Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (12 page)

24

Cinder was
an ashen girl, dressed in tattered cloth, and her skin was not only covered in
cinder
but
glazed with it, as if she had never washed.
She paced briefly before me and then sat in front of a clay pot near an oven,
flaring with so much heat I had to back away a little. I noticed she limped
when she walked, but I was told not to ask much. Cinder sat with her blowpipe
next to the oven, uninterested in our presence. Amalie had told me Cinder
resembled a Phoenix on the way to her small cottage at the shores of Murano.
Her curling hair atop and behind her head made her look like one.
Fiery, unmistakable hair, hardly affected by the cinder, although
it had been exposed to it many times.

"Please
sit down as I finish my Art," she said, and continued blowing the blowpipe
into the fire. Amalie had told me they suspected Cinder had lived a thousand
lives, always ended by some fire known and documented by historians. There was
no evidence of it, though, and they doubted Cinder herself knew it. All Amalie
was sure of was that Cinder's mother had given birth to her in the thirteenth
century, a few weeks after she had escaped the Piper of Hamlin. To my surprise,
Cinder's mother was one of the Lost Seven who had escaped, like my father had
once told me. Still, I couldn't find my place in this centuries-long story—although
I know all about it now.

"Carmilla
needs an escape, a new life, with her lover Angel," Amalie told Cinder. "I
know you know the way to other realms."

Amalie had
told me Cinder only knew this because of her many lives and travels through
them. She had even told stories about the sixteenth-century burning of London,
although she never knew how she knew. All she said was that her mother had told
her—a mother by the name of Bianca, one of the first glassblowers
escaping to Murano, who had died centuries ago. Strangely, Cinder seemed to
think her mother had only died recently.

"The
ways to other worlds aren't through land," Cinder said. "You have to
cross the Seven Seas."

"The
Seven Seas lead to other realms?" I asked.

"They
lead to Lady Shallot in the Tower of Tales." She coughed. "I can
guide you on how to escape to the Seven Seas, but it will still be your
responsibility to find the Tower of Tales."

"What
is the Tower of Tales?" Amalie asked.

"Where
every tale ever told is documented, and where every new tale is written."
Cinder seemed annoyed by our ignorance.

"Tales
as in fantasy?" I said.

"Tales
as in story," Cinder answered. "Each life we live, each one of us is
a story. If we consider other's stories fantasies, then who says our own isn't
a fantasy too?"

Cinder
seemed to talk in riddles while remaining totally uninterested in them. She
also didn't look like one who should say these things. Frankly, I didn't
understand most of what she said, so I focused on what I needed to know. "Can
vampires reach the Tower of Tales?"

"I
have no idea," she said. "But once you reach it, Lady Shallot should
sew you a new realm from her ball of thread that weaves the worlds, and you can
always ask her not to let certain evils pass through."

"Thread?"
I asked reluctantly.

"Lady
Shallot lives in a room atop the Tower of Tales," Cinder said. "She's
lived there alone for centuries. Her only job is to create new worlds from the
magic of the thread she weaves."

Amalie
nodded, although I wanted to inquire more. "That sounds convenient,"
she said. "All Carmilla and her lover need
is
to
cross the Seven Seas and find the Tower of Tales and then ask for a new kingdom
to start a new life?"

"Finding
the tower isn't an easy task, as it changes its coordinates at sea all the time
to stay away from the Dark of the World," Cinder explained. "If you
don't find it, you will be lost in the Seven Seas, and maybe exposed to H—"
Cinder shrugged and put her blowpipe down for the first time.

"Him?"
I asked, remembering my conversation with the devil.

"Whatever
his name is, he lurks around the Seven Seas." Cinder glared at me,
obviously curious about how I knew about Him. But she dared not ask. "He
will push you so hard if you're lost at sea."

"Push
you for what?" Amalie skipped asking who "Him" was, since it was
apparent Cinder didn't want to talk about the subject.

"To
sell him your soul." Cinder's eyes reddened briefly, a shade of warning
orange. "But God help you not to cross his path."

"I
understand," Amalie said, as she nudged me not to ask more. But how was I
supposed to
cross seas
with Angel, not knowing what
kind of evil lurked in them? "So how does Carmilla get to cross the Seven
Seas?" Amalie asked.

"In
your situation, no ship will take you." Cinder finally looked at me. "They're
afraid of the vampires and their king. I have also heard about you and your
lover," she said. "Don't go on thinking that the world isn't after
you. I heard innocent people were promised a reward of seven years of free salt
for catching you both."

Amalie and
I exchanged thoughts. We hadn't known that.

"There
is only one ship that will take you," Cinder said. "You will work as
servants who clean the floor of the ship and make food for the crew."

"What
ship is that?" Amalie asked suspiciously.

"It's
called a whaler," Cinder replied. "It hunts whales."

"Why
would that ship take us on board?" I was curious to who would agree to
take two doomed lovers like
me and Angel
.

"Because
its captain is crazy," she said. "He is an insane man who is obsessed
with the whales of the sea and fears no one, not even vampires." Cinder
stopped to rethink. "But when I say he fears no one, he still fears…"

"Him."
Amalie nodded. "We understand."

"What's
the man's name?"

"Captain
Ahab," Cinder said.

"Who
is he?"

"Like
I said, a hardheaded, whale-obsessed captain. He has always been, and has
rarely lived on shore. No one knows the reason for his obsession with whales."

"I
don't care," I said. "As long as he will help us cross the Seven
Seas."

"Then
there is one last thing you need to do before you sail." Cinder pulled a
sack from behind the oven. It was tightly bonded and looked rigidly old, and
was, of course, glazed with cinder. It was made from strong fabric, though, and
so light I could carry it myself. "When you eventually reach the Tower of
Tales, Lady Shallot needs to be paid," Cinder said. "Lady Shallot
doesn't need money or food, as she has the power to create all she needs."

"How
does Carmilla pay, then?" Amalie asked, and I began remembering the devil's
words—that everything came with a price.

"By
doing favors for the unfortunate," Cinder said. "Anything that helps
lost souls in the world. That's how she gets paid. This sack holds something
Lady Shallot has wanted all along." Cinder handed it over to me. "Guard
it with you life, or you will not be granted a kingdom even if you reach the
Tower of Tales."

I took the
sack in and hugged it. It made me look naive. But, in Angel's absence, I was
responsible for arranging our escape. "I suppose I shouldn't open it."

"I
think you better not, although I have never been warned not to," Cinder
said. "I haven't opened it myself since my mother gave it to me."

"Your
mother?" Amalie said.

I knew
what she was thinking. Unbeknownst to Cinder, this sack was almost six hundred
years old.

Cinder
nodded. "It's an important sack that meant the world to her. She said I
wouldn't understand what's inside even if I opened it. She said this sack holds
the Mystery of the World."

I
swallowed hard I made enough sound to look foolish. But who was I to hold the
Mystery of the World in my hands, even according to the strange girl called
Cinder?

"Why
me?" I asked. "I mean, this sack seems important—you might have
given it to someone else asking for a new life."

Cinder
picked up her blowpipe and started working again. "No one ever asks to
cross the Seven Seas," she said. "But there is another reason why I
gave you the sack."

"Which
is?" both Amalie and I asked.

"My mother,
Bianca, told me you would come," she said, surprising me.

"How
did she know that?" I asked, eyes wide open. "Did she tell you my
name?" I couldn't believe this was really happening to me. Every time I
tried to escape the idea that I was special in this world, I was shown
otherwise.

Cinder
breathed in the pipe, feeding the fire for her Art, and then pulled back. She
caught her breath and said, "My mother told me to give the sack to the
girl born in Styria the day Blood Apples broke the seven-year curse."

25

Fable's
Dreamworld

Fable's
eyes flipped open.

Waking up
in the Dreamworld held a certain dread. She found herself panting while lying
on her back on the bed of a forest. The trees above her almost blocked the thin
moonbeam and danced like thousands of snakes. Fable assumed this was the forest
Shew had told her about, where she followed Cerené to Baba Yaga's house and
where Loki hunted her down. Fable never thought it would scare her that much.
After all, she was face to face with danger, not in the comfort of reading
about it in a book she could close whenever she wanted to take a break.

She jumped
to her feet, noticing she was dressed in some old tattered dress, sweating all
over.
So no more kickass jeans and boots?
Why
did the Dreamworld dress her like this? It wasn't like Fable was
a somebody
in all these tales. She was just a normal kid
from the Waking World thrown here to help friends she'd made only three days
ago.

Fable also
found her grip still tight on the breadcrumbs Babushka had given her,
apparently the only item that had managed to pass to the Dreamworld. She
searched her ugly clothes for a pocket without a hole in it,
then
poured the breadcrumbs in.

Still panting
and swearing—she didn't understand why—a feeling inside her told
her not to look back. Something evil was there and she wasn't prepared to face
it yet. Too many thoughts of fear drove her to run ahead, wishing to escape the
forest. Her first step on the ground, she discovered she was barefoot. This
Dreamory seemed not to like her at all.

Running,
she wondered why the forest was so silent, except for the faint hissing of
whatever she was running from. It was as if this dream had started in the
middle of some event Fable didn't know about.

"Charmwill!"
she yelled as she ran.

No one
answered her. More trees curved and swirled around her. She wiped the sweat
from her chest and saw her hand was smeared with blood.
What the heck is
this?
Fable tried not to scream, but yelled again, "Wilhelm Carl
Grimm!" Her hand reached her hair, and she found her pigtails were still
there. At least the dream didn't change that. "I know your True Name.
Please show me a sign that I'm on the right track."

Still
no reply.

As she ran,
one of the trees held out a shaking hand. Fable froze for a moment, then ran
away, even faster, her bare feet hurting too much, and her poor eyesight not
really helping in the dimmed forest—why didn't her glasses pass to the
Dreamworld like the breadcrumbs? Dammit!

A faint
light shone at the end of path, probably leading to somewhere out of the
forest. She hurried toward it, thinking about how she would like to get her
hands on some slippers before her feet started to bleed.

"Stop!"
a girl's voice said, and a hand shone out of the dark.

"Who
is talking to me?" Fable asked.

A girl,
cloaked in black, smiled at her. She was standing a few feet away and holding a
lantern. "I am—"

"Alice
Grimm," Fable said. The description fit Shew's story about the last dream
with Cerené.

"Yes,
I am." Alice smiled. "Take this." She handed Fable slippers.

Fable took
them reluctantly, not really comprehending the situation. "Why do you keep
popping up in dreams?"

"I'm
a descendant of Wilhelm," she said. "I'm the only one from the Waking
World who can roam around in dreams as much as I am allowed to. Wilhelm showed
me how. He was one of those who created it when he cursed the so-called fairy
tale characters."

"Where
is Charmwill, then?" Fable said. "I'm sorry, but I can't call him
Wilhelm often. To me he will always be Charmwill Glimmer."

"After
killing him, the Queen of Sorrow buried him in the Sands of Time. It will be
really hard to get him out of it with the little time you have to accomplish
your mission here," Alice said. "Let's say I can guide you the way he
would have."

"How
do you know about my mission?"

"We
don't have time for such questions," Alice said. "You're hours away
from the event that will grant you what you want."

"What
event? I'm here to get Loki's Fleece."

"And
you can only do it by witnessing a certain day in the Dreamworld."

"You
mean the day when Loki and Shew fell in love?" Fable was only hoping, as
she was curious to see that.

Alice
shrugged, definitely hiding something. "Let's call it that for now: the day
when the Huntsman and the Princess fell in love. In order to reach that moment,
you have to make sure no one realizes you're from the Waking World."

"That
goes without saying," Fable said. "So tell me where I should go."

"It's
not that easy," Alice said. "You're not listening. In a few moments
you will meet the Lost Seven."

Fable's
eyes widened. She certainly didn't expect that. "Really? All of them?"

"Well,
the dream might not want to show all of them to you," Alice said. "But
you will certainly talk to all of them."

"I
don't understand."

"The
Dreamworld has its own soul. It might not allow a Dreamhunter to see all the
truth before certain events happen," Alice said. "Don't worry about
it. You will understand when you meet the Lost Seven. What should worry you is
that you have to act like you've known them since long ago."

"Why
would I do that? I haven't met any of them, not even Cerené. Why would they
even talk to me?"

"You're
wrong, Fable." Alice held her by the arms. "You do know them, and
they know you back."

"That's
impossible."

"I
can't explain more." Alice sighed. "Just trust me. I'm like
Charmwill. I want the best for you and the Lost Seven. You will soon understand
what I mean. I just want you to understand that exposing yourself, being from
the Waking World, could have undesired consequences. Whatever happens, whenever
someone refers to something in the past you don't know about, just agree and
don't ask much. You're only here for a brief time to accomplish a mission."

Fable
thought Alice's life in the Dreamworld had really messed with her brain, so she
didn't comment and just nodded. "So where do I start?"

"There!"
Alice pointed at a fork in the road, tangent to a swamp. "Jack will appear
in a few moments."

"Jack?"

"Jack
from 'Jack and the Beanstalk,' remember? The one Cerené mentioned in the last
dream when she said she saw him steal from the Queen of Sorrow's kitchen."

"Jack
is a thief? I thought he stole gold from a giant only, according to the books."

"Jack
is the thief you read about with Axel in J.G.'s diary," Alice explained. "He
is one of the Lost Seven. He likes you very much. You're like a little sister
to him."

"Now
you're confusing me again." Fable grunted. "I have never met Jack
before. I'm not from this world."

"Like
I said, there is no time to discuss that now," Alice insisted. "All
you need to begin your adventure in the dream is to meet Jack and talk to him.
He will take you from there to a series of events, ending with the moment Loki
and Shew fell in love."

"Do I
have to live all these events? What if I have a chance to get Loki's Fleece
before that?"

"If
you can, be my guest," Alice said. "If not, you have to wait until
the story—or the memory—unfolds."

"I'm
really confused." Fable sighed. "So what will Jack be doing when I
see him?"

Before
Alice replied, they could hear the sound of some boy laughing in the distance.
Heavy thuds were following him, as if
he were pursued by
little monsters
.

"That's
him." Alice giggled. "He likes to steal from the goblins. They own a
fruit market, the Goblin Market. They are vicious and ugly but they produce the
best fruit in Sorrow. It tastes like nothing else. It's simply called the
Goblin Fruit. Jack steals it just to mess with them."

Fable was
trying to consume too much information at once, but seeing Jack approaching in
the distance made her smile. The boy was nuts. He wore a green outfit, which
was too expensive—it looked like he had stolen it. His boots were black
and tall, and he wore a hat that seemed to mean the world to him.
A green hat, which he had to pull over his head every now and then
so it wouldn't fall as he ran.
He also had a sack slung on his shoulder.
It looked very much like a thief's sack.

"We
will get you, Jack Madly!" the ugly goblin said behind him. He was short
and stocky and his neck was the breadth of his head. He had a crumpled nose,
one hole bigger than the other, and one eye bigger than the other. "Bring
back our fruit!"

"It's
time now," Alice said, pushing Fable into Jack's path.

"But—"
Fable tried to ask for explanations, but she was too late. She was already in
the middle of the road, and Jack saw her as he jumped off a hedge.

"Fable!"
he said. "What are you doing here?"