Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One: Come Back, Memories, Come Back!

Put on your sneakers.”

My brother, Jonah, hides under his covers. “Not again, Abby. It’s already midnight!”

“Yes, again,” I say. “And it’s not midnight yet. We still have three minutes.”

“But I don’t want to sneak into the basement again! I want to go back to sleep!”

“Do you remember anything about our magic mirror yet?” I ask, looming over his bed.

“No,” he says, his voice muffled. “Nothing.”

“Then you can’t go back to sleep. Let’s go, let’s go!”

Here’s the thing.

We have a magic mirror in our basement.

And, at midnight, when we knock on it three times, the magic mirror sucks us inside and takes us into a fairy tale. Really. Well, first it turns purple, then it starts to hiss and swirl, and then it sucks us into a fairy tale.

The issue right now is that my brother doesn’t believe that the mirror in the basement is magical. Which makes no sense because he has been through the magic mirror with me SIX times already. But the last time we went through, the fairy who lives inside the mirror — her name is Maryrose — hypnotized Jonah by accident.

He remembers everything else about his life — his name, my name, the fact that we live in Smithville — but he doesn’t remember any of our trips.

At all.

Not even a little bit.

How sad is that?

We’ve had all these adventures and he has no clue about any of them. We hiked with Snow White! We baked brownies with Cinderella! He turned into a human Popsicle in the story of The Snow Queen! And he remembers nothing. NOTHING!

It makes me feel kind of lonely.

“Come on!” I whisper-yell. I can’t be too loud. My parents are sleeping. “Let’s go!”

I’m really hoping his memories come back once he sees the mirror in action.

Nothing else I’ve tried has worked. I made him wear his soccer cleats around the house. I was hoping he’d remember how wearing them had totally messed up Rapunzel’s hair and left me no choice but to give her an extreme haircut.

I fed him apples, hoping he’d remember meeting Snow White.

I even showed him the jewelry box in my room. The paintings on the box show what happens to all the fairy tale characters after we visit their stories. Like Rapunzel with her shorter hairdo.

But nothing has worked. He still has no memories of our adventures.

“When did you get so annoying?” my brother mutters as he climbs out of bed and smushes his feet into his sneakers.

Prince, our dog, nuzzles his nose against Jonah’s heel.

I ignore the question. “Are you wearing your watch?” I ask. A watch from home is the only way to keep track of the time when we’re in fairy tales.