Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (7 page)

13

Until
my whole world crumbled when the most beautiful boy in the world laid eyes on
me for the first time.

The first
boy to ever dare lay eyes on me in spite of my father's promise to punish
whoever did. If you were a boy, looking at me equaled an iron maiden slicing
your throat.

He was an
unusual boy. His boldness and steady gaze were admirable, yet intimidating, as
if I had wished to be looked upon by softer eyes. The boy's eyes promised great
passion, intense desire, but also dire consequences. I could read it all in one
glance.

But it
wasn't only the boldness in his look. It was the admiration for my looks that
shook me all over. He looked at me as if his life depended on coming closer, as
if he had been parted from the air he breathed when he saw me, and as if he had
known my soul since long ago and was about to not only introduce himself to me,
but introduce me to my real self.

I
estimated him to be two years older than me. He was taller than my father. His
eyes were black with that unexplainable hue of gold, like meteors that fell
from the sky every now and then. His hair was black too; so black it wouldn't
show in the darkest nights. It fell down his shoulders, caressing his pale
face, which was a bit paler than usual, but still hard-edged, with
a light
stubble. Not many Austrian boys had dark hair, so it
was a most desired trait.

The world
around me froze for a long time.
I was entrapped by his gaze
.
None of my father's guards stopped the boy—which was abnormal. I was
almost sweating in this cold when he began approaching me slowly. I shrugged
and blinked repeatedly. No boy in this land had ever dared look me in the eye,
let alone approach me.

"No
wonder apples bloomed the day you were born," he said with a sincere
smile. Too sincere—I was so infatuated that no words dared escape my open
mouth. I could have told him this was one of the silliest lines a boy had told
a girl, but I loved it. No boy had said anything to me before, let alone this
one, in whose presence I felt both fear and desire.

"Why
are you looking at me like that?" I asked, doing my best to hide my
feelings behind a mask of irritation.

"So
you can heal my soul," he replied. I swear a gleeful tear was about to
fall from my eye while snow fell from above. "Your face is like sunshine
piercing all this cold in the world that surrounds us. I wonder how my life
would be like if I woke up to these eyes every day."

The world
was spinning around me, and all I feared was that I'd faint and fall to the
ground and embarrass myself. I had never shared attraction with a boy before.
Feeling such unexplained intensity was premature death to my fragile heart. I
still couldn't shake the idea that I must have been only dreaming. Who talked
like that? Who said things like these when first meeting someone? This sounded
crazier than romantic stories I read by Shakespeare.

And then
the strangest thing happened…

"Angel
Hassenpflug!" my father hailed with welcoming arms from behind me. I
turned my stiffened neck in wonder as I watched him hug Angel as if he were his
long-lost son coming back home.

"Count
Karnstein." Angel bowed his head, taking off his hat. "I should
apologize for my delay, but me and my crew faced a heavy snowstorm in Hungary
on our way."

"I
heard about the storm," my father said. "I hope it wasn't
her
doing, if you know what I am implying."

Angel
nodded with a slight smirk, as if he had a toothache or something. They were
talking about the nameless witch. I didn't want to talk about her now. I wanted
to look at Angel.

"I
knew a young and strong lad like you would pass through," my father said.
My mouth was still agape. How was he talking casually to a boy who had just
approach me? "How are our friends in Lohr?" he asked Angel.

"They
love your apples, Count Karnstein," Angel said, suppressing a laugh.
"They not only devour them, they believe they could heal their
sorrows." I think my father hadn't noticed that Angel slightly shrugged
when saying "sorrows."

The two
men laughed, and I was burning in silence. Not only did my father not worry
about Angel's proximity to me, he also seemed to respect him dearly.
Angel, the beautiful apple trader from Lohr.

I coughed
so they would pull me into the manly and loud conversation.

"Ah,
Carmilla," my father said. "I see you met Angel." I nodded. My
father had never introduced me to a boy before. "Angel is the biggest
merchant and trader for our apples. I know he looks too young for it, but he is
the finest lad I have seen in Europe for some time. He is from Germany."

"Nice
to meet you, Angel." I offered a hand.

He didn't
hesitate kissing it and shooting me another deadly look. It was as if no one
else existed in this world but me. I made sure my internal shivering didn't
show on my face or body. "My pleasure," he added.

"Carmilla
is the girl who—"

"Lifted
the curse, and blessed Europe with the Austrian apples," Angel said, his
eyes still on me. "On behalf of all German people, I must thank you,"
he told me with a graceful bow.

"Don't
stare at my daughter for too long." My father patted him jokingly, but
underneath the joke lay a silent warning. "He is a sweet talker." My
father turned to me. "Sweet as the Blood Apples he trades. Still,
sometimes they are plagued with worms." My father winked.

Angel
seemed to detest my father's joke, but my father didn't notice. He laughed out
of courtesy. Our eyes locked briefly again, and I wanted to make sure I let him
know I liked him. I didn't know to show a boy I liked him. I had no idea how.
Was I supposed to just smile, or maybe throw him a seductive look? How did a
seductive look
look
on me? Or should I have just thrown myself blatantly
in his arms?

I ended up
staring like a loon for a few seconds with dilated eyes. Then when I still
wasn't sure if he'd get the message, I tiptoed, my body slightly stooping
forward.

Angel's
eyes skewed down to my feet. I blushed and he smiled.

However,
Angel couldn't say more. Nor could I. My father excused him from my company and
urged him to go discuss business, leaving me undone, not knowing if I'd ever
see Angel again.

All Angel
did was look back at me one more time, sneaking a peek over my father's
shoulder as the two men walked far away from me.

For a
single heartbeat, something told me it was better that way. It was better that
I never see him again. It was an absurd and illogical moment, and I hated it. I
didn't care much for what people said about love at first sight. I didn't give
a damn. This wasn't first sight; this wasn't teenage impulsiveness. This was
destiny. He was my soul mate, in all the wrong ways. I felt like I had known
him before.
In another lifetime, maybe.
Most important
of all, the way Angel Hassenpflug looked at me made me feel better than a
thousand mirrors.

14

Although I
didn't see Angel for some time after, all I could do was think about him: the
way he looked at me, the way he saw me, the way he made me curious about what I
looked like. What in the world made him look at me that way? What in the world
made him look so deeply into my eyes?

I had
never felt the urge to break the rules and run to the nearest pond outside our
castle to get a glimpse of my features. Not even when I had gone crazy on my
mother.

This
feeling, this need, with Angel—it was different.

It was
euphoric, enchanting, and ecstatic. There is some kind of a beautiful surrender
when
we are looked upon by someone like him
.
Someone like an angel.

Who named
their son Angel?

Not that I
didn't like it. I adored his name, and I couldn't imagine what his parents had
expected of their son when they honored him with it. As a Karnstein, supposedly
destined to fight the devilish vampires, Angel's name, let alone his manly
beauty, had me captured for many sleepless nights. Angel made me look forward
to life and its infinite possibilities—I know you might be skeptical,
thinking I was head over heels too soon, but I was a friendless girl, deprived
of looking into a mirror. Angel was, in many ways, my mirror.

Then
again, Angel as a mirror wasn't quite enough. It only made me want to see
myself in a real mirror even more. I needed to see what Angel saw in me that
caught his attention so much. I pondered all night if I should go to the Pond
of Pearls, but couldn't bring myself to it.

The next
morning, I walked to the fields with the peasants to collect apples from the
trees.
A lame excuse to occupy my mind.
Suddenly, the
apples I hated looked sweet and attractive. Love for life surpassed all fears,
I supposed. I felt like a real girl for the first time in a long time, wearing
my white dress, smiling, and collecting apples into a small basket.

The
peasants always demanded I take a bite from the first apple they collected.
They considered it good luck for them and the land. They showed me how to cut
an apple from the middle and examine it. They taught me how each apple had a
five-star shape on the inside if cut horizontally in two halves. A pentagram,
some called it. Some said it was a good sign, while others associated it with
evil—a sign associated with the nameless witch who had cursed the land. A
pointed five-star inside an apple was the universe's way of showing us how evil
was just inside everything good and sweet, I learned. A lesson I should have
paid attention to.

But I
couldn't. Angel was all I could think about.

By noon,
Angel was still in my head, an image of him in front of my daydreaming eyes.
The feeling wasn't subsiding. It was intensifying. I had to ask the peasants
about the handsome apple trader. The girls snickered first, knowing I liked him
already, and then shocked me with the fact that he had ridden his horse back to
Germany, and that he wasn't coming back until the next season to buy more
apples.

However,
something told me I was going to see him again. Whatever that voice inside me
was, it also told me it wouldn't be an easy ride. Angel was going to change my
life in the strangest ways.

Later that
day, still thinking how I'd be meeting Angel again, I caught my parents in a
tense conversation in the dining room of the castle. They were arguing about my
father's quest to kill the vampires in Transylvania. My mother worried he was
starting a war that would doom the Karnsteins forever. My father responded that
none of us had a choice. The war between the Karnsteins and the Sorrows was
inevitable. The name "Sorrow" sent chills down my spine. I had no
idea why.

My father
told my mother that Night Von Sorrow, the vampire king in Transylvania, had
been hiding for years, planning on sending vampire spies disguised as humans
all over Europe. The vampire king knew that in order to let vampires rule the
world, the Karnsteins had to be killed first. It turned out we were the only
family in the world that was destined to kill vampires. It was either the
Karnsteins or the Sorrows in this world.

I ran back
to my room that day, wondering what my role would be in all of this. Was I
really destined to kill vampires? I realized that after I met Angel I didn't
want to do any of it. I didn't want to please anyone or be the sum of
expectations of my parents. And I couldn't bear being alone, either. All I
wanted was to be with Angel.

***

A few days
later, we were invited to one of Austria's royal weddings. I got to wear a
fabulous dress that day, and the servants told me I looked fabulous in it. No
boy dared look at me, as usual. The best I got was short and fast glimpses,
stolen among the crowd. Nothing like Angel's daring eyes.

At some
point in the wedding the girls went to a nearby pond to look at their wavy
reflections in the water, pondering who'd be the first to get married next—legend
had it that she whose face was fully reflected in the water, not wavy or
blurred by the faint ripple of the surface, was the next bride.

My mouth
went dry. I wanted to be with the girls. A firm glance from my mother cemented
me in my place. The day went on as I faked happiness, fighting the urge to cry.

Back home,
still in my new dress, I gazed out my window at the surface of the nearest pond
glittering in the moonlight—I did glimpse my reflection in the glass of
these windows a few times, but it was neither clear nor satisfying, and nor did
it trigger the curse.

No matter
how much I reminded myself of the consequences, I couldn't hold my desire
anymore. I could either wait to meet Angel again or go see for myself.
Impulsively, I climbed down the window behind my parents' back and ran toward
the pond. They thought their guards would stop me, but I had secretly pondered
the escape plan many nights before. I knew what secret route to take.

I ran
across the castle's garden and passed by the fountains, holding the hem of my
dress with both hands, my breath foggy in the still of the night. And right
there before the gates, a couple of my father's guards appeared in their silver
armor before me. I wasn't going to make it.

In my
desperation, I didn't stop running, but they still caught me. I struggled and
fought feebly for a few minutes. I even tried to stare at my reflection in
their silver armor, but only saw a blurry face.

And then,
in my darkest hour, something in the dark killed the two warriors, instantly
and silently. I hiccupped as they dropped heavily beside me, only to stare at a
wavy, dark figure a few steps away from me.

"Who
are you?" I gasped.

There was
no answer. I couldn't sense anything good in the presence of the dark figure. I
had no idea how I knew, but it felt as if evil had a recognizable scent of
perfume. This dark entity reeked of it. Though it had saved me from the
soldiers, it didn't wish me any good.

Why did it
save me? It didn't make sense to me.

I realized
that I had one last chance to run past the gates. For one, I wasn't comfortable
with the dark entity, and two, it was only minutes before my parents in the
castle realized two warriors had been killed.

My heart
beat faster as I crossed the gates and neared the Pond of Pearls. So many faces
of other girls flashed before my eyes. I wondered if the pond's surface would
be as beautiful as Angel's eyes.

Panting, I
stepped over the muddy soil before the water and knelt down, exhausted from the
run. But I was ready to see myself. My breath had tightened, so I waited for a
moment, then closed my eyes as I bent over a little, both my hands on the
ground.

"You
can do this, Carmilla," I told myself, eyes shut tight. "It's just a
little glimpse. I hope it doesn't bring the curse back." I prayed to God I'd
be forgiven if I were crossing any lines.

I took a
deep breath. Then I opened my eyes.