by Cameron Jace
Loki gripped his stake as she glided down over the last step. Although he knew she was a prisoner, it wasn’t easy to trust her when he saw her veins snaking up her arms and neck, reaching her pale face. Her eyes had turned into two holes filled with black oil, and for the first time, she had tears rolling down her cheeks—black tears.
“What a freak,” Lucy blurted.
Snow White’s bloody feet landed on the floor. She began walking toward Loki, leaving red footprints behind. She showed no anger or intentions of hostility. Something watery dripped onto the floor behind Loki. It was Axel; he was drooling.
Loki could almost hear Fable’s heart pounding as if it was his. She watched her favorite vampire princess with appalling eyes. Snow White had always been Fable’s idol.
“Don’t you dare come near me wicked princess!” Lucy grunted. “I just manicured my fingernails, and had my hair styled.”
Snow White snarled at Lucy, only once. She did it over Loki’s shoulder, and Lucy stumbled back into Axel’s arms. Even Axel, who’d normally want to save Lucy, wasn’t happy about it. Sometimes fear is so paralyzing that love can’t save it—that’s if what Axel felt for Lucy was considered love.
“You don’t have to be rude about it,” Lucy snapped back. “I know you’re sweet on the champ. He’s all yours,” she pointed at Loki. “Just don’t bite him on the first date.”
Snow White—the very dead version of her—was an inch away from Loki, and she uttered words for the second time.
“Are you here to kill me?” she said.
Loki wished she hadn’t talked, because she did it in her innocent sixteen-year-old teenage voice, which was smooth and lively with a hint of adventure. It confused him, trying to match the voice with her gruesome look. He hesitated before replying. After all, he still didn’t know why he was here in front of her. Was he here to kill her or help her, go back home or stay in Sorrow?
Fable, although shocked, managed to wave her hands at Loki behind Snow White’s back, suggesting he should tell her that he wasn’t there to kill her.
“Are you here to kill me, Loki?” Snow White repeated without the slightest hint of anger. She was just a sweet girl his age. For all he knew, she could have been asking him if he liked pink or yellow cotton-candy. In another world, another lifetime, Loki would have asked her out and they would have watched a movie together, had a little popcorn, and snuck in a few kisses in the darkness of a theatre. When she spoke his name, he felt so… so close to her… as if he’d known her for a very long time.
Of course, I know her from long ago. Like any other child, someone—presumably my mother—must have told me her story when I was a kid. Even though I can’t remember my past, such fairy tales must be rooted deep down in my psyche.
Although Loki never believed in fairy tales, he still couldn’t dismiss the importance and affect they had on people’s lives. It was hard to imagine meeting someone who hadn’t heard Snow White’s tale, but it was possible that some people didn’t know about a certain religion, country, or food. When it came to fairy tales, everyone knew about them as if they were the one and only language uniting the world. Loki suddenly understood why Charmwill described his Book of Beautiful Lies as the most important book to mankind. If the world couldn’t agree on one religion, or one nationality, or even one perspective of what is good and what is evil, they agreed on fairy tales.
“No, he isn’t here to kill you,” Fable finally uttered on behalf of Loki. “He wants to know how you died,” Fable continued. Snow White didn’t turn back. She was staring at Loki with those black eyes. “He wants to know what made you,” Fable shrugged. “The way you are now—”
“Not that there is anything wrong with that,” Axel drew upon flattery like a magician pulled rabbits out of his hat. “In fact, you look…you look so—” Although Axel didn’t mind being a hypocrite to save his life, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that she looked beautiful. He shrugged so loud it echoed in the castle.
“So gross,” Lucy spit out. “Princess my—”
“Don’t listen to them,” Fable broke in. “We’re here to help you. We know there is something wrong…” Fable looked around her, afraid she’d offend the castle. “We know there is something wrong with this castle,” she whispered. “We know that you spared our lives—Loki’s life. You saved us, now let us help you. Allow Loki to get into your dream without controlling it.”
Although Snow White’s eyes didn’t change, that golden tint shimmered momentarily in them when Fable mentioned helping her. Loki noticed it only happened when she was looking at him, and only when she liked something she heard or saw.
“Is that true?” Snow White asked Loki, her voice was pleading for him to say ‘yes.’
Loki nodded, only once. Words couldn’t escape his mouth. Part of it was that he didn’t want to lie to her. Killing her was still his only hope to return home if he chose to, and it wasn’t easy to shake a feeling that had ran in his veins for so long. But he still wanted to enter her dream and know what happened to her in case he changed his mind.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Loki managed to say.
Snow White didn’t reply. She looked as if she were trying to remember. Her silence was even scarier than her rage.
“I can’t say,” she finally spoke. In a most mesmerizing moment, she lowered her head down as if she was embarrassed she didn’t remember. Her peaceful gesture made everyone sigh, all except Lucy.
“Seriously? Are you buying into her tricks?” Lucy said.
“How so?” Loki asked Snow White.
She raised her eyes to meet his, this time they were the beautiful blue. She held Loki’s hands, and he found himself giving in to her, and loosening his grip on his Alicorn.
Snow White looked at him as if searching for something or someone behind his eyes. No one had looked at him this way before. He didn’t know what it meant.
“There is so much I want to say but can’t,” Snow White whispered. Her eyes gazed to the left and then to the right as Loki narrowed his. She looked up at the ceiling and back at him. Her eyes were telling him she couldn’t speak because of the castle and that he had to do something about it.
Fable slipped behind Snow White again and mouthed the following words behind her back: I don’t think the Baby Tears will be enough to enter her dream. We have to get her out of the Schloss, and—
Loki didn’t wait for Fable to finish her sentence. “I’ll get you out of here,” he told Snow White. He didn’t care about the Schloss’ anger, although he could already hear its walls vibrating louder, like a giant about to wake up.
“Not so loud. The Schloss can here you,” Fable gritted her teeth. “If you’d only listened to all I had to say,” she rolled her eyes.
The castle started shaking, and Snow White’s eyes changed to black again. She stared around her at the shaking interiors. She looked like a child afraid her parents would catch her doing something wrong.
“You have to go now, Loki,” Snow White said. “I don’t think it will let me get out.”
“No,” Loki stepped closer to her. “I will enter your dream. I want to know what happened to you.”
“You can’t as long as I’m trapped in here,” Snow White screamed over the now deafening roar of the Schloss. With the castle controlling her, she was going to turn into her other self soon; they needed to hurry.
“Then I’ll get you outside, and perform the ritual there,” Loki insisted.
“I can only survive forty two minutes outside, or—“
“Or what?”
“Or this town will wither away,” she explained. “My soul is connected to this town somehow. As long as I’m in the castle, the town is safe. But if I play tricks on it and stay out for more than forty two minutes, the whale, which this town is settled upon, will sink into the ocean, dragging the town down with it.”
“Wow,” Axel said. “Better keep the princess inside the Schloss.”
“How is this pos
sible?” Loki asked.
“It’s part of my curse,” she said. “Can I trust you with my life?” she looked straight in his eyes as the world around them fell apart.
“And the town’s life, including mine!” Axel felt the need to remind them.
It was a hard question to answer. Can I trust you with my life? Loki wondered why she asked him this when all he needed to go home was to kill her.
Why me? Why do I have to answer this? I don’t want to sound like a whining hero who can’t handle obstacles, but no one feels the way I do. I need to know who I am. It’s a basic need for every human. I need to know why I’m being punished and why I was thrown into this world. I need to go home.
Snow White looked disappointed. So did Fable, glaring at Loki for his indecisiveness.
“Use the Chanta,” Fable told him, pointing at her heart. “Some questions aren’t answered with logic. Use the Chanta like you mother told you, and you’ll be able answer her truthfully.”
Loki didn’t care about the Chanta. He still couldn’t understand what it was. But he knew he had strong feelings for Snow White. This time, it wasn’t like Pippi Luvbug and all those demon girls who fooled him before. This time, the demon girl spared his life. If he had to choose between knowing who he was before and why Snow White spared his life, he was going to choose the thing he was in control of now. He wanted to know why she needed saving and why she spared his life.
“You can trust me with your life outside,” he nodded, his thumbs pressing on Snow White’s hands. “I have to know your story!”
Fable did a secret fist pump in the air behind Show White’s shoulder. She had to duck to avoid a flying vase. The castle’s anger was a million times worse than Fable’s spells from her second-hand witchcraft books.
Snow White’s demonic transformation was complete.
“Stake her!” Lucy shouted as a lightning bolt struck outside and the castle shook. “Or she will kill us all.”
Loki raised his Alicorn and carved it into Snow White’s chest, putting her to sleep again.
“Sorry,” he whispered in her ear, catching her before she fell on the floor, her arms wrapping around his shoulder.
It was amazing how fast her black eyes turned back to blue. Doors slammed and windows broke on their own. The floor cracked from underneath and the banister turned into snakes gliding toward them.
Loki held Snow White in his arms, brushed her hair off her eyes with the back of his hand then looked back at Fable. “We have to get her out of here,” he said. “I have to enter her dream.”
“Did I tell you that most boys are slow when it comes to comprehending? It’s about time,” Fable screamed.
***
Loki, Fable, Axel, and Lucy were about to pull Snow White out of the castle into the light of a thin moonbeam. They needed to prepare their Dream Temple about a hundred feet ahead in the snow. The two opposite mirrors, the Epidaurus Circle, and Loki’s items all had to be prepared like an exact science. Time was tight and they had to move fast.
Axel and Loki dragged two mirrors from the angry castle to the chosen location. They fixed them opposite to each other, and propped them up with two heavy armoires they’d managed to steal from the castle in spite of the door slamming in their faces, chandeliers falling from the ceiling and swirling winds.
Fable drew the Epidaurus circle using black oil that Loki had told her to drain from his Cadillac. It wasn’t exactly a girl’s job, but she never ceased to amaze. She insisted on pouring the oil counter-clockwise since this should empower the spell. She had also suggested they place the mirrors facing North and South. Not something that was written in Loki’s notebook, but he didn’t mind the input.
Loki brought his hourglass, Alicorn, and Ariadne Fleece along while Lucy did nothing but stand back and protect her manicured fingernails.
After a while, Lucy decided to help in her own way. She made Axel fetch an ax from her four-wheeler. She suggested they’d use it if they needed to break the mirror in case Loki was stuck in the Dreamworld. It was impressive how she’d learned everything Loki explained to her about the process in no time at all—still, he was worried why she had an ax on her four-wheeler in the first place.
Loki was proud of his three assistants, learning the rules of the Dreamworld, and helping him as the Dreamhunter. The four ran back and held the glass coffin by its corners, standing at the threshold of the angry castle. Axel and Fable grabbed the two corners in front, Axel and Lucy grabbed the backsides. The ground between the castle and the Dream Temple sloped slightly upward, which made it harder to push the coffin forward, but would be easier on the way back. It was strange that an icy pond good enough for skating had formed over the ground. It would be dangerous if it cracked and someone fell into the freezing water underneath. Loki had no time to question if the icy pond over what once had been solid earth was part of the castle’s soul.
A lightning bolt struck again. The castle was huffing and puffing. It made such boiling and bubbling sounds Loki thought it was ready to explode.
“I understand that the castle is angry with us, but why is the weather getting worse?” Lucy yelled back, the wind eating at her words and taking her breath away.
“Snow White is manipulating the weather,” Axel offered his expertise. “You know vampires can control the weather, right?”
“That’s not her now,” Fable corrected him. “It’s the castle!”
“Enough with the chitchat,” Loki said. “Adjust the timing of the Waker, Axel,” Loki shouted. “Make it thirty five minutes. We need about five minutes to move the coffin to the Dream Temple, and hopefully five minutes when I come back from the dream.”
“Done!” Axel said.
Loki’s hands were ice cold. The wind was so intense he imagined he might go flying through the air like a street sign ripped from its foundation.
“Is everyone ready,” Loki gazed into their faces one by one. “Let’s go!”
They started pulling the coffin out.
If the castle had hands and feet, it would’ve chased them—Loki looked behind him to make sure it wasn’t. It was roaring as if it was the belly of a ferocious beast. Loki thought its huge double doors opened as wide as a whale’s mouth for a second, but wasn’t sure. The sounds it made were loud and deafening, and the weather was quickly nearing an intolerable state. Still, they had to keep on going.
The little slope upward was exhausting, the ice cracking slightly underneath them.
“Don’t look down,” Loki advised.
They reached the Dream Temple and pulled the coffin into the middle. Loki knelt down and parted Snow White’s eyelids with freezing fingers, and dropped the Baby Tears in her eyes. Her eyes took on a bluish-gold tint with tiny white spots floating around in them as if they were inside a snow globe. Then he closed her eyes and covered them with his two Obol coins.
“Why cover her eyes?” Lucy asked.
“The eyes are windows to the soul,” Loki shouted, spitting snow. “In this case, they are windows to the Dreamworld. Covering them prevents evil from crossing over from the Dreamworld to our world.”
“So what’s the Incubator?” Fable said, looking at Axel, praying he had found the right word.
“I hope you didn’t mess it up, Axel,” Loki said. “Or I will enter the dream, oblivious of where it will take me.”
“Don’t worry, Loki, I got it,” Axel said proudly. “I got it; a word and a number. It will help you enter Snow White’s dream, and you’ll enter it right where she wants to show you what happened to her.”
“So what is it?” Fable yelled impatiently.
“The word is ‘Jawigi’,” Axel yelled as lightning screeched in the sky. “It’s the word that is written on the library’s floor.”
“Does it have a meaning?” Loki asked.
“It’s the key to the Dreamworld,” Axel said. “It turns out the Brothers Grimm created this Dreamworld, Jawigi, for some reason.”
“What?” Fable said. “I don�
��t understand. What does Jawigi have to do with the Brothers Grimm’s names?”
“The ‘j’ and ‘a’ are from Jacob’s first name, Axel explained. “The ‘w’ and ‘i’ are from Wilhelm, his brother. The ‘g’ and ‘i’ are from their family name Grimm. It’s a code, something like an anagram.”
“So who are the Brothers Grimm again?” Lucy asked. Everyone stared incredulously at her.
“They wrote the Snow White fairy tale,” Axel said.
“And what’s the number?” Loki asked, the wind ruffling his hair.
“What do you think?” Axel said. “1812, the year the tale was written, about two hundred years ago.”
Loki connected the Ariadne Fleece to a mirror, watching its surface rippling. This time the rippling was accompanied with a purple shimmering light. Loki wrapped the other side of the fleece around his wrist. Undeterred, he could still hear the castle’s anger behind him. Then he lay next to Snow White, and whispered the word Jawigi in her ear, repeating it three times. He watched her head move slightly as if nodding while staked and asleep.
“Wow, this is like magic,” Lucy said.
“This is magic!” Fable said. She stood tangent to the circle, preparing to throw a good amount of Magic Dust into Loki’s face. “Take care of yourself, Loki. You’re a great Dreamhunter. From this moment on, there is no turning back.”
“Don’t forget to say the prayer,” Axel reminded him as Fable blew Magic Dust from the palm of her hand into his eyes.
“Yeah,” Loki said. “I will recite it silently,” he gripped his Alicorn, and quietly hoped it would be useful this time if he needed it.
“Hey,” Axel and Fable shouted in one breath, staring at Loki as he was becoming more and more drowsy. “Come back,” Axel said. “This world you hate so much isn’t that bad, you know,” added Fable.
