“Don’t turn around,” Cerené said, gripping Shew’s arm.
Shew could hear something splashing behind her in the swamp.
“Why?” Shew was dying to look back.
“She told me so,” Cerené said, still smiling.
“Who told you so?” Shew didn’t know what to think. Should she be scared, happy, or worried about Cerené’s sanity?
“Why don’t you want her to turn around?” Cerené asked the being in the swamp, but Shew heard no reply.
“She says she doesn’t want to show herself to you,” Cerené explained to Shew.
“She who?”
“One of the mermaids,” Cerené said. “She says you’re a…”
“I’m a what?” Shew pursed her lips.
“No, she isn’t,” Cerené talked to the mermaid—which Shew assumed was imaginary. “Joy is my friend,” she said squeezing Shew’s arm.
“What did she say about me?” Shew demanded and turned around.
With the darkness looming in the Black Forest, and the heavy layer of fog, it was hard to confirm that what she’d seen splashing into the water was a mermaid. Shew saw something flip its tail, but it could have been a big fish in the swamp. Whatever Cerené had been talking to, disappeared underneath the thick layers of the swamp.
“What did she say about me?” Shew turned back to Cerené, demanding an answer.
“Don’t worry about her,” Cerené said. “She said you were part evil and part good, and that you were still indecisive about which side to choose. She rather considers you and enemy to her. That’s why she feared you.”
“How could she think that of me?” Shew said, wondering if all this was Cerené’s imagination, and that Cerené herself was the one who thought that Shew hadn’t chosen a side yet.
Cerené didn’t reply. She had already knelt down with a glass urn filled with white liquid in her hand, pouring it on the Rapunzel plant.
“Where did you get that urn?” Shew was starting to lose her temper.
“From the mermaid, of course,” Cerené said. “Look,” she pointed at the Rapunzel plant turning into ashes in the urn. The ashes looked a bit fiery like Cerené’s aura.
Shew said nothing. She was sure she hadn’t seen that urn with Cerené before.
“Great,” Cerené said, holding her urn with care as if she had just caught the most precious butterfly in it. “Now we’ve got the ashes. Do you remember what the next ingredient is?”
“Oh,” Shew was speechless, “I forgot.”
“That’s fine,” Cerené said. “Remember I told you the first element of the Art is the Heart, which are the ingredients to make magic. The Heart is three parts; ashes and we’ve taken care of that already. Now we need sand and lime.”
“How are we going to get those?” Shew asked.
“Limestone is easy. Follow me,” Cerené ran into the dark of the forest again.
Shew had never seen anyone so comfortable with the forest before. Usually, people were careful walking in the Black Forest for it was a place full of evil creatures, but not Cerené. She could meet the Boogeyman and shake hands with him then walk on, or possibly convince him to fetch her limestone for her Art.
This time, Shew followed Cerené to the School of Sorrow where she worked, cleaning after the teachers and students had gone home. Cerené told her to wait while she went inside. A moment later, she came back with chalk in her hands.
“See?” Cerené showed her the chalk, happily.
“See what? The chalk?”
“Chalk is basically limestone,” Cerené explained. “With a drop from the Mermaid Milk, we got ourselves the second piece of the puzzle. Now we have ashes and lime.”
“That was easy,” Shew mumbled.
“All of it is easy, even the ashes,” Cerené said.
How was fighting villainous plants to get ashes easy?
“As long as we’re playing, it’s always easy,” Cerené said as if she had read Shew’s mind.
Cerené poured two drops of Mermaid’s Milk on the chalk. She bit the chalk into small pieces, not worrying about the limestone staining her lips and teeth. She put the chalk, now powder, in the urn and mixed it with the ashes.
“You got chalk on your teeth,” Shew remarked.
“Don’t worry,” Cerené said and started rubbing her teeth with powder chalk left on her lips. “Limestone is good for teeth.”
Shew saw that Cerené was right. After rubbing it a couple of times over her teeth, her teeth whitened and shined.
“Let me see that,” Shew took some of the lime on her forefinger. “This is amazing,” she let out a forced laugh. She remembered collecting a book from one of the victims she’d fed on in the Schloss, and reading that toothpaste was originally made of chalk or lime.
What if Cerené ended up discovering toothpaste?
“Why are you laughing?” Cerené wondered.
“This is basically toothpaste,” Shew said.
“What is toothwaste?”
“Paste. Toothpaste is something to clean your teeth with.”
“Toothpaste,” Cerené yayed. “I like that name. You’re good. Nice one. You know this toothpaste doesn’t only whiten your teeth? It also protects it from the Demon Worm.”
“The Demon Worm?” Shew asked then felt a sudden surge of white light hit her brain. It hurt but it was brief. It made her remember that in her time in the Kingdom of Sorrow people didn’t know much about teeth. They believed cavities were caused by a Demon Worm sent by Night Sorrow. A person with a cavity or ache in his tooth was considered possessed, and the demon possessing him had to be exorcized. “Of course, Demon Worms,” Shew rubbed her forehead. “This stuff can protect you from it. That’s amazing. So tell me, Cerené. We have brought ashes, lime, and now we need sand, right?”
“Sand,” Cerené sighed. “That’s the hardest part.”
Shew felt uncomfortable. If Cerené considers it hard, then it might be too hard.
“But we’ll get it, right? As long we’re together, we can do anything?” Shew said, afraid Cerené would turn gloomy.
“Yes,” she said with starry eyes. “Friends!” she stared at Shew in such an appreciative way it made Shew feel guilty. If she managed to wake up from this dream, she would end up leaving Cerené all alone in the world, and she’d be alone again without a friend.
But there must be another incarnation of you living in the Dreamworld when you wake up, Shew. Remember this IS a memory, only your reactions are different because you’re the only one in this world who knows it’s a memory.
Shew shrugged. She knew she wasn’t the only one who knew this was a memory. Loki, dressed in the evil Huntsman’s soul, knew it too.
Shew washed the thought away immediately. At the moment, Cerené was much more interesting than Loki.
Life isn’t just about love; friends are just as important.
Shew didn’t have friends, neither in the Dreamworld nor the Waking World. She suddenly realized that she needed Cerené as much as Cerené needed her.
You don’t always need people to take care of you. Sometimes you need people so you can take care of them.
“So where do we need to go to get the third ingredient of your Art?” Shew asked, more interested than ever.
“The Field of Dreams,” Cerené said. “Myth has it that it’s owned by the Sandman.”
7
A Field of Dreams
“To get to the Sandman’s Field of Dreams, we have to cross the Juniper Trees and the Wall of Thorns first,” Cerené said after a long walk.
Shew knew about the Juniper Trees. Each tree had a single eye at the end of its branches and used it to spy on intruders in forbidden regions. It was rumored that each tree had a soul of a child trapped in it, children who’d been killed in ancient wars. In comparison to everything else in Sorrow, the Juniper Trees were not to be feared.
What worried Shew was the mention of the Wall of Thorns, which was one of the barriers Carmilla had created with
witchcraft to protect them from Night Sorrow’s army—this part always confused Shew. Wasn’t Carmilla already on Night Sorrow’s side after turning into a vampire? She believed that time was going to reveal something about it.
As for the Wall of Thorns, it was a magical thorn bush that cut through the trespassers trying to leave or enter Sorrow. The thorn cut a person to taste their blood and determine whether they were Night Sorrow’s intruders or locals. The tree thought of them as enemies and friends. If friends, it let them pass, whether in or out of Sorrow. If enemies, it tortured them by playing an irresistible musical tune that made one dance uncontrollably and eventually dance themselves to death in the thorn bush.
No intruder had ever passed through the Wall of Thorns—at least, none heard of—and few locals dared their way out.
Cerené’s suggestion was madness itself.
“Wait,” Shew grabbed her hand. “We’re not going to pass through. We’ll die and you know that.”
“You have to trust me, Joy,” Cerené said, and kept walking.
“Stop calling me Joy,” Shew stopped walking.
“Why? I love the name. You are my Joy in this Kingdom of Sorrow.”
“Cerené,” Shew called out. “Please stop.”
“Alright, princess,” Cerené stomped her feet. She wanted to walk farther. She wanted to play, and Shew was spoiling the fun. “I am all ears.”
“You know we’ll die if we cross the Wall of Thorns, right?”
“No, we won’t,” Cerené set her urn on the ground and folded her arms. “One can die easier by living in the Kingdom of Sorrow.”
Shew said nothing. Cerené hit the jackpot with that last sentence, but there was a difference between dying and suicide.
“All you need is to trust me,” Cerené unfolded her hands and started pleading like a child. “I wouldn’t hurt you, ever. If you’re worried about Night Sorrow’s army, let me tell you that this spot in the Wall of Thorns doesn’t lead directly to the outside. It leads to the Field of Dream which also called the Field In Between. I don’t know much about it, but if you see it, you will love it.”
“The Field in Between what?”
“I wish I knew, but it’s a place that is neither inside of Sorrow nor outside. Like I said, I had nothing to do in my spare time without friends or caring people but read. I read all the books I found in the school’s library, dusty books, books with no cover, and vintage books that had been handwritten,” Cerené said. “Have I lied about anything I told you about before?”
“What about the thorn bush?” Shew said reluctantly.
“What about it? We’re locals, not intruders. It will see us as friends, not enemies. We’ll pass. It’s just a little scratch. You’ll bleed, but not too much. Look!” Cerené pulled up the bottom of her dress and showed multiple scratches on her thighs. There were a lot and Cerené had just realized just how many by showing them to Shew. Some wounds never show, not even in the mirror, until we see them in the expressions on the faces of people we love. “Wow, that’s a lot of wounds,” Cerené uttered and laughed out of discomfort.
Shew wondered if this was the right time to ask her about her wounds.
It wasn’t.
Cerené was too happy with her magical adventure, and Shew didn’t want to spoil it for her.
“All right,” Shew nodded hesitantly. “Let’s do it.”
A while later, Cerené walked through the Wall of Thorns like a ghost through a curtain. She was tiny and thin—Shew believed she’d become so used to pain that the thorns scratching her body didn’t mean anything to her. She watched trickles of blood dripping from under Cerené’s dress before she disappeared behind the bushes into the Field of Dreams.
“See? I am here already,” Cerené said from behind the bushes.
Shew couldn’t see her. She only saw a magnificent light peering through from behind the bushes. In her mind, the light had no certain color. It was like nothing she’d even seen before. It was just magnificent.
A first reluctant step drew Shew closer to the thorn bush. The first cut was the deepest. The thorns sliced through her white and expensive dress and stained it with blood immediately. It was as if her dress craved blood.
Why does it have to hurt so much like in the real world? This is a dream for God’s sake!
Shew’s second cut was alarming. The thorn bush went crazy and slashed at her face slightly.
Why did she provoke the thorns, and why was that eerie flute playing nearby?
“Shew!” Cerené yelled. “What happened? I can’t see you. Why is that Dark Tune playing? How is this possible?”
Shew was speechless. She could feel the melody possessing her soul. The stories she’d heard about the Wall of Thorns were true. The music from the flute was part of Mozart’s the Magic Flute, the piece Oddly Tune was teaching her right before he turned into a werewolf.
What does this mean? Shut up! There is no time to understand. You should focus on WHY the music is playing. The Wall of Thorns only detects intruders.
“What is going on, Shew?” Cerené cried out beyond the thorns. “I’m coming for you. Wait!”
“No!” Shew managed to say, resisting the urge in her feet to dance in the thorn bush. “Stay where you are, Cerené!”
Shew, in the middle of her panic, wondered if this was why Loki didn’t come to kill her. Maybe the Queen of Sorrow figured out a way for Snow White to kill herself. If so, that would have been some genius plan, to send her back to a memory in her childhood were she should have died naturally.
Nonsense! Shew breathed in deeply as the thorns crawled and spiraled around her with their needle-sharp edges waiting for her to start dancing.
The Queen of Sorrow can’t kill me because I split my heart into seven pieces, and she needs to find them. Maybe Cerené is one of the Lost Seven. Maybe this is what this dream is all about.
She wanted to bend down and scream at her fidgeting legs, which desperately wanted to dance against her will.
The Lost Seven mean nothing at this point, because you’re not sixteen years old yet. She can kill you right now before splitting your heart. You know that if she changes the past in the Dreamworld, the future will change in the Waking World.
Shew raised her hands slowly and clapped her ears so she wouldn’t hear the Dark Tune.
It didn’t work.
A couple of thorns slashed at her hands.
“Why in the name of Sorrow is this music playing?” Shew let out a loud scream.
Then it hit her right in the face.
Of course, the music had to play. Shew wasn’t purely a local. It was true she was born in Sorrow, but in her blood, ancestry, and family tree, she was an evil Sorrow, a real one, a descendant of Night Sorrow, the most vicious vampire in the world. That is why the mermaid told Cerené she feared Shew at the lake that she hadn’t decided whose side she was on. To the Wall of Thorns, Shew was still an enemy.
She wondered how her father ever crossed over to fight the Intruders. He was also a blood descendant of the Sorrows. In many ways, they were both locals of the kingdom but also intruders. The Wall of Thorns decided to treat her as an intruder, and to kill her. At the time of this memory, she wasn’t immortal yet—and how about Carmilla, or was she immune because the wall was her own magic?
Shew couldn’t resist anymore and began dancing to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although she gave it her best shot, the pain was too strong and she began to faint, her throbbing eyes flickering her way to her last visions of life. She was dying in her own dream, which meant she would stay in a Sleeping Death forever in the Waking World, a coma that no kiss could cure.
Carmilla had won after all.
8
A Never Ending Dream
Fable’s eyes flung open.
It was already daylight, and Axel was still sprawled on the floor next to her. He looked rather funny; his mouth was wide open as if waiting for someone to feed him a sandwich while asleep.
She gazed up at the Schloss
’ ceiling, wondering how long she had been unconscious. Her head was heavy, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had taken place.
All she could remember was a vague bang in her head and someone—or something—laughing at her.
She felt weak and hungry, and for the first time she was glad Axel brought his food-stuffed backpack with him. She crawled over, accidentally kicking Axel’s head.
Opening it, she looked for a bag of Tragic Beans or maybe a Reluctant Jelly, but found none. She found a single Poisoned Apple but stopped before grabbing it.
What’s the point of eating an apple that makes you faint while you’re already feeling dizzy?
Axel’s backpack was full as if he was going for picnic. Some of the food was new to her.
The first thing she pulled out was a small box labeled Dr. Rumpelstein’s Awful Pudding. The idea was to eat through the rotten pudding in hopes to win a gold coin. If don’t find it, you’d end in Sorrow’s clinic for pudding-poisoning. If you happened to find the gold coin, you’d probably end up in Sorrow’s Clinic, too, only you have enough money to pay for it this time. Fable decided to pass. She hated anything Rumpelstein anyways, which reminded her suddenly of Lucy.
She threw a look around, but Lucy was nowhere around.
There was a bag in Axel’s bag labeled Talking Mushrooms. Fable threw it away, wondering if it was the reason behind Axel’s non-stop talking.
Then she found a bag of Princess Pees, which she thought sounded fine. The name Princess Peas suited it better, but what the heck, this was Sorrow.
Finally, she found a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs, which came with bugs or bugs-free. The picture on the cover showed a frog with a long red tongue snatching a flying bug.
“Yuck,” she said. “Loki would have hated this.”
Fable’s eyes widened.
Loki! I remember now. His laughing wind knocked us down. I was trying to stop him from killing Shew.
“Wake up, Fable,” she knocked on her head as if it were a coconut. “You’ve got a job to do.”
Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) Page 6
