by Cameron Jace
31
A Conversation with Death
Shew hadn’t died in a dream before, so she didn’t know what to expect.
She thought she’d see herself leave her own body and fly like angels in the air, watching how her body lay still on the weighing table. Last time when she thought she was dead at the Wall of Thorns, it turned out she’d been saved by a mysterious someone. No one was going to save her this time.
Will I never know if my soul weighed twenty-one grams? Instead of having an out of body experience, Shew found herself locked inside her own body, unable to move. It was as if she were trapped in the carcass of her flesh and bones, watching the world from behind the bars of her eyelashes.
She couldn’t hear anything, nor could she see her soul flying in the air. She had no choice but hope her soul didn’t weigh twenty-one grams so Dame Gothel would bring her back for a later test like the girl before.
But how long did she have to wait? How could she count forty-two minutes while she was dead?
She remembered Loki’s kiss, the way he fought for her in the castle. She remembered when she teased him in the seven-year-old birthday dream, the flirty time they had in their last dream together. They had laughed, cried and bantered with each other. Loki almost died for her in the octopus bathtub. He didn’t give up, though. He followed her to the Queen’s pumpkin coach then shouted his silly ‘Ora Pedora’ and used his Chanta. Shew wondered if she could believe in the Chanta like him. It seemed unlikely. Loki had managed to fulfill his journey and learn who he really was. Shew was still dancing on hot coals. Neither did her feet get used to heat nor did she find a way to cross to a cooler place.
Right now, she was dead, walking the thin rope between before and after.
Charmwill crossed her mind somehow. Other than mourning his death, she thought Loki was lucky having the old pipe-smoking mentor. Someone who’d stand beside him each step of the way, but not interfere unless necessary. Why didn’t she have someone like that? A Chosen One needed a mentor like Charmwill. She wondered if there was a Godmother coming to save her now. Why was she so alone?
When she had first learned that Wilhelm Grimm sent Alice to her, she thought Alice was some kind of mentor. But what kind of mentor stole the necklace given to you by your lover?
She wondered if it was better to die instead of trying to solve the endless riddles of the world she lived in. Everyone she met seemed to have an agenda and a complex story. She had always thought her destiny was going to be crystal clear: here are the bad guys, and there are good; shoot the bad, help the good, audience clap as the curtains fall down.
But her life in Sorrow was far from black and white, and solving a riddle, only meant the birth of another. For instance, how could she and Cerené have been on the same pirate ship, the Jolly Roger? Could that have been a coincidence? Everything seemed connected in the most mysterious ways in Sorrow.
Shew laughed in her mind—her lips had paled and were not hers anymore. She was laughing at the idea of dying without knowing who she really was, and what she was capable of; the worst torture of all.
She gave in to the dimness of her mind, the curtain of afterlife draping down on all living things, listening to the faint and distant voice of Dame Gothel, saying, “Twenty-one grams, majesty.”
Shew wanted to scream but she had no mouth. She felt someone moving her body, and she predicted they were taking her corpse to the bathhouse for the Queen to feast on her heart and swim in her blood.
But then she felt the emptiness around her as if everyone had simply left the chamber, probably preparing the bathhouse and then coming back to pick her up. They had no reason to worry about the princess’ corpse. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Although her paralyzed eyes were fixed on the ceiling, she saw someone in front of her, a woman in red with a scythe in her hand.
Oh, Great, hello Mrs. Death.
“You know who I am?” Death spoke. She had a sweet voice actually, and it helped a lot that she was a woman. Maybe she’d understand Shew better.
“The cookie monster?” She couldn’t help the sarcasm. You don’t meet with Death every day. Shew didn’t think leaving an impression was a bad idea. The woman in red didn’t respond.
So I offended Death. What is she going to do. Kill me?
“You know how many other souls I have to collect today?” she said bluntly, not appreciating Shew’s cheesy response.
“Busy day, huh?” Shew’s mind responded. “Can’t you just mass murder them all?” she said.
Death’s face looked liked it changed a little. She was trying not to smile.
“I mean how about tsunamis,” Shew couldn’t stop talking. “Earthquakes and volcanoes, they’re your doing, right? I always liked plagues. You just send the rats out into the world and go have a cigarette while the disease spreads. By the end of the day, everyone’s dead. Neat.”
“You talk too much,” Death said, banging her scythe against the floor.
“Are you going to cut my mind’s tongue?” Shew said, wondering why death felt like a hallucinogenic drug.
“Stop it, princess,” Death said. “I’m not necessarily going to take your life today.”
“I knew it,” Shew said. “You can’t kill me. I’m the Chosen One. It’s predictable that I won’t die. I’ve watched a lot of movies on teenager’s laptops, trapped in the Schloss.”
“You’re being silly, which actually means you’re trying to cover the fact that you’re sorry because you haven’t been strong enough,” Death said. “And if you think Death is the worst that could happen to you, then you’re greatly mistaken.”
“There’s something more painful than death?” Shew wondered. “Stupidity?”
Why does death feel like I’m high, smoking a hookah above the clouds?
“You know what’s worse than Death? Living a life of suffering and wishing for it,” Death said in a raspy voice with the kind of intensity Shew had initially expected Death to utter.
“So will you spare me? I spared a boy once,” Shew said.
“You spared him because you loved him,” Death said. “I don’t love you.”
“I am sure you don’t love anyone,” Shew said.
“I spared your mother the day you were born,” Death said.
Hearing this, Shew didn’t feel like joking anymore, “You did?”
“Do I look like I am joking?”
Hearing that from Death, Shew couldn’t argue, “of course, you aren’t. But I have the feeling you want to compromise.”
“Your mother was going to die giving birth to you,” Death explained. “I gave her a second life to take care of you.”
“It doesn’t look like she appreciated you saving her, I must say,” Shew commented.
“If I give you a second life, will you appreciate it?” Death said. “Will you stop your reluctance?”
“I could lie to you and you anything you want to hear right now,” Shew said. “You know that, right?”
“If you lie, you’re lying to yourself,” Death said, and turned around, walking away.
“Wait!” Shew said. “Aren’t you going to save me?”
“Of course, I won’t,” Death said, not looking back.
“But you promised!”
“I promised nothing,” Death said. “You were wondering why you had no one like Charmwill Glimmer in you life, someone who’d teach you how to be a Chosen One. Unfortunately, this isn’t how things happen in the Kingdom of Sorrow.”
“Then how am I going to learn?” Shew yelled. Ironically, her pain increased with every step Death took away from her.
“You should have learned a lot already. Everything you see, everyone you meet is for a reason,” Death’s voice was fading to grey. “Don’t worry. You won’t die, not this time. You’ll be saved, but not by me, but someone who loves you.”
Death’s words didn’t ease Shew’s feeling of betrayal. Mrs. Death came here, jumbled her thoughts for a while, and left her be. Shew didn’t
understand the purpose behind her conversation with Death. Who loved Shew enough to save her? Loki was as good as dead to her, and she couldn’t think of anyone else but her father. She knew nothing about his whereabouts, and doubted he would show up all of a sudden. Shew assumed this was actually the end. Death had only been laughing at her.
Then something touched Shew’s lips.
32
A Secret Revealed
“Did you know that fairy tale folks call us Minikins?” Axel said, reading from Loki’s phone again. He’d been researching for the last hour, reading from the diary and surfing the internet. “I heard Loki say it, but wasn’t sure he meant us. It’s a little insulting if you ask me.”
Fable wasn’t responding. She was still circling the purple light, and Axel didn’t know what she was really thinking.
“And listen to this,” Axel thought a lot of interesting information would cheer her up, “in J.G.’s diary he mentions a special cake called Sanguinaccio.”
“What about it, Axel?” Fable only replied to keep him talking.
“It’s a real Italian cake. I mean real as in you can go to Italy and order it some place,” Axel said. “That’s weird.”
“What’s so weird about an Italian cake?”
“It’s topped with kidney or pig’s fresh blood and is served as a dessert,” Axel said. “That’s a real cake Italians eat, although it’s mentioned that most restaurants won’t serve it and claim it’s a myth. They call it Bloodylicious.”
“And we thought Shew was an outcast, being a blood sucker,” Fable said, still circling the light with weary eyes. “Why is it mentioned in J.G.’s diary?”
“I have no idea,” Axel closed the book. “This man’s quest for the Lost Seven led him to some weird stuff. And listen to this. He thinks the Phoenix, which we assumed is Cinderella, was mentioned in other fairy tales, too.”
“Do we know of these fairy tales?” Fable said absently.
“One is called The Little Match Girl, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson,” Axel flipped through the pages.
“I know that one,” Fable said, her hand on her stomach. She looked as if she was in pain. “I love it actually. It’s about a poor girl who tries to sell matches, and no one buys them from her, so she burns them up on by one in hopes to get warm in the freezing cold.”
“Do you know that she dies in the end?” Axel said, reading from the diary. “What kind of fairy tale is this?”
“One that Charmwill Glimmer would tell,” Fable said. “How is it connected to Cinderella?’
“I have no idea,” Axel said. “The girl died for God’s sake. She can’t be Cinderella. And here is another one. He also thinks Cinderella is The Girl Without Hands, another creepy fairy tale.”
“I never heard that one,” Fable said. “I assume it really has a girl with no hands, right?”
“It does,” Axel said. “And then at the end of he notes, he thinks Cinderella, which is also Ember, Cerené, The Little Match Girl, The Girl Without Hands, and the Phoenix was born in Murano Island.”
“Where is that?”
“A Venice-like island, which is actually near Venice where glassblowers had been imprisoned and banned centuries ago,” Axel said.
“That’s interesting,” Fable considered. “Cinderella, being famous for her glass slipper, to come from an island of glassblowers.”
“What’s more interesting is that the glassblowers once lived in Venice, and then were banned because of the amounts of fire and cinders they produced and threatening the destruction of Venice,” Axel said. “What really drives me crazy is how Cinderella is all those people J.G. mentioned. It just doesn’t make sense,” Axel closed the book, noticing his sister still wasn’t well. “What’s going on Fable?” Axel wondered. “Have you sensed anything else about the Dreamworld?”
“Not at all,” Fable said. “But it’s driving me crazy.”
“I am afraid if I tell you why, you’d snap at me,” he remembered the Dreamhunter’s Diary mentioning that whoever walked through the purple light could end up insane.
“I know what you’re thinking, Axel,” Fable said. “You think it’s just something that happened because I am exhausted. You don’t believe that I have actually peeked into the dream.”
“That’s exactly what I am thinking,” Axel said. “It’s all psychology, believe me. I read about it.”
“Yeah, how so?”
“You’ve been thinking about the spell to get into Loki’s body since we woke up,” Axel folded his arms. “It’s been on your mind all day. But you wouldn’t do it because it is dangerous. Therefore, your mind played tricks on you, making you think you saw into the Dreamworld. How else can you explain how you only saw Loki and not Shew?”
“I really have nothing to say to your stupid theories,” Fable rubbed her arms as if it were cold all of a sudden. “You just think you know it all.”
“Trust me, I know what I am talking about,” Axel said. “You wanted to do anything to go save Loki, but like you said, you had to know his real name to use the spell. And when you didn’t, you went into some kind of denial and your mind created an alternative reality for you. I told you I read a lot about the subject.”
“What are you talking about?” Fable still rubbed her arms, slightly shivering. “I know what Loki’s real name is now. Loki Van Helsing. Actually, it’s Loki Abraham Van Helsing. You told me that.”
“Oh,” Axel’s eyes widened. “I did. Just forgot. There is too much information in my head today.”
“And I had even more reasons to use the spell and enter Loki’s body when you told me that the only way to break the locked dream was for one to kill the other,” Fable said.
“So my psychoanalysis didn’t work?” Axel rubbed his chin then pulled his phone out to surf the internet. He needed to look up where his analysis went wrong.
“But the thing is,” Fable said as Axel was scrolling. “I didn’t need to wait until you told me about how the dream can be broken.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be with you in a minute,” Axel scrolled through the phone.
“Please pay attention, Axel,” Fable’s jaw started to shiver. “Can’t you understand what I am telling you? Look at me.”
Slowly, Axel raised his head. He watched his sister who looked even worse than before, and his mind began replaying the day’s events again. He thought about everything that had happened since they had followed Loki to the Schloss.
Everything came together now. He knew why Fable was shivering, and what she was trying to tell him. For the first time, he believed she had crossed to the Dreamworld. She did really meet Loki as a Huntsman.
But how could she? He gazed at her, disappointed and worried.
“How could you, Fable?” he said softly. “And when did you do it?”
“While you were consumed by reading J.G.’s diary,” Fable said. “I recited the spell to myself. It wasn’t that hard, and it worked.”
“You are connected to Loki in the Dreamworld now?” Axel had no intention of yelling at her. He pitied her. She was suffering already, looking ill from using the spell.
“Yes,” Fable nodded. “But it’s like an ‘on and off’ thing. I can only see him when he shows up in Shew’s dream. When he doesn’t, my vision is blank, and I can’t see anything.”
“I’m so disappointed with you. What have you done?” Axel said. “Look at you. You look like you’re going insane.”
“It’s messing with my mind, Axel,” Fable spit uncontrollably. “The problem is that I’m not even in Loki’s body. I can only see him.”
“Forget about Loki, now,” Axel said. “Tell me what I can do. Is there a spell that could save you?”
“I don’t know,” Fable said. “I need to cross the purple light into the Dream Temple.”
“No, you won’t,” Axel blocked her, his back to the light. “What you have done to yourself is enough. I’m going to take you to a hospital now.”
“Hospitals have no cure for
magic spells, Axel,” Fable said, trying to peek over his shoulder at the purple light. “If I went that far, let me into the Dream Temple. I will posses Loki’s body and break his connection with Carmilla. Maybe then, one won’t have to kill the other.”
“I said no,” Axel pulled her away from the light. Fable was weak enough. She didn’t resist him. “Look what’s happened to you from using the spell, and you haven’t entered Loki’s body yet. Who knows what happens then? I have no interest in Loki and Shew coming back if you’re dead.”
Fable insisted one more time. Axel slapped her hard enough she fell back in his arms, helpless and unable to move.
“I’m sorry, sis,” Axel said, holding her tight. “I can’t let you inside the Dream Temple.”
33
A Breath of Life
Shew wasn’t sure at first because she thought she was numb, but apparently someone had been touching her lips for some time.
A breath of air tickled her lungs. The air was warm. Shew felt it fill her veins as her hearing and vision slowly came back.
This must be it, she thought. The kiss of life again. Could it be Loki?
Whoever touched her lips didn’t taste of Loki’s. Was it the prince she’d bitten when she was younger?
Now that her soul returned to her body, she knew that whatever touched her lips tasted of metal. She was sure it wasn’t a kiss. The magic wasn’t in the metal on her lips, but in the breath filling her soul.
She opened her eyes, eager to see who resurrected her. Who else would it have been, but Cerené?
“Hurry up, Joy,” Cerené urged. “They’re preparing the bathhouse for the Queen’s ceremony so she can consume your heart. We’re still in the chamber. They all left and I sneaked in through the fireplace,” she pulled off her muzzle.
“You saved me,” she hugged her, unable to express her gratitude enough. “I think you’re my Chanta or something.”
“I’m your Chanta, really? What’s a Chanta?”
