by Cameron Jace
“What’s your wisdom?” I asked, doubting that he had any.
“’If I can’t inspire love, I will cause fear’,” he said. “Well, it’s not mine. I’m quoting a book, but you get the idea.”
“Alright,” I nodded, thinking that if I had a good body and soul, I could at least find my daughter. “What do I have to do for you to help me?”
“It’s easy. You sign this,” He pulled out a book. “You have to sign it in blood,” he followed, pinching me with his long fingernails. I didn’t bleed, of course. I was just a thing. “Oh…no blood? We can solve that. Spit here.” He pointed the spot where my signature should’ve been.
“Spit?”
“Spit! It works. Not everyone’s saliva is made up of the same components. Didn’t you know that? Someone’s going to discover DNA centuries from now. Besides, this is a damned contract so spitting might as well be an appropriate thing to do.”
I signed his contract, and he gave me a ball of fire to swallow. He said it belonged to an ancient god called Prometheus. It healed my body, and I became a dead man walking, looking as if I was alive, with a new body that no one could recognize. I escaped from one mad Master with another mad someone…
What came after is complicated and too long to write in this diary. All I can say is that each time I took a firstborn, I wished it would lead me to my missing daughter. My anger and my powers clouded my judgment. Still, the Queen of Sorrow kept my daughter away from me for reasons I still couldn’t fathom. She never found out I was the man whose head she let her huntsmen chop off. I was given a new and improved face and a body so strong and big that put my old, scrawny-self to shame. And of course, it was a goodbye to Rumpelstiltskin, and a welcome to Rumpelstein.
Years passed, memories of my daughter were pushed to the back of my mind, and I gave in to my dark side. I even built a school in the Kingdom of Sorrow, where students tended to mysteriously disappear. There was no better place to kidnap firstborns. It didn’t matter that they were six or ten years old, they had to be firstborns. Their disappearance tore their parents’ hearts out; but eased the fire in mine temporarily.
Having lost my true self, I accomplished nothing but becoming Rumpelstein, the powerful and feared man. I often thought back to the most important question I never got to ask the Master, my maker: Why did he resurrect me? Why did he say I was destined for great things? In order to seek an answer to my question, I had to reveal his name.
I searched day and night for him, and never found him. I even ended up working for the Queen of Sorrow, betraying my daughter and the old Rumpelstiltskin still living within me. I did it because I felt I had no other choice. I suspected she could lead me to the Master, and my daughter as well.
This was my life, crossing the shore of good men to the abyss of evil, and nothing changed until today, when I saw the girl clad in a red cloak.
I was looking for a mad scientist in the forest of Sorrow when I saw her, holding her scythe. When I tried to avoid her, she stopped me.
“Where the tick-tack-tock do you think you’re going?” She smiled quirkily.
“Is it my time?” I asked. I had seen her in my dream when I died the first time, so I knew she was Death.
She pulled out a small hourglass and placed it on the ground. “You’ve got time until the sand flowing in between reaches its end,” she said. She smiled and kept petting a scruffy cat on her shoulder. Her smile reminded me of Rapunzel. Squirrels and other small animals were playing at her feet, too. “You better make a wish or something, because time is tick-tick-ticking.”
“Are you sure it’s me you’re looking for?” I asked, stalling Death,
She folded out a piece of paper and read it. “You’re Rum.. pel... stitl… man your name is so hard to read, but I know it’s you. No one cheats Death.”
“But my name is not Rumpelstiltskin,” I lied. “I’m Rumpelstein.”
“Yeah, and I’m the Wizard of Goose. Now get ready because I’m going to chop your head off. Chop. Chop. Chop,” she waved her scythe in the air as if it were a toy, and the squirrels squeaked happily around her. “Look, I hate this job, so please let’s just get done with it. And here, I brought you bread and cakes. You like cakes, right?”
“I do, but I don’t feel like it as I am going to die.”
“Hmm…” She sighed feeling genuinely sorry for me. “My name is Ladle Rat by the way,” she stretched out a friendly hand.
“Please,” I sank to my knees. “I can’t die now. Not before I find my daughter. I even sold my soul for her.”
“Yeah, I remember you,” She said, checking a coconut in her hand. She tapped it twice and murmured, ‘awesome,’ to herself. “You’re the one who was killed by the Queen’s huntsman.” She recapped.
I nodded, “I think I saw you right before I died. Or maybe I imagined you.”
“No, it was me,” she picked something off from a tree and put it on her tongue, only to spit it out a millisecond later. ‘Phew, tastes awful’ she mumbled. “It was me. I was trying to save you from the Shadow. It wasn’t right for you to die then. It was before your time. I tried to save you, but I couldn’t.”
“Then, save me this time,” I begged. She was a young girl, a year or so older than my daughter, but since I saw her when I died the first time, I knew she could kill me in an instant, as long as my time was up.
“I saw your daughter that day,” she chose her words carefully. “She is beautiful, and her hair, oh my God, is so stunning. That long silky hair. I wish my hair were as good. I heard she could spin dreams for children. Is that true?”
I nodded, not really feeling I was in front of Death.
“It’s so sad that the Queen took her.” She made a sad face.
“Have you seen her since then?” If the answer was yes, I was willing to die.
“No,” She wiped off her scythe with her red cloak as if sharpening a knife. “Any girl that dares enter the Queen’s castle is never heard from again. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be able to escape after I kill her when her time comes. Tell you what? I’ll let you go.” She said casually, laughing to a squirrel tickling her neck.
“Really, why?”
“To find your daughter, and then I’ll finish you off. Don’t try to play games. The Tree of Life will tell me when you find your daughter.”
“But aren’t you defying the rules by letting me live?”
“Wasn’t the Queen defying the rules of life when she let you die?” She winked. “I have to break rules from time to time. You can’t expect me to do all the work accurately. Besides, you talk to much and you will waste my time. I have to get back to my beloved. So I will do this for your daughter because she deserves to be saved,” She stopped talking for a while, “and for you, too.”
“Why for me?”
“I don’t know, but that day when your daughter was kidnapped, I thought you were a good man, Rumpelstein. You still have time to turn over a new leaf. And by the way, your Maker is dead. I know you were looking for him.”
“What?”
“He’s buried up that hill. I saw you asking around so I thought I’d tell you.”
My heart raced as my eyes traveled up the hill. I didn’t understand how a maker could die. Who was supposed to tell me why I was made? At least I had a shot at finding out his name.
“Hey,” Death told before I climbed up. “You know where the market is? I need to get a Goblin Fruit for Wolf, or he will get so hungry, he’ll eat me.”
“Who’s Wolf?” I furrowed my brows. “And why is it that Death doesn’t know the way to the market?”
“I’m Death, not Columbus—or Nostradamus!”
“I suppose Death isn’t afraid of the Goblins in the market.”
“You supposed right,” He waved her scythe. “Now where is it?”
I took her to the market, and turned back in direction of the hill. With every breath, my heart palpitated, and I kept wondering who my maker was. Would his name mean anything to me?
I climbed and
climbed, panting, until I was finally standing in front of the only tombstone in the cemetery. It started to rain and I knelt down to read the name of the man who had stitched me together back to life for reasons beyond my knowledge.
Once I read his name, tears escaped my eyes. It was sad that tears mixed with rain were indiscernible. They reminded me of my identity, just another lost tear in the rain that no one paid attention to. The name I read on the tombstone didn’t mean anything to me at that time. However, deep down, I was hoping that if I dug up my maker’s name, he would magically appear and we would sit around the same table discussing the reasons for my creation.
Later, when I knew whose name it was, I was even more puzzled. I felt as though I was a character in a book, created by the author’s imagination. It was as though I wasn’t real, not a human being expecting people to believe in him. But how can this be when I feel so alive?
The name on my Maker’s tomb read: Jacob Carl Grimm.
End of Grimm Diary Prequel #9
Author’s Notes:
1) I always found the name Rumpelstiltskin funny, never understood whether he was evil or good, and never knew why he traded for first-borns in the original Brothers Grimm texts. This back story doesn’t tell everything about him. Besides, we know that sometimes characters don’t tell the truth in the diaries.
2) The meaning behind the Rumpelstiltskin’s name that was mentioned here is true.
J a w i g i
The Grimm Diaries Prequels #10
by Cameron Jace
Edited by Bethany M. Rosser & Danielle Littig
Copyright © 2012 Akmal Eldin Farouk Ali Shebl
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Jawigi
As told by Sandman Grimm
Ink Keeper of Dreams & Sealer of the Books of Sand
Dear Diary,
A wise man once said the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he was someone else…
I’ve always wondered why people believed the things they are told, or read. If you start your tale with a phrase like: ‘Once upon a time…’ they expected a ‘Happily Ever After’ ending. If you start with: ‘It was dark and stormy night…’ they begin looking for a monster under the bed.
It’s as if we are all expected to be predictable, molded after the way other people want to see us; as if their prejudicial eyes are the definite truth that shapes each tale while our side of the story is only lies.
Come to think of it, every tale we’ve ever been told was some form of a lie, even the true ones. It’s part of our human nature. We love lies, we cherish them, and even worse, we retell them. Only under one condition: the lies have to be beautiful, enchanting, and entertaining. Our heroes in the tales are sent deep down to the pits of hell, only to resurface again – and probably kiss the one who holds the key to true love.
And by that, the stories have to be predictable. You know who the villain is, who the hero is, then two-hundred-and-some pages later, the hero always wins.
Skip. Next book, same story, only a little different!
The story I am about to tell you is far from being predictable, and by the end of this diary, you’ll know what I mean. I’ll shock the wicked apples out of your sore throat, because even before I start my tale, I know who you are. Yes, you, the reader of the Books of Sand. You’d be surprised how predictable you are, and I dare you to know the ending of this one.
Take the Queen of Sorrow’s tale for example. Whenever I mention her in a diary, readers boo at every syllable of her name, prejudicing her without even knowing her real name or where she came from.
But who was I to say? I was just an Ink Keeper of Dreams, a Sealer of Books made of Sand, a simple librarian of sorts with the job of collecting and authenticating the diaries of the immortal fairy tale characters every one hundred years. I was like a book you ripped apart, only because when you read it the story didn’t flow the way you wanted. Instant anger had always been humans’ most uncontrollable sin. You hated the book without even thinking it was only a messenger, and it did not interfere in the destinies of the characters between its folds. It only recited things after they had happened.
So, should I start with, ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’? I think I should. Now you know where this story is heading…
It was a dark and stormy night at a secluded Inn at the end of the world. I had hardly made my way through the storm covering the Black Forest. I reached the Inn two days after risking my own death. It was one of the scariest places in the Kingdom of Sorrow.
A black silken cloak under a brown fur coat shielded my skin from the dread of the sinister cold. My long white beard had caught snowflakes, and it was almost hard to move my frozen eyelids when I arrived.
At the door of the Inn, my personal raven found me and rested on my shoulder. I stretched my back and entered the cave, pretending the journey was as easy as pouring sand into children’s eyes while they’re sleeping – a side job I still did next to being the Ink Keeper.
The Inn was dark and silent. A couple of glasses clicked in an unseen dark corner, and a lonely man sat at the bar with his back to me. I smirked. He was the man I came to see.
“Jacob,” I patted him on the back as I climbed the high chair next to him.
Slowly, he turned back to me with heavy eyelids, trying his best to pretend he was sober.
“Sandman Grimm,” Jacob smiled wearily. “Didn’t know you for a man who drinks.”
“I didn’t know you for a drunk,” I patted him again. “I couldn’t believe when they told me you’re here at the edge of the world, drinking yourself to sleep.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Jacob said. “You’re the Sandman. Your life is a big fairy tale, pouring sand in the eyes of children and lulling them to sleep. I bet you have no problem sleeping,” he leaned a bit forward. “Because I bet you don’t have nightmares like me.”
I didn’t want to comment; little did he know about me. Believe me, little did he know about me. I wondered why no one ever wondered about who poured sand into the Sandman’s eyes when he slept, but that is another story.
“I have nightmares, Sandman.” Jacob pounded his drink against the wooden bar, alarming the Innkeeper, a hairy boy with thick sideburns who was just cleaning the glasses. “Night. Mares. Dark, horrible, and creepy nightmares.” Jacob explained.
“I can see that,” I said flatly. Jacob looked weary and tired like I had never seen him before. He laughed as if he were mocking himself. Like a sinner playing Russian roulette, leaving his fate in the hands of a gun because he didn’t really know if he was good or evil.
“Aren’t you the Sandman?” He said, as if the previous conversation didn’t happen, and he just saw me entering the Inn.
“I am.” I nodded at his silly question.
“Then can you lay me down to sleep?” He patted me heavily on the shoulder. “Pray the lord my soul to keep?” Now he was just a drunk man singing. “And if I die before I wake?” his eyes moistened and he even repeated it, “If I die before I wake, Sandman. Pray the lord my soul to take.”
“Take it easy, Jacob. I’m not surprised you have nightmares. Most writers do.”
“Are you calling me a writer?” He smirked at his own question.
“You’re the Jacob Carl Grimm,” I said. “You’ll be remembered and cherished in the world – well, not our world, but the human world.”
“I shouldn’t be remembered or cherished, and I’m not a writer. I’m a forger of tales, killer of characters, and manipulator of histories.” He lowered his voice again, staring toward the unseen people clicking their glasses in the corner. “People think I collected the tales for the children, Sandman. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Look at what we have just done today.”
“Well, that had to be done.” I said, “We all know why. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Do we?�
�� He eyed me.
“Do we what?”
“Do we all know why I forged the tales?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I felt irritated, not only by his rather quirky question, but because there was that silver candlestick behind the Inn Keeper. It had a reflective surface that bothered me. I hated mirrors, not always, but today I hated them, and I didn’t want to see my reflection in this one so I adjusted my place a little.
“Look at me,” Jacob demanded. “I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know, Jacob.” I shook my shoulders. “I’m just a Sandman who’s got a new responsibility is to seal those diaries. You were the one who forged the tales. You must’ve had your own reasons.” I didn’t want to tell him that I questioned a lot of the tales; things that didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t here for that, so I passed. I was here for something more important.
“True,” Jacob lowered his head. I didn’t know if he were passing out or feeling ashamed. I have always heard he was a pleasant man, a trustable mentor to many other writers, but he didn’t look so at the moment. He was changing. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” he raised his head but I wasn’t sure he was looking at me. “The truth is I don’t really know what the truth is.”
“That’s a rather confusing sentence you just said.”
“It is, and it has to be, because I forged the tales I was told. Can you believe that? I forged tales that I collected from others. Could it be those who told me the tales lied, too?” He sounded sincere.
“But you must have collected some evidence or why did you do it?”
“Of course I did,” He said. “I’ve looked darkness in the eyes, and I don’t think it has taken its eye off me since.”
“You mean…” I shrugged. “The Queen of Sorrow? Snow White? Who?”
“I mean whatever I mean,” He patted me as if protecting me from the evil surroundings in the air. “I don’t want you to know much about this. You better stay the Sandman you are, a gentle and caring man who pours sand in children’s eyes.”
