“This isn’t the dream yet,” Loki whispered. “It’s the World Between Dreams. This is the real me calling for you, Shew, before things go wrong. This might be the last time we meet the way I am now before the Huntsman in me takes hold.”
Suddenly, some of the plants around Loki glided like snakes all over his body and pulled him down.
“Loki!” Snow White screamed.
“Read it,” he said before the plants covered his mouth, rendering him unable to talk.
As the dream turned into a nightmare all around her, she opened her palm and examined the necklace. What was he trying to tell her?
The necklace was made of wood, shaped in the form of a circle fixed on a horizontal access. Its design looked like a circle from afar. She looked harder and saw some engravings. They looked like letters, but they were undecipherable. What use was it if she couldn’t decipher it?
She looked back at Loki, pulled by the snakiest poppies down until the earth almost swallowed him. The plants had started wrapping around her legs as well.
This is the World Between Dreams. He had said. It explained why this place seemed so lovely. It was a mental bridge in Loki’s conscious before they descendent down the Dreamworld. He used it to tell her something through a necklace she couldn’t read.
Snow White stared at the skies above, feeling dizzy. It was time to enter the real dream, or rather nightmare. She took one last look at the curious engravings on the necklace. They looked like this:
3
The Slave Maiden
Finally, Snow White woke up in her own dream.
She was standing in front of a mirror in her chamber, alone with blood dripping from her lips. This Dreamory, influenced by the word ‘Phoenix’ was taking place two centuries ago. Her reflection in the mirror was a seven-year-old Snow White.
She had no time to think about whom she had just bitten or whose blood dripped from her lips. What mattered now was that Loki hadn’t appeared yet, and she had an eerie feeling she had no control over this dream. She tried focusing, her tips of her fingers on her forehead, trying to shift the dream to another time or place of her choosing, but she failed.
Of course, whatever Carmilla sent Loki for in this dream, she wouldn’t risk Snow having control over it. Loki must have used another kind of Baby Tears or a different spell that prevented the dreamer from manipulating the dream. Right now, Snow White was another spectator in this dream like anyone else, and the consequences could be dire.
“Shew!” Carmilla burst into the room toward her daughter. Tabula Rasa, her servant, followed her. “How could you?” Carmilla said.
Stiffened, Snow White stared back at her. The golden hue in Carmilla’s eyes reminded Snow White that Angel had turned her into a vampire already.
“And who brought that damn awful mirror in the room?” Carmilla stopped in her tracks, shying away.
Tabula Rasa hurried and adjusted the mirror to face the wall. Snow White assumed that Carmilla hadn’t met Bloody Mary yet in this memory.
“Didn’t we talk about you biting people?” Carmilla shook her daughter violently. “Do you have any idea how important it is for our kingdom to have their kingdom as an ally?”
“What did I do?” Snow White said reluctantly. She felt like an actress dressed for the part, but not having read the script.
Carmilla rolled her eyes and sighed.
“She’s talking about you biting the prince, Princess Shew,” Tabula said, lowering her head with respect.
Oh, we’re back again to when I bit the prince?
“And don’t tell me he was yummy,” Carmilla stabbed a warning finger in the air.
“But he was yummy, mummy,” Snow White tapped her feet, trying to play the part, and trying not to laugh at the coincidental rhyme.
“Mummy?” Carmilla blinked her eyes, illuminating her long eyelashes. “Where did you hear that word? Don’t ever mention mummies around here.”
“Oh,” Snow White put a hand on her blood-dripping lips.
“I don’t care. I want my yummy prince,” Snow White distracted them by playing bratty little princess.
Carmilla stood up again, impatient and disapproving of her daughter’s behavior as if she hadn’t been turned into a half-vampire herself. “Clean her up,” she told Tabula. “I will deal with her later.”
“But I’m afraid she’ll bite me, my majesty,” Tabula said. “I don’t want to end up like the prince.”
Tabula knew our family’s secrets?
Carmilla stared back at the door for a moment as if she wondered what really happened to the prince. Had he been turned into a vampire? Was he cured or dead?
“I understand,” Carmilla said. “Send one of the Slave Maidens to clean her up.”
Snow White didn’t know what a Slave Maiden was.
“Thank you, my majesty,” Tabula said. “I will send one of the girls to wash the princess.”
“And you, darling, control your cravings,” Carmilla told Snow White. “A prince for dinner should be enough,” Carmilla smirked and looked away. It was as if she were making fun of her. Like mother like daughter, both of them were bloodsuckers.
Tabula followed Carmilla.
Snow White tried to use her powers again to shift from one scene to another in the dream, but all was in vein. She wondered what kind of dream this was. It felt like being stuck in a movie theatre, not allowed to leave your seat until the credits rolled.
It confused her why the word ‘Phoenix’ sent her back to this part in her life. What did the Phoenix stand for?
She decided to look around for a clue, but stopped when the beauty of the dresses in her wardrobe caught her attention. As she rummaged through the wardrobe, she wondered why she had no recollection of the events in this dream. Was this a part of her past life, or was it some kind of a hallucination?
“Princess?” a sweet voice knocked on the door.
A young girl, a year or two older than Snow, entered the chamber. She had blonde hair, tinged fiery red. Shew squinted. The red in the girl’s hair was more of an aura than a highlight. It was almost not there, like some kind of ghost waving around the girl’s head.
The girl was tiny. She wore ragged clothes, which seemed like they had been blue once, now smeared with ashes. She had a reluctant smile, one that would have been beautiful if not wrinkled by the tension and fear showing on her face. She took small and careful steps toward Shew as if she were a Geisha, her head lowered, hands laced with a towel dangling from them. It was obvious she feared the princess.
“I’m here to help you wash, princess,” she knelt on the floor.
Snow White patted her and pulled her up to her feet. Even then, she still had to pull the girl’s chin up so she’d look her in the eyes. An inevitable sadness lurked there.
“Call me Shew,” she said.
“Could I ask you to walk to the bathroom so I can take off your clothes and wash you, Princess Shew?” the girl asked.
Shew complied, almost hypnotically. The girl began wetting the towel and cleaning the blood dripping from her lips.
Something inside Shew told her she knew the girl from before. It was like Déjà vu or a repressed memory. She could almost swear this was a real memory that had been blocked from her somehow.
“What’s your name?” Shew said.
“Cerené,” the girl said proudly as if it was the only thing she owned. Her blue eyes glittered while she explained the proper pronunciation of her name, “Chi-re-ney. You could add a light ‘h’ sound at the end if you like. It makes my name sound like a sigh,” she blinked her eyes once.