Blood Apples (5 page)

“I love you,” He told her, and slapped her slightly on the fishy butt. “I love your behind, girl,” He mumbled.

“I will keep her safe with me,” She turned to talk to me. “Where should I tell her to meet you?”

I was speechless, confused by all that was happening.

“Tell her to meet him by the Avalon Tree in the forest,” Jack suggested. I nodded helplessly. “I can’t think of a better place for them to reunite but where the goddess Pomona herself lives.”

“Stay strong,” Marmalade told me, squeezing my hand before jumping off the cloud down the sky as if diving into familiar waters. Even though I didn’t know a lot about mermaids, I couldn’t imagine any arms safer than Marmalade’s to protect Snow White.

“Now it’s time to run away before that nasty big thing kills us,” Jack said and we started running away.

“Couldn’t Marmalade take us with her?” I wondered.

“Don’t be greedy, Prince Charming,” Jack said over his shoulder. “She has to take care of your girl and that’s a lot.”

“So you and Marmalade are lovers?”

“Not always,” Jack said, jumping over a hedge in the clouds. The giant troll seemed to be farther now.

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“It means she lives in the water and I live in the clouds,” Jack said. “It’s like a long distance relationship, so whenever we can meet on earth, we’re together. Other than that, she can do whatever pleases her. Pretty romantic, right?”

“Didn’t take you for a romantic boy,” I commented.

“I’m not. I just know what romance is. There is a difference.”

“Why the hell does a girl like Marmalade even love you?” I said, panting.

“It’s the green hat. Girls always go after the hat.”

“You’re unbearable,” I shook my head.

“Oh. It’s the beans? Not the hat?”

“Nevermind, Jack.”

“I told you I love you when you say that,” Jack stopped at another Beanstalk. “Now it’s time to climb down.”

“And what about the big troll? Will he follow us down there?” I asked, climbing down after Jack.

“That’s why we must burn the tree once we get down.”

At the base of the tree, Jack actually lit it on fire and took my by hand to some cave where tens of children resided. They all looked poor and covered in dirt, and they hugged Jack once they saw him. I stood by the entrance, rolling my eyes. Who was that boy, really?

“So you steal for the poor children?” I had to ask after Jack played with the kids for a while.

“Not just the kids,” Jack smirked. “Sometimes I steal for the dead.”

“The dead?”

“How many dead people do you know who have had they lives stolen by others? I don’t just steal for the poor. Sometimes, I bring things back to the sons and daughters of the now-dead,” Jack stopped, adjusting his hat. “Well, sometimes I steal for myself. Now, if you don’t mind, you shouldn’t be here. You have a monster to meet under the Avalon Tree.”

“You’re not coming with me?” I wondered.

“I am not fond of monster girls. I like them naked and wet.”

“And don’t you want your gold?”

“I am sure you’ll bring it to me once you meet with Snow White. Or I’ll have to steal your parents’ castle. Now go, loverboy.”

I left Jack’s cave and walked through the dark of the forest, thinking about Snow White all the way. It seemed like a miracle that I had saved her from the Queen’s prison in the tower. Was it possible that I would finally meet with her again?

As I walked, tired and thirsty, through the forest I wondered about what Jack had said. Was I evil, being in love with Snow White? I didn’t know, but the golden apples in the forest answered that question for me, shimmering in the night. I thought it was a great sign, encouraging me to keep on going even though I was really tired.

In the distance, I saw the Avalon Tree glittering in the dark, and I wondered if I had arrived too soon before Snow White.

But when I came closer I found out that I was late enough to lose her. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I approached the glass coffin in the middle of the forest. It was another coffin than the one she was trapped in, and I understood that so so much happened while I was away from. But really happened to her?

The glass coffin was half-filled with water, and Snow White floated inside, breathless, pale, and silent.

I sank to my knees next to her, wondering what had happened. Looking around, I found no one. There were only thousands of red petals falling from the sky as if someone had just murdered a thousand  roses.

Reaching for Snow White’s dead face, I saw red liquid trickling down from her lips. Even though she was dead, and it wasn’t appropriate to want to kiss her, I decided I would. I was doomed anyway, left without the girl I loved, whether she was a monster or an angel, I was left alone to die   a slow and boring death without her.

I bent down and tasted her lips for one last time, still wondering how she died. Did Marmalade deceive us after all?

As I tasted Snow White’s blood red lips, I discovered that the red liquid trickling down her cheeks wasn’t blood. It was the juice from the inside of a poisoned apple, like the one Jack had showed me.

But who did that to Snow White? Who gave her that apple? Why did she even take it?

Wait.

I was too late.

I had poisoned myself as well by kissing her, and now I was destined to lay dead beside her. The world started to dim around me, blackening into oblivion, and I didn’t know if I should feel betrayed by whomever poisoned us both or be glad to be with my dead lover. But maybe that wasn’t that bad. Maybe I’ll end up with the girl I loved in a better world where apples were red and sweet, and love was not surmounted by good and evil. Love was just love, not caring about who you were because once it found you, it changed everything.

That last thought painted smiling lips on my face as I sprawled down on the ground, dying in peace.

As I lay on my back, an angel was staring back. I thought I died and came back to life again. The angel’s white light filled the space around me, and she looked at me tentatively the way mothers look at their children. When I sat up, I saw that she stood in front of the Avalon Tree. In fact, she looked a beautiful ghost who’d just came from the tree itself.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Pomona,” She answered with serene eyes. I had never seen her before.

“So I am not dead?” I wondered.

“You were,” She nodded. “But now you’re resurrected.”

“How so?” I had to ask.

“The poison in the apples didn’t last long enough for you to die. You were much stronger than that.”

“So Snow White didn’t die too?” I wondered.

“It’s complicated,” Pomona said. “Snow White was poisoned by the Queen of Sorrow. She disguised herself as an old hag and gave Snow White one of the poisoned apples while Snow White was waiting for you here.”

“So it’s my fault. I was late—“

“Not your fault, son,” Pomona said calmly. “The Queen knew the poison will only put Snow White to sleep, long enough to come back again with her huntsmen to imprison Snow White again. But then you showed up and thought she were dead and kissed her. Unfortunately, the poison put you into a breathless sleep. It’s the effect of the apple. It makes you look like you’re dead when you’re only in deep sleep.”

“But why didn’t Snow White wake up?” I asked, staring at her in the glass coffin.

“She did, my son,” Pomona nodded. “But she thought you were dead and…”

“And what?”

“She decided that living without you wasn’t worth it, and she wanted to be with you,” Pomona said. She was the first women to acknowledge Snow White’s love for me without calling her a monster. “So she stabbed herself with a sword, killing herself, wanting to be with you in the afterlife.”

“She did that for
me
?” I was never sure of Snow White’s feelings.

Pomona nodded.

“But I thought she was immortal. How did she die?” I touched Snow White’s cold and pale face. Her body was floating in the coffin with a sword stabbed in her heart.

“Not when stabbed in the heart,” Pomona said.

“So she’s gone?”

“Forever,” Pomona said. “You’re a young prince and could have a great life. I suggest you forget about her and ride back to your kingdom, and cherish the memory of her. It would be foolish if you tried to kill yourself to be with her because I don’t think she is in a good place now. Use the power of your love for her to do something good in the world.”

“I thought I’d spend my life with her,” I mumbled to myself.

“She’ll always be there with you in your heart,” Pomona explained.

“How do you know that?” I almost snapped at her.

“It’s called—“

“Love?”

“No,” Pomona shook her head slightly. “It’s called Adage.”

I remembered what Marmalade had said about Adage, and it made me want to kill myself to be with Snow White again. But Pomona’s motherly advice seemed to make sense. Maybe I had to keep Snow White’s memory with me forever. I killed myself for her, and so did she. There was no denying we did our best, but maybe I wasn’t ready for the dark place she went to. As Jack had said, I was in love with a monster, and although I couldn’t live without her, dying with her was just as hard.

“You think I should walk away?” I asked Pomona. “You think this is the right thing to do?”

Pomona nodded calmly, “It would be better if you walked away before the Queen of Sorrow arrives.”

As I turned around to walk away, I noticed all apples in the forest had been turned back into the color red. What had happened?

“Why are the apples red all of a sudden?” I turned back to Pomona. “It’s the forbidden color.”

“When Snow White stabbed herself, her blood spattered all over the apples in the Avalon Tree, staining the gold with red. Since you both surpassed all expected kinds of Adage by killing yourself to be with one another, I was moved – like all the gods were moved – by your story, and I decided to honor your love with turning the apples that poisoned you to be red and sweet forever.”

I was speechless again. My love for Snow White moved the gods and they changed the color of a fruit?

“But that means that catching Death is going to be harder now?” I said.

“Let it be,” Pomona waved her wings. “Death is eventual, a nature’s call, and it happens everyday.
Adage
, true love, isn’t, and it needs human strength to live with its enchanting yet sorrowful consequences. It deserves to be appreciated for it’s not easy and needs human will, strength, and heart. It doesn’t matter how many people die in the world, as long as there are the few who know how to love and live. The power of love, however little, is enough to balance with all the death around us.”

I walked away that day, wanting to tell everyone how Snow White and I had changed the world. With every step farther, I was leaving my monster girl forever behind. I picked a blood red apple on the way and took a bite. I closed my eyes, feeling the taste on my lips. It was the taste of Snow White’s lips, and it will be forever tasted by the rest of the world without them knowing it. Because of me and Snow White, no one will ever be poisoned by apples again.