Blood Apples (2 page)

“Never heard of her.”

“That’s better. She is deadly. And it would be good for you if she hasn’t heard of you either,” Gretel put a thoughtful finger on her mouth. “But she is also my friend.”

“How so?”

“It’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain it. You ask too many questions,” Gretel said. “Forget about Death. What you need to know is
who
turned the apples into golden apples.”

“Who?” I shrugged. “I hope this is not considered too many questions.”

“Pomona,” Gretel said with a wide smile on her face. “She is the Goddess of Fruits and the Keeper of the Forest. She forbade this forest from using the color red, conspiring with the kingdom to kill Death, who wore a red cloak and held a scythe and walked around killing people.”

“Death wore red?” I asked. I didn’t want to say that we were talking about Death again, instead of the apples. I assumed there was connection.

“She is called
Red
Riding Hood. Isn’t she?” Gretel looked at me as if I were stupid. “Pomona prohibited the color red from the forest, so it would be easier to hunt down Death.”

“So whenever I get to see a flash of anything red, I should know that it was Death, right?”

“You’re starting to get it,” She nodded.

“But I heard that many people in the Kingdom of Sorrow were immortals.” I wondered.

“They are, but not if killed by Death,” Gretel explained. “Now if you excuse me, I am busy. I have to study, help my brother, and make bread for my parents. I am going to be a witch too, but a good one.” Gretel said and walked away. I didn’t see her again until some time later when things got more complicated. That was three months before Snow White turned sixteen, when her mother, the Queen of Sorrow, decided to ban her outside the castle.

Whatever disease – or dark spirit – possessed Snow White, I still used to visit her secretly in her castle, unable to stop myself from whatever drew me closer to her. My whole existence was under her spell. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or enjoy my life as a youthful prince if I didn’t see her every now and then.

Snow White was kept a prisoner by her parents, who tried to conceal her demonic nature from the rest of the kingdom. They had been doing this for years, waiting for their daughter’s sixteenth birthday, the age when she would be cured. It was prophesized, and later we knew that the prophecy was only lies, like all the other lies that surrounded us.

But Snow White was growing stronger, and controlling her monstrous nature was almost impossible.

The Queen of Sorrow, who had changed from a warm-hearted Godmother to something more sinister at the time, had to find a way to imprison her daughter until she reached the prophesized age. It was rumored that the Queen of Sorrow – whose real name we shall never say for reasons beyond my knowledge – was into witchcraft and dark arts at the time. The kingdom was chained to a ruthless war with the bloodsucking creatures repeatedly trying to breach the borders to get inside. We called the creatures ‘vampires’ at the time, but they turned out to be a lot more than that – if we only knew.

It was rumored that the vampires were trying to breach the borders to get to Snow White, who was considered to be one of them in matters of her monstrous nature.

The Queen used dark arts to fight the vampires. It always puzzled me which side the Queen was on. Was she good or was she evil? I only knew for sure many years later.

The Kingdom of Sorrow turned into a horrific place to live. There was Death roaming the forest, a devious queen and daughter ruling it, and bloodsucking creatures trying to get in. I shouldn’t have been there, but I was because of my love for Snow White.

I was in love with a beautiful monster.

So the Queen consulted Rumpelstiltskin, who usually came up with quirky solutions for everything as long as people provided him with enough children. But Rumpelstiltskin seemed oblivious to solutions this time; so was the Devil, who had developed a habit of avoiding the Queen at all costs. It was rumored that he was scared of the Queen’s mirror, which I thought was absurd. Why would the Devil be scared, and of a mirror?

It was the Queen’s mirror that came up with the solution, though. It advised her to ban Snow White to the tallest tower in the Kingdom of Sorrow, a tower called Rudaba in the darkest place of the Black Forest, where a girl with golden hair lived.

The tower’s keeper, a fortuneteller named Dame Gothel, held the golden-haired girl as a prisoner. No one knew why. They said the girl in the tower was just another monster girl like Snow White, only with witchcraft powers. I didn’t know if it was her true name, but they called her Rapunzel, named after a poisonous plant that grew at the base of the tower and protected it from intruders.

The Queen of Sorrow promised Dame Gothel a goose that laid golden eggs if she managed to imprison Snow White inside the tower until her sixteenth birthday. Snow White was transferred to the tower, and the
witchy
Rapunzel kept her from escaping in exchange for food from Dame Gothel.

A week later, my passion for seeing Snow White was unbearable. I had to save her. I had to. I didn’t care for whatever monster she was. Although I might have been only a slave to her bite, I didn’t care. I couldn’t live without her, and I had to free her.

But the Tower of Rudaba was high in the clouds, penetrating the sky and rising higher than the tallest tree in the forest where the Goddess Pomona lived and ruled the forest.

There were no doors or stairs in the tower. Only one small window where Rapunzel peeked out occasionally for reasons I didn’t know. I heard she had a heavenly voice that deceived travelers into trying to help her out but the plants ate them alive.

Another rumor I heard was that Rapunzel tricked Dame Gothel, putting herself under a spell that allowed her hair to grow faster and stronger than any other girl in the world. She was waiting for her hair to grow long enough so she could use it as a rope to climb down the tower, and free herself. That’s why Dame Gothel added black crows, fluttering atop of castle, picking on Rapunzel if she looked out of the window for too long. And even if Rapunzel surpassed the crows, she couldn’t escape the plants she was named after.

It was impossible to get up there to save Snow White. I had to ask for help, and I knew I could only get help from someone as devious as all of those who lived in the Kingdom of Sorrow.

It was hard to know who is who in this kingdom. I mean all this time here and I didn’t know whom to root for, who was the enemy and who was the friend. Everyone had a demon inside. I guess it was all about controlling the demon and choosing your destiny. I decided I needed someone who could fly to reach for the tower’s window, and I didn’t care if they were good or evil. All I cared for was saving Snow White.

In the end, I was advised to look for a young thief who stole gold, jewelry, and all kinds of things from almost everyone in Sorrow. I told myself if that boy could fly, then he was the one I needed. But no one really confirmed that boy could fly. They said that the boy could surely reach for the clouds, though.

The boy’s name was Jack, and people insisted on adding the phrase, ‘and the beanstalk’ after naming him. I wasn’t told what Jack’s talent was exactly, but I was told it was hard to find him. For one, he was a thief, and thieves were masters of disguise. And two, it was rumored that he slept in the clouds.

“Wow. The clouds?” I wondered. “That’s my man. If he can get that high, I need him to help save someone. So how can I find him?” I asked Gretel, who seemed irritated with me, trying to work a new spell she had just learned.

“Jack’s best friends are Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty,” Gretel told me.

“Sleeping Beauty?” I remarked. “I heard her beauty was heartbreaking. Can she help?”

“Better not,” Gretel told me. “You look like a nice boy, and you keep asking about the
wrong
girls,” I hadn’t told her I was a prince of the neighboring kingdom yet. “Sleeping Beauty is a little feisty for you. Let’s say she’s not your type. Peter Pan doesn’t live here anymore, although he
is
the boy who can really fly.”

“If they are of no use, why did you tell me about them?” I asked.

“Was just messing with you, cute boy,” Gretel said and left me again for her witchcraft studies. She had turned her brother into gingerbread and was trying to get him back to normal. This kingdom’s quirkiness was starting to get on my nerves.

The day after, I was standing before the tower, far enough from the Rapunzel plants, still trying to figure out what to do.

“I heard you’re looking for me,” A voice said from behind. When I turned around, I saw a scruffy boy with shoulder-length brown hair. He was wearing a hat with a white feather in it.

“You’re Jack?” I suggested.

“It depends on who’s asking.” He said, leaning to a tree and cutting a golden apple with a knife.

“I am prince of—“

“That’s good enough,” He raised his knife in the air and lifted his head up, showing his eyes from under his green hat. “Prince means you could pay for my services.”

“Services?” I asked. “You’re a—“

“A thief?” He laughed and bit a chunk of the apple. “It’s a job like any other. If we don’t have thieves, then what’s the authority for? If you want to have people to infuse discipline in the kingdom, you better have those who create chaos first. And we wouldn’t want to put them out of their jobs. They need someone to catch, right?”

“Nevermind…”

“I like that word, ‘Nevermind’. If only everyone would mind their own business—which reminds me of
business.
Let’s do some of that. I want a chicken that provides golden eggs.”

“You mean a goose, right?”

“Chicken, goose, elephant. It’s doesn’t matter as long as it lays golden eggs. Besides, an elephant egg would be too big to carry.”

“Why golden eggs?” I was always puzzled by that. Also, I didn’t bother telling him that elephants didn’t lay eggs. “I could just give you a ridiculous amount of gold.”

“You ask too many questions,” He said, throwing the apple away and staring high at the dark tower. “Did anyone tell you that before?”

“A girl named Grete—“

“Shh,” Jack said, walking closer to the tower, and I followed him “You want to go up there, don’t you?” He whispered.

“Yes. Why are you whispering?”

“Dame Gothel, the keeper of the tower,” Jack still whispered. “Not really a nice lady. She could curse us if she hears us.”

“You know her?”

“Of course,” Jack nods, looking up at the small window with the yellow light shining from it. “You’ve heard about Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Heard of him.”

“So here is the thing. Rumpy steals kids and sends them to the Devil, who has a school that graduates other nasty little devils like him. Sometimes, the Devil decides he wants to get rid of a couple of kids so he throws them back down here for Dame Gothel to do whatever she wants with them. I had a dear friend named Peter Pan whom she caught, too, but Peter gave her one hell of a lesson and freed the kids, sending them back to Neverland, somewhere far away. Such an awesome boy. It’s sad that he fell in love with a monster girl.”

“Oh,” I scratched my temples, remembering that I was in love with a monster, too.

“You’re not in love with a monster girl, too?” Jack said, picking up boulders from the ground.

“Actually, I am,” I tried not to blush. “That’s why I asked for you.”

“Love is such a terrible thing,” Jack fiddled with the boulders in his hands. “A
sweet
terrible thing. So the rumors are true, eh? You’re the prince Snow White bit when she was seven. Am I right or am I right?”

“You know?”

“You’ll be surprised what I know,” Jack smirked. “I don’t just go into people’s houses stealing jewelry. I steal secrets too. Too bad you can’t sell those for a price.”