Secondhand magic

While Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm made themselves famous collecting fairy tales, a younger brother, Karl, followed in their footsteps and quietly amassed a collection of objects from the fairy tales: such as Cinderella's slippers, Snow White's coffin and her evil stepmother's magic mirror, Sleeping Beauty's spindle, the Beast's magic mirror, Rapunzel's hair (and anything else you care to add.)

At first his collecting was for his own amusement. Unlike the romantic versions in the stories, the objects were ratty and mundane in appearance. But as his brothers' fame increased and people mocked his efforts, he became obsessed with the objects, wanting to awaken their magic or something so others would believe him. Then one day ...

Inspired by Fiction Prompts posted by members at Writing.com.