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

3

The trail
of breadcrumbs led all the way to Carmen, Loki's red car, parked at the edge of
the hill leading down to Sorrow. Fable's own trail of weird feelings
intensified. Again, she wondered if those were only aftereffects of the
forbidden spell she'd used to briefly possess Loki's soul in yesterday's
Dreamory.

What
really bothered her was that feeling of being pulled from the gut toward the
trail of breadcrumbs. Maybe it was only her curiosity. Maybe she just wanted to
check on Carmen. But it surely was an uncomfortable feeling.

She couldn't
help but kneel and grab a handful of breadcrumbs and nibble on them. After all,
she'd been craving bread since she woke up.

"Want
some?" She passed a few to Pickwick, who seemed irked she'd picked them up
from the ground. Fable never knew Pickwick was such a
picky
parrot when
it came to food.

Closer to
Carmen, she saw someone hiding inside the car behind the foggy windows. She
doubted anyone would want to steal Carmen. That would be some unlucky dude, as
there was no doubt Carmen could defend herself.

"How
are you doing, pretty girl?" Fable patted Carmen. She caught Pickwick
rolling his eyes. The parrot must have thought Carmen was just a car, Fable
thought. Was she weird thinking she should treat her like a girl? Fable didn't
care. Somehow, she seemed proud of all her weirdness today.

"There
you are!" Axel wailed, kicking the door open from inside. "It's about
time you woke up, lazy sis."

"What
are you doing inside Loki's car?" Fable folded her hands, careful not to
spill the breadcrumbs.

"Trying
to get it started?" Axel pouted. "Doesn't it show?"

"Why
would you try that?" she said. "You know no one can drive Carmen but
Loki."

"I
know. I know," Axel said, wiping black oil from his smudged face.

Fable
laughed. "See? That's what you get when you piss off Loki's car."

Carmen
wriggled once, forcing Axel to get out.

"I
was just trying to park it in a safe place," Axel said, holding back from
kicking Carmen in the trunk. "Now that Loki's dead."

Pickwick
squealed.

"Don't
say that in front of Pickwick," Fable demanded. "Loki was supposed to
be his new master."

Axel
stopped to look at her to see if she were real for a moment. He stared at
Pickwick again and looked like he wanted to scream. Fable watched him sigh,
pulled a few breadcrumbs from her hand, and swallowed them. "Don't go
nibbling on my Bluebeard Bread," he warned her.

"It's
called Bluebeard Bread?" Fable asked.

"It's
a new brand I found at Belly and the Beast," he said, cleaning his face
with his sleeve. "It's a play on Bluebeard's Beard."

"At
least it sounds better than that Dead Bread you bought last week."

"At
least admit it's delicious." Axel pursed his lips. "Besides, how
could you pick the breadcrumbs from the ground and eat them? I just spilled
them on my way to the car. I have the whole bag here with me."

"I
like the breadcrumbs," Fable said. Pickwick nodded.

"And
what's with the outfit?" Axel said. "You look like a boy."

"A
tomboy, you mean. I like it."

"As
long as it makes boys not approach you, I am happy," he said.

"Can
I try?" Fable slid past him and entered the car. She wasn't about to have
this conversation with Axel again, him insisting she was too young to date.

"As
if you're
gonna
be able to drive it yourself,"
Axel mocked her. "You know Carmen doesn't work with keys, right?"

"I
know, Axel. You have to kick it to get it started," Fable said, still
munching on the breadcrumbs. "But I don't have the heart to kick you, my
little red coochie-boochie car." Fable snuggled the wheel.

Pickwick
and Axel looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Fable was aware of that,
and tried not to laugh. But
then that feeling inside her rose
again
. She felt she was too mature to say these things anymore. She felt
she was
more
manly
. She was supposed to be
badass, and more heartless. What was she doing eating breadcrumbs and chatting
with Axel after all the hardships Shew had been through after Loki died? How
could she be so irresponsible and childish?

As much as
she liked her thoughts, it was as if someone else was speaking inside her.
Should she tell Axel about her calling herself Gretel this morning?

"So
where is Shew?" Fable felt the
responsibility
to ask.

"In
the cellar," Axel said, as his phone rang.

"What
is she doing in the cellar?"

"What
do you think?" Axel pulled the phone from his back pocket. "Mourning
Loki's corpse."

"Oh."
Fable stopped nibbling. Pickwick's face knotted.

Axel read
the name of the caller. His face changed. Fable couldn't read it, but was sure
he was excited.

"I
have to take this," he said, walking away. "Don't even start to use
Carmen's radio. The whole car shakes violently if you do. Talk to ya later,
sis!" He took off to answer the call in the fields.

"In
the cellar?" Fable whispered. "You think we should be with her or
leave her alone with her True Love?" she asked Pickwick.

Instead of
Pickwick answering, the radio did. A song started to play from the speakers,
leaving Fable's mouth agape and eyes widened. The radio only played in the
presence of Loki. How was that possible?

When the
song finished, the host announced a special thanks to Fable Crumblewood and
Pickwick the Parrot for listening. The host announced the next track was going
to be a special farewell song for the one and only Loki Blackstar, performed by
the
one and only
Pumpkinheads. As the song played, something happened to
Fable's eyes. They weren't itching this time. These were tears.
A lot of tears, from finally realizing that Loki was gone, probably
for good.

4

Fable
trotted toward the cellar's door, noticing she'd dropped a few breadcrumbs
behind her. She dismissed her unusual clumsiness, and decided to forget about
what was happening to her for a moment. She stepped forward, took a deep
breath, and then opened the door to the cellar.

Carefully
stepping down on the creaking wood of the stairs, she glimpsed the rusty oven
at the bottom, which had been here since long ago. Only Fable knew it was the
same oven Cerené had used to get fire for her art in the Dreamworld. Every time
Fable thought about their house originally being Baba Yaga's dungeon in the
past, her pigtails rather prickled—totally absurd, she knew; it felt like
she had two Pinocchio noses in her hair. It was such an unsettling thought that
she and Axel lived in a house where thousands of girls had been kidnapped and
sent to the Queen of Sorrow two centuries ago—plus thousands of boys who
had been eaten and cooked in that oven by Baba Yaga.

Candy
House, although it looked enchanting, was simply a horror house.

"Shew?"
Fable called. She was a bit uncomfortable with the dimly lit cellar. "Are
you there?"

No one
answered.

Slowly,
Fable stepped
down,
still leaving breadcrumbs behind
her, as if she were afraid she'd lose her way back up. She reached the last
step down, where the shadows of a few candles shimmered upon the walls.

"Shew?"
Fable repeated.

This time,
she got something back for an answer. Not words.
Only hiccups
and sobs.

Fable
rubbed her eyes and neared the sound of sobs. She ignored her utterly
terrifying shadow on the walls. Finally, she found Shew sitting in the middle
of the room, her arms wrapped around Loki's coffin.

"Is
he breathing?" Fable's curiosity was piqued. There was no need to say
"good morning" or that kind of fluff. She was sure Shew's mind was so
occupied with the complex mystery of the Grimm fairy tales that there was no
room for such gestures anymore.

Shew
nodded absently, arms hugging Loki tighter through the open coffin. It was the
coffin Axel and his nerd-fighter friends had made for him. Loki was lying on
his back with closed eyes and crossed hands. Sillily enough, Axel had dressed
him in a tux with a yellow cravat and tucked a bouquet of roses between his
hands. Loki looked beautiful when asleep, almost like a comatose prince in need
of a resurrecting kiss.

Why
couldn't a girl's kiss revive a boy's life in fairy tales? Why was it always a
prince charming and not a princess charming?

Closer to
Loki, Fable realized this was actually Shew's coffin in the castle, now fixed
and used to accommodate Loki. Two lovers were taking turns in their coffins.
The sweet and sad irony.
The thought made Fable teary,
pulling her real personality out of her tomboy frame for a moment and bringing
her back to her usual self.

She
wondered if what was happening to her was something that came and went away all
throughout the day. Was that some kind of madness, or had she really messed
with her own mind through some wrong spell?

She washed
the thoughts away and neared Shew then patted her on the back.

Shew was
not only crying. She was sweating and shivering. Her face was drowned in sticky
tears, and her paleness mixing with reddened cheeks made it almost look like
she never was a vampire. Her beautiful black hair was wet and stuck to her
cheeks, and swirled like a choking snake around her neck. Fable remembered how
Shew had scared the hell out of her in the Schloss a few days ago. She looked
unbelievably weak and vulnerable.

"I
killed him." She stared at Fable, her eyes pleading for forgiveness, as if
Fable were a priest offering her redemption. With her boyish attitude, Fable
wasn't the one you'd turn to in such situations. Didn't anyone know how fragile
she was herself?

"You
did what you had to do," Fable said, clinging to her weird manly attitude
on purpose this time. Normally, she'd be weeping until she could no longer see
through her glasses. But she wasn't now. The tears that were threatening dried
with the blink of her eyes. The weird manly feeling inside her seemed to help a
lot with the situation. Could it be that she was only growing up and learning
not give in to her emotion?

"No,
I didn't,"
Shew
objected. "I didn't have to
kill him. I was angry he hurt Cerené. I was angry he became the Huntsman again.
I didn't kill him out of necessity, but out of anger, which I should be able to
suppress, since I'm the Chosen One." Shew's fangs stuck out—not in a
threatening way, but in a purely vulnerable gesture.

Fable
winced. She even took a step back. The fangs reminded her of Shew's demonic
temper in the Schloss again. "No. It was necessary to kill Loki. You had
no choice." Fable nibbled on the breadcrumbs to calm her fears. She
thought they tasted incredibly good. "Mircalla, I mean Carmilla,
controlled Loki through his Fleece in the Dreamworld. In order for one of you
to survive the Dreamory, the other had to die. You didn't make the rules."
Fable tried her best to make it easier on Shew. But mentioning Carmilla had her
thinking about why she'd disguised as her foster mother all this time. What was
so special about Fable and Axel for her to do so? "Besides, sometimes Loki
is just annoying when he plays bad boy," Fable continued.
Oops, why did
I just say that? Who am I? It's like I woke up this morning and became someone
else.

"I'm
not talking about that." Shew hiccupped. "I'm talking about me
failing to read his message in the World Between Dreams."

Save me!

Both girls
sighed at the same time. Fable dropped more breadcrumbs.

If there
were words to solace Shew, Fable didn't find them. She watched Shew nodding
speechlessly, not for lack of words, but under the intensity of her sadness.

Silence
crept like a poisonous spider on the walls of the cellar for a while. It was
odd how silence was such a scary thing. Sooner or later someone had to break
and cut through its invisible cobwebs.

5

Only the
sound of Fable's nibbling broke the silence, which was rather embarrassing. But
she couldn't stop her nibbling. If she hadn't left Pickwick up in the kitchen,
he would be mocking her indecency now. Was she turning into a gorging monster
like her brother Axel? Come to think of it, Axel would have made a perfect
Hansel, she thought. "I don't get it," Fable said. "Loki tried
to kill me and all those children in Furry Tell, then tried to kill you, then
chopped off Cerené's hands. All those atrocities he'd done, and then he asked
you to save him? Save him from what?"

"From
her
,
of course."
Shew seemed slightly offended. "My mother." She lowered her head,
looking ashamed of her own family. Fable sympathized. Sometimes she'd been
ashamed of her mother, although she'd never seen her, being a lousy witch.
"Loki was just a puppet to her. She played him through the strings of his
Fleece." She seemed annoyed that she had to repeat herself to Fable.
"I'm sure he would have done the best to save me if he'd been free of her
power." Shew seemed so sure about her statement. Fable wondered about True
Love for a moment. Did it really make people so sure of each other's love for
one another?

"But
if he was controlled by her, how could he possibly send you a message?"
Fable said. Normally, she'd be rooting for True Love, like so many times when
Loki was about to give up on Shew in the castle, and she pushed him to believe
in his love. Today, she wasn't that sure about it.

"His
subconscious sent me the message. He was able to do it through the World
Between Dreams, one of the few realms in the Dreamworld uncontrolled by
Carmilla."

"Then
why didn't he escape to that realm?"

"He
told me he couldn't stay long enough there. Carmilla would've noticed his
absence, and tortured him through the Fleece in return. She was watching the
Dreamory through a crystal ball, empowered by Loki's Fleece. That was the whole
point of her sending him after me. I thought she wanted him to kill me.
Instead, she had bigger plans. She wanted to know about my relationship with
Cerené, so she could learn how to put the Andersen Mirror back together."

"I
still don't get this Andersen Mirror thing, but anyways." Fable sighed and
collected fallen breadcrumbs from the floor. "So you asked him to save you
two days ago in the castle, and then the tables turned and he asked you the
same, only a day later?" It wasn't a question, really. She was reminding
herself of how the beauty suddenly became the beast, and the beast became the
beauty all of a sudden.

"I am
sorry, Loki." Shew gently rubbed his closed eyes. "I'm really sorry.
I'd rather kill myself with a dagger right now."

Fable was
speechless. If True Love made lovers
kill
themselves,
then it certainly sucked. Still, she stepped forward and patted Shew, playing
the part everyone expected her to. The part she usually expected from herself.
Have
I awoken without my heart today?
'Cause I surely can't
sympathize much.

"I
don't understand how I'm supposed to be the Chosen One," Shew continued,
talking to Loki's corpse. "I couldn't save Cerené, and I couldn't help you
when you needed me." She stopped then turned and faced Fable. "Oh my
God. I even let down Cerené." She stood and clapped her hands on her
cheeks. Fable thought Loki's death had turned Shew into some whiny damsel. She
had liked her more in the Dreamory, killing and fighting for her rights. Or was
this
all just
Cerené's doing from when she had
breathed life into the pale Princess with her blowpipe? Maybe the effect didn't
last beyond the Dreamworld. "This girl breathed life into me when I was
left for dead on the table in my mother's chamber. And I let her down."
Shew threw herself into Fable's arms, forcing her to drop the bowl of
breadcrumbs. Fable wondered why everyone needed to hug her today. She hugged
Shew back tightly, though. In fact, the more they hugged, the more Fable began
sympathizing again. Was it the proximity of Shew's heart that made her feel
that? Fable wondered if she'd need to go to an asylum soon.

"I
love Cerené so much!" Shew sobbed violently, as if an invisible demon
shook her. "And I loved Loki. I loved them, Fable! And I let them
down."

Fable
pushed Shew away, only to gently wipe the tears from her eyes and readjust her
hair. It felt good to feel sympathy. It was good to feel like Fable again. She
hoped she wouldn't lose that feeling again in a few moments. "Tell me,
Shew," Fable said. "Tell me about how much you love Loki. Tell me
about True Love. What does it feel like?" It was a sincere question from a
girl who had never dated a boy, although she wanted Axel to think she did.

The
question seemed to calm Shew down. She hiccupped once more and wiped her own
tears. It looked as if she wanted to put a finger on what it really meant to be
in love, but she seemed to not find the words. Finally, she put her hand on her
heart, leaving Fable a bit puzzled. "All I can say is that I feel him
here," Shew said. "Even when he is dead, he is right here inside me.
I don't know how to explain it further."

Fable
stared at where Shew's heart was for a while. She was embarrassed to put her
hand on her own heart, for she knew that no one was in there. As much as she
thought it was clichéd, she wondered if anyone was going to be there at all.
"Then we have to bring him back." Fable pulled herself out of her own
thoughts. It was Shew and Loki who mattered now. If she couldn't find love, it
didn't mean she should act envious when she could help someone who had found
it. "If Charmwill can be resurrected through his True Name then Loki
should be resurrected too. We know his name is Loki Van Helsing now. It's a
True Name. All we need is to find the right spell."

"I
don't think so," Shew moaned. "He was killed in a dream. No one wakes
up from dying in a dream. It's the first rule in the Dreamworld. I'm sure Loki
told you that. He is dead for good."

"No,
he isn't," a voice declared from the top of the stairs.

Fable and
Shew turned to see it was Axel. Fable squinted for a moment to read the words
printed on his white t-shirt. It said:
Alexus the Great is Never Too Late!

 
"According to the Brothers Grimm,
Loki is in a Sleeping Death, just like Shew was in the books when Prince Charming
came and kissed her awake. Did you try kissing Loki?" He turned to Shew.

"I
did," Shew replied, her cheeks reddening. "It didn't work."

"Gross!"
Axel said. "But you had to try. I kissed him once too outside the Schloss,
trying to give him CPR."

"If
you're so grossed out, why did you ask her?" Fable frowned.

"Had
to see how far people go with True Love." Axel shook his shoulders.
"Nah, joking." He waved a hand. "Why don't you girls drag
yourself out of the cellar and get up here. I think we need to discuss a few
things."

"Like
what?" Shew murmured, reluctant to leave Loki's side.

"Like
what?" Axel squealed. "Seriously? Like what we're going to do with
Charmwill Glimmer's True Name. How Charmwill Glimmer is Wilhelm Carl Grimm. Why
Carmilla disguised as our foster mother. Should we look for Cerené in Murano
Island to stop the Queen from finding her, and thus controlling the Andersen
Mirror? That's if we know who Cerené, the Phoenix, is reincarnated into. So
many questions that my head is exploding already, and you're asking me 'like
what?'"

"He
is right," Fable said. "We have to find some answers, or we won't
even have time to save Loki."

"Besides,
Alexus the Great"—he pointed proudly at himself—"has an
idea what to do next."

"You
do?" Shew said.

"Definitely,"
he said. "I know who can help us bring Loki back."