by Cameron Jace
“Like the one we reached through the Moon’s Path?” I asked.
“That’s if you’re in the sea, in the Other World, but if you’re on land or the Real World, you can reach it through a few scattered towns, all have the common name of Hell.”
“Why so creepy?” Angel asked.
“It’s a trick,” the man winked again. “To elude your enemies. Who’d think you both hid in a place accessed through Hell?”
Then when the island settled, he chanted a spell from a book. He called it the Book of Beautiful Lies. The spell made the whale mobile.
“Is that guaranteed, that it won’t move?” I asked.
“Of course, unless a stronger spell moves him, but I don’t know of a stronger book than this in my hand,” he said proudly. “It is the only book that has the power to move the island or mobile it.”
“What if our enemies found the book?” I said.
“Book?” he threw it high in the air, and suddenly it turned into a bird, fluttering far away in the darkened skies. “What book?” He winked again and then pulled out a pipe and began smoking it.
Angel and I looked worried, and he noticed.
“Do not worry, children,” the man said. “It’s not the Piper’s flute. It just an old man’s pipe. And by the way, you forgot that.” He pointed at Loki’s coffin. He had managed to bring it along somehow.
“Thank you,” Angel felt emotional about the boy in the coffin again. He knelt down to check on him, as if he were alive. Then he raised his head to the old man. “Do you happen to know how to get him a heart?”
“Angel,” I said, “we don’t have to burden the good man with our problems.”
“It’s alright,” the man said. “I know all about your troubles. I know all about Loki Van Helsing.”
“So you know how to get him a heart?” Angel asked again. “Is it even possible to get a dead boy a heart that will resurrect him?”
“It is possible,” the man said. “But you will not want to give him a heart.”
“Why? I promised his father,” Angel said.
“I know you did, and I know his father and mother sacrificed their lives for the boy to live. The boy your father has bitten.”
“Then why do you suggest we don’t bring him a heart?” I asked
The man took a drag from his pipe and sighed. “Well, first call me Glimmer. Charmwill Glimmer.”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Charmwill,” I said. “What a lovely name you have. But you haven’t answered my question. Why do you suggest not to gift the boy with a heart?”
“For many reasons. The weakest of them is that the boy can be resurrected without a heart.”
Angel looked skeptical again.
“It’s a simple process that I know of, so rest assured,” Charmwill said.
“I believe you,” I told him. “And what about the strongest reason?”
Charmwill smiled at the boy in the coffin, took a drag from his pipe, and then turned back to us. “Because it’s better that your daughter’s guardian be a heartless huntsman.”
Chapter 42
The Queen’s Diary
Angel fidgeted at the mentioning of huntsmen, so Charmwill kindly took the time to explain. Our huntsmen were going to be different from Night Von Sorrow’s huntsmen. Ours were going to be better, he said. And Loki was going to be what he called a Dreamhunter, the kind of warrior Lady Shallot had told us about.
“Why would our daughter need a guardian?” Angel asked.
“It’s too soon to discuss this,” Charmwill said. “You haven’t even had your daughter yet.”
“So will you resurrect him now?” I asked.
“Not now. Better to wait until your daughter is seven-years-old,” he gazed at both of us. “It’s an important milestone in her life. But let’s not waste time on the future. We’re in the now. Congratulations on your island. You have a lot of work to do.”
“Will you help us?” I said.
“For a little while, then I have to do a few travels, mainly to protect the Book of Beautiful Lies. Do you have other questions?”
I laughed at this. “I have a lot of questions, but I’m concerned about those children we were asked to save. Now that Loki doesn’t need a heart, and Lady Shallot’s daughter will be resurrected on the island, I suppose I should be expecting the Lost Seven to arrive one by one. I was asked by the Moongirl to save her daughter as well. Do you know anything about this, Charmwill?”
“The Moongirl,” he smiled. “She was always ready to sacrifice herself for the cause against the Piper. I wondered what the Seven Seas would be like without a moon. But did she really ask you to take care of her daughter?”
“Yes. Marmalade is her name.”
“Marmalade? An interesting name. You know she is a descendant of the Lost Seven?”
“She told me, which was hard to understand. How did that happen?”
“That’s a long story,” he said. “What you need to know is that the Moongirl was a mermaid once.”
“A mermaid?”
“Long ago on this island.”
Now I felt overly confused. “I thought this island was genuine. New. I thought it just rose out of the abyss.”
“This island was a mermaid’s island, long ago before some of them were plagued by a disease that turned them into sirens,” Charmwill explained. “That was really long ago. The mermaids, other than being beautiful creatures, had the most amazing voices. They knew of melodies none of the world knew about.”
I thought this was a nice history of the island. It made me fall in love with it. I kept on listening. “But how is it related to the Piper?”
“To explain this you, I have to remind you with the eternal war between the Karnsteins and Sorrows.”
“We already know,” Angel said, feeling sensitive again. “The Sorrows are descendants of the Piper and the Karnsteins are…”
Angel realized we never knew whom the Karnsteins, my family, descended from. I remember my father telling me about our great grandfather, the first Karnstein. The first to escape the Piper in the past. He wasn’t from the Lost Seven though.
“See? You don’t know everything, young man,” Charmwill winked. “But to make the story short, the Karnstein grandfather is me.”
Chapter 43
The Queen’s Diary
“It’s you?” I said, my heart beating faster. This meant that Charmwill was my ancestor. Maybe that was why I felt at ease with him. I didn’t know if I should hug him at this point, so I stood immobile, not knowing what to say.
“See, my lovely Carmilla, you’re the bravest of my people,” he said. “In many ways, you took this whole journey to meet me — and to eventually end Night Von Sorrow and the Piper’s reign.”
“Wait just a minute,” Angel interrupted. “We were talking about the mermaid that turned into a moon. What does that have to do with you?”
“This time you’re right, young man,” Charmwill said. “In my centuries-old clash with the Piper, we both wanted to obtain an artifact.”
“What kind of artifact?”
“One that is guaranteed to destroy the other’s family forever. It’s the kind of thing you read about in bedtime stories, but it’s real. An artifact, that if obtained and used properly, could also destroy the world.”
“What kind of artifact has the power to do such a thing?” Angel wondered.
“A flute,” Charmwill said bluntly. “A flute that has been created at the beginning of the world.”
“The beginning of the world? When was that?” Skeptical Angel grimaced.
“We don’t know exactly, but the flute was destined to play two songs,” Charmwill said. “One song to bring life into the world and create it from nothing. A song that echoed with a bang and erupted life into existence.”
“And the second song?”
“We call it the Swan Song. When swans die they have this kind of song. In our case, it is the song that ends the world around us.”
�
��Isn’t this the pipe the Piper used in Hamelin?” Angel said.
“Not by far,” Charmwill shook his head. “It may have been part of it or something, but the Piper has never found the real flute.”
“Or we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I remarked.
“Indeed,” Charmwill said. “But the Piper actually found the flute. Just once. For a few seconds.”
“Did he?” I raised an eyebrow. “And then what happened?”
“Details aside, the mermaids stole it from him.”
“The mermaids on this island?” I was just confirming facts.
“Yes,” he nodded. “They took it, and, like the Moongirl, they sacrificed their lives for the cause against the Piper.”
“What did they do?” Angel asked.
“They sank their own island, with the flute sinking into the bottom of the abyss of the Seven Seas, never to be found again.”
“Oh, my,” I said. “Is that why the Moon sinks into the bottom of the abyss at night?”
“Yes, my dear Carmilla.”
“So what happened to the mermaids? How were they turned into moons?”
“The mermaids were hunted by the Piper who plagued them with that devilish melody of his, the same melody that you hear them sing now in the sea, and the one that affects Angel. This same melody was the tune that turned most of them into evil sirens.”
“And they all were turned?”
“Not all of them. But the mermaids that survived were in great danger. Lady Shallot had to protect them, and the only way to do that was to turn them into something else.”
“Moons,” I said. “So that the Piper wouldn’t recognize them.”
“And the Moongirl you met was not only a mermaid, but a descendant of one of the Lost Seven. Although I don’t have an idea where her daughter is right now.”
“I would suggest she has been turned to a moon, too,” Angel said.
“It could be,” Charmwill nodded. “But which moon. And where?”
Silence circled the air between us. This was one incredible story about the place we were about to call home. It made me feel heroic already. It made feel proud of my land. “So why use this same island for our home?”
“Lady Shallot wanted to honor you,” Charmwill said. “She wished you and Angel will be as brave as the mermaids.”
“But I thought the whale, I mean the island, was called Moby Dick.”
“That’s what Lady Shallot likes to say about the island, so the Piper wouldn’t be interested in it,” Charmwill answered.
I cupped my hands on my mouth. “Oh, dear God. You mean the flute may still be on this island?”
“It could be.”
Angel and I had to embrace. This was too much. We may have had the fate of the world underneath our feet. We were both honored and scared. “One last question,” Angel told Charmwill.
“I’m here to answer your questions.”
“What was the island’s real name?”
“Don’t you know by now?” Charmwill smiled broadly, as if we should.
“I have no idea,” Angel said. “Is it famous?”
“In the history books, yes,” Charmwill nodded. And by then, I knew its name. I knew that everything in the history of the world wasn’t what it seemed. I smile as broadly as Charmwill, hearing him say, “To the common world, the island is thought of as myth. They call it Atlantis.”
Part Three: The Kingdom of Sorrow
Chapter 44
The Queen’s Diary
This is how our new life began.
Charmwill had left, and Angel and I, in the means of the legendary Adam and Eve, began to explore the island, like children exploring a new location. This was our new adventure. Our new responsibility and burden. Not to only to build a kingdom we’d call home, but re-build Atlantis and prepare it for a clash of Titans with the Piper somewhere in the future.
And according to Lady Shallot, we only had sixteen years, if Night Von Sorrow didn’t find us earlier.
As we explored the lands, hills, mountains, and rivers, I still had too many questions on my mind. It felt unsafe not to have more answers about our enemy. Like why did the Piper and Night Von Sorrow let us live? And who was the witch who cursed me?
Somehow I had the feeling it was all connected, but I worried I had realized the connection too late.
Angel, on the other hand, was fascinated by the island, in a very militant and tactical way. He made sure to draw a detailed map of it. He’d already planned building fences near its shores to protect it. But he didn’t have to, actually. The island protected itself later. It grew its own fence of tree branches that only allowed our people to pass through. If an intruder came, the fence affected a melodic tune that would make said intruder dance like crazy, wounding the intruder.
Somewhere near the fences, we found what is called the Fields of Dreams. To tell you what happened there would take a lot of pages, and I want to focus on my story.
Actually, it’d be easier if I summarize the following events until we reached the ones that matter…
Becoming King and Queen of Sorrow started the day we discovered the Schloss, the immense castle we both lived in and ruled from later, on the island. There was no explanation how it had moved from Lohr, in Germany to our island. I argued it being an imitation of the original, but Angel thought otherwise. He was sure it was the same castle, and never had further explanations.
Lady Shallot sent us people through the Missing Mile in the first two years. A lot of people, enough for Angel to create a decent army, and for me to have people to rule. The people always arrived with Charmwill Glimmer accompanying them.
The islanders loved the kingdom. Each of them had their own story, their own secret they were running from. They were safe here. They welcomed us as King and Queen, and were loyal to this new kingdom – although they didn’t welcome the name ‘Sorrow’ like me.
Angel’s army was growing. They helped him protect the borders and prepare for war. It was almost all Angel thought about some days. This, and checking on Loki’s coffin, kept in the cellar of the Schloss.
As for me, I think I never realized how time ran so fast in building the land. I helped farmers plant their crops and women have their babies. I even cooked for some of the new arrivals, who usually didn’t recognize me as Queen at first.
It was Angel who taught me how a queen should behave. He was the one who suggested putting distance and barriers between me and the peasants. Angel was obsessed with military tactics and politics. He loved hierarchy, so he made sure his ideas influenced me.
I didn’t like it at first, but the feeling of sitting on a throne with so many people looking up to me took over my mind. It’s like having too much money in your hand and you end up buying things you don’t need. But we were King and Queen, Angel said, and we had to act accordingly.
I’d like to tell you that the first time Angel and I made love was special. That it was cut out of fairy tale books, with unforgettable memories, glittering stars in the sky and feelings of bubbling euphoria in the air. I’d like to say it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t bad either.
The thing was that with all the things we had going for us, the busy and burdened life, we ended up making love as part of our usual daily routine. I can’t tell you how disappointed I felt about it. Even though it strengthened the ties between Angel and I, it wasn’t strong enough.
One other thing that weakened our bond when making love was the feeling that we sometimes were just doing our job, our part in the world, to bring the Chosen One.
I have to say I hated this feeling. I hated it.
Then, three years in, while the kingdom was beginning to prosper, I hadn’t gotten pregnant. It was me who began worrying then.
“What if I can’t have children?” I asked him.
“That’s impossible. You and I were made for this,” he said then shrugged. “I didn’t really mean it that way, but you
understand, right?”
“No, I don’t understand. Isn’t that our only part in the universe? To bring the Chosen One to it?”
“It’s a noble part, Carmilla. Besides, it’s not like our role will end when she is born. We still have to raise her and take care of her for sixteen years. It will be an enchanting journey.”
I couldn’t argue, but I wasn’t really happy. What about me? What about what I wanted to be? Was I not to have dreams of my own?
“Do you think I’m still cursed by Fate? Am I still going to live a life of sorrow?”
Angel’s eyes moistened. He approached me and kissed my forehead. “Not with me around. Just hang on tight. It will be good soon.”
And then he vanished the rest of the day, training his army. But not before he sucked a few drops of blood off my pricked fingers.
Chapter 45
The Queen’s Diary
Days and years passed and we lived in the kingdom, hoping for a happily ever after …
Although the Lost Seven, the Children of Hamlin, never arrived, I played my part well. I did my best to treat everyone equally. I encouraged them and helped them to create bigger families, work hard, and feel at home. Each time I helped deliver a child, I wondered if anyone would be there for me the day I bring my child to the world.
I tried my best to befriend everyone while welcoming the new families sent by Lady Shallot. The number of new residents increased day by day. But in spite of the lovely world we created, Angel was still worried his father would find us. So many nights, he woke up screaming and cursing his family’s name.
“Relax, Angel,” I would say, watching him spend the days teaching young men how to fight vampires, instead of enjoying being a king. “Lady Shallot has woven the most beautiful kingdom for us. We should enjoy it.”
“She has woven us a kingdom, but I doubt her threads could weave our fates,” Angel answered, leaving the castle to train the young warriors.
