Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (17 page)

"I
can't stand Bloody Mary," Cerené whispered, sounding sincere. "She
scares me like no one else."

"I
tried to steal her mirror once," Jack bragged. "But that's another
story for another time. Now, shush, all of you."

Fable
listened to Jack and stopped her mind from thinking about anything that wasn't
helping her mission. In truth, Sirenia and Bloody Mary were nothing compared to
the Queen of Sorrow. Her presence was undeniable in this dream. Although she
sat far away, Fable couldn't take her eyes off her. She looked so powerful and
so mean, disguised behind a mask of unexplainable beauty.

How is she
so beautiful? How is this possible? Does bathing in young girls' blood give her
such magic? And why had she pretended to be my foster mother—because she
knew I was a Lost Seven?
Then why me rather than the others?

***

The
ceremony of weighing Shew's heart—again—took some time from start
to finish. Shew looked pale, as if she hadn't been eating enough. She looked
broken, like she had given up the fight. Having been trapped in the Rapunzel
Tower for so long must have been an awful experience.

Shew asked
for her father, Angel Von Sorrow. He wasn't there. Angel was away fighting
vampires at the borders of the Kingdom of Sorrow.

Before
being
laid
on the table where Dame Gothel, the Queen's
witch, was to weigh her heart, Shew asked about Cerené.

"Who's
that?" the Queen of Sorrow said. Of course she knew who Cerené was, Fable
thought.
She only pretended she didn't remember her to
downplay the importance of the Phoenix.

"The
glassblower. My friend," Shew said. "My best friend, who Loki
killed."

"If the
Huntsman killed her, why are you asking about her?" The Queen sounded
suspicious.

Shew
didn't answer her. Tears rolled down her face as she gave in to Dame Gothel's
sedative. Fable was saddened that, at this point, poor Shew thought her best
friend, Cerené, was dead. She must have felt awful having disappointed Cerené.
Was that why she was giving up easily, or had she been tortured in the Rapunzel
Tower? That must have been another story for another time.

Cerené, on
the other hand, fidgeted beside Fable. Shew's words weren't easy on her. Fable
was sure she wanted to remove her cloak and chop everyone's head off.

Fable
wondered when they would make their move. Marmalade had suggested they should
wait and see if Shew's heart weighed twenty-one grams. In all cases, the Lost
Seven needed to know about Shew's heart's weight as well, since they had no
means to weigh it themselves.

They all
had their swords readied for the attack once the weighing was announced.

As they
waited, Bloody Mary suddenly appeared in her mirror to warn the Queen of
something.

"What
is it now, Mary?" the Queen said, sighing.

"I
smell treason, My Queen." Mary sniffed the air in the chamber.

"What
do you mean?" asked the Queen.

"There
is someone near who shouldn't be here." Mary's sniffing intensified. "Their
intentions aren't clear, but their souls smell of fear."

"Who
is it, Mary?"

"I
can't tell, but…" Mary signaled for the Queen to approach the mirror, and
began whispering in her ear.

None of
the Lost Seven knew if Mary was talking about them. How would she know? It was
unlikely there were any intruders but them, though. They were still standing in
the last row, the main door to their backs. If things went wrong, they could
still escape. But Fable didn't have the luxury of escape. She had to help her
friends.

None of
the Lost Seven moved.

"Huntsmen!"
The Queen stood and waved after Mary had whispered in her ear. "Why stand
so far back when you deserve better?"

All right,
Fable thought. Bloody Mary was talking about them. Whatever she and the Queen
had in store was beyond her.

"You
protect us from the worst enemies and most dangerous threats," the Queen
continued. "I ask you to step forward, to the first row, to witness my
daughter's Weighing of the Heart."

Never had
the Queen
asked
anything of anyone, Fable thought. In all the stories
she'd heard, the Queen only demanded, ordered, and wished.

This
wasn't good.

Loki
signaled for the huntsmen to approach the throne. The other rows made room. The
huntsmen began nearing the throne.

"What's
going on?" Ladle whispered. It was kind of puzzling to see her worried as
she was. Fable wondered why Death didn't just hurl her scythe at the Queen's
neck. But she remembered how the Reaper was only allowed to kill the one she
had been told to.

"We're
being tested," Marmalade whispered. "I just don't know how."

"She
clearly knows we're here," Fable said, wondering if Bloody Mary had picked
up on her being an intruder from another world. "But she can't ask us to
remove our cloaks or show our faces because of the rule of the huntsmen."

The Lost
Seven stepped forward as the Queen watched them carefully with her chin up.
Shew had been sedated and tied to the table by now.

Fable's
heart pounded. She began to have trouble breathing properly. She may be a Lost
Seven, maybe a witch, but she still felt like the innocent, pigtailed Fable
who'd lived all her life with her brother in Candy House. This was beginning to
turn into a bigger challenge than she could handle.

In her
weakness, Fable raised her head slightly, her eyes accidentally meeting the
Queen's. A slant of gold shone in the Queen of Sorrow's eyes as she stared at
her. From that far away, Fable believed the Queen had recognized her for who
she really was.

33

The
Queen's Diary

The day
after, hovering clouds blocked all sun from reaching the
Pequod
. They
were thick clouds, shaping and reforming and hunting our ship in the sky. We
stood at the ship's edge watching the sunrays reach the rest of Seven Seas, all
but wherever the
Pequod
sailed. "Him" was definitely coming
for us.

I stayed
calm while the misfits either cursed their luck or prayed they would live past
today. The sailors worked the ship and looked for any unusual activities in the
sea. The tides were already raging, and our ship danced the dance of death,
threatening to give in to the misery of the seas.

I held my
sack tighter as I looked at the madness around me.

Angel hadn't
appeared yet, and he wasn't going to. A note at my bed this morning had
confirmed that:

Love of my
life, Carmilla Karnstein.

I am not
the man for you. Whenever I hold you in my arms, I only hold you down. I can't
live with that. I had to escape, or a day will come and the beast inside me
will hurt you. Nothing in the world would torment me more. I shouldn't have
come back to you in Styria. Why would the universe bless the son of Sorrow with
the love of a girl who brought apples to the world with her birth?

Will love
you until I die—if I die.

Angel Von
Sorrow.

I had
sliced the letter into a thousand pieces this morning. Although Angel wanted my
safety, I hated him for it. I considered him a coward, leaving me behind in the
middle of the sea. Hadn't he known that I would have welcomed him biting me and
turning me into a vampire if we had no other choice to be together? But Angel
seemed to have not understood Shakespeare's story. He hadn't understood what
love
can
overcome in this world.

In all
cases, I stood there, the only girl on the ship, awaiting the doom that
promised to visit us today. I wasn't going to give in, though. I realized that
I was going to find the Tower of Tales and Lady Shallot no matter what. I was
going to build my own kingdom away from all the madness in the world.

Whoever we
were waiting for, I was determined to survive.

Captain
Ahab didn't come out as usual. Who knew what his story was? It didn't matter. I
had his piece of paper in my hand. I had read it too this morning. It had a
black spot on one side. I had no idea what it meant.

I didn't
trust Captain Ahab, Long John Silver, whatever his name was, enough to pass the
paper to Him. I decided I would use it as a last resort.

The raging
tides began to calm, and the ship settled in a temporary peace. Silence
suddenly hovered like a mysterious fog upon the water.

***

"He
is coming," the puffing boy said enthusiastically. He was the only one who
desired his coming, supposedly to sell him his soul. The rest of us realized
that,
whoever
it was we waited for, he wasn't one to
sell your soul to, no matter what.

"Why
the calmness?" I asked one of the sailors.

"I
don't know." He shrugged. "Something is wrong. I looked deeper into
the water, and there isn't a single fish around us. I assume he is sending
his
mermaids again."

"Do
you know anything else about him?" I asked.

"Only
the stories I heard since I was a kid," he said. "They say he thinks
he is Fate itself at sea. They say he sinks the ships he wants to sink and
forgives the passing of those he chooses. He says who lives and who dies, who
becomes a pirate and who stays doomed and lost at sea. All I know is that I
wish he wouldn't visit us like Captain Ahab said."

"Well,
that isn't helping much," I said, hanging to my sack. We were basically
talking about myth, the boogeyman—someone everyone believes
exists,
yet no one had ever seen him.

A misfit
pointed at the rippling water in the distance.

We all ran
to look. The bed of water was changing its color. Something was swimming
underneath.
Something black or grey, blocking all visions
from below.

"Whales!"
someone screamed.

I expected
Captain Ahab to burst out of his cabin, but he didn't. A closer look and I saw
the door to his room flapping in the wind. He wasn't there.

If Captain
Ahab, a.k.a. Long John Silver, had escaped, I wondered what the rest of us were
to do.

The whale
swam around the ship
peacefully,
not making sounds,
then sank deep below and never came up again. I didn't understand a thing, but
before I could analyze what had happened, a ship came out of nowhere,
approaching us.

"It's
him," the boy chirped. "The
Jolly Roger
!"

It was the
name of the ship.
A pirate ship sailing closer.
We all
stood stranded, waiting for it to arrive. This was a ship designed to hunt
whales, not to fight pirates.

Standing
among the crowd, I watched a silhouette of a man walk toward our ship. The man
was tall and intimidating. He was taller than Angel—and broader. His
silhouette showed a French hat on top of his head, and was that an eye patch?
The reflection of the tides manipulated his image.

That was
when I realized what was wrong with the picture. The man approaching us was
walking on water.

He was
walking on water!

Each step,
splashing in the water, a few mermaids somersaulted behind him, as if
celebrating his coming. He held something in his hand—a bottle, maybe. It
was too small for his immense stature. A few men walked beside him, half his
size at least.

One of the
misfits fainted next to me. The sailors held out their guns. The puffing boy
was already on his knees, ready to offer his soul—that was, if Him would
accept it.

The men
from the pirate ship seemed to sing the song, the same damned song the mermaids
and Night Von Sorrow had sung. Although it was noon, still no sun shone where
he treaded.

Instead of
backing away like everyone else, I stepped forward, rubbing my eyes to see
clearer. I was afraid like everyone else, but my curiosity overruled it.

Then I
heard someone say his name.
His real name.
Hook.
Captain Hook. That was why everyone mistook it for "Him." Every time
someone tried to say his name, they had been afraid to utter it and said,
"H—" instead.

I didn't
know who Captain Hook was, or what his relation to Captain Ahab, a.k.a. Long John
Silver, was—although years later Peter Pan told me that his name had been
mentioned in books, that the only one all pirates in the Seven Seas feared was
Captain Hook. I didn't know why one would sell his soul to him—in
exchange for what? All I knew was that he scared me. That he scared everyone,
even the devil. Even the Seven Seas feared him.

And I knew
one more thing.

That he
wasn't walking on water. The whales had risen to make ground for him. The man
everyone feared walked on whales, and I think his eyes were on me.