“I remember that one,” she said. “I thought it was very lame. I mean this really sounds like antagonist’s name in a Harry Potter book.”
“What if I told that it was the other way around? What if I told you that She Who Must Be Obeyed, aka Carmilla Karnstein, aka Mircalla, and aka the Queen of Sorrow has lived long before any of those books you mentioned were ever written?” Axel said.
“Can you prove that?” Fable hated when her brother was a smartass, but right.
“Look,” Axel showed her his most magnificent reference ever known to him: the internet, of course.
“Are you going to show me another book with the name She Who Must Be obeyed in it?” Fable pursed her lips.
Axel nodded confidently, “In 1886, a prestigious writer named Henry Rider Haggard, wrote a book that has never been out of print till this very day. The book is called ‘She.’ It’s about two travelers exploring the unknown African territories at the time. In their journey, they encounter a primitive race of black natives, enslaved by a mysterious white Queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful ‘She’ who killed so many of them that the land was covered in red blood.”
“So what? All those color references could be a coincidence,” Fable inquired. “And her name is Ayesha. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, her name isn’t just Ayesha,” Axel said. “She’s known to be ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed.’” Axel slammed his chubby hand on the phone as if it were a precious treasure map.
“Are you saying this is Carmilla again?” Fable wondered. “And that this writer, like most of the others, wrote her history, disguised in a novel, to hint at the Queen of Sorrow’s existence?”
“Definitely,” Axel said. “There is even a part in the book where the author hints that she was feeding on her slaves, probably trying to tell us she was a vampire. This stuff happened 1886, in between the hundred years of Sleeping Death to all fairy tale character. We know that Carmilla has power over a small part of the Dreamworld called ‘Jawigi’, and that she must have had her way out of it while everyone was asleep, living far away in Africa until the other fairy tale characters woke up.”
“I really need to sit down,” Fable said, crossing her legs like and Indians flute player on the floor. “My head is going to explode.”
“If the Queen of Sorrow is all of those people,” Axel had to prove he was right. “Why wouldn’t Van Helsing be Loki’s father?”
“Carmilla’s story is different,” Fable wasn’t convinced. “It’s a bit too confusing. I was barely keeping up with fairy tale people being real, now the vampire lore, too?”
“It’s not that strange if you ask me,” Axel said. “If you accepted Shew being a vampire, then it shouldn’t surprise you that the Huntsman is connected to Dracula. The Huntsman was sent by the Queen to kill a vampire after all. Be it a Huntsman or Abraham Van Helsing it’s not that different.”
“OK, Axel,” Fabled inhaled. “Just let me digest this a little bit slower. I understand the V.H. thing, but this could still be a mere coincidence. Why would Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, do that?”
“Because, like the Brothers Grimm, he was forging the real history of vampires and fairy tales—which of course, no one would have ever thought they were connected,” Axel said. “I keep telling you that and you never listen.”
“And I suppose you’re going to tell that you don’t know why he forged it, the same way we still don’t know why the Brothers Grimm forged it.”
“That part is true,” Axel raised a finger in the air. “But what if I told you that Bram Stoker confessed forging the Dracula book to his liking, that it was a true story, and that he had to rename characters to protect them?”
“Now you’re crossing the line. No author would even admit that,” Fable said.
Axel said nothing, but a big smiled filled face, making way though his cheeks.
“You can’t prove that?” Fable challenged him.
“I can’t?” Axel accepted the challenge, surfing the internet on Loki’s phone. “Now look at this,” he urged Fable to come see.
“Bram Stoker’s Icelandic Version Preface for the 1901 version,” Fable read from the internet. “So?”
“So read it,” Axel demanded. “It’s a limited edition, printed by the author himself.”
“The reader of this story will very soon understand how the events outlined in these pages have been gradually drawn together to make a logical whole,” Fable began reading. “Apart from excising minor details which I considered unnecessary, I have let the people involved relate their experiences in their own way; but, for obvious reasons, I have changed the names of the people and places concerned. In all other respects I leave the manuscript unaltered, in deference to the wishes of those who have considered it their duty to present it before the eyes of the public,” Fable looked back at Axel, shrugging.
“I am quite convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they might appear at first sight,” Axel continued reading. “And I am further convinced that they must always remain to some extent incomprehensible, although continuing research in psychology and natural sciences may, in years to come, give logical explanations of such strange happenings which, at present, neither scientists nor the secret police can understand.”
“Is that true?” Fable said with eyes wide open.
“Need I read more?” Axel said. “In this rare version, the author confesses that the novel is almost-true, only altered in certain places to protect the characters somehow. I bet this is the same reason the Brothers Grimm forged their tales. Maybe they were protecting some, the Lost Seven for instance. This is almost typical of Shew’s story. Everything you read in the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves fairy tale is partially true, but in an eluding way so the secrets stay hidden but the real characters can read between the lines.”
“You are talking about novels with imaginary characters being true all over the world,” Fable considered. “Does that mean I cam meet the real Mr.Darcy?”
“Why not?” Axel shook his shoulders. “The novels we read everyday, turned to be fabrications of reality. There is even more. Listen to this: In the Dracula novel, Abraham Van Helsing claims that his wife went insane after their son’s death.”
“Babushka isn’t insane,” Fable said.
“All ghosts are insane to me,” Axel said. “But that’s not the point. Abraham later explained that his wife was dead to him. Remember, the novel must have been forged, so this was a subtle indication of Loki’s ghost mother.”
“But Loki isn’t dead,” Fable said.
“No, he actually was,” Axel said. “He was shadowed by the Council of Heaven, which is how the council executed a Dreamhunter. That’s dead to me. Charmwill brought Loki back from the dead, unshadowing him, to give him a second life, remember?”
“I’m still not so sure about this, Axel,” Fable scratch he head and sighed. “But if Loki is Van Helsing’s son, what does that contribute to the story?”
“I’m not sure either,” Axel shrugged, “but I don’t think I’ll ever look at the world the same again. The next things I know you could be Gretel.”
Fable gazed back at the purple light. Something about the light made her look at it repeatedly. Her desire to pass through it was increasing each moment they spent in the Schloss. The purple light was messing with her head. She had decided not to try to save Loki by using her dangerous spell because she didn’t know his True Name anyways.