"You're right, we don't really know all the facts yet." Fable checked the food in the refrigerator. Not bad, she thought. "But we know a few things." She rummaged around, looking for bread. She didn't know why, but she felt she wasn't hungry enough to eat Shew's food. She craved bread today. "For one, there are no dwarves in the real tale. They turned out to be young peasants called the Lost Seven, or the Pilgrimms." Pickwick counted from one to seven on his wings. "And two, the night at the cottage in the forest was so different than the tale. Shew ran from Loki after Carmilla weighed her heart and made sure it was twenty-one grams. Then Loki was about to kill Shew when Cerené helped her escape to the cottage. Loki followed them, played Big Bad Wolf for a while, and managed to enter, but they escaped. Finally, Loki chopped off Cerené's hands and she ended up killing him to survive."
Pickwick, after some silence, scratched his head.
"I know it's a complicated story, and it brings up questions more than it gives answers." Fable couldn't find any bread, so she closed the refrigerator. Pickwick's eyes looked like he was asking about the questions the story raised. "For instance, did all of this really happen to Shew in the Dreamory? Was it an accurate memory, or blurred by Shew's action in the Dreamworld? If Shew turned out to have changed the past in the Dreamory, how does it affect the future?"
Pickwick looked like he knew the answer to that. He hopped on the kitchen table near Loki's Alicorn and kicked it twice.
"I see," Fable said. "You mean if Shew changed the story and killed Loki in the past, then it does make sense that he is dead now. It also means he is going to be dead for good."
Pickwick lowered his head and shoulders and approached Fable slowly, as if he were a lazy penguin, then gestured for another hug. She embraced him as usual, still craving bread.
"Then there are a number of questions in case Shew didn't change anything in the Dreamworld." Fable walked with Pickwick on her shoulder. She assumed he'd like to eat bread too—if she managed to find some. Didn't birds always nibble on breadcrumbs? "Like, where in the timeline of Shew's story will she meet the Lost Seven? I thought she'd meet them the night of her sixteenth birthday, when the Queen sought her heart, but that didn't happen. And when exactly did she split her heart among them, and how did she do it?"
Pickwick shook his shoulders. He seemed sincere about not knowing the answer.
"And if she did kill Loki, when the heck did they fall in love?" Fable stopped when a thought hit her. Her boots were heavy anyway. She preferred not to walk around much. "This question boggles my mind, Pickwick. I mean, between Loki as an evil huntsman and Loki as Shew's True Love, there seems to be a huge gap that needs to be answered," Fable said as she felt drawn to Loki's Alicorn on the table.
She stepped closer to it and held it in one hand, thinking about the weapon she needed to complete her badass posture. Although she had been fascinated with Loki's Alicorn—the horn of a unicorn—the feeling was different this time. She was really drawn to it, as if by some magical force, as if she had a special connection with the horn in her hands. She lifted it up and said, "What were the words Loki used to say to make the Alicorn turn into a whipping snake?"
Pickwick seemed frustrated he was mute this time. He definitely knew them.
"Doesn't matter," Fable said. "It's only him who can use it, anyway." She put it back and shook her head. "Where is everyone?" She realized they must be awake by now.
Fable walked to the front door and opened it to see if Shew and Axel were maybe sitting on the front porch. Instead of finding them, something else caught her off guard. A chill swept over her body as if she had been hit by an invisible force. The pain in her eyes returned as she found herself looking at her feet. Something at the porch's floor summoned her in the strangest way.
Fable looked and saw a trail of breadcrumbs leading out to the field.
3
The trail of breadcrumbs led all the way to Carmen, Loki's red car, parked at the edge of the hill leading down to Sorrow. Fable's own trail of weird feelings intensified. Again, she wondered if those were only aftereffects of the forbidden spell she'd used to briefly possess Loki's soul in yesterday's Dreamory.
What really bothered her was that feeling of being pulled from the gut toward the trail of breadcrumbs. Maybe it was only her curiosity. Maybe she just wanted to check on Carmen. But it surely was an uncomfortable feeling.
She couldn't help but kneel and grab a handful of breadcrumbs and nibble on them. After all, she'd been craving bread since she woke up.
"Want some?" She passed a few to Pickwick, who seemed irked she'd picked them up from the ground. Fable never knew Pickwick was such a picky parrot when it came to food.
Closer to Carmen, she saw someone hiding inside the car behind the foggy windows. She doubted anyone would want to steal Carmen. That would be some unlucky dude, as there was no doubt Carmen could defend herself.
"How are you doing, pretty girl?" Fable patted Carmen. She caught Pickwick rolling his eyes. The parrot must have thought Carmen was just a car, Fable thought. Was she weird thinking she should treat her like a girl? Fable didn't care. Somehow, she seemed proud of all her weirdness today.
"There you are!" Axel wailed, kicking the door open from inside. "It's about time you woke up, lazy sis."
"What are you doing inside Loki's car?" Fable folded her hands, careful not to spill the breadcrumbs.
"Trying to get it started?" Axel pouted. "Doesn't it show?"
"Why would you try that?" she said. "You know no one can drive Carmen but Loki."
"I know. I know," Axel said, wiping black oil from his smudged face.