Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (7 page)

Looking closely at
the glass slipper, I see something shining bright inside, like two glittering
mirror eyes, staring back at me from behind the thick glass. I flip the slipper
upside down and two glass coins fall into the palm of my hand, reflecting
sunshine.

“Hmm…” I sigh as I
prevent my heart from racing.

“What’s that?” Loki
asks. I guess my face exposed my worries. “Do the coins have any significant
meaning?”

“It means that the
Queen of Sorrow was here.” I answer, looking at the boat sailing away from us
with Bianca and the unborn Cinderella on it. I wonder if the Queen is on that
boat as well, and if I have been fooled. If the Queen is on that bought, does
it mean that Cinderella won't be born again?

“The Queen of
what?”

“I mean the Evil Queen.
The Snow White Queen.” I say as I notice something else inside of the glass
slipper: a dead butterfly. I wonder what this means.

Loki scratches his
temples, looking like a decent young boy for a moment. “Snow White Queen? Cinderella?
Seriously? So you’re some kind of a Godmother?” He wonders again as I laugh. He
looks cute when he is serious. It’s sad that I will have to erase his memory
once we go back to the real world. I can’t let him know that much. He doesn’t
know who he is and what his role will be in saving the world.

Although I should
be erasing his memory completely, I can’t bring myself to it. I will use my
powers and erase some of his memories; the dream part in particular.

Although I am
prohibited from doing this, I will not erase all of his memories of me. I will
make him think that I am just a girl he met in his dreams, and that I don’t
exist in real life. I couldn’t bring myself  making him forget about me
forever. I wanted to stay a part of him, even if he remembers me as an
imaginary girl he met in a dream.

Beauty Never Dies

A Grimm Diaries Prequel #3

A teaser story for the
upcoming release of

The Grimm Diaries Series

by Cameron Jace

Copyright © 2012 Akmal Eldin
Farouk Ali Shebl

All rights are reserved. No part of this book
may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or
have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations
is entirely coincidental.

All facts concerning fairy tales
publication dates, scripts, and historical events mentioned in this book are
true. The interpretations and fantasy elements aren’t. They are the author’s
imagination.

Beauty Never Dies

as told by Peter Pan

Dear Diary,

I hate diaries. I’d rather have a food fight with the Lost
Boys in Neverland. But since today was awesome, I decided to write down what
happened. And diary? You should be honored that the boy who wouldn’t grow up
wrote in your pages.

Today, I woke up my love, Sleeping Beauty, from her hundred
years of sleep. Some people say she was cursed by a wicked fairy. Others say it
was by the Bothers Grimm. I didn’t care which is which because I missed her so
much for the last hundred years.

I didn’t wake her up with a kiss like it was mentioned in
these teeny-weeny fairy tale books. I woke her up with the most beautiful
ceremony of all. One you did never read about in books.

It wasn’t easy though.

It all started with me standing over Count Dracula’s grave...

Scratching my temples, I was thinking if resurrecting him
was the right thing to do. I needed him to wake up Sleeping Beauty. None of us,
the fairy tale crowd, ever dared to wake him up. However, I wasn’t scared of
him. I am not scared of anyone. I just don’t trust anyone. The night was misty
and silent. No wolves howled nearby, as if they were tongue-tied, scared back
into their caves in the forest.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” My hunchbacked
assistant growled, his yellow eyes gleaming with evil in the middle of the
night.

May I introduce you to the hunchback of Notre Damme?

Yes.

He is one of us immortals. After Esmeralda abandoned him,
and the folks in Paris gave him a hard time, he decided to stop playing mister
nice-guy, and turn into a badass hunchman. Did you hear that?
Badass
Hunchman!
Something Marvel Comics never thought about.

“I know what I am doing, Hunchy,” I loved to call him that.
It toned down the creepiness that oozed out of his nasty face. “All we have to
do is pull out the stake from Dracula’s heart, and the Count will be back to
life.”

“If it’s so easy, why didn’t others resurrect him, master?”
He growled with that silly, evil grin on his face, showing his crooked, yellow
teeth. I should’ve bought him dental braces because his words came out muffled
when he talked, but Hunchy would simply eat the braces for lunch.

“Don’t call me Master,” I said. “You’re not Frankenstein.
You’re Hunchy, the hunchman,” Hunchy looked puzzled. It wasn’t easy reading his
face though. Each facial expression he made was just awful, even it was a happy
one. “And to answer your question. No one woke Dracula up because they are all
dumb,” I sighed, kneeling down, watching the Count buried in the soil of his
coffin. Dracula had a thing for this Transylvanian soil that he couldn’t live
without – let alone,
die
without. “Few people know where this grave is
located. Actually few people know he is real.”

“Do you think he is going to remember who is?” Hunchy
grimaced, rubbing his hands. “Most of us immortals didn’t know when we woke
up.”

“That. We’ll have to see,” I said, chewing on a white
flower as I pulled the stake out.

Even Hunchy winced at the abrupt rise of Count Dracula from
his grave. Dracula floated in the air above us, stretching out his arms
sideways, looking pale and menacing in his black and red coat.

The colors of his cape and his pale skin reminded me of
Snow White. How didn’t I notice the connection before? Dracula had skin white
as snow, wearing a black cape with red lining inside, the exact colors that
described the beauty of Snow White. I hate those three colors: white, red, and
black. What happened to purple, yellow and the color of stars?

Thinking of Snow White sent a shiver through my spine, and
it made me see through the silliness of Dracula’s theatrical act.

“Seen this. Done that,” I said to the flying Count, chewing
on the flower. “Can you please just stop, and tone down the act, Count Dracula.
This isn't Broadway. This stuff doesn’t scare us anymore. You’re so outdated.”

Hunchy chuckled at my comment. Dracula swooped down as if
on an invisible elevator – a good trick, I must say. He took a step toward me
and snarled, showing his hundred-year-old yellow fangs. His teeth certainly
needed polishing.

“Cut the crap, dude,” I said. “Even Christopher Lee is
scarier than you.”

Dracula looked puzzled, totally shocked. If you had seen
the look in his eyes, you’d have thought that he'd just been punk’d on live TV.
I didn’t blame him. He was trapped in the Dreamworld for a hundred years. The
last time he was here in the real life, people feared him, and considered him
the lord of darkness. He had no idea that the best he could do in the real world
now was becoming some kind of an amusing tourist attraction. He’d sit back in a
throne in his castle, and little kids would play with his face and gush about
how this dude really looked
like
Dracula.

“He needs to fix
his teeth.” Hunchy commented.

“Look who is talking,” I eyed him. “You two definitely need
a dentist. Come on Draco,” I said to the count. “You don’t mind me calling you
Draco, right?”

Hunchy sent out another one of his evil chuckles into the
night. Dracula looked like he’d preferred to dig up his gave again and die,
rather than being ignored and humiliated.

“I am Count Dracula,” He spat out on me. The smell of his
breath was unbearable. I forgot that a hundred years in a grave caused bad
hygiene. “How dare you order me around?”

I wiped the spit off my face and sighed. “Oh boy.” I
mumbled, looking up at the full moon. I lowered my head, turned around, and
ripped out his heart with my bare hands. It was a swift move, one of my endless
talents.

Dracula arched forward, looking at his small heart
throbbing in my hands. He didn't know he had one, I believed.

“Now we know who is who in this conversation.” I said.

“How did you do that?” Dracula moaned. “Who are you?”

“My friends call me Peter,” I said with a smug on my face.
“But you can call me Pan.”

“Why should I call you Pan?”

“Because Pan is a god, and I practically own you.” I
pointed at his heart in my hand. “And how come you have such a weightless
heart? If you want to be effectively resurrected, we will have to feed you
until this heart grows heavier. You can’t survive with such a small one.” I
plunged his heart back into his chest, watching it wiring itself to his blue
veins while his chest mended the wound. I loved how vampires healed so quickly.

“We’ll have to feed him.” Hunchy offered – as if I hadn’t
said that.

“Bring him a boar,” I said. “As many boars as he likes. Let
him suck their blood.”

“I thought you’d say we’d bring him one of the kids from
Neverland.”

“Not now,” I explained. “I don’t want to quench his thirst
for humans. I will need him to bite someone for me tonight. And he has to be
craving for human blood to do that.”

“As you wish, Pete,” Hunchy bowed his, and whipped Dracula
with a silver snake that was dipped in holy water an hour ago. Count Dracula
screamed in pain. I could see smoke fuming out of his heated body. “Oh. Sorry.
Did that hurt?” Hunchy mocked Dracula.

Those two were bad company. No future for their
relationship. How did I end up with such annoying crowd?

I am Peter Pan, the prince of Neverland, the
sixteen-year-old, beautiful boy who never grows up. If the Grimm’s hadn’t just
messed things up, I wouldn’t have ended here with those old bastards. Even
though I have nothing to do with the Brothers Grimm cursing their own
characters, I found myself involved in all this mess. It was the price I had to
pay, being in love with one of them.

“Why do you need to be so violent, Hunchy?” I wondered. “If
you behave tonight, I’ll make you watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre when we get
back to the castle, so you can feed on the pain of others like you want.”

“The 1974 version?” Hunchy’s eyes widened eagerly.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “With DVD commentary, deleted scenes,
and extra blood—I mean ketchup and pizza—on the side.” I kicked the grass as I
walked to my red Corvette. “Come on Draco. We’ve got work to do,” I said over
my shoulder. “You know, I have second thoughts about calling you Draco because
there is another more famous Draco than you.”

“More famous?” Dracula grunted. Even while in pain, fame
mattered more than fangs. He was certainly an airhead.

.”“Draco Malfoy,” I said as I opened the back door for him
and Hunchy. I wouldn’t let those two vulgar creatures ride next to me. My
passenger seat is reserved for beautiful teen girls. “It’s a Harry Potter
thing, and what’s ironic is that his name was probably inspired by you

Starting the engine, I pushed the gas pedal forward, and
sent the Corvette into the night. Dracula was sucking the blood of a small dead
boar in my backseat like a homeless beggar. The more I watched him in the rear-view
mirror, the more he shattered all I knew about him being a child who loved
scary movies.

I considered it funny when I talk about
childhood
.
To describe a period of your life as your childhood, you must be a grown up.
And that’s the one thing I never did.

On the way, Dracula described my Corvette as a fancy
carriage. He wondered how it wasn’t pulled by two horses and still moved. I had
to persuade him that my car was possessed by invisible demons. He said that he
wanted two of them in his carriage in the future.

Arriving at my castle, I found her majesty waiting for me.
Why would the Queen of Sorrow ever want to visit me? I hope the situation with
Snow White didn’t get out of hand – or rather, out of apples.

Since I didn’t want her to know about Dracula, I let Hunchy
usher her to the main hall over the bridge leading to the castle while I drove
around and entered with Draco through a back door.

“May I ask who that woman is?” Dracula asked after entering
my private chamber.

“The Queen of Sorrow,” I sighed. “You two are family, by
the way.”

“Family? I have no family. I have been searching for my
family and who, or what, I am since long ago.” Dracula said as he wiped the
boar’s blood from his lips. Now that he fed, he seemed a bit more confident.