Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (4 page)

“You
mean women who were accused of witchcraft,” I corrected her. Women had been
burned, crucified, and killed for practicing things like playing a game of dice
in ancient time. Tarot card and dice were considered witchcraft. I hate when
someone called them witches because they weren't. “We all know these women were
innocent.”

“Whatever,”
Bella said absently as I noticed her wearing white gloves.

“What’s
really interesting is that the skeleton was wrapped up in a shroud and nailed
to the ground.”

“Any
reason for that?” I wondered.

“Of
course. It was a common believe to cover the body of a witch or a vampire in a
shroud and nail it to the earth, so its spirit stays trapped and can’t wake up
again.”

“Oh—“ I
still couldn’t understand why they sent for me. They knew that I wasn’t here
for this. My secret investigations were about discovering the truth about fairy
tales. The stories my ancestors actually managed to alter.

“I’ll explain
everything now, when the workers leave the site.” Bella said, pointing at the
corpse wrapped in white sheets in its grave. She watched the other workers leaved
the site.

Finally,
Bella uncovered the corpse. I got a glimpse of why I was here …

I was
looking at seventeen glass slippers surrounding the corpse.

“That’s
odd.” I mumbled, kneeling down.

“See? Italian
witches from the 12th and 13th century were usually surrounded by 17 dices.
Dice was the game that women were forbidden to practice, and was conisdered a
form of witchcraft.”

“Why
seventeen?”

“Seventeen
was considered bad luck. Don’t ask me why.”

“And what
about the … glass shoes? Hmm.” I thought I knew why seventeen glass shoes
surrounded the corpse, but I needed to know more to confirm my suspicions.

“That’s
why you are here,” Bella announced. “These are 800-year-old glass slippers,
astonishingly still looking brand new. I think it is her.”

“This
is almost impossible. She should be buried Six Dreams Under,” I touched my lips
with my finger. “If that’s her, then it’s starting, which is not good at all.
Someone wanted us to find this. Someone is sending a message.”

“I
don’t know why you’re surprised, Alice. It’s 2012,” Bella said. “And I don’t
mean that bullshit about the Mayan discoveries about how the world ends. You
know what I am talking about. We both know how the world might really end.” She
shrugged.

“2012.
Exactly two hundred years after the Brothers Grimm wrote The Children’s and the
Household Tales,” I mumbled, staring at the glass shoes. “So it’s true? I
didn’t spend my childhood chasing shadows?”

“I
would have preferred if you spent your childhood watching Snow White and
Cinderella movies and chased Prince Charming instead.”

“I
tried to, believe me. Every time I watched the movies, knowing they were lies,
I couldn’t bring myself to it."

“Philosopher
much? Anyway, you did a great job so far.”

“You
really think it’s
her
?” I raised an eyebrow. Part of me was frightened
and the other part enchanted.

“Might
be.”

“And
how are we going to know?”

Suddenly,
a smile curved itself on Bella’s full lips. She cocked her head at someone in
the scene: A slender and fair boy with platinum-blonde hair.

“Who is
he?” I wondered.

“Whoever
he is, he is hot.” Bella winked, which confused me. Even though there was
something so devilishly attractive about the boy, he looked much younger than
she did. About my age.

“So he
doesn’t have a name?” I mused. “Or is his last name '
hot'?”
I loved
gorgeous, slender boys with that unseen aura of trouble surrounding them, but I
had a job to do.

“His
name is actually interesting,” She said, not taking her eyes off him.
“Blackstar. Loki Blackstar.”

“I
don’t know which part I hate more. The Loki, or the Blackstar.”

Bella
laughed, “You too could be a match made in hell—I mean heaven. We should
introduce ourselves.”

“Shouldn’t
a Loki have black hair?” I squinted, pretending the sun annoyed me while
checking him out one more time.

“That’s
like saying, 'Shouldn’t every girl be a princess?',” Bella commented. “We live
in a world where we've discovered that fairy tales were altered. Why wouldn’t a
Loki be blonde? Too blonde actually.”

Loki was
standing in front of an old and dirty red Cadillac. I rubbed my eyes because I
thought he just talked to it, and it wheeled back a little on its own. Then the
radio was turned on suddenly without anyone touching it. It played an oldie
tune:
Red Cadillac and Black Moustache.

“Stop
it.” Loki hissed at his car … and it stopped.

As he
approached us, he was guiding other men to construct something around the
corpse. They were pulling two huge mirrors along.

Looking
over the corpse, Loki blocked his nose with one hand while gobbling on a greasy
slice of pizza with the other.

“It
doesn’t smell,” I commented. “It’s 800 years old.”

He
didn’t acknowledge me, whatsoever.

“You’ve
been
pulp-fictioned
my friend.” Loki barely whispered to himself,
looking at the corpse while taking another bite.

“She is
a witch,” Bella introduced herself. What a start. “You know back in the day,
they were scared of the witch’s powers and abilities in Italy.”

“Yeah,
I remember.” He muttered, still not looking at us.
Yeah, I remember?
“This one had rather a particular power,” He said. “She could make better pizza
than the other Italian witches, and she bathed in Olive oil.”

Bella
laughed. I didn’t find him funny, arrogance shone out of his green eyes. Bad
metaphor, I know. Sue me. I am not a poet.

“A
pretty bad way to kill and bury a competitor.” Bella commented.

“At
lease they're not as bad as the Danish people,” He said, finishing the sandwich
and throwing the wrapped foil recklessly into the grave. “You know they used to
drink, dance, and eat around the corpse of the dead in the 17
^th
century?”

“No
shit.” I found myself blurting, not knowing why I said that. He got on my
nerves. What did this guy even do?

Loki
finally looked my way, neglecting Bella casually. He stared at me from top to
bottom then licked his lips and some ketchup off his thumb. His stare was
straight and sharp and unapologetic, but not in a weird and creepy way. Still,
I scanned my head for a good comeback. I had the feeling he might say something
insulting and silly.

“What
do you think are three things about you that would make me want to know you
better?” He took a step closer toward me, grabbed my hand, and put a small
plastic bag in my palm. He did it swiftly and gently, like a magician. Somehow,
any comeback I was about to spit back escaped me when he looked into my eyes.
It was a short glance. One that I couldn't forget. Then he turned around to
guide the men placing the mirrors.

They
adjusted the two mirrors opposite to each other and perpendicular to the
corpse.

“Who said
I want you to want to know me?” I finally said over his shoulder. Bella omitted
a laugh.

“What?”
he said as he started drawing a circle pn the ground around the mirrors and the
corpse. “I can’t hear you.”

I
gritted my teeth, as I was sure he did.

“Who is
this guy?” I asked Bella. “And what is he doing exactly?”

“And
what do Dreamhunters do?” I asked, folding my hands in front of me.

“The
name is self-explanatory. What do you think a Lawnmower does? Oh yes,” he
looked at the sky with his forefinger on his lips. “He flies a spaceship—I mean
he mows a lawn,” he bent over and rested two
Obol
coins over the
skeleton’s eye-sockets. I knew of these coins. One of them fell through the
hole in the witch’s skull. “Oh. Sorry, wrong size,” Loki talked to the corpse,
and pulled out a properly sized coin to put on the corpse’s eye again. This one
fitted. Bella chuckled. “Awesome. Sorry. I thought you were coin-size 5. My
bad.” He continued talking to the corpse.

“And
why do we need a Dreamhunter?” I asked Bella.

“Dreamhunters
are the only ones who can enter the dreams of immortals—” Bella explained.

“Usually
with the purpose of killing them in their dreams.” Loki  interrupted her as he
stabbed the skeleton with a stake, still not looking at us. “You’re not
immortal, are you?” He teased me.

Bella
rolled her eyes. “If the skeleton belongs to whom we think she is, it means
that she
is
immortal.”

“I
don’t want to know, and I don’t care who she is, by the way.” Loki felt the
need to interrupt again as he pulled out an egg timer like the one my used in
the kitchen and a red fleece from his backpack. Who was this guy?

“Immortals
don’t die,” Bella explained to me. “You know that, right?”

“Never?”

“Never,”
Bella confirms. “The only way to kill them is in their sleep while they are
dreaming.”

“Wow.
How does that work?” I raised an eyebrow, pretending I didn’t know. The last
time I was in my grand grand father’s dream, I have actually seen the Evil
Queen herself.

“Dreamhunters,
like Loki here—“ Bella said.

“Which
are very rare.” He added as he stretched down on his back next to the skeleton.

“Dreamhunters
have the ability to enter the dreams of the immortal. Sometimes, the immortals
don’t know who they really are in their dreams. The Dreamhunter kills them in
that dream. The immortal’s mind gets kinda hung up and paralyzed. Being killed
in a dream could do that to you. And they will stay in a coma forever in real
life. It’s the only way to kill an immortal.”

“But
this witch was burned.” I remarked.

“Which
proves that she died in her dreams,” Bella explains. “Or they could not have
killed her in real life.”

“Still,
she could be just someone who was wrongly accused of witchcraft in the 13
^th
century like others,” I suggested. “How do we know she is an immortal?”

“That’s
what we’re going to find out now when we enter her dreams.”

“She is
dead. How can she be dreaming?”

“Believe
me, she is dreaming. Immortal dreams are infinite and never stop as long as
they are not awake in the real life.”

“If I
am to believe that,” I considered. “You said that she could be someone else in
her Dreamworld.”

“That’s
usually true,” Loki interrupted again. “But the ritual I am using will send us
right into a memory of hers. A memory within a dream.” Loki said. “It’s hard to
explain. You have to experience it yourself,” Loki stretched out a hand toward
me. “When you come down here and sleep with me.”

“What
did you just say?” My face knotted.

“I
didn’t mean it
that
way. What’s with girls not having anything on their
minds but that?” He shook his head, and of course, Bella laughed. “Besides, if
I want to sleep with you, would I want to do in a grave with a skeleton as a
bed? Argh. I mean sleep as in really sleep. The snoring kind of the sleep.”

“I
don’t snor.” I said.

“Yeah.
I know. All girls don’t snor on the first night. The second night it’s a Bambi
the elephant sleeping next to me. Anyway. Come, lay down with me—I mean next to
me and this
beautifully
fried corpse.”

“How
about you
sleep
with your skeleton girlfriend without me?” I attacked
like a mad rabbit.

“He needs
you with him,” Bella explained. “You’re the one who can identify her in the
dream. He doesn’t know anything of what we do or what she looks like. It
obvious that he isn’t interested. It’s part of your investigation.”

“Thank
you,” Loki nodded at Bella. “What was your name again?”

“Bella.”
She turned around abruptly to face him.

“Thank
you, Bella. Sorry I didn’t ask for your name before. This beauty took the words
out of my mouth.” He pointed at the corpse.

“That’s
because you’re a jerk.” I interrupted him.

“And
what is it about jerks you like so much?” He wondered.

“He
is
a jerk,” Bella whispered to me. “But if you want to know, you have to go with
him.”

“Ok.” I
nodded and climbed down the grave. “What should I do with this?” I asked him
about the bag he gave me as I lay down on my back next to the corpse.

“Oh.
That’s the magic dust. Give it to Bella,” he said. “All you have to do is pour
some of it on our eyes when I tell you,” he explained to Bella. “This will put
us to sleep into the dream. Then, this egg timer of mine will buzz in about
thirty minutes. It will wake us up.”

“We can
hear this stupid egg timer in the dream?” I wondered.