by Cameron Jace
"I have a lot of silly names," he said. "But I'm only trying to help."
"Help?" I chuckled. "You do dress silly, I must say. You're nothing like I pictured you."
"Really?" He was disappointed. "I was told this was the latest fashion in Europe."
"I'm really disappointed in you," I said. "I mean, you're so feared all over the world. How did you manage to make people fear you like that?"
"I paid a few people, generously, at the beginning of time," he said. "You seed an idea in people's heads for centuries, and you got yourself a place in history. Could you please not tell anyone?"
I didn't know what to say or feel. In my darkest moment, I got my release, laugh, and joy from a reluctant devil. How ironic was that?
"I could not tell anyone." I smirked. "For a price."
"Huh," he sighed. "That was good. Care to work for me?" he joked. "All right. All right." He waved his hands again and summoned the ferryman on his boat. "Skeliman! Would you please cross this woman over to Murano?"
"For free?" Skeliman sounded like an old, grumpy man. I couldn't see his face, as he was hiding behind the shades of night.
"It's a favor," the devil said. "Please?"
"Skeliman the Ferryman does no favors."
"All right." The devil walked funnily toward him, annoyed by the muddy ground on his new boots. "I will pay you myself. A golden egg. How about that?"
Skeliman agreed under one condition: that I didn't try to see his face. I said yes, as long as I sat in the middle of the boat so I was the farthest I could be from the water.
As I got to the boat, I turned to ask the devil a question I couldn't resist. "So selling one's soul to the devil is just a lie?"
"Of course not," Skeliman answered on behalf of the fashionably dressed devil. "A lot of people sell their souls to the devil. You should have sold your soul to him now, if you don't mind me saying. Better than selling it to…"
"Sell it to whom?" I asked.
"You don't want to know," the devil interrupted.
"There is someone else people sell their souls to?" I was curious.
The devil nodded silently, his hands behind his back. He seemed worried.
"You don't want to talk about H—" The Skeliman meant that mysterious someone, but choked on the last word. Was he going to tell me his name? "Only the sorrowful and unlucky have to sell their soul to Him. Let's call him 'Him' for now. I worry if I say his real name, actually."
"Why? Who is Him?" I asked.
"Darling." The devil approached and slightly pushed me into the boat. "It's better not to talk about Him. If you're ever miserable enough to sell your soul to him, then God help you." He stopped to consider what he'd just said with a grin on his face. "You see all those miserable people in the world around you? Most of them have sold their souls to Him." He gazed up at the skies. I thought it was hilarious. "Now have a safe trip to Murano." He waved farewell to me as Skeliman rowed away. "The land of mirrors." He spread his hands and nodded at me. "It was nice doing business with you." He shrugged. "I guess."
My heart sank as I gazed at the darkened horizons. I didn't know what was worse: the dark or the shiny mirrors awaiting me in Murano.
8
Murano Island was a flare of colorful two-story buildings. It had to be one of the most enchanted places on earth. The ground was painted with all kinds of colors, specifically orange and green, and so were the buildings. In some neighborhoods the island looked like a flaming eruption, balanced beautifully with the sky's eternal blue.
It turned out that Murano was where glass was invented. In fact, the art of glassblowing had been a centuries-long secret, only concealed behind the hands of Murano's talented artists, all before those artists were wrongfully exiled from the island due to the catastrophes they had caused with the fire they used for their art. Glass only came from fire and sand.
Everywhere in Murano people blew glass into vases, artifacts, cups, and all kinds of souvenirs. It startled me how the beauty of transparent silver glass was born from the pits of the deepest and hottest fires, something I hadn't known or seen in Styria. It seemed like a beautiful paradox, how the world could give birth to good from evil and the other way around.
Sadly, my fascination was short-lived.
Everywhere I went mirrors shimmered in the sun, reflecting upon me. I wanted to shrink into myself and disappear. In the beginning, I thought I could just avoid the few places where they made those new and shiny silver mirrors, which hadn't been anywhere else in the word then, but I was wrong. There was no place to hide from the mirrors, and I couldn't take it.
I fought my way to Amalie Hassenpflug's house, hiding behind my veil, and realizing that I had begun to fear mirrors. It wasn't just a precaution or submission to what I had been raised to get used to. What started as a taboo had turned into fear. It seemed like the possibility of ever looking in a mirror was done for me.
I knocked on Amalie's door, and told her what Angel told me to say—that I was the love of his life, purgatory, and after.
Amalie was welcoming and very helpful. She explained to me how she was a vampire slave, half turned only to serve the vampires in Lohr as a blood vessel to feed on whenever they wanted to drink—she still suffered from the aftereffects, but didn't want to share them.
Amalie had been forced by Night Von Sorrow to pretend she was Angel's mother when his father had sneaked him among humans in Lohr to study them and locate the Karnsteins. Angel loved her dearly, for she understood his love for humans and his wish to emerge from the depths of hell to become a good man. I spent all day listening to her, but then it was time for her to face me with the dark truth about my love for Angel.
"Can I ask you how much you love Angel?" she said. "I don't want some poetic answer filled with descriptions and metaphors. I want a realization, deep down in your heart"—she pointed at hers—"that it is an inevitable truth, that you love Angel Von Sorrow."
"You mean like 'until death do us apart'?" I asked, already blushing, because the buzzing in my heart had never been logical or explainable.
"Not even death," she said. "It can't tear you apart."
I said nothing, only stared at her.
"You know he might be immortal, don't you?"
"He talked about it, but he isn't sure," I said. "Because he is still a half-vampire. Only vampires are immortal. If he could ever find a cure to become all human, he certainly won't be immortal anymore."
"You're right, Angel might not be immortal yet," Amalie said. "The thing that he doesn't know yet is that True Love, if that is possible, grants his kind immortality, even if he is still a half-vampire."
I was supposed to shriek, but no sound came from my chest. Maybe I'd taken the impact of the information inside me. The idea of the one I loved living forever left me undone. I didn't know whether it was good or bad. After all, I wasn't an immortal, and didn't know if I wanted him to spend his eternal life without me. I was curious about one thing, though. "True Love?" I cocked my head. "How do we know it's True Love, Amalie? What does True Love even mean?"
Amalie sipped her tea and shook her shoulders. "Who knows what True Love really is? They call it Adage in our world of Sorrow. A simple word of infinite unconditional love, not just for a love interest but for a child or a god."
"Adage." I couldn't stop myself from repeating the world whenever I heard or thought about it. "Then why are you asking me about my love for Angel? I don't suppose it's the immortality issue by itself."
"Of course not," she said. "The situation both of you are in is like this: you're hunted by two families, whether good or bad, it doesn't matter, because evil is only a point of view." She held my hands. "If you both insist on being together, there is no place on earth you can escape to. If not from the Karnsteins, then never from Night Von Sorrow. Wherever you go, he will eventually find both of you."
"Are you suggesting I leave Angel?"
"No," she said. "Hold back your young and impulsive heart for a moment. Give
reason a try, and listen to me."
I nodded, feeling the warmth and kindness of her hands.
"If you both are up to what it takes when it comes to love, there is one escape from Night Von Sorrow," she explained. "It's not quite in our realm."
"I don't understand."
Amalie sighed, and I worried. "The only place to escape the vampire king is in 'other worlds'—some like to call it 'Fairyworld,' but I don't know why. They are partially intertwined with ours but separate. Magical worlds, unlike anything we have ever seen, beyond a vampire's sight and reach."
"I don't mind at all, as long as I am with Angel," I said, not quite comprehending. But as long as a solution was available, I was into it.
"Good." She pulled back her hands and took a deep breath. "I'm only offering you this because you can't live in Murano, the only place where vampires are afraid to venture. Because of the glasswork we produce, they have to stay away, as fully turned vampires will burn if exposed to their reflection in mirrors long enough. Murano should have been a great escape for you, but considering your curse, you can't live here either. Also, we don't know where Angel stands with mirrors now. Some days he can't stare at them, and some he can, so it makes us wonder what his situation will be in the future."
"Wait,” I said, as a harrowing thought hit me. “When you spoke of mirrors, I think I had an epiphany, one I hope isn’t true.”
Amalie nodded, as is she read it in my eyes. As if she knew all along.
“Is that why I can’t stare at myself in mirrors?” I said with moistened eyes.
Amalie sympathized with her silence. The sort of silence that speaks words. It begins and ends relationships. A silence that delivers that darkest revelations.
“Am I a vampire?” I said, hoping I wasn’t. It was against everything I stood for. How could my family have not known? How was it even possible?
Amalie took forever to answer me. Consumed by her silence, she looked down and her laced fingers, then said, “No one really knows. Carmilla, if the prophecy is true, and I know very little about it so don’t ask me, you’re the Queen of Sorrow. The Karnstein Queen who is destined to hunt the Sorrows. Why? Because she has something of them in her blood and soul.”
9
I can write infinite diaries about how I felt. Unlike other memories, this one will always be memorable. How do you think it feels to know you have good and evil in you? It’s not like no one else has this, but when you’re told it’s been prophesied and that at some point you will have to chooses, it’s a different burden.
Amalie later told me about all the theories and rumors about the Queen of Sorrow. That, if I was her, she was born to a vampire and human. That she had lived forever – I know much about his now, but will tell you about it later. Ever wondered why my language is sprinkled with modern phrases? Let’s just say, I lived longer than I needed to.
All speculations and rumors meant very little then. They didn’t help, and I felt too young to have to know who I really am. To be honest, back then I sometimes doubted by love for Angel. You call it insta love these days, I remember, and you frown about it when there is actually nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s the only chance to a True Love.
Again, I will explain later.
Amalie let murmur words to myself, “Not being able to stare at mirrors, it's as if I'm a vampire myself," I said, wondering why had the nameless witch ever done this to me?
Amalie looked at me and said nothing. The notion of me sharing a serious trait with vampires bothered her a little. But she looked like she believed that I wasn't a vampire. Or did she?
"Come with me." She took my hand again and stood up.
"Where to?" I asked.
"I want you to meet a girl who can help you and Angel escape to another realm where you can create your own kingdom and hopefully live happily ever after."
"Happily ever after," I murmured. I liked the sound of it. No fairy tales had been told then, so it was an expression I had never heard before. It was the beginning of the nineteenth century, and though fairy tales were sort of commonly known bedtime stories, they hadn’t been populated and no one cherished phrases like these. The Brother Grimm later published their first book in 1812. "Who is this girl?" I asked.
"A very special one," Amalie sighed again. “A lot of stories had been told about her.”
“Stories?”
“Bedtime stories,” she said. "She is about fourteen, and a bit different to all of us. In fact, you would never think she is special when you see her. I think the Creator of All Creators wanted her like that. We know very little of her. It's rumored that she is immortal, in her own way, as she can always rise up from the ashes again if she dies, but don't ever ask her or confront her about it." Amalie stopped and raised a finger.
"Who is she?" I was curious now about the girl.
"A glassblower, one of the best of those who have mastered what we call the Art," Amalie said. "Her name is Cinder."
“You mean like Cinderella?” I cocked my head, as it was one of my favorite bedtimes stories about a poor girl and her shoes and how she went from rags to riches.
“That’s not her name,” Amalie said.
“Cinder is a name that is originate from Cenere, a name that means ash or fire in Italian.”
“Cinderealla—I mean Cinder is a real person?”
“And she is Italian,” Amalie said. “Poor girl was shamed and tortured among other witches. At some point she was dragged in cage upon a carriage and shamed and spat on by the public for conspiring against The Creator of All Creators.”
I felt for her. She seemed like someone I could relate to. “But she wasn’t a witch, right?”
“It’s hard to prove that when you can willingly conjure fire.”
“She can?” this was the first time I met one of us – I’ll explain later. Someone who had powers like mine with the apples, except I didn’t do it willingly.
“Yes, it’s a gift,” Amalie said. “They called her Cinder because while on the carriage, the public smeared her with black coal to brand her as a witch,” Amalie continued confidently, knowing in her heart that I was just getting exposed to the true origins and world of what you, my dear reader, whoever you are, ignorantly call fairy tales.
END of EPISODE 2
Please await next episode next week. The series is an episode per week; it’s already finished. And yes, there will be a lot of Angel Von Sorrow’s POVs, and a lot of fact checking and maps the further we delve in. Thank you for reading.
Everything you need to know about the series, me, and our beautiful reading community is here: https://linktr.ee/storykillr
Yo, my name is Cameron Jace. My readers call me storyteller because I take older stories and research them then make a new story featuring the real actual events that happened. You know history is full of lies, especially, fairytales, don’t you.
Having sold over a million copies in the past five years and enjoyed two bestselling series and four top 100 bestsellers (I’m bragging, ain’t I?), I feel like I am doing something right. BUT wait, I’m not a wordsmith or a brilliant author. Far from it. I’m just a storyteller who tells lies for a living. And, ah, I know how to make you turn pages.
Write me. I love to message readers while writing. I have changed whole plots and characters based on reader’s suggestions. It’s funny how most of my inspirations come from my readers these days.
https://linktr.ee/storykillr
