Snow White Sorrow (The Grimm Diaries)

by Cameron Jace

  “So why aren’t we transported?” A lonely trickle of sweat glided down his forehead.

  “Because the scene takes place in this room,” she said. “Keep watching.”

  25

  The Queen of Sorrow

  Carmilla, as beautiful and glowing as ever, stood by the threshold of the room.

  Her majesty was looking at the mirrors lined up in what seemed like a circle, making it harder for her to step in. She was standing in her elegant red dress and golden crown braided into her hair, golden locks hanging down her shoulders. Loki thought it was strange that the Queen wore her crown at home, and how it was always braided into her hair as if fearing that someone would steal it from her.

  Carmilla took a deep breath before she stepped into the middle of the room. She avoided looking at her dark reflection in the mirrors as she walked ahead—even Loki avoided looking at her reflection; for some reason, he didn’t want to distort Carmilla’s beautiful image in his memory.

  Carmilla hadn’t been in her daughter’s room because of those mirrors. But this time she was here for the mirror Snow White had told her about. Her curiosity had peaked, and she couldn’t help but investigate the talking mirror that promised to show her reflection as the beauty she was.

  Carmilla could easily identify the mirror. It was the only one with a silvered surface, but that wasn’t its greatest attribute. Of all the mirrors in the world, this one granted the Queen the illusion of a gorgeous face even though she was half-vampire.

  Carmilla cocked her head, unable to comprehend such a miracle. She approached the mirror eagerly, touching her face. It didn’t matter that all the other mirrors in the room showed her beastly nature. All that mattered was the one single mirror that made her look like the beautiful Queen she’d been before.

  “Mirror, mirror on the wall?” Carmilla wondered slowly, her eyes investigating the mirror as if it were alive. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or actually expecting the mirror to respond.

  “Yes, my dearest Queen?” the invisible girl in the mirror replied.

  “Mirror, Mirror on the wall,” Carmilla repeated, as if to make sure the mirror was really talking to her.

  “I’m at your service, Queen of Sorrow,” the girl in the mirror said.

  It was the first time someone had ever addressed her as the Queen of Sorrow, and it made something shimmer in Carmilla’s eyes. “Just ask, and I shall answer,” the girl continued. “Your wish is my command.”

  “Mirror, Mirror on the wall,” Carmilla repeated again. “Who’s that I see, standing tall?” she inched closer, straightening her back, and pushing her chest forward, her voice implying power.

  “It’s you, Queen of Sorrow,” the girl in the mirror replied. “You’re the fairest of them all.”

  Carmilla narrowed her eyes, worried and also suspicious of a mirror that talked, but seeing her reflection blinded her judgment.

  It occurred to Loki that he was watching the real version of one of the most famous scenes in the history of storytelling; the moment the Snow White Queen first talked to the mirror.

  “Who’s the girl in the mirror, and did Justus send it as a gift, or did he work for someone?” Loki asked.

  “Of course, Justus worked for someone,” Snow White told him. “The mirror was sent by Night Sorrow who had been working tirelessly to turn my parents into full vampires so they could join his forces. Night Sorrow had found a way to reach my mother without having to breach through the kingdom’s barriers. A haunted mirror was just enough. As for the girl in the mirror, I assure you that you know who she is. At least, you must have heard of her.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Loki argued. “I don’t recognize the girl in the mirror.”

  “You do, Loki,” Snow White insisted. “Think harder about how fairy tales turned out to be real, how the world of stories is connected and interwoven. Think about nursery rhymes you’ve heard, and about urban legends. It’s all so obvious. You only need to connect the dots.”

  Loki tried harder to identify the girl in the mirror for a moment, but nothing came to mind. “I really don’t know.”

  “What’s the name of the scary girl that hides in the mirror that most kids know about?” Snow White said. “Think of an evil girl who escaped a mirror, her prison, a girl that when you say her name three times in the dark, comes out and hurts you.”

  “You don’t mean:--” The name was on the tip of Loki’s tongue.

  “Bloody Mary,” Snow White nodded. “She’s real, and she’s the girl who turned my mother into a beast by appearing to her in the mirror.”

  “That’s—“Loki was at a loss for words.

  “That’s the truth,” Snow White said. “Sometimes, I wonder why no one ever questions where the mirror in my fairy tale came from. The person in the mirror who the Snow White Queen talked to was Bloody Mary.”

  Carmilla’s eyes glittered suddenly. She looked as if she had been awakened from the hypnotizing effect of Bloody Mary. She sensed that this was all a work of evil.

  “No, I am not the fairest of them all,” Carmilla resisted Bloody Mary’s suggestions. “And if I am, I know that I shouldn’t be seeing my reflection in the mirror,” she said while reaching for a candlestick to do away with the mirror. “This isn’t right,” she said. “You’re an evil mirror and you have to be destroyed,” she swung the candlestick at the mirror.

  But before she could break it, the mirror’s surface rippled and showed her images of other vampire women who seemed to suffer from an aging condition like Carmilla—of course, none of them were a chosen one’s mother, but they were all aging after giving birth. The vampire women in the mirror seemed to have no problems with their aging condition because they had a solution for it. They fed on young human girls, and consumed their youth so they themselves wouldn’t age. Once they fed on them, the young girls grew older instantly and died while the vampire women grew younger and healthier.

  Carmilla stopped in her tracks, her fangs drawing out. The women in the mirror were checking out their beautiful faces in their hand mirrors, enjoying their eternal youth. They were combing their nurtured hair, checking their fine skin, putting on makeup and lipstick and rubbing their lips together, putting on mascara, and slightly squeezing their cheeks into reddish patches full of life and energy.

  “What good is beauty if one can’t see it?” Bloody Mary said, toying with Carmilla’s weakness. “You have done nothing wrong to deserve to become a beast. You deserve much better. You’ve sacrificed your youth, your love, and yourself for your daughter, because you love her.”

  Loki wanted to scream into the dream to warn Carmilla of the girl in the mirror, but he couldn’t risk her seeing him.

  “Will your daughter ever appreciate what you’ve sacrificed for her?” Bloody Mary said.

  The images in the mirror turned into a single image of a seven year old Snow White who looked lovely, lively, and luminous.

  “All this beauty she has sucked out of you has gone to waste,” Bloody Mary continued. “Your pain was never appreciated. You could have simply died young and beautiful without having to bring her into the world.”

  The mirror rippled into a liquid surface and showed another live scene of Snow White in the future, wearing her white dress and walking barefoot in a garden of purple and yellow poppies. Men of all ages watched her with longing eyes in the background; knights, huntsmen, and princes as one of the servants placed a crown on Snow White’s head; the Queen’s crown.

  “Sooner or later,” Bloody Mary said. “Snow White will be the fairest of them all by feeding on your pain.”

  The movie in the mirror showed Snow White walking into a cemetery, now wearing warrior armor stained in blood, thousands of vampires lying dead at her feet. She stomped over an abandoned grave that was left behind with no care. Snow White kneeled down and touched the tombstone. Upon it, Carmilla’s name was engraved:

  Carmilla Karnstein

  The Queen of Sorrow

  1
777 - 1812

  The Snow White in the mirror laughed in a tone very different from the way she laughed in real life. It was an evil tone. “I killed her,” she said. “I killed them all; I rid the world of all vampires, including my beastly mother.”

  Carmilla shielded her face with her hands from the mirror. “No,” she said. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Bloody Mary wondered. “She is the chosen one, the Dhampir girl. It’s foretold in ancient books that she will be half human, half vampire, with extraordinary powers, royal blood, and undeniable beauty. She, your daughter, Snow white, will be the end of vampires in this world, for she will be become a deadly hunter, and a legendary savior of the world of humans. Even if she doesn’t, you will die soon when you start aging again and die because only one of you can live like the prophecy says.

  “What do you mean age?” Carmilla’s face tightened. “This can’t be true. Angel tuned me into a half-vampire. I’m not supposed to age anymore.”

  “Is that true, my dear Queen?” Bloody Mary mocked her.

  The mirror then rippled again and showed Angel talking to the gypsies about her illness before transforming her into a half-vampire. The gypsies told him that Carmilla’s transformation was irreversible, and that turning her into a half-vampire was only going to save her for so long. Sooner or later, she’d start aging at a rapid rate until she would eventually die. There was no way Carmilla could escape her fate as long as her daughter lived. Angel had lied to her.

  “I can’t believe this,” Carmilla buried her face in her hands, crying so hard her body shook. “I can’t believe Angel lied to me.”

  “See?” Bloody Mary said. “You, my dear, are one of us now.”

  “One of you?” Carmilla frowned, lifting her head.

  “One of the Sorrows, the original ones,” Bloody Mary said. “You will become a vampire and you’ll belong to the Sorrows. Being a half-vampire does not ensure your youth and immortality. Sooner or later, you’ll need to complete your transformation in order to save yourself. Only then will you become the real Queen of Sorrow, ruler of the kingdom and ruler of your fate.”

  Carmilla’s eyes yellowed and her cheeks were flooding with black tears. “Who are you?” she asked the mirror.

  “I’m the one who can give you what you want, your majesty. You could have everything,” Bloody Mary said. “If you want to stay beautiful each day of your life—and stay alive—to experience the real powers a vampire queen should enjoy, be strong enough to face your daughter when she reaches the age of sixteen, and stop allowing her to suck away your energy. All you need to do is taste human blood.”

  The images in the mirror turned back to the other vampire women, now swimming in the blood of their victims. Carmilla watched them. She licked her lips and ran her tongue over her fangs. The women were bathing in blood and honey, bending their bodies in total ecstasy. The mixture was healing the wounds on their skin, infusing sparkle into their eyes, and toning their smooth skin, making them look even younger than the young girls they had bitten.

  Suddenly, Carmilla snapped, her face returning to normal. “No,” she said, taking a step forward toward the mirror as if wanting to fist fight it. “If only one of us can live, it should be her. I’ll die for her.”

  But Carmilla’s words were meaningless. Bloody Mary reached her scarred hands out of the mirror and pulled the Queen inside.

  “Enough,” Snow White said next to Loki with tears in her eyes. “I can’t take this, but I had to show you.”

  “What happened to Carmilla?” Loki asked. Carmilla had been sucked into the mirror and was nowhere to be found in the room. He could only see the mirror’s surface turning red and hear screams behind it, as if the mirror contained a world of its own behind its glass.

  “She came back as someone else,” Snow White said, “someone…evil.” The first thing she did was feed on the poor young peasant girls of Sorrow to complete her transformation as a vampire.”

  Loki stood speechless. He was overwhelmed and confused. Part of him wanted to sympathize with Carmilla, and part of him couldn’t imagine the endless young girls she was about to kill. Loki imagined that this turned Carmilla into a vicious vampire eventually, and that she must have really tried to kill her daughter later. If only Snow White hadn’t gotten so emotional, he’d have asked her about what happened next.

  “It’s OK.” Loki told Snow White. “You don’t have to show me more. I understand. Just bury your worries in my arms.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Snow White sobbed. “You have to see the final scene of the dream.”

  The Wind of Change was transferring them to the final scene, which was where the dream had all started, back in Carmilla’s bathhouse.

  “Do I really have to see this?” Loki said, standing in the bathhouse already. Loki pulled Snow White closer and hugged her tightly, chest to chest, heart to heart, and didn’t let go of her. Even if he had to see this, he didn’t want Snow White to watch the horror again, so he buried her face in his chest.

  “Just close your eyes as the scene passes,” Loki said. It still confused him why she insisted to show him the bathhouse memory. Was it about that thing he felt she wanted to tell him but couldn’t?

  “Everything changed after that day,” Snow White said in a muffled voice. “My mother made her full transformation into a vampire. Her craving for blood grew stronger. She bathed in blood of young peasant girls she’d lured into the Schloss. They were poor girls, orphaned, lost, looking for work and for a better life; young girls who were naively excited about meeting the enchanting Queen of Sorrow. She fed on their youth. The girls grew old instantly, and she gained their youthfulness. She’d become a beautiful vampire who sucked not only blood, but youth.”

  Loki saw the Queen bathing in the blood of young girls she had just bitten. She sank her body into the apple-shaped tub full of blood, milk, and dark chocolate. She laid her head back and inhaled deep through her nostrils, and let out a long sigh of relief, staining the steamy air with circles of vapor.

  Loki wondered why chocolate and milk with blood? Was this some youth preservation ritual?

  But that wasn’t of importance now. He couldn’t believe his eyes, seeing this new Carmilla, having turned into a monster that only looked beautiful on the outside. The way she lay in the bathtub, enjoying it, was as if she was devoid of all heart and soul. She didn’t care about the girls she killed. She didn’t even flinch or feel sorry for them. She loved killing them, feeding on their youth and bathing in their elixir of life.

  Loki tried to avoid staring too long at the horrible scene. He imagined there were dead girls—now old—lying on the floor somewhere and he was grateful he didn’t see them or he’d have ended up screaming and he didn’t want his presence to manifest itself in the dream. This newly turned Queen would be more than happy to kill him and Snow White in this dream. His eyes caught silhouettes of the poor girls on the floor, and his brain refused to comprehend. It was just a dream, he told himself. He’d wake up with Snow White when the Waker’s sand finished falling, and they’d both be both alright.

  “My mother started breaking the spells she had created on the borders to occupy my father with the exhausting war against vampires. It diverted the locals from digging deeper into the mystery of the disappearing young women, focusing on the war instead. They thought the disappearances were caused by the few vampires sneaking into the kingdom.”

  The Queen stood up in the tub. The servants covered her body with a white robe with pearls sewn into it. She pulled it closer with her chin up, sniffing the scent of blood and steam, feeling the power of youth running in her veins. A servant handed her the crown and she put it on her head before the servant started braiding it into her hair again. Another servant rolled her favorite mirror back into the bathhouse. The Queen stared at herself in it. Although her lips dripped with blood and her body was covered in it the mirror deceived her with the most beautiful reflection. The Queen’s mout
h curved slowly into a victorious smile. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” she said slowly.

  “It’s Mary, Mary, on the wall, my Queen,” Bloody Mary said happily.

  “Who is the fairest of them all?” the Queen of Sorrow asked again.

  “Finally, she could see her reflection in the mirror and indulge in her vanity,” Snow White narrated as Loki watched. “And of course, no matter how I sucked on her energy, she’d become immune as long as she was one of them and slayed more girls.”

  “Horrible,” Loki said. “I just can’t believe this is the Carmilla who sacrificed everything for you and Angel.”

  “She needed more blood, more girls, and another bloodbath. Like people addicted to drugs, she was addicted to her beauty and youth in the mirror. Sometimes, I think it was the only way for her to forget her evil nature. What good was immortality if it was without youth and beauty?”

  “You my majesty are the fairest of them all,” Bloody Mary said.

  “Her cravings grew stronger and stronger,” Snow White continued. “And there were side effects of bathing in blood. The more she repeated the bloodbaths the more her skin and health deteriorated in the absence of the ceremonies. One bloodbath would gift her with three days—a week at most—of prosperous health and exceptional beauty. Then it was time for another bloodbath or she would grow older, faster than before.

  “Did she try to hurt you?” Loki asked, holding her tighter.

  “Not then,” Snow White said. “She became selfish, and her bloodbaths killed her true heart. She didn’t realize she had become a killer. Black holes filled her heart day by day, a step closer to turning her into the likes of my immortal grandfather, Night Sorrow. She denied my father her blood, claiming she had become weakened by the process and being tired of it; that he had to respect her wishes and find a another way to feed himself. She wanted him weakened and hesitant of his love for her and his need for her blood. And he was so busy with the war that he didn’t see the big picture or her terrible plans. And of course, she had little time for me. She grew more distant, looking at me in strange ways and avoiding conversation. I think she was trying to find a way to fight her cravings, but was worried about her sudden aging whenever she stopped the bloodbaths. And then…”