But he was a pig with a magic wand in his snout. He flicked his head in a circle and a beam of magic shot out of the starry tip. It hit Tony Fats. There was a puff of smoke, and when it disappeared the big fairy godfather was gone, replaced with a beady-eyed rat. The rat twittered, sized up the enormous pig hovering over him, shrieked, and then raced off, disappearing over the hill.

"I told you so," Mr. Canis mumbled.

Sabrina nodded. She had to admit Mr. Hamstead was a lot more resourceful than she had ever given him credit for being. Daphne raced to the enormous pig and gave him a big hug around the neck.

"I'm so proud of you, Mr. Hamstead," the little girl said.

"Ernie?" a voice said from behind them. The pig looked up and Sabrina followed his gaze. Bess was standing there, looking confused and shocked. "Ernie, you're a…"

"Pig." Mr. Hamstead had suddenly morphed back to his human form. He looked as if he wanted to be a million miles away. "I'm a pig, Bess. One of the Three Little Pigs. I should have told you. It wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

Hamstead turned abruptly, pushed his way through the crowd, and disappeared.

"Ernie!" Bess cried after him, but he was gone. "We should go get him," Daphne said to her grandmother. "No, liebling"

Granny said sadly. "He needs some time to himself."

When they got back to the hotel, Mr. Canis decided to meditate while they waited for Hamstead to show up. The old man was sure the traffic out of town would test his temper. Granny bought a suitcase so they could pack the few things the family had purchased during their stay in the city. While they packed they enjoyed a big lunch, compliments of room service. Puck, who had come to see them off, spent most of the afternoon talking to the numerous pixies who visited at the hotel window. He gave them several orders and answered their questions, and they raced off to do his bidding. King Puck was already hard at work.

Sabrina slipped into the bathroom for some privacy. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and studied herself in the mirror. She had her father's golden hair and blue eyes, but her face was Veronica's. She knew when she was older she would look a lot like her mother.

But as her mother's features stared back at her, she wondered why she hadn't gotten more of her mother's spirit. Why had

Veronica chosen to take on the family responsibility? Why had she chosen such a dangerous life? If only Veronica were awake and Sabrina could ask her.

She took her mother's pink wallet out of her pocket and opened it. Inside was the picture of Veronica, Sabrina, and Daphne. Next to it was the business card of her mother's best friend, Oz Diggs, also known as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz-a man who claimed to know her better than anyone. And suddenly Sabrina had an idea.

She burst out of the bathroom and found Daphne and Puck finishing off three huge hot fudge sundaes. "I want to talk to Oz," Sabrina said to her grandmother.

"Sabrina, we should get on the road as soon as rush hour is over. I thought you wanted to get back home so you could help wake up your mother and father," Granny said.

"This is about my mother and father," Sabrina said. "Please! I need to ask him some questions. I need to understand my mother."

Sabrina, Daphne, Granny Relda, and Puck took a taxi down to Thirty-fourth Street. It was evening by the time they reached Macy's and there was a steady stream of exhausted shoppers flooding out of the doors, but the family managed to squirm their way inside. The store security guard blocked their path, frowned, and tapped his watch. "Christmas Eve, folks. We're closing in five minutes."

"We're not buying anything. We're looking for the Wizard," Sabrina said.

"The who?"

"We're looking for Mr. Diggs," Granny interrupted.

"He's probably in his workroom," the guard grumbled. "Just don't dillydally, all right? Some of us would like to go home."

They found Oz's workroom. Sabrina knocked once and waited patiently for several minutes, but no one answered.

"C'mon," Puck said as he opened the door and pushed Sabrina inside.

"Children, we are intruding," Granny worried.

"He might be in the back and can't hear us," Daphne said, pulling the old woman inside.

The room was as big of a mess as the first time they had seen it. Several tables had parts on them that were still moving, including a head that kept opening its eyes and lifting its brows in surprise. Tools were scattered around the room, some of them seeming to have found permanent homes on the floor.

"Ugh, do you smell that?" Puck asked.

"No. What are you talking about?" Sabrina said defensively.

She thought the cocoon smell had finally faded but worried that maybe she was just getting used to it.

"Hard work, I smell hard work in here. It's horrible," Puck said as he picked up a circuit board and examined it. "I might gag."

"Oz?" Sabrina called out, but there was no answer, only the buzz of electric engines. "Oz, I want to ask you about my mother."

"Perhaps we should sit and wait for him," Granny said.

Sabrina hoped the security guards wouldn't lock them inside, but she took her grandmother's advice and sat down on a stool. When Daphne did the same, a robotic head that was sitting on the table next to her sprang to life and started giggling. The little girl screamed and snatched a hammer off the table, then smacked the head a couple times until it stopped laughing.

"Uh, relax," Sabrina said.

"You taught him a lesson, didn't you, marshmallow?" Puck said as he took the hammer from the little girl. He hit the head himself for good measure and scanned the room for something else to beat on. After awhile, he sat down and started peeking through a stack of papers on the desk.

"Don't snoop," Granny Relda scolded.

"Then someone better keep me entertained 'cause this is boring," Puck replied.

Sabrina got up and took the papers away from the fairy. "This is his stuff. Some of it might be private." She tried to collect them in a neat stack, but shoved in the middle of the pile was something quite different: a small, leather-bound journal with gold writing on its cover.

Fairy Tale Accounts June 1992 to present Veronica Grimm

Sabrina felt her heart rocking in her chest. With trembling fingers she picked up the book and opened it.

"What did you find?" Granny Relda said.

"It's my mother's journal," Sabrina replied. Veronica's curvy, slightly sloppy script filled every page. There were hundreds of entries chronicling her experiences with the Everafters of both Ferryport Landing and New York City. Sabrina read feverishly, turning pages faster and faster, absorbing as much as she could about her mother's secret life. There was story after story of the lives she had changed. She had helped people move, find jobs, and track down missing friends, and she had done plenty of detective work as well. On one of the pages she wrote:

My work with these people is exciting, fascinating, and most of all-important. I've found that there is more to being a Grimm than Henry ever told me. It's more than being a detective… sometimes, I'm the only hope an Everafter has of making it in this world. If only I could get them to work together…

Sabrina flipped to the back and found several folded pages from a yellow legal pad, covered with writing. She read through them, including all the scratched-out parts and tiny notes in the margins. It was a speech.

"This is the speech everyone was talking about. It was her plan for the Everafters. She was supposed to give it the day she disappeared," Sabrina said.