Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 2

by Cameron Jace

  I had no idea how I had gotten to Swan Lake. It was somewhere in the Black Forest, which was famous in my kingdom. The lake was abandoned, and darker than anywhere else, except for a thin moonbeam reflecting on the surface of the still water.

  Swan Lake was divided by a troop of white swans on the left, and black swans on the right. The lake’s water was as still as if it were dead. The swans floated inactively on both sides.

  A single red swan, bigger than the rest, appeared in the distance. It had large wings stretched to its sides, and it swam toward me with the other swans bowing their heads to it on both sides.

  Closer, I saw the swan had long feathers, fluttering to the faint breeze, kissing the water’s surface, barely stirring it into narrow ripples. Even closer, I saw the swan walked on water. It had legs. Why not, when it turned out to be a woman with a swan’s body? She was a swan maiden.

  “Welcome,” she said.

  I couldn’t see her face because the moonbeam never crossed it. It was as if my Moongirl avoided shining upon the swan maiden.

  “I have been expecting you,” she stopped in front of me, and I assumed that I had better not enter the water, as I stood by the edge of the muddy shore.

  “You have?” I wondered.

  “’One day the Queen of Sorrow will desire a baby, and it’s going to be either the end of the world, or the end of all evil in the world’,” she said. “It’s prophesied.”

  I nodded, “You know I was sent here by Lady Shallot, right?”

  “That’s debatable,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you consider Lady Shallot sending you to me, then you were indeed sent by her,” she said, and I was confused. “But there is another way to look at it.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you desired a baby with all your might and went to Lady Shallot for assistance. Then, upon your wish, she sent you to me. In that case, it wouldn’t be sufficient to say she sent you because she was only a vehicle, a reason, on your road to me. You sent yourself, my dear. You want this.”

  “I agree,” I said, although I didn’t admire her being philosophical. “So are you going to help me have a child of my own?”

  “Twins of your own,” she said, and I really wanted to see her face that moment.

  “Do you mind telling me who you are?”

  “They call me Brighid, the Swan Queen,” she answered. “All those swans are mine,” she signaled at them with her enormous wings. The swans bowed their heads again, their beaks meeting with the water’s surface.

  “Why are you red while all the other swans are either black or white?”

  “Red,” she sighed. “A color you will never forget. I’m the color of she who will have a final say in the ultimate confrontation between Charmwill and the Piper many years from now.”

  I couldn’t quite place the connection then, although it seemed obvious to me later. “And what do all these swans have to do with me having a child?”

  Instead of answering me right away, I heard her let out a small whistle when I said that. It was an exquisite melody, and I suspected it was part of Lady’s Shallot’s melody. I couldn’t say for sure, since I couldn’t remember either. It was as if they were tabooed songs that I wasn’t allowed to memorize for some reason.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Brighid said.

  I nodded and said nothing. I wondered which ones she meant, the black swans or the white. The truth was the black swans creeped me out, although they were silent and as obedient as the white swans. There was something eerie about them. They reminded me of the silent crows by my window.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I uttered. “Why are you in this lake, surrounded by all these swans? I mean, what significance does it have with your ability and willingness to grant me a child?”

  Brighid, hiding her face behind the shades of dark, sighed, “They aren’t just swans, they are babies,” she said, as some of them approached her and let out those moaning noises. It was true, they sounded like babies. “Unborn babies,” she said, as she started to feed them from her hands.

  “Unborn babies? I don’t quite understand.”

  “Have you ever wondered what we have all been before we were born, Queen of Sorrow?” she mused.

  “Actually, no,” I said bluntly. What kind of thought was that? Why would I care what or who I was before I was born? Why concern myself with such thoughts at all? “Are you saying we were swans?

  “Not all of us,” she said. “But when Lady Shallot weaved your world, she made it this way. All these swans around me are unborn babies, waiting for shapeshifting and transformation into human form; the form we ignorantly call ‘babies.’”

  I wasn’t going to argue that my twins were swans before I’d give birth to them. All that mattered was that I’d get what I wanted.

  “Each newborn in Sorrow was a swan in my lake once,” she said. “There are so many more swans deeper in the lake that you might not be able to see unless you swim in it. But I don’t want you to do that, because your two twins are in this group around me.”

  It was a puzzling moment, yet weirdly dazzling. Two of the many swans in front of me were my babies, and I was looking at them before they were even born. Suddenly, all swans seemed lovelier in my eyes. With their curvy figures and the songs they sang — which I couldn’t remember — they had taken my breath away.

  “Which ones are they?” I said, unconsciously stepping into the muddy waters.

  “Stay where you are,” Brighid demanded. “I’ll show you who your twins are, but it won’t be a pretty scene. Are you up to it?”

  “Why not a pretty scene?” I wondered.

  “You’ll be the mother of two unusual girls,” she said.

  “So what scene are you warning me about?”

  “You will see,” she signaled for the swans to separate again. White swans swam to the left, and black swans to the right. “Take a deep breath, Queen of Sorrow.”

  It was a bit hard for me to comprehend the atrocity I was about to witness, but I sensed it through the air. The swans on both sides were growing sharp wings that could cut like a knife. Their beautiful voices turned to an eerie darkened rumble, facing each other. Then some of them drew fangs.

  A fight between the black swans and the white swans began in the lake.

  The once-beautiful creatures from both sides crashed into each other, fluttering their edgy wings like steel upon the water, beak to beak and head to head. They cawed like crows and slashed at each other. Black swans ripped out the white’s feather and skin. The whites cried out in high pitches that were agonizing to the ears. I had to clamp my hands over my ears against the noise.

  Blood spattered in the air and on my own face. The white swans were dropping like stones, splashing into the water. The black ones were vicious, killing mercilessly. And the three colors that shaped my life painted the night in front of me: Black, White, and Red.

  I wanted to scream and tell them to stop, to beg Brighid to make them stop, but it was apparent that they wouldn’t and that she had no control over their actions. They were pecking at each other, pulling out chunks of flesh and letting out victorious, eerie sounds, as if they were the root of all evil.

  Brighid hailed like a mad ringmaster in a circus, encouraging them in the massacre and to leave no one alive.

  Suddenly, it dawned on me that two of those swans were my daughters. I couldn’t help but walk towards the dead swans floating on the water. This was insane.

  Please God, don’t let this dead one be my unborn child. Not this one, nor this one.

  Eventually, when I reached them, only two were left alive.

  A black one and white one.

  They snarled at each other as the moon disappeared above, probably scared by their presence.

  “You two killed my twins,” I cried, although I was afraid of both, cawing with red blood on their feathers.

  “They didn’t,” Brighid said. “They are your twins.
”

  “What?” I let out a shriek, even when I feared them, I stretched out my arms to embrace them both. Unexpectedly, they complied and rested their heads in my chest, in their mother’s arms.

  As crazy as this was, deep in my heart, I knew they were my unborn daughters. I embraced them, sharing the spattered blood on our skins.

  “The next time Angel makes love to you, these will transform into babies in your womb,” Brighid said, disappearing in the dark, leaving me undone. “You may have what you wished for.”

  “But wait,” I said. “Who’s the evil one? Who is the good?” As a mother-to-be, it was a silly question. Both my daughters will be alike. How in the world would I favor one over the other? It was impossible. Both of them were going to be born of my womb.

  “Does it matter?” Brighid said. I could only hear her voice now, as she disappeared in the dark.

  In that instance, the black swan bit my arm. I screamed in pain, and let go of them both. It was an almost poisonous bite. Dizzy, I fell back in the water and fainted.

  ***

  I woke up back in Lady Shallot’s tower. My dress and face spattered with blood.

  Lady Shallot advised me not to talk. It was obvious that she didn’t like the sight of blood. She only demanded one thing of me before I went back to the Kingdom of Sorrow. It was a strange thing, but I had to obey her, or she said I wouldn’t be granted the twins.

  Lady Shallot demanded that Angel shouldn’t, under any circumstances, know about me carrying twins.

  “But he will know eventually when I give birth to them,” I said.

  “No, he doesn’t have to know,” Lady Shallot explained. “Because one of them will kill the other in your womb.”

  Chapter 52

  The Queen’s Diary

  “What?” I protested. “Why?”

  “Either the good will kill the evil, or the other way around,” she said. “It’s true, they are twins, but there is only room for one of them in the world. Your womb will decide if evil should prevail or good.”

  “And what about all that talk about the universe desiring balance?” I wondered.

  “The balance will always be there, because whoever survives will have both black evil and white good inside her,” Lady Shallot said. “Evil has goodness suppressed inside, and goodness has evil suppressed inside. It’s up to us whether to choose black or white at the end of the day.”

  A week later, I was pregnant.

  Nine months later, I gave birth to one beautiful daughter.

  Don’t ask me how I kept Angel from knowing there were twins. It was a hard task, but I managed it through witchcraft. And, like Lady Shallot had prevented him under oath not to tell me how, or who, the moon and the sun came to be, I kept from him the secret of how I suddenly became pregnant.

  Little did I know of the surprises waiting for me later.

  The least of them was the day Frederich Van Helsing entered my bedroom in the castle.

  “Frederich Van Helsing?” I uttered.

  “He is Loki’s uncle,” Angel explained. “He was sent to Sorrow by Lady Shallot a few months ago.”

  “And what is he doing here?”

  “He is a doctor. A Dutch doctor,” Angel explained. “I sent for him to help you with giving birth.”

  And so I gave into Van Helsing’s examination. He was a smart doctor. Very friendly, I have to say. But he was also the only one who figured it out the twins, although it had been concealed to the human eye by black magic. He promised not to tell Angel, though.

  I had to live with the idea that one daughter fed on the other in my womb. A horrible realization.

  Looking at it now, it’s hard to imagine what happened, how my eager desire for having a child — part of it was the insane jealously of the sun and moon babies — led me to sacrifice one of them.

  To this day, this night of Hollow’s Eve as I am writing my diary, and as I am about to make the harshest decision in my life, guilt still eats me alive for giving up on one of my daughters.

  And before I recite the incidents of the night I gave birth to the Chosen One, I need to take a breath. Clear my mind before I am going to stain it with the darkest of memories and the biggest surprises.

  I am not rethinking the decision that I am going to take tonight. Rethinking why writing my diary hasn’t shown me enough excuses for this decision. Maybe I am just a horrible mother who wanted to write this diary to convince herself – and you – that she did the right thing. Maybe I am just as evil as Grandmother Madly claimed I was.

  Part Four: The Chosen One

  Chapter 53

  The Queen’s Diary

  I screamed in pain as doctor Van Helsing’s calash stopped outside the gates of my castle. I was in my royal bed, and my beloved husband, the King of Sorrow, cringed as he looked out the window. Angel had put a lot of effort into being present on this day. Normally he’d be out, training his huntsmen. In all irony, he seemed scared to have a child, even more than me, the one who had been suffering for nine months.

  But Angel loved me, no matter what. My pain was his pain, and I knew he couldn’t stand looking at me while I was suffering.

  It was best for him to look out the window, watching the doctor arriving amidst the snow. Moments later, he turned back to me with a smile, knowing that help had finally arrived.

  I nodded slightly, while I pressed tightly on my servant’s hands, trying my best to fight the pain in my back. My bones were almost breaking from the pain, as they all watched me with worried and sympathizing faces. Every muscle in my body trembled as I arched my back again against the pain. The servants advised me to bite on a pillow. I did, but it was useless, and I ended up screaming, which only increased my agony and left me breathless.

  Friedrich Van Helsing had advised me to inhale slowly to four counts and let the air out again. I tried, but it was impossible. Those damn doctors were useless, too. There was no way I could breathe steadily with this pain tearing me apart. Instead, I found myself breathing faster, irregularly, like panting dogs and dying fish.

  I glimpsed at my reflection in the mirror on the wall, unable to believe it was me in there. I used to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, but no more. I looked insane, bewitched, and older all of a sudden, swimming in my sweat as my nightgown stuck to my body.

  But I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror, because I saw a dark future waiting for me. It showed on my face. I was afraid of the unknown, which had manifested itself into the daughter I was about to give birth to. The Chosen One. The one who could have killed the other in my womb.

  I wasn’t just in pain. I was suffering like I had never been, and never will.

  Eerie images flooded my thoughts. I was imagining her being born in the most gruesome of ways, bursting out of my guts and splitting me apart, holding the other swan’s neck in her hands. Smiling and grinning with controversial victory.

  What if the Evil One won? How would I even know? Evil or not, I will love my daughters forever.

  I was carrying a monster and healer at the same time, in the same womb. I was mother of all good and evil, torn between the love of a mother and the righteousness of a war against the Piper.

  But I won’t deny it now. I wanted them both more than anything in the world. I had sacrificed everything precious to me to have them, and I was determined to have them.

  That’s when a sudden thought attacked me. What if I could stand up to the universe? What if I could be strong enough and bring them both out to the world. What if they didn’t kill each other in the womb?

  “Hold on, Carmilla,” said my husband. “The doctor has finally arrived. He should have a solution.”

  Doctor Van Helsing knew about our secret. I had to confess it to him earlier. He’d arrived to Sorrow from Europe, which had been threatened by what the locals called the ‘Vampire Craze’ at the time. An unexplained phenomenon about people returning from the grave as bloodsucking creatures. So he understood what I was going through.

/>   Minutes later, Doctor Van Helsing entered the chamber. He was short, with broad shoulders and a heavy German accent. “Mein Gott,” he said.

  “Please help ease my pain!” I screamed at him.

  “But of course,” he said.

  Frederich Van Helsing started examining me after partially sedating me with a golden apple’s syrup, which he claimed was his own invention. I almost fainted for some minutes before he made me drink another antidote, a blue drink he had brought along from Europe. He said it was mermaid’s blood — it was supposedly the color of the ocean. I didn’t question him, for I had seen crazier things in my short life, and I pleaded for anything that could ease my pain.

  Then, as I was taking a breath from the pain, I saw Angel and Van Helsing whispering in the corner of the room. I didn’t know what was going on, but Angel was furious at one point.

  The only thing I heard were the words “Queen Bathory,” but I didn’t know how this was related to the situation.

  “What is going on?” I screamed at Angel.

  “Nothing,” Angel approached me and knelt by the bed, holding my hand. “Van Helsing says he can save you,” Angel shrugged. “Only if you let go of our daughter.”

  “What?” I shrieked, in a mix of pain and astonishment. “How could you say such a thing, Angel?”

  “I know.” He kissed my hand. “I want her more than you do, but I could end up losing both of you.”

  “I am not going to give up on our daughter,” I said. “I don’t care if I die.”

  A sudden knock came on the door, interrupting us. It was one of the huntsmen.

  “They are here, my King,” a huntsman said with worried eyes.

  “Who is here?” I asked.

  “They must have followed me,” Van Helsing said.

  “Who is here?” I screamed.

  “The intruders,” Angel told me. “I didn’t want to tell you earlier, but it seems that our fence had been breached. Night Von Sorrow sent his men for us.”