Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (15 page)

"I'm
not allowed to kill unless ordered by the Tree of Life," Ladle said,
pouting. Fable assumed the Tree of Life told Ladle whom to kill each day. "I
shall not kill without being told to."

"How
about killing the huntsmen by accident?" Jack winked at her. "You
were about to chop my head off accidentally a few minutes ago." Jack
glanced upward briefly. "We can always fool the man up there with a few
killings."

Ladle
giggled, then blushed. Fable thought Ladle and Jack would make a better couple.

"Make
Jack stop, Beauty," Ladle told the Beast.

The Beast
laughed from the dark. "Jaaack!" was all he said. Jack nodded back
with respect.

"And
you?" Marmalade said to Fable.

Fable
shrugged. Although she had felt really feisty in the Waking World this morning,
she doubted she had any talent for fighting. She wondered about the power she
possessed that Cerené had told her not to speak of. "I don't think I can
fight," she said feebly.

"Do
you know of any magic tricks?" Jack winked at her. A few laughs scattered
in the air. They weren't mean laughs. They just seemed to be close friends, and
making fun of each other would be taken lightly.

"I
know magic?" Fable said. Of course she knew magic. That was why she was
obsessed with it in the real world. But would any of her silly spells help in
the Dreamworld?

"Joking,
little doll." Jack grabbed her legs and pulled her high. He flipped her on
his back like a father would when playing with their child. Everyone smiled
again, and Fable blushed, landing on her feet.

"We
all will take care of you, Fable," Ladle said. "But I'm sure you can
help somehow in the castle."

"So,"
Marmalade said, playing leader again. "How are we getting inside the
Schloss?"

"If
you want to sneak past the Schloss' soul, you have to fool it into thinking
you're one of its regular visitors," the Beast said with all confidence.

"Great
idea," Cerené said. "But who enters the Schloss freely without being
questioned, other than Jack and me?"

"The
Queen!" Ladle chirped.

"Stick
to killing, Ladle." Jack nudged her playfully. "Thinking is not
Death's business. Or Death wouldn't be killing anyone, really."

"I
have an idea," Fable found herself saying. She wasn't sure if she was
interfering with the flow of events by interrupting. Maybe she was destined to
say this. Maybe reliving the Dreamories never quite changed anything in the
future like Babushka had said. "The huntsmen enter the Schloss every day
with no one questioning them."

Everyone
exchanged gazes immediately. It seemed like they hadn't expected such an idea
from Fable. She must not have been useful before.

"You
want us to show up as huntsmen?" Marmalade said admiringly.

Fable
nodded reluctantly, realizing that she might have changed the events in the
Dreamworld.

30

The Queen's Diary

Angel was
gone when I opened my eyes. Like every other time when he was about to succumb
to the evil inside him, he'd managed to confront it and keep me safe. How long
was he going to have such strength? I felt for him so much that my insides
ached. I took a deep breath under the faint moonlight, promising myself I wasn't
going to look for him now. God only knew where he had gone, far from the
humming mermaids.

But that
wasn't the end of the night for me.

All around
me, the ship had gone insane. Torches had been lit, filling the ship with the
ghosts of shimmering yellow light, scattered everywhere. The sailors and the
misfits had all embarked the deck. It took me some time to comprehend that I
saw.

Everyone
knelt, praying. Some had their hats tucked to their chests. Others laced their
fingers tightly, heads upward as if in a church, pleading to the something in
the night sky.

Walking
among them, I could still hear the faint humming of the mermaids. But I couldn't
see them again when I peeked over the edge. They seemed to change their colors
and hide in the dark. Singing underwater, maybe?
A
continuous, never-ending—non-memorizable—tune that was the reason
behind my lover's agony—and mine.

"Get
on your knees." The puffing boy pulled my hand. I knelt next him. There
was no point in arguing. None of them would have cared. There was something
there up in the sky, and it seemed to have the power to save.

"What's
going on?" I whispered to the boy.

"Can't
you hear them?" He pointed at the sea.

"Of
course I can. I heard them before any of you did."

"No,
you didn't," he hissed. "I glimpsed you behind my curtain walking to
the rails. We were just all scared to come out. Pretending we didn't hear them.
Then their humming seeped through our souls. We had to do something about it."

"Something
like what?"

"They'll
keep humming until a few of us succumb to their call and throw themselves into
the water so they can feed on us." The boy pressed his hands tighter
together. He sweated like the other men on the ship. "The mermaids will
not stop. Do you hear me?" The puffing boy's gleaming eyes had dimmed. "They
won't stop until they have one of us men."

The word
"men" sent a lightning bolt to my eyes. I realized I was the only
girl on deck. How was that possible?

"Men?"
I said. "Where are the other women on board?"

"Taken,"
the boy said with eyes closed behind clenched hands.

"Taken
by whom?" I grasped the stupidity of my question a few syllables too late.
The mermaids had taken the women on ship. They had seduced them the way they
had wanted me to come with them. "Every woman?" I neared the boy's
ears.

"All
except you, it seems." He opened his questioning eyes, probably wondering
why. I didn't have the answer to that.

"The
mermaids asked me to join them too," I explained. "I just. I…" I
licked my dry lips. "I don't know how, but I managed not to succumb to
their call."

"The
sailors say the mermaids are after the men on the boat, really," the boy
elaborated. "They thrive on eating a man's flesh. No other sea creature
can fulfill that hunger."

"Then
why take the women, for God's sake?"

"Women
give men their strength," the boy said. "Without them, a man is open
to the sea's hunger, and the mermaids' wrath."

Believe in
me, Carmilla!
I heard Angel call me. That was why he had always
asked me to believe in him. Had I given up on him somehow? Did I have to
believe in him more than I did? But wait, that meant that Angel was the only
man with hope on this ship, if he hadn't escaped yet. I was the only woman
left.

"We
have to pray." The boy reached for my hand.

"Pray?
Not confront the mermaids?" I didn't give him my hand. I had a logical
question to ask. I had begun to feel frustrated. Those mermaids and their songs
had a dark effect on Angel and the sailors. There had to be something done
about it.

"None
of us has the power to face them," the boy said. "Only the moon can
confront them." He craned his neck at the full moon above.

"What
will the moon do?" I grimaced. "It's just a white plate, hanging up
in the sky." The words escaped me. I remembered when I thought the moon
had smiled at me.
But not again.
That must have been
my imagination. The moon was, and had always been, the plate up in the sky.
That plate I saw kids throw rocks at near the Pond of Pearls in Styria. The
same white plate they talked to, which reflected on the water's surface.
Sometimes the girls pretended they were pulling it down to them near dawn, as
if holding it with an invisible rope. Then the moon faded away, making way for
the sun to shine a new day. The moon was nothing but a plate I had enjoyed
looking at before I gave in to sleep every night when I was a child.

"You're
so naive," he said, not looking at me. "The moon is the Creator's eye
in the sky. And it's a girl."

I gritted
my teeth, pretending to pray with the others. There was no way I could argue
with the boy's nonsense.

"She
lives on the moon," he elaborated. "Or is the moon herself. We don't
know. She looks after the goodhearted when they cross the sea at night, and she
protects them from all evil, especially the mermaids. The moon and the mermaids
have somehow been connected since the beginning of time."

"Then
why isn't she down here protecting us?" I asked. The prayers all around
annoyed me. They called for the girl in the moon to protect them. Each of them
offered something—a ring, a sword, and sometimes a day's catch of fish.
It was absurd.

"I
told you she only protects the goodhearted," the boy insisted, and offered
his stash of tobacco in front of him. He pleaded to the girl in the moon and
told her it was all he had. He promised to stop smoking if she saved him today.

"Aren't
we goodhearted?" I had to see where this was going.

"Most
of us are, I think. We're all misfits running away from an evil past on this
ship," the boy said. "There must be a dark soul on the ship." My
mind—although resisting the idea—thought of Angel. He wasn't a dark
soul, but was always mistaken for one. Never had I thought it might be me. "I
think it's him." The boy shivered and pointed behind me.

I turned
around, thinking I'd see Angel. But it wasn't him. The boy was pointing at
Captain Ahab's closed cabin. In spite of the assumptions and the rumors I'd
heard, I was curious about why he hadn't come out with all the noise around
him.

"He
is a dark man, I'm sure," the boy said. "Why isn't he praying with
us? Offer the moon something!" he told the man behind the closed cabin.

"Yeah,
offer her something," the silver-toothed
man
said. "Maybe your clothes." He grinned at me, and gulped discreetly
from his beer.

"You
shouldn't be drinking when we're praying." The boy snatched the ale away
from him and set it right next to me. A few sailors peeked back at us. We had
to bow down immediately and shut up, although the silver-toothed man wanted his
ale back.

"Give
it back," he hissed between gritted teeth at me. I ignored him. I had
nothing to do with it. The ale was just next to me,
that's
all.

The man's
face reddened. He decided to defy all and stand up. "I know why the moon
isn't answering us," he shouted at everyone. "Our offerings aren't
enough. We're not offering her all we have."

"Shut
up," a sailor said. "Everything we have is laid here upon the deck."

"Not
everything." He pointed his finger at me. I didn't understand what he was
implying. "This girl has something she isn't giving away." He wasn't
talking about clothes. "I saw her board the ship with a sack. It seemed
full of precious things. I think she is a smuggler."

"We
don't see any sack with her," another sailor said.

"I
saw it!" A misfit raised a hand.

"The
barrel man has it." Another misfit stood up. "I saw him hide it in a
different barrel each day."

"Find
the barrel!" the head of sailors ordered immediately.

The
mermaids' humming was driving everyone crazy. The crew spread all over the ship
looking for my sack in the barrels of wine. I wondered why they hadn't offered
the wine to the moon, but years later I learned the moon didn't accept anything
that was the color red.

Stranded,
I called for Angel, the wind sucking my words into thin air. There was no point
resisting. Angel couldn't show with the mermaids still humming. Why risk him
turning into a full vampire by impulsively sucking on the sailors' blood under
the mermaids' influence?

The
sailors were frantic, and I was about to see my dreams crashed and burned. I
didn't know in which barrel Angel had hidden the sack. I didn't even know what
was in the sack. I just knew it was my only precious offering to Lady Shallot
in the Tower of Tales.

Finally,
one of them showed up with the sack. I ran to him, trying to get it, but the
men held me back.

 
"Let's offer it to the moon," a
sailor said.

The
misfits disagreed. They wanted to see its contents first. I knew they must have
thought it was full of precious items they could sell later, and I had no means
with which to stop them. I just wailed and whined like a weakened princess—oh,
how I hate how fragile I was in those days.

Just as
one of them pulled it open, a door creaked open somewhere. It creaked loudly
and slowly enough for everyone to get back on
their
knees again. It was Captain Ahab's door.

31

What a
dark and tall man he was. He smoked his pipe and walked slowly, confidently,
not caring about anything in the world, toward us. I couldn't see most of his
facial features in the dark, but I had a feeling it was better this way. I
could see he had a beard, though. He walked with grace, the wooden floor
creaking mercilessly under his steps.

Captain
Ahab walked toward the sack. He didn't pick it up. He pulled a sword and
rummaged with it through the items inside,
then
he
continued smoking.

"She
hid it from us. We wanted to offer it to the moon!" the silver-toothed man
protested.

Captain
Ahab didn't talk. He simply walked toward the man, still smoking his pipe. I
noticed smoke came out of seven holes in it. They were right when they said it
wasn't just a pipe, but also a flute. Was he really the descendant of the
Piper? Then shouldn't he be connected to the mermaids somehow? Why hadn't they
stopped humming, then?

"We
needed more offerings so the Moongirl would help us," the silver-toothed man
lied, stuttering, shying away from Ahab's piercing look.

Captain
Ahab simply pulled the man by his neck. With one simple move, he threw him
overboard. The man wailed and screamed, kicking hands and legs in the air
before he landed in the arms of the mermaids. I could hear them biting happily
at him for a while before they faded into silence and disappeared.

"The
Moongirl only saves the goodhearted." Captain's Ahab's voice sucked in the
air and I couldn't hear the hiss of the sea or the rippling of its tides. "And
most of you aren't."

"We're
not evil-hearted," the man with an eye
patch
protested.

"But
you're not goodhearted either," Captain Ahab said. "Evil isn't the
worst thing in the world. Lost souls like you, who haven't made up their minds,
are," he said, as if wanting to spit on each and every one of them. He
certainly didn't like humans, men or women. "The only reason why you're on
my ship is that I am the only one at sea who can handle lost souls." He
took a short drag, almost in rhythm with the tempo of his words. All syllables
took an equal amount of time to be pronounced. He didn't feel any rush. Captain
Ahab seemed not to care about anything but his whales. "Next time the
mermaids show up, just toss one of you to them. It's the best way."

"I
know I chose a side," another man protested. "I know I am
goodhearted."

"Says
who?" Captain Ahab laughed and reached for his harpoon.

Everyone
made way for Ahab's target, the poor man who believed he was goodhearted. The
captain didn't hesitate. With the pipe in his mouth, he shot at the man,
penetrating his middle with his harpoon. "The Moongirl didn't save you
from me, did she?" Ahab said, as the man fell silently to his knees then
flat to the floor. Blood spread all over the deck. "No, the so-called
Moongirl will never near this ship." He meant because she didn't go near
the color red. So how was she supposed to save the goodhearted if she didn't
get near blood?

Everyone
bowed
their
heads to Captain Ahab now. The mermaids
had gone—and to hell with the moon, they must have thought.

"The
Seven Seas are unforgiving," Captain Ahab preached. "All of you are
here to reach a destination. I promise you that most of you won't. Don't make
me come out to solve a meager problem like the mermaids again. I have much more
important things to do."

"Please
take my soul." The puffing boy crawled closer on hands and knees, wanting
to kiss Captain Ahab's boots. "I want to sell my soul to you. Please!"

Captain
Ahab scanned the boy for while, amused by his inquiry. He chuckled lightly and
kicked him away. Then he glanced at the sack on the floor and back to me. He
walked slowly and stared at me for a while. "Is that sack yours?"

I nodded,
my tongue dry, my body in full sweat.

"I
see you have no splinters in your eyes," he mumbled, but loud enough for
only me to hear him. He dragged thoughtfully from his pipe.

I didn't
know about the Andersen Mirror then, and I didn't understand why someone would
have splinters in their eyes. What kind of splinters?

"What
are you doing on my ship?" he said.

I
shrugged. "Like anyone else, I have somewhere I want to reach."

"The
Tower of Tales, I presume," He hissed, so only I heard again. Then he
smirked, looking at me from top to bottom. I wished I could see more of his
face. I could only see his eyes.
The color of honey.
He nodded to himself, as if he had recognized me. He dragged from his pipe
again. It was made from a kind of wood that I had never seen before. Close up,
it looked like a carved bone more than a pipe. I wondered if he turned people
he killed into pipes.

"How
did you know?" I managed to ask.

Captain
Ahab said nothing. With the pipe between his lips, he nodded at the sack. I
didn't want him to know that I didn't know what was inside the sack. But I was
curious to know the connection now.

"It's
my offering to Lady Shallot," I whispered, not wanting the sailors and
misfits to hear me.

"Of
course it is," he said. "You have in the sack what Lady Shallot most
desires. What many others desire." He bent over slightly, smoke from his
pipe swirling around me like a halo. "And what the sailors and misfits on
the boat desire the most."

"I
don't understand." I was talking about the last part in his sentence. Of
course this was what Lady Shallot desired, but why did the sailors desire it?

"Believe
it or not, young girl," he said into my ear, "you could have summoned
the Moongirl."

I wasn't
comfortable with his voice in my ears. It had been a scary voice from far away,
let alone so close. My eyes fell closed for a moment, tolerating his proximity,
and I asked, "So she exists?"

Captain
Ahab pulled away, tucked the pipe in his mouth again, and laughed at the moon
above. "Did you listen to her?" He was talking to the moon now. I was
perplexed, too confused to comprehend or think about anything.

"The
moon looks like a white plate, doesn't it?" He winked at me, and turned
around to walk back to his cabin.

"Wait."
I couldn't let him leave yet. "Are Lady Shallot and the Tower of Tales
real?" I didn't care if the sailors heard me now. My intuition told me I
wouldn't last long on this ship. I needed a clue as to where to go later.

"That's
what they say," he said. "I've been years in the sea, though, and
haven't seen a Tower of Tales—or no tales. I could use one myself to
start a new life if I had seen it." He chuckled at his own misery.

"I
see," I said. "Will you let me keep the sack?" It was all I
cared about, and it didn't make sense for a moment. I was doing my best to keep
a sack whose contents I didn't
know,
trying to offer
it to a woman I didn't know in a tower that might be a myth. All of this in a
quest to find a new life with the one I loved.

"I
have no use of the sack," Captain Ahab said. "Nor do I have use of
you on my ship."

"I
understand." I bowed my head. He was going to exile me. I didn't need to
know why. Whatever was going on seemed beyond my
comprehension.
But where would I go? Would he guide me, give me a boat? He didn't look like
that kind of man. He didn't care. "What will happen of me now?"

"Are
you alone on my ship?"

"I
have someone with me," I said. "The man who lifts the barrels. He is
asleep."

"Asleep?"
I could tell he didn't believe me. "No man sleeps when the mermaids call,
young lady." He stopped to consider. "I will overlook this, though.
It's the least I can do for the woman who brought apples back to Europe."

My eyes
widened. I raised my head. A few sailors behind me murmured, confused by
Captain Ahab's prolonged conversation with me.

"However,
I can't handle you on my boat," he said. "You're heavy, young lady."

"Heavy?"

"Your
soul is too heavy for my ship," he said. I didn't ask what he meant. It
was like everyone was telling me how special—and how much of a burden—I
was lately. "I have no interest in your war. I am after a whale."

The hisses
behind me increased.

"May
I ask why?"

Captain
Ahab smirked. It was a painful smirk, coming from a man in pain, disguised as
an ungodly sailor in the sea. He confused me, as I couldn't understand whether
he was good or evil. But what was purely good and evil? Everyone I came upon,
including Angel, had both sides in them. They all coped with their lives and
tried to make the best of it. I began to learn that evil was
temporary,
that what was evil to me could not be so to someone else, that what was evil
now might not be evil tomorrow. Evil was just a point of a view, and each of us
needed a spot to look from each day.

"There
is a whale out there who has something I want," Captain Ahab said. "I
presume it might be something you want too, but I see you're still young and
inexperienced. The sea, however, will teach you—"

"Please,
allow us to sell our souls to you," a few men behind me begged him again. "Help
us survive the atrocities of the Seven Seas. Our souls for you!"

Captain
Ahab shushed them and turned back to me. I wasn't going to sell my soul to him.
If he was the man the devil talked about, I didn't care. My soul was mine. My
fate was mine to decide. My heart was mine to keep. I may have been weak, but I
was a Karnstein. No Karnstein sold a piece of
themselves
to anyone, whatever the price.

"Can
I stay until morning?" I asked, neglecting the men's request.

"I
think you will
have
to stay until morning, actually." He nodded. "Not
because I want you, but because you can't handle the sea tomorrow. No one can
handle the Seven Seas tomorrow." The hissing and murmurs increased again
behind me. "The mermaids don't just come to take a man and feed on him."
The sailors and misfits let out several sighs. The puffing boy wailed and began
to say they were all going to die in the sea. "The mermaids' arrival is
only a prelude."

"Prelude
to what?"

Captain
Ahab's pipe dimmed, dying in the ghostly winds. He tapped it on the back of his
hand and said, "Take your sack, and stay until tomorrow." He wasn't
going to answer my question. "I don't promise the ship will be safe,
though. Tomorrow is going to be one of the hardest days." He turned and
walked among the sailors and misfits, his hands behind his back.

All men on
ship were on their hands and knees, as if God walked among them. Captain Ahab
seemed disgusted by their existence. I really wondered why he allowed all lost
souls on the ship, let alone why he was after a whale in the Seven Seas. He
glanced at the frightened men by his feet and said, "Stand up, all you
lost souls at sea." He waved his hand like a magician as they slowly
raised their heads. "Do you really think that I'm H—?"

"Him?"
a few of them said.

Captain
Ahab shook his head, as if Him wasn't the real name. It seemed to be a name
starting with an H, but not Him. Captain Ahab shook his head. "Do you
think you can sell your soul to me?" He laughed. "I'm not who you
think I am."

The men
exchanged looks of surprise. Even I thought it was Captain Ahab, sailing the
sea with a ship full of desperate men and forcing them to sell their souls to
him.

"Then…"
The puffing boy shrugged. "Then who is
Him
?"

"This
must be the ship of fools." Captain Ahab shook his head, like he was about
to throw the boy into the sea like the silver-toothed man. "You think you
want to sell your soul to Him, but have no idea what it means." He walked
back to me. "Besides, he isn't interested in already lost and weak souls
like you." Captain Ahab chuckled loudly. "He is only interested in
strong souls." He smirked at me, leaving me confused again.

"Who
is he, then?" the puffing boy insisted on asking, foolishly ignoring all
of Ahab's warnings.

"All
of you fools will meet him tomorrow," Ahab said without turning back. "He
sends the mermaids to a ship he is about to attack, so sleep tight and dream
long, because tonight might be the last of your lives."

Captain
Ahab was about to finally walk back to his room when he had one last thought.
He approached me and neared my ear again. "When you see Him tomorrow, tell
him Captain Long John Silver will not be caught."

Captain
Ahab—or Long John Silver—walked away with another smirk on his
face, leaving me shrouded in the mysteries of the sea, with no conclusions on
how to reach my destiny.