Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) (12 page)

“You know she slaughters young girls and swims in their blood, don’t you?” Shew said, trying to sound as tender as possible. The imagery of what the Queen did sent a cringe through her soul.

“I know. I’ve seen it,” Cerené said.

“You have?”

“I have figured out most of this castle’s secret doors and pathways,” Cerené’s eyes glittered.

“I can imagine,” Shew said. “I’m wondering why the Queen spared you, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She doesn’t hesitate in bathing in any peasant girl’s blood,” Shew said. “So why hasn’t she killed you?”

“Maybe she thinks I’m good at housework?” Cerené suggested, her eyes darting aimlessly, trying to figure out why. “I could be a senior servant like Tabula one day.”

“I doubt that is her intention,” Shew said.

“Do we have to talk about this?” Cerené asked. “I came to show you my magic!” She held her glass urn up in front of her.

“I want to see your magic,” Shew assured her, but she was still thinking about why Carmilla spared Cerené. It crossed her mind that even if Cerené decided to expose the Queen, no one would believe her. She had no one to tell, no one respected her, and if her mother had been a burned as a witch, it was easy to accuse Cerené of being like her. It made sense why Tabula had sent her to wash Shew after biting the prince.

In the Kingdom of Sorrow, Cerené was a nobody. She could’ve been killed without anyone missing her.

“Are you still thinking about why the Queen spares me?” Cerené broke the silence.

“So you actually have an idea?” Shew said.

“Yes,” Cerené looked sideways, inspecting for intruders then leaned forward, “the Queen wants my Art!”

“Oh?” Shew raised her eyebrows.

 “You think your Art is that valuable?”

“You have no
idea
,” Cerené’s face lit up from behind the ashes, titling her neck upwards, and making both her hands into fists. “My Art is astounding!”

“Alright, then it’s time for you to show it to me.” Shew would have preferred if Cerené just told her what the Art was. The things Cerené had shown her were fascinating, though. It was reasonable to think the Art was worth the suspense and the wait. What could Cerené possibly have that the Queen would desire enough to spare her life?

Shew’s thinking confirmed the Queen’s phoniness when she warned h
er not to mingle with Cerené. In fact, the Queen must have told her the Italian fairy tale for a reason, something to stir Shew’s thinking.

“Remember when I told you my Art is made of a Heart, a Brain, and a Soul?” Cerené said. “There are two Brains, the tools for my Art, one of them can only be obtained from a house in the Black Forest.”

“House?”

“An evil house,” Cerené leaned in, whispering.

“Huh? Evil house,” Shew said. “If it’s such an evil house, why would it help your Art?”

“There is something special in the house, something we need.”

We?
Shew thought.
Although I am barely contributing to anything, I like the idea of ‘we’.

“What kind of something special?” Shew wondered.

“A furnace!” Cerené exclaimed. “One where children are cooked.”

12

A Trail of Breadcrumbs and Candy

Cerené called it the Candy House, an abandoned house on the top of a hill beyond the forest.  She described it as the second most haunted house in the Kingdom of Sorrow.

“If this is the second, what is the first?” Shew asked, following the tiny ashen girl into the dark of the forest. The way Cerené guided her through the secrets of Sorrow, reminded Shew of an imaginary childhood she should have experienced. Had she not been a prisoner of the Schloss by her father King and mother Queen, she should have experienced the kind of adventures Cerené did. The girl might have been poor but the world was her playground. Nothing could’ve been more fun than a childhood of exploring the doghouse in the garden and pretending it was a rabbit hole to another dimension. Of course, in Sorrow she didn’t need to pretend anything. Surreal and imaginary was normal.

“The most haunted house in Sorrow is the Schloss itself,” Cerené said, ducking to avoid a bending tree branch—trees acted mostly like humans in Sorrow, using their branches like arms, tickling you, playing with you, and sometimes doing things that were more sinister.

“The Schloss is not haunted,” Shew squinted her way through.

“Oh, yes, it is,” Cerené said. “Did you know your cellar was a dungeon used for torturing enemies and that the Schloss had been seen in others places around the world before your father even built it in Sorrow? It’s a Genus Loci.”

“What’s a Genus Loci?”

“All the things I just mentioned about the Schloss before. Basically, it’s a place with a soul of its own. Pay attention, Joy.”

“Oh,” Shew said. “I get it,”
Trust me
,
you don’t have to tell me about the Schloss.

“The fact that you and the Queen live in the house makes it haunted already,” Cerené chuckled nonchalantly.

“I’m not offended by what you just said, thank you very much,” Shew let out half-a-laugh. Shew began regretting she had told Cerené to speak her mind. The girl was too frank to be honest.

“Don’t shake hands with the trees by the way,” Cerené said without looking back. “It’s a trap.”

“Shake hands?” Shew saw two tree branches taking the shape of human wooden hands and shaking each other as if they were friendly. One of them turned to Shew and offered her a hand. Shew snarled at the tree branches. She scared them so much that they ran away on eight branches, like spiders on eight legs.

“What have you done?” Cerené peeked back from between the bushes. Her ashen face was barely visible. Only her blue eyes and white teeth showed—the toothpaste had been working its magic.

“I snarled at them,” Shew said impatiently. “I’m fed up with all the scare. I think it’s time I use my powers.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Cerené objected. “They already fear you. Many things in the forest fear you. They know who you are, and it scares them.”

“I don’t remember the Rapunzel plants or the Wall of Thorns being scared of me,” Shew said.

“The Rapunzel plants are said to be watered by the devil. That’s a different story. The Wall of Thorns hurt you because it is scared of intruders. By reacting the way it did meant it’s actually scared of you, too, the way bees sting a person if they fear them,” Cerené whispered. “Now that you scared the trees, we have nothing to hide in. That was the whole point of walking in their shade.”

“If everything here is scared of me, why aren’t you scared of me?” Shew drew back her fangs.

 You’re my friend, Joy,” Cerené said. “And sometimes you’re weird but I forgive you.”

“I’m weird?” Shew felt insulted. She had been dealing with all kinds of
weird
Cerené had gotten her into since they met.

“Do I have to remind you again that you bit a cute prince and killed Oddly Tune, Joy? That’s weird,” Cerené rolled her eyes and turned around, arching her back like a sneaky cat on her way to catch a rat. “Come on, we have a long walk ahead of us.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?”

“We’re following the breadcrumbs on the ground,” Cerené said. “Look at your feet.”

Shew saw a trail of breadcrumbs, indeed. They were scattered randomly on the ground, creating a snaky trail in the distance.

“Is that like a secret sign that shows the way to the Candy House?” Shew said.

“An evil witch lives in Candy House, she likes to eat children, and she lures them to her house with the trail of breadcrumbs,” Cerené explained.

“What’s so luring about breadcrumbs?”

“When you’re poor, breadcrumbs left by a witch on the ground are luring, trust me,” Cerené said. “Besides, there is candy scattered on the ground, too.”

“Who leaves shiny candy like that on the ground? Is this candy poisonous?” Shew asked.

“No, it makes you faint,” Cerené said, climbing a small hill. “It’s devilishly enchanted candy. This candy and each brick, window frame, door, and even the roof of Candy House is made of delicious colorful candy.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me about the forest?” Shew asked, now that Cerené seemed to be the expert.

“Yes,” Cerené said. “Watch out for the Forbidden Color. You know what that is, right?”

“I know red is a forbidden color in Sorrow,” Shew said. It had been one of the mysteries she hadn’t figured out—or maybe she just couldn’t remember it like she couldn’t remember Cerené. No one was allowed to wear red in Sorrow. Even the red fruits like apples and vegetables like tomatoes were golden. Rumor had it that they were the color red outside of Sorrow. “You want to enlighten me with something else about that fact?” she wondered.

“Of course, I want to enlighten you,” Cerené said, sniffing the air around her as if Candy House had a certain smell she would identify. “Red is forbidden because it’s the color of Death.”

“Death has a color?”

“Death wears a red cloak and holds a scythe, walking around the Black Forest,” Cerené stopped and turned around, making sure Shew wasn’t going to take this lightly.

“I don’t suppose Death is also a girl?” Shew mocked her.

“You’re damn right, she is,” Cerené glared. “A woman actually. She wakes up everyday with a list of people she has to collect their souls and roams Sorrow, looking for them. Once she finds them, she chops off their heads,” Cerené swung her broom in the air. “Pomona, the Goddess of Fruits and Vegetables prohibited all plants from being red, even apples and tomatoes.”

“That’s why apples and tomatoes are red in Sorrow?” Shew was skeptical, but it was the only explanation she’d ever heard so far. “Why did Pomona do that?”

“Because if red is nowhere to be seen in Sorrow, then it’d be easier to catch Death,” Cerené said. “I heard these were the Queen of Sorrow’s orders. She wants to catch Death itself, among other things,” Cerené rolled her eyes, and walked farther.

“But how were the Sleepers dressed in red in the Field of Dreams? Is there significance to that?”

“The Sleepers are dead girls, killed by your mother,” Cerené explained, not looking back. “They wear red because if order for them to die, they must have been visited by Death. The red rather marks the spot, which in our case are the Sleepers, until they wake up a hundred years later. And if you’re going to ask me how I escaped beyond the Wall of Thorns wearing the red dress, I took it off once I entered the Black Forest. Now stop asking question. You talk too much.”

“Whatever you say, Cerené,” Shew mumbled.

“Stop,” Cerené waved her hand. “We’ve arrived.”

Shew stopped, looking over Cerené’s shoulder. There was a house made of candy in the distance. It varied in colors from purple, yellow, orange, and red. It glittered with pumpkin lanterns with zigzagged smiley mouths and swayed slightly in the  nighttime breeze.

“You said we had a long walk ahead of us,” Shew licked her lips, tempted to taste the house.

“That’s strange,” Cerené said. “It should have been. I guess the house changed places just as the Schloss does. I told you it’s haunted. I even heard there was a doorway inside that transports you straight to the Schloss.”

“Let’s go,” she dashed in front of Cerené toward the candy.

“Wait! It’s messing with your head,” Cerené ran after Shew, slapping her hands before reaching for the house. “Did you hear me?” she shook Shew harder. “The house is messing with your head. Once you eat from the house, you will faint. I just told you that.”

Shew felt as if waking up from a dream within a dream. She blinked twice to make sure she was herself again. The house surely had and effect on her.

 “What does she need all those children for?” Shew asked.

“Like I said, she eats them, mostly the boys,” Cerené pulled Shew away from the doorstep. She crouched so they wouldn’t be exposed if someone opened the door. “As for the girls, you should be able to guess what she does with the young, ripe and beautiful ones.”

Shew took a moment to think about it. She gasped as the answer hit her.

“Yes,” Cerené nodded. “She sends them to the Queen, your mother, to feed on them so she can stay
beautiful
forever,” she made a silly face when saying ‘beautiful.’ “That’s horrid,” Shew gazed at the door over Cerené’s shoulder.

“What’s not horrid in your family?” Cerené shrugged her shoulders. “No wonder you’re called the Sorrows.”

“Again, I’m not insulted in any way,” it was Shew’s turn to shrug her shoulders.

“News has been exchanged in Sorrow recently about a number of peasant girls disappearing in the Schloss,” Cerené elaborated. “So the Queen came up with the plan to use Baba Yaga’s hunger for young people to supply her with plenty of them. Once the Queen drinks and bathes in their blood, she sends the bodies back to Baba Yaga to stew them and eat them. Baba Yaga likes the flesh but spits out the bones.”

“Baba Yaga?  What an unusual name,” Shew remarked.

“Of course she has to have an unusual name,” Cerené said. “She eats children!”

The two girls started laughing.

What’s there not to laugh about
, Shew thought. This whole dream with Cerené was made of mountains of silly upon mountains of sillier, mixed with a great deal of blood and scary stuff. It was just like life in the Waking World, a set of unfortunate incomprehensible happenings that made no sense. The best way to come back at life is to laugh at it.

“I heard her name resembled the voices she makes when chewing,” Cerené elaborated. “Baba is the sound she makes when she gulps: babababa! And yaga is the sound she makes with her mouth when she tries to chew the bones: yayayaga!”

She also noticed Cerené’s laugh was more infectious and bigger than anyone she had ever met. She laughed as if it was her last day on earth. Her mouth stretched, and her eyes became bigger, her two cute dimples showed from underneath the sticky ashes—and of course, her freckles popped out.

Looking down the hill, Shew noticed a small village in the distance, “do the people in the village down there know about this house?” Shew wondered.