Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (13 page)

26

Fable
looked back to Alice for explanations. How did Jack know her name?

But Alice
was gone.

Fable
realized it was her responsibility to play along in this dream. Shew, Babushka,
and probably Loki were counting on her.

"I—"
was all she said before Jack grabbed her arm and ordered her to run along with
him.

"Didn't
I tell you not to come near the Goblin Market?" he panted as they ran. "Goblins
will eat cute girls like you alive."

Eat me?
Really? That's comforting
. Fable decided she better not say anything
for a while. They were running anyway.

Jack took
her hand and they sped up, moving deeper into the trees. He knew the forest
like he had designed it himself. Every curve.
Every tree and
every rabbit hole.
The goblins didn't give up tailing them, though,
spitting and cursing at Jack.

"Here."
He handed her an orange fruit while they ran. "Take a bite."

Fable said
nothing. She just took a bite, and couldn't believe herself. The Goblin Fruit
was so tasty, like nothing she'd eaten at the Belly and the Beast. If only Axel
knew about it.

"Nah,
nah," Jack said. "You're not eating it the right way."

Still
mute, Fable shook her head.

"You
have to indulge in the fruit," he explained, and snatched it back and dug
his teeth into it, allowing its juicy insides to stick to the sides of his
mouth and then slide down as if he were a four-year-old. He closed his eyes
briefly as he chewed and moaned loudly. So loudly, in fact, the goblins heard
him and cursed him more. "That's the way you do it." He handed it
back to Fable. "Now your turn."

"But
we're running from the goblins," she said.

"We'll
be running all of our lives, Fable," he said. "If we're going to give
a damn about the goblins tailing us, we're never going to enjoy the moment."

Fable
laughed at the logic and went ape on the fruit. It was a great release to do it
that way. She didn't even think about the goblins anymore.

"Get
the cat!" Jack screamed as they ran, pointing at a crippled cat by the
side of a tree. "They will eat it alive if we leave it."

Fable did
like he said, pulling the cat and patting it. She set her on a tree branch the
goblins would be too short to reach, and then continued running.

Jack
suddenly stopped at some point he seemed to recognize. He turned around and
faced the goblins as he pulled Fable behind him. "Wrap your arms around
me," he whispered. Fable complied.

The
goblins stopped a few feet away from him, suspicious looks filling their
deformed eyes.

"You
want your fruit, little trashy and obnoxious goblins?"

"Don't
talk to us like that, Jack Madly." The goblin leader waved a crumpled
finger at him.

Jack
laughed. "What is that you're waving at me?" He squinted. "I can't
tell if it's your forefinger or toe."

The Goblin
growled and took a step forward, about to eat Fable and Jack alive. Fable was
really surprised that
she was terrified by such short
creatures
, but they had pointed teeth, like vampires.

"Easy,"
Jack said, biting on a white feather between his teeth. "Let's just figure
something out. I'm sure there is something in my Sack of Wonders that will make
you happy."

"You
always fool us with that sack," the goblin said. "Last time you sold
me what you called the devil's last hair, told me it would help me grow hair
myself." The Goblin was balder than the rest, who were mostly very hairy.

"Sorry
about that," Jack said. "But hey"—he raised the Sack of
Wonders—"I've just stolen the Queen's comb."

"Comb?"
The Goblin was about to cry. "What use do I have with it?"

Jack
pretended to sympathize, bowing his head. "How did I miss that?" He
shook his head, and Fable tried not to laugh. "But it's a Mermaid's Comb."
Jack wiggled his eyebrows. The goblins began panting and drooling.

"What
use do we have with such a comb?" another Goblin protested.

"The
mermaid needs it." Jack pointed at a swamp. Fable thought that only those
ugly goblins would want to meet mermaids from that kind of filthy swamp.
Suddenly she realized where she was. This was the Swamp of Sorrow, two hundred
years ago. "Some mermaid must have lost it," Jack said. "You
could simply seduce her out of the swamp."

Most
Goblins giggled, nodding at each other. "And then eat her!" one said,
chuckling.

"Well."
Jack rolled his eyes. "If you insist. She's half fish, after all. Wouldn't
you want to look at her breasts first? Just a suggestion."

"Breasts!"
Another goblin chuckled. "I like to eat breasts."

"This
is going nowhere." Jack shook his head.

"What
are you saying?" a goblin growled.

"Nothing."
Jack flashed a most generous fake smile at them. "Was just saying how
beautiful you ugly goblins are." He tightened Fable's arms around his
waist while the goblins rolled toward him.

"Jack!"
Fable said, panicking. "What are we going to do?"

"Hold
on." Jack knelt down and pulled a bean from his pocket. He planted it
underneath the earth and chanted something. The bean grew into a tree.

The
goblins had to stop, amazed and surprised by the tree coming out of the earth
like a spiraling snake. Jack hung on to the tree as Fable hung on to him, all
the way up to the highest sky.

"The
comb, Jack!" the bald goblin leader growled.

"Next
time," he yelled at them below. "When you grow a little hair!"

Jack
laughed as he and Fable climbed up to the heavens. Fable felt like she was in
an amusement park, riding the most incredible roller coaster of her life.

"Wow,"
she said, as the tree grew higher and closer to the moon. "That's amazing."

"What's
with you today?" Jack said. "You act like you never climbed up my
tree before."

Fable
shrugged. "It's just I can't stop admiring it every time we climb it."

Jack
looked unconvinced, but didn't comment. "After tonight's meeting, we
should have a talk."

"A
talk?" Fable cocked her head.

"A
talk about what happened to you," Jack said in a brotherly way. Fable
wished Axel cared for her this way. "You've been hiding for three months,
and then you just show up. You will have to tell me where you have been, but
later." He patted her on the cheek.

Fable didn't
know where she had been those three months. She didn't even know why she was
supposed to be here in the Dreamworld three months ago. She didn't even know
how Jack knew her. She was caught in the magic of the moment.

"So
what meeting are you talking about?" Fable asked as they almost came to a
halt up in the sky.

"We have
a plan to get Shew back from the Schloss," he said.

"We?"
Fable grimaced, and as they stopped, a realization was about to hit her hard.
So hard she thought she was going to faint and go back to the Waking World.

"Yes,
we, Fable." Jack pulled a vine nearby and stopped the tree from climbing
higher. They were in front of a vault made out of wood and crawling vines.
Behind it, Fable could see a lot of large pumpkins used as chairs, and a whole
magical place where Jack lived up in the sky. "Something is really wrong
with you today." He ushered her inside. Her legs were numb. She prayed
whatever she had just realized was a figment of her imagination.

Fable
stepped into the place and saw silhouettes of other boys and girls behind the
shimmering of candles and moonbeams pooling in from the sky. Something told her
she shouldn't step in, that whatever revelation she was about to see would
change her forever. She froze still, trying not to peek at the silhouettes to
see who they were. Her poor eyesight was her greatest asset right now.

"What?"
Jack said. "You haven't seen the Lost Seven before?"

"The
Lost Seven?" She looked at him, her eyes moistening. Her mind was
collecting all the incidents that led to this moment.
All the
memories that pointed at who she really was.
She didn't know if she
should feel honored or terrified. It somehow made sense why Carmilla pretended
she was her foster mother now. But she wasn't ready to take the truth in. How
in the world was that possible?

"Look
who I found on the way," Jack said to the silhouettes of boys and girls.
He pulled Fable closer and hugged her with one arm.

"The
cute Fable. She is back!" Jack hailed. "Now we can discuss the plan,
since all of the Lost Seven are present."

Fable's
heart may have stopped for a few beats. She thought this couldn't be happening,
that this must be the wrong dream. Someone must have tampered with the
Dreamworld. How was she one of the Lost Seven?

But the
surprises didn't stop there. Fable heard someone summoning her.

"Fable!"
A girl stepped out of the dark. She was limping and was smeared with ashes. She
put her blowpipe aside to take Fable in her arms. It wasn't that hard to assume
it was Cerené. Fable kept staring at Cerené's hand, eyes wide and mouth open.
How was that possible? How was Cerené alive? Wasn't this dream supposed to have
happened after Loki chopped off Cerené's hands? What was going on?

27

The Queen's Diary

Angel
arrived a few days later.

He was
exhausted, spattered in blood, and his clothes were torn. There was no point in
asking him about the details of his escape from his father's vampires, black
panthers, and hunting ravens. Night Von Sorrow had sent an army of evil after
him, and I was more than glad that Angel had made it to Murano, the best place
on earth to escape Night Von Sorrow—but not for long.

There were
rumors about a few vampires trying to enter Murano, enchanted with cloaks of
invisibility to escape the mirrors of the island. But that hadn't been
confirmed. What I did see with my own eyes were my father's soldiers, who faced
no problems entering Murano, but I managed to hide in Amalie's house.

I took
Angel in my arms. We kissed. It was normal to kiss each other's bloodstained
lips by then.

A day
later, at midnight, while it was rainy and heavy tides clashed at sea, we
embarked the
Pequod
, Captain Ahab's ship. We made sure we were dressed
poor enough to mingle with the other workers on the ship. We smeared our faces
with cinder to look like we worked for glassblowers.

Soon
enough, we found ourselves cleaning the floors of the ship. We were also given
separate beds—Captain Ahab insisted on separating men's and women's beds—and
slept the first night exhausted among tens of other poor workers on the lower
deck. Only brief glances between
me and Angel
kept us
together.

"Believe
in me," were the words he always mouthed to me when he stood far away.

That night
everyone spoke of Captain Ahab, who seemed to keep to himself in his room and
never come out. Nevertheless, they called him the "Ungodly God,"
which never made sense to me. Stories about the captain's previous voyages and
his
ungodly
craziness were told over and over again while we worked each
day. Some admired him greatly, and others feared if he came out they'd be
looking the devil in the eyes. I had to swallow my chuckles when I heard that,
as I had met the devil and saw he was nothing but a poor impostor in a funny
suit. I was also surprised when another worker on the boat confirmed what I had
seen.

"The
devil is nothing compared to Captain Ahab," the silver-toothed man with a
tattoo on his face said. "You know what they say you have to do to sail
along with Captain Ahab?" He was talking to all of us, including
me and Angel, who preferred to act low key and pretend he was
limping
. Angel was a very strong man and didn't look meek like other
workers, so he had to show a weak spot to camouflage his real identity. Still,
they made him move the heavy barrels from deck to deck all day long.

"What
do they say?" I asked the silver-toothed man. Angel shot me a brief look,
worried about me mingling with the workers.

"That
you have to sell your soul to him to stay on the ship," the man said. "Out
on land they rarely call him Captain Ahab. They refer to him as 'Him,' the one
and only."

"I
heard he is a descendant of the Piper," another man said.

"You
know the Piper?" I asked.

"But
of course," an eye-patched man said. "Who doesn't know the man who
plagued the world with his rats?"

"They
say he is the Antichrist, and that he will end our world as we know it one day,"
a young boy said as he smoked some strange tobacco. "I think I like him."

"Why
do you think he is a descendant of the Piper?" I said.

"The
pipe, girl, the pipe in his mouth all day," the silver-toothed man said. I
winced a little at his aggressiveness. Angel was silently observing from afar.

"He
has a pipe?"

"The
one he smokes all day," he said. "Although few people have ever seen
him in the flesh, those who did confirmed the pipe. You can smell its tobacco
looming like a ghost around the ship sometimes."

"You
think he is a descendant of the Piper because he smokes a pipe?" The
eye-patched man almost laughed at the silver-toothed man.

"No,"
the silver-toothed man growled. "The pipe isn't a pipe."

"The
pipe isn't a pipe?" The young boy's eyes bulged.

"It's
a flute," the silver-toothed man whispered. "The flute that may once
have belonged to the Piper."

"He
has a flute?" I asked.

"An
enchanted one, they say," the smoking boy offered, although he had just
questioned it. Whatever he smoked seemed to mess with his head. "They say
it plays a rare melody that the Piper used to play centuries ago when he lured
the children out of Hamlin. Captain Ahab uses it to lure the whales."

"Whales?"
I knew the ship hunted whales, but I said it anyway.

"What
do you think this ship does?" the silver-toothed man snarled. "Why do
you think it accepts misfits like us on it? Because it's the only ship in the
Seven Seas that hunts whales."

I wanted
to ask about the whales again but held back, discouraged by the silver-toothed
man.

"They
say there is a treasure inside one of the whales," the second man offered.
"It can make you the richest lad in the world."

"There
is no treasure inside the whale, you fool," the silver-toothed man said. "The
treasure you're talking about is in Treasure Island. A land that no one has
found yet in the Seven Seas."

"Nah,"
the young puffing boy said. "You're not getting it, old man. Treasure
Island is on the back of a whale that Ahab is chasing. That's why no one has
never found the island."

"An
island on the back of a whale? Sounds like a myth," the silver-toothed man
said, and gulped on some drink that looked like it was made of the dirty water
we used to clean the ship's floor. "There is only one thing Captain Ahab
is after inside the whale: a beautiful mermaid!" He rubbed his round
belly.

"I
would sell my soul to Him if there is a mermaid inside a whale." The boy
dragged from his pipe.

"Are
there such things as mermaids?" I asked. The conversation had piqued my
curiosity, although Angel looked annoyed by it.

"You
tell me." The silver-toothed man rolled his eyes. "Aren't you a girl?
Shouldn't you know about mermaids?"

"They
are real." The eye-patched man grinned. Was that seaweed between his
teeth? "Mermaids are real. I swear I saw them while on the last ship I was
on." He seemed afraid of them. "Oh, man. They look so beautiful.
Beautiful bodies and lovely breasts.
But beware, for they
are devious."

"How
devious?" asked the puffing
boy.

The man
knelt down, looked to his sides, and then whispered, "They surround ships
and lure men with their looks, then they start to sing a song—some say it's
the same tune the Piper played. That song weakens men and makes them
vulnerable. That's when the mermaids turn into octopuses and monsters and eat
the flesh of men, which is how they survive."

"I
heard they turn into whales when they are fed enough," someone suggested.

"Nonsense,"
the silver-toothed man said. "Get me a mermaid and I will show you how
beautiful they are." He gulped.

"If
you want one, go sell your soul to Captain Ahab," the other man said,
leaving me confused by the mysteries of the Seven Seas.

I raised
my head and glanced at Angel. He nodded slightly with a barrel on his back,
assuring me everything would be all right. Although I trusted him dearly, I didn't
share the feeling. We were on a ship with a dark captain, and sooner or later
we'd be hunting whales. Who hunted whales? Then there was the matter of us
being practically lost at sea. We needed to start asking how to find the Tower
of Tales, but we just didn't trust anyone on the ship so far. Those men I was
talking to weren't reliable, and Angel stopped me from asking them. I really
wished we knew what we were doing. All we benefited from this voyage was
escaping the Karnsteins and the Sorrows. But here we were, about to face
whales, a man who bought sailor's souls to look for treasures, and the
possibility of monster mermaids.

The many
thoughts reminded me of the sack I had been given by Cinder. I couldn't lose
it, and those workers weren't trustworthy. Having it tucked under my bed every
night wasn't the best way to hide it.

That night
I briefly met Angel in the shades on the deck and handed it to him. He said he'd
hide it in one of the barrels. After all, he was the one responsible for them
and would know how to track it.

"Do
you think we better open the sack?" I said. "There is no rule against
it."

"Why
would we do that, Carmilla?" Angel said.

"In
case we lose it. At least we'd know what was inside and can tell Lady Shallot
when we meet her. Maybe she'd forgive us then."

"We
won't lose it, love," he said. "I promise you I'll find you a place
to live and build a kingdom and make you the queen. Believe me, nothing will go
wrong."

We kissed
again under the moonlight. No blood present this time.
Only
the scent of fish and rotten cleaning water.
I considered that progress.

"I
believe in you, Angel," I told him, tiptoeing to his height. I knew he
liked to hear it.

"What
would I have been if I hadn't met you?" He held me dearly to his muscular
frame.

As we stole
a few moments, hiding in the shades of the night, I glanced up at the moon. For
a moment, I thought it was smiling at me. But nah, that must have been my wild
imagination.