Finally, they broke the tension with a big laugh, “you and me, Hansel and Gretel,” Fable said, “that’s impossible.”
“You’re right about that,” Axel said. “I guess I was hoping my sis was one of the Lost Seven so I’d eat for free at the Belly and the Beast.”
“So what’s the next card,” Fable demanded, wanting to skip this uncomfortable moment.
The third tarot showed a thief. It was a boy, wearing a green hat, and a smirk on his face. It had Thief written on top of the page.
“He looks funny,” Fable raised an eyebrow. “I’m curious about him. Are those beans in his hand? If that’s Jack, I changed my mind. I like him.”
Axel flipped the page, not wanting Fable staring too long at the cute boy. “And here we have…” Axel raised an eyebrow now.
“A moon?” Fable laughed. “How could the moon be one of the Lost Seven?”
“Maybe J.G. didn’t know much about this Pilgrimm,” Axel said. “This could just be a clue.”
“OK. Flip to the next page, maybe we’ll find something that really makes sense,” Fable said.
The next page showed a beast so ugly Axel twitched his lips, preferring not to look at it.
“The Beast,” Fable mused. “I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or girl. Why would Shew share her heart with such an ugly creature?”
“The next one is a Star,” Axel flipped to an almost empty page that only had the word star handwritten in the middle. “How convenient, one of the Lost Seven is the moon, and the other is a star. This J.G. lost his mind.”
“And who’s the seventh of the Lost Seven?” Fable flipped the page herself. “What is this?” she looked as if someone had just burst her balloon.
“The Phoenix,” Axel stared at the picture of a bird with purple wings, the bird looked as if it was burning. “You know what a phoenix is, right Fable?”
“Of course, I know. I do your homework, Axel,” Fable said absently.
“You do my homework but you don’t know that beans are vegetables,” he mumbled.
“A phoenix is a bird that burns at the end of its life then rises again from its own ashes,” Fable explained.
“Like Zombies,” Axel giggled. Fable was too entranced by the picture of the Phoenix to comment. “Why do I think this is a big clue?” Axel said.
“It is,” Fable said. “But I don’t know what it means.”
“I’m not following,” Axel replied.
“When we were chasing Loki, I heard him mutter something to himself repeatedly, as if he was trying not to forget it,” Fable raised her eyes, meeting Axel’s. “He kept saying, ‘The Phoenix.’”
“So?”
“I have no idea,” Fable said. “All I know is that according to this J.G., she is one of the Lost Seven,” Fable turned back to the Dream Temple protected by the purple light. “Loki isn’t there to kill Snow White. He’s there for the Phoenix,” she uttered her discovery.
“So the Queen sent him to kill the Phoenix?” Axel said.
“Why kill her?” Fable said. “She probably wants to find her to collect Shew’s first piece of heart. Are you sure there isn’t anything else about the Phoenix in this diary.”
“Um,” Axel flipped through the pages. “The only other mention of the Phoenix is an article here where J.G. explains his frustration about the Phoenixes.”
“I don’t follow,” Fable said.
“He says that the Phoenix is the only one of the Lost Seven that he knew the real name of—he is very big on the power of what he calls ‘true names’,” Axel said. “He writes that whenever he has his hands on manuscripts with the Phoenix’s real name, he is confused by other manuscripts that call her something different.”
“So the Phoenix is a girl,” Fable said. “Do you have those names?”
“Wait a second,” Axel flipped. “I have come across them but the writing was too small and almost wiped out—here it is,” he handed Fable the diary.
“I have dyslexia, and you’re handing it to me?” Fable said, already reading it.
“You read smaller fonts better than me,” Axel argued.
“OK,” Fable drew her glasses closer. “One of the names is Cerené—I am not sure how to spell it. And at some point he thought her name was Ember. And then at some other point he thought her name was…” Fable raised her eyes to meet Axel. She looked like she’d seen her dead mother.
“What is the name?” Axel said. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Cinderella,” Fable said. “Carmilla is after Cinderella!”
“How can she be after Cinderella by making Loki enter Shew’s dream? Shouldn’t he be entering Cinderella’s dream wherever she is?” Axel said.
“I don’t know, Axel,” Fable breathed rapidly in front of the purple light. “This locked dream has to end so we know. Are you sure it wasn’t mentioned how a locked dream ends in Loki’s phone?”
Axel pretended he didn’t hear her. He wasn’t going to tell her what he’d read. It was death itself.
18
Rainbow’s End
Although Shew believed Cerené was the Phoenix, the knowledge didn’t answer all of her questions yet.
Who was the Phoenix, really? Why did she have to look for her?
At least, the dream made much more sense now. This dream wasn’t about the Queen wanting to kill her. Loki used the Phoenix Incubator because Carmilla wanted to take Shew back to her relationship with Cerené, thinking Cerené would lead her to the Phoenix.
What was the point in reminding Shew she had a dear friend in her childhood called Cerené, and why didn’t she remember that part of her childhood?
She had figured out Cerené was Cinderella. That wasn’t the hard part. A girl covered in ashes, lived with a stepmother and stepsisters, slept in a dark room next to cinders, and had one precious glass shoe she couldn’t live without. It had to be her, only she wasn’t the kind you’d expect to read about in a picture book in the Waking World. Cerené was the real flesh and blood Cinderella. She had a feeling that whatever she’d learned about Cerené was trivial.
Cerené wasn’t the kind of girl who dreamed of attending the king’s ball and meeting the prince. She was not waiting for a Godmother to dress her in the most beautiful dress and send her a pumpkin coach. She was a young girl who had surpassed all the evil bestowed upon her by enjoying the one thing she did best, the Forbidden Art.
The Art was Cinderella’s getaway, the computer game boys played escaping into their own imaginary world, the embroidery medieval woman excelled at as they wove threads into canvasses of beauty. The Art was Cerené’s drug that took the pain away. It was her hope to live another day; it was the glass shoe she’d left behind, the way Hansel and Gretel left their breadcrumbs, so happiness could retrace her steps and find her one day.
Still, Shew wondered who saved her each time she was about to die. Was it Cerené? Was Cerené capable of creating fire? If so, why didn’t she tell Shew about it? If Cerené could create fire they wouldn’t have had to go to the furnace in Candy House. It couldn’t be Cerené.
Shew thought of Bianca again. There was no other explanation. Bianca was the person in the hood who chased Shew. She was Cerené’s guardian angel, and she burned whoever hurt her daughter.
However, that would only explain what happened near Candy House, Bianca saving her daughter from Baba Yaga and burning the place down, but who burned the Wall of Thorns? The wall was no threat to Cerené. Was it possible that Bianca protected Shew, maybe because she wanted Shew to take care of her daughter?
There were too many questions leading nowhere. The one thing that made sense was that Cerené was one of the Lost Seven Shew had split her heart with, which was also a useless piece of information.
Shew had no recollection of how she split her heart or how she did it. She knew she split her heart because of a solitary memory of the day Carmilla cursed her and trapped her in the Schloss after failing to find the Lost Seven. Carmilla had been asking her about the Lost Seven and how she managed to split her heart with them, not knowing that Shew didn’t remember doing so in the first place. Shew had no explanation why parts of her memory were lost.