Nonsense! Shew breathed in deeply as the thorns crawled and spiraled around her with their needle-sharp edges waiting for her to start dancing.
The Queen of Sorrow can’t kill me because I split my heart into seven pieces, and she needs to find them. Maybe Cerené is one of the Lost Seven. Maybe this is what this dream is all about.
She wanted to bend down and scream at her fidgeting legs, which desperately wanted to dance against her will.
The Lost Seven mean nothing at this point, because you’re not sixteen years old yet. She can kill you right now before splitting your heart. You know that if she changes the past in the Dreamworld, the future will change in the Waking World.
Shew raised her hands slowly and clapped her ears so she wouldn’t hear the Dark Tune.
It didn’t work.
A couple of thorns slashed at her hands.
“Why in the name of Sorrow is this music playing?” Shew let out a loud scream.
Then it hit her right in the face.
Of course, the music had to play. Shew wasn’t purely a local. It was true she was born in Sorrow, but in her blood, ancestry, and family tree, she was an evil Sorrow, a real one, a descendant of Night Sorrow, the most vicious vampire in the world. That is why the mermaid told Cerené she feared Shew at the lake that she hadn’t decided whose side she was on. To the Wall of Thorns, Shew was still an enemy.
She wondered how her father ever crossed over to fight the Intruders. He was also a blood descendant of the Sorrows. In many ways, they were both locals of the kingdom but also intruders. The Wall of Thorns decided to treat her as an intruder, and to kill her. At the time of this memory, she wasn’t immortal yet—and how about Carmilla, or was she immune because the wall was her own magic?
Shew couldn’t resist anymore and began dancing to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although she gave it her best shot, the pain was too strong and she began to faint, her throbbing eyes flickering her way to her last visions of life. She was dying in her own dream, which meant she would stay in a Sleeping Death forever in the Waking World, a coma that no kiss could cure.
Carmilla had won after all.
8
A Never Ending Dream
Fable’s eyes flung open.
It was already daylight, and Axel was still sprawled on the floor next to her. He looked rather funny; his mouth was wide open as if waiting for someone to feed him a sandwich while asleep.
She gazed up at the Schloss’ ceiling, wondering how long she had been unconscious. Her head was heavy, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had taken place.
All she could remember was a vague bang in her head and someone—or something—laughing at her.
She felt weak and hungry, and for the first time she was glad Axel brought his food-stuffed backpack with him. She crawled over, accidentally kicking Axel’s head.
Opening it, she looked for a bag of Tragic Beans or maybe a Reluctant Jelly, but found none. She found a single Poisoned Apple but stopped before grabbing it.
What’s the point of eating an apple that makes you faint while you’re already feeling dizzy?
Axel’s backpack was full as if he was going for picnic. Some of the food was new to her.
The first thing she pulled out was a small box labeled Dr. Rumpelstein’s Awful Pudding. The idea was to eat through the rotten pudding in hopes to win a gold coin. If don’t find it, you’d end in Sorrow’s clinic for pudding-poisoning. If you happened to find the gold coin, you’d probably end up in Sorrow’s Clinic, too, only you have enough money to pay for it this time. Fable decided to pass. She hated anything Rumpelstein anyways, which reminded her suddenly of Lucy.
She threw a look around, but Lucy was nowhere around.
There was a bag in Axel’s bag labeled Talking Mushrooms. Fable threw it away, wondering if it was the reason behind Axel’s non-stop talking.
Then she found a bag of Princess Pees, which she thought sounded fine. The name Princess Peas suited it better, but what the heck, this was Sorrow.
Finally, she found a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs, which came with bugs or bugs-free. The picture on the cover showed a frog with a long red tongue snatching a flying bug.
“Yuck,” she said. “Loki would have hated this.”
Fable’s eyes widened.
Loki! I remember now. His laughing wind knocked us down. I was trying to stop him from killing Shew.
“Wake up, Fable,” she knocked on her head as if it were a coconut. “You’ve got a job to do.”
She remembered running after Loki, trying to stop him from killing Snow White.
“Axel,” she shook her brother. “Wake up!”
“What is it?” Axel moaned. “No school today.”
“Axel! We’re not in Candy House. We’re in the Schloss. Wake up,” Fable unpacked a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs and spilled its contents on him. The frogs were alive, croaking and hopping all around Axel and licking his face. They must have thought he was one big bug.
“What did you do?” Axel woke up, snapping. “What a waste of food. I was going to eat them later.”
“We need to save Snow White,” Fable sneered at him.
“Isn’t that the seven dwarves job?” Axel stretched his arms, still moaning.
“What are you talking about? Not that Snow White; the other Snow White?” Fable frowned, adjusting her glasses.
“Snow White isn’t even real, Fable,” Axel said. “Go to sleep.”
“Wake up or I’ll snap witchcraft on you,” Fable pulled him by the sleeve. “Remember, we were trying to stop Loki because the Queen was controlling him by using his Fleece?”
“Oh,” Axel blinked, munching on one of the poor frogs. “I remember now. It’s kind of hard not thinking of all of this as a dream—but anyways. Mircalla fooled us all. I wonder why she’s been taking care of us all this time?”
“I bet we have something that is valuable to her,” Fable said, “But right now we have to concentrate on saving Shew.”
“Now you’re not making sense,” Axel burped. “Why would we want to save a shoe?”
“Shew, Axel,” Fables pulled his food away. “Remember Loki said her mother called her Shew?”
Axel nodded, “Yeah, sorry. Forgot again.”
“And where is Lucy?” Fable wondered.
“Lucy?” Axel said her name as if he were in love with her. “I don’t know. I remember the Queen playing Loki like a marionette and leading him back to the Schloss. Then you chanted an incantation that freed us from being bonded to chairs.”
“That’s right,” Fable said. “Then we ran after Loki. I haven’t seen Lucy since.”
“Maybe she went with the Queen,” Axel said. “Didn’t you notice how much she is infatuated by her?”
“That could be. It’s time to take action,” Fable said, turning around and walking toward Shew’s room. “We have to help her.”
“Wait,” Axel said in the hallway. “Loki must have staked her and entered her dream by now. How are we going to save her, or save him?”
“All we have to do is pull the stake out of Shew, and she’ll wake up immediately,” Fable said. “As for Loki, he told you to break the mirror if we can’t wake him up. It should break the connection in the Dreamworld.”
Reaching Shew’s room, they both stopped. They didn’t expected what they saw.
Instead of finding Loki and Shew sleeping side by side, they found the Dream Temple encircled by a protective purple light, which they couldn’t see through.
“Is that a Star Trek teleportation system?” Axel rubbed his eyes.
“Of course, not. Shut up, Axel,” Fable approached it reluctantly. “I wonder if I could walk through it,” Fable mumbled.