Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) (17 page)

“Oh, really?” Shew said, trying to solve some of the puzzle, and figure out what Carmilla had to do with this.

“They say a prince lost a poor girl he loved, but found her through the glass slipper she left behind,” the story seemed to mean the world to Cerené. “The gods honored their love by shaping Italia after a shoe.”

“That’s a fabulous story,” Shew pretended she hadn’t heard it before. “Any idea who the prince or the girl is?”

“It’s a fairy tale, Shew. Be reasonable,” Cerené said. “Sometimes you strike me as naïve.”

“So you speak Italian?” Shew changed the subject.

Embarrassed, Cerené shook her head no, “I don’t know how.”

“You’re an immigrant, right?”

“You make it sound like an insult,” Cerené’s eyebrows narrowed.

“Not at all,” Shew said. “I think everyone in Sorrow is an immigrant, except my father and mother. How did you come to Sorrow then, and with whom?”

“I really don’t remember. I must have been very young. I have some memories of the ship I came on though.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I remember hiding underneath fish on a smaller boat for days so they wouldn’t find me,” Cerené said. “I must have had someone with me, but I don’t know who, because I was very young.”

“You remember why you were hiding?”

“I am probably an illegal immigrant,” Cerené’s lips twitched, just slightly. “I do remember the ship’s name for some reason though.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Jolly Roger, that’s its name. There was a man with a hook instead of a hand on it, but that’s all.”

“That’s a rather a detailed memory for someone who doesn’t remember much,” Shew remarked.

“Like I said, I must have been very young. You know when we first met, I’d been here for a year or so,” Cerené said.

Shew tried not to look surprised, but everything around her seemed connected. How was it that Cerené had traveled on the Jolly Roger, and why didn’t she have any other memories of her journey?

Jolly Roger was the name of the ship Shew and Loki embarked on in the Jawigi Dreamory. It was the pirate ship that attached Angel and Carmilla’s ship in the middle of the ocean when they were escaping Night Sorrow.

Shew didn’t comment on the Jolly Roger. She preferred to hear Cerené’s story.

“Once I arrived in Sorrow, I was sold as a slave to…” Cerené lowered her eyes, and looked like she didn’t want to say. “Some family you know.”

“Does your family live in the forest?”

“It’s not
my
family,” Cerené gritted her teeth, looking at Shew. “I have to live with them or I won’t be allowed to stay in Sorrow as an immigrant. They threaten to expose me as being an illegal immigrant if I don’t do as they say. You know what’s ironic about this? Not that I am afraid they’d deport me, but that I don’t know where to go if they do.”

“Wouldn’t you want to go back to Murano Island?”

“I should want to, but my gut instinct tells me not to,” Cerené said. “I don’t know why I get that feeling.”

“I see,” Shew nodded, making sure to ask her questions slowly, watching Cerené’s temper. She wasn’t going to ask her again how it was possible to know her mother while she was too young to remember her. “Can you tell me about…?”

“Bianca?” Cerené smiled unexpectedly. “She taught me how to become a glassblower.”

“She was a glassblower herself?”

“The best, she’s my mentor,” Cerené laced her fingers together. “She could create over a hundred glass artifacts in one day. She had the rarest talents and breathing methods. She knew every stone, every ingredient and mix. She knew of metals that no one had ever heard of. I once saw her turn iron into glass.”

“Wow,” Shew said. “She must have been extremely respected and appreciated.”

Cerené’s lips twitched again. She curled her fingers together, “Not really,” she said. “You see, my mother originally lived in Venice, a famous city for its lagoons and glassblowing among other things. But as much as glassblowing was a wonderful art, it was also a threat to the locals.”

“A threat?”

“Like I showed you, it needs a lot of fire. Houses in Venice were made of wood. Once in a while the glassblowers lit a house on fire, accidentally.”

“So the locals considered a glassblower a danger to their houses?”

“Not just that,” Cerené seemed reluctant. “Venetians thought of fire as a bad thing and that it came from the deepest pits of hell. Burning someone’s house was a serious sin because fire was loathed. It is true that they had plenty of water to extinguish the fire since the city floated on it, but in contrast, it had a significant meaning to the Venetians. God had created them a nation of water. Fire was their enemy. They feared it and all kinds of superstitions were attached to it.”

 “I see,” Shew said. “So your mother’s art wasn’t appreciated.”

“It’s ironic because glass was one of Venice’s most profitable incomes—very few understood that fire was an essential part of making it. Visitors came from all over the world to see and buy our glass,” Cerené explained.

“I assume the Venetian authorities prohibited anyone from exposing the secrets of making that kind of beautiful glass art,” Shew said.

“Yes, that’s true. But how do you know?”

“Because there is always big talk about glass in the Schloss,” Shew said. “My mother spent a lot of money to import glass from all over the world. It’s very expensive and rarely as good as Venetian art, which is almost impossible to acquire. In addition, glass in general is very precious in Sorrow. You must know that.”

“I know,” Cerené nodded in a way that led Shew to think she knew much more than just that.

“So how did your mother cope with the conflict of people in Venice hating and loving glassblowers at the same time?” Shew asked.

“At some point, priests accused glassblowers of communing with the dark side. They said that only an evil art would need that amount of fire to be created,” Cerené said. “They believed that the fire that lit Hell helped in creating fabulous art. So, to some extremists, glass was the art of the devil.”

“That’s absurd.”

“This whole life is absurd,” Cerené sighed. “They were concerned that the production of glass in Venice had increased immensely, especially my mother’s and some of her friends.”

“You just said your mother could create more than a hundred glass artifacts per day,” Shew said.

“And it didn’t cross your mind why?” Cerené said. “As amazing as her talent was, she couldn’t produce that amount of fire needed in a single day. It was impossible.”

“How did she do it then?”

“Well, the Venetians extremists explanation was that she had access to a volcano that fed Hell itself,” Cerené said.

“Let’s skip the ignorant beliefs,” Shew said. “I want to know how your mother really did it.”

It took Cerené a moment to permit the words to come out of her throat, “My mother wasn’t just any glassblower. She was a…”

Shew held her breath. She suddenly thought she knew the answer.

“A Phoenix,” Cerené said, her eyes darted away from Shew’s as if it was a sin.

Shew exhaled. She knew this was going to be the answer. The same way she and her mother were vampires in different ways, Cerené and her mother were Phoenixes in their own individual ways. She still needed to know what a Phoenix did exactly.

“A phoenix is originally a bird that rises from the ashes after it burns,” Shew said. “I don’t quite understand what your mother was.”

“A Firebringer, some call her a Firemage,” Cerené said.

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, the right description of a Phoenix, especially when you’re a glassblower, is artists with the breathing talent to make glass, but few of them also have a certain power.”

“Which is?”

“They could create fire at will,” Cerené said.

19

Pandora’s Box

“Bianca could create fire at will?” Shew asked. “That’s why she could produce so much glass, I guess.”

“It’s a gift from the Creators,” Cerené said.

“The same Creators who’d shaped Italy after a shoe?”

Cerené nodded, “It’s a very rare gift among glassblowers. I heard only seven women in the world had this power among the ages. Three of them were in Venice. My mother was one of them, and I don’t know anything about the other two.”

It was on the tip of Shew’s tongue; asking Cerené if she had any idea if her mother had burned the Wall of Thorns and Candy House. She was just grateful Cerené opened up to her without a temper, and she wouldn’t risk changing that at the moment.

 “Unfortunately, the story doesn’t stop here,” Cerené said. “To the extremists, who influenced the church, creating fire was considered an act of witchcraft. Venice was very skeptical—and secretive—about the art of making glass, and a rumor began to spread. It warned of witches who had the ability to create fire from hell, and were soon going to burn the city. The locals believed it, and decided to burn the witches.”

“But why would they? Nothing burned but houses. Why would they foretell the burning of Venice?”

“Teatro Le Fenice, Venice’s most famous opera house, burned the day after,” Cerené said.

“Le Fenice? I haven’t heard about it.”

“It’s very famous. Check out the history books. The Venetian Carnival took place all around it later,” Cerené said.

“I assume the city went rogue,” Shew said.

“The hunt for the witching glassblowers began, and all glassblowers in Venice suffered a great deal of humiliation, and were burned at the stake for years. I’m sure you’ve heard about falsely accused witches being burned at the stake.”

“Ignorance and stupidity, the true apocalypses of the world,” Shew commented. She had heard all about the burning of witches in Lohr where her father was originally from.

“Eventually, the governors of Venice decided to solve the matter,” Cerené said, sounding bored. Although she was bursting with knowledge, it meant the least to her. Unlike Shew, all Cerené wanted was to make Art.

 “They decided to catch all glassblowers and send them to the Island of Murano. It was the best thing to do to stop the killing and save the secretive art from spreading all over the world.”

“And that’s how you came to be born in Murano,” Shew said.

“My mother was pregnant when she was banned to Murano,” Cerené said. “She told me someone advised her to name me Cinder before she was deported.”

“Why Cinder?”

“My mother’s life could have been summed up with the word ‘cinder’,” Cerené said. “She was always covered in ashes from the cinders and the fire she created—or the things she accidentally burned. My mother had even decided to call me Cinderella to make it sound more girlish.”

“Then why is your name Cerené?” Shew asked, knowing the answer already.

“Cerené means cinder in Italian,” Cerené said. “I also dream sometimes that my name is Ember. I don’t know why, but I like Cerené best.”

“Ember is a derivative of cinder, ashes, and fire,” Shew commented. “So when did your mother die in Murano?”

“Sometime after she gave birth to me,” Cerené said. “I don’t remember much in Murano, just that that single image of the ship taking me away.”

“You have one hell of a story, Cerené,” Shew considered. “I’m sure there is so much more to it, if you could only remember. So how come you can’t make fire like your mother, don’t you think you should’ve inherited it?”

Cerené’s face reddened, out of fear, not shyness. She shook her head  ‘no’, eyes wider than usual, “I wish I did,” she said. “I tried to create fire with my mind many times, but failed.”

“With your mind?” Shew hadn’t imagined how Bianca created fire.

“That’s how I saw my mother do it in my dreams,” Cerené said. “She showed me how to make glass, and she made sure I got better. She tried to teach me how to create fire with the power of my mind, but I couldn’t do it. One time, she told me she’d never seen someone who could mold
living
glass like me, if I could only create fire like her.”

“How did she try to teach you to make fire? I mean, is there a process to it?”

“It’s actually a bit funny,” Cerené giggled. “I’m supposed to stretch the palms of my hands like this,” she held out her arms and almost face-palmed Shew. “Then I should focus my mind, thinking about fire, and say ‘Moutza!’”

Cerené repeated the word ‘Moutza’ a couple of times, and Shew looked around her to see if something burned around them. It was clear by now that Cerené wasn’t capable of creating fire. She couldn’t have burned the Wall of Thorns or Candy House.

“See? Nothing,” Cerené was disappointed, shrugging her shoulders. “I really wish I could make fire. Can you imagine how powerful I’d be?”

Shew thought she saw a golden tinge in Cerené’s eye when she said that. She knew she had that golden tinge in her own vampiric eyes when she killed in the Schloss.

“You don’t need the fire power, or the Art,” Shew said. “You’re very special the way you are, Cerené.”

“I am?” Cerené questioned, wondering if Shew meant it as a compliment. “I’d like to think so. The reason I want to acquire the power of creating fire is that Art is rarely respected or feared. Just look at me. I can create magic itself, but if I talk about it, I will get hurt. I’ve read about so many unappreciated artists in the world. A poet could write a mesmerizing poem, a singer could sing the most heartfelt song, and a painter could paint the most beautiful picture, but without power where would they be in this world?”

“You mean that having the Art without power is like clapping with one hand?” Shew nodded.

The most important things in the world come in pairs, Shew. Your mother might be the devil himself, but when she speaks, you should listen carefully
.

“That’s right,” Cerené said. “Sometimes I wonder what will become of me if the Queen or this family I live with find out about my Art.”

“I imagine they’d sell you for the highest price,” Shew joked.

“Or worse,” Cerené said. “Torture me, trying to figure out how I do it. Not to mention that we both know that people kill for glass these days,” Cerené said. “Do you see now what I’m talking about? If I had power, I wouldn’t be feared, and I wouldn’t need the Art in the first place. I could have such a different life.”