Snow White Sorrow (38 page)

Snow White snarled at him, showing off her fangs. It was a much friendlier way than when she did it in the castle, the way friends
boo
at their annoying friends. She was just messing with him, and she probably didn’t know she looked adorable.

“I’m only scared of frogs,” Loki wanted to stick out his brave tongue but he worried it was going to get frost bitten in the cold.

Snow White laughed, puffing cold vapor onto his eyes. “Too bad I didn’t take pictures of you in the waking world,” she teased him. “You were as scared as a little puppy, holding your stake in your trembling hand as if it were your magic wand. I could’ve posted those pictures on the internet.”

Loki imitated her laugh, mocking her like a mirror, mirror on the wall.

“Besides, I had no choice but fall on you,” Snow White stood up, hands on her waist.

“Really? Why do I have the feeling you did it on purpose, trying to take advantage of a lonesome boy in a dream? “

“You have no idea how many boys in my father’s kingdom dreamed of marrying me.”

“Seriously? Did you just say that?”

“If you can’t stand me, then why are you even here? Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Snow White said. “You’re dying to know about me so don’t make fun of me. I’m not like any other girl you ever met. You do like me whether you want to admit it or not!”

“I should’ve just killed you,” he said as he wiped the snow off his clothes.

“So why didn’t you?” she stood on her tiptoes so she could meet him eye to eye, clenching her fists.

Loki had to admit she was a much better version of the Snow White in the fairy tales, the giddy, helpless, and naïve girl. This one was kind of kickass. He liked that, even if she was a bit bratty sometimes.

“Why do you care so much about me then? Huh?” she said.

“You were the one who asked me to save you,” Loki tilted his neck since she was unapologetically pushing hers forward. One more exchange between the two of them and he imagined she’d be sticking her forefinger up his nose.

“So what?” she squinted. “Why don’t you just go to the nearest closet and leave me alone? I will make sure you’ll wake up in the Ordinary World again, the same pathetic, aimless boy who’s always whining about going back to Heaven, and refusing to enjoy life without questioning the universe.”

“How do you know so much about me?” Loki swallowed hard, wanting her to back off since he couldn’t really resist her red juicy lips.

“I just know,” Snow White waved her hand in the air.

“Look,” Loki said. “I think we started off on the wrong foot here. Let’s start all over again like nothing ever happened,” he stretched out is hand for her to shake. “Hi. I’m Loki Blackstar—”

“—and I’m here to kick your ass!” Snow White interrupted.

“Really, how do you know all this about me?” he was impressed. Never had someone treated him with just with just plain honesty.

“You’re too easy to read, Loki,” she walked away. “You just think you’re not.”

“Wait,” he said, and she turned around. He walked to her and held her by the shoulder. “Listen. I will take care of you,” he managed to say, the words heavy on his heart. “I’ve never said that to anyone, and I have no idea why I feel this way, but I promise you that I will.”

Snow White’s eyes glittered, although she knew that it was him who needed her to protect him in the Dreamworld, not the other way around.

“Forever?” she asked sheepishly.

“Hell no,” he brushed her nose with his hand. “Until this dream is over.”

“I’m fine with that,” she smiled, satisfied. “Now, follow me before you get stuck in this dream…
forever
,” she said and walked toward what looked like an 18
^th
century school.

“Did you see that awesome look she gave you?” Loki talked to himself behind her back, following her to the school’s main entrance. “Eat eggs, Prince Charming. She likes me better,” Loki was about to jump in the air and click his heels together like a happy harlequin, but refrained from the embarrassment of her catching him.

“Hurry up,” Snow White said.

The front iron-door of the school burst open. A horde of young boys and girls stormed out. One of them walked right through Loki as if he were invisible.

“So no one can see me in the Dreamory, right?” Loki asked.

“I’m the only one who can see you because it’s my dream,” Snow White said, looking for someone in the crowd. “But don’t push your luck. The longer you stay in a dream, the more your presence could manifest itself, and people will be able see you, talk to you, and unfortunately kill you.”

“What do you mean by my presence manifesting itself?”

“If you get involved in something that can’t be avoided, you will become visible and will have to deal with the consequences of messing with the Dreamworld. That’s why you shouldn’t stay too long in people’s dreams.”

“Get involved in something like what?”

“Like screaming too loud, or making too much noise, anything that will attract attention to you. We’re like ghosts to them in the Dreamworld. Sometimes ghosts do something and get exposed.”

“That’s interesting,” Loki rubbed his chin. He still had a lot to learn about the Dreamworld.

“Look!” she pointed at a young boy with long, curly, black hair; a handsome and strong nineteen year old. “It’s my father,” she said with a panting voice. “Angel Night von Sorrow.”

“So this dream is before you were even born?”

“Yes. Come on,” she followed Angel as he walked into an alley after saying goodbye to his friends. A black raven tailed him into the ally, fluttering above his head. “If the things around you change shapes and forms a lot, don’t panic,” Snow White explained. “I am trying to show you about ten years in a few minutes of dreamtime,” she hurried into the alley after Angel.

“How can you dream of something you haven’t experienced?” Loki asked.

“Think of it as time traveling. The Dreamworld is complicated, and it’d be better if you don’t analyze everything,” Snow White said, stopping cautiously as Angel slowed down in the alley.

Angel was standing alone in front of piles of garbage. He was watching a big rat, looking for food. In a flash, Angel caught the rat with his bare hands and sunk his fangs into it. He inhaled its blood into his veins as the yellowish autumn leaves fluttered in a gust of wind, circling around him.

“So your daddy king was a vampire?” Loki said. “How come he will wage a war against vampires later?”

“Nobody knew he was a vampire then,” Snow White said. “You see that wind around him. It’s protecting him, covering up his secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“It’s the 18
^th
century,” Snow White explained, “Vampires weren’t as strong as they are today. They were outcasts, and they were hunted and slaughtered all over Europe. Historians call this time ‘the Vampire Craze.’”

“I know about that,” Loki remembered his talk with Axel in the Bedtime Stoories library.

“Sometimes, when people got sick or caught a contagious disease that forced them to cough blood, they were thought of as vampires. They were hanged, burned, and cremated. Sometimes, they were staked in the heart and buried six feet under. Whole villages were burned in Europe during the Vampire Craze. Just like witches had been hunted in Europe in the sixteenth century. Thousands of witches had been burned here in Lohr; and vampires were the next threat.”

“What did you say? Lore?” Loki wondered.

“Lohr, with an ‘h’. It’s where we are now, a small town in Germany where my ancestors lived for years. My father, Angel Night von Sorrow, was born in this town. It’s in Bavaria, Germany. There’s even a castle here called the Schloss, the same as the castle in Sorrow. My father later built a replica as an epitaph to his hometown.”

“So is the word ‘lore’ as in ‘vampire lore’ taken from the city of ‘Lohr.’?”

“I have no idea. You should visit Lohr when you leave this dream. It looks like it has been cut from the fabric of fairy tales. It’s where my family originated.”

The colors in the world around Loki changed gradually. The wind that was protecting her father whirled and spiraled in the sky like mad paintbrushes spattering different kinds of colors into the air.

“What’s going on?” Loki asked.

“Hold on,” she said, pressing her fingers against her forehead like psychics sometimes do. “I’m trying to show you other things while we stand right here. The colors painted a graveyard around them. Everything that the wind painted turned into flesh, blood, stones, and it was all in 3-D. It was so real that Loki couldn’t believe it was a dream, as if they were living inside an animated portrait that changed its scene on its own.

In the middle of the graveyard, Loki saw Angel talking to a man in a black cloak.

“That’s my grandfather, Night Sorrow,” Snow White narrated like a voiceover in a movie scene. ”He was the most vicious vampire king in Transylvania, a direct descendant of the very first vampires in the world.”

“The very first?”

“Yes, and don’t ask me who they were because I don’t know. Night Sorrow, my grandfather, fled to Lohr from Transylvania after the peasants burned his castle when they discovered his true evil nature. Night Sorrow isn’t his real name. It’s said that it was inspired from the fact that he brought ‘sorrow’ to the ‘night’ when he fed mercilessly on humans in Transylvania.”

“Quite a resume you have here. Are you sure that you’re Snow White, because things don’t make sense.”

Snow White didn’t comment, and continued her story. “Once Night Sorrow settled in Lohr, he was ordered by the mother of vampires to create a secret vampire clan that would be strong enough to stand up against the vampire hunters who were chasing them all over Europe. She wanted to create a kingdom and rule Europe, all within a hundred years span. It was the only way for vampires to come out of the dark and declare the right to live among humans,” Snow White said. “Night sent his son, Angel, my father, to a regular school attended by other peasants in Lohr, disguising him as a human. He wanted Angel to mingle with humans and study their lives so he could learn their weaknesses.”

“I thought vampires were powerful enough they didn’t need to use such maneuvers,” Loki said.

“Not during that time of history,” Snow White Said. “They were weaker and they were few. They didn’t know why they were created, and ended up being hated and hunted everywhere. In order for my father to mingle among humans in Lohr, the mother of vampires delayed Angel’s transformation into a full vampire until the age of sixteen.”

“Didn’t his human friends ask about Angel’s family?” Loki wondered.

“My father was granted two human slaves—those who were bitten by vampires but not fully turned—to assume the role of his parents. The vampire slaves did anything they were asked to because they were neither humans nor vampires, and they needed the vampires to feed on them or they would die. They were two women, pretending to be my father’s mother and aunt, claiming Angel’s father had died. Their names were Jeanette and Amalie Hassenpflug.”

“Why do think these names sound familiar?”

“Because the Brothers Grimm collected the Snow White story from them; it’s written in history books,” she said.

“Are you saying they lied to the Brothers Grimm?”

“Or the Brothers Grimm lied to the world. I don’t really know the truth.”

Loki saw Angel sink to his knees, begging his father for something. His father’s eyes turned red with anger.

“What’s going on there?” Loki said.

“Angel is asking Night to spare him from feeding on human blood to complete his transformation. As you have seen, my father only fed on animals. He was about to turn sixteen. His spying mission was about to end, and it was time that he transformed into a real vampire, and turned against humans, which he didn’t want to do anymore. Raised with humans, my father was torn between two worlds. He resisted becoming a full vampire against his father’s wishes. Are you ready for the next shift?”

Before Loki could say anything, the wind snaked around him. Like a sponge erasing the writing off a chalkboard, it erased the trees and the sky over the graveyard, and started drawing a new life and space in front of them.

They were transported to a beautiful summer day, and were standing in a vast garden with a fountain in the middle.

“Where are we now?” Loki asked.

“In Styria, under the reign of Francis II, the Emperor of Austria,” Snow White replied. “It’s late in the 18
^th
century.”

Loki saw a beautiful young girl running in the colorful garden under a blistering sun with her pink dress fluttering over the lilies, which contained purple, yellow, and lime green colors. Loki had thought Styria was always cold and snowy but he couldn’t argue with dreams.

“Who is she?” Loki said. He liked how Snow White looked, but this girl was as beautiful and lovely as she was, if not a notch lovelier. She had curly blond hair, sea blue eyes, and a smile that sucked in the air and made the lilies she ran through giggle.

Snow White didn’t comment for a while, watching the girl in the lilies with caring eyes. Her eyes followed her every move, every laugh, and every breath.

“That’s my mother, you’re looking at,” Snow White finally talked. “Her name is Carmilla Karnstein.”

Angel rose like a sneaky cat from between the lilies, hugging Carmilla and kissing her from behind. He kissed her on the neck once before she slid playfully away from him, and he had to chase her all over again.

“My father was sent to Styria on a school trip,” she continued. “Night Sorrow had sent him to spy on Carmilla’s father in the House of Karnstein, a wealthy family known for hunting vampires. It wasn’t known to the public yet that the Sorrows and the Karnsteins had one of the biggest family feuds in history. One family was vampires, the other, vampire hunters.”

“So Night Sorrow and Carmilla’s father were as different as night and day?” Loki said. “And your father just fell in love with the Karnstein’s daughter? Nice move, Angel,” Loki waved ‘hi’ out of curiosity at Angel. Neither Carmilla nor Angel could see them, although Snow White and Loki were standing in the middle of the field of lilies.