sugar dumpling, I'm going to go freshen up. Mind if I borrow your room key?"
"Not at all," Hamstead said. He dug into his pocket and handed the key to her. A moment later, she was back inside the elevator and on her way upstairs.
"Mr. Hamstead, I do believe you are smitten with her," Gra
"What does smitten mean?" Daphne asked.
Sabrina turned to answer but then noticed something unusual. The little girl was asking Gra
"It means he's got a huge crush on her," Gra
"Which is a huge problem," Mr. Hamstead said. "When she finds out who I am… what I am-"
"Ernest, she's an Everafter, too, obviously," Gra
"A human Everafter," Hamstead said. "I'm a pig. There's a big difference."
"But there are lots of mixed-Everafter couples. You're forgetting Miss Muffet and the spider."
"Miss Muffet is a crackpot," Hamstead said. "Bess is beautiful and fu
Gra
"If this pointless conversation is over," Moth complained, "I'd like to get His Majesty back to the room."
"Of course," Gra
The girls went up to their room and closed the door. Moth climbed onto one of the two queen-sized beds and propped the icky cocoon onto a pillow. "I need silence, humans," she a
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said turning to her sister. "I need to talk to you." She gestured to the bathroom and Daphne followed her inside.
"Daphne, Gra
"I know all about it," Daphne said, stiffly.
"Then you know I'm not going to be involved in this detective stuff anymore."
"I know you're quitting."
"I don't want you to do it, either. We should be trying to find out how to wake Mom and Dad up, anyway. Once they're back to normal, we can move somewhere normal and be a family again. Doesn't that sound good?"
Suddenly Daphne burst into tears. They streamed down her face and onto the shoebox Gloria Frank had given them, which she still clutched in her hands.
"Why are you crying?" Sabrina said, dismayed. "Don't you want to get back to normal?"
"No!"
Daphne yelled. "This is our destiny."
"You don't even know what the word destiny means." For the first time in Sabrina's life, she saw rage in her little sister's eyes. Before Sabrina knew what had happened, Daphne set down the shoebox, opened the door to the shower, turned on the water, and shoved Sabrina inside.
"You little-!" Sabrina sputtered. "I'm trying to protect us."
"No you're not! You're trying to protect yourself. You haven't once asked me what I want. You're a… jerkazoid and I don't need you. I'll be a fairy-tale detective all by myself!" Daphne turned and stomped out of the room, slamming the bathroom door behind her.
Soaked to the bone, Sabrina climbed out of the shower, took off her clothes, and put on one of the fancy white robes the hotel had left hanging on the back of the door. She wrapped her head in a towel and thought about what her sister had just said. Daphne was mad, but Sabrina would make her understand. She was doing this for both of them.
The little girl had left the shoebox sitting on the toilet tank. Sabrina picked it up and opened the lid. The photos were the embarrassing bathtub shots that parents love to take and kids wished would be lost in a fire. But they made Sabrina smile. They represented happier times. She flipped through the yellowing love letters, tied in a small red ribbon, and then opened the pink wallet. Inside was her mother's driver's license, some expired credit cards, a couple of pictures of her father, and a photo of Veronica sitting with her daughters. Sabrina and Daphne had their faces painted with stars and rainbows and were smiling. Sabrina remembered that day clearly. Her mother had taken them to a fair held at the South Street Seaport-it had been a good day.
It was odd to hold something her mother had owned. The girls didn't have a single item from their old lives; even their clothes were gone. Sabrina lifted the wallet to her nose and sniffed deeply, hoping to find some hint of her mother's perfume, but all she could smell was old leather.