by Cameron Jace
But Rumpelstiltskin had an idea. He had been talking to ancient witches and wizards who advised him that you can only fight fire with fire.
“What does that mean?” I asked Rumpelstiltskin.
“It means that Mary is made of splinters,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “which is glass, which is mirrors. So instead of fire with fire, this war will be mirrors with mirrors.”
“Aha,” I raised an eyebrow. “Never took you for a smart dude,” I said to Rumpelstiltskin. “So the only way to get rid of Mary is to curse her with a mirror?”
“I’d suggest trap her in a mirror,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “Did you know that you can trap demons in mirrors?”
“No shit?”
“And did you know you can time travel through mirrors? Why do you think high priests of Venice prohibited mirrors for years? Mirrors are the optimum carrier for evil.”
“How come I don’t know about that stuff? I am freakin’ Lucifer.”
“Because you spent your time hatin’ not participatin’” Rumpelstiltskin said.
“What are these words you’re saying, and why do you talk like that?” I wondered.
“Never mind,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “People will talk like that in the future.”
“How do you know about the future?”
“Didn’t I explain that I spend a lot of time with ancient wizards whenever I am between jobs of kidnapping children?”
“So to kill Mary, I will have to trap her in a mirror?” I asked.
“Yes. But the problems is that we’re in the sixteenth century. All mirrors are made of obsidian and copper. The real glass mirrors will not be invented before 1835 by a man called Justus von Liebig.”
“Justus von Liebig. Hmm. Why do I sense grand evil in his name?” I wondered. “Why don’t I have a cool name like that. Instead of Lucifer and Beelzebub. I mean, seriously, Beelzebub? It sounds like the name of a brothel or a low life bar. Why can’t I be Lu Von Cipher? Sounds good, right?”
“Or Count De Vellio,” Rumpelstiltskin suggested in an Italian accent. “But you’re already called the Prince of Darkness. I like that. So anyways, Mary has to be trapped in a new kind of mirror. A glass mirror which will not be invented until 1835.”
“1835?” I almost shrieked. “That’s thirty nine years after Snow White’s expected birth!”
“That’s true,” Rumpelstiltskin nodded, lowering his head.
“You know what evil this little brat will bestow on us? On the world? Didn’t you read the prophecy?”
“I did.” Rumpelstiltskin mused. “But we can’t change that in the real world.”
“Still, we can change it in the Dreamworld,” I lowered my head with a smug look on my face.
“You mean…”
“Yes. Absolutely. You know all real magic can be done in the Dreamworld.”
“But the Dreamworld is still ripe and new. You get lost in it and you might drown in it.”
“Trust me – I don’t say that word often by the way – I know a lot.”
“So are you saying you can wake Justus von Liebig in the Dreamworld? He isn’t born yet.”
“But I can do it. I know a Dreamhunter who can.”
“But Dreamhunters despise us. They are angels.”
“I’m an angel too. Did you forget that,” I said. “I’m just a fallen angel. And some angels are falling from Heaven these days.”
“Hmm,” Rumpelstiltskin considered. “So you’re plan is to wake Justus von Liebig, actually give him life in the Dreamworld before he is even there in the real world, and let him design you a glass mirror that you can bury Mary in?”
“Forever!” I said with happy reddened eyes.
I don’t have the time to tell you the details about how we got in the Dreamworld and how we woke the unborn Justus von Liebig to design us a mirror, because this story in itself needs a couple of diaries. I am sure you will meet Justus von Liebig and Mary too many times in the real diaries.
The journey into the Dreamworld took over two hundred years. We were trapped, cursed, and hunted, but we succeeded in the end and came back to the real world with a glass mirror that was one of its kind at the time. One that even Mary hadn’t heard about so she did not know how to oppose its powers.
When we came back to the real world it was the year 1801. Given that Justus was about to design the real mirror in 1835, we didn’t really accomplish much. But it was still good enough to finish the job before the year 1812 where it was prophesized that Snow White’s evil would truly spread in the world. If I was destined to die by her evil, I preferred to kill Mary first. Who knows, maybe then I could outlive Snow White.
In those two hundred years Mary’s legend had been spreading everywhere in the world. She’d been super active, hiding in king’s and queen’s mirrors, and insinuated evil in their hearts all over the world. Mary was avenging herself. I was told as long as Mary spread evil thoughts through the mirrors, her mother’s pain increased in her grave.
Mary was everywhere: in your mirror, in your reflection in the water, but you just didn’t know it. And she killed and tortured humans in the world with the power of the splinter in her eye just to make her mother suffer more and more.
But for amusement, and to ease her own pain, Mary played with the teens all over the world through the folklore of her songs and mirrors. If a teen said her name three times in the mirror she would come out and hurt them. She hid in mirrors all her life.
She slept there, as mirrors were her vehicle that allowed her to travel from Paris to Venice in a blink of an eye.
Then one day I managed to trap her in my special mirror where she could never get out again. She didn’t know how to deal with glass mirrors because she had never seen one. It was easy, I let my Scholomance boys and girls down to earth, fooling her to play her Bloody Mary game, saying her name three times in a row. When she came out from her mirror to hurt them, we pushed her in my mirror, which we had set aside. Mary was stuck inside, screaming, cursing and yelling. But that was her end. I had her trapped for eternity.
But even though I had her trapped, having kept the mirror in my house in Europe – I was fed up with Hell at the time, and decided I was going to live on earth –, she kept making noises and screaming at night.
I had to get rid of the mirror, but I couldn’t break it or it would’ve set Mary free. I had to send the mirror away, across the Oceans, far away from Europe. But where? What was a safe place and land where someone could keep this mirror without breaking it and releasing the evil inside? And shouldn’t I have made use of this instrument of evil I had? Mary was trapped but it didn’t mean she couldn’t insinuate evil in those who used the mirror.
Thinking day after day, a grand idea hit me. I could not tell you enough how this idea had become my infamous best endeavor ever. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
In the morning, I packed the mirror and embarked it on a pirate ship – dear friends of mine. They were crossing over to the far away kingdoms beyond the oceans.
I lit a cigar, sat by the fireplace in my mansion, and watched the ship sailing for days and nights through a crystal ball. The ship arrived at the desired kingdom and the mirror was sent to a king.
I watched with a smirk on my face.
The king was a very important man, and his wife was such a marvelous and enchanting beauty like none of us in Europe had ever seen before – well, her ancestors were from Europe but she never knew. As much as I liked the dark, the sunrise in her presence through my crystal ball made me want to repent and go live by her feet in some otherworldly Heaven. The queen was what the Brothers Grimm later described as a Godmother – although if I were you, I wouldn’t rely on everything they say, those two suckers.
Whenever I saw the queen smiling with her heart-shaped lips, I couldn’t help but smile myself. When she talked, I thought she was singing and the music made me imagine myself a handsome young prince when looking in the mirror. When she sang, the bird sang with her. When she padded barefoot in
the forest, the gazelles gathered, and the river ran in peace. The trees bowed down to reach for her and pat her on her apple-red cheeks. The flowers bloomed, crickets stopped making silly noises, and the squirrels gathered around her long white dress. The queen’s eyes were two full moons all year, the color of the blue ocean separating her kingdom from mine. She didn’t really belong to earth as much as she should have been up there in Heaven with all the pure-hearted happy people. She had a touch that could heal, and her hands could nourish cute babies. She had a face that complemented jewelry and a body that enchanted dresses. Her name was so sweet on the tongue that I felt quenched when I pronounced it. With all the good people in the world that I hated, she was the only one I cherished and loved.
Then one day the lovely queen went back to her room, combing her wavy golden hair in front of the mirror her husband had just bought her from overseas as a gift for their ninth anniversary. The mirror sparkled and magnified the queen’s beauty. And out of sheer cuteness and innocence, the queen, alone in her room, asked the mirror:
Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
It wasn’t vanity or insecurity. The queen knew she was beautiful but her husband was mostly away in his conquests and she just loved to talk to a silent mirror while combing her hair.
Except this time, the mirror answered:
You, my queen, are the fairest of them all.
The queen’s face tightened and she fell back from her chair. A mirror that talked?
“But your beauty won’t last my queen,” The girl in the mirror said. “There is another that will not only surpass your beauty, but you will get uglier as long as she lives. And if you let her live, she will eventually kill you.”
Appalled, the queen didn’t know what to say. Still on the floor, she could feel the invisible demonic waves from the mirror run through her pores.
“Mirror Mirror on the wall…” The queen pleaded.
“It’s Mary Mary on the wall, my queen,” Mary’s ugly face showed to the queen from inside, blurry and bloody with red eyes splintered with sparkling mirror shards. “And from now on, you’re not just a silly lovable queen. With my powers and help, you’re going to be the Queen of Sorrow.”
End of Grimm Prequels 5
Author’s notes:
The following explanations show a little info about how this world was constructed.
I didn’t want to write these notes because I wanted the story itself to be the main attraction. The little things that hide between the lines are usually the author’s way to strengthen the background of the story. Not all readers need to be aware of these secrets though. In my opinion, a story should be just story that can be easily told from mouth to mouth like in the old days.
But upon reader’s suggestions, I thought why not? In Mary Mary Quite Contrary you might be interested to know the following facts:
1) The beginning incident of the story is a reference to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen, but now told from the devil's point of view. Hans is one of the few writers who mentioned the devil repeatedly in his fairy tales. The story of the splintered mirrors is a recurring idea in the tales.
2) Pippi Longstocking and Peter Pan always struck me as mischievous kids, not necessarily bad but with a strong rebellious identity. The fact that came from hell is pure imagination of my unstable brain.
3) The Mary Mary Quite Contrary has been interpreted in so many ways, but it’s interesting how most of the nursery rhymes are originally darker in nature, just like fairy tales. The series is full of such nursery rhymes and riddles.
4) Elizabeth Bathory's story differs from many resources, but historians almost agree on one certain thing: that she tortured young girls with freshly invented instruments. There is no defining evidence that she swam in blood of young girls, but the legend is so strong and has lived for centuries that it sounds like it did really happen.
Why did I intertwine Elizabeth’s story in the fairy tale worlds? The motives and resemblance she shares with the Evil queen of wanting to stay young forever can’t be ignored. Sometimes I think the Evil Queen could be based on Elizabeth. There is more of both characters in the main series.
5) The way the instruments in the real Mary Mary Quite Contrary rhyme are interpreted in schools make no sense to me. I like my interpretation better, which isn’t fully mine but inspired from readings and other historian’s interpretations J
6) I’ve always wondered who Rumpelstiltskin worked for. I guess now we know.
7) All mentioned facts about mirrors are true.
8) Scholomance is the devil's school mentioned in the original script of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Which hints to a further connection to Peter Pan dug up Dracula in Beauty Never Dies.
9) Bloody Mary's origins differ from resource to another. It's almost impossible to know where the legend really started, but like Elizabeth Bathory, it's so powerful you might believe in it. I don't know many people who dare say her name in a dark room with a mirror. There are two reasons why Mary is going to be a main villain in the series:
a) A woman who could burst out of a mirror and harm others always seems scarier than any demon I have ever heard of, especially when she needs you to dare calling her yourself. The idea a has certain magic to it that is indescribable in words. Imagine if a characters you root for needs to summon her to collect something he needs from her and will have to live with consequences of setting her free. It's also known that ancient civilizations be believed in trapping demons in the mirror. We still do.
b) I have always scratched my head, wanting to know who it was in the mirror that the Evil Queen talked to. What was the mirror's origin? No retelling or interpretation really satisfied my need to know. We are talking about a mirror that can talk, insinuate hatred and envy in the heart of the queen enough to make want to kill her daughter, and is purely malicious more than the queen herself. Accepting that this was the queen's reflection or just her inner dark Shadow ( like Freud and Carl Young would suggest ) didn't do it for me. The phrase, ‘Mirror Mirror on the wall’ and ‘Mary Mary on the wall’ are two sentences that have always sounded the same in my ears. And I claim that this is an original take that hasn’t been done before J
10) If you go back to read the last sentences in Snow White Blood Red, you’ll find out that Mary’s story has been hinted to long ago. There is a sentence where the Queen of Sorrow almost describes Mary in the mirror without uttering her name, but only mentioning that she is ugly and scares her. I am not bragging. I am just trying to convince that you are in safe hands in matter of story telling and plotting. ( and again, I am braggin’ a little )
11) I got email asking who they should root for in the series, since all fairy tale characters seem to have serious issues. Don’t worry, there characters who you will root for. There’s just a little twist coming soon that will let us know why some of the characters behave like that, and what their bigger motives are.
12) I’d like to thank Danielle Littig for the awesome editing work, and my beta readers who helped make this prequel better with their suggestions and saved me from embarrassing mistakes.
a prelude to Snow White Sorrow the first book in the The Grimm Diaries Series coming out soon
To know more about Snow White Sorrow,HERE
List of the Grimm Diaries Prequels available so far:
1 Snow White Blood Red
narrated by Snow White Queen
available HERE
2 Cinder to Cinder & Ashes to Ashes
narrated by Alice Grimm
available HERE
3 Beauty Never Dies
narrated by Peter Pan
available HERE
4 Ladle Rotten Rat Hut
narrated by Little Red Riding Hood
available HERE
5 Mary Mary Quite Contrary
as told by the devil
availableHERE
6 Blood Apples
narrated by Prince Charming
coming out in
mid October
7 Jawigi
narrated by Sandman Grimm
coming by the end of October
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