by Cameron Jace
We do? Fable thought. So there was still a chance she could fix this? But wait… "Who are you?" She stamped her feet and growled at the ugly woman.
"Are you saying you don't remember me?" The woman looked like she grimaced, but her features made it hard to tell. "What happened to you? I'm Baba Yaga."
49
The Queen's Diary
I made it to the seventh day.
Angel was sitting by the edge, staring at me with reddened eyes. He wasn't himself anymore. The little good person in him was what had kept him from leaping over like a leopard onto his prey. I didn't have the strength to stare at him long enough. By the end of the day, the flood inside the whale was going to kill us. That, or I'd let him bite me and end the good that I was supposed to gift this world with—if the prophecy was really true.
Or I could just surrender to the sirens and let them take me to the nameless witch, not knowing what she had in store for me, parting me from Angel.
I had decided that the right thing to do was to fulfill the prophecy. I could feel it to be true in my heart. And I hadn't trusted anything but my heart on this journey. Sometimes it failed me, but mostly it was right.
One day, I would have Angel's child—or children?—and it would rid the world of all evil. Until then, I needed to stay strong.
"Majesty. Majesty. Majesty," Sirenia called. "Don't you think it's time to come with me? You don't want to die in the whale's flood, do you?"
"I will come with you," I said. Angel's red eyes were still fixed on me. He was actually grinning, as if he was about to attack me before I could go with the mermaids.
"Wise decision, My Queen," Sirenia said, and stretched out her hand. "Shall we?"
"But first I need you to help me with something," I said.
"In your service, My Queen." She bowed her head. The sirens behind her looked excited.
"Fate."
"What about him?" Sirenia's face knotted.
"He is your lord or something, right?"
"Well…" The sirens looked disgusted. "He forces us to. You see, he has power over so many things in the sea. Thank God he doesn't control Moby Dick. We don't like Fate, but pretend we do in his presence. We like her, the nameless witch." Her face glowed. "She doesn't live in the sea, so you will be safe, away from Captain Hook."
"I can't," I said. "I sold him my soul."
"What?" the sirens shrieked. They backed away from me and wailed in high-pitched noises. "Why did you that? When did you do that?"
"In the Pequod," I lied. "Right after the flood. You were all scared and swam away. I had no choice."
"Well, you can always get your soul back within seven days," Sirenia said, as if I knew it already.
I swallowed a smile. I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought I could escape them to the arms of Fate. "Exactly," I said. "You need to get me to him. I sold him my soul on the morning of the day after the Pequod sank. Today is my last chance. Can you help me?"
"Of course," Sirenia said, as they neared me again. "Poor girl, sold her soul to Fate." They circled the raft. "What were you thinking? Do you know what would have happened to you in the future if you sold your soul to him? He feeds on people's misery."
"I wasn't thinking straight," I said. "The same way I resisted your call to meet the nameless witch. I'm sorry."
"We forgive you, My Queen," Sirenia said. "She will forgive you, too."
It seemed too easy. But it worked. They were evil sirens, vicious and brutal, but they were just sirens. They practiced what I later heard someone call the world's most common sin: stupidity.
I let them gather their bodies as they made a boat for me. I left Angel behind without even looking at him, or I would have weakened and they would have called my deception. There would be a time to return to him if I succeeded in what I had in mind.
The sirens rowed me while singing other memorable songs. Funny, giddy, and pointless songs. Row, row, row your boat. Mermaid down the sea.
The world was an insane place. Goodness was buried behind cloaks of evil. Happy endings were just in fairy tales. And survival was a day-by-day process. Nothing was too white or too black. Most things loomed behind a veil of grey. Nothing was totally chocolate colored, nor milk colored. Blood was the color in between, the color of life. Blood could be a good thing if given to you to save your life, and a bad thing if you spilled too much of it. I was beginning to learn the game of life. I had a feeling I was going to be a pioneer of the game someday.
Hanging on to my sack, I let them row me to the Jolly Roger. I thought I finally understood the meaning of the sack, why Cinder had given it to me. She had told me she wasn't interested in what was inside, but interested in the valuable meaning of the sack itself—given to her by her mother, many centuries ago. I was also not really interested in what was inside the sack—although Captain Ahab had claimed I could call the Moongirl with it. The sack gave meaning to my journey. Without it there wouldn't be anything to cling to when I was chased by the tides of fate. There was beauty in hoping that one day I could pass it to Lady Shallot and do the right thing, and finally have my reward of living a decent life. I could feel its warmth on my belly as I climbed up to Captain Hook's ship. It wasn't the right thing, what I was about to do. It was just the right thing for today. For now.
I had chosen to survive today. I had chosen the lesser of two evils. Tomorrow it would be another fight. And after, I wouldn't give up.
50
Fable's Dreamworld
"In order for the Princess of Sorrow to live, we need a temporary heart, and we need it right now." Baba Yaga waved her glinting knife toward Fable again. They had no time to discuss what had happened and what was really going on now. "We need to split her chest open and give her a strong heart, until we get the pieces back from each of you!"
Fable realized that she and Baba Yaga were working to save Shew, each for their own reasons. Fable wanted to save her friend, whom she loved, and make sure she ended up with Loki in the Waking World, and maybe live happily ever after. Baba Yaga wanted to save Shew for the Queen, so she could still consume her heart one day.
"Can you take my heart?" Fable said, not really sure of the authenticity of her offer.
"I would rip you into pieces and cook you in my basement oven right now," Baba Yaga said. "Your heart is no good. Not even that glassblower's heart lying on the ground."
Cerené was certainly taking a long nap. Fable wondered why their hearts wouldn't save Shew.
"Your hearts are no good because, if the spell worked, then your hearts weigh more than twenty-one grams," Baba Yaga explained. "And because the stupid universe demands balance, Shew has to get a twenty-one-gram heart to stay alive."
"You mean a boy or a girl who is sixteen years or more?" Fable remembered the talk the Lost Seven had before.
But if the universe demanded balance for the weight of hearts, what was going to happen to them, having opposed it? Was Ladle right about that when she said that the consequences might be dire for each of the Lost Seven?
There was no time for such worries. They needed to save Shew now.
"How long do we have?" Fable said.
"I'm not sure, but we have to try. Either she accepts the new heart or she doesn't," Baba Yaga said, laying Shew in a certain ritualistic position. This looked very much like a heart transplant operation in the Waking World. "Oh, Queen of Sorrow, forgive me," Baba Yaga moaned. "The Queen will drink my blood and bathe in it with milk and chocolate for sure if she knew what happened to her daughter." She kicked Shew with her chicken foot, hoping she would just wake up. "Do you think I'm trying to save her because I like her?" She glared at Fable. "I have to save her so we can bring her back, or the Queen will never be complete. She will spend the rest of her life drinking young girls' blood to stay beautiful—or even averagely beautiful."
"Give me a few minutes," Fable said. "I'm a fast runner." Since Baba Yaga had cut off the horses' legs, none of them were of use—it was Baba Yaga who did that, w
asn't it? Fable had to run. "I will rip out the heart of the first person I meet." She couldn't believe she'd just said that. There was no denying that something was wrong with her already. She could feel that sense of darkness draping over her. Those spells must have changed something deep inside her. "You're sure it doesn't have to be a girl's heart?" she asked, already running.
"No," a voice said calmly from the dark. Fable stopped. This wasn't Baba Yaga's voice. "A boy's heart would work perfectly," the voice continued.
Fable heard something being pulled against the muddy ground, as if the speaker had a heavy sack with them. The speaker was a woman. Fable might have recognized her immediately if she weren't exhausted, confused, and under the pressure of having failed everyone in her quest.
Fable turned around, only to see Baba Yaga sinking to her knees, asking for forgiveness as the man with the black cloak approached her. Baba Yaga looked as if praying to him.
Wait. Baba Yaga wasn't the one who chopped off the horses' legs. It was the man in the black cloak.
And it wasn't even a man. It was a woman.
The woman stopped over Shew's body, having walked ever so confidently. She waited for a moment then pulled her cloak back. Fable was staring with amazement at the Queen of Sorrow.
51
The Queen's Diary
Fate sat back in his wicker chair, swinging to the ship's light movements. He gulped on his ale and eyed me. He was happy, proud, about to have the meal of his life.
I stood alone with my sack in my hand, wondering how I'd ended up here. I mean, I was treated like a princess a few months ago, back in my home, Styria. People came from all over Europe to have my blessings and kiss my hand. I couldn't seem to bless myself, though.
"I see the mermaids are down there with you," he said, combing his pigtailed beard.
"I lied to them," I said. "They think I sold my soul to you and came to get it back. They think I can have my soul back within seven days."
"And you know this isn't true, right?"
"I thought so," I said. "Why would you grant anyone the right to take their soul back within seven days? You're a vicious man, addicted to sorrow. I can't imagine you'd give it away so easily."
"I am addicted to sorrow." His eyes were beady but intense. "I can't tell you how much I love it. I love it!" He stamped his heavy foot on the ship's floor. "All those catastrophes, the death, the famine, the cries, the pain. Oh, how sweet. Sometimes, I wish a wizard would invent a crystal ball where we can capture people's miseries and play them over and over again. I wouldn't need to buy many souls then," he roared, laughing.
I said nothing. I was the sheep at the slaughterhouse door, waiting for my turn.
"So you fooled them?" He seemed to consider something for a moment. "I've always liked a smart woman. Why would you agree to sell your soul to me now?"
"I have no choice," I explained. "Either I'd let my lover bite me and end a prophecy dear to my heart, or I would have died by the whale's flood after being trapped in it for seven days. Or surrender to a nameless witch I'd prefer to know nothing about."
"Ah," he sighed. "The nameless witch. Who knows who she really is? Please continue."
"The mermaids drove me and my lover crazy with the constant pressure. Ironically, you're my last hope. I know I will live in misery after I sell you my soul, but it was the only way to escape the whale and the mermaids."
"Hmm…" He stood up and played with his beard. "Tell me, Carmilla. What drives you to stay so strong?"
"You think that I'm being strong?" I chuckled uneasily.
"You are. You just don't know it," he said, scratching his head with his hook. "Sometimes when you're in the middle of all sorrow, you don't realize how strong you actually are. Because you're just overwhelmed with the impact of the many things happening to you. In fact, you don't stop and look at how everyone else around you has totally succumbed to the pain, while you didn't."
"I didn't?"
"Can't you see that?" he said. "Can't you see that most of the people on the Pequod are dead, and you aren't? Can't you see that no one probably survived living inside Moby Dick, while you did? You're not crushed bones in the hands of a mermaid now. You're standing tall before me, fists ready for the next fight." He stopped to consider. "Can't you see that you have triumphed with True Love while most people don't?"
"If you admire me so much, would you just let me go?" I pleaded politely. "I mean, we could fake that I sold you my soul and you will never give it back. The sirens will leave me be, and I will be able to go save my loved one."
Hook pouted. "I'm sorry, Carmilla," he said. "I may be a reasonable man. Articulate sometimes." He gulped on his ale then burped. "But I'm an evil man." He burped again, and a dead fish fell out of his mouth. "And I love it!" He raised his bottle up high then looked down on me again. "Besides, you're too joyful to resist. I mean, crushing you into a miserable girl will equal thousands of souls. You're a jewel of sorrow to me."
I peeked at the sirens down by the sea, and looked back at him. I was too exhausted, ironically happy to be here in the arms of Fate. Let's do this, I thought.
"What do you I have to do to sell you my soul?"
"It's so easy." He smashed the bottle on one of his sailors' heads and stood up straight, working his clothes to look their best. He wiped his mouth, and posed as if we were going to get married. "I will ask if you, Carmilla Philip Karnstein, agree to sell your soul to me," he said. "And all you have to do is say: I do."
"Just that?"
"Just that." He spread his arms like a welcoming jester, his reeking mouth wide open.
"And the mermaids, the nameless witch will leave me alone?"
"Once you're my business, they can't hurt you," he said, then recited his proposal.
I nodded and said, "I do."
He almost jumped, and then said, "Until sorrow do us part."
Tears didn't leave my eyes that night. It wasn't like someone had fooled me into selling my soul. I did it willingly. Also, the ceremony was much easier than I had thought it would be. All I cared about was going back to Angel. Sure, we'd live in sorrow, whatever that was, but we'd be together. And I would have his child that would save the world.
52
Fable's Dreamworld
The Queen of Sorrow walked before Fable and Baba Yaga. She was still dressed like a queen. Not one mud stain caught her clothes, as if she walked an inch higher off the ground. She approached Fable slowly, not showing anger. Her chin was still up, and her crown was sewn to the golden curls on her head.
She was still pulling something behind her, hoofing over the forest's earth.
"I'm truly sorry, My Queen," Baba Yaga wailed. "I'm begging you to forgive me. It's Fable's fault."
"Her name is Fable?" the Queen said. "This pigtailed girl again?"
Fable was terrified having the Queen of Sorrow so close to her. Was she going to pull her closer with those enchanted breadcrumbs again?
But the Queen didn't give Fable much attention. She had her eyes on her daughter, who was about to die soon and deny her a most sought-after heart.
The Queen circled her daughter, still pulling that thing behind her. Fable could see it now, showing under the thin moonlight. A corpse.
Fable's heart gasped. How cruel, ungrateful, and selfish the Queen of Sorrow was.
The thing she pulled behind her was Loki's unconscious body. Carmilla Karnstein had taken matters into her own hands. She had cut off Loki's unicorn's leg to get hold of his corpse. How cruel was this woman, even to those who protected her? Her favored Huntsman.
Fable certainly didn't know what to do now.
"Go help Baba Yaga give Shew a new heart, before it's too late," the Queen demanded, looking at Fable.
Fable was willing to do whatever was in Shew's best interest, but she wasn't sure about the heart. Which heart was the Queen of Sorrow talking about?
"You mean to give her your best Huntsman's heart?" Baba Yaga crowed.
"If my dau
ghter, even though I hate her and I wish her a sweet death, is going to have a heart, then it has to be a strong one, so she can survive long enough for me to collect the hearts from these lowlife peasant boys and girls who call themselves the Lost Seven," the Queen said. "Loki's heart is strong. Now do it."
"But Loki hates her, My Queen," Baba Yaga argued. "What kind of life will Shew have?"
The Queen smirked. "He did hate her, but he was weak enough never to catch her when she escaped. To tell the truth, I liked him." She looked down upon him. "But he wasn't up to the mission I repeatedly handed to him. I'd like to punish him as well—his heart living in a body he despises sounds like a good punishment."
"She will hardly know it's his heart," Baba Yaga said. She seemed experienced in the matter being discussed. "It rarely happens. A few other things rarely happen, but…"
"You're wasting time, Baba," the Queen said. "I will kill you too, if you don't save my daughter's temporary life. Now do it, before it's too late."
Fable had no say in this. Would she save Loki or Shew—again?
She stood, paralyzed, watching Baba Yaga cut Shew's chest open, chanting some spells. They were trying to correct a mistake with another, complicating matters in a way that Fable didn't fully grasp.
Fable continued to watch, her head spinning, her eyes darting between Shew and Loki. If she stopped them and saved Loki, she would have killed Snow White with her spell. If she approved of this—which she was already doing unconsciously—then… wait. Then what?
The ceremony didn't seem hard for Baba Yaga. Cutting, eating, and exchanging hearts didn't seem like a big issue in the Kingdom of Sorrow. Fable had only agreed to help Baba Yaga to get nearer to Loki and secretly pull his Fleece and tuck it in her pocket. It was so easy. So easy. Looking at Loki's Fleece, Fable couldn't believe it.
But what was the price for getting it? Had this really happened in the past? Of course it had. Everything here was just a memory, like Babushka had said. Fable could barely change anything.
