Snow White Sorrow (19 page)

She stood like that for a while, not biting him. Then she finally talked, and it wasn’t like anything Loki had expected to hear.

Whatever she whispered in his ear, he thought he was imagining it.

It couldn’t be. She didn’t say that. Did she?

Her voice was musical and deliciously feminine. She rested her cold hand on Loki’s chest, detecting the pulse of his racing heartbeat.

“
Save me
,” she whispered one more time.

When she said the words, her voice was low, even fainter than a whisper, as if she was scared someone would hear her. But who would that be? The castle was empty. Why would she worry that someone would hear her?

“What did she say?” Axel whimpered from his hiding spot.

Loki said nothing. The surprise was overwhelming. Somehow, he knew that this moment was going to change his whole life.

Snow White disappeared back into the dark, leaving him undone, just like that. The scent of apples lingered in the air, and Loki inhaled it as flashes of blurred memories passed before his eyes again.

What’s happening to me?

He inhaled her
appleicious
scent unconsciously as if wanting to take something of her back with him, as if wanting to let some of her naturally deadly perfume run through his veins.

But he had to leave. She had spared his life, and he didn’t know why. He was beyond confused.

He turned around, grabbed his Alicorn, then Axel’s hand and sprinted out of the castle. As they hurried back through the Black Forest, red snow began to fall from above.

11

All the way back to town, Axel sat with his knees on the passenger seat, looking back at the empty road, and making sure the vampire princess wasn’t after them.

When Loki stopped the Cadillac in front of Candy House, Axel didn’t bother to invite him in. He slithered out of the car, almost hypnotized, forgetting about his backpack of crosses and food, and entered his house with a slouched posture. He snorted with anger when he found Bitsy had sewn his web on the key lock again. It presented a good opportunity to release himself from the chains of fear by kicking the door open with his boot.

Loki drove away, back to the parking lot, which would be his sleeping place until his sixteenth birthday. He wasn’t angry at Axel for not inviting him in. He understood. Axel had seen more than enough, and Loki felt slightly guilty for dragging him into this. Vampires were Loki’s everyday business. None of them had been a beautiful girl, though. Certainly none had asked him to save them before.

The parking lot was empty, and Loki needed the sleep. He locked his car, and tried to see if the Pumpkin Warriors were playing music, but they were snoring in their sleep. Scared and lonely, Loki decided he’d keep the radio channel open and let their snoring keep him company.

“Turn off the car’s light!” a band member whimpered.

Loki turned off the dashboards light, slipped under his blanket, and hugged his Alicorn. One of the things he wanted to go back home for was the possibility he’d end up hugging a girl he loved at night instead of an Alicorn.

He started counting sheep again. After sinking into sleep, he saw two black sheep. All the other sheep were
baa baaaing
at the two outcasts. He knew he was one of the two black sheep, and wondered who the other one was. Was it his dark shadow from the past, the one Charmwill had told him about, or maybe Snow White, the vampire princess herself?

Loki stopped dreaming and slept soundly to the melody.

Zzzz. Zaa. Zoomm.

It was hard to tell what time it was when Loki woke up again later in the night. Tucked under his blanket, eyes heavy, he noticed the Pumpkin Warriors had stopped snoring. The night was silent as the dead.

Loki wasn’t ready to wake up, so he decided to roll over on his other side and continue sleeping.

Then he heard something.

“Row, row, row your boat,” a girl with a sweet voice was singing outside his car.

Loki’s eyes sprang open. These weren’t the little girls singing this time. He knew the girl’s voice. It was the same sweet voice he’d heard tonight, and he doubted he’d ever forget it the rest of his life. It was Snow White’s voice.

“Gently down the stream,” she sang.

Loki was afraid to look through his window and find her waiting for him outside. Had she followed him?

He held his Alicorn ready, wondering how close she was.

“Horribly, horribly, horribly,” she hummed happily. “Now it’s time to scream.”

Loki straightened up slowly, wiping the sticking fog from his window. As he moved, he noticed Carmen was loose and shaky as if not standing on stable ground. He looked outside the window, and the situation became all too clear. The parking lot had turned into the Swamp of Sorrow, and his Cadillac was floating in the middle like a lily pad.

A shriek argued its way out of him. The swamp stretched as far he could see. There were no street lamps, no school, and no parking lot.

“Don’t forget to scream,” Snow White repeated the last part again, but she still sounded angelic, not scary.

Loki saw her rowing in another canoe, which was actually a white swan. She was in her normal, beautiful girl form, dressed in white with that red ribbon in her hair. There was no blood spattered on her face, and she wasn’t flashing her fangs. She was just a pretty girl, rowing away in a dirty swamp.

Turning her head toward Loki, she looked surprised he was there with her.

“Loki?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

Loki shrugged.

What is going on?

“How did the parking lot turn into a swamp?” he said.

“What are you talking about?” she wondered. “Did you come here to help me? To
save me
?”

Her voice was ripping Loki’s heart out. It was smooth, vulnerable, pleading for help. She reminded him of the squirrel he’d saved; a small helpless being, waking up every day, looking for a nut, but forced to live among Minikins, monsters, and vampires. Every moment of every day, it had to escape the danger of the monsters that overshadowed it so it could live in peace.

“What a ridiculous metaphor,” Loki knocked on his head as if it were a nut he wanted to break open and fix.

“Did you say something?” Snow White blinked, her cheeks blushing red. She had eager doe eyes that made one want to sacrifice themselves just to protect her to protect her—but only when she was normal like now.

“No,” Loki shook his head. “I’m in the mumbling business. I mumble to myself all the time.”

“I noticed,” she laughed.

Her laugh made Loki want to throw away his Alicorn and dance on the water of the swamp while rain poured on him.

“I mumble to myself a lot, too,” she said. “I am lonely you know—“

This isn’t right, Loki. This just isn’t right. Think of a way to cross over and kill her now. She’s sparing your life so she can make fun of you. She’s a bratty princess who wants to have some fun with her next victim. She knows your weakness.

“But I prefer to sing instead of talking to myself,” she continued. “I know a lot of songs.”

“Enough,” Loki shouted, waving his hands nervously in the air. He was kind of silencing her, and silencing the annoying voice in his head that compelled him to disbelieve his eyes and kill her. “Back in the castle, you said you want me to save you.”

Snow White’s face changed. She looked worried, but nodded her head reluctantly.

“From who?” Loki asked.

Snow White didn’t reply. She looked appalled as if something was going to jump out of the water and pull her down. She only shook her head ‘no.’

Loki understood that she wasn’t going to answer him. “If I come closer, will you be able to whisper it to me?” Loki said as he lowered his voice, too.

No, don’t come closer. It’s a trap!

Loki squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, until the annoying inner voice passed.

Snow White nodded, lacing her hands together.

“I will swim over,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “You can walk on water.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you take a deep breath and don’t think about the water underneath you, you can walk on its surface as if it’s land,” she said. “I do it all the time.”

“If you say so,” Loki decided to try, and didn’t mind if it didn’t work since he was going to swim over anyways.

He opened the Cadillac’s door, and stretched out one foot. He let it touch the surface of the water, closed his eyes and pretended it was land. Surprisingly, it worked. Loki found himself stepping on something, a little bit soft and spongy, but rigid enough he could walk on it.

Opening his eyes, he let out a laugh. This was amazing. He was standing on water, and then walking toward Snow’s swan canoe.

“This is magic,” he said.

Snow White nodded, and spread her welcoming arms.

Suddenly, a frog croaked nearby.

Loki stopped in his tracks.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“No frogs, please,” he mumbled. “I hate frogs.”

“You mean you’re afraid of frogs,” she squinted, almost laughing at him.

Another frog croaked, and another. Tons of them came nearby, jumping happily on the surface of the water.

Loki lost his concentration, and the spongy earth underneath him turned back into liquid and he sank.

As he was drowning, he saw Snow White laughing at him from beyond the surface of the rippling water, pointing a finger, fangs drawn, thousands of frogs surrounded her. “Loki. Loki. Loki,” she said. Strangely enough he could hear her plainly under the water. “How many times can a person be fooled? No wonder they banned you.”

Snaky plants, like octopus arms, crawled around his legs and arms, pulling him deeper. He couldn’t swim up to the surface. He was drowning, and a sudden rescue didn’t look promising.

Loki jolted awake from under his blanket in the Cadillac, sweating and panting, while waving his Alicorn in the air. The Pumpkin Warriors were still snoring in the radio. Outside his window, he saw the parking lot. There was no swamp.

“Bad dreams?” one of the Pumpkin Warriors moaned. “Happens to me all the time when I sleep on my stomach.”

It was a dream, a horrible dream.

Loki yanked the door open and walked outside. The yellow street light was slightly glowing. He was glad it was a dream, and he pinched his face to make sure he was awake. What if all of his life was just a bad dream?

“Hey, Loco,” a voice called him.

It was a tiny voice, and he wasn’t scared of it. Besides, he knew who called him ‘Loco’ in this world. It was either his mom or the animals. Loki looked down at a black cat with green eyes rubbing itself against his jeans.

“What do you want?” Loki grunted. “Leave me alone.”

“You know what I want,” it said. “It’s cold out here, Loco. I need a place to sleep.”

“Shouldn’t you be in the pet cemetery?”

“I followed you here so I can sleep in your car,” the cat said, wiggling its tale. “I hear you have an amazing backseat,” It spat on its paw and rubbed it with the other. “I promise I won’t tell any of the other animals that you let me in.”

“O.K. O.K.,” Loki said, “but no meowing early in the morning, deal?”

“But of course,” the cat nodded.

“And no snoring.”

“Cats don’t snore, dogs do,” the cat said proudly.

When I wake up, you wake up, and don’t you dare ask me to feed you, deal?”

“Deal,” the cat said, looking up at him. “Want to shake paws on it?”

“No thanks. You just spat on yours,” Loki said going back to the Cadillac.

“My name is Nine by the way,” the cat followed him.

“So why do you only talk to me when I’m alone,
Nine
?” Loki rolled his eyes.

“It’s a gift only you have,” Nine said, padding next to him. “We pets love to talk to you, but we really hate Axel. He treats Bitsy so bad. We won’t worry bother wasting our time talking to someone who treats other animals and insects so poorly. “Stop babbling and hop in,” Loki said, and closed the door.

Since Nine was going to sleep in the backseat, Loki wasn’t going to need the radio’s company, so he turned it off.

“You need a blanket or something?” Loki asked Nine.

“I’m fine,” Nine said. “I tucked myself in your warm backpack, if you don’t mind.”

“Good for you,” Loki said. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you’re really talking to me?”

“Like I said it’s a gift,” the cat yawned. “One day, when you remember your past, you’ll know why.”

“If I ever do remember,” Loki mumbled.

Loki was close to asking Nine about his past, but he was too proud—and maybe too sane—to do so.

The earth rumbled suddenly, conjuring that soft earthquake he’d experienced before in the same parking lot. It was much shorter this time. The car shook a couple of times and then it stopped.

“You know anything about that whale thing?” Loki asked.

“I’m sleeping,” Nine said. “I can’t talk while I’m asleep.”

Loki pulled the blanket tighter around him before he found himself in a fistfight with a cat.

“But I think the whale had a big meal,” Nine continued, even though he had confessed to trying to sleep. “That’s why its stomach grumbles sometimes. I always wonder what will happen if the whale decided to roll on its other side. You think this is how Atlantis was wiped off the face of the map?”

“I’m asleep,” Loki moaned playfully.

“Oh, sorry, nighty, Loco,” Nine said. “You’ll be alright. Just follow your bliss.”

An hour later, Loki woke up to find the cat tucked underneath his blanket, sleeping comfortably on his chest. When he lifted the blanket a little, he saw a squirrel had sneaked in, too, and slept beside it.

“Sneaky devils,” Loki smiled.

They were both snoring. Loki didn’t mind. He needed the company of safe creatures.

***

In the morning, Loki showed Nine and the squirrel the way out, then he noticed he’d received a message on his phone. It was from Axel:

Meet me in Bedtime Stoories, Rumpelstein High’s library. I found evidence she is the real Snow White, and that she’s always been a vampire. Someone forged the original stories and replaced them with pancake fairy tales.