Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) (24 page)

Shew shook her head ‘no’, and Cerené noticed.

“What is she telling you?” Cerené said. “Don’t listen to her. She isn’t your friend.”

“If Cerené leaves again, you will be shifted to the memory of your birthday, and you don’t want that to happen,” Alice spoke aloud, neglecting Cerené’s confusion. “The only way to wake up from this dream is to kill Loki, or he will kill you on your birthday. You still don’t remember how you met the Lost Seven or how Loki fell in love with you because of Charmwill’s spell. If you’re transported to your birthday scene, it’s unlikely you can survive it.”

“Now she’s talking about dreams and Loki and all kinds of madness again,” Cerené puffed. “She is crazy.”

“I will not kill Loki,” Shew gritted her teeth with the sword in her grip.

“No, you will. You have to get back to the Waking World and find a way to go to Murano,” Alice whispered the ‘Murano’ word, pointing at Cerené. “You need to go to where you can find out what the clue is,” Alice looked up as the bathhouse’s door sprang open again.

Shew and Alice stood paralyzed as the Queen of Sorrow appeared slowly in front of them.

“Shew?” Carmilla inquired. “What are you doing in the bathhouse?”

“I—” Shew stuttered.

“I asked you a question, Shew,” Carmilla’s demanding voice stirred the air and sent shivers into the princess.

Shew wasn’t concerned about explaining her intrusion into the Queen’s forbidden bathhouse. She worried how she’d explain Cerené and Alice standing next to her. Trying to stall, she turned at Alice but was surprised to find she wasn’t there. Then she turned to look for Cerené, who was also gone.

The fluttering curtain by the window suggested they’d escaped. Cerené must have escaped, fearing the Queen. Alice must have followed trying to stop her or Shew would be transported to the next part of the dream.

“Answer me!” Carmilla was in her face now.

Shew felt dizzy already, knowing that she was about to be shifted to the next part in the dream. She wanted to seize the moment and tell the Queen to go to hell. A perfect line before she escaped this scene. Unfortunately, Shew was too late. The dream had shifted and Shew was worried she was the one going to hell.

30

The Weighing of the Soul

Shew was standing in front of the Schloss. The world around her was quiet as if everyone had died.

It was noon. The beautiful sun slanted its rays upon the huge curvy design of the Schloss’ facade. Shew held the rim of her dress with both hands and entered the unguarded castle. She was expecting a surprise celebration for her sixteenth birthday—her intuition told her this was the day Alice had mentioned.

Inside, the Schloss was strangely vacant. She could find no one. The blue curtains covered every enormous window inside. The curtains looked like wall tapestries with golden curvy drawings, and they blocked the sunlight from peering at the wide hallways. A single, stubborn sunray still managed to peek its way through the thin gap between the curtains, slicing the brownish walls with thins lines of gold.

Shew nudged her toes free, kicking her shoes in the air, each shoe landing on one of the cushiony chairs on both sides of the hallways. They were made of mahogany and cypress with tulip poplars. Everything in this part of the dream was detailed and sharp.

She lifted her dress up with both hands again and walked barefoot beneath the shades of the curtains. She felt comfortable walking barefoot. The sound of her feet flapping on the marble floor was her only company.

The castle’s residents must have hid somewhere to surprise her, she told herself. Important day or not, it still was her birthday and she was longing for celebration. In fact, it was Shew’s last birthday. She knew she’d never grow older than sixteen.

The further she walked in the hallway the more the silence grew on her. Silence usually made her feel uneasy. It made her think that life had stopped, and she feared it would stay that way forever. The silence in the huge castle was deafening today.

Where are Cerené and Alice?

As Shew swallowed, a butterfly broke the silence, fluttering before her eyes. It had blood-orange wings with black spots all over.

Shew followed the butterfly’s path as it fluttered underneath the thick curtains shielding it from the sun. It looked like a ballerina dancing on air in the shades of her private dreams. The butterfly continued its flight up high toward the mosaic cross-arched ceiling. Shew watched it with fascination as if it were her first time in the Schloss.

Looking ahead again, Shew realized she was walking toward Carmilla’s private chamber, a special place she’d built while Angel was away. It featured Carmilla’s individual throne and it was a part of the castle where no noblemen were allowed—she’d only allowed the Huntsmen in when one of the Slave Maidens resisted.

Shew’s bare feet walked her, almost hypnotized, to the huge double-sided, heavily engraved door leading to the chamber with Carmilla’s throne.

There was a circular handle on the door, made of shiny brass. It was the shape of a snake curved all the way around so it’s mouth looked like eating its own tail. She grabbed it and pulled the head apart from the tail. The door opened on its own, the sunshine widening Shew’s pupils.

The butterfly fluttered into the large place, which was illuminated with the light coming through the huge windows on the left and right.

Shew stood at the threshold, examining the place behind the door. It had a bluish golden hue to it with a cross-arched frescoed ceiling even higher than the hallways. The large windows were framed in gold, and were so large that a carriage could pass through them, allowing infinite amounts of golden and dusty sunlight to fill the space.

A few feet away from Shew, a red carpet led the way up to the throne where her mother, Carmilla, sat elegantly, chin up, with a conservative smile on her face.

Light didn’t hurt vampires like Carmilla after all.

Carmilla’s throne, made of black obsidian stones, had her full name engraved on top:

She Who Must Be Obeyed

Queen Carmilla Karnstein.

The Queen of Sorrow.

The throne was framed with engravings, some that Shew had known of and knew how to read, and some written in the same undecipherable language Loki’s necklace was written in. Few of the readable names Shew could read now were Mircalla, Carmilla, and Ayesha, all among a number of other name that didn’t mean anything to Shew. 

Looking at Carmilla, Shew thought her mother was born to be a queen, unlike her who never felt she fit the role of a princess.

Carmilla’s golden, voluminous hair trailed down her shoulders. Part of her hair was braided into a headband at the top. Of course, it was also attached by a braid to her thin crown on her head, except that this time the hair waved like an
Uraues
poisonous snake, protecting the crown from harm as if it would lash out and bite whoever dared to take the crown from her.

Everything was so vividly detailed in this part of the dream, Shew couldn’t take her eyes off her mother. Carmilla had icy blue, cat eyes; devilishly innocent, seductive, and smart. Thin eyebrows crowned her majesty’s eyes. Her eyelashes, black like raven feathers, were so beautiful they looked fake—they weren’t.

Carmilla had her hands rested upon the sides of the throne and two panthers with green eyes slept at her feet. The panthers weren’t sedated. They behaved out of fearing the Queen of Sorrow.

The Queen’s favorite mirror stood at her side, along with a thin old woman with milk-white hair at the other.

In front of the panthers, three steps down, stood Shew’s birthday cake, three feet high, all white like a wedding cake, topped with dark chocolate with red cherries scattered on top.

On both sides of the red carpet leading to the throne, stood a number of peasant girls. They were young, ripe, and beautiful.

The girls were the first to break the tension and welcome Shew with their eyes, standing firm in their place, somehow afraid to move because of Carmilla. They had their hands laced behind their backs and heads bowed down a little, wearing their own poor dresses.

Immediately, Shew scanned the girls, looking to see if Cerené was among them. A sigh of relief escaped her when she didn’t find her. It made sense. The Queen wouldn’t sacrifice the Phoenix’s blood, no matter what.

Shew knew all these girls were going to be slaughtered and the Queen was going to swim in their blood. Finally, Shew broke the tense silence by stepping into the chamber.

The girls started clapping and Sirenia Lark, the Queen’s favorite singer, started humming while playing her magical harp. Sirenia was a siren who Carmilla had met on her journey with Angel, escaping Night Sorrow. She used to lure men with her voice and eat their flesh. The Queen liked that.

Shew walked among the girls, tenderly glancing at them one by one.

You have to save those girls, Shew.

When she reached the three steps before the panthers, Carmilla signaled for her to stop. The Queen stood up slowly, and the girls held their breath, pulling their feet together and adjusting their dresses.

Carmilla’s presence sucked the air out of the room; even Sirenia held her breath and stopped playing the harp. The two panthers jumped up straight from their eternal sleep and padded slowly next to the Queen as she descended from her throne.

Carmilla walked as if she were a panther herself. Even the sunshine disappeared where she laid her foot on the floor, pretending a horde of clouds had blocked its path, leaving the candlesticks to provide the light.

Carmilla’s hair floated over her shoulders as she walked. She stopped before Shew.

“You’re a princess now,” Carmilla said in a voice submerged in womanhood. “Being sixteen,” Carmilla followed, not bowing down to face her daughter. “It’s a special day for you, Shew,” she stretched her long arms to hold Shew by the shoulders, then hesitantly knelt down and hugged her. “But before celebrating, we need to weigh your heart one more time. Dame Gothel!” She summoned the woman with milk-white hair.

“Majesty,” Dame Gothel paid her respects.

“Did you weigh all the girls’ hearts?” Carmilla asked.

“All but one, majesty,” Dame Gothel said.

“Then weigh it here in front of us before we weigh Shew’s heart,” Carmilla demanded and returned to her throne.

Shew heard the girls whisper something so she took some steps back, trying to listen. She heard them mention that in order for the Queen to swim in a girl’s blood and benefit from it, the peasant’s heart had to weigh twenty-one grams. This, or the Queen wouldn’t slaughter the girl but would keep her for later.

So that’s why she wants to weigh my heart. Unless mine is twenty-one grams, it’s no use to her.  Why twenty one grams?

Shew watched as Dame Gothel laid a peasant girl on a special table with a scale underneath. The girl resisted for a moment but gave up eventually, intimidated by Bloody Mary’s voice, cursing her from the mirror.

“Could you explain out loud how the weighing process goes, Dame Gothel,” Carmilla demanded. “We’ve never told Shew about the process before,” Carmilla followed.

She wondered if they had sedated her before they weighed her heart in the past.

“But of course, majesty,” Dame Gothel sounded neutral. She didn’t sneer or try to look evil. She was doing her job. “First, we let the girl eat the
Sanguinaccio
cake,” Dame Gothel pulled a cake heavily topped with white cream and showed it to Shew. “It’s a rare recipe from Italy, an exotic land beyond the Missing Mile.”

“Shew already knows about the shoe-shaped island,” Carmilla nodded at her daughter. “Continue, please.”

“Before we feed the cake to the girl, we have to cut her arm slightly,” Dame Gothel made one of her servants cut the girl’s arm with small knife, collecting the drops of blood into a cup, which looked a little bit like Cerené’s, only it wasn’t glass. Dame Gothel took the blood and spattered it upon the
Sanguinaccio
cake as if pouring sugar on a pie. “Now the cake is ready for the girl to eat,” Dame Gothel said. “But first we have to check the girl’s weight on the scale underneath the table,” she explained. “And then I will feed her the
Sanguinaccio
cake,” she let the girl only take a bite from it. The girl fell asleep instantly.

“And what happens when she eats the cake?” Carmilla said.

“She dies,” Dame Gothel said bluntly, pulling out a snake from somewhere under the table.

“What?” Shew took a step forward but stopped when Dame Gothel waved the snake at her. “You can’t do that!” Shew grunted.

“Don’t mind my daughter, Dame Gothel. Continue,” Carmilla waved her hand as permission to proceed.

“Now, we check the weight of the scale underneath the bed,” Dame Gothel said.

“Explain why to my daughter,” Carmilla said.

“The weighing of the heart is actually the weighing of the soul,” Dame Gothel began. “The soul, or the Ka, how ancients like to call it, is a mystery even to the greatest wizards and mentors. We don’t know how it looks like, how it smells, or even what it really does. But we knows that it’s somewhere in the heart. The soul leaves the body when it dies, and thus the body ways less. The difference between the weight of the body before and after death equals the weight of the soul. If it’s twenty one grams, then the girl is ready for sacrifice. I see the difference isn’t twenty one grams yet for this one, majesty,” Dame Gothel pointed at the poor girl on the bed.

“This is crazy,” Shew protested. “She’s dead. What good is it if you know how much her heart weighs?”

“Within forty two minutes after she dies from biting the cake, she still can be resurrected,” Dame Gothel said. “Do you want me to resurrect her, majesty?”

“Please do,” Carmilla authorized.

Dame Gothel tapped her snake’s head before it spat poison into the girl’s face. Unlike the usually deadly poison, this one brought the girl back to life.

The servants helped the girl sit back up and leave the room.