Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) (21 page)

Cerené, still clinging to her blowpipe ran as fast as she could.

Shew saw her disappear in the dark, staring at the covert new comer and hoping she was not lying to her.

The cloaked girl was right. She began feeling a bit dizzy, and considered a sign that the dream would shift soon.

But before that happened, Shew asked the girl one last thing, “who are you?”

“My name is Alice,” the girl pulled the hood back. “Alice Wilhelm Carl Grimm. I was sent here by Wilhelm.”

24

A Slash from the Past

“Fable!” Axel screamed and ran toward his sister as she had suddenly collapsed on the floor.

 “What’s wrong with you, sis?” Axel pulled her up into his arms, holding her tightly. Like usual, he tried CPR with her, still convinced he was good at it, but she was breathing, just not responding well. Her eyes turned half-white and then she began shivering.

Axel slapped her on the cheek a couple of times, all the while apologizing for it being too hard. He offered her Sticky Sweet Bones, trying to force them into her mouth, thinking she fainted from lack of eating. For a moment he even blamed himself for eating too much and leaving too little for her to eat.

“How many times have I told you that you were too skinny?” Axel was about to cry. “You never listen to me. What’s wrong, Fable? Answer me.”

Fable, still shivering, was hallucinating and saying something Axel couldn’t understand. All kinds of ideas popped in his head at once. Should he pull his sister out of the Schloss and get her to a hospital? But how could he?  The Black Forest was too far away from the hospital to carry her the whole way, and although Carmen was just outside, she only worked when Loki drove her.

“OK,” Axel inhaled deeply. “I get it. You’re trying to worry me so I will confess to deleting the part in Loki’s Dreamhunter Guide about how to unlock the dream. If you wake up, I promise I will tell you everything,” he pleaded.

Fable was still shivering, mumbling undecipherable worlds.

“Please Fable, please!” Axel said. “All right, I’ll tell you what was written in Loki’s phone. The only way to unlock the dream is to—”

Suddenly, Fable gripped Axel’s arm so hard it whitened around her fingers. She tilted her head toward him and looked at him with white eyes as if possessed by a demon.

"Get your hands off me," she bellowed as if Axel was standing a great distance from her.

“What’s going on, sis?” Axel cried. “What’s happening to you,” he gazed sideways at the purple light, and saw it was throbbing with a bluish tint. “I bet it’s all because you’ve been too close to that stupid light. I told you not to stay close, sis. When will you ever listen to me? When will you ever learn that I love you more than anything?”

Fable’s neck twisted backwards as if someone had pulled her hair. This time, she looked like she needed his help, hanging onto him. The color of her eyes changed to a bluish purple, the color of the Dream Temple’s protective light.

"Get your hands off me," she repeated. She sounded weakened and hurt then she uttered other incoherent words about a little boy, a little girl, and a Huntsman.

“What are you saying, sis? I don’t understand!” Axel held her tighter, unable to understand what was happening. He noticed Fable was bleeding from her shoulder as if some invisible force had punctured it with the tip of a knife.

Finally, she uttered a coherent sentence, but he didn’t know what it meant.  At least the words were understandable, "You're the Queen's bastard!" Fable howled in outrage. “Get out of Furry Tell,” she added in one last breath before her head and arms fell back.

25

The Name of the Necklace

After her encounter with Alice Grimm, Shew thought she’d wake up in her room again, but she didn’t.

She woke up in the World Between Dreams.

She was standing in the middle of the poppy fields as a soft wind circled her with its tender touch. The world was beautiful again, and she longed to stay there forever. She stretched her arms to her sides and let her head fall back, inhaling her surroundings as the sun kissed her softly on the forehead.

It’s going to be alright, Shew. Nothing can go wrong as long as you’re here.

She wondered how the World Between Dreams was so much better than the dreams themselves. There was no hint of darkness, no implication of evil, and not the tiniest scent of malice. This was Shew’s personal and discreet wonderland, a place better than life and death, better than reality, a place of her own imagination—Loki’s imagination.

“You’re not paying attention, Shew.”

In the distance, she saw Loki, dressed in white like an angel, but also spattered with thin, almost invisible, lines of blood. The sun shone directly on his face. Shew couldn’t see it clearly. The light was too glaring, but she’d known him from his voice, from the way he walked, and from his scent. It wasn’t an evil scent this time. It was a weakened one, desperate and confused.

“Loki,” she said. “Why am I here again?”

“I’m trying to tell you something,” Loki’s voice was shattered like shards of glass lost in the air.

“I know,” she took a step forward.

“Don’t come near me,” he urged her. “I might look handsome from afar, not so much if you come closer and see my face.”

“Listen,” Shew stopped, arching her back a little as if her body disobeyed her, wanting to get closer to Loki. “I’ve seen what you have done, the children you killed. I remember you, Loki. I know about the darkness that’s weighing on your shoulders. But guess what, we’re all like that. We all have done bad things.”

“Not like me,” Loki said, his voice colorless, not evil, but dead as if his vocal cords were hollow pipes.

“No, you don’t understand. We’re all like you. You’re just making a big deal of it because you’re a half-angel. Everybody in Sorrow is like you, everybody in the world. None of us is pure goodness,” Shew shrugged. She thought she should be the last one giving him advice. In fact, she sometimes felt as guilty as he did.

“You’re talking too much,” Loki said. “I can’t hold this World Between Dreams for long. I’m bound to Carmilla through the Fleece. Anything I do, she sees. All but this World Between Dreams because it’s a special and private place deep within me,” Loki explained. “So don’t waste time, listen to me.”

She nodded obediently.

“Like I said, you’re not paying attention in this dream,” Loki said. “Did you read the necklace I gave you?”

“I tried, Loki,” she said. “Believe me, I tried, but it’s not making any sense. Why can’t you just say it?”

“Love is not about words, Shew,” Loki said. “If you can’t use your heart, mind and soul then love means nothing. It’s just like when Cerené showed you that her magic needed Heart, Brain, and Soul. If you use these things, you’ll be able to read the pendant on the necklace.”

“I’m trying, Loki,” Shew almost stomped her feet. “But it’s unreadable,” Shew felt a burning in her eyes. She was resisting tearing up. She raised the circle-shaped pendant on the necklace closer to inspect it. “It looks like an engraving, and I tried to read it in every which way.

“That’s because you’re only looking at what’s right in front of your eyes, Shew,” Loki said as his image began to fade. “We always think the truth lies just in front of us.  It’s the same when we judge people by their looks, a building by its façade, and a book by its cover. If we only take the time and flip things around, we’ll see a clearer picture. You’re not looking at it deep enough. It’s much easier that you think.”

“Loki, you sound so…” Shew couldn’t believe this was the boy whose favorite phrase was ‘My name is Loki Blackstar and I’m here to kick your ass.’ So there is something else to the necklace that I’m not seeing? I promise you I’ll find it,” she took it off and placed it in the palm of her hand, still unsure about what he was hinting at.

When she raised her head back to ask him, Loki was gone. The World Between Dreams was ending for the second time, and she hadn’t made good use of it.

As it faded, it crossed her mind to flip the necklace on its back. That’s when she saw the flipside of the puzzle. Another indecipherable engraving:

The world spun around Shew, and she was ready to go back to the Dreamory, wondering if she’d meet Alice Grimm again. She wanted to ask her what the heck was going on.

26

A Way Out

“It’s alright, Shew,” the voice said. “You’re safe now.”

Shew forced herself to see through the blurriness, already recognizing the voice. It was Alice Grimm, the mysterious girl sent by Wilhelm.

“Just breathe in and out, slowly, and your heart rate will ease. You’ve been through a lot in this dream,” Alice said. “You’ll be alright. I promise.”

Alice’s face began taking shape in front of her. She was Cerené’s age, blonde with an ordinary smile and fair skin. She had simple features that made her look almost like every other girl in the Waking World. Alice wasn’t immortal or a fairy tale character. She was only seventeen years old, and she had that Waking World vibe about her. She could tell Alice had not seen much of the old world. If she hadn’t been a descendant of the Grimms, she’d still be thinking Snow White was that giddy girl lost in the forest awaiting Prince Charming’s kiss.

Unlike Shew, Alice hadn’t experienced war or killings. Alice hadn’t been there when TV was first invented—Shew was trapped in the castle but a teenager had stolen a set and brought over to please his girlfriend. Alice hadn’t been there when man landed on the moon, or when they first invented sliced bread—Shew remembered it clearly because it happened in 1912, exactly a hundred years after her doomed sixteenth birthday.

“Where am I?” Shew said, touching the back of her head. “I don’t suppose any other Chosen One faints quite the way I do,” she muttered.

“We’re in Carmilla’s bathhouse,” Alice said. “You’re in the Queen’s bed where she gets her massages by her favorite goblins.”

“And where she slaughters all the innocent girls,” Shew added.

“I didn’t want to bring it up,” Alice said. “Don’t worry. No one is using the bathhouse at the moment. We’re alone, but we have to move fast.”

“So this is how this dream works, whenever Cerené leaves me, I get transported to another time?”

“Yes, because Loki used the Phoenix Incubator. It’s practically Cerené’s dream, seen through your eyes,” Alice said, “a neat and devious trick on Carmilla’s part.”

“So Cerené was really my childhood friend?” Shew asked.

“Very true,” Alice nodded.

“Then why don’t I remember her?” Shew said.

Alice hesitated for a moment, “because Cerené is one of the Lost Seven you split your heart with.”

“I already figured that out,” Shew sat up, stretching her neck against the pain. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“Charmwill Glimmer,” Alice said then pursed her lips.

“What about Charmwill?” She wondered.

“He helped you forget the identities and stories of the Lost Seven,” Alice explained. “He used one of his Oblivion Spells on you when you were sixteen.”

“Why did he do that?”

“It was with your permission,” Alice sighed and leaned closer to her, “to protect them from the Queen of Sorrow. Charmwill was worried Carmilla would easily pressure you as a mother, or even read your mind. The only way for her not to know, was if
you
didn’t know.”

“Then why did I re-remember Cerené in this dream? Shouldn’t she be wiped out of my memories?” Shew said.

“Good point,” Alice explained, sounding as if she was in a hurry. “In fact, you should have met some of the Lost Seven in this memory, but you couldn’t remember them because they were wiped out of your memory. In Cerené’s case, Loki, with Carmilla as guide, used the Power of Names on you to bring back Cerené’s memory. He used the name…”

“The Phoenix, I get it now,” Shew said.

“Exactly. That’s why Charmwill’s spell broke, and you’re remembering everything that happened between you and Cerené in the past.”

“Does this explain why I am not capable of seeing the moon or mermaid who gave Cerené the Mermaid Milk?” Shew wondered. “Are they one of the Lost Seven, maybe?”

“Could be,” Alice said. “I don’t know who the Lost Seven are. I only know Cerené is one,” Alice said.

“Which brings us to you, Alice,” Shew eyed her. “I really have to ask how you know all of this.”

“I told you I’m Alice Grimm, a descendant of the Grimms,” Alice sounded impatient about it.   Shew had a sneaking suspicion Alice wasn’t telling her everything she knew. “Wilhelm Grimm sent me to help you,” she said.

“Why Wilhelm? I noticed you never mention Jacob, Aren’t you a descendant of him, too?” Shew questioned.

“I am,” Alice said, “but Jacob is on the Queen’s side. Wilhelm is on ours. It’s a very old war between the two, but we really don’t have the time to talk about it.”

Shew didn’t care about the ticking clock in Alice’s head. As far as Shew knew, she had no reason to hurry. Shew intended to ask Alice a lot of questions, but then she noticed something that got her angry and instantly she wanted to choke Alice.