Текст книги "Cinderella Dressed in Ashes"

Автор книги: Cameron Jace

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4

A Garden of Graves

So this is how this dream is going to work, shifting time whenever it wants?

Puzzled, Shew rested her hands on the table, which transformed into strips of black and white, shorter strips of black and longer strips of white. The table was taking the shape of a large piano.

Looking back in the mirror, she saw the whole room change behind her. She was being transported to another time and place in the dream, to a big echoing hall in the castle when she was around two or three years younger than she was in the Waking World.

Finally, the mirror in front of her exploded into ashes that turned into ravens as they flew out of the window, and all she could hear was the annoying sound of a man who she believed was her music teacher.

“This is the wrong note,” the man screamed and pulled his hair. He had hair like Einstein, and wore an oversized tuxedo. “This is a B# not B,” he poked keys furiously.

Shew rolled her eyes, sitting with her hands on the piano. Who was this annoying man? She played several keys trying to comply.

“That is even worse,” the veins in his neck throbbed. He looked like he was battling invisible bees pecking on his face. He was unusually hairy. “This is an A.”

“A is good,” Shew tried to make a joke. “A+ is even better.”

“What?” he glared at her, looking as if he was about to choke her with the piano’s strings, chop her fingers off and use them as keyboard keys. “What is an A+?”

Ignoring the mad man behind her, she read the title of the melody she was supposed to play. It said:

The Magic Flute in G major

By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“I’ll never understand why a piece of music named The Magic Flute is played on a piano,” she poked, knowing it would drive her teacher crazy. “It should be played on a flute, Mr.—” she didn’t know what to call him so she glanced back at the transcript and saw his name scribbled at the bottom. “Mr. Oddly Tune?” she scowled. “Are you sure it isn’t Dudley?”

Oddly almost jumped, kicking his feet against the base of the piano.

“She is making fun of you because you’re not firm with her,” the Queen of Sorrow called over the banister on the second floor. “I want her to memorize this song by noon and perform it at the ball we’re having tonight.”

“But that’s impossible, my Queen,” Oddly said. “She's horrible.”

“Don’t call my daughter horrible,” Carmilla said calmly. Oddly sweat beads the size of lemons. “Or I’ll have you hung by the noose.”

“That’s not fair,” he mumbled. “I am a respected musician. I shook hands with Mozart himself."

The Queen shook her head and left the hall, calling for her servants on the other side of the castle.

“Don’t worry, Dudley,” Shew said. “I think I got it. This is an X minor, right?”

“There is nothing called X minor!” Oddly’s face reddened. It deformed as if his cheekbones were cracking from the inside. His back curved awkwardly and his feet grew big, ripping his shoes apart. Hair was growing swiftly all over his feet and face. Mr. Oddly was turning into a werewolf.

What should I do now? Is this memory or just a dream going nowhere?

Oddly, the werewolf grabbed Snow White’s fingers and banged them against the keyboard. “This is an A, you filthy brat,” his eyes yellowed and his fangs showed. The odd white hair on his head smoothed out and grew longer down his shoulders. “And this is a B!” he banged her fingers again.

“That hurts, Mr. Dudley,” Shew said.

“It’s Oddly you irritating princess,” he said in an evil voice that sounded if his throat had turned into a sewer pipe spitting out its guts. “I’m going to break your fingers one by one.  You’ll never play an instrument for the rest of you life.”

“Mother!” Snow White pleaded. Mr. Oddly clamped her mouth shut with his hairy hand. “If you scream, I will hurt you again. Be a good girl and come with me.”

She pulled his hand away. “Come with you where?”

“Night Sorrow wants to talk with you,” the werewolf grinned.

So that’s what the memory is about. I am being kidnapped and taken to my grandfather?

“You know what?” Shew said. “That’s an awful lot of hair,” her fangs grew and she bit him in the neck. She didn’t know if it was part of the memory or her own action, having been overly annoyed by this music teacher. “Mozart this!” Snow White sighed impatiently and kicked him between his hairy legs.

It was interesting, how Oddly dropped to the floor like an electrocuted fly, buzzing a little then turning back into a  music teacher who looked like Einstein. Only this time he was dead. Anyone who entered the room would have thought she just killed an innocent man.

“If this is how my teen years were like, then it was fun. I’m so enjoying this,” she mumbled, wiping the blood from her lips. “I bet I’d be a superhero in school. How come they don’t let me go to school?”

“Because you’d end up biting all the yummy boys,” Cerené said from the end of the hall, still wearing her ragged clothes, ashes covering her face.  She carried a bucket of water and a broom. She had grown to become a beautiful fifteen year old and still wore her mysterious slippers.

“Cerené,” Snow White found herself smiling.

“Let me clean up the mess, princess,” Cerené said, staring at the blood all over the piano keys.

“It’s not my fault. He was a werewolf, I swear.”

“I saw the whole thing, hiding in the fireplace,” Cerené said. “Let’s pull him out into the Garden of Graves.”

“What’s the Garden of Graves?”

“You don’t know what the royal graveyard is?”

“Oh, I was just joking,” Shew said. “Do you think we should do that?”

“There are a lot of people buried in the Garden of Graves already. I guess they are some of your mother’s victims,” she winked at her, implying she knew about Carmilla’s bathhouse slaughters. “There is room for one more hairy man. Hurry up before your mother sees us.”

Snow White made sure no one was coming and started pulling Mr. Oddly outside. “Let’s bury Mr. Dudley,” she said.

“It’s Oddly,” Cerené laughed.

The two girls struggled pulling the large man out to the garden through the servants’ backdoor. It was nighttime and the only light guiding them was the moon. The Garden of Graves was full of purple and yellow poppies. It was the royal family’s graveyard so it had to look classy, “so this is where I’m going to be buried when I die?” Shew mocked herself. Her family was immortal, so this whole garden was bogus.

“I want to be buried in a lovely place like this with all these flowers,” Cerené said casually then dropped Oddly onto a muddy spot and started digging with a shovel. She was unusually enthusiastic about it. Her smile was lovely, but wicked, and a little weird. The ashes sticking to her face and clothes made her look like someone who was up to no good.

That’s one disturbed childhood you had, Shew!

“I see you love burying people,” Shew commented.

“Werewolves,” Cerené corrected her. “I hate them,” her cheek twitched slightly.

Cerené had tied her blonde hair—with the fiery aura—into a reckless ponytail. It looked like she did it with strings from her broom. Shew wondered why Carmilla allowed one of her servants to look so poor and untidy.

“Next time if you want to scare a werewolf away, use red wine,” Cerené suggested.

“Really?”

“I heard it from an old wise woman in the forest,” Cerené assured her. Shew thought it was absurd.

Cerené sweat as she dug the grave. When she wiped the sweat from her face, she accidentally cleaned some of the ashes away. Shew saw Cerené had cute freckles buried underneath.

Then she saw something else that had been hidden under the ashes: a cut on the lower part of her cheek, running thinly toward her neck.

“What is that, Cerené?” Snow White asked, taking the shovel from her. The cut looked like a torturing wound.

“Why do you always ask about what doesn’t concern you?” Cerené stiffened angrily again. It was a brief but alarming behavior, but alarming. Shew had never seen such a sudden change in someone’s mood.

“I’m sorry,” Snow White said. “Let’s forget about it. I’m glad you’re helping me.”

Cerené’s mood lightened up again. She was missing half of one of her front teeth, but Snow White wasn’t going to ask about it.

The two girls finished burying Oddly Tune in the Garden of Graves then covered the soil with flowers. Snow White brought a log and used it as a tombstone, then wrote on it:

Dudley Tunes

He broke his student’s fingers,

And his favorite note was an A+.

“Great,” Cerené clapped her hands as if they had just planted a new tree. “I have to go back to work now.”

“Wait,” Snow White said. “Don’t you want to stay with me for a while?”

“I have work to do, Joy, and then I have to go back to my step-mother’s house. If I’m late, she’ll make me sleep in that horrible room again,” she said.

“What room?”

“Never mind, I really have to go,” Cerené’s lips twitched.

“No,” Shew said. “Stay, please. If you’re worried about the Queen or Tabula asking about you, I will tell them I needed you to help with something. Don’t worry. You’re safe with me.”

“Really?” Cerené held the broom and looked downward.

“Yes. It’s no secret that I have no friends,” Shew said. “Only private teachers visit me.”

“And you end up killing them, too,” Cerené giggled.

She seemed as if she was trying her best to escape the life that got her the scars on her neck and ashes on her face.

“Isn’t that fun, killing your annoying teacher and getting away with it?” Shew played along. “I’m not allowed to go to school or meet a lot of people.”

“Especially yummy boys,” Cerené giggled.

“Yes, that,” Snow White said. “I see you like yummy boys.”

Cerené held the rim of her dress with her hands, pretending she was rubbing something on the earth with her feet.

“You can tell me,” Snow White said. “We agreed you can speak your mind when you’re with me.”

“People don’t like it when I speak mind,” she said faintly. “They usually laugh at me.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“I really like the prince,” she raised her eyes, eager to see Snow White’s reaction. “I like how he is always smiling and neatly dressed. He is such a handsome boy. I also admire that everyone bows to him and wants to please him. That’s why you bit the prince, right? You like him, too.”

“You could say that,” Shew wasn’t sure what the prince meant to her. She remembered she’d fed on his blood many times after the birthday incident, but nothing more—and he hadn’t appeared in this dream so far. Shew wondered if staying trapped in the Schloss for a hundred years made her forget a big portion of her past.

“You want to know a secret?” Cerené leaned forward over Oddly Tune’s grave. “There is someone else other than the prince that I really like.”

“Oh,” Snow White’s eyes widened. She wasn’t faking it. “Is he also rich and famous?”

“Not really,” Cerené said. “But he is strong and everyone fears him.”

“Is that why you like him, because everyone fears him?”

“Yes,” Cerené nodded twice and bit her bottom lip. “But I don’t want to tell you who he is.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t. Do you like a boy?” Cerené asked.

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it,” Shew stuck out her tongue. “You know what I really wish? I wish you could be my friend,” although Shew knew this was a dream, she felt right about this moment. She felt these were the emotions she’d experience when she was a child toward Cerené—if she had really met her. She’d always thought she had never made friends in that period, but there was something so real about this dream.

“Friends?” Cerené shrieked, dropping the broom, her voice a little too loud. “Really? Me and you, my princess?”

When Cerené smiled serenely like that, the freckles in her face shone through the ashes, tiny happy oranges shining out through a dark garden of cinders.

“Yes, me and you,” Snow White smiled. Cerené’s happiness was contagious.

“But—” Cerené’s face changed, looking at her feet again. “But this can’t be. I never have friends. And when someone asks me to be friends with them I usually end up crying next to the fire in my room, with cinders all around me.”

“Cinders?” Snow White grimaced, taking a step forward. This was the second time she mentioned that room.

“I told you not to ask about what’s none of your concern,” she snapped again, her freckles buried beneath the ashes.

“Of course, I shouldn’t ask,” Shew said.

 “I believe you,” Cerené calmed down. “But what will we do. I don’t think a princess has a lot in common with a Slave Maiden.”

Snow White gazed down at Oddly Tune’s grave and lifted and eyebrow, “I think we already have a lot in common.”

Cerené laughed, “You’re not planning on biting someone else are you? I’m not going to clean up after you all the time,” she winked.

“Let’s do something,” Shew suggested. “What do you do when you have had your bread, your work is finished, and you have a few hours for yourself?”

“I can’t tell you that.” Cerené said. This time, it wasn’t a change of mood. She actually wanted to tell Snow White about what she did when she was alone, but preferred not to for some reason.

“Why not?” Snow White said cheerfully. “We’re friends now.”

“Promise not to tell anyone?” Cerené brought her head closer, whispering.

“I promise,” Shew said.

“I make magic;” Cerené’s eyes darted to the left and to the right.

“Magic?”

“Shhh,” Cerené put her hand on Shew’s mouth. “You have to promise me that you will never tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Shew nodded. “What kind of magic is it?”

“I can show you,” Cerené said. “But only if you’re patient enough to prepare it with me.”

“Why prepare it? I thought magic was a gift,” Shew said.

“No. Magic is an Art. Many different kinds of arts,” Cerené explained. “I know a special kind of magic that people don’t want each other to know about. It’s a Forbidden Art.”

Snow White grimaced.

“See? That’s why you can’t tell anyone about it. My magic is taboo. It’s thought of as witchcraft created by the devil, but it really isn’t,” Cerené’s heart raced as she talked about it.

“That sounds fabulous. I’d love to see it,” Shew said. “What do I have to do to see you perform the Art?” she hoped this Art Cerené was talking about was what this dream was really about. She doubted Loki was coming to kill her at all.

“First, I have to warn you that every Art has its price. But don’t worry. I’m going to perform it. You could be my assistant if you like.”

“I am so curious,” Shew said. “Please tell me what I have to do.”

“We need to collect the elements needed to accomplish the Art,” Cerené answered.

“Alright. Where could we get those elements?”

“It’s going to be a long journey,” Cerené said. “But we’ll end up in a very special place that very few people have ever laid eyes on.”

“Does this place have a name?” Snow White asked.

“Ever heard about a place called Rainbow’s End?”

5

The Heart of the Art

Shew followed Cerené into the Black Forest to collect the elements needed to create what she called the Forbidden Art.

Under normal circumstances, Shew would have opted out of entering the Black Forest, particularly in a dream like this where the imminent dangers were obviously lurking somewhere between the ears of the Dreamer—she couldn’t forget the fact that she was staked by the boy she loved in the Waking World. Cerené’s story was a great distraction.

Watching the ash-smeared girl, who reminded her of the young girl in Le Miserable’s, run away with that kind of happiness was irresistible.

Cerené climbed a small hill on all fours as if she were an ape. Shew followed the tiny blonde-haired girl with the fiery aura.

“Every magic in this world has rules,” Cerené explained, panting.

“Rules? I thought the whole point about magic was that it broke all the rules. It’s magic!” Shew said, trying to keep up with Cerené’s pace.

“They aren’t strict rules,” Cerené said. “They’re more like guidelines. Whoever has the gift can enhance or add their own flavor to the Art.”

“Why do you insist calling your magic the Art?”

“I feel it’s more of an art. Art can’t be judged. It’s pure. It is what it is. It’s the artist’s—thus the magician’s– creation. It flows like blood through the pores of our souls then manifests itself out onto the world. Think of a painting, a song, or a poem. There is no right or wrong in art, but there are a few rules. Do you understand?” She stopped atop of the hill with her hands on her waist, acting as if she’d won a race.

“I do,” Shew nodded, catching her breath. She didn’t quite understand what Cerené had just said, but she was curious about her and the Art so she decided to comply with every word unless she needed essential clarifications. “So why are we here in the middle of the forest?”

“To create my Art, I need to obtain three elements.”

“Like fire, earth, water, and air?”

“Those were used in the old way to create magic,” Cerené said. “The elements I need are three types of ingredients, two kinds of tools, and one talent. Think of it as a recipe for a special meal,” she counted on her fingers. “We call them Heart, Brain, and Soul respectively.”

“We?”

“I meant ‘I’,” Cerené lied. She wasn’t going to tell Shew who the ‘we’ were. “The Heart is the material the magic is made of.”

“I am listening.”

“The Brain is the tool that mixes and influences the Heart,” Cerené said. “That’s rather easy to explain. If we don’t consult our brains, the heart will lose its way.”

“And the soul?”

“The soul,” Cerené closed her eyes and inhaled the crisp autumn air. “Oh, boy. The soul is the part that can’t be explained, nor can it be described in words. It’s the part that you know exists while there’s no evidence it does. The only way to prove it is when you see the results of the Art with your own eyes. Am I confusing you?”

“Not really,” Shew said. “But I thought you were going to show me magic. The Rainbow’s End, remember?”

“I will get to that, but first, look!” Cerené pointed at a tower in the distance, which they couldn’t have seen if they hadn’t climbed the hill.

“What about it?”

“Each element in my Art is divided into smaller ingredients that help you create the element. The Heart needs three ingredients to be completed,” Cerené said. “The three ingredients are ashes, sands, and lime.”

“Earthly elements,” Shew nodded. She had spent some time reading about magic from books she’d collected from her victims in the Schloss.

“Right,” Cerené said, panting again, not from climbing the hill, but from excitement. “Ashes are easy to get,” Shew offered. “We could burn anything,” she did her best not to mention the ashes covering Cerené’s skin.

“No,” Cerené insisted. “My ashes are special. They are cold ‘soda ashes’ or ‘sodium carbonate.’”

“How do you know stuff like that?”

Cerené discarded the question. “These special ashes can only be obtained from drying and burning certain plants like Saltwort and Glasswort, but we don’t have those here,” she said then darted down the hill like a maniac, toward the tower.

“Wait!” Shew said and followed her. “Where are you going?”

“To get the plant that makes ashes from the tower of Rudaba,” Cerené yelled. “It’s called Rapunzel,” she said and disappeared in the dark.

Shew walked cautiously, calling for her, afraid she’d trip. The earth was muddy underneath her. The tower itself was creepy and dark, shooting aimlessly into the night sky like someone’s mistake.

“Shhh,” Cerené appeared out of nowhere, patting Shew and urging her to kneel. “Here it is. The Rapunzel plant,” she pointed at an orange plant that looked like a sunflower among many of its kind, scattered in an uneven circle around the tower. The plants swung slowly to a slight breeze.  They also looked as if they were alive. Their tiny petals acted as if they were arms.

“Why don’t we just get one?” Shew whispered.

“You will see why,” Cerené giggled. “This is no ordinary plant.”

The two girls waited until a frog hopped by happily in front of one of the Rapunzel plants—reminding Shew how Loki hated frogs. In a flash, one of the once-peaceful plants grew sharp teeth between its petals, snatched the poor frog from midair with its wavy arms and swallowed it.

The plant chewed on the frog and swallowed it down its green throat, as if it was a snake, all the way down to feed the belly of the earth. When other plants sneaked toward it to try to get a piece of the frog, it snarled at them. Once it finished its meal, it spat out the frog’s legs and plastered a merry sunflower smile on its face again.

Shew fidgeted a little, not only because of the Rapunzel plant, but also because of Cerené’s giggles.

“Is this the plant you want to burn down to ashes,” Shew wondered.

“There is no other way. Magic comes with a price, remember?” Cerené said. “Believe me, I love plants and animals, but this one is vicious. If we come near it, it will eat one of our toes. It has a thing for them.”

“So how are you planning to get one?”

“With this,” Cerené pulled out a golden coin from her  dirty dress.

“Where did you get a golden coin from?” Shew said.

“I stole it from the Queen of Sorrow,” she smiled, looking at the trophy in her hand. “I am sorry, but you said you wanted to do something, and this is all I do when I have time.”

“I don’t care about you stealing from my mother. And although I’m not comfortable with it, I wonder why a girl like you wouldn’t buy herself something with that large amount of money?”

“Buy?” Cerené looked confused as if someone had hit her with a rock. “I never thought about it. I only stole the coin to practice my magic.”

“You never thought of buying yourself a new dress, or a good meal?”

Cerené looked dazed. Shew was worried but she also sympathized with her. The poor girl had lived a life down low and got so used to it that when she had a golden coin in her hand she never thought of spending it wisely.

Maybe her passion for the Art was just much greater than all the money in the world. What if she bought herself a nice dress, how would she explain how she got one? She is a Slave Maiden. No one in this damned kingdom will let her shine. They like to see the way she is, ashen, lost, and miserable. In order for the riches to exist, the rags have to exist, too.

“I guess next time I will buy myself something to eat. Great idea,” Cerené patted Shew on the back. “But for now, I’m going to use it to get that plant and practice my magic.”

“Alright,” Shew sighed. “How is this coin going to help?”

“It’s the plant’s weakness,” Cerené explained. “Myth has it that this plant was seeded by an evil sorcerer who craved gold more than anything in the world. The Rapunzel plant is poisonous, and is also cursed with an insane hunger for gold; the same hunger its creator had.

Only one girl, ironically named Rapunzel after the plant, has power over it.”

“Where could we find this girl?”

“I have no idea,” Cerené said. “She isn’t the solution to getting the Rapunzel plant though. This coin in my hand is how I’ll get it.”

 “Tell me about it,” Shew demanded.

“Once the plant sees a golden coin in my hand, it will want it so bad that it will rip its roots apart trying to get it,” Cerené explained.

 “Did you say rip its roots out?” Shew said. “Which means it will kill itself?”

“I told you it’s a crazy plant,” Cerené said. “You want to know what’s really crazy about it? If you plant it back to the earth after its dead, it grows back alive in an instance. Now let me do what I have to do,” Cerené stood up and ran toward the plant impulsively. She stretched her arm and showed the gold coin the someone would tempt a horse with a cube of sugar.

The Rapunzel plants went crazy, arching their bodies and stretching out their petal arms, wailing like creepy ghosts. The plant closest to Cerené was losing its mind.

“Give me that coin, you filthy ashen slave!” the plant wailed, almost ripping itself apart.

“Say please,” Cerené teased it, avoiding another one sneaking up behind her, trying to eat her toe, but failed. Thanks to Cerené’s unusual slippers.

“I won’t say please to you, daughter of Bianca!” the plant screamed.

“You nasty witch!” another plant screamed in high-pitched tones. “You always come here and take one of us! You make us kill ourselves.”

“I will rip your ashen heart apart,” a third plant said, stretching high enough to bite on Cerené’s knees. A couple of other plants bit parts of her dress off.

Cerené backed off; too far for the plant to reach her, “You’re horrible plants,” she talked to them. “You eat every living thing that passes next to you. What has that poor frog done to you?”

“If you think we’re horrible, you’re just as horrible,” the plant said as Shew tried to pull Cerené away from them. Talking plants weren’t that surprising in the Kingdom of Sorrow.  Weird was just about the norm.

Cerené pulled away from Shew’s grip and dared brush the coin against the plant’s arm then pulled it away immediately. The plant swallowed the trick and stretched out far enough to rip its roots from the soil.

Cerené picked up the dying plant—and several others. They were flopping like fish out of water before giving up.

Cerené she ran away, the other plants cursing her.

“Run away, daughter of Bianca!” the plants snarled.

“Burn! Burn! Burn!” the plants started spitting the food they’d eaten at Cerené and Shew; frog’s legs, chicken wings, and squirrel teeth.

Shew and Cerené ran back to the hill. Cerené acted as if she were just playing, waving her Rapunzel plant in the air with a wide victorious smile on her face, not paying attention to the cuts the plants made on her fingers.

“You’re hurt,” Shew said. “I think we should get back to the castle. I can mend your wounds,” she regretted not snarling with her fangs at the plants.

“I’ve been cut worse,” Cerené said nonchalantly.

“Did the plants cause the same cut on your cheek and neck?” Shew inquired, unable to hold her curiosity. Suddenly, it occurred to her that Cerené hid her scars intentionally behind the ashes. That was why she wouldn’t clean the ashes off her skin, because they’d show the wounds she’d preferred hiding.

Cerené’s eyes dimmed, betrayed by Shew’s question. She stared at her with moist eyes. All the happiness she’d just experience in getting the plants just withered away.

Shew knew the girl was about to burst into tears, but she couldn’t help but ask her.

“You’re horrible,” Cerené screamed at Shew. “You promised not to ask,” she threw the Rapunzel plant in Shew’s face and ran down the other side of the hill, deeper into the forest.

Shew picked up the plant and ran after her. It was a long shot. With each step, Shew felt guilty that she had upset her.

Almost a mile later, Shew knocked Cerené down and held her tightly until she stopped crying.

Finally, when Shew apologized repeatedly, Cerené stopped crying, and slept in her arms the way tired babies do.

Shew brushed her hair gently, leaned back against a tree, wondering about this mysterious girl. She thought she’d never felt so curious and caring about someone like her.

With nothing else to do, waiting for Cerené to wake up again, Shew’s thoughts drifted, thinking about Loki again.

Remembering Loki, she touched the necklace he’d given her in the World Between Dreams—she’d been wearing it since the beginning of this dream. Shew looked at the cryptic engravings on the necklace again:

What does it mean, Loki?

She tried to read it vertically from both sides then she flipped it upside down. Either it was some kind of a symbol or parts of an alphabet. She still didn’t know.

Frustrated, she sighed, looking at the moon above. For a moment, Shew thought she saw the moon smile at her.