The Rapunzel plants went crazy, arching their bodies and stretching out their petal arms, wailing like creepy ghosts. The plant closest to Cerené was losing its mind.
“Give me that coin, you filthy ashen slave!” the plant wailed, almost ripping itself apart.
“Say please,” Cerené teased it, avoiding another one sneaking up behind her, trying to eat her toe, but failed. Thanks to Cerené’s unusual slippers.
“I won’t say please to you, daughter of Bianca!” the plant screamed.
“You nasty witch!” another plant screamed in high-pitched tones. “You always come here and take one of us! You make us kill ourselves.”
“I will rip your ashen heart apart,” a third plant said, stretching high enough to bite on Cerené’s knees. A couple of other plants bit parts of her dress off.
Cerené backed off; too far for the plant to reach her, “You’re horrible plants,” she talked to them. “You eat every living thing that passes next to you. What has that poor frog done to you?”
“If you think we’re horrible, you’re just as horrible,” the plant said as Shew tried to pull Cerené away from them. Talking plants weren’t that surprising in the Kingdom of Sorrow. Weird was just about the norm.
Cerené pulled away from Shew’s grip and dared brush the coin against the plant’s arm then pulled it away immediately. The plant swallowed the trick and stretched out far enough to rip its roots from the soil.
Cerené picked up the dying plant—and several others. They were flopping like fish out of water before giving up.
Cerené she ran away, the other plants cursing her.
“Run away, daughter of Bianca!” the plants snarled.
“Burn! Burn! Burn!” the plants started spitting the food they’d eaten at Cerené and Shew; frog’s legs, chicken wings, and squirrel teeth.
Shew and Cerené ran back to the hill. Cerené acted as if she were just playing, waving her Rapunzel plant in the air with a wide victorious smile on her face, not paying attention to the cuts the plants made on her fingers.
“You’re hurt,” Shew said. “I think we should get back to the castle. I can mend your wounds,” she regretted not snarling with her fangs at the plants.
“I’ve been cut worse,” Cerené said nonchalantly.
“Did the plants cause the same cut on your cheek and neck?” Shew inquired, unable to hold her curiosity. Suddenly, it occurred to her that Cerené hid her scars intentionally behind the ashes. That was why she wouldn’t clean the ashes off her skin, because they’d show the wounds she’d preferred hiding.
Cerené’s eyes dimmed, betrayed by Shew’s question. She stared at her with moist eyes. All the happiness she’d just experience in getting the plants just withered away.
Shew knew the girl was about to burst into tears, but she couldn’t help but ask her.
“You’re horrible,” Cerené screamed at Shew. “You promised not to ask,” she threw the Rapunzel plant in Shew’s face and ran down the other side of the hill, deeper into the forest.
Shew picked up the plant and ran after her. It was a long shot. With each step, Shew felt guilty that she had upset her.
Almost a mile later, Shew knocked Cerené down and held her tightly until she stopped crying.
Finally, when Shew apologized repeatedly, Cerené stopped crying, and slept in her arms the way tired babies do.
Shew brushed her hair gently, leaned back against a tree, wondering about this mysterious girl. She thought she’d never felt so curious and caring about someone like her.
With nothing else to do, waiting for Cerené to wake up again, Shew’s thoughts drifted, thinking about Loki again.
Remembering Loki, she touched the necklace he’d given her in the World Between Dreams—she’d been wearing it since the beginning of this dream. Shew looked at the cryptic engravings on the necklace again:
What does it mean, Loki?
She tried to read it vertically from both sides then she flipped it upside down. Either it was some kind of a symbol or parts of an alphabet. She still didn’t know.
Frustrated, she sighed, looking at the moon above. For a moment, Shew thought she saw the moon smile at her.
6
The Mermaid’s Milk
A little later, Cerené woke up screaming.
Shew held her tighter; assuring her she was in safe hands. Still, it wasn’t the hands that finally calmed Cerené but Shew’s caring eyes looking back at her.
“Friends?” Cerené said.
Shew was surprised these were her first words, “Of course,” she replied.
Whatever unexpected drama was happening, Cerené had found a trusting pair of eyes as a friend for the first time in about fourteen years, and Shew, who’d always thought of herself as a lonely monster, learned that a person who’d been smeared with the ugliness of the world, could still have a beautiful effect on others.
Why do I feel I would kill for Cerené? Is she some sort of a test sent to me to begin my journey?
“Nightmares?” Shew patted her.