Snow White Sorrow (49 page)

“Hello, Loki,” she said.

A cloud blocked the glaring sunrays outside for a moment, and Loki was finally able to see Mircalla’s face.

It took him some time to understand who he was looking at, and then a shriek almost burst his lungs open.

The muscles in Loki’s face drooped from the unpleasant surprise. His features changed from cheerful to appalled. His heart raced and he felt a chilling tingle in his spine. He was choking. He wanted to scream but couldn’t. His fear took over.

Dazed and confused, Loki rested his hands on the table. Then the placemat frayed by itself into long red threads, looking exactly like his lost Fleece, the one he’d lost in the dream. With his eyes still glued to Mircalla, the threads crawled like thin, mad snakes all over his body, tying him to the chair then weaving a spider’s web on his lips, zipping his mouth shut.

The snaky thread started growing needle-like tips, piercing through his flesh, and entering his veins.

Loki couldn’t utter a word. He couldn’t think straight. He could only hear his friends screaming. Shifting his eyes, he saw they were tied to their chairs too. But their mouths hadn’t been sealed.

“Oh. My. God.” Fable screamed, pointing at Mircalla, finally realizing who she really was. “It’s you?”

“All this time, how didn’t we figure this out?” Axel said, as his jaw dropped.
Mircalla!
Loki thought to himself. How did he miss that? Mircalla was another name for the scariest person he’d ever met; only the letters were scrambled. It was an anagram for Carmilla, the Queen of Sorrow’s real name. She’d planned this all along, fooling Axel and Fable into thinking she was a good foster parent, and that she cared for them. If Axel and Fable were Hansel and Gretel like Charmwill had hinted, then why did Carmilla raise them? Did she kill their parents? What were her plans in all of this?

Loki watched the deceivingly beautiful Queen lean back in her chair, dressed in a modern day outfit, capable of fooling the world. She sat calmly, intending to eat her meal like nothing happened.

“Now that Charmwill Glimmer is dead, I’d like to tell you a little fairy tale,” she said to Loki. Her words came out smoothly and slowly, taking all the time she needed to stress on every syllable. She was in no hurry. She’d fooled them all and knew she had the upper hand. “This one is a true fairy tale,” she added, watching each one carefully.

Loki tried to talk, but his mouth was still sewn shut.

The Queen unfolded a napkin and rested it on her lap then grabbed a knife and fork. She checked to make sure they were clean and glinting, and then she started slicing the meat in front of her with delicate and accurate precision. She did it as if she were sculpting a masterpiece of meat then she started telling her tale.

“Once upon a time, about two centuries ago, a king called Angel Night von Sorrow was at war with the evil vampires threatening to take his daughter from him in an attempt to make her one of them,” Carmilla started, her eyes focused on cutting the food. “In his quest for recruiting the best warriors, and because he was loved by the Council of Fairy Heaven for rivaling his own kind, the Council sent him young warriors from Fairy Heaven; powerful warriors who had the gift of killing vampires in their dreams. They were called Dreamhunters, and they helped the king a great deal. He’d even ordered a few of them to protect the castle and the princess in his absence. Who better than angels to watch over his little chosen princess?” the Queen smirked at her own sentence, and then sank her knife into the meat again. “Only one of the Dreamhunters was different; he wasn’t pure like the rest. He had great darkness buried in him. The kind of beautiful darkness only the Queen was able to detect. She’d recently transformed into a vampire and killed young girls to preserve her beauty—she was horrid,” Carmilla rolled her eyes. “It turned out the boy’s father, a pure angel, had fallen in love with a demon woman who’d given birth to the boy about fifteen years earlier. The Queen liked that. She taught the boy the ways of darkness and let him lead an evil army for her own purposes. Although young, the boy became her scariest weapon in the kingdom.”

Loki moaned, wanting to talk. In his frustration, he kicked the table to get Carmilla’s attention. He wanted to dare her to look him in the eyes.

Carmilla raised her head and looked at him. “Ah, you want to talk?” she said. “Not unless I say so,” she poured herself a drink and cleaned the rim of the glass with the tips of her fingers. “One day, the Queen sent the Dreamhunter to kill her own daughter—she was a big threat to the Queen. To prove that he’d killed the princess, the Dreamhunter had to bring the Queen her daughter’s heart, which the Queen planned on eating,” Carmilla picked a ripe, heart shaped, piece of meat and placed it slowly on her tongue. Loki thought she’d show her forked tongue now, but she didn’t. She closed her eyes and moaned briefly as she chewed on the meat. “Disappointingly,” she opened her eyes slowly the way a theatre pulls its curtain open for the final act, “the Dreamhunter fell in love with the princess, although she was partially a demon herself. He refused to kill her, defying me and the Council of Fairy Heaven.”

Loki’s face was getting redder with every passing moment. He was about to explode, trying to destroy the spider web sealing his mouth.

“You know what else the Dreamhunter did?” Carmilla wiped her lips with the tip of the napkin, then folded it and placed it carefully back on the table. “Not only did he disobey the Queen’s orders, but he continued helping the runaway princess. Together, they were able to find the annoying Charmwill Glimmer to help them with an enchantment that split the princess’ heart into seven tiny hearts. She gave seven of her friends that she met in a cottage in the dark forest while running from her mother, each a piece of her heart. A nifty trick. This way the Queen not only had to find her escaping daughter, but she also had to find her daughter’s friends, whom she called the Lost Seven. Without finding the Lost Seven and collecting the pieces of Snow White’s heart from them, she couldn’t kill the princess—The Queen desperately wanted her daughter’s heart. It had been foretold that only one of them could live.”

Loki’s eyes moistened as his memories slowly returned to him.

“Although the Queen was never able to catch her daughter or the Dreamhunter, the Council of Heaven, was fooled into believing that the princess was the bad seed and shadowed the Dreamhunter as punishment for falling in love with her,” Carmilla loved every word coming out of her lips, and loved her voice. “Until that annoying Charmwill unshadowed the Dreamhunter. You know the story from there, right Loki?”

Loki felt like fainting as the shocking news sunk into his brain and he began having visions of the past. This time, it was an extremely vivid vision. He saw Snow White running scared from her pursuer, hiking up the bottom of her dress as she ran, so not to fall, trying to find a place to hide in. He saw her come upon a cottage and stop before it reluctantly, before she opened the door and walked in.

“It’s a well-known fairy tale, if you ask me, only some versions might differ a little,” Carmilla said, leaning forward toward Loki, “because some would call the Dreamhunter a Huntsman.”

“No!” Fable screamed, trying to free her tied hands. She knew were this conversation was going, but couldn’t believe it. “You’re lying. Loki is a good guy.”

The Queen shushed her by snapping two fingers together. Fable’s mouth was sewn shut instantly. Axel and Lucy exchanged looks; they weren’t going to utter a word no matter what.

“You wanted to know who you really are, Loki. You wanted to know why you were banned, and who the girl was. More importantly, you wanted to know about the darkness you had inside of you,” Carmilla leaned back now, crossing her legs. “Here are all the answers you wanted. You’re simply
the
Huntsman. Always were, always will be.”

As for Loki, he longed to scream. But he didn’t need to. His moist eyes, filled with horror, showed how shocked he was.

The dizziness hit him again, and the flashes returned. This time he recognized that he was the one chasing Snow White, and that she’d been running scared from
him
. Loki was the Huntsman, the dark warrior Charmwill had warned him not to look at in the Dreamworld. Loki had been running away from himself in the dream; running away from the evil inside him. That was why Snow White had that look in her eyes as if she wanted to tell him something but couldn’t. That was why she’d always asked him to cross the oceans in his mind and read between the lines in the dream.

Now, he knew where the darkness in him came from, why Charmwill had preferred Loki live with the Minikins and never return to who he was before. It was like he was two people; one evil, one good, and he had to find a way to make the good one prevail against the dark one.

What exactly happened two centuries ago, Loki wondered. Did falling in love with Snow White change him into a better person? How did he change from a dark Huntsman to the boy he is now? It drove Loki mad.

“Why do you think I let you get away with my daughter in the Dreamworld?” the Queen of Sorrow said. “Yes, it’s true that I was occupied with killing Charmwill Glimmer and that I forced her to bite the apple. But I let you go because no matter where you go, you can’t run away from me,” she pulled out the Fleece and rolled it slowly over her fingers, one by one.

When Loki tried to resist, she pulled the Fleece tight around her finger, causing him to choke. When she pulled the Fleece through her fingers, the thin threads that had entered his body pinched him from inside.

“I own you now, Loki Blackstar. You know why? Because I have your Fleece, which is similar to a Dreamhunter’s soul,” Carmilla said, toying with the Fleece. “Now you’re working for me again. You’re my Huntsman and you will do whatever I say. I’ve got a lot do work to do in this town so I can find the Lost Seven before my daughter finds them. And you will help me enter each one’s dream,” she shifted her eyes towards the others. “I’d appreciate it if all of you’d cooperate and welcome your new school principal and the town’s Chairwoman,” she pointed at herself, and then looked back at Loki.

In Loki’s mind, he’d decided whose side he was on. It didn’t matter if he were the Huntsman. It didn’t matter if he had great evil inside him. He was going to fight the Queen of Sorrow no matter what. If only he could free himself or get his Fleece back.

Carmilla stood up and turned around to pick up cut up fruit on the counter. While she had her back to them, they thought they heard her mumble something, but couldn’t decipher it. It seemed like she was talking to herself in a much calmer and softer voice. Lucy thought she’d heard Carmilla sob briefly as if she held a great secret she couldn’t expose, and wondered if this was another side of the Queen they hadn’t seen. Everyone else thought it was one of the Queen’s tricks.

“Evil is nothing but a point a point of view,” Lucy heard the Queen talk to herself briefly while she was cutting the apples.

Although he could see her slightly shaking, Loki didn’t buy into the Queen’s solitary emotional moment. He thought it was the perfect time to free himself while her back was turned. He kicked the chair harder, trying to stand up, reach for his Alicorn and kill her.

“Tsk Tsk,” Carmilla said, wiggling her warning forefinger as if she had eyes in the back of her head. She continued slicing the apples she was about to bring to the table. Her voice had changed back to the demanding Queen who must be obeyed.

Loki and his friends exchanged clueless looks.

The Queen of Sorrow picked up the dissected apples and other fruits from a basket and turned around, staring intently at Loki with her yellow snake eyes. Then she said her favorite words to Loki, “Peekaboo,” she pointed her forefinger and middle finger at Loki’s eyes and then back at her own, ”I see you.”

End of Snow White Sorrow

The Grimm Diaries book one

Next book will be

Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

Don’t forget to check the glossary and the Author’s notes

Snow White Sorrow’s

Glossary

Loki Blackstar
: a sixteen year old Dreamhunter, presumably the best, is part good and part evil, and is one of the few in the world who can kill Demortals in their dreams.

Snow White (Shew)
: the Dhampir chosen girl, prophesized to rid the world of all fairy tale vampires and Demortals. Escaping the Queen two centuries ago, she used an enchantment and split her heart between her seven friends so the queen can never consume it.

Fabulous Crumblewood (Fable)
: Axel’s sister, lives in Candy House, and is trying to prove she isn’t a lousy witch like her mom. She is very sweet and loves people passionately, but should be avoided when she gets mad. She is a wanna-be witch and it’s presumed she is Gretel.

Axel Crumblewood
: presumably Hansel. Loves to eat, and believes Loki is his best friend. Has a crush on Lucy. He would only die for his sister, though.

Carmilla Karnstein (The Queen of Sorrow):
Snow White’s mother, Queen of the Kingdom of Sorrow. She has a lot of secrets of her own, but she mainly wants to find the Lost Seven so she can consume her daughter’s heart.

Charmwill Glimmer:
Loki’s guardian who unshadowed him for mysterious reasons. He loves his pipe and has many powers, one of them being a Dreamhunter himself. He protects his Book of Beautiful Lies for life. He also has a big secret of his own.

Lucette Rumplstein (Lucy)
: Rumpelstein’s daughter. Spoiled, rich, and obnoxious. She changes boyfriends about every week, and doesn’t hold back telling you if you suck. Loki suspects her true intentions. Fable doesn’t like her although she admires how ‘in your face’ she is. Lucy admires the Queen of Sorrow greatly.

Babushka
: Loki’s Russian mother. She’s a ghost, and was the reason Loki’s father was banned from Fairy Heaven after falling in love with her. No one knows what her real story is. Loki suspects she only appears when someone lights a cigarette around him. She’s trying her best to be a good scary ghost.