"I'm not sure, but we have to try. Either she accepts the new heart or she doesn't," Baba Yaga said, laying Shew in a certain ritualistic position. This looked very much like a heart transplant operation in the Waking World. "Oh, Queen of Sorrow, forgive me," Baba Yaga moaned. "The Queen will drink my blood and bathe in it with milk and chocolate for sure if she knew what happened to her daughter." She kicked Shew with her chicken foot, hoping she would just wake up. "Do you think I'm trying to save her because I like her?" She glared at Fable. "I have to save her so we can bring her back, or the Queen will never be complete. She will spend the rest of her life drinking young girls' blood to stay beautiful—or even averagely beautiful."
"Give me a few minutes," Fable said. "I'm a fast runner." Since Baba Yaga had cut off the horses' legs, none of them were of use—it was Baba Yaga who did that, wasn't it? Fable had to run. "I will rip out the heart of the first person I meet." She couldn't believe she'd just said that. There was no denying that something was wrong with her already. She could feel that sense of darkness draping over her. Those spells must have changed something deep inside her. "You're sure it doesn't have to be a girl's heart?" she asked, already running.
"No," a voice said calmly from the dark. Fable stopped. This wasn't Baba Yaga's voice. "A boy's heart would work perfectly," the voice continued.
Fable heard something being pulled against the muddy ground, as if the speaker had a heavy sack with them. The speaker was a woman. Fable might have recognized her immediately if she weren't exhausted, confused, and under the pressure of having failed everyone in her quest.
Fable turned around, only to see Baba Yaga sinking to her knees, asking for forgiveness as the man with the black cloak approached her. Baba Yaga looked as if praying to him.
Wait. Baba Yaga wasn't the one who chopped off the horses' legs. It was the man in the black cloak.
And it wasn't even a man. It was a woman.
The woman stopped over Shew's body, having walked ever so confidently. She waited for a moment then pulled her cloak back. Fable was staring with amazement at the Queen of Sorrow.
51
The Queen's Diary
Fate sat back in his wicker chair, swinging to the ship's light movements. He gulped on his ale and eyed me. He was happy, proud, about to have the meal of his life.
I stood alone with my sack in my hand, wondering how I'd ended up here. I mean, I was treated like a princess a few months ago, back in my home, Styria. People came from all over Europe to have my blessings and kiss my hand. I couldn't seem to bless myself, though.
"I see the mermaids are down there with you," he said, combing his pigtailed beard.
"I lied to them," I said. "They think I sold my soul to you and came to get it back. They think I can have my soul back within seven days."
"And you know this isn't true, right?"
"I thought so," I said. "Why would you grant anyone the right to take their soul back within seven days? You're a vicious man, addicted to sorrow. I can't imagine you'd give it away so easily."
"I am addicted to sorrow." His eyes were beady but intense. "I can't tell you how much I love it. I love it!" He stamped his heavy foot on the ship's floor. "All those catastrophes, the death, the famine, the cries, the pain. Oh, how sweet. Sometimes, I wish a wizard would invent a crystal ball where we can capture people's miseries and play them over and over again. I wouldn't need to buy many souls then," he roared, laughing.
I said nothing. I was the sheep at the slaughterhouse door, waiting for my turn.
"So you fooled them?" He seemed to consider something for a moment. "I've always liked a smart woman. Why would you agree to sell your soul to me now?"
"I have no choice," I explained. "Either I'd let my lover bite me and end a prophecy dear to my heart, or I would have died by the whale's flood after being trapped in it for seven days. Or surrender to a nameless witch I'd prefer to know nothing about."
"Ah," he sighed. "The nameless witch. Who knows who she really is? Please continue."
"The mermaids drove me and my lover crazy with the constant pressure. Ironically, you're my last hope. I know I will live in misery after I sell you my soul, but it was the only way to escape the whale and the mermaids."
"Hmm…" He stood up and played with his beard. "Tell me, Carmilla. What drives you to stay so strong?"
"You think that I'm being strong?" I chuckled uneasily.
"You are. You just don't know it," he said, scratching his head with his hook. "Sometimes when you're in the middle of all sorrow, you don't realize how strong you actually are. Because you're just overwhelmed with the impact of the many things happening to you. In fact, you don't stop and look at how everyone else around you has totally succumbed to the pain, while you didn't."
"I didn't?"
"Can't you see that?" he said. "Can't you see that most of the people on the Pequod are dead, and you aren't? Can't you see that no one probably survived living inside Moby Dick, while you did? You're not crushed bones in the hands of a mermaid now. You're standing tall before me, fists ready for the next fight." He stopped to consider. "Can't you see that you have triumphed with True Love while most people don't?"