"You're not going to stare at my hands all day, right?" Cerené said, taking Fable in her arms.
Fable let Cerené hug her while she stood cemented in Jack's hiding place above the clouds. The beauty of where he lived had been sucked away with the shocking revelation. Fable, the pigtailed, naive wannabe witch, was one of the Lost Seven—her mind hadn't the strength to argue with Cerené and ask how she was still alive. Her own revelation was her priority.
What made it worse was that in the context of the dream, she couldn't ask anyone how this was possible. If she exposed herself and told them she came from another world, the dream would collapse and she wouldn't be able to help Shew and Loki—and that was if the Lost Seven didn't laugh at her.
Cerené's arms were warm. It looked like she and Fable had been good friends. Fable wondered if this meant she was friends with Shew as well in the past. But how was all of this possible? The only thing that made sense was that her vision of Loki trying to kill her in Shew's last Dreamory was real. It was true. Somewhere in the past, Fable lived with her brother Axel in a small town in Sorrow called Furry Tell. And one day, Loki, the Huntsman, came looking for young lads with "splinters in their eyes" for the Queen of Sorrow, and was about to kill Fable.
Tears rolled out of Fable's eyes as Cerené hugged her. She was devastated, both happy and sad, confused and feeling so lonely in Cerené's arms. After all, they were two people coming from two different centuries, and only Fable knew that.
"Don't cry, Fable," Cerené whispered in her ear. Fable wondered why she whispered. "We don't want them to know what happened to you. I didn't tell anyone." Fable's confusion tripled. What was Cerené talking about? "Better not tell them your powers now," Cerené said. "They wouldn't understand."
Fable assumed this had to do with when she woke up in the middle of the forest minutes ago. She had been scared and sweating and wanting to run away from something. Why did she wake up in the middle of the dream? And if she had to accept being one of the Lost Seven, what was it that had happened to her?
"Welcome back." A quirky girl in a red cape approached Fable as Cerené pulled away. "Fable and Ladle always make a good team." The girl winked at her as she put her scythe to the side. Was that Little Red Riding Hood? Fable smiled meekly at the girl, wondering if her name was really Ladle. Who named their daughter Ladle, and why did she walk around with a scythe?
"Here, I cooked you a fish." A partially naked girl with hair dangling onto her breasts approached Fable. "I don't know where you have been, but you surely look hungry." The girl patted her and handed her a pan with a cooked fish. She had a neat smile, and neater body. Fable supposed she was a mermaid. But she didn't remember seeing a mermaid mentioned as one of the Lost Seven in J.G.'s diary.
Suddenly, Fable realized who the girl with the scythe was. She was the Reaper. Fable had seen it in the drawings of tarot cards in the diary with Axel. But who was the mermaid—and more importantly, who was Fable?
Fable put the pan aside and walked through Jack's magnificent hideout above the clouds. The bed of the trees up there was strong enough that she didn't worry about falling through. It was as if the earth had been lifted up here. Jack's home seemed to have no end. In fact, it was like a little forest with a few cottages around. There must have been an edge she shouldn't be crossing, but she couldn't see it.
Titling her head up, she saw how ridiculously close the moon looked from here. All those glittering stars and fluttering birds made it look like she was in heaven. Jack seemed to love pumpkins, because they were everywhere, along with the endless trophies he'd stolen.
But Fable wasn't looking for that. She was looking for the last two of the Lost Seven. She realized Ladle, a.k.a. Red Riding Hood, was the Reaper. Jack was the Thief. Cerené was Cinderella, the Phoenix. The mermaid girl, whom Jack called Marmalade, was…maybe the Moon, as mentioned in the diary? Because the girl didn't look like the Beast or a Star to Fable.
Wait! Fable thought.
She had figured by now she was the Witch. Actually, she had known this a few minutes ago, but couldn't let the idea sink in. A grand, satisfied smile curved on her lips. So she wasn't a loser witch like her mom anymore? She was really a witch. She wondered what her power was, the one Cerené had told her not to tell the other Lost Seven about.
Fable turned around and asked, "Where are the others?"
"Are you asking about me?" a voice called from the dark.
Fable tried to act normal and not to wince. She knew where the voice was coming from—somewhere under the shades of many leaves where no light shone through. She squinted to look harder, but her poor sight wasn't helping.
"Don't try to persuade the Beast out of the dark." Cerené patted Fable. "He won't come out."
"It's nice to see you, too, Cerené," the voice from the dark said.