by Cameron Jace
"What do you mean?" asked the Queen.
"There is someone near who shouldn't be here." Mary's sniffing intensified. "Their intentions aren't clear, but their souls smell of fear."
"Who is it, Mary?"
"I can't tell, but…" Mary signaled for the Queen to approach the mirror, and began whispering in her ear.
None of the Lost Seven knew if Mary was talking about them. How would she know? It was unlikely there were any intruders but them, though. They were still standing in the last row, the main door to their backs. If things went wrong, they could still escape. But Fable didn't have the luxury of escape. She had to help her friends.
None of the Lost Seven moved.
"Huntsmen!" The Queen stood and waved after Mary had whispered in her ear. "Why stand so far back when you deserve better?"
All right, Fable thought. Bloody Mary was talking about them. Whatever she and the Queen had in store was beyond her.
"You protect us from the worst enemies and most dangerous threats," the Queen continued. "I ask you to step forward, to the first row, to witness my daughter's Weighing of the Heart."
Never had the Queen asked anything of anyone, Fable thought. In all the stories she'd heard, the Queen only demanded, ordered, and wished.
This wasn't good.
Loki signaled for the huntsmen to approach the throne. The other rows made room. The huntsmen began nearing the throne.
"What's going on?" Ladle whispered. It was kind of puzzling to see her worried as she was. Fable wondered why Death didn't just hurl her scythe at the Queen's neck. But she remembered how the Reaper was only allowed to kill the one she had been told to.
"We're being tested," Marmalade whispered. "I just don't know how."
"She clearly knows we're here," Fable said, wondering if Bloody Mary had picked up on her being an intruder from another world. "But she can't ask us to remove our cloaks or show our faces because of the rule of the huntsmen."
The Lost Seven stepped forward as the Queen watched them carefully with her chin up. Shew had been sedated and tied to the table by now.
Fable's heart pounded. She began to have trouble breathing properly. She may be a Lost Seven, maybe a witch, but she still felt like the innocent, pigtailed Fable who'd lived all her life with her brother in Candy House. This was beginning to turn into a bigger challenge than she could handle.
In her weakness, Fable raised her head slightly, her eyes accidentally meeting the Queen's. A slant of gold shone in the Queen of Sorrow's eyes as she stared at her. From that far away, Fable believed the Queen had recognized her for who she really was.
33
The Queen's Diary
The day after, hovering clouds blocked all sun from reaching the Pequod. They were thick clouds, shaping and reforming and hunting our ship in the sky. We stood at the ship's edge watching the sunrays reach the rest of Seven Seas, all but wherever the Pequod sailed. "Him" was definitely coming for us.
I stayed calm while the misfits either cursed their luck or prayed they would live past today. The sailors worked the ship and looked for any unusual activities in the sea. The tides were already raging, and our ship danced the dance of death, threatening to give in to the misery of the seas.
I held my sack tighter as I looked at the madness around me.
Angel hadn't appeared yet, and he wasn't going to. A note at my bed this morning had confirmed that:
Love of my life, Carmilla Karnstein.
I am not the man for you. Whenever I hold you in my arms, I only hold you down. I can't live with that. I had to escape, or a day will come and the beast inside me will hurt you. Nothing in the world would torment me more. I shouldn't have come back to you in Styria. Why would the universe bless the son of Sorrow with the love of a girl who brought apples to the world with her birth?
Will love you until I die—if I die.
Angel Von Sorrow.
I had sliced the letter into a thousand pieces this morning. Although Angel wanted my safety, I hated him for it. I considered him a coward, leaving me behind in the middle of the sea. Hadn't he known that I would have welcomed him biting me and turning me into a vampire if we had no other choice to be together? But Angel seemed to have not understood Shakespeare's story. He hadn't understood what love can overcome in this world.
In all cases, I stood there, the only girl on the ship, awaiting the doom that promised to visit us today. I wasn't going to give in, though. I realized that I was going to find the Tower of Tales and Lady Shallot no matter what. I was going to build my own kingdom away from all the madness in the world.
Whoever we were waiting for, I was determined to survive.
Captain Ahab didn't come out as usual. Who knew what his story was? It didn't matter. I had his piece of paper in my hand. I had read it too this morning. It had a black spot on one side. I had no idea what it meant.
I didn't trust Captain Ahab, Long John Silver, whatever his name was, enough to pass the paper to Him. I decided I would use it as a last resort.
The raging tides began to calm, and the ship settled in a temporary peace. Silence suddenly hovered like a mysterious fog upon the water.
***
"He is coming," the puffing boy said enthusiastically. He was the only one who desired his coming, supposedly to sell him his soul. The rest of us realized that, whoever it was we waited for, he wasn't one to sell your soul to, no matter what.
"Why the calmness?" I asked one of the sailors.
"I don't know." He shrugged. "Something is wrong. I looked deeper into the water, and there isn't a single fish around us. I assume he is sending his mermaids again."
"Do you know anything else about him?" I asked.
"Only the stories I heard since I was a kid," he said. "They say he thinks he is Fate itself at sea. They say he sinks the ships he wants to sink and forgives the passing of those he chooses. He says who lives and who dies, who becomes a pirate and who stays doomed and lost at sea. All I know is that I wish he wouldn't visit us like Captain Ahab said."
"Well, that isn't helping much," I said, hanging to my sack. We were basically talking about myth, the boogeyman—someone everyone believes exists, yet no one had ever seen him.
A misfit pointed at the rippling water in the distance.
We all ran to look. The bed of water was changing its color. Something was swimming underneath. Something black or grey, blocking all visions from below.
"Whales!" someone screamed.
I expected Captain Ahab to burst out of his cabin, but he didn't. A closer look and I saw the door to his room flapping in the wind. He wasn't there.
If Captain Ahab, a.k.a. Long John Silver, had escaped, I wondered what the rest of us were to do.
The whale swam around the ship peacefully, not making sounds, then sank deep below and never came up again. I didn't understand a thing, but before I could analyze what had happened, a ship came out of nowhere, approaching us.
"It's him," the boy chirped. "The Jolly Roger!"
It was the name of the ship. A pirate ship sailing closer. We all stood stranded, waiting for it to arrive. This was a ship designed to hunt whales, not to fight pirates.
Standing among the crowd, I watched a silhouette of a man walk toward our ship. The man was tall and intimidating. He was taller than Angel—and broader. His silhouette showed a French hat on top of his head, and was that an eye patch? The reflection of the tides manipulated his image.
That was when I realized what was wrong with the picture. The man approaching us was walking on water.
He was walking on water!
Each step, splashing in the water, a few mermaids somersaulted behind him, as if celebrating his coming. He held something in his hand—a bottle, maybe. It was too small for his immense stature. A few men walked beside him, half his size at least.
One of the misfits fainted next to me. The sailors held out their guns. The puffing boy was already on his knees, ready to offer his soul—that was, if Him would accept
it.
The men from the pirate ship seemed to sing the song, the same damned song the mermaids and Night Von Sorrow had sung. Although it was noon, still no sun shone where he treaded.
Instead of backing away like everyone else, I stepped forward, rubbing my eyes to see clearer. I was afraid like everyone else, but my curiosity overruled it.
Then I heard someone say his name. His real name. Hook. Captain Hook. That was why everyone mistook it for "Him." Every time someone tried to say his name, they had been afraid to utter it and said, "H—" instead.
I didn't know who Captain Hook was, or what his relation to Captain Ahab, a.k.a. Long John Silver, was—although years later Peter Pan told me that his name had been mentioned in books, that the only one all pirates in the Seven Seas feared was Captain Hook. I didn't know why one would sell his soul to him—in exchange for what? All I knew was that he scared me. That he scared everyone, even the devil. Even the Seven Seas feared him.
And I knew one more thing.
That he wasn't walking on water. The whales had risen to make ground for him. The man everyone feared walked on whales, and I think his eyes were on me.
34
Fable's Dreamworld
Something was wrong.
Why had the Queen of Sorrow asked the huntsmen to step ahead, closer to the throne? Did she know Fable was among them?
Fable lowered her head immediately to escape the Queen's piercing eyes. She wouldn't have seen her face anyway, as it was smeared with black mud and hidden behind the cloak. It was Fable who was scared to look into the Queen's eyes.
While walking toward the Queen's throne, Fable felt something roll under her feet, as if a few tiny boulders had been thrown onto the floor. Then she noticed Jack had probably walked on the same tiny boulders. Except Jack crushed them so hard, they almost made a popping sound.
"What is this?" Fable whispered to Jack, about to panic.
"Please proceed!" the Queen demanded.
"It's peas under our feet," Jack said. "Why are there peas on the floor?"
"It's a trick," Marmalade said. "I just don't know what it is."
None of them could argue with that. Since when were there peas on the Queen's floor? It had to be a trick, but what kind of trick?
"I think I know," Jack said.
"What is it?" Fable said.
"Give me a second," Jack said, crushing a few peas as they slowly approached the throne. "I need to make sure."
"We don't have a second." Marmalade didn't look like much of a leader now.
"I know, I know," Jack said. "Crush the peas as hard as you can when you walk."
"Why?" Fable asked.
"Just do it." Jack gritted his teeth, his voice almost heard by other huntsmen at the far sides.
Since everyone trusted Jack, they did as they were told, crushing the peas under their feet. Fable enjoyed it, actually.
Glimpsing the Queen's gaze far ahead, Fable saw she was a bit perplexed now. It was as if she'd lost something she was sure she would find.
"Where are they, Mary?" She was angry.
"I—" Mary stuttered. Fable never thought she'd see her stutter, ever. "I'm sure they're here. We need to…" She began whispering to the Queen of Sorrow again.
The Queen listened to Mary then turned back to the Lost Seven. She ordered them to a halt until she finished her conversation. Then she began discussing something with her again.
Jack used this slight gap to explain to everyone what was happening. "It's an old trick," he whispered. "Huntsmen are only males. Females, especially your age, walk more lightly than men. You wouldn't crush the peas and make a popping sound. You're not used to that kind of heavy treading. If she'd discovered the girls among us, she'd know they were intruders. Girls."
"That's…" Fable didn't know what to say. "Thank you, Jack."
"I find this kind of thinking unfair to women," Marmalade hissed. "Who said women walk as lightly as feathers?"
"We're not here to discuss this," Ladle said. "Let's figure out if the Queen has another trick for us."
Suddenly, Cerené gasped. It hadn't been a loud gasp. Somehow, she'd sucked it in.
But what had made her gasp?
Fable turned her head and was about to gasp like her.
An open wardrobe of the finest and most beautiful dresses and most glinting shoes had been brought into the chamber. There was no reason for it, none whatsoever.
"Stay put, girls." Jack sounded fed up. It was like, Why the hell am I walking among so many girls in a world that only allows men to become huntsmen? "It's another trick. Just don't gasp or look."
Immediately, Fable lowered her head, away from the sight of the most beautiful dresses she had ever seen. She thought most of the Lost Seven, especially the girls, had been raised in poor families. At least, that was what fairy tale books she had read in the real world had hinted. They were supposed to never have seen such clothes and fine fabrics.
And, of course, none of them had seen such shoes. Especially Cerené, Cinderella, whose life had all kinds of shoes in it, starting with the glass shoe she wore to balance her feet, and a story about a prince who loved her back in Italy. A story Fable had heard only parts of from Shew after her return from the last Dreamory.
All of them, except Jack and the Beast, lowered their heads. Fable wasn't sure about the Beast. He was at the far end, and Fable feared she'd be exposed if she tilted her head to look at him.
Jack began telling them what was going on. And Fable's intuition was right. The Queen had sought to tempt the girls with the glittering dresses and shoes. No huntsman would lift his head toward them or gasp when seeing such beautiful fabrics.
Fable almost squeaked with excitement. With all the danger surrounding her, this part of the dream seemed to have been cut right from the pages of fairy tales. Lame, nonsensical, and girly in such silly ways. It was such a paradoxical feeling, being both afraid and happy.
Again, the Queen seemed angered.
The Queen of Sorrow stood in front of her glass throne with two obeying black panthers at her feet. She gazed at the huntsmen, as if trying to pierce through their cloaks. With her chin up, she closed her eyes and sighed. Fable was worried the Queen would spit dragon fire any moment. It wasn't just a sigh. It was unexplainable, as if the Queen controlled the weather in Sorrow and was about send a cyclone of frogs and crickets upon them all.
Fable tightened her hands on the friends on her sides, Jack and Cerené, waiting for the Queen to open her eyes.
The Queen did. There was no storm. But this time, the Queen stepped away from her throne, nearing them. Fable had a bad feeling about it. She couldn't say why. But maybe she had lived this memory before, and deep in her mind she knew of the terrible thing coming her way.
The Queen asked Sirenia to hand her a bowl. Sirenia did, and the Queen held it by the tips of her hands. She stared at the huntsmen. A daring stare. Then she threw a fistful of something on the floor.
It took everyone some time to realize what it was. All but Fable, whose memories began to return, with all the fears of the past.
The Queen had thrown a fistful of breadcrumbs on the floor.
Fable gasped. Loudly.
"What's wrong with you?" Jack whispered, squeezing her hand. "Hold yourself together. They're just breadcrumbs."
Fable just couldn't. She was almost suffocating, the memory passing like a looming blur before her eyes. It had to do with where she had been before she entered this dream. It had to do with what had happened to her in the forest.
Cerené tightened her hand on Fable. She seemed to be the only one who knew, but Fable couldn't see her facial expressions behind the darkness of the cloaks.
"Hold on, Fable." Cerené's voice was more than sympathetic. It was as if she understood Fable's pain. The pain Fable herself couldn't grasp.
"What's going on with me?" Fable asked Cerené, about to puke, and unable to look away from the breadcrumbs scattered on the floor. It was as if she were an addict
to some forbidden bread.
"Don't you remember?" Cerené gritted her teeth. "It's the Art."
"What art?" Fable asked, her legs wobbly. She knew the Queen of Sorrow was watching everything from afar, waiting for the right moment to expose them. Fable hated to be the one to expose them, but she couldn't resist the breadcrumbs. How was that possible?
"The Black Art," Cerené hissed, trying to hold straight among the huntsmen. "You told me you learned it in…"
The Queen threw more breadcrumbs on the floor.
"I learned Black Arts?" Fable held her stomach, a step away from exposing everyone else. She threw a look at the Queen. Carmilla Karnstein was smiling, smirking, and waiting for her final touch to expose them. "What does this have to do with the breadcrumbs?"
"You can't resist the Queen's enchanted breadcrumbs," Cerené said. "Don't you remember? Don't you remember the darkness you have been through the last three months?"
But whatever Fable wanted to understand, or save, was beyond her. She sank to her knees, and then hurtled on all fours like an animal toward the breadcrumbs, collecting them from the floor. She definitely was addicted to them, and didn't know why or how.
"Don't mess this up," Marmalade hissed at her.
But it was too late.
Gasps filled the chamber. The Queen must have smiled vigorously at the sight of Fable giving in to her trick. Fable's cloak fell back and showed her pigtails, as she sniffed, collecting the breadcrumbs in the hem of her tattered dress from the castle's floor.
"Interesting," the Queen of Sorrow said. She sounded delighted. "A girl with pigtails doesn't strike me as a rebel."
"She is one of them," Bloody Mary growled, her hands reaching out of the mirror, wanting to hurt Fable.
"One of who?" the Queen demanded.
"The Lost Seven," Mary said. "They're here to kidnap Snow White so—"
"So you can't eat her heart." Jack pulled his cloak back and stepped up, raising his sword. "Can we skip the introductions and start killing each other?"
