Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (25 page)

49

The Queen's
Diary

I made it
to the seventh day.

Angel was
sitting by the edge, staring at me with reddened eyes. He wasn't himself
anymore. The little good person in him was what had kept him from leaping over
like a leopard onto his prey. I didn't have the strength to stare at him long
enough. By the end of the day, the flood inside the whale was going to kill us.
That, or I'd let him bite me and end the good that I was supposed to gift this
world with—if the prophecy was really true.

Or I could
just surrender to the sirens and let them take me to the nameless witch, not
knowing what she had in store for me, parting me from Angel.

I had
decided that the right thing to do was to fulfill the prophecy. I could feel it
to be true in my heart. And I hadn't trusted anything but my heart on this
journey. Sometimes it failed me, but mostly it was right.

One day, I
would have Angel's child—or children
?—
and it
would rid the world of all evil. Until then, I needed to stay strong.

"Majesty.
Majesty. Majesty," Sirenia called. "Don't you think it's time to come
with me? You don't want to die in the whale's flood, do you?"

"I
will come with you," I said. Angel's red eyes were still fixed on me. He
was actually grinning, as if he was about to attack me before I could go with
the mermaids.

"Wise
decision, My Queen," Sirenia said, and stretched out her hand. "Shall
we?"

"But
first I need you to help me with something," I said.

"In
your service, My Queen." She bowed her head. The sirens behind her looked
excited.

"Fate."

"What
about him?" Sirenia's face knotted.

"He
is your lord or something, right?"

"Well…"
The sirens looked disgusted. "He forces us to. You see
,
he has power over so many things in the sea. Thank God he doesn't control Moby
Dick. We don't like Fate, but pretend we do in his presence. We like
her
,
the nameless witch." Her face glowed. "She doesn't live in the sea,
so you will be safe, away from Captain Hook."

"I
can't," I said. "I sold him my soul."

"What?"
the sirens shrieked. They backed away from me and wailed in high-pitched
noises. "Why did you that? When did you do that?"

"In
the
Pequod
," I lied. "Right after the flood. You were all
scared and swam away. I had no choice."

"Well,
you can always get your soul back within seven days," Sirenia said, as if
I knew it already.

I
swallowed a smile. I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought I could
escape them to the arms of Fate. "Exactly," I said. "You need to
get me to him. I sold him my soul on the morning of the day after the
Pequod
sank. Today is my last chance. Can you help me?"

"Of
course," Sirenia said, as they neared me again. "Poor girl, sold her
soul to Fate." They circled the raft. "What were you thinking? Do you
know what would have happened to you in the future if you sold your soul to
him? He feeds on people's misery."

"I
wasn't thinking straight," I said. "The same way I resisted your call
to meet the nameless witch. I'm sorry."

"We
forgive you, My Queen," Sirenia said. "She will forgive you, too."

It seemed
too easy. But it worked. They were evil sirens, vicious and brutal, but they
were just sirens. They practiced what I later heard someone call the world's
most common sin: stupidity.

I let them
gather their bodies as they made a boat for me. I left Angel behind without
even looking at him, or I would have weakened and they would have called my
deception. There would be a time to return to him if I succeeded in what I had
in mind.

The sirens
rowed me while singing other memorable songs.
Funny, giddy,
and pointless songs.
Row, row, row your boat.
Mermaid
down the sea.

The world
was an insane place. Goodness was buried behind cloaks of evil. Happy endings
were just in fairy tales. And survival was a day-by-day process. Nothing was
too white or too black. Most things loomed behind a veil of grey. Nothing was
totally chocolate colored,
nor
milk colored. Blood was
the color in between, the color of life. Blood could be a good thing if given
to you to save your life, and a bad thing if you spilled too much of it. I was
beginning to learn the game of life. I had a feeling I was going to be a pioneer
of the game someday.

Hanging on
to my sack, I let them row me to the
Jolly Roger
. I thought I finally
understood the meaning of the sack, why Cinder had given it to me. She had told
me she wasn't interested in what was inside, but interested in the valuable
meaning of the sack itself—given to her by her mother, many centuries
ago. I was also not really interested in what was inside the sack—although
Captain Ahab had claimed I could call the Moongirl with it. The sack gave
meaning to my journey. Without it there wouldn't be anything to
cling
to
when I was chased by the tides of fate. There was beauty in hoping that one day
I could pass it to Lady Shallot and do the right thing, and finally have my
reward of living a decent life. I could feel its warmth on my belly as I
climbed up to Captain Hook's ship. It wasn't the right thing, what I was about
to do. It was just the right thing for today.
For now.

I had
chosen to survive today. I had chosen the lesser of two evils. Tomorrow it
would be another fight. And after, I wouldn't give up.

50

Fable's
Dreamworld

"In
order for the Princess of Sorrow to live, we need a temporary heart, and we
need it right now." Baba Yaga waved her glinting knife toward Fable again.
They had no time to discuss what had happened and what was really going on now.
"We need to split her chest open and give her a strong heart, until we get
the pieces back from each of you!"

Fable realized
that she and Baba Yaga were working to save Shew, each for their own reasons.
Fable wanted to save her friend, whom she loved, and make sure she
ended up with Loki in the Waking World, and maybe live
happily ever
after. Baba Yaga wanted to save Shew for the Queen, so she could still consume
her heart one day.

"Can
you take my heart?" Fable said, not really sure of the authenticity of her
offer.

"I
would rip you into pieces and cook you in my basement oven right now,"
Baba Yaga said. "Your heart is no good. Not even that glassblower's heart
lying on the ground."

Cerené was
certainly taking a long nap. Fable wondered why their hearts wouldn't save
Shew.

"Your
hearts are no good because, if the spell worked, then your hearts weigh more
than twenty-one grams," Baba Yaga explained. "And because the stupid
universe demands balance, Shew has to get a twenty-one-gram heart to stay
alive."

"You
mean a boy or a girl who is sixteen years or more?" Fable remembered the
talk the Lost Seven had before.

But if the
universe demanded balance for the weight of hearts, what was going to happen to
them, having opposed it? Was Ladle right about that when she said that the
consequences might be dire for each of the Lost Seven?

There was
no time for such worries. They needed to save Shew now.

"How
long do we have?" Fable said.

"I'm
not sure, but we have to try. Either she accepts the new heart or she doesn't,"
Baba Yaga said, laying Shew in a certain ritualistic position. This looked very
much like a heart transplant operation in the Waking World. "Oh, Queen of
Sorrow, forgive me," Baba Yaga moaned. "The Queen will drink my blood
and bathe in it with milk and chocolate for sure if she knew what happened to
her daughter." She kicked Shew with her chicken foot, hoping she would
just wake up. "Do you think I'm trying to save her because I like her?"
She glared at Fable. "I have to save her so we can bring her back, or the
Queen will never be complete. She will spend the rest of her life drinking
young girls' blood to stay beautiful—or even averagely beautiful."

"Give
me a few minutes," Fable said. "I'm a fast runner." Since Baba
Yaga had cut off the horses' legs, none of them were of use—it was Baba
Yaga who did
that,
wasn't it? Fable had to run. "I
will rip out the heart of the first person I meet." She couldn't believe
she'd just said that. There was no denying that something was wrong with her
already. She could feel that sense of darkness draping over her. Those spells
must have changed something deep inside her. "You're sure it doesn't have
to be a girl's heart?" she asked, already running.

"No,"
a voice said calmly from the dark. Fable stopped. This wasn't Baba Yaga's
voice. "A boy's heart would work perfectly," the voice continued.

Fable
heard something being pulled against the muddy ground, as if the speaker had a
heavy sack with them. The speaker was a woman. Fable might have recognized her
immediately if she weren't exhausted, confused, and under the pressure of
having failed everyone in her quest.

Fable
turned around, only to see Baba Yaga sinking to her knees, asking for
forgiveness as the man with the black cloak approached her. Baba Yaga looked as
if praying to him.

Wait. Baba
Yaga wasn't the one who chopped off the horses' legs. It was the man in the
black cloak.

And it
wasn't even a man. It was a woman.

The woman
stopped over Shew's body, having walked ever so confidently. She waited for a
moment then pulled her cloak back. Fable was staring with amazement at the
Queen of Sorrow.

51

The
Queen's Diary

Fate sat
back in his wicker chair, swinging to the ship's light movements. He gulped on
his ale and eyed me. He was happy, proud, about to have the meal of his life.

I stood
alone with my sack in my hand, wondering how I'd ended up here. I mean
,
I was treated like a princess a few months ago, back in my
home, Styria. People came from all over Europe to have my blessings and kiss my
hand. I couldn't seem to bless myself, though.

"I
see the mermaids are down there with you," he said, combing his pigtailed
beard.

"I
lied to them," I said. "They think I sold my soul to you and came to
get it back. They think I can have my soul back within seven days."

"And
you know this isn't true, right?"

"I
thought so," I said. "Why would you grant anyone the right to take
their soul back within seven days? You're a vicious man, addicted to sorrow. I
can't imagine you'd give it away so easily."

"I
am
addicted to sorrow." His eyes were beady but intense. "I can't tell
you how much I love it. I love it!" He stamped his heavy foot on the ship's
floor. "All those catastrophes, the death, the famine, the cries, the
pain. Oh, how sweet. Sometimes, I wish a wizard would invent a crystal ball
where we can capture people's miseries and play them over and over again. I
wouldn't need to buy many souls then," he roared, laughing.

I said
nothing. I was the sheep at the slaughterhouse door, waiting for my turn.

"So
you fooled them?" He seemed to consider something for a moment. "I've
always liked a smart woman. Why would you agree to sell your soul to me now?"

"I
have no choice," I explained. "Either I'd let my lover bite me and
end a prophecy dear to my heart, or I would have died by the whale's flood
after being trapped in it for seven days. Or surrender to a nameless witch I'd
prefer to know nothing about."

"Ah,"
he sighed. "The nameless witch. Who knows who she really is? Please
continue."

"The
mermaids drove me and my lover crazy with the constant pressure. Ironically,
you're my last hope. I know I will live in misery after I sell you my soul, but
it was the only way to escape the whale and the mermaids."

"Hmm…"
He stood up and played with his beard. "Tell me, Carmilla. What drives you
to stay so strong?"

"You
think that I'm being strong?" I chuckled uneasily.

"You
are. You just don't know it," he said, scratching his head with his hook. "Sometimes
when you're in the middle of all sorrow, you don't realize how strong you
actually are.
Because you're just overwhelmed with the impact
of the many things happening to you.
In fact, you don't stop and look at
how everyone else around you has totally succumbed to the pain, while you didn't."

"I
didn't?"

"Can't
you see that?" he said. "Can't you see that most of the people on the
Pequod
are dead, and you aren't? Can't you see that no one probably
survived living inside Moby Dick, while you did? You're not crushed bones in
the hands of a mermaid now. You're standing tall before me, fists ready for the
next fight." He stopped to consider. "Can't you see that you have
triumphed with True Love while most people don't?"

"If
you admire me so much, would you just let me go?" I pleaded politely. "I
mean
,
we could fake that I sold you my soul and you
will never give it back. The sirens will leave me be, and I will be able to go
save my loved one."

Hook
pouted. "I'm sorry, Carmilla," he said. "I may be a reasonable
man. Articulate sometimes." He gulped on his ale then burped. "But I'm
an evil man." He burped again, and a dead fish fell out of his mouth. "And
I love it!" He raised his bottle up high then looked down on me again. "Besides,
you're too joyful to resist. I mean
,
crushing you into
a miserable girl will equal thousands of souls. You're a jewel of sorrow to me."

I peeked
at the sirens down by the sea, and looked back at him. I was too exhausted,
ironically happy to be here in the arms of Fate.
Let's do this,
I
thought.

"What
do you I have to do to sell you my soul?"

"It's
so easy." He smashed the bottle on one of his sailors' heads and stood up
straight, working his clothes to look their best. He wiped his mouth, and posed
as if we were going to get married. "I will ask if you, Carmilla Philip
Karnstein, agree to sell your soul to me," he said. "And all you have
to do is say: I do."

"Just
that?"

"Just
that." He spread his arms like a welcoming jester, his reeking mouth wide
open.

"And
the mermaids, the nameless witch will leave me alone?"

"Once
you're my business, they can't hurt you," he said,
then
recited his proposal.

I nodded
and said, "I do."

He almost
jumped, and then said, "Until sorrow do us part."

Tears didn't
leave my eyes that night. It wasn't like someone had fooled me into selling my
soul. I did it willingly. Also, the ceremony was much easier than I had thought
it would be. All I cared about was going back to Angel. Sure, we'd live in
sorrow, whatever that was, but we'd be together. And I would have his child
that would save the world.